Configuring and

Personalizing the
E-Business Suite
Why Should We Care About Configuration
and Personalization?
 System costs can be lowered by configuring
– Configurations survive upgrades; less upgrade downtime
– Customizations are expensive to create and maintain

 Configurations can increase user productivity

– Change screens without IT involvement
– Easy, accurate reporting for best business decisions
– Reduce data entry errors by automation

 Capability to add specific company business requirements

– Create strategic, competitive value
Business Drivers

Leverage the
Create custom
latest versions of Lower maintenance
applications without
software to gain and upgrade costs
changing the code
competitive value

Configuration
Business Goals

Lower system costs

Add strategic competitive business

processes into applications

Empower end users to be efficient

in their jobs

Make accurate and fast decisions

Current Approaches for Configuration

• Process should be defined by organization on when,

what and whom can add configurations

• Security should be in place to avoid every user

making configurations to the system

• Most configurations are planned and developed

during implementation

• Configurations can be added and modified

throughout the system’s life
The Oracle Solution
Oracle E-Business Suite Solution

Develop
Sell
Plan
HR
Market Finance
Projects Procure
Service /
Maintain Manufacture
Fulfill
• Architecture • Business Intelligence
• Security • Performance &
• Admin & Mgmt Benchmarks
• Configuration vs. • Integration
Customization • Sizing
• High-Availability & • Portal
Scalability
Configuration in Oracle E-Business Suite

Enables:

 User Definable Fields

 Changeable Business Processes
 Proactive Business Rules
 Personalization of Screen Layout and Behavior
1. User Definable Fields

• Add fields to screens to capture additional information

for reporting

• Lower system cost with virtually no IT involvement

• Add fields to any data entry screen:
– Field validation
– No programming
– Optional or mandatory
– Can be included on any report

• User defined fields are preserved during upgrades

 2. Changeable Business Processes
Workflow Processing
• Reduce costs by automating processes
– Eliminate redundant manual processes,
typing errors
– Eliminate paper processes
– Include specific process for strategic advantage

• Enable supply chain collaboration

– Increase customer satisfaction and
improve negotiations
– Send the right information to the right people
at the right time
– Send information to suppliers, customers and employees

• Monitor processes and detect bottlenecks

– Determine where a transaction is in the process and how much longer it will
take
– Complete audit trail and analysis of info for continuous improvement

• User changeable processes are preserved during upgrades

Changeable Business Processes
Order Management Example

• Each order type and line item can have a different process
– Many companies process orders for each product
line differently
– Each product line can be associated with a different
business process (workflow)

• Process change examples

– Invoice on hold until every item in an order has been shipped
– Certain items may require an approval before shipping, while
others do not
4. Proactive Business Rules
Proactive Monitoring
• Business rules to check for conditions within
the applications
– Check for creation of large journals; notify manager when created
– Check for customers put on credit hold; notify service/sales when
put on hold

• Faster, more accurate business decisions

– Users are proactive to exceptions rather than reactive
– Alert for abnormal conditions, errors, and exceptions

• Generate e-mail messages, run reports, database updates,

or Operation System scripts
– Send e-mail to sales manager when customer is put on credit hold

• Business Rules are preserved during upgrades

 4. Personalization of Screen Layout &
Behavior

• Allows extension of Oracle Applications without

modification of Oracle Applications code:
• Folder Technology
• Forms Personalization (new)
• OAF [1] Personalization Features

• Personalization are preserved during upgrades

[1]: Oracle Applications Framework (OAF)

Folder Technology
Forms Personalization
OAF Personalization Features
Adoption
 Case Study:
To leverage the wealth of functionality provided by the new
software suite, APC decided to implement the new software in a
'plain vanilla' fashion, avoiding customization as much as possible.
Sipe says adopting the standard software simplifies the
implementation and makes future software upgrades easier.
“We may move a few fields around and add minor functions, but we
don't actually customize the transactions.”
-- Lisa Sipe, CIO, American Power Conversion

• Oracle E-Business Suite: Financials, Discrete Manufacturing, Order

Management, Advanced Supply Chain Planning, iProcurement,
Human Resources, Self-Service Human Resources

• Key Points
– 3,200 users in 120 countries
– Global single instance replaces 13 separate instances
– Improves decision making by providing a global view of the business
– Supports aggressive worldwide growth
 Indústrias Romi
Case Study: S.A.

“Another key differentiator in Oracle's system was its

flexibility, which allowed it to be tailored to Romi's
processes and not vice-versa.”
-- Américo Emílio Romi Neto, CEO,
Indústrias Romi S.A.

• Oracle E-Business Suite: Interaction Center, Sales,

Marketing, Service, Financials, Financial Analyzer,
E-Business Suite - ERP

• Key Points
– Flexible applications complemented company's tried and true
processes versus requiring it to change the way it does business
– Oracle's comprehensive ERP solution reduced risk and total cost
of ownership
– Electronic Data Interchange allows on-demand transactions
Customer
Questions
 Customer Questions

Question: Are all configurations saved during the upgrade process?

Answer: Yes. All configuration features are saved during the

upgrade. After you upgrade, you do not need to run any
process that will tell you to move your configurations, they
move from one release to the next, automatically. This
reduces the amount of time it takes a company to be up
and running on new functionality and lowers the cost of
the upgrade.
 Customer Questions

Question: Can we prevent users from being able to modify screens

(user definable screens)?

Answer: Yes. Oracle Applications have profile options. Profile

options affect the way the application behaves for a
particular user, responsibility, application, or for a site.
You can set the profile option to disallow certain users
from changing the screen. You may want power users
to change screens, and the others be able to open the
modified screens. This can easily be done by setting
the profile option. This is true for both the professional
and casual user.
 Customer Questions

Question: Can we add a field to a form that points to a

legacy application?

Answer: Yes. There are several ways to point to legacy

information from an Oracle E-Business Suite
form/screen. You can pull in information from a
third party system and store the value in the user
defined field. This information is now in Oracle E-
Business Suite database and can be pulled into any
report.
 Customer Questions
Question: Who changes the workflow processes? IT or users?

Answer: Both. Certain activities you may want to change in

workflow could be done by a power user and some
activities may require IT. Typically, workflow is created
and modified by both a business analyst and IT.
Many steps in the a workflow process read from
business rules that have been set up in the
applications. For example, workflow reads the
employee – manager relationship hierarchy set up in
Oracle HR to determine who should approve an
expense report. The hierarchy is set up and
maintained by the power user for HR. If the hierarchy
is changed, then the workflow approval changes
automatically.
 Customer Questions

Question: Can users see where the PO, Expense Report is in

an approval process?

Answer: Yes. Using the Workflow monitor, users can pull up

the PO or expense report to see who has approved it
and who needs to approve it next.
The workflow monitor is a easy way to audit your
business processes, find bottlenecks in the system.
For example, who has not approved their processes,
where transactions are stuck. This allows a company
to find bottlenecks and improve system efficiency.
 Customer Questions

Question: What happens to an approval process when a

user goes on vacation?

Answer: Workflow allows the user to set up a forward to

while away from the office. Workflows can
incorporate an escalation process into a business
process. After a certain amount of time an activity
can be performed automatically. Escalations are
standard and are easy to set up for your business
processes using workflow.
Summary
Oracle Solution

User Defined Fields

Changeable Processes
Proactive Business Rules
Personalization of Screen Layout and Behavior