For Those coming from 11i, just take a note for some of enhancement in R12 of Depot Repair

• Flexible repair flow processing :Flexible Repair Order supports the change in transition from originally intended workflow to new unexpected workflow
  • Example: Repair and Return Type can be changed to Exchange Type in course of repair.
• High volume repair :This functionality reduces the number of clicks needed for a technician to create a repair job. It allows the Repair Technician to just select the diagnostic code for the repair work and from there - the system recommends the service code and creates the repair job with needed operations, materials and labor.
• Public APIs and web services
• Enhanced repair maintenance
• Enhanced logistics
• Business intelligence

For IB, these are some of the important enhancements in R12

• Improved integration with Enterprise Asset Management (eAM)
• Enhanced counters including unification with eAM Meters:
• Independent creation of counters
• Insertion of readers between existing readers
• Ability to define daily usage rate
• Contracts / IB integration enhanced to provide a view of impacted contracts before applying updates
• Support for TSO with tangible items:
  • Process / ship / track tangible container model items
  • Remove the items from IB configuration
  • Support for return of items
• IB tab in Contact Center supports TSO ordering actions, advanced searching & configuring viewing capabilities
• Fulfillment of an item instance located at a customer site with no physical shipment required

Oracle eBusiness Suite localization feature addresses most of the statutory and regulatory functionalities and reporting requirements with respect to each of the countries. Though bulk of the country specific requirements are met by the product itself, however there could be business requirements, necessitating customizations in terms of reports, which are very much client specific.

The feature Personalization has been given by Oracle to reduce hardcore customizations which are traditionally done in custom.pll. Moreover, Portability of custom.pll customization is not warranted by oracle as future release updates or product patches can impact them. As an alternative, Same functionalities can be achieved with the use of personalization and this approach would support technical portability with the use of FNDLOAD..

Do you know IFRS aka International Financial Reporting Standards is a set of accounting standards, similar to that you have US GAPP.

IFRS is already adopted in more than 110 countries as of now and countries like Canada, Brazil, India, Korea and Japan is planning for IFRS compliance by 2011. Check it out old post for details.

So what in inside

IFRS are standards and interpretations adopted by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

IFRS are considered "principles based" set of standards in that they establish broad rules as well as dictating specific treatments.

International Financial Reporting Standards(IFRS) comprise:

• International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) - standards issued after 2001
• International Accounting Standards (IAS) - standards issued before 2001
• Interpretations originated from the International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee (IFRIC) - issued after 2001
• Standing Interpretations Committee (SIC) - issued before 2001
• There is also a Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements which describes some of the principles underlying IFRS.

IFRS re-define in term of Accounting Principles

In simple equation

IFRS = Financial Reporting standards = Balance Definitions

that mean "disclosure Requirements" and "Balance Definitions ".

US GAAP vs. IFRS - A difference

check out this post for some the key differences between these two.

Here is comparative study for IFRS on compliance issue.

Here is IFRS Standards and the underline Oracle mapped products

Oracle White paper

• EBusiness Suite Release 12 oriented white paper

IFRS will be one of the most significant enterprise-wide change initiatives facing finance over the next few years.IFRS adoption not onky limited to accounting and financial reporting functions but it will also require changes across people, process and technology.

• • Oracle's Financial Management Solutions: Preparing U.S. Companies for the Transition to IFRS
  • Managing the Transition to International Financial Reporting Standards
• Oracle Hyperion oriented white paper
  • Oracle's Financial Management Solutions: Preparing U.S. Companies for the Transition to IFRS

These Oracle's white papers will help you in getting answer of these:

1. Options for implementing multi-GAAP accounting and eventually switching over to IFRS inyour financial (ERP) systems?
2. Exploring ledgers and business systems which contain the necessary reporting data, and, if not, what and which processes required to capture and report new data?
3. Linking IFRS principles been incorporated into fore-casting and management reporting processes.

Two major Process in term of IFRS

1. Revalution : Check it out for definition here. This is still not comply with IAS30 and IFRS standard.Enhancement request #4098044,is already registered with Oracle.
2. Translation : Check it out for definition here.GL translation is compliant with both US GAAP and IFRS standards.

