Oracle eBS R12 customers can co-exist with Fusion Accounting Hub

Existing Oracle eBS customers who are on R12 can leverage the features of Fusion General Ledger and extensive reporting capabilities of Oracle Fusion without re-implementing or upgrading the entire sub-ledger system to Fusion ecosystem through a co-existence configuration setup using Fusion Accounting Hub (FAH).
Oracle Fusion Accounting Hub, comes embedded with Essbase multidimensional cube that can be leveraged to derive business benefits through BI analytics, Smartview reporting, Financial Studio reporting, Account Monitor and Account Inspector and a very intuitive Allocation Manager for creating Allocation rules.
Using GoldenGate, a seamless integration between Oracle eBS and FAH has been provided. GL actual balances data can be transferred to FAH and drill-down back to eBS system is also possible.
The SaaS model of FAH deployment would provide faster time to deployment and lower TCO for customers as well while the existing eBS system can be an on-premise installation.

Fusion Applications Security

The Fusion security architecture in Fusion is quite different from EBS and relates to real world scenarios better. Fusion security is externalized from Applications and moved to standardized Fusion Middleware, OPSS and LDAP.

Management of enterprise users and roles in fusion applications is done via Oracle Identity Manager (OIM). OIM manages this data in a database and keeps it in sync with the LDAP directory.

Management of enterprise users and roles in fusion applications is done via Oracle Identity Manager (OIM). OIM manages this data in a database and keeps it in sync with the LDAP directory. OAM is authentication, authorization, and auditing solution that provides centralized security administration. This includes functionality for access control, single sign-on (separate from Oracle Single Sign-On), personalization, and user profile management in heterogeneous application environments across a variety of application servers, legacy applications, and databases. OAM provides key features for creating, managing, and enforcing access policies. In Fusion v1, the LDAP server will hold both the Identity Store and the Policy Store. Identity store holds users and external roles. Policy store holds Application roles, Function and Data security policies.

Fusion ships with a full pre-seeded set of Job Roles. Separation of Jobs and Duty allows access control to be customized to a company’s particular organization

   • You can add/change jobs and their duties

   • You can add/change duties and their privileges

Below is a comparison of EBS security with Fusion Apps.

Job Role -> Top Level Menu

Data Role -> Responsibility

Duty Role -> Sub Menu

Privilege -> Form Function

Permission -> Executable

However, at times you may need to create a new set of policies, duties and job roles. I will try to demonstrate the steps necessary to setup this using an example in another article.

Oracle Fusion Install - On premise (Bare Metal, OVM) or Hosted

Whoever is implementing Oracle Fusion will definitely have to answer the following question; 

Do you need to have the Oracle Fusion environment hosted on your premises or do you want to host with a third party or host this in Oracle via the Saas or OnDemand model?

To add some more complexity, Oracle provides you with option either to install the application on 'bare metal' or leverage Oracle Virtual Machines (OVM) to host all components.

Our experience has been that the fastest and easiest way to get going is if you use hosting service of Oracle or some third-party. However, the flip side of using a hosted applications is that you will see an increase in the turnaround time if you are upgrading, applying patches or debugging, which will be quite high in the initial days and you should keep a buffer for all these exigencies in your project plan.

The next best alternative is to use an on-premise OVM install. You can be up and running in 3 days. Internally at Wipro we are able to set up an environment using OVM install in less than 3 days. The last route is to go for a bare-metal install. This is quite a challenge from DBA perspective and can take well over 2 weeks to set up the environment. Oracle ships both bare-metal as well as OVM versions of the releases, so customers can choose either of these.

Oracle Fusion Applications - Next generation in ERP

Oracle Fusion Apps is the next generation in ERP space. It's completely web-based and takes in the best in class of all products under the Oracle umbrella. Some truely world-class features include the following:

- co-exist with third party legacy applications, thereby giving huge business benefits where customers have already invested heavily in legacy applications and want to plug and play Fusion Apps with existing system.

- Best in class user roles and responsibility features. Truely amazing if we compare this with R11i and R12 stack of products.

- Complete web-based solution, so no hassles of installing client thin or thick. Only thing that you need to be up and running is a browser. Fusion works great on Google chrome, Mozilla along with IE.

