The Feature

How to Make ‘Close Other Forms’ Option Updatable

December 12, 2008 on 10:20 am | by Marian Crkon | In Feature of the Week | 2 Comments |  Print |  Email

This feature of the week is for anyone using Oracle Projects 11i plus.

The Feature

When using certain responsibilities the ‘Close Other Forms’ option in the Navigator window, ‘Tools’ menu is protected against an update.

Solution

The function ‘Navigator: Disable Multiform’ needs to be included in menu exclusions of the given responsibility. As System Administrator:

• Navigate to Security > Responsibility > Define.
• Query the responsibility in which you want to allow to control the Close Other Forms option.
• In the Menu Exclusions, enter a function Name: Navigator: Disable Multiform
• Save changes.

The values are stored in FND_USER_PREFERENCES table by user. To see whether the checkbox is checked or not:

select * from fnd_preferences
where preference_name = ‘NEW_WINDOW_FLAG’

‘N’ means defaults to checked, ‘R’ means defaults to not-checked. We have had some inconsistencies with this checkbox. You would un-check it and exit the applications, and the next time when you log in, it’s checked again.

Recording Project-Related Receipt Accruals in Oracle Projects

November 25, 2008 on 9:27 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Feature of the Week | 3 Comments |  Print |  Email

This feature is for anyone using Oracle Purchasing, Payables and Projects 11i and beyond. I’ve been asked today to provide a solution for recording project-related receipt accruals in Oracle, and was very pleased when I found out this was a standard functionality. A summary of my research [from four different Oracle user guides] is available below.

Recording Project-Related Receipt Accruals

Oracle Purchasing records the received goods as delivered for your project when they are delivered and assigned to a project-related purchase order distribution line. When a purchase order line is flagged to accrue on receipt and the purchased goods are delivered to an expense destination, you can interface receipt accrual accounting entries from Oracle Purchasing to Oracle Projects as actual expenditure transactions. This allows you to recognize the cost to your project in the period in which it is incurred rather than in the period in which it is invoiced.

Interfacing Receipt Accruals to Projects

To interface receipt accruals from Oracle Purchasing to Oracle Projects, use the PRC: Interface Supplier Costs process in Oracle Projects. The process selects transactions based on the project-related values entered on PO distribution lines.

The process first retrieves all eligible accounted, project-related receipt accrual information, supplier invoice distributions (including non-recoverable tax lines) and all payment discounts that are distributed to project-related distributions. The process then interfaces the amounts to Oracle Projects.

The interfaced items are grouped into expenditure batches as follows:

• All invoice distributions, excluding non-recoverable tax lines, are included in one batch.
• Non-recoverable tax lines are grouped into a second batch
• Payment Discounts are included in a third batch, and
• Receipt accruals for project related items with a destination type of Expenses are grouped in the fourth batch.

Each time you run Interface Supplier Costs process, Oracle Projects generates reports you can use to track the interfaced supplier invoices distribution lines, receipt accruals, as well as those invoice lines and receipt accruals that are rejected during interface from Oracle Payables and Oracle Purchasing, respectively. The following reports show you the results of this process. These reports show amounts in the functional and transaction (AP invoice) currencies.

• The Interface Project Costs from Payables Report. Lists all invoice distribution lines and receipt accrual transactions that were successfully interfaced to Oracle Projects. In addition, summary information is provided to display the total number and total costs of the interfaced transactions.
• The Interface Project Costs from Payables Exception Report. Lists all invoice distribution lines and receipt accrual transactions that failed to interface to Oracle Projects during the process. For each transaction that fails to transfer, output reports list the rejection reason.

Submitting the Interface Supplier Costs Process

The PRC: Interface Supplier Costs process retrieves the following items and interfaces them from Oracle Purchasing and Oracle Payables to Oracle Projects:

• All eligible accounted, project-related supplier invoice distributions
• All eligible receipt accrual information from Oracle Purchasing
• Tax lines for project-related intercompany invoices
• All eligible accounted payment discounts that are distributed to project-related invoice distributions

The process first populates the Transaction Import Interface table, creating an expenditure item and cost distribution line for each invoice or payment distribution line, and an expenditure for each invoice. This process also checks for original items being adjusted when processing adjusting items from Oracle Payables, to ensure that every negative expenditure item adjusts a valid original expenditure item. If an original matching item is found, the process next checks to ensure that the original item is not already adjusted to have a net zero amount.

Select ‘Yes’ or ‘Accrued Cost Only’ in the Interface Supplier Invoices parameter if you want to interface supplier invoices. When this parameter is set to Yes or Accrued Cost Only, project–related supplier invoice costs are interfaced from Oracle Payables to Oracle Projects.

If an invoice distribution is matched to a purchase order line that is flagged to accrue on receipt and the receipt accrual information is interfaced to Projects, only additional invoice amounts are interfaced. These amounts can include tax or freight charges added during invoice entry, or price and exchange rate variances.

If Accrued Cost Only is selected, only additional invoice amounts are interfaced even when the receipt accrual information is not interfaced to projects. But if an invoice distribution is matched to a purchase order line that is flagged to accrue on receipt and fully interfaced to Projects, then for any invoice distribution matched to this purchase order line, the whole invoice amount will be interfaced to projects irrespective of the selected option.

Similarly, if an invoice distribution is matched to a purchase order line that is flagged to accrue on receipt and for which only additional amounts have been interfaced to projects, then for any invoice distribution matched to this purchase order line, only additional invoice amounts will be interfaced to projects irrespective of the selected option.

