R12 NEW FEATURES

ORACLE E-BUSINESS SUITE

RELEASE CONTENT DOCUMENT

Procurement

Release 12.1 (through 12.1.3)

Prepared by EBS Product Management & Strategy

Last Updated: April 14, 2010

Version: 3.0

Copyright © 2010 Oracle Corporation

All Rights Reserved

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 Release Content Document ii

Table of Contents

1. Disclaimer 1

2. Introduction 2

2.1. Purpose of Document 2

3. New and Changed Features in Procurement 3

3.1. Oracle iProcurement 3 3.1.1. Overview 3 3.1.2. Release 12.1.1 3

3.1.2.1. Change Management for Internal Requisitions 3 3.1.3. Release 12.1.2 3

3.1.3.1. In-line Commodity Classification 3

3.2. Oracle iSupplier Portal 4 3.2.1. Overview 4 3.2.2. Release 12.1.1 4

3.2.2.1. Dispute Resolution for G-Log Invoices 4 3.2.2.2. AP/AR Netting 4 3.2.2.3. Products and Services Search 4 3.2.2.4. Business Classification Recertification 5 3.2.2.5. Third Party Payments 5

3.2.3. Release 12.1.3 5 3.2.3.1. Work Confirmation Correction 5

3.3. Oracle Procurement Contracts 5 3.3.1. Overview 5 3.3.2. Release 12.1.1 6

3.3.2.1. Structured Terms Authoring in Repository Contracts 6 3.3.2.2. Secure Enterprise Search 6 3.3.2.3. Deliverable Payment Holds 6

3.3.3. Release 12.1.2 7 3.3.3.1. Author Individual Clauses in Microsoft Word 7 3.3.3.2. Project Manager Dashboard for Maintenance of Procurement Deliverables 8

3.4. Oracle Purchasing 9 3.4.1. Overview 9 3.4.2. Release 12.1.1 9

3.4.2.1. PO and Requisition Mass Update 9 3.4.2.2. Enable All Sites for Global Contract Purchase Agreements 9 3.4.2.3. FPDS-NG Integration 9

3.4.3. Release 12.1.2 9 3.4.3.1. Purchase Order Pricing Enhancement 9 3.4.3.2. Project Security within Oracle Purchasing 10 3.4.3.3. Procurement Web Services – Purchasing 10

3.4.4. Release 12.1.3 11 3.4.4.1. Landed Cost Management (LCM) Integration 11 3.4.4.2. Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) Integration 11

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 Release Content Document iii

3.5. Oracle Services Procurement 11 3.5.1. Overview 11 3.5.2. Release 12.1.1 12

3.5.2.1. Time Reporting and Contractor Assignment Flexibility 12 3.5.3. Release 12.1.2 12

3.5.3.1. Oracle Projects – Work Confirmations 12

3.6. Oracle Sourcing 12 3.6.1. Overview 12 3.6.2. Release 12.1.1 12

3.6.2.1. Two Stage Evaluation of RFP 12 3.6.2.2. Two Stage RFQ – Surrogate Bids 13 3.6.2.3. Supplier Response PDF 13 3.6.2.4. Enhanced Spreadsheet Support 13 3.6.2.5. Countdown Clock 15 3.6.2.6. Price Tier Enhancements 15 3.6.2.7. Cost Factor Enhancements 15

3.6.3. Release 12.1.2 15 3.6.3.1. Earnest Money Deposit 15

3.6.4. Release 12.1.3 16 3.6.4.1. Requester Field in the Sourcing Header 16 3.6.4.2. Descriptive Flex Field (DFF) in Oracle Sourcing Header 17

3.7. Oracle Sourcing Optimization 18 3.7.1. Overview 18 3.7.2. Release 12.1.1 18

3.7.2.1. Sourcing Optimization Enhancements 18 3.7.2.2. Price Tier Optimization 19 3.7.2.3. Supplier Incentives 19

3.8. Oracle Spend Classification – New Product 19 3.8.1. Overview 19 3.8.2. Release 12.1.2 20

3.8.2.1. Integration with Procurement and Spend Analytics 7.9.6 20 3.8.2.2. Knowledge Base Creation and Incremental Updates 20 3.8.2.3. Multiple Knowledge Bases 20 3.8.2.4. Easy to Use User Interface 21 3.8.2.5. Export and Import to Excel 21 3.8.2.6. Ability to Classify Data into Multiple Taxonomies 21 3.8.2.7. In-line Commodity Classification 21

3.9. Oracle Supplier Hub – New Product 22 3.9.1. Overview 22 3.9.2. Release 12.1.1+ 22

3.10. Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management – New Product 23 3.10.1. Overview 23 3.10.2. Release 12.1.1+ 23

3.10.2.1. 360° Supplier View 23 3.10.2.2. Supplier Search 24 3.10.2.3. Supplier Profile Management (including Self-Service) 24 3.10.2.4. Extended Supplier Profile 24 3.10.2.5. Registration and On-Boarding of New Suppliers 24 3.10.2.6. Qualification Management 25 3.10.2.7. Compliance and Profile Audits 25 3.10.2.8. Performance Evaluation 26 3.10.2.9. Supplier Notifications 26

3.11. Oracle Supplier Network 26 3.11.1. Overview 26 3.11.2. Version 5.0 27

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 Release Content Document iv

3.11.2.1. Consolidated Hub Administration 27 3.11.2.2. Production Routing Controls 27 3.11.2.3. UTF-8 Support 27

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 Release Content Document 1

1. Disclaimer

This Release Content Document (RCD) describes product features that are proposed for

the specified releases of the Oracle E-Business Suite. This document describes new or

changed functionality only. Existing functionality from prior releases is not described. It

is intended solely to help you assess the business benefits of upgrading to the specified

release of the Oracle E-Business Suite.

