Fulfillment in Oracle Order

Management
An Oracle White Paper
December 2000
 Fulfillment in Oracle Order Management

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW
The definition of the word fulfill is “to bring into actuality; to carry out; to measure
up or satisfy; to bring to an end or complete.” To fulfill an order line in Oracle
Order Management (OM) means to satisfy the requirements for completion. OM
provides the functionality required to recognize fulfillment of an order line, and to
cause some order lines to wait until other related order lines have been fulfilled
before they continue processing.

INTRODUCTION
OM allows you to group lines into a fulfillment set and to establish a “gate”
activity in your workflow process. Lines in a fulfillment set will wait until all lines
in the set have been fulfilled to proceed through the gate. This gate is known as
the fulfillment activity. The fulfillment feature is primarily designed to allow the
grouping of related lines and to keep any lines in the group from being invoiced
until all lines have been fulfilled. You may find additional uses for the fulfillment
functionality in your business. This feature did not exist in previous releases of
Oracle Order Entry.

Terminology
The following terms will be used to describe fulfillment:
• Fulfillment activity - The synchronization point or gate in the workflow
process at which lines wait for other lines to be fulfilled.
• Fulfillment method activity - The activity in the workflow process which
indicates that the line has been fulfilled.
• Fulfillment set - a group of lines which must all be fulfilled before any of the
lines proceed beyond the fulfillment activity in the workflow

How it Works
The fulfillment activity is a seeded workflow activity named FULFILL_LINE.
This activity is the synchronization point between the lines of a fulfillment set.
There are two activities which are considered fulfillment method activities in the
seeded OM workflows. For a standard shippable line the fulfillment method
activity is the shipping activity. For a return line the fulfillment method activity is

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the receiving activity. You may define any activity as the fulfillment method
activity in a workflow process. The fulfillment activity must be between the
fulfillment method activity and the invoice interface activity in the respective
workflows.
When a line workflow reaches the fulfillment activity, the activity checks to see if
the fulfillment method activity (for example, shipping or receiving) completed
successfully. If so, it updates the fulfilled quantity on the line with the shipped or
received quantity, and sets the fulfilled flag to Yes. It then checks to see if the line
is part of a fulfillment set. If not, then it completes the fulfillment activity and
continues with the next activity in the workflow process. If the line is part of a
fulfillment set, it checks to see if the other lines in the fulfillment set are fulfilled.
If any lines are not fulfilled, it waits at the fulfillment activity. If all the lines are
fulfilled it completes the fulfillment activity for all the lines in the fulfillment set.

Setup
No setup is required to use the fulfillment functionality with the seeded workflows.
If you create your own workflows, include the fulfillment activity before invoicing
in each process. This will provide two benefits: it will update the fulfilled quantity
for the lines, and it will allow you to use fulfillment sets. For each workflow
process that you define, you will need to check the attributes of the
FULFILL_LINE activity. The FULFILLMENT_ACTIVITY attribute must be
your fulfillment method activity, which in the seeded flows is either the shipping
activity or the receiving activity. The COMPLETION_RESULT should be the
result with which the fulfillment method activity completes if it is successful. This
allows you to designate any activity as a fulfillment method activity.
If you have a workflow process with two separate branches, such as a single
workflow process with separate branches for ordered items and returned items,
then you should have one fulfillment activity for each branch which relates to the
fulfillment method activity for that branch.

WATCH OUT FOR

Here are some limitations that you will need to understand:
You can have multiple fulfillment sets in a single order. If a line is a member of
two fulfillment sets then all lines from both fulfillment sets must be fulfilled for
any of the lines to complete the fulfillment activity.
If a line workflow process with a notification is in a fulfillment set, and the
notification is rejected, then the other lines will not progress in their flows. You
will have to delete or cancel the rejected line.

EXAMPLES
Example1 - Assume that you enter an order for an item which is shippable and a
service contract for that item. You would not want to bill for the service contract

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until the item was shipped. Put the two lines into a fulfillment set by clicking the
right mouse button and selecting Sets. When the order is booked, the shippable
line must complete the scheduling and shipping activities. These activities are not
applicable for the service contract, so they will complete immediately. The service
contract will wait at the fulfill line activity until the shippable line arrives there, and
then both lines will continue to invoicing at the same time.
Example 2 - Assume that you are a telecommunications company and some of
your order lines are for local cable service. The line is fulfilled when the technician
goes to the subscribers home and makes the connection. You call this activity
provisioning, and you have a custom system for managing this service. You could
define a new workflow activity called provisioning and define it as the fulfillment
method activity for the workflow process associated with cable installation lines.
The line for installation might be in a fulfillment set with the line for the first
monthly fee and the line for a shippable item, the cable box. When the technician
reports that the connection is complete, the custom system could update the status
of the provisioning workflow activity. When the line progresses to the fulfillment
activity, the quantity fulfilled is updated with the quantity provisioned. The other
lines in the fulfillment should already be waiting at the fulfillment activity. The
completion of the fulfillment activity for the installation would complete the lines
in the fulfillment set, and the installation, first monthly fee and cable box would all
proceed to invoice interface.

CONCLUSION
Order Management’s new fulfillment functionality provides a simple way to
synchronize the workflow between order lines. It allows you to prevent invoicing
of lines in a fulfillment set until all lines are ready for invoicing. Seeded workflow
processes and activities can be used out of the box to provide baseline
functionality for sales order, drop ship and return lines. The functionality is also
designed to allow you the flexibility to define other activities as fulfillment methods
so that you can model your unique business processes.

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Fulfillment in Oracle Order Management
December 2000
Author: Ginger Conroy

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