Select ‘Yes’ in the Interface Receipt Accruals parameter to interface receipt accruals. When this parameter is set to Yes, receipt accruals for project-related items with a destination type of Expense are interfaced from Oracle Purchasing to Oracle Projects.

Note: Receipt accrual entries are not interfaced if the received items are invoiced and the invoice amounts are interfaced to Projects.

Receipt Accrual Adjustments

You cannot adjust the expenditure item in Oracle Projects when the item is interfaced from Oracle Purchasing (i.e. receipt accrual).

If the invoice is matched to an accrue on receipt purchase order line and the invoice line (rather than the purchase order receipt) is interfaced, then the invoice line can be adjusted in Oracle Projects.

After you have made adjustments to supplier invoice items, you must send the adjustment information back to Oracle Payables so the Payables distribution lines match what is recorded in Oracle Projects. Oracle Payables will interface adjustments that affect the GL account number to Oracle General Ledger. You run the following processes in Oracle Projects for supplier invoice adjustments:

• PRC: Distribute Supplier Invoice Adjustment Costs
• PRC: Interface Supplier Invoice Adjustment Costs to Payables

If you need to change the invoice amount, supplier, or expenditure type, organization, or item date for a supplier invoice line, reverse the line and create a new line in Oracle Payables.

Troubleshooting the Projects to Receivables Interface

November 17, 2008 on 9:10 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Feature of the Week | Enter Comments |  Print |  Email

This feature is for anyone using Oracle Projects and Receivables 11.5.10 and beyond. There were several new features introduced to Projects 10.5.10 (Family Pack M), which now require additional [not quite documented] configurations for the Receivables interface to work. I find myself scrambling to make the interface work everytime I run it the first time in a new installation or a new operating unit. Here are few quick tipts I consolidated from the Metalink notes and user guides to remember what to do the next time…

Open Periods

Make sure to open respective accounting periods in Receivables. As Receivables Manager, navigate to Control > Accounting > Open/Close Periods.

Retention Error

You may not be using retention or multi-currency in Project Billing, but you still receive the “Transaction Code: TRA OU Level Retention Accounting flag N… Some transactions are disabled. Please Check auto-accounting setup” error when running the PRC: Interface Invoices to Receivables program (PATTAR).

To resolve the error you need to enable the AutoAccounting Assignments for Unbilled Retention Account and Rounding Account.

As Projects Billing Super User:

• Navigate to Setup > AutoAccounting > Assign
• Query up function ‘Revenue and Invoice Accounts’
• Define Segment Rule Pairings for the Unbilled Retention Account
• Define Segment Rule Pairings for the Rounding Account
• Make sure to enable the Function Transactions!

Again, you need to do this even if you do not intend to enable retention and multi-currency billing in your Implementation Options.

Sales Credit Type Rejection

You might get a ‘No sales credit type at Implementation or Projec Level’ rejection when running the PRC: Interface Invoices to Receivables program (PATTAR).

In order to resolve this error as Projects Billing Super User:

• Navigate to Implementation Options
• Select ‘Exchange Rate Type’ in the Currency tab
• Select ‘Sales Credit Type’ in the Billing tab

Transaction Source and Transaction Type Errors

The seeded Project Transaction Source and Project Transaction Types might be incomplete. Make sure to review and update these for your setting you defined in the Implementation Options > Billing tab. The source It is going to be ‘PROJECTS INVOICES’ (if new 11i or R12 implementation, or ‘PA INVOICES’ if upgraded from 10.7) and Transaction Types are going to be ‘Projects Invoice’ and ‘Projects Credit Memo’ (11i and beyond) or ‘PA Invoice’ and ‘PA Credit Memo’ (10.7) respectively.

As Receivables Manager:

• Navigate to Transaction Sources: Setup > Transactions > Sources
• Query up your Transactions Source you defined in the Implementation Options > Billing tab
• Make sure the Reference Field Default Value field = ‘interface_header_attribute1′
• Make sure the Standard Transaction Type = ‘Projects Invoice’
• Make sure the Credit Meno Batch Source = ‘PROJECTS INVOICES’
• Also navigate to Transaction Types: Setup > Transactions > Types
• Query up ‘Projects Invoice’ transaction type
• Make sure the Credit memo Type = ‘Projects Credit Memo’

How to Create Custom WebADI Integrators

November 11, 2008 on 10:40 pm | by Marian Crkon | In How To Guides | 15 Comments |  Print |  Email

Web Applications Desktop Integrator (Web ADI) is a self-service Oracle application, accessed using a browser. Unlike ADI, the  Web ADI software is not installed on individual client machines, as the processing takes place on the server rather than on individual client PCs.

Web ADI generates Microsoft Excel or Word documents on your desktop, and downloads the data you have selected from the application. You can modify the data in the Microsoft Excel or Word documents, working either online or offline, and upload the data using Web ADI. In addition to the Web ADI integrators supplied with Oracle Applications, you can create your own integrators to allow download and upload data from Oracle windows or direct from Web ADI.

Except for HRMS, it seems to me that other Oracle Development teams have not utilized Web ADI to its full potential.  There were some discussions in forums and Oracle blogs on whether this approach is even needed. I feel like every available interface and API that let you integrate with legacy or 3rd party applications should come with a standard Web ADI integrator.

Creating Custom Integrators

Thanks to the HRMS Web ADI, you can define your own custom HRMS and non-HRMS integrators and in a combination with the seeded Oracle APIs and interfaces, implement elegant solutions for downloading or uploading data. Examples for frequently used custom integrators include upload of employees, users, POs and requisitions, AP invoices, project events, AR transactions, etc.