Top Post in OracleApps Epicenter on IFRS

• A bit on IFRS

Campaign to cash refers the ability track from the initial touch point with the prospect to the completed deal. At an aggregate level, it lets you track which campaigns, targets, messages or other dimensions are creating the most revenue and allows you to focus your marketing spend on the items that perform the best

Campaign-to-Cash(C2C) process, which includes all the activities involved in promoting and selling your products and services. This spans building and running lead and demand generation campaigns, qualifying leads, running the sales cycle and closing deals. This also includes sales, marketing and executive management efforts to understand, forecast, analyze and optimize performance.If you are trying to understand this in system prospective, C2C flow ,this can be further categorize into roughly 12 sub-process like:

1. Go to Market Strategy & Managment (Go-to-market refers to plans made to launch a new product, that consist of start-up activities for getting the product out in the marketplace and includes pricing strategies, customer penetration plans, PR, sales training, beta site testing, and so forth )
2. Marketing Execution
3. Channel / Retail & Direct Sales Mgmt
4. Guided Selling,Pricing, Proposals & Contracts / Agreements
5. Customer Data Mgmt
6. Order Capture
7. Order Management
8. Fulfillment Confirmation & Expediting
9. Billing & Receivables Mgmt
10. Channel Mgmt & Claims Settlement
11. Sales Compensation Payout
12. Performance Analysis

Implementing will add these Key Benefits to Business

• Improved operational efficiency and customer responsiveness
• Reduced working capital
• Reduced lead times to customers
• Automated promotion and sales comp settlement

Campaign to Cash Flow in EBS

Typical Campaign to Cash Flow in EBS is consider to similar to fig 1 as below.

• Oracle Marketing creates and executes campaigns, assigns call guides from Oracle Scripting, and targets the execution of the campaigns across all channels: call centers, web, and direct. These campaigns are executed using various different applications in the Oracle E-Business Suite.
• Leads are generated based upon customer interaction and routed based on territories.
• Sales people can access these Leads directly in Oracle Sales.
• Leads are then qualified and ranked.
• Leads can also be generated through sales campaigns created in Oracle Sales. By constructing natural language queries, Sales Managers can mine the installed base, identifying the most appropriate target customers for cross-sell and up-sell sales campaigns. Qualified leads are converted into opportunities, and budgetary and sales information updated.
• Quotes are created directly from opportunities using Oracle Quoting.
• From Oracle Quoting, salespeople can either publish quotes to Oracle iStore online stores for customer review or book orders directly, triggering back-end applications for shipping, inventory management, and payment.
• When the quote is published, customers can enter the store, view its details, modify payment information, and place orders.
• Throughout the sales process, Oracle Sales maintains campaign information tied to the sale and links this information back to Oracle Marketing for ROI analysis.

If you are able to do a mapping, with complete platform based our Oracle EBS, majority of them are fit with existing EBS module.Depending upon your business complexity and process , you can easily integrate with other application like Salesforce.com ,Demantra ,APS/ASCP,OTM depending upon how complex your company/client business have. Figure 2 gives you snapshots of the EBS product fitment.

Some of key application Potentially been qualified if any one is planning to implement C2C on Oracle Platform.

• Oracle iStore provides you similar to e-commerce application that gives organizations the components necessary to create powerful internet store sites for selling products and services in a secure and personalized environment. This includes product catalog and pricing maintenance, web carts and shopping lists, and integrated media management utilities.
• Oracle Advanced Pricing This supports sophisticated pricing rules, such as freight charges, pricing formulas and discounts based on many variables such as customer, product, purchase history, and shopping-cart contents.
• Oracle Configurator guides the sales process through customer-driven configuration of complex or personalized products.
• Oracle Order Management streamlines and automates the entire sales order management process, from order promising and order capture to transportation, shipment, and returns.
• Oracle iPayments This processes payments or may be with online credit card authorization.
• Oracle Incentive Compensation manages performance-related compensation (such as commissions and bonuses) for employees and business partners.
• Oracle Financials This including Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting, Oracle General Ledger, Oracle Cash Management, Oracle Receivables, and Oracle Payables.
• Oracle Human Resources is a family of applications that automates the entire recruit-to-retire process (including Oracle Payroll), so you can align your workforce with strategic objectives.
• Oracle Partner Relationship Management provides partner registration, program enrollment, and partner-specific functionality based on partner access rights.
• Oracle Marketing enables an organization to manage marketing campaigns, budgets, and segments across all channels. This includes the ability to manage promotional collateral and discounts and maintain the product catalog, with seamless integration to Oracle iStore.
• Oracle Sales, Oracle Quoting, and Oracle Proposals provide a full sales force automation solution for face-to-face salespeople, including the ability to create quotes that are published to the customer as shopping carts on their personal iStore pages.
• Oracle Telesales empowers call-center agents to conduct outbound sales and marketing activities, including the ability to view and update all shopping carts created by customers using Oracle iStore.
• Oracle Teleservice and Oracle iSupport enable an organization to provide excellent customer service, both in the call center and via self-service over the Web. This includes service request management, knowledgebase and online forums.

