Discovering and Downloading Updates

This chapter discusses how to:

• Upload environment data.

• Discover the updates.

• Download updates.

Uploading Environment Data

Before you can automatically download updates with Change Assistant, you need to upload information about your environment to Oracle. Using the Environment Management hub, Change Assistant sends the essential environment information, including license codes, update history (change log), and environment configurations.

Initiating the Upload Environment Process

To perform the upload environment operation:

1. Select Tools, Upload Environment.

2. Select the check box at the lower left of the screen to agree to the terms of the Privacy Policy consent notice.

   If you do not select the check box, you cannot continue the upload process.

3. You are prompted to launch the update search after the upload is completed, or you can choose to access it later. Select one of these options, then click Next.

4. Enter your customer ID and password.

   Note. Each customer user ID is associated with a customer name and ID. Oracle stores the uploaded application environment data with the customer ID of the user performing the upload. If a user is authorized to represent more than one customer, this user must verify that the customer ID to which he or she is currently associated, is the correct customer for which the upload is performed.

5. Select the View XML link to view all the environment data to be uploaded to Oracle. Each environment is displayed in a tab identified by its short name, or a unique environment ID if no short name has been defined.

6. When the Confirm Customer screen appears, review the Authorized User, Company Name, and Customer ID fields before you click Upload.

Environment Information Uploaded to Oracle

This section lists the environment data collected by the Environment Management hub and sent to Oracle through Change Assistant. The data is sent in an XML file.

Summary File

The following specific environment information is included in the XML file:

Applied Updates

The following change log information shows all the applied updates in the environment:

• MAINTENANCE_LOG SIZE

• UPDATE FIXOPRID (update fix operator ID)

• MAINTLOGTYPE (change log type)

• UPDATE_ID

Discovering Updates

This section provides overviews of the Update Wizard and discusses how to identify the updates.

Understanding The Update Wizard

While you are using Change Assistant, you can access the Update Wizard at any time by selecting Tools, Go to Metalink.

Using the update wizard, you can discover the change packages that you need to download based on the update IDs. Change packages are zip files that contain the update project and all the associated files for the update.

Note. Do not unzip a change package, unless you intend to modify it. Change Assistant uses the zipped change package when applying updates.

See Working with Change Packages.

Identifying Software Updates and Change Packages That You Need

To identify the software updates or change packages that you need:

1. If you are not logged onto Oracle Metalink, log on by selecting Tools, Go to Metalink.

2. Select a scope from the following options:

   Find all updates that have not yet been installed	Searches for all updates that meet the environment and time frame criteria, including bundles, tax updates and updates required for upgrade and install. By default, this search returns the requisites of every update that meets the search criteria.
   Find specific updates by Update ID	Searches for specific updates by update ID. Update IDs appear only if they match the user's environment information. By default, this search returns the requisites of each update ID that is found.
   Verify prerequisites and post-requisites for specific updates	Searches for all unapplied requisites for specific updates. Use this search to verify that for any unapplied update ID, you have the current list of requisites .

   Note. Updates appear based on whether an update is a translated update or not. If it's a translated update, then the Update Wizard determines whether the update should include English data.

3. Click Next.

4. Select an environment, then click Next.

   You can select only one environment at a time.

   If you want to enter the environment information manually, click the Manually enter environment information link to access a screen where you can enter environment information and languages. Keep in mind that if you choose to manually enter environment information, you won't be able to filter updates for the environment based on patch history.

   Note. The environment information that appears is what has been uploaded through Change Assistant; likewise, if nothing has been uploaded, there will be no environments available on this page from which to select. The information displayed here is the description of the environment, the type of environment, and the time of the upload. Other information stored (but not displayed) include the license code, the list of all update IDs applied, the database type, and the installed languages of this environment.

5. Select the applications to which you want to apply the updates, then click Next.

   If you are not using the applications or have not installed the applications, clear them.

   Note. If you selected to search for updates not yet applied in step 1 of the Update Wizard, then the select applications page will appear.