Creating custom integrators is done by a system administrator. Let’s define an integrator to create employees to explain how to create custom integrators. Employees and employee assignments can be created using the standard HR_EMPLOYEE_API. Our custom integrator will upload data to this API.

Grant Access to Required Functions

As System Administrator, navigate to Application > Menu, and query up ‘Desktop Integration Menu’. Make sure to include functions required for respective integrators. In case of custom Create Employee integrator, you’ll need to include the following functions (no prompts are necessary):

• HR Integrator Setup Integrator
• HR Maintain Integrator Form Functions Integrator

Create ‘HR Integrator Setup’ Web ADI Document

• Log in as Desktop Integration responsibility. Select Create Document from the menu. The Settings page of the Web ADI wizard appears.
• In the Settings page, select a spreadsheet viewer in the Viewer field. Keep the Reporting check box unchecked, as this integrator is used to upload data to the database.
• In the Integrator page, select the seeded integrator “HR Integrator Setup”.
• In the Layout page, select the default layout “HR Integrator Setup”.
• In the Content page, select None.
• In the Review page, you can see full details of the document that will be created. Choose the Back button if you want to change any of the information, or choose the Create Document button to continue.
• A spreadsheet document is created, containing all the fields you need to enter to create your own integrator.

• Define all fields to create your Create Employee integrator and upload it to the database.

Controlling Access to Custom Integrators

Custom integrators, like predefined integrators, must be associated with form functions. Follow the steps below to associate your Create Employee integrator with the functions required to define Web ADI layout and Web ADI document.

• Select Create Document from the Web ADI menu.
• Select a spreadsheet viewer. Leave the Reporting check box unselected to download data for updating.
• Select HR Maintain Integrator Form Functions Integrator.
• Enter the Application Short Name (for example, your custom application name). Optionally, enter the integrator name.
• The displayed spreadsheet shows your selected custom integrators, and has a column for associating form functions. Enter the form function required for controlling access to the integrator.
• Upload your changes to the database.

Define Layout of Custom Integrator

Each integrator must have at least one layout specifying the columns to appear in the spreadsheet. To define a layout:

• Choose Define Layout from the Web ADI menu. The Layout page appears.
• Select the integrator for which you want to define the layout, and choose Go.
• Choose the Define Layout button to define a new layout.
• In the Define Layout page, enter a unique name for the layout. This appears whenever the user is required to select the layout, so should clearly indicate the purpose of the layout.
• Enter a unique key. The key is used internally by the system to identify the mapping.
• The Field List defaults to the complete list of columns available in the view or API.
• Choose Continue. In case of Create Employee integrator, the layout is based on the the HR_EMPLOYEE_API columns. In the next page, you select a subset of these fields to include in your layout.

Create ‘Create Employee’ Spreadsheet

And finally, using the custom integrator and layout defined above, create a new ‘Create Employee’ WebADI upload spreadsheet:

• From the Navigator window (Oracle Personal Home Page), click on ‘Desktop Integration’ responsibility. The Settings page of the Web ADI wizard appears.
• In the Settings page, select a spreadsheet viewer in the Viewer field. Keep the Reporting check box unchecked, as this integrator is used to upload data to the database.
• In the Integrator page, select your new integrator ‘Create Employee’.
• In the Layout page, select the default layout “Create Employee”.
• In the Content page, select None.
• In the Review page, you can see full details of the document that will be created. Choose the Back button if you want to change any of the information, or choose the Create Document button to continue.

• A spreadsheet document is created and ready to use for creating employees.
• Save a local copy to your PC.

Application Blogs I Read and Why You Should Too

November 10, 2008 on 10:40 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Worth Noting | 19 Comments |  Print |  Email

Here is an updated compilation of application-related blogs I read and know about at this point.

AppsBI : Applications Business Intelligence By Nilesh Jethwa. Nilesh has worked on various reporting, Data warehousing, Daily Business Intelligence, Discoverer and Enterprise Planning and Budgeting projects and wants to share and write about different BI tools and techniques. He enjoys his job and starting this blog adds a new adventure to his life and career.

Big4Guy

Big4Guy is an online resource by an anonymous author with the latest news, insights, knowledge and experiences as a Big 4 consultant. He discusses some of the important issues which organizations are facing today in the areas of information security, security and controls in SAP R/3, Oracle Applications, J.D.Edwards, Peoplesoft and various other ERP’s. He also provides valuable resources for individuals interested in the CISA, CISM, CISSP, and various other security certifications considered essential for entry in any Big 4 accounting, auditing and consulting firms.

BlogERP: HCM Software Blog

By James Holincheck. James is a Research Vice President in Gartner Research where he covers the human capital management software market.

Deal Architect

By Vinnie Mirchandani. Vinnie is a former technology industry analyst (with Gartner), outsourcing executive and entrepreneur. He has personally helped clients evaluate and negotiate technology contracts worth billions of dollars, and has consistently advised companies on IT risk management, globalization and sourcing issues. A MUST READ!

ERP Software Blog

By another anonymous author. There are several good links and articles to ERP-related stories.

Grey Sparling PeopleSoft Expert’s Corner

By a group of authors at Grey Sparling Solutions. This is a company website turned into a blog with plentiful resources of information for Peoplesoft and Oracle users and buyers. These guys don’t know it but they were a great inspiration and influence on creating this blog. They do not play the usual blogging game with links and tags to improve their Technorati ranking. Instead, they focus on creating an original, expert content useful to their audience.

