Activity plus operational dashboard for Oracle Apps

Activities Progress: Genesis

Activity Plus+

Extension of Oracle Purchasing, Work

in Process, Order Management

modules: A new vision of ERP

business

Whitepaper – Informative Document, January 2013


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Table of contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................................................................. 3

NO CUSTOMIZATIONS ............................................................................................................... 3

FIRST INSIGHTS .......................................................................................................................... 4

DESCRIPTION ............................................................................................................................. 5

SPECIFIC FEATURES ................................................................................................................... 7

Defining the concepts of planner and objective .............................................................. 7

Centralized operation and diverse communication ......................................................... 7

Operation of own requests ............................................................................................... 8

Performing budgetary commitment control ................................................................... 8

Operating requests on order ............................................................................................ 8

Progress of service provision orders ................................................................................ 8

Running product execution orders ................................................................................... 9

Operating work estimates................................................................................................ 9

Service provision settlement ............................................................................................ 9

HOW WAS THE PRODUCT DEVELOPED ................................................................................... 10


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Genesis Software Consulting has developed, over time, a product suite

which also includes Genesis Activity Plus+, perfectly integrated into

Oracle Applications E-Business Suite, to cover two sets of connected

processes, associated to the activities of a department: recording and

monitoring the resource request: launching and executing the

service provision orders and performance of

finished goods. Very important – Genesis Activity

Plus+ enables the settlement of internal services

between various cost centers, a feature added

to standard Oracle solutions.

Genesis products have been designed as a new

work interface in ERP application, a role rather

module-oriented one. To perform the same

operations in the new interface, the user is faced

with fewer screens, the information is condensed,

automated and secured, while maintaining control

and the possibility to correct operating errors.

Genesis Activity Plus+ can be implemented only with E Business Suite

modules: Oracle Purchasing, Oracle Work in Process and/or Oracle

Order Management.

NO CUSTOMIZATIONS

Customizations, changes made in the standard Oracle Applications ERP,

that are not supported by the vendor are something we do not

recommend. Why customizations are not good? Regression – one minor

customization could dramatically affect a standard set of functionalities;

Standard support cannot be offered even for standard functionalities if

were affected by customizations; Upgrade – new versions upgrade can

become a more costly experience if customizations are in place; Know

how – for standard applications you have vendor support and general

documentation, while for customizations the support depends on only a

few developers. These are just a few of many pitfalls of customizing the

ERP software.

This is why we don’t recommend and don’t support customizations of

Oracle ERP. We developed our products as distinct tools over the

standard functionalities of Oracle without interfere with or change these

functionalities. They just channel the existing power of Oracle ERP to

more efficiently solve the business problems of your company. The

standard functionalities remain unaffected by our products and you can

still use them, if you choose, independently of our product.


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FIRST INSIGHTS

The organizational structures of a company require resources in two

distinct business situations: to support their own activities and to carry

out the activities required, in the form of orders, both by the internal

and external customers. The resource requests, approved by the

management, reach the purchasers for products and services purchase,

the stock keepers for material consumption, or the internal service

providers for repair, transport, training, etc. The process continues until

delivery to stock, internal settlement or external sale of materials and

services – as appropriate. Operators carrying out the activities of a

department need a unique application where they can operate and

monitor all the operations hereinbefore described.

Activity Plus+ is the perfect solution for the management of all

company activities.


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Excerpt from Reengineering the Corporation – Michael Hammer & James Champy

“America’s business problem is that it is entering the twenty-first century with companies designed during the nineteenth century... Not a company in

the country exists whose management doesn't say, at least for public consumption, that it wants an organization flexible enough to adjust quickly to

changing market conditions, lean enough to beat any competitor's price, innovative enough to keep its products and services technologically fresh, and

dedicated enough to deliver maximum quality and customer service. So, if managements want companies that are lean, nimble, flexible, responsive,

competitive, innovative, efficient, customer-focused, and profitable, why are so many American companies bloated, clumsy, rigid, sluggish,

noncompetitive, uncreative, inefficient, disdainful of customer needs, and losing money? The answers lie in how these companies do their work and why

they do it that way...”

DESCRIPTION

Genesis Activity Plus+ product, developed by Genesis, enables the

Planner of a department to manage, using a reduced number of

screens, two types of connected processes, associated to the activities:

preparing and monitoring the resource request; launching and

executing the service provision orders and performance of finished

goods.

