Power Sessions on Certification at Oracle OpenWorld

Oracle OpenWorld 2009 conference is in full swing. I visited the OCP Lounge at Moscone South Mezzanine, Room 250 yesterday. The lounge has an online lab with free access to Self Test Software Practice Exams. Also the same company is exhibiting at the conference.

For perhaps the first time, there are conference sessions being presented on Oracle Certification. The first power session today is on "Five Easy Steps to Earning an Oracle Certification". The second power session of the day walks you throught the steps for "Achieving Oracle Certification: Tips and Advice from an Oracle Certified Master". Both the sessions are very timely and relevant to the most searched keyword on the Oracle website: Oracle Certification.

After the engrossing sessions, head over to the keynote session by Larry Ellison where he may be making an exciting announcement on Oracle Fusion Applications. Finally in the evening today, join me and a few thousand high spirited rock fans at the Aerosmith concert in Treasure Island.

Submit Your Proposal for Collaborate 10 Las Vegas

It is time to showcase your talents and present your successful projects that went live this past year. Submit your presentation proposal for the Oracle Applications User Group (OAUG) hosted conference - Collaborate 10. Collaborate 10 will be hosted at the world-famous Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas during April, 2010. OAUG will also be celebrating its twentieth birthday at the same time.

Submitting a presentation is easy, so please don't push it back till the last week or hours before the deadline of October 20, 2009. The presentation title needs only 100 characters (approximately 10-12 words). The abstract can be 520 characters long (approximately 60-100 words). Enter at least 3 presentation objective (one sentence each). Select rest of the fields from drop down list of values and submit!

If you are looking for a presentation topic, please visit the presentation wish list page for ideas: Look for the wish list under the track of your choice, for example, 'Financials' and you get a fair idea of the topics attendees are eager to hear. If you want to discuss any idea before you submit, please start an online discussion here or send an e-mail to me and I can brainstorm with you.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to present over forty sessions at Oracle and OAUG conferences around the world and I can share my experiences with you.

A Room With A View

Oracle Certification Program has launched a certification management portal for candidates called CertView. One can log in to CertView using their Oracle Single Sign-On (SSO) password. The username and password that is valid on all Oracle sites.

To log in for the first time, Oracle Prometric ID was required for authentication (to retrieve candidate history information I suppose).

The Home tab of CertView has links to the new certification exam provider, PearsonVUE and links to News and Annoucements. The Personal Information tab is where the name and address is stored. The Certification Status tab is indeed the most interesting with several innovative features.

The Certification History sub tab lists all the certification the candidate has achieved with the certification date achieved as well as links to download the certification logo in BMP, GIF or EPS format. The logo can be used on business cards, resume and other communication material which adheres to

The Exam History sub tab lists the certification exams taken, date of the exam and grade indicator (Pass / Fail).

The Success Kit sub tab lists the date when the success kit was shipped. Oracle Certification Success Kit data is generated twice a week. After a candidate completes the final certification requirement, it may take 7 - 10 days to produce the shipment record.

The Publish Credential to Third Parties sub tab is a very popular request to the OCP team especially for candidates who want the certification information sent to their present or prospective employers. Select the certification credential that you would like to publish. Enter the email address for the recipient of the report. Click preview to preview the report. Click publish to publish the report. For multiple recipients, enter comma separated email address and a maximum of 10 e-mail addresses at a time. Once the information is published, the Published Credentials tab lists the date range and to whom the credentials are published.

A different metric soon for Oracle Pros

Oracle announced recently that the global certification program will no longer be administered by Prometric and a yet unannounced vendor will take over. No reason has been divulged for this sudden change and the message from the certification program team is as follows: "We are very excited about this change, and what it means for our program as well as our customers"

The Prometric Testing ID for each candidate will become the Oracle Testing ID. Unexpired exam vouchers will be honored. One has to register for Oracle exams on the new testing provider's website and creating a new web account. Oracle Certification program's current “Hands On Course Requirement Forms” system will be taken offline on September 14, 2009. On September 28, 2009 an all-new “Course Submission” system will be launched on the new testing vendor’s website. Between these dates. Oracle University will continue to clear and validate forms that have already been submitted, but no “new” submissions will be accepted through the old system.

Please visit the following link for a detailed FAQ on the transition.

One hopes that the new vendor has similar (if not larger) global coverage of test centers. We are all looking forward to the announcement of the new vendor who will measure a different metric for all would be Oracle Pros!

A True Open World: Every Vote Counts

The largest software conference in the world just keeps getting bigger and better with an 'open source' approach to selecting proposals for presentations. The call for papers was open to customers, partners and employees till April 26, 2009. For the next seven weeks, the paper selection panel worked long hours to select 1800 of the very best to be featured in the conference agenda. There were about 200 more presentations that did not get picked in the first round draft but now have a chance on Oracle Mix to be voted. The top thirty or so presentations will be added to the conference agenda.