FIN-SIG Blog

The OAUG Financial Services Industry Special Industry Group (FIN-SIG) is affiliated to the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG). The FIN-SIG shall fill a gap for a common forum and support/ resource base for all new and existing Oracle Applications users who operate in the space commonly called Financial Services Industry and also users who have interest in the specific packaged application software provided by Oracle Corporation to meet specific business needs of the Financial Services Industry.

Learn DIscoverer Blog

By Darlene and Michael Armstrong-Smith. They are the authors of the Oracle Discoverer 10g Handbook. Their company Armstrong-Smith Consulting specilaizes in everything Oracle Discoverer.

Learning ERP Systems

Discussion of challenges, ideas, and suggestions for improving ERP application training in the corporate workplace.

Learning of an Oracle Apps Consultant

By Krishanu Bose. Krishanu covers Oracle Apps consulting services situation and provides an inside view of Oracle Apps outsource services in India.

Mark Rittman’s Oracle Weblog

Not really an application blog, but one of the original Oracle blogs out there and an excellent production by Mark Rittman. Personally, this is to me a never-ending source of inspiration for how a corporate blog should be done. Read more about Mark and his blog in this story.

Oracle AppsLab

By Paul Pedrazzi, Jake Kuramoto, and Rich Manalang. In their own words, “Oracle AppsLab is a think-tank developed to drive adoption of new web patterns and technologies across Oracle’s business and products. We’re a small group dedicated to living and breathing Web 2.0. This blog is our space for sharing our ideas.”

OracleAppsBlog

By Richard Byrom and a group of authors. OracleAppsBlog is THE ORIGINAL Oracle application blog. If you search the web for anything related to Oracle Applications, the chances are you end up at OracleAppsBlog – a rich resource of Oracle-related links and information. Read 10 questions for Richard to find out more information about him and his blog.

Oracle Apps Confessions

By Jo Davis, Oracle eBusiness Suite functional consultant. A compilation of quick tips and tricks for Oracle Applications users.

Oracle Apps Epicentrum

Sanjit Anand shares his implementation knowledge and experiences.

Oracle Business Intelligence Blog

By Abhinav Agarwal and Keith Laker. This is a blog for all things Oracle Business Intelligence. Includes musings and postings on Oracle Discoverer, OLAP, and other Oracle BI products, technologies and tools. Way to go guys! Personally, BI is as technical as I ever want to get with Oracle Applications.

Oracle Contractors Network Blog

Oracle eBusiness Suite resources, ideas, white papers, advice and tips from a number of Oracle consultants.

Oracle E-Business Suite Technology

By Steven Chan. An excellent Oracle insider’s take on technology stack-related topics for the Oracle E-Business Suite, with sneak previews of upcoming releases, new product announcements, glimpses into the inner workings of Oracle Development, in-depth discussions of technology-stack architectures, and the occasional desupport notice. Read more about the man behind this blog in my interview with Steven. A MUST READ for Oracle Applications DBAs, system administrators, and other Oracle professionals.

Oracle eBusiness Suite Blog

By Ahmad Bilal Karachi. Ahmad is currently working as a Techno-functional Consultant, has more then 5 years experience of oracle applications in different areas.

Oracle Financials Strategy

The blog where we talk about what’s on our minds as individual strategists and as a team. It’s where we share articles, ideas and opinions that are relevant to our work here at Oracle. However, we reserve the right to veer off topic occasionally. It wouldn’t be a blog without that – would it?

Oracle iRecruitment Blog

By Martin Millmore, a Director of iRecruitment Development at Oracle.

Oracle Intercompany Blog

By David Haimes. The primary focus of this blog is Intercompany and Oracle Financials. David is a 10 year Veteran of Oracle Financials Development. David is interested in technology both inside and outside of Oracle and is always thinking of how I can incorporate new ideas, technologies, methodologies or innovations into my work here at Oracle. David’s current role is looking after the Intercompany and Legal Entity products in Oracle Financials, he has also worked on EMEA Globalizations, Federal and Public Sector Financials, XML Payments and a variety of projects on other products.

Oracle Support Blog

By Chris Warticki. This site is Oracle Support. Chris has been working for Oracle Support for over 8 years. His team helps Oracle customers, offers free information and training sessions on a variety of Support related topics. Take advantage of his team’s experience and knowledge about our Support processes, policies, tools, tips, and tricks.

ORCLville

By Floyd Teter. Floyd is the System Engineer for Institutional Business Systems at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. Floyd has been working with Oracle products since 1990 and Oracle applications since 1997, and even spent a few years as a Managing Principal with Oracle Consulting during the dot-com boom.

Parallax: Calculating Technology’s Future

By Neil Robertson, a CTO at Newmerix and a talented writer who became famous in the enterprise bloggosphere for his original analysis of Oracle Fusion in I Pity the Fool. Neil is also very active in establishing the Web 2.0 tools in the enterprise.

PeopleSoft Corner

By Brent Martin. Ideas, Tips, Techniques and information sharing for Oracle and PeopleSoft Enterprise.

Project Directions

Produced by an anonymous project strategy manager at Oracle working with the Oracle Projects application. According to his own profile, the author’s focus is on our Project Management and Project Collaboration but he hopes that this blog will encompass some of other [Oracle] modules with the use of guest bloggers, i.e. his colleagues who manage those modules.The author is also interested in how software can help project managers and teams be more successful especially given the proliferation of collaborative tools that we see now.

