Sage 50 - Oracle 11i Financials

Quiet_One

Hi out of interest has anyone trained and been certified in either Sage 50 or Oracle 11i financials or even both? As I am looking to enroll to become certified after the summer - I really need some advise as to what will pay off the most for me careerwise after completing the course and what types of jobs people get afterwards? Also where would be the best college or university to do this course? Thanks

kittykarate

I used to be an Oracle 11i Financials consultant (not used Sage).

Which areas were you looking at? The technical side (forms/reports development or dba) or the functional side (knowing about business processes).

I think it would be difficult to get into the functional side without some experience, a lot of it is understanding how companies do things and translating that into Financials way of doing things. Development you could probably get into from cold.

As far as I'm aware, no colleges will offer the training in Financials, Oracle University is the main provider, but some 3rd party companies will offer the training. Last time I booked some Oracle University training, it was about £2K for 5 days.

Quiet_One

Hi, wow I did not expect a reply to that! :-) Since graduating I have been pretty much working on Oracle 11i financials side for over 5 years, and really I would like to specialise in Oracle as it is so widely used especially in the public sector.

I was quoted the price of £1,600.00 to get certificed in both oracle and sage 50 at a technical college in London which gives me classes and support et and will cost me around £70 for each paper I sit? Does that sound reasonable in you opinion? If I wanted to get certificed in Oracale 11i to beome an oracle financials consultant which exams or route do I best take as theres so many different courses its confusing. Ideally I want to be very confident with Oracle and able to come into an organisation and clean up the AP/AR and keyed invoices - produce reports/ payment runs with or without the use of software such as Discoverer for example.

In your opinion is it worth the investment paying for sitting the exams will it boost my career prospects Im probably to young to be a consultant so got a way to go yet as Im 27??

Thanks for your help.

kittykarate

27 isn't too young to be a consultant - Oracle had been selling me out as an E-business DBA for a year when I was that age

I would make sure that the certification programme you're doing is the proper Oracle one, rather than a one specific to that college.

Oracle have got a bit money grabbing, and they won't let you get your certification without attending one of their authorised training courses. Make sure that the college course counts towards this, otherwise you'll get nothing for all your efforts.

So to follow the Oracle route you would need to do the following exams:-

IZ0-200 - ebusiness suite fundamentals
IZ0-211 - GL fundamentals

Then there's the AP (IZ0-212) and AR (IZ0-213) exams to add on top.

Individual Oracle certification exams can vary in cost, to do my DBA ones at Pearson Vue it has varied from £75 to £120 depending on the complexity/level of the exam

(I would have linked the appropriate pages, but I'm too much of a noob to be allowed to do such things)

As to whether the certification will boost your career prospects - it can't hurt even if you only do the the fundamentals and GL exams, as it may show your employers that you're willing to put your own time into things.

Quiet_One

Thanks for your reply. So in theory as long as I study and pass the folowing exams: IZ0-200 - ebusiness suite fundamentals, IZ0-211 - GL fundamentals, AP (IZ0-212) and AR (IZ0-213) I should be qualified to work as an Oracle financials consultant? Do you have to keep 'topping up' after a while with exams or courses? I appreciate your advise as its so difficult to find anyone with much knowledge in this area as for careers advisors they just stare at me with a blank look on their face when I ask about how to become a consultant :-) I assume self study is not a good idea with these exams as they are quite technical exams you really need to be taught face to sace to stand a chance passing the exams? Sorry for all the questions.

kittykarate

The simplest way to become a consultant is to get employed by one of the big firms (EDS/ATOS/Oracle). They will take people in with no specific knowledge or already at an expert level. Once you've survived a couple of years with them it becomes very easy to move to go independent or to another big firm.

I've just had a look on the jobs. oracle. com but there's nothing around at the minute unless you're a payroll specialist. I was lucky that I got a personal recommendation into the company which circumvents some of the mad HR minimum requirements such as degree grade.

You will need to top up your certification to keep it current, so if you look on the Oracle website you'll see that the 11i track is being replaced by the v12 stuff so you'll have to retake some exams.

I've not seen what the exams are like for the Financials certifications as I'm a techie, and so stay with DBA stuff. General observations:-
1. Not everyone in HR trusts certifications since the growth in 'brain dumps' and certification crammer courses which have devalued a lot of the microsoft ones.
2. They will test you on things that you may not ever have needed to do in the real world. Look at what is covered in each exam.
3. It is entirely possible to pass the exams via self study (I've been recertifying since 8 RDBMS ) but please note that Oracle has made it so you MUST have attended a training course at some point in your first certification.