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R12 Unified Catalog Management White Paper
R12 Unified Catalog Management White Paper
Table Of Contents
Introduction
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1 Enhanced Catalog Content Management - Unified Catalog Model
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1.1 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Overview
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1.2 Enhanced Catalog Content Agreement Management Setup and Process
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1.3 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Set up Change Acceptance Options
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1.4 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Create/update Agreement Header
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1.5 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Create/Update Catalog Content
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1.6 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Line Details
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1.7 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management View Difference Summary
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1.8 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Difference Summary Details
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1.9 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Approve/Reject Changes
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1.10 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Extractor
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1.11 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Catalog Available for Requesters
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1.12 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management - Concurrent Request Program Changes
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1.13 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Data Upgrade
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1.14 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Data Upgrade Setup and Process
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1.15 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Data Upgrade -Pre-upgrade Summary
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1.16 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Data Upgrade Upgrade Summary
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1.17 Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Data Upgrade Upgrade Summary
.. .. .. ..
2 Enhanced Content Security Model
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2.1 Enhanced Content Security Model Overview
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2.2 Enhanced Catalog Content Security Model - Setup and Process
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2.3 Enhanced Catalog Content Security Model - Partitioning Content
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3 Data Model Changes
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3.1 New Tables
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3.2 Obsoleted Tables
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3.3 Replaced Tables
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3.4 New Views
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Enhanced Catalog Content Management, Online Authoring and Content Security Model in Release 12
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Introduction
The two major areas that have undergone significant technical architectural change in terms of Data
Model for Oracle iProcurement in Release 12 are as follows.
The first area deals with content management. Instead of stand-alone bulk-load items, Oracle
iProcurement Release 12 provides centralized management of items migrated and stored in global blanket
agreements (GBPA). The extractor will be obsolete, and the catalog content will be updated in real time.
In a similar manner, the second major initiative, to consolidate the previous functionalities of Realms,
Stores, and Catalogs into the improved Stores, Content Zones, and Smart Forms features in Release 12,
required that the data model to be extensively updated. Data model changes are covered in in detail.
Please refer to both the Oracle iProcurement Implementation Guide, and Oracle iProcurement
Functional Upgrade in the Oracle Applications Upgrade Guide for details.
Enhanced Catalog Content Management, Online Authoring and Content Security Model in Release 12
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Enhanced Catalog Content Management, Online Authoring and Content Security Model in Release 12
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Benefits
Improve Catalog Management
o
1.2
First, a buyer or system administrator must configure acceptance requirements and tolerances for
the buying organization.
Next, a buyer creates a global blanket purchase agreement header, or GBPA header for short.
The buyer may add line level items to his GBPA using the online PBWC or via Bulk load.
The buyer has the option to update the GBPA and submit it for approval, or to enable the
GBPA for authoring by suppliers or catalog administrators in the future.
Once the buyer has completed his work, he submits the GBPA for approval.
Once the GBPA is approved by the buying organizations approval hierarchy, its contents are
available immediately to iProcurement requesters.
Once a GBPA has been created in the system, catalog administrators and suppliers may modify it
later by buyers, and optionally.
When catalog administrators and suppliers are allowed to modify GBPAs and do so, a difference
summary report is generated by the system. This report serves two purposes. First, the person
making GBPA updates can use the difference summary report to review his changes for
correctness before submitting it to the buyer for acceptance. Second, once the GBPA is
submitted for buyer acceptance, the buyer can view the difference summary report to see where
the changes are, and determine if the changes should be approved.
Enhanced Catalog Content Management, Online Authoring and Content Security Model in Release 12
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1.3
Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Set up Change Acceptance
Options
In the first step of catalog authoring, a buyer or system administrator must configure acceptance
requirements. Changes from suppliers and catalog administrators may be set to always require buyer
acceptance, never require buyer acceptance, or require buyer acceptance based on price tolerance settings.
The two settings are independent of each other.
This step is a one-time configuration procedure and applies to all PO documents that are subsequently
created or modified.
Buyer organizations may wish to configure their Catalog Administration process such that changes by
suppliers always require buyer acceptance, but provide a relaxed rules for their internal catalog
administrators. Oracle Advanced Procurement provides this flexibility in acceptance of agreement
changes.
Define buyers
acceptance
requirement per
Enhanced Catalog Content Management, Online Authoring and Content Security Model in Release 12
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1.4
Enhanced Catalog Agreement Management Create/update Agreement
Header
Once acceptance and tolerance configuration is complete, a buyer proceeds to create a GBPA header
using the PBWC.
The ability to author GBPA header and line level content in HTML represents a significant addition of
functionality in Release 12 of Oracle Advanced Procurement. Alternative methods of creating catalog
content; such as bulk load and copying from existing catalog content will also be available in Release 12.
