September 28th, 2010 Matt
I’m currently migrating my code archives from one hard drive to my new QNAP network attached storage device, and found a whole load of useful SQL scripts that have been sitting around waiting for me to do something with them. Amongst them was this one….
Many Workflow processes require a timeout which is dynamic, and the way that I typically recommend my clients to do this is to define a profile option to store the value, and then reference this in the code. Unfortunately, quite a few Oracle environments that I have seen do this but provide no validation on the profile, and no clear indication of what the value means – setting the profile to 1 might mean one second, one hour, one day…
So, here’s some quick example code of SQL validation that can be put on a profile option to validate against a list of values of timeouts in days, up to 10 days:
SQL="SELECT decode ( timeout, 0, 'No timeout', meaning ) meaning
, timeout
into :visible_option_value, :profile_option_value
FROM ( SELECT TO_CHAR(level - 1)||' days' meaning
, level - 1 timeout
FROM dual
CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 11 )"
COLUMN="Meaning(15)"
HEADING=""Timeout Days"(15)"
And here’s a longer version, which provides a list of timeouts in hours from no timeout to 10 days:
SQL="SELECT DECODE ( timeout_period, 0,'No timeout',meaning) meaning
, timeout_period
into :visible_option_value, :profile_option_value
FROM ( SELECT CASE
WHEN (level-1) < 24 THEN
CASE WHEN (level-1) = 1 THEN '1 hour'
ELSE
TO_CHAR(level-1)||' hours'
END
ELSE
CASE WHEN MOD((level-1),24) = 0 THEN
CASE WHEN level = 25 THEN '1 day'
ELSE
TO_CHAR(TRUNC((level-1)/24))||' days'
END
ELSE
CASE WHEN TRUNC((level-1)/24) = 1 THEN
CASE WHEN MOD((level-1),24) = 1
THEN '1 day and 1 hour'
ELSE
'1 day and '||MOD((level-1),24)||' hours'
END
ELSE
CASE WHEN MOD((level-1),24) = 1
THEN TO_CHAR(TRUNC((level-1)/24))
||' days and 1 hour'
ELSE
TO_CHAR(TRUNC((level-1)/24))
||' days and '
||MOD((level-1),24)||' hours'
END
END
END
END meaning
, (level-1) / 24 timeout_period
FROM dual
CONNECT BY LEVEL <= 241 )"
COLUMN="Meaning(15)"
HEADING=""Timeout Period"(15)"
Enjoy! The SQL file for the above examples can be found here.
Posted in Functional, Oracle, Technical | 1 Comment »
September 26th, 2010 Matt
I recently had to remove some email accounts from Oracle Email Center, because the environment had been cloned from one instance to another and referenced obsolete accounts. An easy task, one might think – if they have never worked with EMC before… Oracle produce some guidance on how to clear the accounts out, but I’ve never had a complete list of instructions before, so thought I’d document it here. I’m sure that there are ways to remove the accounts purely functionally, but if there is, I’ve not found it – the instructions here include a mix of functional changes and direct table updates, so as ever you use it at your own risk.
Step 1 – Ensure that there are no Agents assigned to the email account
Using the Email Center Administrator responsibility, navigate to the agents association page (path Email Center Administration > Administration > Email Accounts > Associations > Agents). Choose the “Assign Agents to Accounts” drop-down, then choose the email account that you want to remove and click the Go button. Remove the agents from the account(s) if you can.
If there are emails in the agent’s inbox, you will need to log in as that person, navigate to their in box and remove the emails that are sitting there. Even if you do this, though, you may well find that you still can’t remove the agent from the account – so we’ll do a direct table update to ensure that there aren’t any emails there!
Identify the email account ID that you are looking for by running the following SQL:
SELECT email_account_id
FROM iem_mstemail_accounts
Where email_address = '<enter mailbox address here>'
/
Then identify the agent by running:
SELECT agent_id
FROM iem_agents
WHERE email_account_id = <email_ account id from above SQL>
/
Before deleting the records, I would recommend creating a backup table at this stage, e.g.