This document in any form, software or printed matter, contains proprietary information

that is the exclusive property of Oracle. Your access to and use of this confidential

material is subject to the terms and conditions of your Oracle Software License and

Service Agreement, which has been executed and with which you agree to comply. This

document and information contained herein may not be disclosed, copied, reproduced or

distributed to anyone outside Oracle without prior written consent of Oracle. This

document is not part of your license agreement nor can it be incorporated into any

contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates.

This document is for informational purposes only and is intended solely to assist you in

planning for the implementation and upgrade of the product features described. It is not

a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied

upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any

features or functionality described in this document remains at the sole discretion of

Oracle.

Due to the nature of the product architecture, it may not be possible to safely include all

features described in this document without risking significant destabilization of the

code.


2. Introduction

2.1. Purpose of Document

This Release Content Document (RCD) communicates information about new or

changed functionality introduced in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and

subsequent 12.1.x Release Update Packs and off-cycle patches.

For your convenience, features are organized by product, and then by the release in

which they first became available. Release 12.1.1 was the first generally-available

release of Release 12.1. Features released in an off-cycle patch on Release 12.1.1, but

before Release 12.1.2, are designated as Release 12.1.1+. Features released in RUP2 of

Release 12.1 are designated as Release 12.1.2, and so on.

Existing functionality in Release 12.0, Release 12.0.x Release Update Packs (RUPs), or

prior releases is not described in this document. For a complete overview of all

functionality included in prior releases, this document should be read in conjunction with

the Release 12 and Release 12.0.x RUP RCDs. These RCDs can be found in My Oracle

Support Document 404152.1 Release Content Documents for E-Business Suite Release

12 and 12.0.x Release Update Packs.

https://support.oracle.com/CSP/ui/flash.html#tab=KBHome(page=KBHome&id=()),(page=KBNavigator&id=(bmDocID=404152.1&from=BOOKMARK&bmDocDsrc=KB&viewingMode=1143))


3. New and Changed Features in Procurement

3.1. Oracle iProcurement

3.1.1. Overview

Oracle iProcurement is the self-service requisitioning application that controls employee

spending. It is a key component of Oracle Advanced Procurement, the integrated suite

that dramatically cuts all supply management costs.

3.1.2. Release 12.1.1

3.1.2.1. Change Management for Internal Requisitions

In Release 12.1.1, processing for internal orders has been enhanced to offer additional

and better-coordinated change management capabilities. Now, quantity or date

information can be updated by either the Requesting or Fulfillment organization and the

updates will be accurately reflected on both the internal requisition and the internal sales

order. In addition, support is now provided for the cancellation of internal transfer

requests. All of these changes will now be visible throughout the planning, purchasing

and order fulfillment workbenches.

A requester can update Quantity and Need-By Date of an approved internal requisition.

If desired, tolerances can be set for automatic approval of updates made to the internal

requisition.

Many new synchronization features are provided. Quantity and Need-By Date changes

on the internal requisition line are automatically propagated to the internal sales order

and vice versa. Cascading of an internal sales order Schedule Ship/Arrival date with the

internal requisition is may be controlled through a profile option. Cancellation of an

internal requisition/line will automatically cancel the corresponding internal sales

order/line and vice versa. And finally, the urgent flag on the internal requisition line will

flow onto the internal sales order line as the shipment priority, based on a profile option

setting.

3.1.3. Release 12.1.2

3.1.3.1. In-line Commodity Classification

At times, requesters may need to order off catalog and create a Non-Catalog Request.

When requesters describe the purchase, there is a high likelihood of it not being

classified into an existing commodity hierarchy. This increases misclassification of

spend information, contract leakage, lower compliance and internal controls.

In R12.1.1 onwards, requesters creating Non-Catalog Requests will have the option of

category being predicted for the purchase being made. After the requester clicks on

“Add to Cart” they will be able to view a “suggested best fit” category with a list of

categories that could be alternate possibilities. The same window can also be used to

parse the complete Category hierarchy. This approach uses the Oracle Spend


Classification in real-time to assess the category of what the requester is ordering. The

requester merely picks the purchasing category and continues checking out. This

capability allows even unstructured requests to be categorized appropriately, aiding

downstream spend analysis.

This feature has a prerequisite of Oracle Spend Classification.

3.2. Oracle iSupplier Portal

3.2.1. Overview

Oracle iSupplier Portal is the enterprise application that structures all supplier

communication through a secure, Internet-based portal. It is a key component of Oracle

Advanced Procurement, the integrated suite that dramatically cuts all supply

management costs.

3.2.2. Release 12.1.1

3.2.2.1. Dispute Resolution for G-Log Invoices

In situations where suppliers include sundry charges on a G-Log invoice, it is not

uncommon for the buying organization to hold the invoice in order that the buyer can

review any discrepancies between the invoice and the original Purchase Order.

Depending on the nature of the additional charges, the buyer and supplier may negotiate

a compromise and adjust the invoice accordingly.