Hope this helps.

Sometime you can't understand why user want specific things which really does not have good cause. The one such case is turning off Horizontal menu in one of the Oracle EBS forms.

If this is the case, there is no shortcut or profile option, rather you need to take technical help some who can open the form in Builder.

If you required to eliminate the forms default menu?

Here to go:

In the Form Builder, open the property palette for the Form. Highlight the form name. Right mouse click to open the property palette. There should be listed a menu - the default menu is default & smartbar. Just Delete this.compile and restore within the application top of form sub folder.

Anyone have better idea , to turn off horizontal menu ???

If you are using Receipt batch control, then you might be noticed the form ARXRWMAI does not display the value of decimal place.

Some Customer is really specific to rounding issue for there control.

If customer is asking for rounding issue, then you need to find why this happen, there might be two reason;

(i)Check the precision setting on currency master setup. If this is setup correct, then (ii) check the profile option Currency: Mixed Currency Precision

Currency:Mixed Currency Precision

This profile option specifies how many spaces are available to the right of the decimal point when displaying numbers representing different currencies.

Once you done setup , you can get the correct value in AR Batch Receipt.

This profile not only control only Receipt batch , it is also hookup with some other form in Finance side, but majority of time customer is not using batch control in AR like (receipt batch or Transaction batch), therefore you might not get across this.:)

Similar Post on Receipt

• Step by Step :Using Receipt API for Miscellaneous Receipt (Scenario 6)
• Step by Step :Using Receipt API ->Apply /Unapply Activity Application (Receipt Writeoff API’s) (Scenario 5)
• Step by Step :Using Receipt API ->Reverse Receipt (Scenario 4)
• Step by Step :Using Receipt API ->Apply On Account (Scenario 3)
• Step by Step :Using Receipt API ->Creating cash and apply (Scenario 2)
• Step by Step :Using Receipt API ->Create Cash Receipt (Scenario 1)
• Understanding AR Receipt, Point of sale, API’s & Intergration with Oracle Application

Assume you have a Business Critical "Short Running" (take an example Invoice Printing) Concurrent Request, but it is waiting for the Standard Manager for a long time before the Processing is getting picked up.

Specialized / Dedicated Concurrent Managers

Creating a specialized concurrent managers which is dedicated to some specific concurrent requests which need to be processed in a different way.

Benefits

1. Speed up Critical Short Running Requests which has long wait time
2. To avoid Long Running Request during Peak time

Tips that you need to remember

"Avoid creating an excessive specialized managers. It can degrade the performance due polling on queue tables. You need to create specialized managers only if there is a real need"

You can then define a new Specialized Concurrent Manager(Fig 1). And include the specific critical short run Concurrent Request to the new Manager that you created(Fig 2 ,3). . This will ensure all your critical short run Concurrent Requests are not waiting in the queue for longer time.

Fig 1

Fig 2

Fig 3

and then you need to exclude from standard Manager as per fig 4 & 5.

Fig 4

Fig 5

Avoid Long Running Request during Peak time
This helps you to prevents users from executing such "Long Running" request during Peak time. This improves overall performance of the system.

• Create a Specialized Manager to process the specific 'Long Running' requests.
• Assign the Specialized Manager with a work shift with Off peak time.
• Assume, the Users submit the Concurrent Requests during peak time, then it will get assigned to the Specialized Manager.
• But Specialized Manager will not process it during peak time

Most of developer always struggle when ever it come to migration of form personalization component, beacuse of limitation of full access in Production box. Therefore, It's better to use oracle seeded Migration tool FNDLOAD.

Once you created and done testing for personalizations in your development/test instance, you can move them to production instances.

As discussed in last post, Personalization is per Function not per form therefore this can extracted by the loader on a per-function basis.

You should take a note that upon uploading, all prior personalizations for that function are first deleted, and then the contents of the loader file are inserted. So be careful..)

FNDLOAD - A pain killer for migration

you can either Download for a specific form or specfic function of the form. In both the case same affrmcus.lct is used.

Download -specific form< /STRONG>

FNDLOAD <userid>/<password> 0 Y DOWNLOAD $FND_TOP/patch/115/import/affrmcus.lct <filename.ldt> FND_FORM_CUSTOM_RULES
form_name=<form name>< /FONT>

Download -for all personalizations< /FONT>

FNDLOAD <userid>/<password> 0 Y DOWNLOAD $FND_TOP/patch/115/import/affrmcus.lct <filename.ldt> FND_FORM_CUSTOM_RULES function_name=<function name>< /FONT>

• Function_name is a required parameter
• You cann't download lct file with out any supplied value.