Fig. 1. Genesis Activity Plus+

The resource requests are grouped for: purchased services, internal

services, materials, time sheets and advance payments for delegations.

The processes for performing the resource requests include electronic

approval mechanisms from Oracle Workflow, thus providing the

managerial and budgetary control key-factors. The processes of

requests continue in standard E-Business Suite modules: acquisition of

services and performance of internal services in Oracle Purchasing,

consumption in Oracle Work in Process and Oracle Inventory, advance

payment for delegations in Oracle Payables.

The execution of orders received from internal or external customers

perform: internal services and finished goods. The processes of orders


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continue in standard E-Business Suite modules: the orders for services

and products in Oracle Order Management, the execution work and the

expense estimate in Oracle Work in Process and Oracle Projects,

reimbursement of expenses in Oracle Inventory and sale in Oracle

Receivables. The process of orders performance and progress includes

electronic approval mechanisms from Oracle Workflow providing the

managerial control key-factors.

Genesis Activity Plus is natively integrated, acting as an interface over

E-Business Suite.

With Genesis Activity Plus you will keep all the standard Oracle features

and will obtain a friendly and intuitive work interface where different

users will manage complex processes in various stages.

Using Activity Plus+ in implementations enabled Genesis to extend ERP

utilization in the area of resource use employment and forecasting. Now

planners, using a single centralized form, manage both the preparing

and monitoring of resource requests and launching and execution of

orders received from internal and external customers.

All these operations are recorded in the context of reporting dimensions

for management accounting from Oracle Projects module: department

or equipment, activity or project, task or order, cost elements and

products.


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SPECIFIC FEATURES

Genesis Activity Plus+ integrates features from several Oracle modules

to provide the planner with the possibility to require, using a single

centralizing form, the resource requests used for the activity progress of

a department or equipment type objective, for their own needs or for

the execution of goods or services requested by internal or external

customers.

Defining the concepts of planner

and objective

Managers are supervising the departments or

equipments in order to execute specific

activities. The execution of activities is

performed based on a resource request

prepared by an employee and approved by

the manager. All financial and internal

management results are related to these

structures (departments or equipment), so

that the manager can monitor the activities

he/she is responsible for.

A planner represents the Oracle EBS user

who securely operates the resource request

for a department or plant/ equipment. The

planner is set with operating rights specific to

the department.

The objective represents the structure,

department or equipment type, which has

associated a combination of reporting

dimensions from the internal management

accounting: organization, activity, and

orders. The objective is used as requester

when associated in resource requests or

performer when associated to the orders

executing products or services.

Genesis Activity Plus+ integrates the

standard reporting dimensions of

management accounting from Oracle

Projects in the processes preparing and

monitoring resource requests and launching

and progress of services and products

execution orders.

Centralized operation and diverse

communication

Planners, the persons responsible for activity

progress from a department, manage two

types of processes: preparing and monitoring

the requests and launching and progress of

services and products execution orders.

Resource requests are completed by various

“actors”: services purchase requests to

purchasers; internal services requests to other

planners, material requests to stock keepers;

time sheets to managers; advance payments

for business trips to cashiers.

The execution orders are evaluated by

internal management accountants, the work

estimates are approved by requesters, the

settlement is made to beneficiary and work

invoicing is made by accountants.

Communication between the planners and

the other colleagues involved shall be

made using a single Activity Plus+ interface

to cover a multitude of operations.

Fig. 2 Activity Plus centralized operating form.


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Activity Progress interface contains, organized

on tabs, execution orders lists, third-party

service request lists, internal services request

lists, material request lists, time sheet lists and

request lists.

Operation of own requests

In order to perform the activity pertaining to

a department or equipment, it must be

prepared, every month, the resource

requests: for purchased services, for internal

services, for materials and for advance

payments for delegations.

Genesis Activity Plus+ integrates Oracle

Purchasing, Oracle Order Management and

Oracle Work in Process modules in the user’s

Activity Progress interface, so that the

resource requests of an objective can be

recorded and monitored in a single

centralized form.

Performing budgetary

commitment control

The manager of a department or equipment

is concerned that any expense commitment

made in a month is within the budgetary

limits imposed at the beginning of a fiscal

year.

Genesis Activity Plus+ uses the Oracle

Workflow mechanisms to enable the control

of budgetary commitment in every resource

requests it manages: third-party services,

internal services, materials, man power,

advance payments for delegations. Approval

notifications received by the management

display the available funds, on accounts,

using the budgetary calculation formula from

Oracle General Ledger. Upon completion of

the approval process, a budgetary

commitment journal is automatically

recorded in Oracle General Ledger.