Project Lifestyle

By Andrew Sparks. Andrew is a Senior Practice Director at Oracle EMEA. He runs the EMEA International Projects practice. This organization is an international team of specialist consultants based throughout the EMEA region. The team acts as a single point of contact for delivering and remediating complex or multinational applications programs in the EMEA region.

Project Partners

This is FINALLY a company blog by two authors from Project Partners – Bob Anderson and Neeraj Garg. Project Partners regularly publish great white papers and newsletters for Oracle customers in the project-centric industries. The blogs are an excellent complement to this already fantastic resource.

Software Safari

By Brian Sommer. A “premium blog” by an experienced technology industry analyst.

Solution Beacon

Advise and opinions from employees of Solution Beacon, LLC, a provider of expert-level resources for the most widely used Enterprise Management Systems and Technologies.

Systematic HR

Systematic HR is a human resources blog about the intersection between HR process and HR technology. You can read about how HRMS systems, point solutions such as TAS, TMS, portals, etc, can be utilized to maximize your employee experience and enhance the strategic capabilities of your organization as well as the concerns of the day such as employee engagement, project management, and cost parameters to your strategies.

TalentedApps

Talented Apps is written by a group of Development and Strategy individuals within the Oracle Fusion HCM team. Their focus is on the industry and future of Talent Management…

Triora Group

This company blog is a way to “give back to the Oracle community”. You will find a growing amount of practical information you can use to improve your environment. Triora Group focus primarily on Oracle E-Business Suite 11i and 12, the Fusion Middleware and of course Oracle Database 10g/11g.

Yak About Apps

By Linda Fishman Hoyle, a a Senior Director for Cross Applications Marketing at Oracle and the Editor-in-Chief of a Podcast series called AppCasts. Linda has more than 20 years of experience with Enterprise Software and Services – marketing, strategy and business development. In Linda’s own words, “you want to read her blog if you are interested in the latest and greatest Oracle Application stuff!”

Usable Apps

Blog posts by some of the [User Experience] staff at Oracle. The posts vary in their scope and material, but they will give you a glimpse into what they think about new and emerging concepts that relate to enterprise applications.

Last, I would also like to mention blogs by Oracle Applications executives Jesper Andersen, Jim McGlothlin, and Luke Kowalski [see an interview with Luke]. We all appreciate their intention and effort to share their views and opinions.

Let Contractors Buy!

November 10, 2008 on 8:23 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Feature of the Week | 1 Comment |  Print |  Email

This feature of the week is for anyone using Oracle HRMS and Purchasing 11.5.10. When the contingent worker functionality was rolled out to Oracle Financials in this release, (see the original story from February 2006), the contractors could charge their time and expenses to projects, and have their costs calculated based on their time or purchase orders, and few other things.

Few months ago our implementation team at a local hospital in Seattle was surprised to find out that contingent workers were not allowed to enter or approve purchasing documents. Since a major part of the company’s supply chain was outsourced to 3rd party vendors, this was a major problem. It seems that other companies face the same problem, as documented in the bug 4534789 on Metalink. The business need can be summarized as follows:

“…Contingent workers who are allowed (in both business terms and in Oracle functionality) to have employees report to them and who can be entered into the requisition hierarchy do not have the ability to enter requisitions or approve their employee’s requisitions. This requires someone else to do that for them and that individual may not have the knowledge of whether the purchase is allowable or acceptable, creating delays and inappropriate approvals in the requisitioning process…”

Few Questions for Oracle Development:

• Can contingent workers buy in Release 12?
• Is this functionality going to be back ported to Release 11i?

If anyone has more information on the subject, I invite you to share it as comments on this post. Thank you!

Conversation with the Team from PPM Energy

March 6, 2008 on 9:40 am | by Marian Crkon | In Conversations | 2 Comments |  Print |  Email

Last fall, I had an opportunity to spend some time in beautiful Portland, OR, assisting a talented group at PPM Energy with their calendar changes in Oracle Applications. PPM energy builds and manages wind turbines and sells alternative energy. I invited two of their key Oracle users – Lori Thibodeaux, a financial systems manager, and Kevin Kosub, a senior business systems analyst, to a have conversation about their lives with Oracle. Read on for few excerpts below.

Marian: Let me start by asking what Oracle products/applications does PPME currently use?

Lori: We use the full Financials suite, including iExpense and iProcurement, Inventory, Enterprise Asset Mgt (EAM), Project Costing and HR. We are also using Discoverer for adhoc reporting.

Were you involved in picking Oracle EBS? Why was Oracle chosen over other ERP solutions?

I came on board after the selection of Oracle was done. However, I do know it was picked over other solutions because of the ease of implementation. We implemented Oracle in about six months.

How would you describe the original implementation? What were your main lessons learned?

I would describe the implementation as fast and “vanilla”! We did not have time for any customizations. The lessons learned were we wish we had a better grip on our business processes before configuring the system. We have made quite a few changes and enhancements to configuration post implementation.

Did you take the same approach to all applications? Were some applications or processes easier to implement than others?

Project Costing was the hardest to implement.

You did not have to think too long about that one…

Mostly because of all the set up decisions that need to be made.

If you had three recommendations for other people implementing Oracle EBS, what would they be?

Make sure you have a good executive sponsor for the project. One who has the authority to set down expectations and resolve disputes.

Make sure the business users are invested and integrated into the project. If their days jobs can be backfilled, even better.

Get a good consulting partner with expertise across the Oracle apps. It is best to have people who understand the processes from cradle to grave and how they flow through Oracle.

