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• KNOW WHAT IS SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT (SCM)? : An Overview
• SCM Subsystem

This article is an easy guide for Techno-functional consultant to understand SCM from Implementation as well as Oracle Application product Prospective.Lets start the topic with some of high points of earlier post .

• As mention in earlier post a Supply Chain is a network of retailers, distributors, transporters, storage facilities and suppliers that participate in the sale, delivery and production of a particular product.
  • Make a note a supply chain is product specific, not company specific
• Supply chain management (SCM) is a systematic approach to manage the entire flow of information, materials, and services from raw material suppliers through factories and warehouses to the end customer.
• Moreover , SCM involves the flows of material, information and finance in a network consisting of customers,suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors.
• You should be clear with Flow that SCM can manage :
  • The flow of actual materials, the top middle bars
    • From suppliers : flows of raw materials, intermediate products, finished goods
    • Reverse material flows : returns, repairs, servicing, recycling, disposal
  • and the information flows
    • From suppliers : manufacturing capacity, delivery schedules, promotions they have going
    • Reverse flows : sales, orders, inventory, quality, promotions
  • And finally, there are financial flows:
    • From suppliers: Credits, consignment, payment terms, invoice
    • Reverse Flows : payments, consignment
• Supply Chain Management is the management of the entire value-added chain, from the supplier to manufacturer right through to the retailer and the final customer.
• SCM has three primary goals: Reduce inventory, increase the transaction speed by exchanging data in real-time, and increase sales by implementing customer requirements more efficiently
• The need for SCM is because effective Supply Chain Mgt. is the next logical step towards increased profits and market share.
• Supply Chain Management (SCM) in line manager prospective is “let’s-keep-things-moving-efficiently”.

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This was a reader question : What are major reason, why companies undertake ERP in there business Line?

Answering to this question is very subjective matter and if you ask to ERP implementor, they can figure out n number of reason , but outmost these are very common:

1. A need to replace Outdated Business application
   • As we required Common processes and procedures
   • As need common shared data
   • As Need common reporting
2. A need to consolidate IT Platform
   • need to replace legacy system
   • Need to reduce the IT cost(will see this in another post , how this affected)
   • Need to connect with emerging technology gateway.

In simple words, these are major five reason why companies undertake ERP.

Integrated Financial Information

Integrated supply Chain Information(Customer Order Information)

Standardize and speed up manufacturing operation

Reduce Inventory and decrease Procurement Cycle

Standardize HR Information

Suggested Reading

• Familiarize yourself with Oracle application World
• What is CEMLI’s Framework?
• What is Oracle’s Application Implementation Methodology (AIM)

Do you know: How many different regulatory regimes of different countries handled by EBS?

The EBS Financials applications include 56 country localizations* to deal with individual regularity requirements. Not only in addition to this due to the flexibility of the applications these are incorporate reporting/duality requirements within GL structures but also FA (Fixed Assets) can manage multiple accounting treatments.

Moreover, the tax procedures are different for each country. From R12 onward there is separate module called E business Tax, which can handle different tax procedures satisfying the need of local or global regulatory need.

Do you Know : How ERP products analyzed in different ways depending upon the requirement, e.g. management accounts, statutory GAAP,FSA, local GAAP, US GAAP ..like wise..

Lets take about Oracle, we have concept of rollups and parents so whilst the underlying “leaf/Children” codes might exist on all the countries chart of accounts they are rolled up and totaled differently.This way the system supports unlimited structures and it enables different entities to be reported by any rollup.

Moreover, the dynamic insertion in GL Module supported feature ensure the analysis of new account codes is considered.

Do you Know : Where can we include Off Balance Sheet items in the ledger?

In SAP this can be through memo records which appear in the Balance Sheet.

In Oracle , COA can also include statistical(STAT) balances in EBS.

Do you know: How can a debtor account be reported in e.g. creditors in the balance sheet if it has a credit balance at the reporting date?(This question was asked by Controller who used SAP before moving to OracleApps)

In this case, if I am not wrong, EBS’s GL would only contain total debtors , as we donot have unitary ledger concept to separate accounts, and not seen in the GL at least till 11i.Correct me if wrong.

Catering the need for countries specific legislative requirements ,it is shown as a creditor then a reversing journal would be posted between debtor control credit balance account and creditor control debit balances . Moreover, the fact is Oracle system does not allow you direct postings to control accounts.

