List of Oracle E-Business Suite's Business Service interfaces

Recently i came acrosss a very good site that provides a complete list of Oracle E-Business Suite's Business Service interfaces. This site provides the standard APIs for all the Apps modules like Payables, Receivables, GL, iExpense, HR Suite, Projects Suite, Property Manager, SCM, Advanced Planning, etc.

http://irep11i10.oracle.com

Exploring Oracle Self Billing (Payment on Receipt)

Last couple of weeks (and also weekends) have been quite hectic for me. Seems i have been clocking over 12 hrs a day, whew!!... Luckily, i have being doing some good work apart from the usual routine. One of them is testing the Oracle's Self Billing for our project. Self Billing is also known as Evaluated Receipt Settlement (ERS) or Payment on Receipt.

When Self Billing is enabled for a particular Supplier Site, standard invoices get created automatically for payment whenever the goods are received. One can automatically create invoices with multiple items and distribution lines that includes tax. We can select Payment method, "Pay On"as follows:
'Receipt'- used for material that is not consigned.
'Receipt and Use'- for material that can be either consigned or non-consigned material.
'Use'- employed for consigned material.One can assign 'Alternate Pay Site' in case we need to pay in that site an not the default supplier site. The supplier site is the default pay site. Invoices can be summarised based on the selection made in 'Invoice Summary Level'. Invoice summary level can be at:'Pay Site' - one invoice is created per supplier pay site.'Packing Slip' - one invoice is created per packing slip per supplier pay site.'Receipt' - one invoice is created per receipt per supplier pay site.
Also, enable the 'Create Debit Memo From RTS Transaction' option if you want the system to automatically create a debit memo in Payables when you enter a Return To Supplier (RTS) in Purchasing. The value for supplier defaults from the Purchasing Options window.

However, the invoice summary levels are dependent on the 'Pay On' method selected earlier. If 'Receipt and Use' has been selected, the invoice summary level available is 'Pay Site'. If 'Use' has been selected, the invoice summary level options are 'Packing Slip', and 'Pay Site'.The Invoice number that gets created is of the format "ERS-X-Seq#", where "ERS" defaults from the Profile Options "PO: ERS Invoice Number Prefix" which is by default set as "ERS" at Site level. X depends on the summary level:- if summary level = Pay Site then X = Invoice Date- if summary level = Packing Slip then X = Packing Slip Number- if summary level = Receipt then X = Receipt NumberAnd, Seq# is a unique system generated number.

Once Receiving is done, Run the Program 'Pay On Receipt AutoInvoice' individually or schedule it to run at discrete intervals.
(1) Choose Transaction Source as 'ERS'.
(2) Enter a Commit Interval. The Commit Interval is a numeric representation of the number of invoices evaluated before they are committed. For example, if you have a Commit Interval of 10, after 10 invoices have been processed, they are committed. If you then process another 5, and the process fails, only 5 will not be committed.
(3) Optionally enter a Receipt Number.
Note: If the Receipt Number is null, the program will try to process all the receipts that have not been invoiced successfully. If you enter a Receipt Number, only that receipt will be processed.
(4) Optionally enter an Aging Period.The Aging Period defaults from the PO: ERS Aging Period profile option, but you can change it here. For example, an Aging Period of 2 means that Payment on Receipt processes only those receipts that are 2 or more days old.
(5) Choose OK and then Submit Request to begin the process.
(6) Once the 'Pay On Receipt AutoInvoice' program is submitted the 'Payables Open Interface Import' program also starts running. Ensure that the 'Pay On Receipt AutoInvoice' process and the Payables Open Interface Import process complete successfully. View Output to check the 'Payables Open Interface Audit Report'. Check if there are any invoices rejected in the section 'Payables Open Interface Rejections Report' and accordingly one can go to the Payables Open Interface window and modify the invoice line / distribution and resubmit the Payables Open Interface Import process.

