Log and Out Files

---

One of the best tools for determining why a concurrent request failed is the set of log and out files. These are often referred to as if they were a single entity, but they are two different files with two different purposes. Out files are the outputs of the concurrent request. They are the reports that the end user will print. Not all Concurrent Processes or Concurrent Programs will produce an out file. All of them should produce a log file.

To view these files, you can use the requests window. As sysadmin, you have a view of the requests window that the end users do not have. You have the ability to see all requests for all users, their statuses, and the log and out files for the requests that have finished. You also have the ability to alter or modify the requests.

From the log file, you can determine the errors that a concurrent request encountered, the status of the request when it ended, data errors that were encountered by the concurrent request, and the sql statement that was run to generate the output. Every concurrent request generates a log file. The Concurrent Manager's log file documents the performance of the Concurrent Managers and lists the requests processed by a particular Concurrent Manager. It will also document the performance of the ICM and the parameter values that were loaded when the ICM was started.

You should periodically (daily or weekly or as requested) check the Concurrent Managers that ended in an error condition to try to determine why the error condition existed and help to diagnose the problems. Data issues cause many of the problems that will be encountered. These issues need to be addressed by the functional people using that particular product. You will want to review the log and output files if you have a user reporting issues with the response time that a report had or if the resulting report contained reported data errors.

One concern for both log and output files concerns their access at the OS level. Only the requester or a sysadmin can view the log files and output files through the Oracle E-Business Suite front end. The log files and the report files, however, are stored on the server and are accessible through the OS. They are stored in simple text format and, therefore, are viewable by anyone with simple read access to the directory structure where the files are stored. If a person has access to the server that allows them to view the contents of the directories where the log and output files are stored, that person can view them, print them, or save them to another location for later inspection. This could create problems if the security system is in any way lax where you are located.

---