CREATE TABLE xx_iem_agents_backup AS SELECT * FROM iem_agents;
Then force the removal of the agent from the account by running the following SQL:
DELETE FROM iem_agents
WHERE email_account_id = <email account id>
AND agent_id = <the associated agent id>;
COMMIT;
So, whether you have reached this point from functional configuration or deleting the records in the Email Center tables, you should now have no agents associated with the account that you want to delete.
Step 2 – Remove the rules from the accounts
This is the one step where you should be able to do this functionally. Navigate to the rules association page (Email Center Administration > Administration > Email Accounts > Associations > Processing Rules), and choose the account that you are deleting. Make sure that there are no rules associated with the account – if there are, then expand the entry and remove them by clicking on the bin icon.
Step 3 – Empty the folders
Check whether Email Center is looking at the folders for that account – navigate to Email Center Administration >Monitoring > Download Processor and see whether there are any emails that the system is looking at.
If there are any messages on the server, then you should delete them if they are no longer needed – to do this, I open the account in my email client and remove the messages from the inbox, Oracle Processed and Oracle Retry folders. Once they are empty, the Download Processor should show that there are no messages there.
Step 4 – Make the account inactive and delete it
Theoretically, this is the last step and should be straightforward. To do this functionally, navigate to Email Center Administration > Administration > Email Accounts > Summary and find the account that you are trying to delete. Edit the configuration and change it from Active to Inactive, then return to the summary screen. If all is well, then the bin icon will be enabled and you can now delete the account. If not, then we are back into the world of SQL updates to remove the account information…
Firstly, check whether there are emails being processed for the mailbox by running the following SQL:
SELECT email_account_id
, message_id
FROM iem_rt_proc_emails
WHERE email_account_id = ( SELECT email_account_id
FROM iem_mstemail_accounts
WHERE email_address = '<enter mailbox address here>' );
If there are no rows returned, then identify the email account ID by running the subquery above:
SELECT email_account_id
FROM iem_mstemail_accounts
WHERE email_address = '<enter mailbox address here>';
Make a note of the account ID before moving onto the next section.
If there were any records returned, then delete them from the table (again, I recommend making a backup of the data first!):
CREATE TABLE xx_iem_rt_proc_emails_backup AS SELECT * FROM iem_rt_proc_emails;
DELETE FROM iem_rt_proc_emails
WHERE email_account_id = <id you made a note of> ;
COMMIT;
Next, check for any messages that are in the pre-processing stage:
SELECT email_account_id
, message_id
FROM iem_rt_preproc_emails
WHERE email_account_id = <id you made a note of> ;
If no rows are returned do nothing, but if one or more rows are returned, then do the following:
CREATE TABLE xx_iem_rt_preproc_emails_backup AS SELECT * FROM iem_rt_preproc_emails;
DELETE FROM iem_rt_preproc_emails
WHERE email_account_id = <id you made a note of> ;
COMMIT;
That should be all that you need to do, and the accounts should now be able to be deleted. Navigate to Email Center Administration > Administration > Email Accounts > Summary and check whether the bin icon for the email account is now enabled. If it is, then delete the account from the front-end. If not, then there is one final “force” that you can do from the back end:
UPDATE iem_mstemail_accounts
SET deleted_flag = 'Y'
WHERE deleted_flag = 'N'
AND email_account_id = <id you made a note of> ;
The account is now removed from Email Center.
Posted in Functional, Oracle, Technical | No Comments »
September 24th, 2010 Matt
I know it’s been ages since the last post, but I’ve been pretty manic – sorry.
Just a quick follow up to my April post about switching sound on on my old TravelMate 3000 on Linux Mint…..
The hard drive crashed last week and had to be binned, so I replaced it with an old one I had kicking about (which may not last too long, either!). I downloaded Linux Mint 9 from the official site and installed it from the DVD.
And the sound worked fine with no need to do anything else!
Top work from the Mint guys – saved me from hacking about again to get sound working 
Posted in General Computing, Non-Oracle | 1 Comment »