On checking with SAP Functionality, what is found is during the period end closing procedure provision to segregate the debit balances of creditors and credit balance of debtors.

* You need to check with Oracle Documentation if added recently in past one month.

It was request from one of reader to provide some information for new organization Hierarchy model between two release of 11i and R12.Therefore invite you to run through the following diagram as below with some basics.

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• Managing Cash , EBS and SWIFT

Whenever the Bank Intergation is required , the very first term would come in mind is SWIFT , a very similar way as EDI sort of messaging servics that Financial sectors are using .So let explore what is SWIFT and how many of these can be potenially targetted for Integration .

What is a S.W.I.F.T?

S.W.I.F.T. (or SWIFT) stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It is a non-profit organization comprised of member financial institutions. It was established in 1973 by European bankers who needed a more efficient and secure system for inter bank communications and transfer of funds and securities. Until then, all inter bank communications were by telephone, telex, courier, or mail.

Swift Messages

SWIFT messages are preset and referred to by category numbers called MT numbers. Through this network (a.k.a. SWIFTnet) information can be exchanged using special crafted messages known as Message-Types (MT).

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Previous Post:

• Are seeking auditing ability in EBS…use ‘AuditTrail’

Steps by step: Enabling audit trial

As per the below example the ‘Define An application user’ is a user table name for FND_USER,the same steps you can follow for your own tables.

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What is an AuditTrail?

An AuditTrail is one of functionality for retaining a history of changes to data. What ,who and when can be identified on a particular table or column if the functionality is enabled.

When you enter or update data in your forms, you change the database tables underlying those forms. An audit trail tracks which row in the database was updated at what time, and which user was logged in using the associated form(s).

If you are seeking auditing ability to track changes on a particular table of Oracle this post might helpful to you.

Enabling the Functionality of AuditTrail

You can turn AuditTrail on or off (Yes or No). Normally the default setting is No (Off). When you enter or update data in your forms, you change the database tables underlying the forms you see and use. AuditTrail tracks which rows in a database table(s) were updated at what time and which user was logged in using the form(s). Also..

• Several updates can be tracked, establishing a trail of audit data that documents the database table changes.
• AuditTrail is a feature enabled on a form-by-form basis by a developer using Oracle’s Application Object Library.
• All the forms that support AuditTrail are referred to as an audit set. You should also note not all forms may be enabled to support AuditTrail.
• To enable or disable AuditTrail for a particular form, you need access to Oracle Application Object Library’s Application Developer responsibility.
• Users cannot see nor change this profile option.
• This profile option is visible and updatable at the site and application levels.

 

The internal name for this profile option is AUDITTRAIL:ACTIVATE.

Setting Up AuditTrail(>11i )

You can choose to store and retrieve a history of all changes users make on a given table. Auditing is accomplished using audit groups, which functionally group tables to be audited. For a table to be audited, it must be included in an enabled audit group.

The steps for setting up AuditTrail include:

Yuu need to verify Select Privileges on SYS.DBA_TABLES

Have your database administrator grant SELECT privileges on SYS.DBA_TABLES to the APPLSYS account. Normally, this step would Normally taken care during the installation of Oracle.

Define Audit Groups

This is very very important.These are groups of tables and columns, where you do not necessarily need to include all the columns in a given table. You enable auditing for audit groups rather than for individual tables. You would typically group together those tables that belong to the same business process (for example, purchase order tables see at the end).

A given table can belong to more than one audit group. If so, the table is audited according to the highest “state” of enabling for any of its groups, where Enabled is the highest, followed by Disable Dump Data, Disable No Growth, and Disable Purge Table, in that order.

Navigation: Security -> AuditTrail -> Groups

Define Audit Installations

You choose the registered Oracle IDs at your site that you want to audit. This allows you to audit across multiple application installations. When a table is added to an audit group, auditing will automatically be enabled for all installations of the table for which audit is enabled.

Navigation: Security -> AuditTrail -> Install

Run the Audit Trail Update Tables Report to Enable Auditing

Your AuditTrail definitions (and auditing) do not take effect until you run the Audit Trail Update Tables Report. If you change any of your definitions later, you must rerun this program. You run the Audit Trail Update Tables Report from the standard submission (Submit Reports) form.