Upload
FNDLOAD <userid>/<password> 0 Y UPLOAD $FND_TOP/patch/115/import/affrmcus.lct <filename.ldt>

Uasge

FNDLOAD apps/apps 0 Y DOWNLOAD $FND_TOP/patch/115/import/affrmcus.lct xxapperiod.lct FND_FORM_CUSTOM_RULES form_name=APXSUMPS

FNDLOAD apps/apps 0 Y UPLOAD $FND_TOP/patch/115/import/affrmcus.lct xxapperiod.lct

Because the architecture has built-in support for all languages, you don’t translate ldt files, but instead you enter multiple Actions for different languages.

Using the Form Personalization you have option to alter Oracle code at runtime bypassing important validation logic.

Form Personalizations allows you to fundamentally alter the behavior of the seeded product forms that Oracle provides you to access data..

Form Personalizations looks very simple and easy things,but sometime this may jeopardize the integrity of your data. Therefore developer and solution provider context , you must have a clarity in architectural understanding.

Many People are bit confuse about the personalization, take a note ... "Personalizations are created Per Function , not per Form "

A function launches a form and passes specific parameters; the same form may be invoked by different functions and to a user could act completely differently.

UNDERSTANDING THE COMPONENTS

Lets take a EBS form , and try to understand various sub-section

What you can see in above form , a Typical Oracle apps form Personalization consist of four major things

• Sequences
• Trigger Events
• Conditions
• Context

these attributes also have link with personalization.

• Action
• Property
• Message

A Oracle Application Form is driven by form Function, therefore all subcomponent are tightly putin together.

Sequences

It manages both Rules and Actions that have in Sequence that must be entered

• It is there in case you need things to be processed in a specific order
• The sequence does not have to be unique

Trigger Events

If you aware with basic frame of Oracle EBS form(template.fmb) , then you must be aware with inbuilts triggers and there sequnce of firing, Some of the triggers can be best understood to handle the events. Here are the some of events:

• WHEN-NEW-FORM-INSTANCE: once, when the form starts up.
• WHEN-NEW-BLOCK-INSTANCE: each time the cursor moves to a new block.
• WHEN-NEW-RECORD-INSTANCE: each time the cursor moves to a new record.
• WHEN-NEW-ITEM-INSTANCE: each time the cursor moves to a new item.
• WHEN-VALIDATE-RECORD: each time the current record has any change that needed to be validated.
• SPECIAL1 through SPECIAL45: each time the user selects a menu entry from the Tools, Actions or Reports menu.

Conditions

The Condition field lets you create an expression in SQL which evaluates the run time action. In case of TRUE at runtime, then the Actions are performed, where as in case of FALSE Actions are skipped. Each time condition is re-evaluated the rule is processed or not.

Context

This handle controls of the personalization and it applies to either a)Level(Site, Responsibility, Industry, or User) or b)Value whiich is specific value when level is Responsibility, Industry, or User

• If you set the Rule has a context of ‘Site’, it will be applied for everyone
• If you set rule with a context of Responsibility that mena it does not ‘override’ Site
• If you set a rule with a context of User does not ‘override’ Site or Responsibility
• If 2 rules have the same Trigger Event, and Actions that change the same property, the rule with the higher sequence number will be performed last.

Actions

Actions determine what personalization does.

TECHICAL DETAILS

Personalizations are stored in tables, separate from the forms they alter:

• FND_FORM_CUSTOM_RULES
• FND_FORM_CUSTOM_ACTIONS
• FND_FORM_CUSTOM_SCOPES
• FND_FORM_CUSTOM_PROP_LIST
• FND_FORM_CUSTOM_PROP_VALUES
• FND_FORM_CUSTOM_PARAMS

AFTER APPLYING A PATCH

There is some confusion , with Form Personalizations and Patch in EBS.

A patch will not change any personalizations that you have created; however, they may no longer be valid. There might be couple of reason that may affect for non-avibality of Personalization in particular form , for example..

• Objects within a form may have been renamed or deleted
• Functionality at the various trigger points may be changed
• Property settings could interfere with your Rules

IF SOMETHING GOES WRING , WHAT CAN YOU DO?

You need to identify the forms affected by a patch , the first things you need to do is to run the personalization screen from any form and select Tools > Administration

This will identify all forms that have Personalizations and have just been patched.

Once you idetified ,run each function, possibly setting Custom Code to ‘Off’ if it fails to open

Then finally run the Personalization screen and select Tools > Validate All

This way you do able to resolve any pop-up issue beacuse of Patch.

