Oracle licensing in JD Edwards (JDE) can be complex and costly to get wrong. Inactive accounts, orphaned users, and redundant security records might expose organizations to unnecessary expenses and audit risks.

If selected for an Oracle License Audit, Oracle installs proprietary software on your system to compare actual usage against your licensing contract. Best-Practice approach is aligning key JDE data with Oracle metrics in real-time before an audit occurs. Conducting a pre-audit ensures your organization is prepared, compliant, and less likely to face surprises or inflated licensing costs.

Why Pre-Audits Matter

Conducting a proactive review of your licensing data allows you to:

✔ Identify under- or over-usage before Oracle does

✔ Reduce licensing spend by eliminating unused modules & inactive users

✔ Validate your position with clean, accurate data

✔ Avoid unexpected audit penalties and fees

Key pre-audit considerations:

Avoiding common pitfalls that often inflate licensing liability is key. This requires accurately retrieving and reviewing the relevant data.

• Know your pricing model: this can vary across product lines and beware of inherited pricing from existing installations, which could be impacted by how well previous contracts were migrated.
• Use only the modules you purchased: JDE modules are closely tied together making accidental usage possible, if menu filtering and security are not in place.
• Track inquiry users carefully: action security alone doesn’t block update-capable UBEs.
• Monitor your active user count: even disabled users may still trigger licensing obligations.

Who counts as an authorized user:

• A user profile or F0092 record
• A system profile record in the F98OWSEC table
• At least one active role assigned in F95921
• Access to at least one environment, typically inherited from roles assigned, but could also occur at the user level

Many organizations manage user creation well, but removal or disabling users is often inconsistent, which can inflate licensing costs.

Common Scenarios to Review:

• If deleting users, consider removing both the user profile and system profile.
• If disabling, consider a timeframe for keeping these disabled user records.
• When assigning temporary roles, consider entering a future expiration date.

When is the right time to conduct a pre-audit?

The best time to review user access is continuously and well before an Oracle License Audit occurs. Following a structured review process is essential to maintaining compliance and avoiding unexpected costs.

What Should you Review: Three key areas to focus on

1. Object Usage Tracking provides basic visibility for administrators to identify which objects are used. While it’s useful as a starting point, it can be inconsistent and difficult to configure, often requiring direct access to tracking tables.

   As you consider your licensing needs, also keep in mind that you may need to license applications you didn’t realize you were using. Product dependencies and cross-module functionality spans finance, manufacturing, sales, and distribution.

2. Security strategy is also crucial in documenting and proving access within JDE and therefore essential for Oracle licensing pre-audits. As you create security in E1, there are two options:

• Open security model: rely on menu filtering to block path to programs (doesn’t account for access using row and form exits).
• Closed security model: security is set at *PUBLIC to deny access to all programs by default, with access granted back to users and roles as required. As a result, auditing is simplified and it is easier to verify access rights

3. Tracking Actual Usage:

   Prove what records users are actually updating within the JDE tables that are relevant to your licensed modules.

How ALLOut Simplifies Pre-Audits

Retrieving the above data manually in standard JDE is time-consuming, complex, and resource-intensive. ALLOut extends standard JD Edwards functionality with licensing tools that make pre-audits faster, easier, and more accurate minus fragmented workflows and processes.

Key capabilities include:

• Best-practice data for Oracle Licensing Audits including SoD Rules, Critical Program Lists and Mitigating Controls.
• Module dependency mapping with tools to adjust roles and user access accordingly.
• Identify potential access: Program Access and Segregation of Duties (SoD) reports.
• Centralized management of application and action security for users, roles and objects through the SuperGrid.
• Analyze users’ transactional footprints with system usage reports tracking record and table updates.
• Run reports to identify active and inactive users, including log in activity.

Proactive licensing management is an important practice for reducing audit risk and avoiding unnecessary costs. ALLOut helps simplify this process by providing audit-ready data and centralized visibility across the business.