Audit Trail Update Tables Report

This program creates database triggers on the tables in your audit groups for your installations. It also creates shadow tables, one for each audited table, to contain the audit information. If you have changed your audit definitions or disabled auditing for an audit group, the program drops or modifies the auditing triggers and shadow tables appropriately.

The program also builds special views you can use to retrieve your audit data for reporting.

You can check SQL*Plus to see if the Shadow Tables have been created or not. Shadow Table name is the same 26 Characters of the Table being audited followed by a suffix of “_A” ,suffix of “_AI” for Insert Triggers, “_AU” for Update triggers , “_AD” for Delete Triggers,suffix of “_AIP” for Insert Procedures “_AUP” for Update Procedures and “_ADP” for Delete Procedures.

AuditTrail Limitations

These are limitation of AuditTrail:

• Your table should consist of maximum 240 columns
• You cann’t use the column for audit trail whose data type is LONG, RAW, or LONG RAW
• Your audit group must include all columns that make up the primary key for a table; these columns are added to your audit group automatically.
• Once you have added a column to an audit group, you cannot remove it.
• AuditTrail requires two database connections. If your operating platform does not automatically support two database connections
  (e.g., VMS or MPE/XL), then add the environment variable ‘FDATDB=<database connect string>’ to your environment file.
• Because the structure of the audited table may change between product versions, AuditTrail does NOT support upgrading existing shadow tables or audited data. Before an upgrade, you should archive the shadow tables and perform all necessary reporting on the audited data.
• Oracle recommended Disabling AuditTrail feature Prior to Upgrade to higher version.
• If your plan is to use some auditTrail on table which name is bit longer(> 26 characters), you can’t achieve this. As there is Bug(#3872242
  ) reported by Oracle that restrict you from this, as AuditTrail Update Tables Errors out on audited tables that are > 26 characters.

Sometime back we found while enabling this on these tables.

• PO_REQUISITION_HEADERS_ALL
• PO_REQUISITION_LINES_ALL
• PO_REQ_DISTRIBUTIONS_ALL

What are the primary Auditing Tables?

• FND_AUDIT_COLUMNS
• FND_AUDIT_GROUPS
• FND_AUDIT_SCHEMAS
• FND_AUDIT_TABLES

Client Dilema : HOW TO ENABLE AUDITING AT “FORMS” AND “USER” LEVEL TOGETHER

Customer has set the profile “Sign-on: Audit Level” to FORMS to collect information about the forms sessions at a particular time .
By default the value for this profile was USER. Since he has set the value to Forms can he collect the User related information

Yes you can …
If the profile “Sign-on: Audit Level” is set to FORMS then it will collect Form sessions information in addition to user session information.
So you will get information related to User session as well as forms session. There is no harm in setting this profile value to FORMS.

MOAC allows users of a single responsibility to perform task in multiple operating units without having to switch responsibilities.Out of Box functionality of MOAC, there is something called “Multi-Org Preferences”.

What is “Multi-Org Preferences”?

Multi-Org Preferences allows you to control the list of operating units to which you have access.

Lets say you have around 20 OU’s divided into three major Region (North America, Europe and APAC). Lets say within APAC region you are responsible for all 7 OU’s within Region.

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As we know in R12 , the existing Multiorg architecture includes a new feature Multiple Organizations Access Control (MOAC). Lot of queries and question were asked by my readers, therefore this post completely focus on some of technical Insight because of architectural change.The minimum you should suppose to know is that Access Control feature has backward compatible. Technically means that there are no code or procedural changes if MOAC is not implemented (i.e. The user is assigned one operating unit for a responsibility).

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Lets talk about one of the basic concept of Oracle Application which is so called “Business Group” , part of Multi-org architecture. Understanding this is important for non HRMS consultant as in R12 Finance the new legal Entity architecture is equally important.

Business Group in HRMS Shared Mode

A business group is a basically Human Resources organization to which you assign employees. You assign each operating unit to a business group in the financial options setup. You can assign the same business group to different operating units including to operating units in different financial sets of books. You can setup a separate business group for each operating unit if you want to segregate and maintain each group of employees separately. Oracle provides one setup business group you can use.