New Products in Release 12.1

1.Product Name : Oracle Landed Cost Management (LCM)

The new product Oracle Landed Cost Management (LCM) gives organizations financial visibility into their extended supply chain costs, including
transportation and handling fees, insurance, duties and taxes therefore this product is being integrates with logistics, procurement, and financial applications to provide a comprehensive landed cost tracking solution.

Just who are new to ERP, landed cost is sum of Purchase cost , Freight Cost,Octroi , Labor charges involved in loading and unloading and GST /VAT Taxes.

Landed cost = Purchase Price + Freight Charges + Octroi + Labor charges for loading and unloading + Taxes.

Oracle LCM is integrated out of the box with Oracle EBS

• Oracle Procurement
• Oracle Inventory
• Oracle Cost Management
• Oracle Payables
• Oracle Advanced Pricing
• Oracle Transportation Management

Details for Reference

Oracle notes :Oracle Landed Cost Management | Data sheet

Channel Revenue Management

2. Product Name : Oracle Supplier Ship & Debit

This application automate all agreements, tracking, accounting journal entries and chargeback’s to vendors manual processes for timely claims processing.

Oracle notes :Oracle Supplier Ship & Debit | Data sheet

This Product is being integrates with the following finance modules:

3. Product Name : Oracle Price Protection

Channel Revenue Management product enabling orchestration and automation of supplier price changes.With this timely claims processing through automated integrations to through various Oracle Products..

Oracle Price Protection is integrated out of the box with Oracle EBS

• Procurement
• Warehouse / Inventory
• Costing
• General Ledger
• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable

Details for Reference

Oracle notes :Oracle Price Protection | Data sheet

Already Available

4. Product Name : Oracle Site Hub

As a part of Oracle MDM This Product is going to cater some of industry like retail banking, telecom and even manufacturing which they need to maintain and manage many locations.

Therefore Oracle Product Site Hub is a repository for site specific data that will be leveraged during the life cycle of a site including analytics, such as market planning, competitive analysis, site selection, project management, location management, facilities management to closure. Site Hub allows for master site records, centralized data storage, data quality management and integration of services.

Organizations with many locations, whether manufacturing plants around the world or a mix of stores, kiosks, ATMs, offices and/or distribution centers around the country, need a repository for location data to assist them with these business requirements.

• Single HTML interface
  • Create, manage, search and map sites
  • Create and group user-defined attributes
  • Assign sites to hierarchies, clusters, maintenance orgs and inventory orgs
  • Create parties and relationships, e.g. competitors and partners, in Trading Community Architecture (TCA)
  • Create a property in Property Manager
  • Create an inventory organization from an existing inventory organization
  • Create maintainable assets based on a site asset template in a maintenance organization (eAM)
  • Google Maps and web services
  • Leveraging Oracle Database, Oracle Spatial, and Oracle Trading Community Architecture

Major Benefits of this Product is you can enhance operational efficiency in site opening, closing or maintenance and improves decision making .

Oracle notes : Oracle Site Hub | Data sheet

5. Product Name : Oracle PIM for Retail

This Product is used fir single view of product information that can be leveraged across all departments so retail side you can manage sell-side as well buy-side product catalog.This application consolidate, manage and synchronize all product information with other source systems and trading partners.

There is two major advantage with this product

• Improves speed of New Product Introduction
• Decreases cost of collaboration with partners and suppliers

Oracle notes :Oracle PIM for Retail | Data sheet

6. Product Name : Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center

This is the new application built on top of Oracle Advanced Planning that maximizes the value of your planning information by increasing accessibility and strengthening business orientation.

This is coupled with a role based analytical UI (with concepts such as business scenario management) and the automation of planning processes

Oracle notes :Oracle Advanced Planning Command Center | Data sheet

7. Product Name : Oracle Demand Signal Repository

A separately deployable application designed to maintain a consolidated view of demand information between the OEM and Retailer to facilitate the transition to demand driven .

Oracle Demand Signal Repository captures, cleanses and harmonizes large volumes of external demand data to give users insight to consumer and supply chain behavior.

Oracle notes :Oracle Demand Signal Repository | Data sheet

8. Product Name : Oracle Service Parts Planning

This is the new application within Oracle Advanced Planning designed to support the increasing importance of after-market service through the management of service parts.

This Combines extensive and purpose-built service parts planning capabilities, all fully integrated with the rest of Oracle Advanced Planning and
the associated execution systems.

Oracle notes :Oracle Service Parts Planning | Data sheet

9. Product Name : Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center

Oracle notes :Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center | Data sheet