When such disputes occur, it is important that the supplier is able to log and track all

activities for a particular invoice. To better help suppliers in these situations, new fields

have been added to the View Invoice page so that the supplier can see the original value

for their invoice and the reason for the discrepancy.

3.2.2.2. AP/AR Netting

It is a common business practice in many industries to both purchase products or services

from a trading partner and sell products or services to the same trading partner. In cases

like this companies often offset payable and receivable invoices so that only the net

difference is paid or received. This saves you and your trading partners the expenses

associated with making multiple payments.

The new feature will give iSupplier Portal users visibility into the AP/AR netting

activity, so they can easily see which invoices will be paid standalone, which invoices

will be offset against receivable transactions, and which groups of invoices will be paid

by a single payment. On the View Invoices and Payments pages, if a particular invoice

has been netted, the users will be able to see the Netted Amount and the Reckoning

Currency. Furthermore, the users will be able to drill down to the Netting Report, which

will show all transactions that are a part of the netting batch.

3.2.2.3. Products and Services Search

A new search tool has been added to the Products and Services section of the Supplier

Profile to make it much easier for suppliers and administrators to find and select the


goods or services categories that identify a supplier's capabilities. This is especially

useful for those customers that have an extensive Products and Services hierarchy with

many thousands of individual categories from which to choose.

The new feature is available within both the Profile Management pages for existing

suppliers and the prospective supplier registration flow.

3.2.2.4. Business Classification Recertification

For those businesses required to track the business classification details of their

suppliers, it has always been a challenge to keep this information up to date to the

satisfaction of auditors. Now, a recertification tool has been added to the Business

Classification section of the Supplier Profile that tracks the "Last Update" date for the

supplier's classification details and allow administrators to schedule reminder

notifications to be sent to each supplier as this information becomes due.

This feature significantly reduces risk and administrative burden for buying

organizations because they will no longer need to manage the recertification process

manually.

3.2.2.5. Third Party Payments

Third party payments help parties engaged in business set off their liabilities without

directly paying them. This reduces the direct funds movements and enables transactions

to be settled easily. When customers are making payments from their Payables system,

there might be instructions from the supplier to make payment to a different party (Third

Party). In that case the remittance of the payment has to be made to the Third Party.

Establishing Third Party Payment relationship can be done from iSupplier Portal.

Suppliers can add a new relationship and find and update existing relationships.

3.2.3. Release 12.1.3

3.2.3.1. Work Confirmation Correction

At times, there may be a need to correct a previously approved work confirmation in

order to adjust a payment to a supplier. This capability enables a buyer to reduce the

scope of the original work confirmation, when an error is made during data entry for the

work confirmation. Work Confirmation Correction is possible via Purchasing

Professional Buyers Work Center and iSupplier Portal internal view. Buyers can be

granted the additional authority to make corrections as needed. Buyers that are granted

this authority will be able to make corrections to approved Work Confirmation.

3.3. Oracle Procurement Contracts

3.3.1. Overview

Oracle Procurement Contracts is the enterprise application that creates and enforces

better purchasing contracts. It is a key component of Oracle Advanced Procurement, the

integrated suite that dramatically cuts supply management costs.


3.3.2. Release 12.1.1

3.3.2.1. Structured Terms Authoring in Repository Contracts

The Contracts Repository module enables customers to easily manage all their contracts

online. It provides basic contract management capabilities and global, secure visibility

to key stakeholders. Users can create Repository contracts by capturing key attributes

about the contract (like contract party, dates, amount, etc.) and manage the document

files associated with the contract. Users can also track key deliverables and contract

expiration.

With Release 12.1.1, users can now author structured terms and conditions while

creating a Repository contract. These terms are based on standard templates, clauses and

policies defined in the contract terms library. Users can also use the Contract Expert

feature to bring in additional clauses that may be required based on the business terms of

the particular contract. The contract can then be printed for signature, or exported to

Microsoft Word for redlining/collaboration with the external party. The deviations report

functionality will provide a quick overview of all policy violations in the contract.

Structured terms authoring promotes standards based contract authoring and reduces the

overall time-to-contract. Risk associated with non-standard contracts is also mitigated by

ensuring approvers have visibility to all policy violations.

3.3.2.2. Secure Enterprise Search

Business and legal users sometimes wish to locate contracts containing a certain word or

phrase. Oracle Procurement Contracts now leverages Oracle‟s Secure Enterprise Search

to better search against procurement, sales, and repository contracts. Business and legal

users can perform full-text queries in conjunction with structured data queries.

Secure Enterprise Search provides flexibility to match user entered keywords to search

both structured text, such as contract terms, and unstructured text, such as text contained

in attached documents. Additional structured contract attributes may be used to further

refine the search, and include: contract number, contract name, supplier/customer/party

name, contract status, start date, and end date. Unstructured data/text search

functionality requires licensing of Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (SES).

3.3.2.3. Deliverable Payment Holds

Engineering and Construction (E&C) firms have unique requirements regarding

subcontractor management, subcontractor payment, and customer billing. Pay When

Paid is a payment term common in this industry, where sub-contractors are not paid until

the customer pays the general contractor. In addition, it is sometimes necessary to require

subcontractors to maintain specified insurance coverage and other work related

certifications. The general contractor frequently reserves the right to withhold payments

to subcontractors until proof of insurance or proof of certifications has been provided.

The following features enable users to track such requirements and to automate the

payment hold process.