Please click here to take part in this universal franchise. Please note that one has to sign up as a member on Oracle Mix before voting. Presentation proposals can be sorted by the number of votes, alphabetically or randomly. One needs to vote for at least three proposals for the votes to be counted. Every vote counts. It is indeed a true open world at Open World 2009!



The blog author has been invited to present in two sessions at Open World 2009. The session titles are as follows:

1. Using Web 2.0 to become a recognized Oracle expert


2. 10 Steps to Empowerment: Converting Custom Reports to Oracle BI Publisher

You are cordially invited to attend the above sessions. Please register for the conference and book your hotels early. This year's conference is shaping up to be one of the best in recent times. The sessions catalog will be available from next month and provide a great appetizer to the luxurious cornucopia of information being prepared by the generous hosts at Oracle Corporation.



Similar to last year, presentation propsoals on Oracle Application Express (ApEx)are a very popular choice. These are the 10 presentations that I have voted on. You may like to consider them for your valuable vote:

1. Creating 'Green' DBAs Using Enterprise Manager and Grid Control


2. R12 and Subledger Reconciliations


3. Oracle Projects Costing 11i10 for seamless Capital Costs Accounting


4. Using Row Level Security with Oracle Application Express


5. Increase Productivity, Streamline Work-Flow & Reduce Costs: Oracle HRMS v.R12


6. Oracle DBA Meets ITIL and COBIT


7. It's great to integrate: Combining Oracle Forms and Oracle Application Express


8. Giving Your ApEx Apps a Web 2.0 Face-Lift


9. Building a Mashup with Application Express (ApEx)


10. PDF printing with APEX - a cost-free alternative

OCP Blog Prize Winner: Oracle ACE Fadi Hasweh

Last year, this blog had launched the OCP Blog R12 Beta Challenge. The challenge was to get certified on any EBS R12 track during the beta testing period. We are pleased to announce the prize winner: Fadi Hasweh of Amman, Jordan.

On behalf of the Oracle Certification Community, may I extended my heartiest congratulations to Fadi on this unique achievement!

Fadi Hasweh is an Oracle ACE and Oracle OCP for DBA tracks. He took the 1Z1-238: EBS R12 Install, Patch and Maintain Applications exam during the beta testing period and passed with flying colors. Currently, Fadi is working as an independent Oracle Application DBA. Fadi's expertise spans across multiple platforms - Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Linux and Windows. Before becoming an Oracle Application Server and Collaboration Suite expert, Fadi worked as a .NET developer. Fadi holds a master's degree in business innovation and technology from Greece. Fadi is also a popular blogger and believes "Oracle is not magic, it just takes years of experience".

OCP Advisor recently interviewed Fadi for this blog post. Please read what Fadi has to say:

OCP Advisor (OCPA): How did you prepare for the EBS R12 Beta certification exam?

Fadi Hasweh (FH): To prepare for 1Z1-238: EBS R12 Install, Patch and Maintain Applications exam, I first installed Oracle EBS R12 and applied all the required post-install patches. I tried to see the differences between both R12 and 11i. Then I did a cloning exercise. Basically, I tried to do all the administration tasks that any regular application DBA would do on a production instance. I spent a lot of time preparing for this exam.I also read all the documentation available online including System Administration Guides, Maintenance Procedures and Maintenance Utilities. All along I was practicing on the system while reading. I also tried to update myself by reviewing Oracle R12 community forums and Oracle EBS R12 related blog.

Even though I prepared extensively for the exam, I felt that the exam was not easy. There was around 272 questions and some of them were really difficult but in general the difficulty level of questions was in the Medium/Hard category. Honestly speaking, to answer so many questions it requires much more than the 3 hours allocated to write the exam.

OCPA: What advice/tips/suggestions do you have for Oracle certification candidates?

FH: Prepare well and practice while studying for the exam. Take the exam not just to pass but to enrich yourself with the experience gained during preparing for the exam. Learn something new and useful during the exam preparation. Hopefully, you will not do this effort twice so try to make the best of it.

To help with your certification planning , first register for the exam about a month or two before your planned exam date. Stick to your preparation schedule for four to eight weeks. As the exam date nears, if your preparation is not satisfactory according to yourself, reschedule your exam. At least the exam date will motivate you to prepare with extra effort!

Oracle Certified Professionals Linkedin Group Welcomes 5000th Member

Oracle Certification Blog recently noted the efforts on the Oracle Certified Professionals Linkedin Group to create yet another community to network and exchange certification experiences.

I am delighted the report that we welcomed our 5000th member this week! If you are yet to join the group, please click here to join. There is a discussion forum, job board and news updates and many more. Connect with fellow group members and get tips for your next certification exam. If you are already certified, a great opportunity might be waiting for you on the job board!