- Oracle Fusion Applications feature embedded business intelligence. So, you have plenty of Dashboards, BI reports, smart reporting tools like Smartview (uses an excel add-in) and FR Studio (again uses the best from Hyperion reporting)

- complete SOA based architecture, makes processing and integration real cool.

Invoice Image Processing Architecture in Fusion Payables

Fusion Payables is tightly integrated with Oracle Document Capture (ODC), Oracle Imaging and Process Management (IPM), Oracle Content Management and Oracle BPEL process Manager to provide a seamlessly integrated solution supporting the entire payables cycle starting from scanning of physical invoices, invoice image recognizition using OCR to pre-populate invoice header, routing of the scanned invoices to AP entry specialists and subsequent approval and payment of invoices. Oracle is the only vendor in the market today offering a fully integrated solution without the use of third party bolt-on solutions.

Once the invoice arrives in a centralized mail room, the imaging specialist would sort and prepare the invoices based on parameters like invoice amount, due date, supplier, etc. and then scan these invoices using ODC. Next the images are automatically sent to Forms Recognition for intelligent recognition to extract key invoice header data like PO number, Supplier, Invoice Number, Invoice Amount and Invoice Date from scanned images using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities. Once the key header data recognition is completed, the invoice images are sent to Oracle Imaging and Process Management for storage and subsequent routing to accounts payable invoice entry specialists using Oracle BPEL Process Manager workflows. The BPEL process is generated whenever an invoice image is saved successfully in Imaging and Process Management, and this image is then routed to the AP invoice entry operator based on pre-configured rules like invoice amount, supplier, etc. The AP specialist views the scanned image and then fills up the remaining fields of the invoice to kick-off the subsequent process of invoice validation, approval, accounting and payment.

Reference Data Set

This is a new concept that has come in Fusion. Reference Data sets are logical groups which provides the enterprise to decide which business unit access the reference data groups, such as grades, locations, AR & AP payment terms, departments, and jobs. Oracle provides a default Reference Data set which can be used across all Business units. However, we can define our own Reference data sets, to partition the data from effectively.
E.g. in R12 we had to live with the entire list AR payment irrespective to the fact whether one OU was using it or not. however, in Fusion we can restrict payment terms across BU's, so only the relevant ones will be accessible to the BU.

Google map in Fusion Apps

Now we can locate all our employees, suppliers, customers addresses in Fusion through Google Maps.

Business Units and Shared Service model in Fusion Procurement

Business Units (BU) definition: A business unit is a unit of an enterprise that performs one or many business functions that can be rolled up in a management hierarchy. A business unit can process transactions on behalf of many legal entities. Normally, it will have a manager, strategic objectives, a level of autonomy, and responsibility for its profit and loss. (1)

Prior to Oracle Fusion Applications, operating units in Oracle E-Business Suite were assumed to perform all business functions, while in PeopleSoft, each business unit had one specific business function. Oracle Fusion Applications blends these two models and allows defining business units with one or many business functions. (2)

In Fusion Procurement context we need to understand the function of the following types of BU’s”

1. Procurement BU
2. Requisitioning BU
3. Sold-To BU
4. Client BU

Procurement Business units: As the name suggests, Procurement BU’s are responsible for the procurement business function which involves vendor management, negotiation of contracts and purchase agreements, issue of order and subsequent administration.

Client Business Unit: Any BU that will be serviced by the Procurement BU needs to be set as the Client BU. In case of Shared Services model where the Procurement services are centralized to one BU, the Procurement BU will be serving all the requisitions from the Client BU’s.

Requisitioning Business Unit: As the name suggests Requisitioning BU is the business unit that raises the requisition for the goods or services that it needs to the Procurement BU. Sometimes, the Requisitioning BU may be responsible for the financial impact of the purchase, in which case it will also be defined as the Sold-To BU. In case there is another BU which takes the financial responsibility of the purchase then, this Sold-To BU will be different from the Requisitioning BU.

I’ll take an example to explain the above concept.