This feature requires additional products to be licensed for full functionality described

below, including Financials and Services Procurement.

3.3.2.3.1. Payment Hold Deliverables


Tracking insurance and certification requirements is often a cumbersome and

manual process. Deliverables will be used to track these requirements. Initiate

Payment Holds functionality will provide users the ability to initiate payment

holds on all future invoices when a deliverable approaches its due date or when a

deliverable becomes overdue. For example, a subcontractor may be required to

be licensed yearly. To ensure that licensing happens, the buyer or project

manager can define a deliverable to hold all payments if the subcontractor fails

to renew his license.

3.3.2.3.2. Payables Integration

In Release 12.1.1, new hold and release reasons are seeded in Oracle Payables.

A “PO Deliverable” hold can be placed on all supplier invoices that are matched

to a purchase order that has a deliverable with payment hold terms and is nearly

due or is overdue.

Releases may be automatic or manual. A concurrent process automates the

release of PO Deliverable Payment holds. The process is submitted

automatically when the user updates the Due Date for a deliverable that is within

the defined payment hold terms. Project managers can also use the

Subcontractor Payment Management Workbench to manage Deliverables. A

Payment Hold Status and Payment Indicator allow users to quickly see whether

all deliverables have been met and determine whether payments can be made to

the subcontractor. Project managers can override the automatic payment holds

caused by overdue purchase order deliverables.

3.3.2.3.3. Support for Pay When Paid Scenarios

Many construction firms adhere to a “Pay when Paid” policy for subcontract

agreements, in order to manage cash flow for a project. Specifically,

construction companies will hold the payment of subcontractor bills until the

construction firm has been paid by the owner. Now, a Pay when Paid payment

term may be specified for a subcontract to automatically result in the placing of

holds on all subcontractor invoices under that subcontract until the

corresponding customer payment is received.

A new Subcontract Payment Controls workbench allows the project manager to

manage these holds, with visibility into both the customer invoices and the

associated subcontractor invoices. Alerted by workflow notifications once the

customer payment is received, the project manager can then choose to

automatically or manually release the corresponding subcontractor invoices. The

associations between the customer invoices and the subcontractor invoices may

be automatically maintained based on the billing of project expenditures in the

case of a cost-plus contract, or manually maintained for fixed price contract

scenarios.

3.3.3. Release 12.1.2

3.3.3.1. Author Individual Clauses in Microsoft Word

Legal clauses are typically managed in Word documents. Organizations using Oracle E-

Business Suite for their enterprise contract management need to be able to create and

update clauses using a rich text editor such as Microsoft Word.


With 12.1.2, users can directly create and edit the clauses in Microsoft Word leveraging

additional formatting features. Importing clause text from Microsoft Word and

exporting clause text to Microsoft Word for edit have been incorporated into both the

Contract Terms Library and the Contract Authoring Flow. The following formats will be

preserved as defined in Microsoft Word:

Bold, italic, text color, and underlines

Standard bullets available in Word

Numbering schemes (roman numerals, alphabets, numbers) and their indents

including hanging indents

List items with non-numbered text between them

Indent and tabs (Tab spacing/width is determined based on style sheet

information)

Line spacing

Text alignment (left, right, and center justification)

Table formatting

Hyperlinks, page breaks, and symbols defined in Unicode

This feature requires Microsoft Word Professional 2003 or 2007.

3.3.3.2. Project Manager Dashboard for Maintenance of Procurement Deliverables

A new feature in Release 12.1.1 provided support for the tracking and monitoring of

subcontract deliverables that place automatic holds on subcontractor invoices in the case

of non-compliance. For example, if a subcontractor fails to provide their insurance

certificate in a timely fashion per the subcontract terms, holds are automatically placed

on incoming invoices based on the contractual deliverable. Upon complying, the hold is

released.

Also in 12.1.1, a new Payment Controls Workbench in Oracle Projects allows the project

manager to view a checklist of all subcontract deliverables to assist in evaluating the

subcontractor status prior to releasing monthly progress payments.

Project managers are frequently responsible for subcontractor management. In 12.1.2,

the Payment Controls Workbench has been enhanced to allow project managers to

directly update subcontract deliverables. A project manager with proper security

privileges can update existing deliverables or define new deliverables to track future

subcontractor obligations. A project manager can also apply payment holds even when

the “Pay when Paid” attribute has not been checked.

This feature has a prerequisite of Oracle Projects.


3.4. Oracle Purchasing

3.4.1. Overview

Oracle Purchasing is the application for procurement professionals that streamlines

purchase order processing while strengthening policy compliance. It is a key component

of Oracle Advanced Procurement, the integrated suite that dramatically cuts supply

management costs.

3.4.2. Release 12.1.1

3.4.2.1. PO and Requisition Mass Update

Oracle Purchasing includes a new capability to mass update buyer, approver, and deliver-

to person information in Purchase Orders (PO) and preparer, requester and approver

information on requisitions to streamline the process of maintaining organizational

changes.

A new program, Mass Close of Purchase Document, allows users to mass close Purchase

documents. The Mass Close functionality applies to Purchase Orders that have been fully

processed i.e. batch processing has completed, but are not in the closed status as well as

for Purchase Orders that the user needs to manually close. The program is applicable to

Standard Purchase Orders, Blanket Purchase Agreements, Planned Purchase Orders and

Contract Agreement and Blanket Releases

3.4.2.2. Enable All Sites for Global Contract Purchase Agreements

A new feature “Enable All Sites in Global Contract Purchase Agreement” has been

introduced to allow Contracts to be referenced from any of the valid supplier sites while

creating standard PO and requisitions. This allows broader use of GCPA, such as for

suppliers with many valid sites in a single master agreement.

