"Incomplete / incorrect problem statement. The consultant do not have a clear idea of the issue and hence the problem remains unsolved for a long time."
Let me give you one example.
We were upgrading a customer from EBS1 R12.1.3 to R12.2.10. I was providing project oversight. One of the issues that remained open for a long time was this.
"When you create a customer, the value for the field Default Collector appears as 'Credit Manager'. We want the value to be set as blank so that we can update it based on the correct value."
Why is this issue open? I asked the consultant.
Sir, we tested this thoroughly, this is the normal behaviour, replied he.
Does it work the same way as in Reference Instance (the current 12.1.3 instance)?
Yes, we checked it, the behaviour is the same.
Can you show it?
The consultant quickly opened the application and created a customer. The behaviour was as per expectation. The value of 'Default Collector' was being picked up from the configuration and system was working correctly in my opinion.
However...
Customer still maintained that this was an issue.
So I called a meeting of all stakeholders and spent 30 minutes reviewing the issue.
We found that the customer was creating new customers through a custom form and they had written code to update this field value.
The customer was testing the issue using the custom form and consultant was testing the standard application.
This crucial difference was missed out by the consultant.
We reviewed the custom code. Someone had hard coded the default collector value as 'Credit Manager'.
We made minor change to the code and the issue got resolved.
An issue that was pending for over 3 months was resolved in just one hour!
I would like to think that the customer was happy. He was more relieved, I will say.
In any similar project, consultant would have raised a service request with Oracle Support and they would have analyzed for a few days before refusing to support issues with Custom Applications.
That is when consultant would have realized that there was a customization in the process flow.
There is only one lesson here. Before doing any testing, prepare the detailed test cases as per the available documentation. It will take time, but the testing will be very rigorous.
At a broader level, understand and document the issue very clearly. Use screenshots, test cases and the works to clearly identify the problem.
The solution, as they say, lies in the problem.
What do you think of this anecdote? Throughout my career I have faced this challenge. What about you?
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