In case of not having HRMS (Full mode),what you have to do is ,to create at least one business group to cater requirement for Oracle Financials and Manufacturing, so that only the employees can perform some of application functionality , which are as follows:

• Entry and approvals of purchase orders and requisitions require requisitioners, buyers, and approvers to be setup as employees.
• Purchasing receiving staff must be setup as employees in order to use receiving screens.
• Engineering change order approver lists use the employee database to validate approvers.
• AP expense report features allow you to create suppliers from employee information and to generate expense report coding using employee default account numbers.
• iExpense requires users who enter or approve expense reports to be setup as employees.
• Fixed Assets allows you to optionally assign assets to employees for tracking purposes.
• Standard Workflow approvals of GL journal entries in Release 11 require approvers to be setup as employees.
• Standard Workflow approvals of AR credit memos in Release 11i require approvers to be setup as employees.
• AP may add invoice approval through AME , which will likely require approvers to be setup as employees.

There are few exceptions, where you have to understand when your installation site is having HR and Projects modules installed, as there are significant implications of business group and HR organizations.

Business Group is part of MultiOrg model of Organizations

The Multi-Org model provides a four level hierarchy that dictates how transactions flow through different business units and how those business units interact

There is one confusion between Oracle Financial and HRMS consultant, as they simply assume SOB is more meant for non HRMS module and BG is more for HRMS, in certain extend this is true.Lets investigate this on GRE\LE and OU as follows:

Know something more for SOB

• As covered in earlier post ,a set of books is a financial reporting entity that shares the three C’s that is Chart of accounts(accounting flexfield structure), functional currency and calendar.
• Oracle General Ledger secures transaction information (journal entry),When we use General Ledger, we choose a responsibility that specifies a set of books. We then see information only for that set of books.
• In the multiple set of books, the concept of “global” item master Organization exist, since the item master organization is used for item definition and not item accounting information.
• More over all accounting activity releated to the item master can be controlled at the item or organization level. Example is consolidation at the corporate office or Head office.

Is SOB linked to HR module?

Yes,. Once SOB is created from GL setup part, this can be linked in HRMS by such navigation

Work structure => GL organization Description ==> Business Group

What is a Business Group/Legal Entity?

• Represents the consolidated enterprise, a major division, or an operation company.
• Human resources information is secured by business group.(For example, when you request a list of employees, you see all employees assigned to the Business Group of which your organization is a part. )
• This is true in all applications except the Human Resources applications themselves, which support more granular security by a lower-level organization unit.
• Multiple sets of books can share the same business group if they share the same business group attributes, including Human Resources flexfield structures.
• Business Groups separate major segments of a business. Each can have it’s own set of books.
• Each Group will also have a structure of other organizations classifications assigned to it.
• Till Release 11i Legal Entities post to a
  • Set of Books
  • Operating Units are part of a Legal Entity
  • Inventory Organizations are part of an Operating Unit ·
  • Inventory Organizations define and maintain items used by other manufacturing modules (Order Entry,Purchasing, MRP, etc.). They also collect and pass data to the Financials modules.

Operating Unit vs Business Group

• With Multi-Org you can define an owning Operating Unit and associate this with a profile option -MO:Operating Unit. When you define data or execute a business process within Oracle Financials, then the system automatically attaches the id of your Operating Unit organization to the data or transaction.
• With Business Group security model in HRMS you can secure data and processes by id of the Business
  Group.However, in HRMS, the Business Group id is closely related to the country of operation, and not simply a division or line of business.
• Both look the same but it is important to realize that these are distinct and different mechanisms for two different functional areas. This is especially true for any global implementation of HRMS where the data for each country exists within a single business group but Operating Units exist across many countries, and business groups.

Setup Business Group

As per standard User Documentation: A ’Setup’ Business Group is supplied with Oracle HRMS. This business group is used by the default responsibility. You can use this business group with all of its default definitions as the starting point for your own Business Group, or you can define other business groups to meet your own needs.

A business group enables you to group and manage data in accordance with the rules and reporting requirements of each country, and to control access to data.

The critical factors for deciding when to use a separate business group, or an international business group, are based on the following factors:

• If you use Oracle Payroll
• The number of people you employ in a country
• If you require legislative support for Oracle HR

Generally the laws are so different in each country that to be compliant, there must be a different business group for each country in which an enterprise has employees.

BU in HRMS and other Integration

The need for cross functional integration cann’t be denied as most of the base information is pulled from HRMS to Oracle Finance , Manufacturing as well as CRM Modules. A typical integration aspect with some of the core module can be best understood as figure below:

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