Additionally, a profile option has been added to allow a Requisition or Standard

Purchase Order to reference a GCPA from any of the Supplier Sites while the GCPA is

being amended. By default, the profile option is set to “No” to preserve current

behavior.

3.4.2.3. FPDS-NG Integration

Most U.S. Federal Government agencies must track and report their contract activity in a

variety of ways, including publishing certain contract activity to the Federal Procurement

Data System – Next Generation (FPDS-NG). Oracle Purchasing Release 12.1.1 provides

support for integration with FPDS-NG by ensuring that required contract and vendor data

elements are captured in the system and that submission data passes all required FPDS-

NG validations.

3.4.3. Release 12.1.2

3.4.3.1. Purchase Order Pricing Enhancement

Oracle Purchasing has extended its integration with Advanced Pricing to provide greater

granularity and flexibility in pricing orders and agreements. The extended integration


also provides greater transparency to the means by which a price has been determined for

orders and agreements.

Oracle Purchasing users can now:

View the pricing modifier information for a purchase order and/or Global Blanket

Purchase Agreement line and view the pre-calculated price adjustments applied by

the price engine.

Manually enter a price modifier, change modifier rate, and recalculate the price.

Query existing manual modifiers and apply them to a Purchase Order and Global

Blanket Purchase Agreement unit price.

Change the modifier rate and apply changes to PO or Global Blanket Purchase

Agreement Line.

These new features provide an accurate view of pricing information to the buyer,

increased flexibility for buyers to price an order, and streamlined supplier

communication on prices.

3.4.3.2. Project Security within Oracle Purchasing

It is common in project-centric industries like Engineering and Construction for buyers

to be assigned to projects rather than to commodities or item categories. Buyers only

have authority to transact on behalf of the projects to which they are assigned. To help

enforce this business rule, project level security is being introduced in Oracle

Purchasing. When the new security option is enabled, procurement users will only be

allowed to view and update procurement documents that are related to a project on which

the user has an active role.

This feature has a prerequisite of Oracle Projects.

3.4.3.3. Procurement Web Services – Purchasing

This feature exposes business logic contained within user forms through Java APIs.

These web services are cataloged in the Oracle Integration Repository and can be

browsed though Oracle Integration Repository Browser Interface under the respective

product family node. By clicking on the Business Entity in the Integration Repository,

you can view a full description, a list of web services for that business entity along with

the description of the web service. The description of parameters can be viewed from

the xsd definition of the service available via the generated wsdl.

As part of 12.1.2, the following web services are provided for Purchasing:

Purchase Order: Cancel Purchase Order, Create Purchase Order, Delete

Purchase Order, Approve Purchase Order, Query Purchase Order, and Update

Purchase Order

Requisition: Create Requisition, Delete Requisition, Query Requisition, and

Update Requisition. Note that these support requisitions in iProcurement as well

as Purchasing.


3.4.4. Release 12.1.3

3.4.4.1. Landed Cost Management (LCM) Integration

Oracle Landed Cost Management gives organizations financial visibility into their

extended supply chain costs including transportation, handling fees, regulatory duties

and taxes and helps them to determine the landed cost of the material for transactional

purposes. This allows organizations to have better control over procurement costs,

maximize profits, increase competitiveness, and ensure that complex trade activities are

compliant with regulatory mandates

This integration allows purchasing users to simulate the Landed Costs at the creation

time of purchase orders, allowing better procurement decisions based on the estimated

Landed Cost of the items.

3.4.4.2. Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) Integration

Encumbrance Accounting for Purchase Orders with „Shop Floor‟ Destination

In EBS Release 12.1.2, the implementation of encumbrance reversal for SCM was

limited to Inventory and Expense Receiving transactions. Now in Release 12.1.3, this

functionality has been extended to „Shop Floor‟ destination Purchase Orders, where the

distributions will be created under WIP transactions. Purchasing will support

encumbering funds for Purchase Orders generated from eAM (with a „Shop Floor‟

destination) during the approval process.

All public sector organizations, such as municipal, state, provincial and federal

government organizations are required to encumber or reserve funds that have been

committed to a supply purchase order. Therefore, prior to approval of any purchasing

document, the available funds must be checked and reserved against the available budget

for the specified account code combination. This enhancement is key for budgetary

control.

3.5. Oracle Services Procurement

3.5.1. Overview

Oracle Services Procurement is the application that enables complete control and

oversight for services spending. It is a key component of Oracle Advanced Procurement,

the integrated suite that dramatically cuts all supply management costs.

Oracle Services Procurement further streamlines all aspects of the acquisition process for

complex services including:

Negotiation of service contracts with emphasis on terms related to contract

financing and progress payment arrangements

Tracking of work progress against agreed schedule in the contract

Processing of payment requests


By supporting real time online collaboration involving key stakeholders throughout the

lifecycle, organizations can significantly improve the acquisition process of this

important spend category.