The header of a GBPA contains the usual suspects of supplier, contact, date effectivity, payment terms,
and other information.
Using this screen, a user may provide header information for the GBPA he is editing.
A user may also perform certain header level actions against the GBPA being edited. For instance, in the
Actions dropdown box, a buyer may choose to enable this document for supplier authoring or catalog
administrator authoring, or both. By default, newly created GBPAs are not enabled for supplier or catalog
administrator authoring. These actions are performed on a document-by-document basis.
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1.5
One user at a time can edit the document. Catalog administrator and supplier changes are saved
as a draft until the buyer accepts them.
Prior to acceptance, buyers can take control of the document at any time. When buyer edits the
document, any pending changes are automatically deleted.
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1.6
The Create and Modify blanket agreement lines screen, as shown in the previous slide, provides text input
areas for some but not all item descriptors.
In this screen, additional line level details are displayed to the user for editing. Oracle Procurement allows
customers to define a large number of base and category descriptors, and item values for these descriptors
may be provided using this screen.
Also, an item may have additional detailed information that can be updated, such as price breaks, and an
authorized user may provide such information here.
Update
line
details
Shopping
Category is
not required
and can be
derived by
mapping
Category and
Base
Descriptors
A difference summary report can be generated by the user when changes have been made to a GBPA.
The objective of the difference summary to highlight what has been changed between this proposed
version and the last approved version.
For every line item that has a proposed change, the difference summary report shows the items item or
job number, description, supplier item, price and price change percentage information. Any change to
these fields results in a green starburst icon being used to highlight the updated value. For price and
amount changes, both the existing and proposed values are displayed, along with a percentage change
indicator. On the right most column of the difference summary table, a Details drill down icon allows
users to navigate to a detail item level summary screen that shows additional information, such as
descriptor changes that have not been captured on the main summary screen.
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New items and item deletes are flagged with icons as well.
Difference summary reports may be exported for further analysis.
Export
changes to
Spreadshee
t
Difference
Summary
shows all
changes
Click here
to see
changes to
the line
Price
increase/
decrease
indicator
1.8
When the Details drill down icon is clicked, the user is redirected to the Difference Summary line levels
detail page. On this screen, descriptor attributes changes, price break and rate differential changes are
shown. All changes are highlighted using icons to allow users to better identify where changes have been
proposed.
Updated Line
attributes
Price breaks
and rate
differential
changes
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1.9
When changes are presented to the buyer for acceptance, a variation of the difference summary report is
shown to highlight proposed changes. This screen is called the Respond to Changes screen.
Oracle Procurement leverages the powerful features of the Difference Summary report in its Respond to
Changes screen. It allows buyers to quickly identify proposed changes and make decisions as to whether
changes should be accepted.
For each line item that has changed on a GBPA, the Respond to Changes report summarizes the item,
job, description, supplier item, UOM, and pricing modifications on the main page. A details icon is
available for the buyer to drill down to additional changed details.
Buyers can accept or reject all changes to the GBPA by clicking an action button. Acceptance may also be
specified at the line level. The Respond to Changes report can also be exported into a flat file for further
review.
Buyer
accepts
or rejects
all
changes
Submit
accepted
lines to
buyers
approval
hierarchy
Line level
disposition
1.10
Extractor is no longer required. Changes to catalog content and content security definitions occur in realtime. The administrator is not required to run any extractor type concurrent program to enable his
catalog content or security modifications.
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1.11
If a GBPA has been approved at least once, changes in process are also available for searching
immediately. This feature ensures that minor changes to existing GBPAs do not cause all items on the
existing GBPA to be made unavailable until the document is re-approved.
For example, if a GBPA with one thousand line items has been approved, its items would have been
available to iProcurement requesters since the time of approval. Later, if a supplier submits a pricing
adjustment for a few lines on the GBPA, the document will remain in requires re-approval status until
its been accepted by the buyer and is approved by the approval hierarchy. During this time while the
document is in approval limbo, it is undesirable for 1000 line items to become unavailable to
iProcurement requesters. After all, the changes are potentially minor, and impact a minority of the GBPA
lines. For this reason, once a GBPA has been approved at least once, changes in process are also available
for searching immediately.
Catalog
content:
GBPA,
BPA,
Quote,
Req
Template
and Item
Master
Search displays in process, requires re-approval and pre-approved GBPA, which has been approved at
least once.
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1.12
The following table describes the Concurrent Requests used in Catalog Content Management for Release
12. It should be noted some of these replace existing processes that required changes for the new catalog
model.
Request Name
Catalog Index Create Intermedia
Program
ICXCICRI
ICXPCIIP
ICXRCIIP
POXSRCH
POXCDXBL
POXCSXBL
POXCCONV
ICXCUCDER
POXCATRN
Description
Create the Intermedia Indexes used for item
searching. Required only as part of new install
or upgrade from pre-FP.I, otherwise should not
be run.