Reference:
(1) Oracle Applications Online Help
(2) Oracle Payables user Guide
(3) Oracle Purchasing user Guide

Sales and After Sales No-Support

As consultants, one thing is drilled into us is not to make false promises or over commit and always support the commitment made to the client. However, this is not something which others, especially most Indian organisations believe in.

Why limit oneself to industry alone, starting from our political leaders, everyone tries their level best to cheat the common man. And, surprisingly we all are so used to such kind of double standards that we consider it as our fate and an acceptable behaviour, and starangely we actually plan our lives taking into account such behaviour. e.g. if i call my local cable operator for some fault i'll assume that the person would not come the same day even if he assures me the same, rather i'll try and keep myself free for next couple of days expecting his gracious visit after a few phone calls are made after the first day..afternoon..and..evening is over. As most Indians like me would have seen that when we go to a shop to purchase some product or a service, the salesman would bend backwards to make the sale. But, when it comes to 'After Sales Support', the same organisation would turn their back to you and the same salesman would look the other way or if you are lucky give you a look "Why is he here to waste my time?".
This made me think, why do most Indian organizations, small or big, behave this way. Is it one our many strange yet true national traditions or a freak exceptional behaviour. After a bit of thinking i could jot down a couple of possible reasons that i feel could justify this behaviour.The following could be some of the reasons that i could think of:

1) This is a soceital problem, we are brought up this way, and we do not provide after sales support and are rude to people who come back to us for support.

2) We usually do not consider the cost of after sales support when we make the sale. So any after sale support actually eats into our margin. So, we discourage or many a time avoid supporting our sales.

3) The sales support team is not trained and equipped well enough to handle customer complaints and requests. You spend quite a lot of energy in explaining the customer support person what went wrong whose IQ level would be slightly higher than a moron (if you are lucky) or maybe between an Idiot and a Moron (now you are doomed, better call later and if you are lucky, a moron would support you, else better option is to repair the fault yourself).

4) When we make a purchase, we do not clarify the SLA's (Service Level Agreements) with the seller. This agreement can be a verbal one, in case there is no written agreement. Though it hardly makes any difference whether the agreement is verbal or written. At least in case of a written agreement you can approach a consumer court in case of breach of agreement, refer my point below on appraching a court. The usual problem is that the seller would have completely different set of standards when it comes to support which is radically different from our understanding of support for the product or service. So always find out the SLA's before making the purchase.

5) The organisations know it very well that rarely an individual would approach the court of law in case they do not get the desired support as promised to them. So, its convenient for the organisation not to provide the support at all. The problem being the sad story of Indian legal system. I do not wish to delve into this matter now, as much has already been written on the sad state of affairs of Indian Legal system (last i heard there were a few millions cases pending before the courts).

6) Sometimes organisations do not spend enough on setting up after sales support infrastructure. Mostly they are user-unfriendly and someimes the infrastructure is way over burdened. How many of us have spent hours listening to Interactive Voice response systems of some of our famous private sector banks or our mobile telecom service providers who do everything other than help you with your query. You start with calling the customer support number which will make you listen to the bank song (my favourite bank of some I's and some C's: the telephone sings a tune "hum hein na"...while i sing "kahan ho tum", roughly translated in English it means "I am here", my response is "Where are you" for quite some time). Post this you will be thankful to listen to some voice like, Press 1 for English, press 2 for Hindi, press 3 for $@#, then you go to another menu which starts all over from 1, then once you press 9 for 'Oh! God, please show mercy on me' you are connected to some live person. Even after you reach the right place after wandering through the etheral world, you will be asked to enter your 16 digit Card number, and if you don't remember it you have to answer the following.

(a) your date of birth

(b) your mother's maiden name,

(c) Last three transactions that you made (unluckily last time i swiped my card i was way too tipsy to remember the exact bill amount, so i had to answer the next question)

(d) your favourite teacher's name (I really love this question). If you have set some other question while filling up the Registration form with the bank some couple of years back, you will be asked the same question. Some of my more forgetful friends had preempted this scenario and luckily have set this question as "India's Independence Day" (if you forget this, someone else in your office would surely be knowing it).

