Shashi Kshirsagar
OTM SIG 2013
Agenda
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What is an automation Agent ?
What is Agent Tracking?
Objectives
Design
Process Flow
What needs to be added to every agent
Result
Metrics that can be collected
KSAP User Interface
Benefits
Points to be considered
QA
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What is an Automation Agent?
• An Automation Agent automates most of the things you can do manually with an action for a
business object.
• An Automation Agent listens for something to occur in OTM, called an event, and then
performs actions based on that event occurring.
Examples:
• Every time OTM builds a new shipment, OTM tenders the shipment.
• Every time a shipment tender is declined, notify a specific Involved Party.
• Every time shipment receives a carrier arrival message, create an invoice.
• Every time an order fails bulk plan, notify the transportation planner.
Event
Condition
Action
Shipment Created
shipment that is over 38,500LBS and is leaving the
Kansas City DC
Tender the shipment
Tender Declined
Declined by a specific carrier e.g JB Hunt, Jack Cooper. Notify Joe, Mike or Business group
Shipment Arrival
Message received from Auto Pay carrier
Order Failed to Bulk Plan
Create Invoice
Notify Planner
Agent flow
Agents
Order Changes
Anticipates
Agent listens to Order
Modification
WMS
Resolves
Cancel Shipment
Quantity
Status Update
Date
OTM
External sources
Status
Location
Re-plan
Indicator Update
CSR
Analyze
Customer
Collaborates
Who is the Order
Owner
Notify Involve Parties
Is order released
Update WMS
Are any shipments
planned
What is the shipment
status
Email Alerts
Send ASN
What is Agent Tracking?
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Agent tracking is a methodology used to monitor performance of
OTM agents by inserting additional logic into required agents that
the user wants to track for performance or debugging
transactional issues.
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This methodology helps to gain intelligence without sacrificing
performance, especially when OTM Logs are turned off.
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Agent Monitoring is achieved by having each agent create a START
row in the AGENT_TRACKING table (custom table) at the
beginning of the agent and then updating the row to COMPLETE at
the end of the agent.
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The AGENT_TRACKING table is updated via a stored procedure call
trigger from Agent action (DSU)
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Objectives
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Capture agent performance metrics to monitor, analyze, and
react to downward trends in performance.
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Transactional issue debugging with error details.
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To identify agents that were in progress at the time of an
unexpected system outage.
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Use this information to rapidly recover from a catastrophic
system failure without losing data.
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Provide Alert notification on:
– Unfinished agents that have been running longer than a
given time threshold
– Agents that ran successfully, but took longer than expected
to run (daily summary)
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Design
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AGENT_TRACKING custom table
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A Store Procedure to insert / update records in a
AGENT_TRACKING custom table
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Additional lines to call the store procedure in all agents
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AGENT_TRACKING Custom Table
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Agent Monitor Process Flow
Agent Trigger
Get Row
Num
Insert new entry in
AGENT_TRACKING table with
START time
Agent
Processing
NO
YES
Agent
Error ?
Update AGENT_TRACKING
table with COMPLETE status
with END time
Update AGENT_TRACKING
table with ERROR status and
Error details
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Additions to Agents
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Additional 3 actions on the ‘Actions’ tab
1. Get a sequence number of Agent Tracking table to store the
successful update of the database record later.
2. Direct Sql Update (DSU) to insert of an agent’s record in the
AGENT_TRACKING table.
3. DSU to update the Agent Tracking record upon agent completion.
• Additional 1 line on the ‘Error Handler’ tab
1. DSU to update the Agent Tracking record upon agent failure
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Inside Agent
• Following extra actions needs to be added
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Inside AGENT_TRACKING_NEXT_SEQ
• To retrieve the next sequence, create an agent variable ($NEXT_SEQ) and
specify the AGENT_TRACKING_NEXT_SEQ saved query
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Inside STOP Line
• In the event that an agent has ‘STOPs’ or a series of checks to make sure
that it is working correctly, an update DSU must be placed prior to each
‘STOP’. This is the same as the action added at the end of the agent
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Result
Microsoft Excel
97-2003 Worksheet
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Reports that can be collected from Agent Tracking
• OTM Data Queries can be configured and scheduled to run on desired
frequency to monitor the Agent performance based on various
parameters such as mentioned below
Report
Look-back Period Frequency
Number of agents running longer than xx minutes Last 1 day
Daily
Maximum run time of all agents
Last 1 day
Daily
Number of FAILED Agents per day
Last 7 day
Weekly
How often each agent fails
Last 1 day
Daily
Maximum run time for COMPLETE agents
Last hour
Hourly
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KSAP User Interface
KSAP User Interface – Agent Tracking Setup
• Select Domain
• Select ‘Active’ agents from the list
• Save
KSAP User Interface – Agent Tracking Search
• Various search field options to provide correct required record.
• Most popular search fields: Object ID, Agent ID + Status, Duration + Status
KSAP User Interface – Result
Benefits
• Helps find all agents that are triggered during given object’s life cycle.
• Exact error identification without having the logs turn on
• Helps to ensure all OTM processing is complete prior to ‘planned’ outages
for graceful shutdown.
• Helps to identify poor performing workflows and fine tune them
• Identify multiple agents running based on same event.
• Better control on which agents to be tracked.
• Easy enabling & disabling of tracking
• Reduce overall support effort and thus the Support cost.
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Points to be considered
• Agent monitoring is not automatic. Every agent that requires tracking
must have the agent tracking steps added.
• Need regular purging from AGENT_TRACKING table. Each agent being
monitored will create a new row in the AGENT_TRACKING table and given
the frequency of agent execution expected, there will be MANY
monitoring data rows created. The AGENT_TRACKING table will quickly
grow. The data purge process will keep this table from growing
indefinitely.
• Additional patch needs to be installed to get Error details. Oracle provides
the patch upon request
– patch 13554521: new agent variables
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• Shashi Kshirsagar
• OTM SIG 2013
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