3.5.2. Release 12.1.1

3.5.2.1. Time Reporting and Contractor Assignment Flexibility

For Services Procurement, Release 12.1.1 is focused on customer driven enhancements

delivering greater flexibility for time reporting and contractor assignment. Key

capabilities included maximizing preferred supplier savings, cutting processing costs,

eliminating over-billing and providing visibility into services spending. Oracle continues

to enhance and streamline the workflow for Contingent Workers by:

Allowing multiple PO and PO lines to be associated with each assignment so

that when workers are extended and a new requisition is added to an existing PO,

a new PO line is automatically created.

Enabling workers to charge time to multiple projects referenced on a PO line

associated to the workers HR assignment.

3.5.3. Release 12.1.2

3.5.3.1. Oracle Projects – Work Confirmations

The workflow for work confirmations, in Release 12.1.2, is more flexible and supports

additional ways to record and display progress. Key benefits include:

On a work confirmation for a PO, users now have the ability to enter

incremental or cumulative progress values, as absolute amount or percentage

Users now have the complete visibility to the progress as they can view the

absolute and percentage values for both incremental and cumulative progress.

3.6. Oracle Sourcing

3.6.1. Overview

Oracle Sourcing is the enterprise application that improves the effectiveness and

efficiency of strategic sourcing. It is a key component of Oracle Advanced Procurement,

the integrated suite that dramatically cuts all supply management costs.

Oracle Sourcing enables buyers to source more of the organization‟s spend at lower total

cost. Oracle Sourcing creates immediate savings through rapid deployment, and ensures

long-term savings with consistent execution and compliance.

3.6.2. Release 12.1.1

3.6.2.1. Two Stage Evaluation of RFP

In certain global markets, government organizations and some private sector enterprises

often follow a formal two stage negotiation process. The two stage negotiation process

requires the submission of bids from suppliers that can be evaluated based on technical


and commercial aspects separately to help ensure fair evaluation of supplier bids. In

Oracle Sourcing, organizations can now evaluate suppliers‟ bids in two independent

stages based on the technical and commercial parts of the bids.

The first stage includes the technical evaluation of all responses to questions and

parameters pertaining to the technical aspects that are used by the sourcing organization

to evaluate the technical feasibility and capabilities of the suppliers. During this stage,

commercial aspects remain sealed so that they do not influence the decision making

process. For bids that fail the technical evaluation, the commercial part will remain

sealed. Evaluators can then analyze the commercial aspects (such as price and delivery

terms) for only those bids passing the technical stage.

By adding support for two stage RFP in Oracle Sourcing, organizations can help ensure a

more impartial evaluation of supplier bids based on the independent evaluation of the

technical capabilities and then the commercial terms of a supplier‟s bid.

3.6.2.2. Two Stage RFQ – Surrogate Bids

The new two stage RFQ process also includes Surrogate Bidding support, allowing a

buyer to enter, in stages, bid details on behalf of a supplier(s). During the first stage, the

buyer is able to enter the surrogate quote with all the required technical details but

without price information. Once all of the supplier bids have been received, technical

scoring is done against the requirements and attributes in RFQ. For those suppliers that

score well in the technical round, their bids will be short listed for the commercial round.

During the commercial round, the buyer can then complete the surrogate bidding process

for those suppliers not carrying out their own bidding. The buyer is able to enter the

commercial terms provided by a supplier to enable scoring for the commercial round to

be completed. Upon approval of the quote, it is short-listed for placing the purchase

order or contract.

3.6.2.3. Supplier Response PDF

Organizations often have the need to keep a physical record of a supplier‟s bid response

for audit, reference, or offline review purposes. Oracle Sourcing Release 12.1.1 adds the

ability to generate a PDF version of a supplier‟s response, which allows suppliers to print

the PDF for draft and submitted bids. In addition, buyers can print the supplier bids

allowing buyers to review responses offline or to save for their internal records.

3.6.2.4. Enhanced Spreadsheet Support

In Release 12.1.1, Oracle Souring provides an enhanced XML spreadsheet format to

support a standard look-and-feel and streamlined usability of the spreadsheets for

supplier response creation and analysis/award. Buyers and suppliers can download all

the information in one single spreadsheet, simplifying the loading and maintaining of

spreadsheets for a negotiation.


Copyright © 2006, Oracle. All rights reserved.2

Response – Lines

Predefined

List of

Values

Bid Total

Calculated

InstantlyLine Filter

Link to

Scoring

Worksheet

Fig. 1: Line Level Response for Suppliers

The spreadsheets for supplier response creation not only has an improved and user

friendly look and feel, but it can provide immediate feedback to suppliers through the

robust formulas used to calculate scores, even when they are not connected to the

system. The enhanced spreadsheets will allow buyers and suppliers to enter the data

more efficiently and reduce the number of errors during data entry in the offline

environment, thus improving the overall user experience during the process.

Copyright © 2006, Oracle. All rights reserved.4

Analysis – Lines

Award and Savings

Amount per Supplier

Calculated Instantly

Side-by-Side

Bid

Comparison

Overall Savings

Calculated Instantly

Perform

What-If

Analysis

Fig. 2: Buyer Analysis of Bid Responses from Suppliers


Buyers also have a more powerful tool to conduct analysis of supplier responses and

make smarter award decisions. Buyers can easily view totals and savings, conduct what-

if analysis of different award scenarios, and view side-by-side comparison of all

elements of supplier responses.