Hope this situation changes within our lifetime else the future generations would also share the same joy of interacting with the customer support that we now currently experience in India.

Wedding Invitation.....

As most of you would agree life is full of surprises. Little did i know that i would fall in love with Ruchira after meeting her once.

Its been barely a few months that i met her at Hyderabad. After a couple of meetings and a few phone calls, we decided to get engaged, planned to marry, and quickly decided on our marriage dates. Seems life moves so slow, especially when it comes to taking such big decisions !!

Now the time has come to invite all our friends for our wedding, which is a traditional Bengali marriage, and is happening in Saharanpur, UP on 29th of Sept. Also, we are holding two reception parties, one on 4th Oct. at Cuttack and the other on 6th Oct at Rourkela, Orissa. So, guys, please try and make it to at least one of these places. Please mail me at the mail id below of your plans, so that i can arrange for stay and give directions to reach the venues of marriage and party.

You can reach me at the mail id: k b o s e 0 2 at i n d i a t i m e s dot c o m

Companies providing Oracle Apps and Oracle BI Consultancy services in India

Many a time, i have been asked by freinds who are seeking a job change, and sometimes by clients enquiring about organizations that provide consultancy service in Oracle Apps and Oracle BI in India. Though there are many small and big organizations working on Oracle Apps, but only a few top software companies provide the complete range of consultancy services in Oracle Apps and Oracle BI.

I shall try and list some of the organizations here (in no particular order) who are into Oracle BI and Apps in a big way, and would welcome readers to share their information regarding other organizations they are aware of who provide Oracle Apps consultancy and i missed out here.

1. Tata Consultancy Services
2. Infosys Technologies
3. Wipro Technologies
4. Satyam Computer Services
5. Accenture
6. IBM
7. Cognizant Technology Solutions
8. Deloitte
9. Oracle Corporation

There are other organizations in India who also provide Oracle Apps and oracle BI services apart from the ones mentioned above, though their scale of operations in India is not as large as the organizations mentioned above. Some of them include, HCL Tecnologies, Sierra Atlantic, Patni Computers, Intelligroup, Polaris Software Lab, Zensar Technologies, GenPact, Birlasoft, Cap Gemini, iGate, etc. Though most of the organizations in India provide basic consultancy services in Oracle Apps, not many of them provide services in Oracle Business Intelligence. Also, some of these organizations predominantly work in some core areas of Oracle Apps like Oracle Process Manufacturing, Oracle CRM, Oracle HCM, Oracle SCM, etc. Many of the MNC's like Deloitte, Cap Gemini, Unisys, Bearing Point are yet to ramp up their India operations upto the levels of TCS, Infosys, Accenture and IBM . In all probability, most of the big MNC's will further consolidate their India operations and outsource substantial part of their development and support work back to India. So, it seems exciting times are ahead of Oracle Apps consultants in India.

Typical Business Requirements while setting up Invoice Approval Workflow

Approving AP Invoices using Oracle Approval Management (OAM) is a fast and easy way of maintaining transparency and accountability in Accounts Payables department. However most of the time OAM setup needs to be modified and workflow customized depending upon the business scenario.

One of the most common business requirement is that organizations do not need approval of invoices that are matched to PO Receipts. Anticipating this request, Oracle has already given this as an Attribute under the Transation Type 'Payables Invoice Approval'. But, apart from this there are several other common requirements which one faces. I have listed down some such requirements. Some of these requirements can be very easily applied using the standard OAM functionalities, while some others require a bit of customization.
Some common requirements include the following:

1)Approver forwarding the invoice to another employee for approval.

2)Approval of an invoice based on criteria like invoice amount, cost centre, account segment, etc.

3)Adding new lines like 'Voucher Number', 'Cost Centre' details, etc., in the approval notification email.