Speaking about users, how did they accept the new system and the change in general?

In our case they didn’t have a choice. Our parent company sold off the division that hosted the applications we were using.

Kevin: Users were learning the business processes as well as the system.

The EBS applications are sometimes criticized for being overly complex and not very intuitive. How did you make sure people learned the new tools quickly?

Lots of training and as much documentation as we could put together in the short time we had.

We had some cases where we didn’t have enough business insight to our new processes to drive the configuration appropriately upon initial set up. Later once the insights were gained we had to make tweaks to configuration, which were easy in some instances and painful in others.

Which processes or functions posed the biggest challenges?

We are still suffering from the lack of user training, especially in Projects and procurement. Projects has been problematic because we do not have a [ready process in place] real system savvy super user.

Procurement has been problematic because of some bad configuration decisions at the time of implementation. We were initially set up to accrue upon receipt for expense items – a bad decision!!! This has created a reconciliation nightmare! We changed over to accrue at month end about a year ago.

Additionally we had users who were wearing two hats for configuration responsibilities, as well as performing normal operations.

One pain point I have is the procurement hierarchy maintenance. Our hierarchy is based on HR Positions. Unfortunately, it is policy in our HR to change positions fairly frequently. When they do this, the old position stays in the hierarchy without a person attached. I have to go re-add the new position to the hierarchy to fix it.
I have been told, and I believe it, this issue has been addressed in R12.

Kevin, I know you have some experience with SAP too. How would you compare it to Oracle?

There are both positives and negatives with both of those ERP systems. All of the SAP environments I was a part of were heavily customized. There were a lot of changes to custom development and SAP had sophisticated tools for migration between development environments. SAP seemed to have better out of the box reporting capabilities as well.

On the other hand, SAP can be overly engineered and be difficult to configure.
Oracle is relatively simple with the user interface and out of the box configuration, which is a positive for a mid-size company Security administration is also much simpler in Oracle.

Are you planning to stay on 11i, upgrade to R12, or wait for Fusion?

I like some of the changes I see in R12, like the SLA engine. Not having to log into each operating unit separately is very nice! I also like that they are getting rid of the client version of ADI. It is high maintenance! I also like the look and feel of R12.

I would like to start planning for an upgrade to R12. However, our new parent company is running SAP. We may be forced onto SAP in the next couple of years. Fusion is probably not in the picture for us. From what I have seen, Fusion isn’t a viable option for anyone in the near future. I think it is years away.

I see a lot of positive changes with R12. It would nice to simplify our sub-ledger configuration and maintenance as well as enhance some reporting capabilities.

Are you referring to BI Publisher? Or reporting in general?

We are currently using XML Publisher for report output. I look forward to expanding our use of this tool.

Well that is an option but a lot of existing DBI-like dashboards are standard with R12. We are also considering other tools like Noetix to supplement our reporting options.

Let’s switch gears just a little. I know you are very active participants in the local OAUG activities. What can we do better as a user community?

I try to go to activities as they seem appropriate. I like the NWOUG conferences. It is a good networking event.

I am relatively new to the OAUG. From what I have seen, it is a positive experience

What Oracle resources (Metalink, oracle.com, podcasts, conferences, etc.) best provide you with the information you need?

Metalink is a good resource, however, the search capabilities could be improved.

Metalink is a staple. It takes some time to figure out how to maneuver through all the info out there. [Our colleague] Keith has had 10 years of experience with it, so he is pretty good at finding things.

Sometimes I spend more time searching than reading relevant information on my issue.

I am still learning. As a manager in my previous jobs, I didn’t search Metalink very much. Now I need to and I find it a little challenging to get to the right information. I have used Google as a search tool and sometimes have better luck there.

Oracle University classes are also a good resource for learning new products.

Oracle.com is a sales site. I don’t go there for hard information. I haven’t ever used podcasts. I went to Oracle World last November. In my opinion it was way too big. I ended up networking only with people from Portland, which I didn’t have to travel [to San Francisco] to do.

Yes, I agree. Oracle University’s training is very good! We have had trainers come up to Portland to put on classes just for PPM employees. This worked out very well!

Thank you so much for your time and opinions! This was fun!

Thanks.

Thank you, bye!

Changes to Web ADI Documents in R12

February 13, 2008 on 8:35 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Feature of the Week | 2 Comments |  Print |  Email

This feature is for everyone who is trying to create Web ADI documents in Release 12. The documents in R12 are cleaner, more user-friendly and intuitive; they are easier to create and update. Finding them, however, might be a challenge.

The main difference between R11 and 11i was introduction of function security. You either need to figure out which module-specific responsibilities include the Web ADI integrators you want to use, or you need to find out which integrators (functions) need to be associated with the new Desktop Integrator responsibility. Either way, this is not well documented in the Oracle Web ADI User Guide R12; and you have to figure it out by reading product-specific user guides. It took us a couple of hours to find the right Metalink note (472160.1), in which these changes were described…

The Feature

In R12, the existing responsibility Oracle Web ADI is obsolete! The Create Document function does not work and integrators are missing.

The Solution

Add a new responsibility Desktop Integrator. The Create Document function under this responsibility should work for a handful of seeded integrators. You will need to research the user guides to find out how to include additional integrators.