3.6.2.5. Countdown Clock

In fast-paced auctions, the countdown clock will help to promote more competitive

behavior among suppliers. Suppliers will know the exact amount of time left to create

and submit their bids or quotes. The countdown clock updates automatically if there are

changes in the negotiation close date (for example, if AutoExtend is triggered). The

performance of the countdown clock is also optimized so that unnecessary use of

network bandwidth is minimized. Buyers who monitor the negotiations from Live

Console will also be able to monitor precisely how soon the negotiation will be closing.

Buyers who monitor supplier activities will also see the time ticking down without

manually refreshing the page. In addition to auctions, the countdown clock will apply to

additional negotiation types of RFQ and RFI.

3.6.2.6. Price Tier Enhancements

Suppliers have flexibility to offer different unit prices depending on the volume of

business that the buyer is willing to commit for a given product or service. Typically, a

supplier will provide preferential pricing for a larger volume purchase. Quantity based

price tiers allow buyers to specify different price points for each quantity range on

negotiations with standard purchase order, blanket or contract purchase agreement

outcomes. Suppliers can respond to the tier structure defined by the buyer, or they can

provide their own price tiers.

Users can define quantity based price tiers when creating negotiations for Blanket

Purchase Agreements. Buyers can select whether they want to have price breaks,

quantity based, or no price tiers in the negotiation. When price tiers are enabled, buyers

can define the quantity range and the target price for each tier within a line. Similarly,

suppliers can create their own price tiers when they submit a bid. The award price is

based on the tier that corresponds to the award quantity assigned to each supplier.

3.6.2.7. Cost Factor Enhancements

Cost factors allow buyers to model the total cost of a product or service. Cost factors

operate under one of these three pricing basis: (1) per unit cost (2) percentage of the unit

price (3) fixed amount for the line.

This enhancement improves the calculation of the per unit total cost when fixed amount

cost factors are used and the buyer awards a supplier a quantity that is either equal to or

lower than the response quantity. Whereas before Oracle Sourcing used the response

quantity to calculate the per unit total cost, the new formula utilizes the award quantity to

distribute the fixed amount cost factor resulting in a more accurate award amount

calculation.

3.6.3. Release 12.1.2

3.6.3.1. Earnest Money Deposit

In certain global markets, particularly in APAC and EMEA, government organizations

and some private sector enterprises often follow a formal process of taking EMD


(Earnest Money Deposit) from their suppliers. A supplier, unless exempted, has to pay

the EMD amount to the buying organization in order to participate in any Sourcing

negotiation. This EMD amount is usually refunded after the negotiation is completed.

Buying organizations can leverage these capabilities to ensure the supply base is

seriously interested in providing a competitive bid.

Oracle Sourcing supports various EMD payment methods, namely:

a. Cash

b. Check (Cheque)

c. Demand Draft

d. Corporate EMD. Corporate EMD is a practice where a supplier deposits a large

amount with the buying company and the EMD is adjusted against this amount.

e. Bank Guarantee

EMD is received by the EMD Administrator, a new responsibility made available for

EMD transactions, or can be paid online by the suppliers (Corporate EMD).

The EMD Administrator can exempt a supplier from paying EMD, or refund or forfeit

the EMD amount, depending on the business policies.

There is an out-of-the-box integration with Oracle Financials, so that the receipt, forfeit

and refund of EMD can leverage Oracle Receivables and Oracle Payables. For customers

not using Oracle Financials, there is a non-integrated EMD deployment process where

the company can still use the EMD feature in Oracle Sourcing. There are reports

available for the buying organization to validate the EMD status and details for different

negotiations and suppliers.

This feature in Oracle Sourcing ensures that the end-to-end sourcing process for the

buying organization can be performed using Oracle Sourcing application, and customers

will not have to rely on processes outside the application to complete their sourcing

negotiations. This shortens the sourcing cycle which otherwise can lead to delays in

receiving and returning the EMD amount and affects the productivity of buying

organization due to manual checks and coordination. Also, all EMD related information

is retained in the application which can be leveraged for future reference and audit

requirements.

3.6.4. Release 12.1.3

3.6.4.1. Requester Field in the Sourcing Header

At times, there is a need to capture the name of the business owner of the negotiation or

in the case where the owner/sponsor is separate from the person running the negotiation.

The requester field is available in the negotiation header (RFI, RFQ and Auctions).

The default value is the buyer, but it can be updated as shown in the screenshot below.

This field can be used to capture the name of the business owner of the negotiation

or in the case where the owner / sponsor is separate from the person running the

negotiation.


Fig. 3: Requester Field in the Sourcing Header Page

Please note that the field, by default, is not available in the application and can be made

available though personalization.

3.6.4.2. Descriptive Flex Field (DFF) in Oracle Sourcing Header

Often, buyers have a need to provide additional information on the header page, for

example, information on contract value, final project approver, etc. Headers attributes

are of two types: a) Visible to Buyers only (who have access to negotiation) and b)

Visible to both the buyer and supplier. As shown in the figure below, there are two DFFs

in the negotiation header page which helps to capture these attributes:

- Additional Header Attributes (Buyer Only)

- Additional Header Attributes (Buyer & Supplier)

Fig. 4: Descriptive Flex Field in Oracle Sourcing Header Page

The buyer can create different contexts which will control the different attributes

displayed. For example, in this case the context additional supplier information selection

displayed the contact address, contact number and budget sanctioned attributes. These

fields can be used to convey additional negotiation related information to the buyer and

supplier community.