4)Considering scenarios when the Approver is on leave, so that the invoice moves to another person for approval
after some time period.

5)Approver is able to delegate his/her approving right to some other person while going on leave.

6)Control on the email notifications, which tend to fill the mailboxes of approvers.

7)Mixed and Prepayment type of invoices do not require approval.

8)Invoices should go directly to the final approver and not through any hierarchy.

9)Invoice entry clerk should be able to choose the approver from a LOV (list of value). Sometimes the reverse scenario also exists where the Invoice entry clerk should not have a say in selection of Invoice Approver.

It would be great if readers can also add further to the above list so that we can have a comprehensive list of common requirements that come up while setting up Invoice Approval Workflow.

Oracle to Buy Demantra

Oracle yesterday announced that it will expand its supply chain planning applications with the acquisition of Demantra, a leading provider of demand-driven planning solutions. Leveraging powerful analytics and collaboration capabilities, Demantra offers solutions for Demand Management, Real-time Sales and Operations Planning, Retail Planning & Store Replenishment, and Trade Promotion Management and Optimization.

Further details can be obtained at the Oracle site http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2006_may/demantra.html?msgid=4777530

Purchasing Card (P Card) in Accounts Payable

A lot of companies have been going for use of Purchasing Card to reduce their administrative costs. Purchasing Card or P Card programs were originally introduced in the late 1980s in response to the US Federal Government’s initiative for automated payment structures, particularly for small-dollar purchases. The success of this program led to a Purchasing Card program for the entire US Federal Government in 1989. While a Normal Credit/Debit Card is basically for streamlining individual’s purchase, the objective of a Purchase Card is for streamlining the procurement and settlement in the corporate as a whole. Also, if a company only follows the normal Procure-to-pay process, then one follows the entire process of raising PO's, approving, purchasing, receiving, matching and ultimately paying. This invloves lot of administrative costs and the entire process is also time consuming. However, the process is relatively shorter in case the company adopts Purchasing Cards. But, not all goods and services can be purchased using Purchasing Cards. Purchase Cards are meant primarily for routine high-volume, low-dollar purchases. A Procurement Card system involves issuing a large number of credit cards having some sort of control to a large group of employees for small purchases. The controls on the card could be on basis of: Dollars per Transaction, Transactions per day, Dollars per day/month, Dollars per Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC) Code or Number Transactions per SIC code, etc.In order to setup Purchasing Card system, one has to have the requiste agreements with the card issuing organisation. Also one has to ensure that the monthly statements that the card company sends is of a fixed format, so that its easy to upload to the AP system. The other Setups include:
1) Creating the Credit Card Code Sets by navigating to Setup->Credit Cards->Credit Card Code sets. This requires entering Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC) codes.

2) Defining the card issuer, card type, and credit card code set in Credit Cards->Credit Card Programs.

3) Define the GL accounts sets in Setup->Credit Cards->Procurement Card->GL Account Sets. A GL account set is a list of values that cardholders can use to change accounts when validating their transaction notification.

4) Under, Setup->Credit Cards->Procurement Card->Credit Card Profiles you attach the Credit Card program, assign the GL account sets, define the default GL account, the exception clearing account, employee verification options, and manager approval options. If the Employee Notification Method (ENM) option is set to none, meaning the employee is not notified at all, then the transaction will not be selected by the process and is already set at a status to proceed in processing. If the ENM is set to Notification Only, the status is set during the process of the workflow to allow it to proceed and the employee is notified of the transaction. Also, one can set the status as verification required on the Credit Card Profiles form, so that the employee can set the transaction to Hold, Personal, Disputed, or Verified. Similarly if the Manager Notification Method (MNM) is setup to None or Notification Only, then the status of a Verified transaction is automatically set to Approved.

5) In the Credit Card window, one assigns the card to a cardholder and also tie all theprevious setup steps together. One can also choose a Credit Card program (which includes the Credit Card Code Set) and a Credit Card Profile (which includes the GL Account Set).

