Concurrent Program

A program that implements a business functionality and needs to be executed again and again at regular interval or as per business needs is called concurrent program. They can be implement in PL/SQL, Shell Script, C/C++ etc..

Concurrent Manager

Now when a concurrent program is written, it needs to be executed daily at particular time. If we do it manual, there might be chances of delays or it might happen that two different people run the same program at the same time which might lead problems. So we need a manager which can do all this tasks for us. The responsibility for execution of concurrent programs is given to Concurrent Manager, which ensures that each concurrent program can run successfully without any conflicts. They also ensures that the applications are not overwhelmed with requests. They also manages the batch processing and report generation.

The default installation of Oracle Applications comes with a number of pre defined concurrent managers however you can create your custom concurrent managers to spread out the load of your job processing. Apart from taking care of the load of your jobs the concurrent managers can also schedule the jobs periodically. Also we can assign specific priority and specific times to the different programs, so that the concurrent managers can run them in specific workshifts.

Concurrent managers also allows you to tweak the number of concurrent process that it can handle concurrently. If any request exceed this prescribed limit they are automatically put on pending state. The processing of a request takes place based on the time of request submission and priority of the request submitted.

There are many pre-configured Concurrent Managers, each governing flow within each Oracle Apps areas. In addition there are "super" Concurrent Managers whose job is to govern the behavior of the slave Concurrent Managers. The Oracle e-Business suite has three important master Concurrent Managers:

• Internal Concurrent Manager — The master manager is called the Internal Concurrent Manager (ICM) because it controls the behavior of all of the other managers, and because the ICM is the boss, it must be running before any other managers can be activated. The main functions of the ICM are to start up and shutdown the individual concurrent managers, and reset the other managers after one them has a failure.
  
• Standard Manager — Another important master Concurrent Manager is called the Standard Manager (SM). The SM functions to run any reports and batch jobs that have not been defined to run in any specific product manager. Examples of specific concurrent managers include the Inventory Manager, CRP Inquiry Manager, and the Receivables Tax Manager.
  
• Conflict Resolution Manager — The Conflict Resolution Manager (CRM) functions to check concurrent program definitions for incompatibility rules. However, the ICM can be configured to take over the CRM's job to resolve incompatibilities.
  

Apart from these three concurrent manages there is another type of concurrent manager known as the Transaction Manager also exists. The transaction manager is responsible for taking the load off the concurrent request table for pooling the request submitted by the user.The transaction manager takes care of these requests and sends it to standard manager directly.In a RAC environment the Transaction manager is required to be activated on each node of the RAC environment.

From the front end you could view the status of your concurrent manager by logging with the System Administration responsibility and going to the Concurrent Manager administer screen.

The status of concurrent managers and the nodes on which they are configured can also be known from the Oracle Applications manager.

Concurrent Manager Processes

The concurrent managers are like other process which run on the oracle applications executable FNDLIBR. The FNDLIBR executable is located at $FND_TOP/bin.

You could also grep the FNDLIBR executable to check if any concurrent manager process are running
$ ps -ef|grep FNDLIBR

The $FND_TOP/sql/afcmstat.sql script gives you a list of concurrent managers and their respective status.
Below is the list of Most of the Concurrent manager processes.

FNDLIBR
manages following Managers

• Marketing Data Mining Manager
  
• Transportation Manager
  
• Session History Cleanup
  
• UWQ Worklist Items Release for Crashed session
  
• Collections Manager
  
• OAM Metrics Collection Manager
  
• Contracts Core Concurrent Manager
  
• Standard Manager
  
• WMS Task Archiving Manager
  
• Oracle Provisioning Manager
  

INVLIBR
manages following Managers

• Inventory Manager
  

MRCLIB
manages following Managers

• MRP Manager
  

PALIBR manages following Managers

• PA Streamline Manager
  

FNDSM
The Generic Service Management Framework Process

• FNDSM is executable and core component in GSM ( Generic Service Management Framework discussed above). You start FNDSM services via application listener on all Nodes in Application Tier in E-Business Suite.
  

