The purpose of the Applications Forum is to provide an environment to exchange ideas and share experiences using the Oracle Applications. The Forum is open to anyone who is a member of DOUG and is intended to represent the interests of Oracle Applications professionals in the DFW area.

Emmanuel and I thought this would be a great new group to have as part of DOUG. It turns out this had actually been done before! Some folks from Computer Systems Authority had helped start up a similar group in the DFW area focused on the Applications, but the momentum of that group died out a while back.

Originally, I called this group the Apps Special Interest Group (SIG). Having attended an OAUG conference in the past where various SIGs are prevalent, I thought people might understand the concept of a SIG being a specialized subgroup of DOUG. To avoid any confusion with the OAUG national SIGs, we changed the name to Oracle Applications Forum.

Three areas of interest

The original idea of the groups is that it would consist of three areas of interest:

• Functional level: These would include the business analysts, the accounting managers, the AP clerks, or any of the other business end users who use the Applications for their day to day jobs. One of the major complaints about the DOUG meetings is that they are too technically focused and appeal more to DBAs than to the business end users. This has been the primary focus of the Apps Forum for 2004 – to appeal to this audience. That’s why we’ve had guest speakers discussing Oracle Projects, Financials, iProcurement, etc. The emphasis has been more on the business problems solved and benefits gained by using the Applications.

• Technical level: These would be the developers, the Apps DBAs and others who specialize in the technology used in the Applications. With each version of 11i, the technology stack becomes more and more complex. Java, XML, web services, PL/SQL, Forms, Reports, Unix, JSP, Application Servers, Apache web server, and of course the database, are just a few of the major technologies. While these are used in a variety of different applications, there are specific nuances for how they are used in the 11i world. Several people have asked for a forum to discuss these technologies. While some of these topics are covered in the DOUG meetings, there is a wide range of topics out there that we can now address.

• Management level: These would be the Applications Manager, IT managers and ERP project managers who deal with the Applications at a much higher level than the previous two groups. They’re looking at issues such as business strategy and ROI metrics. Specifically their role is to translate or match the 100+ Application modules readiness to business problems and justify investments and maintenance costs to their executive board. Diane Roberts offered to shape this new offering with appropriate roundtable events and case studies.