6) If the organisation is using any specific processes then they need to customize their workflows or else one can use the the predefined Credit Card Transaction Employee Workflow and Credit Card Transaction Manager Workflow, available with the Self-Service Web application, to verify and approve credit cards.
Once the monthly/weekly statement flat file comes from the card company, it is loaded using SQL Loader to the table AP_EXPENSE_FEED_LINES_ALL. Depending upon the Employee Notification Method setup and the Manager Notification Setup in the card profile options (Step 4 in setup), the employees and managers verify and approve the transactions. The "Procurement Card Invoice Interface Summary" program is run to import the data into the Payables Open Interface tables AP_INVOICES_INTERFACE and AP_INVOICE_LINES_INTERFACE. These tables are read by the Payables Open Interface Import program, which creates invoices from these records. These invoices are then ready for accounts payable approval and payment.
References:

1) 'Procurement Cards Basics : Setup and Processing' by Cynthia Bruno, Philip Merlano, and Michael V. Milano of Oracle Corporation.

2) Oracle Payables User’s Guide, Release 11i, Oracle Corporation.

Oracle Apps Implementation Methodologies

Unlike product / application development projects, packaged ERP implementations are quite different as we are primarily trying to map the package to the existing business process. Although, there might be a need to create new RICE components (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions and Extensions) which will need additional coding.

Oracle follows and advises their clients to use Applications Implementation Methodology (AIM). However many implementation organizations tend to follow their own methodoloies, which are similar to AIM at a top level but when it comes to actual granular detail they differ a lot. Especially the documenting part differs widely from organisation to organisation. Sometimes, even user organizations have their own implementation methodologies. So, things become interesting and at times frustrating when actually one sits down to do a comparative analysis of the various implementation methodologies and finalise upon the deliverables at different stages.

There are quite a few good blogs on AIM in Richard Byrom's website. One can also download AIM software from the following link below, but do ensure that you do not run it on IE6.0. This however runs fine on Firefox:

http://download-east.oracle.com/partners/265498.EXE

Clients insisting on using Standard Oracle features

I was mildly surprised when a top fortune client of ours insisted that we study their existing financial system and come out with a solution which is possible using standard Oracle Apps Financial module features. The fact that the organisation is ready to alter their existing financial process if necessary is very encouraging. I feel this trend amongst large organisations not to deviate too much from standard features available in Oracle Apps is catching up. Personally I think, if the organisation is asking for too many customisations, then there is a problem with the business process that they are following. However, not all organisations are ready to accept that the business process they are currently following is inefficient and fraught with inherent problems. Hopefully we would be able to provide a great solution though within the stringent time lines :)

Oracle announces Future BI strategy

On 22nd March, Oracle announced their BI strategy, which has left more people confused about their BI strategy.

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite will now consists of the following key products:

1) Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (EE), and
2) Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Standard Edition (SE)

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (EE) consists of Siebel Analytics, Oracle Intelligent Dashboards, and some future products like Oracle Mobile Analytics and Briefing Books.

More details can be got from the following Oracle site:
http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/enterprise-edition.html

Now, Oracle was already developing the next generation Analytic tool called Enterprise Planning and Budgeting which was supposed to be a replacement of Oracle Financial Analyzer and Sales Analyzer. But, with the aquisition of Siebel, I feel Oracle did not want to waste Siebel Analytics which is a gem of a product. Although it has left many wondering which is going to be the product which Oracle will ultimately push for. For the time being it seems Siebel Analytics is a better prospect than EPB. Another product which looks promising is Oracle Intelligent Dashboards, this product as of now looks superior to Oracle Portal, as one can manipulate reports and perform analysis within the dashboard itself.