Purges the following data from the search
indexes; any inactive blanket agreements,
inactive and deleted quote lines, inactive and
deleted requisition template lines, master items
belonging to inactive purchasing categories.
Refreshes the Intermedia Indexes used for item
searching
Populate And Rebuild Intermedia Index For
Searchable Change In Descriptors
When category name is changed, this job filters
the changes through its items.
The upload of items onto agreements using
iProcurement Catalog Administrator
(automatically launched)
The upload of category structures using
iProcurement Catalog Administrator
(automatically launched)
As part of Catalog Administrator, this request
converts an uploaded file from pre-release 12
formats into the latest format (automatically
launched).
NOTE: Catalog Data Extract Classifications, Catalog Data Extract Items, and Catalog Data Purge,
are all now obsolete and should have been disabled (along with others) during the upgrade.
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1.13
The catalog authoring capabilities of Oracle Procurement has been refined significantly in Release 12, and
a comprehensive upgrade strategy needed to ensure customers seamless migration to Release 12.
Oracle iProcurement R12 provides online authoring capability for catalog administrators for content
stored in global blanket agreements (GBPA). The existing batch upload process continues to be
optimized for handling large catalog data file uploads. Similar functionality is going to be provided for
buyers from the new Buyers Work Center and for suppliers from iSupplier Portal. The extractor will be
obsolete, and the catalog content will be updated in real time.
Bulk-loaded items in iProcurement will be migrated to newly created GBPAs based on their Supplier,
Supplier Site, Currency, Operating Unit, and Contract Reference. From the iProcurement Catalog
Administration responsibility, there will be a summary of all newly created GBPAs for bulk-loaded items,
there will also be a data exceptions report that lists all the exceptions that prevent migration of bulkloaded content to new GBPAs. Please refer to the Pre-Upgrade steps for more details on how to correct
these exceptions.
For Customers on 11.5.9, patch# 5452131 needs to be applied and for Customers on 11.5.10, patch#
4914492 needs to be applied.
The upgrade strategy for existing Oracle Procurement customers using version 11.5.9 and 11.5.10 includes
two steps.
The first step, called pre-upgrade, is optional but recommended. During pre-upgrade, a customers
existing data is reviewed for upgrade readiness. Data that is not ready for upgrade are summarized for the
system administrator, so that appropriate fixes can be made prior to the actual upgrade.
In order to run the pre-upgrade, a pre-upgrade patch is installed and adds additional functionality through
the iProcurement Catalog Administration responsibility specific to the pre-upgrade process.
Pre-upgrade can be run multiple times. Our expectation is that data issues are resolved iteratively prior to
the actual upgrade.
Pre-Upgrade
Available for customers using 11.5.9 or 11.5.10.
Optional step, but highly recommended.
Minimizes the risk of complications during upgrade.
Reduces the time required for upgrade.
Pre-upgrade can be run multiple times.
Enable iterative data cleanup to run on data created or modified between the initial pre-upgrade
run and the final upgrade to release 12.
Prior to pre-upgrade and upgrade, it is recommended to run the extractor to ensure data
consistency.
The pre-upgrade also pre-processes catalog data to reduce actual time required for upgrade.
Pre-upgrade is intended to ensure that the actual upgrade process runs seamlessly. Pre-upgrade can be run
multiple times and the customers installation can continue to function after pre-upgrade has been ran.
Enhanced Catalog Content Management, Online Authoring and Content Security Model in Release 12
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Please note: Changes to system setup data are not recommended after the pre-upgrade is executed. Once
pre-upgrade has been executed, the system saves and stages some pre-processed catalog data in
preparation for the actual upgrade process. The staged catalog data might not be updated to reflect new
setup options if changes to the system are made after pre-upgrade has been performed.
Pre-Upgrade Step
Data cleansing to guarantee upgrade can be seamless.
Pre-processing of catalog data to the new data model to reduce the time required for upgrade.
Pre-Upgrade Summary.
List of data that should be fixed.
Download feature so that users can easily fix, and reload the data back into the catalog.
The second step in the data upgrade process is the actual upgrade, which relocates data from pre-Release
12 data models into the Release 12 data model.
The upgrade process is to be executed once only.
Upgrade Step
Data cleansing and data relocation.
Upgrade Summary.
List of data that should be fixed.
Download feature so that users can easily fix, and reload the data back into the catalog.
Examples of data issues that are identified by the pre-upgrade step are as follows:
Bulk-loaded items that do not have supplier site information
Bulk-loaded items that are assigned to all-buyers
Bulk-loaded items that have invalid category mappings and other issues that prevent the upgrade
from running successfully.
During upgrade, data is relocated from pre-Release 12 data models into the Release 12 data model. Bulk
loaded items from pre-Release 12 catalogs are placed onto new GBPAs in the Release 12 data model.