The seeded integrators included in the new Desktop Integrator responsibility:

• Enterprise Performance Foundation: Hierarchy Integrator
• Enterprise Performance Foundation: Member Integrator
• Financial Consolidation Hub: Intercompany maps
• Financial Consolidation Hub: Dimension Hierarchies
• Financial Consolidation Hub: Value Set Mapping
• General Ledger – Budgets
• General Ledger – Journals
• Intercompany – Single Batch Entry

To include additional integrators, you need to include additional menu functions in the menu assigned to your Desktop Integrator responsibility. Navigate to System Administrator > Application > Menu, and include the following sub-menus in your menu (Desktop Integration Menu if you use Desktop Integrator responsibility. Here are few examples of Projects Integrators:

• For Project Budgets and Forecasts, include Financials: Project: Budgets and Forecasts function. This is documented in Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
• For Project Expenditures (Transaction Import), include Expenditure Entry Using Microsoft Excel menu. The seeded integrators are also available in the Project Super User responsibility and documented in the Oracle Project Costing User Guide.

I find Oracle’s approach to document setup steps in multiple user guides and make them accessible in multiple responsibilities troubling. It makes implementation workflow very confusing. Along with Web ADI, other examples of this approach include iExpenses, Project Management, Resource Management, or iProcurement…

Interview with Randy Egger, the Father of Oracle Projects

February 4, 2008 on 2:06 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Conversations | 2 Comments |  Print |  Email

Let me introduce Mr. Randy Egger, one of the original creators of Oracle Projects, and the president and CEO of Projects Partners. We spoke over the phone about his company and its role in the Oracle ecosystem. Below are few excerpts from our conversation.

How did you end up an Oracle professional?

Back in the early 80′s, I was involved with the selection of a relational database that my firm could use in conjunction with application development. We selected Oracle and at that time the RDMBs level was at V3. I had studied and taken classes from CJ Date and Ted Cod.

When you were used to coding in assembly language using a b-tree structure for data management, Oracle was a godsend! I joined Oracle in 1986 (employee number 2048!), and was part of the 50 person professional services group. After one year of that, I ran the IT group for Sales when it turned a billion dollars, and then ultimately landed in Application Development where I spearheaded Project Accounting [now Oracle Projects] development.

Ten and a half years ago, I started Project Partners where we specialize in the implementation of Oracle Projects as well as provide supplemental products to expand its usage.

What are your current role and responsibilities?

I am a president and CEO of Project Partners LLC.

Do you get to do a lot of selling?

I am involved in ALL areas of the business.

Tell us about the beginnings of Project Partners. When did you know the firm “has made it”?

I started the firm out of my house 10+ years ago. Since I was the Product Director for Oracle Projects, I knew that the marketplace needed quality consulting services for Project centric firms. I also knew that Oracle Projects could use some extra features that would facilitate its usage. Knowing that EVERY company is a project company, and most companies just didn’t know it yet, motivated me into this market. I never ponder on whether this company ‘has made it’ or not.

So it is journey, not a destination.

Exactly. We simply put our best foot forward and work very hard at making companies successful with their usage of Oracle Projects. Success breeds success. We now have worked with close to 300 clients and the list is growing very rapidly. We work with about an average of 30-40 clients at any point in time. We have a wealth of information at our disposal.

I assume you speak with many Oracle customers. What do you see as their main concerns and needs these days?

A lot of companies are adopting a Project Management approach to running projects but have little practical experience with the discipline. We are helping companies to formally become project-centric, i.e. help with establishing a PMO office, processes, etc.

Another big concern surrounds usability. Oracle Projects is VERY feature rich and most business problems faced by project centric firms can be solved using the software. The problem is simply with the amount of steps, screens, and processes it takes to accomplish a specific business need. We are trying to help people to simplify the product to fit their business needs. It is about taking a complex product with many features and making it easy to use.

User experience is an issue with Oracle applications. Specific industries have specific terminology and processes. Software built around specific industries were successful and well adopted by the users.

I also believe, from a user experience perspective, it hurt Oracle to be anti-Microsoft back in the 90s.

Yes, if Microsoft did something, Oracle had to do the opposite.

And companies that adopted Microsoft standards became standards; like SAP for instance. The [Oracle] applications look and feel different and it takes time for new and old users to use them properly.

But it changed with the acquisitions. They made Oracle much better in the application space….

What kind of products and services does Project Partners offer? What distinguishes you from other consulting firms?

We offer EXPERT Oracle Projects consultants that have lots of industry experience. Since our company focus is in Projects, we work collaboratively to insure that all of our clients can benefit from our collective knowledge. We are NOT a body shop … the company cares about the success of our Oracle Projects implementations. Ninety nine percent of our clients can be referenced.

We also develop products that help serve the Oracle Projects community. We current have 4 products that satisfy Projects needs:

• OP3 – Integration with Primavera Project Schedules
• PIC Reporting – A comprehensive Project based reporting tool
• PIC Invoicing – Simplifies invoice formats as well as Invoice Consolidation
• PIC UI – A simplified user interface to Oracle Projects and other modules using spreadsheets

A lot of people still do not understand the integration between Oracle Projects and Primavera. They think they can do it themselves then find it more complex than it seems. We put a lot of time and effort into the integration. And we are doing a lot of work getting ready for the next generation Oracle Applications.

PIC Reporting and Invoicing are our best known secrets.

People assume it is in the core product.

When people buy Oracle E-Business Suite applications, they get an almost complete solution. Partner solutions are acquired by clients once they know enough about the core products to identify those areas in which gaps remain between their business needs and the core software. The Oracle ecosystem is a healthy one, in which Oracle delivers more than 80% of the fit, and partners deliver the rest.