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Standard Edition (SE) consists of Oracle BI Discoverer, Oracle BI Spreadsheet Add-in, Oracle BI Warehouse Builder, Oracle BI Beans and Oracle Reports. The Standard Edition Suite seems to consist of Oracle's existing Business Intelligence 10g products. For customers wishing to go in for a BI solution on their existing Oracle database, Standard Edition (SE) suite seems to be a better bet as of now. However, Siebel Analytic of Enterprise Edition (EE) suite can also be used, as it can handle relational, Oracle Olap, MDX data source and Siebel Analytic server data. I feel the catch will be in the pricing strategy that Oracle will adopt for both the product suites.

The webcasts can be heard from the following site:

oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/bi_webcast.html

1)Oracle Vision and Strategy (26 min.) by Charles Phillips, President, Oracle

2)The Business Intelligence Landscape (11 min.) by Henry D. Morris, Group Vice President and General Manager, Integration, Development and Application Strategies, IDC

3)Oracle BI Platform and Analytics Tools Oracle BI Platform and Analytics Tools (63 min.) by Thomas Kurian, Senior Vice President, Oracle

4)BI Across the Enterprise (48 min.) by Steve Miranda, Senior Vice President, Oracle

I feel businesses are by and large conservative in nature when it comes to IT spending, so Oracle has to put in a lot of effort in marketing the new Enterprise Edition (EE) suite, while they already have a good customer base of customers using Discoverer, OWB, BI Beans and Oracle Reports. So, oracle will continue to support and develop their existing BI products along with the new products it has acquired from Siebel. Though, this will create a bit of confusion and self-cannibalization among Oracle's own product lines, but i think there is no way out as Oracle cannot kill any of their existing BI products or stop developing and supporting the recently acquired ones either. So in all interesting times for Oracle BI consultants and for customers who now have a wide variety of Oracle BI produts at their disposal to select and work upon.

Medieval policies of Indian Bodyshopping companies

Barring money and fear, I feel there is no motivation for a consultant to work for a software bodyshopping company. One finds a lot of companies in India who lack the ability to bag independent projects getting into bodyshopping. This trend is definitely disturbing as this tends to bring down the quality of work of consultants who lack the motivation of doing actual good work. My advice to companies hiring consultants from bodyshopping companies is: ‘one cannot win a war by hiring mercenaries’.

Most top Indian software companies continue with this sad practice of bodyshopping, which though earns them a fair amount of revenue, is however detrimental to the growth of the company in the long run. Most of these bodyshopping companies typically apply the old trick of carrot and stick policy. On one hand the consultant would be promised the moon, and on the other hand they would force the consultant to sign on all sorts of illegal 'legal' documents, so as to ensure that the consultant does not leave the organization. A couple of weeks back a friend of mine working for a shady bodyshopping company wished to leave the organization. From the moment he put in his papers, his life became a living hell. The company threatened him of legal action and refused to relieve him. Only when this poor chap paid the employer an astronomical sum (his last 6 months salary) did the company release him. This sad situation is nothing very unique to small companies. Many medium and big scale Indian software companies adopt this policy. Sadly most software consultants do not have the time or the money to fight legal battles with organizations.

The problem stems from the fact that in India almost all companies insist on the relieving letter of previous employer as a necessary document, without which the person will not be eligible for employment. If this document is not made mandatory then consultants will not be at the mercy of such cheating organizations. However as most of the recruiting organizations themselves indulge in bodyshopping, one cannot expect any dramatic changes in recruitment policies. I feel NASSCOM and Govt. of India should come down heavily on organizations who ask employees to sign bonds (usually these bonds are like, if a consultant leaves the organization before a said period of 18 months, sometime 3 years then he/she has to pay a very high bond amount in order to get relieved from the organization). Also sometimes these organizations would ask the consultant to attend a training and post that would force the consultant to sign such bonds, in which case if a consultant leaves the organization, he/she has to shell out a huge sum as training expenses in order to get relieved. And the worst kinds of bonds that consultants’ sign, are those when they go out of India on a work permit to some other country. The bodyshopping companies ask consultants going to work in other countries, to sign bonds which restrict them from seeking employment elsewhere, and per chance if they plan to leave then they need to pay astronomical sums to get relieved from the organization.