Concurrent Manager Scripts

Oracle supplies several useful scripts, (located in $FND_TOP/sql directory), for monitoring the concurrent managers:

afcmstat.sql	Displays all the defined managers, their maximum capacity, pids, and their status.
afimchk.sql	Displays the status of ICM and PMON method in effect, the ICM's log file, and determines if the concurrent manger monitor is running.
afcmcreq.sql	Displays the concurrent manager and the name of its log file that processed a request.
afrqwait.sql	Displays the requests that are pending, held, and scheduled.
afrqstat.sql	Displays of summary of concurrent request execution time and status since a particular date.
afqpmrid.sql	Displays the operating system process id of the FNDLIBR process based on a concurrent request id. The process id can then be used with the ORADEBUG utility.
afimlock.sql	Displays the process id, terminal, and process id that may be causing locks that the ICM and CRM are waiting to get. You should run this script if there are long delays when submitting jobs, or if you suspect the ICM is in a gridlock with another oracle process.

Adjust the payment terms to run from the date that a service was provided

The 'Payment Terms' field is linked to the Transaction 'Date' field. This field can be backdated to the date that the service was provided; the standard 30 days payment terms will start from that date and the due date will be adjusted accordingly.

Check when payment is due for an invoice

To see a summary of a Transaction (invoice), enter the AR responsibility and select Collections, followed by Transaction Overview. Enter the invoice number if known, or use one of the range of other search fields, then click on 'Find'. Due date is one of the fields displayed.

Obtain a copy of an invoice I've raised

Enter the AR responsibility; under Transactions, Transactions. From the Transactions screen, select the 'View' menu, then 'Requests'. From the 'Find Requests' screen, click on 'Submit a New Request'. Make sure 'Single Request' is selected and click on 'OK'. In the 'Name' box enter 'DCC Emailed Transaction (Copy)'. Enter the Invoice number you wish to view; the email address field is pre-populated with your email address although the address can be changed if necessary. Submit the request. The copy purchase order will then be issued.

Please note that although the invoice will be marked 'Copy', it will not be printed on controlled stationery and as such should not be used to re-issue an invoice to a customer. If a customer contacts you having misplaced an invoice please ask Oracle Admin to reissue the invoice to the customer on your behalf.

View a list of invoices raised to customers which are currently outstanding

Follow the steps above and select 'Single Request'. In the 'Name' box, enter 'Aging – 7 Buckets – By Salesperson'. A list of Parameters will appear. For 'Report Summary', select 'Invoice Summary'. For 'Report Format', select 'Detailed'. For 'Aging Bucket Name', select 'Collections'. Under 'Salesperson', select the name of your school. Submit the request. The subsequent report gives an aged debtor report for each of your invoices.

Cancel an invoice that I've raised

On occasion you may raise an invoice in error; perhaps the invoice was issued to the wrong customer, or sent to the wrong address. The problem can easily be rectified in Oracle by issuing a credit note to the customer.

To raise a credit for the entire value of the invoice, first select 'Transactions', then 'Credit Transactions' from the Accounts Receivable responsibility in Oracle. Enter the invoice number you wish to credit in the 'Number' field and click on 'Find.

If the number entered is valid a window labelled 'Credit Transactions' will open; enter a reason for the credit, and a contact name and telephone number to appear on the credit note. Click on the button marked 'Credit Balance'; Oracle will automatically credit the outstanding balance on the invoice. Click on 'Complete and make a note of the credit memo 'Number; a credit note will be sent to the customer.

Change the value of an invoice that I've raised

Although you can't amend an invoice once it has been issued, you can either raise a credit, or an additional charge, to the customer.

If you've overcharged a customer on an invoice, you are able to issue a credit note against part of the value of that invoice. Follow the steps above to locate the invoice you wish to credit and add a reason and contact details to the credit note.

Click on 'Credit Lines'; enter the amount you wish to credit as a minus figure against the line or lines that the credit relates to. Close the 'Lines' window and click on 'Complete'. Make a note of the credit memo 'Number' for future reference.

If you have undercharged the customer on the original invoice you will need to raise a new invoice to charge the customer for the balance.