A mobile manufacturing company having global presence has its headquarters based in Norway (XYZ Norway). Its manufacturing division is based in India (XYZ India). The India operation sources its parts from the branch based in Singapore (XYZ Singapore) which does the centralized purchase of chips from different manufacturing companies based in Taiwan and Japan. However, the payment to the supplier is done by headquarter in Norway. In this case the Requisitioning BU would be XYZ India, Purchasing BU would be the XYZ Singapore BU and the Sold-To BU would be XYZ Norway

Another example to make this clearer. I’ll take the example one of my colleagues Suchismita, uses to explain the concept;

In a normal family, when the teenage daughter while returning home sees the designer shoe on the shop’s display, and promptly she approaches her mother with the request, knowing very well that her need would be fulfilled. The mother being a simple homemaker approaches the dad, and the dad being a doting father purchases the shoe and gives to the daughter.

If we take the above example, the daughter is the Procurement BU as she is buying the shoe from the supplier (shoe store). The mother is the requisitioning BU and the father is the Sold-To BU as he is taking the financial responsibility of the purchase. (3)

Following is the list of setups to be done to ensure this works in the system.

1. Select the Procurement Service Providers for the selected BU
2. Assign either one or many out of the Procurement, Requisitioning and Receiving business functions to the respective BU
3. Configure the Procurement Business Function for the BU and Configure the Requisitioning Business Function for the BU
4. Select the Procurement BU at the Supplier Address
5. Select the Client BU and Sold-To BU at the Supplier Site Assignment

In today’s scenario, businesses find it beneficial to channel purchases through international subsidiaries instead of directly dealing with suppliers. The reasons range from country specific legal requirements to favorable tax treatment to having better margins due to economies of scale because of centralizing procurement. Fusion Procurement provides this feature seamlessly which in hindsight seems quite intuitive.

Bibliography

1. Oracle® Fusion Applications Procurement Implementation Guide. Retrieved from http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E15586_01/fusionapps.1111/e20383/toc.htm
2. Oracle® Fusion Applications Financials Implementation Guide. Retrieved from http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E15586_01/fusionapps.1111/e20375/toc.htm
3. Suchismita Pattnaik, Linkedin profile: http://in.linkedin.com/in/suchismita.

Payables Hold Release Workflow

In R12 Oracle Payables integrates with Oracle Workflow to provide a resolution of user releasable holds through workflow. A new transaction type called “Payables Hold Resolution” (APHLD) in AME has been introduced in R12 for the same. There has been a business requirement to release the AP invoice holds, especially the matching holds based on an approval mechanism. In R12 of Payables, this feature has been provided so that, we can send the invoice lines on hold to approvers before the hold is released. As usual the seeded AME objects can be extended to accommodate different approval groups, rules and other business conditions before the hold is released.

Following setup needs to be done at Payables level: Setup > Invoice > Hold and Release Names.

• The Initiate Workflow option is selected for the hold type in the Hold and Release Names window.

• The hold is setup to be user releasable

• Notify After X Days: The Notify After X days setup, will cause the notification to be sent to the approver after X days of the hold being placed.

• Remind After X Days: The Remind after X days will cause a reminder to be sent to the appover after X days of the first notification, and subsequently, if no action is taken.

At AME setup Level, for the Transaction Type: Payables Holds Resolution setup Attribute, Condition, Action types, Approver groups and Rules

1. Choose the Default/seeded Attribute existed for Hold Look Up Code as shown below

2. E.g. Use the seeded Condition by assigning Hold Look Up Code with String values “Amt Ord, Amt Rec, Price, Qty Ord, Qty Rec” as below: 3. Create an Custom Approver group ‘Demo1’ by choosing “Serial” Voting method assign with Static to generate Invoice Hold notifications and send for release to approvers on basis of below logic 4 Assign this Approval group to the action type.
5 Create a Rule for this Hold notification and assign above Condition and Action type to the Rule as shown below:

Steps to Release the Hold:

1. Validate invoice on matching hold like “Amt Ord, Amt Rec, Price, Qty Ord, Qty Rec”

2. A notification will be sent to the approver for hold release

3. Once the Approver clicks on “Release Hold”, the hold gets released from the invoice.