Hopefully Indian organizations will arise from their medieval mindsets and become more employee-friendly and gather their own self respect and the respect of future and existing employees.

US Army website on ERP implementation considerations

I came across reference of this site in www.oracleappsblog.com which has wealth of information on ERP implemntation considerations. It also gives good comparison between different ERP, CRM, BI products and also Key Implementaion considerations like, Transformation Management, Governance, etc.
http://www.army.mil/aeioo/erp/index.htm

Oracle Projects – Part 2

What is Burdening?

You burden a type of cost with burden costs to obtain a more accurate representation of your company’s operating costs. For example, each hour of employee time costed directly to a project may be supported by burden costs for benefits and office space. A burden cost code represents the type of burden costs you want to apply to raw costs. For each burden cost code in the burden structure, you specify what cost base it is applied to, the expenditure type or types it is linked to, and the order in which it is applied to raw costs within the cost base.
You use the multiplier to derive the total amount of the burden cost. For example, you may burden the raw cost of labor using a multiplier of thirty percent to derive the fringe component, and in turn, the total burdened cost of labor is computed as follows:

Labor (raw cost) 1,000
+ Fringe @ 20% (burden cost) 200
Total Burdened Cost 1,200

On a project for which costs are burdened, you can create some transactions that are burdened and others that are not burdened. You define which projects should be burdened by setting the Burden Cost indicator for each project type in the Project Types window. When you specify that a project type is burdened, you must then specify the burden schedule to be used. The burden schedule stores the rates and indicates which transactions are burdened, based on cost bases defined in the burden structure.

(Info taken from Oracle Projects User Guide)

Are Oracle Apps departments over staffed in Indian IT companies?

Going by my first-hand experience in some of the top Indian IT companies, and information from friends in other Indian IT companies, I can safely conclude that the number of resources in Apps department in most of these companies is too huge. The ratio of number of consultant to the number of projects that these companies have is typically very high. One can argue that it is important for companies to have sufficient bench strength so that whenever a new requirement comes, they can ramp up. I definitely agree to this logic, but I feel the bench sizes are way too large, which is absolute unnecessary. I have seen enough people in bench wasting their careers for month’s altogether doing nothing.

Another fact is people on bench cannot expect to have a good appraisal, as they are not billed by the company. As a result they become frustrated and either start creating HR problems or actively start looking for other avenues. In either case, it’s a loss to the organization.

So, the question arises, who is responsible for this messy situation? Typically, each IT department has a Resource Manager, who by sheer hard-work has reached this enviable position. Now, this person requests HR to recruit a certain number of professionals based of projections, forecasts, diameter of project pipe (as most projects are in pipeline) and many other extraneous reasons. Once the consultants are taken on-board, then, starts the quest for fitting in the person into a project. The Sales and Marketing person, the Key Account Manager, the Relationship Manager, the Business Development manager are then given the impossible task of creating “non-existent” work for the client, for which there would be a requirement of additional resources. After long and interesting sessions of PowerPoint presentations and sessions of “IT and Business Gyan”, does the client relent and agree to take on board additional resources. By this time the consultant would have happily spent half a year on bench adding no value to the organization.

Oracle Projects – Part 1

Last few days I have been involved with the Oracle Projects module. I’ll try and put forth some basic learning of this module.

Oracle Projects is meant primarily for organizations that are project-oriented. Using this module, it becomes easy to track costs, budget and track the project status.