Activity Plus+ enables the performance, for

the first time, of the budgetary control in

every type of requests. The accountant

responsible for budget management will find

in the general accounting, for each approved

resource request line, a posted commitment

journal that reduces the value of the planned

budget.

Operating requests on order

When the activity progress of a department

or equipment is performed for the execution

of a product or service, the resource requests

must be prepared in the context of an

execution order.

Genesis Activity Plus+ uses the new

interfaces to users, Orders Register and

Activity Progress, to operate resource

requests in the context of a product or service

execution order.

Fig. 3. Resource operation in the context of

services execution order

The planner operates all types of resource

requests in a centralized form, starting from

an execution order.

Progress of service provision orders

Activity Plus+ uses the “internal request –

internal orders” mechanism for the execution

of internal services by a department or

equipment – executant, for another

organizational structure – requester.

The process run through Activity Plus

includes all the steps, from requests to

completion of work/order, by settling the

actual value or the value set/calculated in the

estimate.

The planner uses Genesis Activity Plus+ to

run the service provision orders, from

approval to completion.


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Running product execution orders

The actual execution is performed by running

the order, i.e. going through all the steps for

product performance, from approval of

request to completion and delivery in

products stock.


run the products execution orders, from

approval to completion.

Operating work estimates

Planners responsible for monitoring products

and services execution orders need flexible

evaluation mechanisms. The work estimates

represent a product and services evaluation

method. The estimate calculates the value of

the executed product or service by totaling

the value of the used resources. The value of

resources can be determined based on the

preset unit price or by performing a post-

calculation of the costs recorded on the order

dimension from the management accounting

and assigning the value of a resource from

the estimate.

Fig. 4. The work estimate for the performance of a

batch of products


perform the upload of work estimate and

to add the value for the product or service

executed.

Service provision settlement

Service execution orders by a department or

equipment – executant, when these are

requested by another organizational

structure – requester, ends with an internal

settlement. The internal settlement involves

the transfer of costs cumulated at the service

execution, real or standard costs, specified in

the works estimate, from the executant

structure to the requester one. With Activity

Plus+, service settlement is performed

flexibly, either by an allocation process, in

the management accounting, or by a

debit/credit note, in the financial

accounting.

The planner running the internal services

execution orders uses Activities Progress

interface from Genesis Activity Plus+ to

automatically settle the value of the provided

service, from performer to requester.

The settlement process uses transactions

from Oracle Inventory to record the value

transfer settlement statement, from the

performer objective to the requester one.


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HOW WAS THE PRODUCT DEVELOPED

Genesis Activity Plus+ was developed progressively, covering the

problems raised by different customers in implementation projects.

Passing through complex design, development and testing processes, a

self-contained product was performed, with proper screens and tables,

which interfaces with standard modules.

Genesis Activity Plus+ refers to all the technical elements characterizing

an Oracle product: it has its own schema of the database objects,

specific configuration elements, operating forms and interrogation

forms of the operation result. Genesis developers use modern

mechanisms provided by Oracle Workflow in Activity Plus+. Thus, the

developed operating form, Activity Progress, has its own account

generator, used for creating the commitment accounts. To run the

execution orders, Genesis Activity Plus+ uses the workflows in Oracle

Order Management adapted to the specific of the new features. All

requests use workflow processes to perform the approval process and

to interface the requests with their equivalent in Oracle EBS modules.

Genesis Activity Plus+ has its own set of reports, which support the

process of activity progress. Workflow processes associated to the

requests automatically run the Consumption order, Internal order, Time

sheet on works, Delegation travel report. Genesis Activity Plus+ also

prepares the documents associated to works execution, the Work

estimate, and Stock delivery note, used for authentication of operations.

White paper

(Informative document)

January 2013

Author: Dorian Balmuș

Genesis Software Consulting

Address: 65 Samuil Vulcan St., sector 5,

Bucharest, Romania

Contact person: George Faur

phone: +40 741-084-009

e-mail: [email protected]

www.genesissoftware.eu

Software and consulting you need

Copyright © 2013, Genesis Software Consulting. All rights

reserved. This document is provided for information purposes

only and the contents hereof are subject to change without

notice.

This document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to

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This document is provided for marketing and information

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allied rights, as subsequently amended and supplemented.

All Genesis trademarks are used under license and are

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Consulting.