PIC User Interface is our new product that will be formally launched later this year. We are taking Microsoft Excel and integrating it with Oracle [Project Management and Resource Management]. There will be workbooks working two-way between Excel and Oracle forms. Using PIC User Interface we consolidated 12 Oracle screens into one. This will revolutionalize the industry. We are getting some tremendous feedback. We have focused on two industries so far – Professional Services organizations and Engineering and Construction…

As an Oracle partner, you are filling gaps in Oracle’s product offering. Let’s take PIC with its reporting and invoicing enhancements, for example. Why is it that Oracle can’t deliver this fundamental functionality in its core products?

I believe that a lot the issues will be resolved within Fusion. Oracle Projects is a VERY complex application that crosses many industries. A project (or job) is a cultural thing to many companies. Project Managers have their own way of managing a project, and in this, they closely mirror artists. It is that creative power that can make or break a project (or project manager). You need tools that can help this process. You can have many many different types of projects within one organization and yet another set of project types in another organization within the same company. This is a tough problem to solve when you want one consolidated view that shows the health of a company that is made up of projects.

Which Oracle releases are your products currently compatible with?

We are compatible with most releases, specifically 11, 11i, 12.

How are you getting ready for Fusion?

We are currently studying the underlying technology. Our next generation Project Management integration software will be based on Fusion technology.

What is the best way for users to become familiar with your products?

By going to our website, attending the Oracle OpenWorld and OAUG COLLABORATE conferences, and requesting real-time demos. We also plan to offer webinars.

I guess that’s one of the reasons we are talking today.

Absolutely.

What do people not know about Projects Partners but should?

We operate globally; we now have operations in India and plan to expand into the Middle East and Europe. We have experts in technology as well as the complex FP-M data model. Our core competency is ORACLE PROJECTS (both functionally and technically). We manage full eBusiness Suite implementations for project centric companies. We handle small, medium, and large implementations.

Our best known secrets are probably PIC Invoicing and PIC UI. We believe that PIC UI will make Oracle Projects implementations VERY successful, especially for those companies that are trying to “field enable” Projects.

A couple of your associates recently started a company blog. Why?

Blogs will serve as an easier way of getting informal information out to our user base faster. It is a part of our knowledge transfer. One of our goals is to educate current and potential users on the benefits and the best ways to use the Oracle Projects products. Everything we do is geared towards this goal – including the Blog, access to our experts for quick questions, meeting with people formally and informally at conferences, etc… It’s this desire to share our knowledge that led us to sponsor the Center for Projects Excellence at the OAUG annual conferences. We staff the conference booth with our very experienced consultants, so that customers can come by and ask us their toughest questions, and get answers at no cost. We enjoy the open question and answer exchange – it’s one of the ways we prove that we are indeed The Experts in Oracle Projects!

When Oracle Asset Security by Book Doesn’t Work

January 23, 2008 on 9:00 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Feature of the Week | 6 Comments |  Print |  Email

This feature of the week is for those who operate in a multi-org environment with multiple Asset Books. Unlike other Oracle Financials modules (Payables, Receivables, Purchasing, Order Management or Projects), Oracle Assets is not operating unit specific. The way you separate your transactions is by defining the Asset Security by Book.

Summary of Setup Steps

Step 1: Define Asset Organizations.

As Fixed Assets Manager:

• Navigate to Setup > Security > Organization > Description.
• Query up the organization, for which you want to define the Asset Security. Typically, this could be your operating unit.
• Include classification ‘Asset Organization. Click ‘Other’.
• Associate the organization with the asset book. Now, this step is very peculiar. You want to find an existing asset book. But! If you ran an open query, you’d get all books, which were already associated with this organization. And if you were assigning the first book to this organization, you’d retrieve nothing.
• What you must do is submit a specific query, i.e. run it as View > Query by example > Enter, and enter the book name.
• Then you have to make a change, any change like changing the book description, in order to be able to save it. This is not a bug, it’s a feature! So be aware of it.
• Save you changes. Now your book is associated with the asset organization.

Step 2: Define Asset Security Profile

As Fixed Assets Manager:

• Navigate to Setup > Security > Security
• Define a profile, which you will later assign with user responsibilitities. The profile links together the asset book, asset organization and responsibility.
• Select Organization Hierarchy and Top Organization in it to be valid in this profile, or
• Include specific organizations, which will be valid in the profile.

Step 3: Assign FA Security Profiles

As System Administrator:

• Navigate to Profile > System.
• Enter the asset responsibility you want to assign to a specific asset book (FA security profile).
• Enter ‘FA Security Profile’ as profile.
• Enter ‘Your Asset Profile Name’ in the profile value.

Step 4: Validate Your Asset Security Setup

Log in with the responsibility, for which you just defined the Asset Security above. Navigate to Asset Workbench and select the book values. If you see more than the one book you expected, something is not right.>

When Asset Security Doesn’t Work

• Check the Organization and Organization Hierarchy Setup. The Security by Book feature enables you to designate an organizational hierarchy in which the assets of an organization can only be seen by either the organization or its parent.You may set up a number of organizations and include as many of them as you wish in the hierarchy. Make sure that your hierarchy is set up as you expect.
• Run the Security List Maintenance program. This program populates the LOV’s with the appropriate information. If you miss this important step, your LOV’s will not show the correct books that are available for each organization to access.
• Define Asset Security for all books. You will always see asset books, which are not associated with any security profile. If there is a book that already exists on the system and you have not assigned that book to a particular organization, all organizations will be able to see the book and its assets.

For more information, refer to the Oracle Assets User Guide, or this [old but good] white paper on the subject (Oracle Metalink sign-on required).