Metalink is one of the most useful tools for an Apps' DBA, you can search it for articles or upgrade notes, download patches and search for bug resolution instructions.
The first time you search an error message and get many results, you go over nearly every note, you don't really know to distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant and since you're probably new to the job you're afraid to miss the desired solution. Over time you develop a sense for what is relevant, even if the note doesn't mention the exact error message, you sometimes know that the issue is the same. On the other hand, just like with machine learning, you might get a bit too confident in your ability to distinguish relevant from irrelevant and miss valuable notes.
That's what happened to me this week. I was looking for a solution to a problem with an engineering form, I found a note that mentioned a patch that was supposed to install a new version of the form, but applying the patch didn't upgrade the form. So after doing a bit more searching I've asked from one of the analysts to log an SR (I wouldn't really know how to describe an engineering issue). Luckily, he was wise enough to search Metalink himself first, and indeed he've stumbled upon a similar issue in which it was suggested to make a full installation of the engineering application. Now that I think about it, it's trivial and probably the first thing I should've thought about - a form might not get installed if the application is only in shared installation mode.
Anyway, this fresh perspective have saved logging an SR and probably a couple of days work.
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