Oracle Projects consists of the following products:

• Oracle Project Costing

• Oracle Project Billing

• Oracle Project Connect for Microsoft Project

• Oracle Activity Management Gateway

• Oracle Project Analysis Collection Pack

Prior to Oracle Projects Setup, one has to setup the Set of Books in GL, setup Organization and Organization hierarchy in Oracle HRMS, define employees and job in HRMS and create customer in Oracle Receivables. However if Oracle Projects is being installed as a standalone package then one needs to define all above in Oracle Projects itself. Some other mandatory setups include defining locations, defining implementation options, defining Project Accounting periods, defining expenditure types and categories, define revenue categories, etc. Also one has to create a burdening hierarchy in Oracle HRMS which may vary from the Project or Task Organization hierarchy.

Invariably a Project is broken into a hierarchy of tasks as per Work Breakdown Structure (WBS, a hierarchy of tasks that rollup into a project) to manage project and task related information. One can define as many levels of tasks in a hierarchy in Oracle Projects. However, proper naming conventions need to be followed while naming projects, tasks and sub-tasks. An organization has to be associated with a project and a Task, which may be same or different.

One can have three different Project Types for managing the cost of a project: Indirect, Capital and Contract. An Indirect Project Type is used to track the overhead costs and labor hours for overhead activities like Admin, Legal, etc. Capital Project Type is selected to track costs and labor hours related to asset development activities which ultimately results in an asset for the organization. A Contract Project Type is selected in case the costs are reimbursed by a client.

Oracle Costing is the used for processing of expenditures for finding out costs which can be attributed to projects and tasks which can then be posted to GL corresponding to different account lines. There are two cost amounts associated to each transaction: Raw and Burdened. The raw cost is the actual cost of the work performed, and the burden cost is the indirect cost or overhead of work performed, like administrative cost. The Burden cost is calculated by multiplying Raw Cost with the Burden Multiplier. The burdened cost is the total cost that is incurred, i.e., the sum of raw cost and burden cost.

Burden Cost = Raw Cost x Burden Multiplier

Burdened Cost = Raw Cost + Burden Cost

More on Oracle Projects, primarily I'll try and provide inputs on Burdening Cost and Oracle Project Billing in subsequent days.

How important is industry experience for an Oracle Apps Consultant?

With the growth in world economy, there has been a boom in IT packaged industry, especially packaged ERP products like Oracle and SAP. Indian software implementation companies are cashing in on this boom and are recruiting software professionals heavily. However, due to shortage of quality manpower, most companies are recruiting fresher as they come in cheap and also they will stick with the company for at least a couple of years. But, this strategy is fraught with danger as ultimately providing a business solution to a client is no child's play, and i have seen dozens of disgruntled business clients. Typically Indian IT companies have been involved in software projects (C, C++, java, Unix, .NET, etc) which are quite different from ERP projects, as knowledge of business is not that critical, or a few key persons in the software delivery may have the business understanding and not all the software professionals.

However, for an ERP implementation project a thorough understanding of business is of utmost importance. If companies recruit experienced people from industry who have considerable domain experience and train them in these packages, they become much better consultants and provide a lot better business solutions than a fresh engineering, accounting or a B-school graduate. In fact i feel the turnaround time, from a novice (ERP package illiterate) to an experienced ERP consultant is much less for an experienced hire compared to a fresher undergoing the same package training. But the downside of recruiting a very experienced person who has considerable domain experience but very little package experience is in providing them with suitable position and compensation, which the HR professionals have to confront. To resolve this issue, some companies are creating separate consulting divisions which have a very flat organisational structure, quite different from the usual pyramidal organisation structures.
Apart from this, the organisation structure should not be too formalised, and should be flexible. A bright performer should have ample chance and scope to excel and showcase one's talent. This an area which i feel most Indian IT companies are lacking in currently. Most IT professionals are straight-jacketed and are expected to follow the rut with very little scope to try out something new, with very little decision making powers. Now, an industry experienced person who comes from a different background faces the maximum difficulty in adjusting with this kind of company culture. Though this person has enough new ideas, but he/she has no avenues to put forth such views.
Its time Indian software companies rise to these challenges and start making changes to organisation recruiting policy, organisation structure and organisation culture.