How to create a user and assign a responsibility in Oracle EBS R12

In Oracle E-Business Suite, nobody can do anything until they have a user and at least one responsibility. Creating that user is the first System Administrator task most people learn, and it comes up in almost every EBS interview, functional or technical.

This guide walks through it on R12: the Users form, the password rules, linking the user to a person, assigning a responsibility, and what to check when the new responsibility does not appear.

Users, responsibilities and why both matter

Two ideas carry the whole of EBS security:

• A user is a login: a user name, a password and some dates.
• A responsibility decides what that login can do once inside. It ties together a menu (the screens the user can open), a request group (the concurrent programs the user can submit) and a data group, and it is often tied to one operating unit through profile options.

A user with no responsibility can log in but sees an empty home page. A user with three responsibilities picks one at a time from the Navigator. That is why "create a user" always means "create a user and give it a responsibility".

What you need first

You need a login that has the System Administrator responsibility, such as SYSADMIN on a practice instance. If your login does not include it, you will not see the menus below; the steps are the same wherever you do have it.

Step 1: Open the Users form

1. Log in and open the Navigator.
2. Choose System Administrator > Security > User > Define.

The Users form opens. It is an Oracle Forms screen, so it opens in its own window rather than in the browser page.

Step 2: Enter the user details

1. User Name: type the login name, for example TRAINING_USER1. EBS stores user names in upper case.
2. Description: a line that says who this is, such as the person's name.
3. Password: type a starting password, press Tab, and type it again when the form asks you to confirm it. The characters are not shown.
4. Password Expiration: choose Days or Accesses with a number, or None. For a practice user, None saves you resetting it every few weeks; on a real system, follow your organisation's rule.
5. Effective Dates From defaults to today. Leave To blank for a user with no end date.

The new user is asked to change this starting password the first time they log in, so treat it as temporary.

Linking a person (optional but useful)

The Person field links the login to an employee record in Oracle HR. Leave it blank for a pure test login. Link it when the user needs anything that works from the employee record, such as self-service screens or appearing as an approver in a workflow. The Customer and Supplier fields do the same for external users.

Step 3: Assign a responsibility

Stay in the same form and go to the Direct Responsibilities tab.

1. Click into the first empty row of Responsibility and open the list of values.
2. Search for the responsibility you want, for example a Purchasing or General Ledger responsibility, and select it. Application fills itself in.
3. Security Group is normally Standard.
4. From defaults to today; leave To blank.
5. Add more rows for more responsibilities.

Save with File > Save or Ctrl+S. The status bar confirms the save.

On a Vision demo database the responsibilities carry the demo company names, such as "Purchasing, Vision Operations (USA)". The name tells you the operating unit the responsibility works in, so pick the one that matches the data you want to see.

Step 4: Log in as the new user

1. Log out, then log in with the new user name and the starting password.
2. Set a new password when EBS asks.
3. The home page Navigator now lists the responsibility you assigned. Click it to open its menu.

If you can see the responsibility and open its screens, the setup is complete.

When the responsibility does not show up

Most of the time it appears straight away. When it does not, check these in order:

• Dates. A From date in the future, or a To date in the past, on either the user or the responsibility row hides it.
• The save. Reopen the user in the Users form (query it with F11, type the user name, then Ctrl+F11) and check the row is really there.
• Workflow roles. EBS keeps a copy of user and responsibility assignments for Workflow. When that copy is out of step, a common fix is to run the concurrent program Workflow Directory Services User/Role Validation as System Administrator, then log in again.

Removing access: end-date, do not delete

EBS does not let you delete a user, and you should not want to: transactions, approvals and audit columns point at that user. To remove access, put today's date in the To field of the user (the login stops working) or of a single responsibility row (just that responsibility goes). To restore access, clear the date.

The same rule applies to responsibilities in general: end-date, never delete.

User Management, the newer way

Besides the Users form, EBS R12 has a User Management responsibility with a browser-based screen. It works with roles and lets you grant access through role-based access control, and it is what larger EBS sites use to delegate user administration. The Users form is still the quickest way to learn the model, and it is what interviewers usually mean by "create a user".

What to practise

Once the basic task works, these make good practice and good interview stories:

• Create one user with two responsibilities from different modules, and switch between them from the Navigator.
• Set Password Expiration to a small number of accesses and see what happens when it runs out.
• End-date a responsibility, log in again, and confirm it has gone; then clear the date.
• Link a user to a person record and see which self-service options appear.

Practise on an EBS instance

Reading the steps is quick; doing them a few times on a real instance is what makes them stick, along with the habit of end-dating rather than deleting.

See Oracle EBS instance plans →