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Mission Start

My Oracle APEX journey started in 2008 when I was still an undergraduate in college.  One day after class, the professor approached me and suggested I apply for an upcoming management information system (MIS) internship on campus.  My graduation date was two years away, and I lacked any real world experience, so I was happy it was brought to my attention.

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Impossible Task

Once I accepted the position, my new boss wasted little time.  He explained that a College on campus was using a series of spreadsheets and MS Access to manage their finances.

The College had an official accounting system, but it was driven by paper and human entry.  A shadow system of spreadsheets and an Access database (DB) was introduced because of the long waiting periods before data was entered in the official accounting system.  The elapsed time between a transaction date and the entry of that transaction could take 3-6 months.

He was concerned about the use of spreadsheets and the Access DB for multiple reasons:

  • A large amount of sensitive data has accumulated over the years
  • There was little to no security on that data
  • The MS Access DB was becoming corrupted at a higher frequency
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Access Denied

After the analysis, I examined the options of supported software on campus and hit a wall.  Administrators didn’t want to grant me access to larger systems like PeopleSoft, but they also didn’t like the idea of me building something custom because of maintenance/security issues.

The only path forward was to search the web for a new piece of software, convince administrators to adopt and support this new technology, and implement a solution that eluded all the developers before me.

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Technology Search

I went looking for software by keying in phrases like:  “spreadsheet to db,” “spreadsheet converter,” and “migrate Access DB.”  There were only about 5 options to look into, but APEX stuck out in the list.  It was uncanny the way their website and forum described similar situations to the one I was working on.

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Worries Eased

When I presented APEX as a possible solution to a panel comprised of members from the College and IT administrators, I was able to convince them to move forward with APEX using the following arguments:

  • APEX is free with an Oracle DB License
  • APEX gains the benefits of living within Oracle
    • Secure
    • Scheduled data backups
  • IT admins didn’t need to dedicate much time to get me setup on APEX
    • It was already on the DB, just not installed yet
  • They could specify what schemas I would have access to in the APEX workspace
    • No risk of me messing anything up
  • APEX uses PL/SQL, so there is already a knowledge base and campus support
  • Should I fail, the College is in no worse position
    • The data in APEX can be extracted back to a spreadsheet
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To Be Continued

Part two of this blog about my Oracle APEX journey will be coming soon!

 

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Learn More

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Disclaimer:
We do not take responsibility for any unintended or unwanted consequences in your instance of Oracle, Oracle APEX, or related products as a result of reading our blogs or following our guides. Though the information is fully tested and generally safe to use, our lawyers really have a thing against admitting potential wrongdoing.  If it makes you feel any better, one time I changed their thermostat from 75 to 73.  They lead on like they weren’t freezing, but I could tell they were miserable for the whole hour before the building supervisor noticed.

 

Andrew Schultz, Oracle Developer & APEX Specialist
+ posts

Andrew is a Senior Oracle Application Express (APEX) developer with more than 10 years of experience leading projects from inception to completion. He has built and maintained more than 750 Oracle APEX forms and reports. His prior work as a technical writer and client educator has uniquely prepared Andrew to identify the needs of a task from the perspectives of the organization, programmer, client, and end-user.