6. Select from the following options:

   Update Type	If you selected to search for updates not yet applied in step 1 of the Update Wizard, a page requesting information on the type of updates to search for appears. Select the type of update to search. All Updates Returns all updates meeting the search criteria, regardless of the type of update. Updates that are included in bundles will not appear in the search results (if the bundle is displayed in the search results). Also, updates that are required for upgrade, will not appear in this type of search. Bundled Updates only Returns bundles that meet the search criteria. If requisites are included in the search results, it is possible that a requisite is not a bundle. Even though the requisite is not a bundle, it will appear in the search results. Tax or regulatory updates only Returns any tax or regulatory updates that meet the search criteria. Required for completing a fresh installReturns any updates required for install that meet the search criteria. Documentation updates only Returns any documentation updates that meet the search criteria. Required for completing an upgrade Returns any updates required for upgrade that meet the search criteria. Updates required for upgrade only appear with this search option.
   Date Posted	Select Anytime to search for all posting dates. If you select Within this time period, then select a From and To date using the date selector.
   Include prerequisites and postrequisites not already applied to selected environment	Select to include all the requisites that have not been applied to the selected environment for the date and time criteria.

7. Click Next.

8. When the Candidate Updates screen appears, you may do the following:

   • Review and analyze the list of update IDs and evaluate the associated prerequisites and post-requisites.

   • Select the update ID link to view the details of the update. The update ID column indicates the updates that were found during the search.

   • Click Exclude if you want to remove the update ID from the list. By doing this, these are removed: 1) any updates that are required by the excluded update; and 2) any update that is only part of the search results, because it is a requisite of the excluded update.

     A confirmation page appears, listing all updates that will be excluded by this action. You can choose to accept or cancel any exclusion.

     Note. PeopleSoft recommends that you include all update IDs. Excluding some update IDs may cause problems because of the dependencies between updates.

9. Click Next to see a preview of what will be downloaded.

   You can click Download List to Microsoft Excel to populate an Excel spreadsheet with all of the update IDs. You can then review and analyze the Excel spreadsheet offline. The search results grid has several columns that help you review the results.

Note. Maintenance packs and Tax updates will not be available as part of the search described in this section. Maintenance packs and Tax updates are available to be downloaded separately. On My Oracle Support, select Patches and Downloads and click the PeopleSoft Products link. You can view maintenance pack and tax update schedules by selecting the Knowledge tab in My Oracle Support and on the Knowledge Base for PeopleSoft Enterprise Customers page scroll down to view the "Roadmaps and Maintenance Schedules" and "Tax Update Schedules sections."

If You Manually Enter Environment Information

If you selected to manually enter environment information, the Update Wizard does not know the license code of your environment. In this case, every application for the specified product line appears. Therefore, you will have to determine which applications are appropriate for your environment.

You will not be prompted to select applications in step 1 of the Update Wizard. Instead, a page appears that allows you to search for a specific update ID. When you are searching for specific updates, the check box in the lower part of the page labeled “Include prerequisites and post-requisites not already applied to selected environment”, is selected by default. Select this check box (clear it) if you do not want to see requisites included in the search results. Leave the check box activated if you want the tree of requisites that have not yet been applied to display in the search results.

Downloading Change Packages

Once you've downloaded the Excel file with all the update IDs, including those for prerequisite and post-requisite change packages, review each update ID before you download the associated change packages. You may decide not to download certain updates upon further review.

Note. When a change package becomes obsolete, the page for the change package remains in place, however, the change package is removed. If you are downloading manually, the page for the obsolete change package displays a link to the change package that supersedes it. If you are downloading through Change Assistant, the update gateway detects when a change package has been superseded, and it automatically downloads the superseding change package. This applies to post-requisites and prerequisites also.

To perform the download process:

1. Select the Tools, Download Change Packages.

   The system prompts you to select the download directory.

   Note. If the Environment Management hub is unavailable, an error appears and the download is canceled. If the appropriate URL options data is missing, an error stating that this option data is required appears and the download is canceled. Verify that these values are specified and the Environment Management hub is up and running.

2. Accept the default download directory that you set up in Change Assistant options, or select a different directory for your download.

3. Click Next to display a screen where you enter the update IDs.

   You may enter multiple update IDs by separating them with spaces, commas, or returns.

   Note. To avoid mistakes, PeopleSoft recommends that you copy and paste the desired update ID values from the spreadsheet created during the update discovery process.

4. Click Next to display a screen where you enter your user name and password to access posted updates.

5. When the Confirm Selections screen appears, review the list of update IDs that you want to download before clicking Next.

6. When you are prompted to launch the Apply Change Package upon the completion of the download process, you may elect to accept or decline.

7. Click Close when the download is complete.