Data Cleansing
Pre-Upgrade/Upgrade summary will identify the following data issues:
Bulk-loaded items without Supplier Site
Bulk-loaded items assigned to all buyers
Bulk-loaded items with invalid category mapping
Other issues that prevent creation of GBPAs in the data relocation step.
Data Relocation
Bulk-loaded items from iProcurement catalog will be placed on newly created GBPAs based on
their Supplier, Supplier Site, Currency, Operating Unit, and Contract Reference.
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1.14
Setup
PROCESS
Run Pre-Upgrade
Run Upgrade
Run Extractor
(Recommended)
Review Pre-Upgrade
Summary
Review Upgrade
Summary
Note:
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Enhanced Catalog Content Management, Online Authoring and Content Security Model in Release 12
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Enhanced Catalog Content Management, Online Authoring and Content Security Model in Release 12
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Upgrade
Summary
Download
XML file, fix
data and
load file
against
GBPA in
Buyers
Workcenter
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In R12, users will not need to run the extractor to update the catalog content. It will be updated
in real-time.
Summary
In summary, iProcurements Catalog Management Enhancements in Release 12 offer:
Functionality for buyers, suppliers, and catalog administrators to manage content online.
Bulk-load functionality is retained and enhanced with improved error review capability.
Changes are summarized, reported, and can be configured to require approval before taking
effect.
Acceptance of changes may be performed at line level or header level.
Real-time availability of catalog content after approval.
Document approval, archive, and version control supported.
These enhancements allow buying organizations to:
Offload and reduce overhead in catalog management
Streamline catalog management processes
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The new Content Security model allows administrators a more flexiable method to control and adjust
iProcurement Content (items) available for requisitioning users. This single feature-set replaces and enhances
functionalities previously provided by Realms, System Profiles, Catalogs, and the Extractor.
The following screen shows how the iProcurement user (requester) still sees the familiar Stores, and how the
item and category content is organized within these. Behind this familiar fascade, are the many new Content
Security Model features.
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2.2
The screen below shows an example of how Content Security is structured and setup.
First the basic structures within the Content are created, including PO Documents, (including
G/BPAs, Quotations, Requisition Templates), Supplier Information, Category Structure and Items
Next an administrator creates a Local Content Zone and defines the Inclusion and Exclusion Rules
An administrator can then create a Store, to hold this, and other Content Zones.
Once the store is created, during shopping the rules are applied and requesters see relevent content
only.
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2.3
In Release 12 Content Zones replace previous Catalogs, and these content zones are configured with a set of
rules, which allows access control. These rules allow the content to be partitioned based on including or
excluding certain values for the following data;
Supplier
Supplier Site
Shopping Category
Browsing Category
For Example, a Content Zone rule may be: Include items from Supplier X and Category C only. This can be
illustrated in the following, where only the content corresponding to the red square is displayed:
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The actual values included or excluded allow restriction of items that can be found in the search results, based
on mainly on each items Category and Supplier data.
Checkboxes are used to indicate if the following types of data are also included:
Inventory Items
The Content Zone is then assigned to either all users, or is limited to a list of specific Operating Units or
Responsibilities.
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Where a store has multliple Content Zones, it is the Union of the rules that determined the available content
(or). The following table illustrates this with examples:
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The follow tables summarise the changes made in Release 12 to support the Enhancd Catalog Content
and Content Security features;
3.1
New Tables
ICX_CAT_ITEMS_CTX_HDRS_TLP
ICX_CAT_ITEMS_CTX_DTLS_TLP
ICX_CAT_ZONE_ATTRIBUTES
ICX_CAT_ZONE_SECURE_ATTRIBUTES
ICX_CAT_SECURE_CONTENTS
ICX_CAT_PUNCHOUT_ZONE_DETAILS
ICX_CAT_CONVERTER_DETAILS
ICX_CAT_BATCH_JOBS_ALL
3.2
ICX_CAT_R12_UPGRADE_JOBS
ICX_CAT_R12_UPG_EXCEP_FILES
Obsoleted Tables
ICX_CAT_ITEMS_B
ICX_CAT_PRICE_LISTS
ICX_CAT_UPLOAD_PRICE_DUMP
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3.3
Replaced Tables
3.4
New Views
ICX_CAT_CATEGORIES_V
ICX_CAT_LATEST_BATCH_JOBS_V
ICX_CAT_CONTENT_ZONES_VL
ICX_CAT_SHOP_STORES_VL
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iProcurement: Enhanced Catalog Content Management, Online Authoring and Content Security Model in Release 12
April 2008
Authors: Ananthalakshmi Anbuselvan, Richard Bingham
Oracle Corporation
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Worldwide Inquiries:
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oracle.com
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