Please note that the DFFs, by default, are not available in the application and can be

made available though personalization


3.7. Oracle Sourcing Optimization

3.7.1. Overview

When allocating business to suppliers, buyers often must strive to meet multiple

purchasing goals and business policies. For example: “award at least 10% business to

minority-owned suppliers,” “no single supplier should get more than 80% of the total

business,” or “at least half of the business should go to incumbent suppliers”. It can be

challenging to achieve maximum savings while meeting such business policies,

particularly if there are many line items and a large number of competitive bids.

Oracle Sourcing Optimization can help by allowing the buyer to create scenarios that can

be automatically optimized to determine the best award, while adhering to policies and

goals defined on the scenario. This results in better and faster award decisions.

3.7.2. Release 12.1.1

3.7.2.1. Sourcing Optimization Enhancements

Sourcing Optimization has several enhancements to assist buyers in making optimal

award decisions.

Buyers can now determine a constraint priority for award optimization by indicating the

importance of a given constraint. The concept of setting up priorities for constraints will

help the optimization engine identify which constraints can be automatically relaxed

when, otherwise, no solution exist. By automatically relaxing a constraint, the engine

may find an acceptable solution, saving the buyer time and avoiding an iterative process

for optimizing.

Upon optimizing a scenario, buyers will be able to analyze the cost of a particular

constraint. Buyers typically want to evaluate by how much an award decision results on

a more expensive award because of a business constraint (i.e., the additional cost

imposed by a business constraint). Cost of constraint refers to the difference in price (or

cost or score) that occurs in an optimized award solution vs. what would be achievable

were that constraint removed. Oracle Sourcing will now simplify the cost of constraint

analysis by allowing buyers to select the constraint that they want to evaluate and

returning the cost associated to the selected constraint. With the cost of constraint

feature, buyers can determine how much more expensive is an award decision because of

a business constraint.

Buyers will also have the ability to view award optimization scenarios side-by-side to

compare the results of different optimization approaches. Buyers will select what

scenarios they want to display side-by-side and Oracle Sourcing will show award

amounts and savings for those scenarios. Buyers will be able to effectively see the

before and after effects of changes made to the optimization criteria and/or weightings

when reviewing optimization results.

With Quantity based constraints, buyers can now indicate award allocation not only in

terms of award amount, but also in terms of award quantity. For example, 15% of all

units should be awarded to minority owned suppliers allowing for more control over the

optimization constraints.


3.7.2.2. Price Tier Optimization

Suppliers typically have their own price tiers that meet their business realities. Analyzing

dissimilar tier structures is a very complex and time consuming activity. This process is

greatly streamlined by the use of Oracle Sourcing Optimization. When Oracle Sourcing

Optimization is used to find the best award scenario in a negotiation, the optimization

engine analyzes all combinations of price tiers submitted by suppliers to determine the

best award recommendation. Award quantities specified in the award recommendation

are used to assign the correct unit price to the resulting purchasing documents.

3.7.2.3. Supplier Incentives

Suppliers often provide incentives to increase the level of business transacted with the

buying organization. The incentives can be in the form of a fixed amount (e.g., signing

bonus), a tiered rebate structure (e.g., rebates that occur when a predetermined level of

business is reached), or both. These additional savings through incentives may directly

impact the award decisions that buyers make. How much business a buyer awards to

each supplier determines whether additional rebates apply, and, therefore, the additional

savings need to be factored in the award scenario analysis.

Oracle Sourcing Optimization allows buyers to enter the incentives given by suppliers.

Buyers can enter the current total spend and rebate percentage for each supplier, and the

rebate structure for any extra award made on top of the current spend. In addition, a fixed

amount incentive can be specified to account for a signing or transition bonus. Oracle

Sourcing Optimization uses these values to calculate the additional savings yielded by

the incentives, and adds the amount to the total savings in the award scenario. Buyers can

then use the information to make more informed award decisions.

3.8. Oracle Spend Classification – New Product

3.8.1. Overview

One of the biggest benefits from business intelligence applications that analyze spend

derives from the consolidation of spend data from multiple sources. Whether from many

sources, or just one, it is generally true that spending data is inadequately categorized for

use by procurement. One of the reasons is an emphasis on recording accounting

information, which often reveals little of the purchasing category. In most organizations,

a majority of spend data is not categorized, categorized incorrectly, or categorized as

miscellaneous. This leads to a skewed picture of the breakdown of spend, resulting in

poor visibility to identify saving opportunities.

Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics (P&SA) includes adaptors that load data from

many sources, including Oracle E-Business Suite 11i9, 11i10, R12, Oracle Peoplesoft

Enterprise 8.9, 9.0, legacy, and other sources.

Spend Classification processes the data contained in P&SA and predicts appropriate

category information for each invoice line. To be able to do the predictions, Spend

Classification uses existing categorized data from PS&A to create a knowledge base.

Features in Spend Classification allow data stewards to test and validate the learning

performance, ensuring the knowledge base is performing classification at adequate

levels. Once the knowledge base has been built, the product can be used to classify

spend data residing in P&SA.


Fig. 5: Oracle Spend Classification, Classification Summary Page

3.8.2. Release 12.1.2

3.8.2.1. Integration with Procurement and Spend Analytics 7.9.6

Spend Classification is integrated with Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics 7.9.6

(P&SA), a component of Oracle BI Applications. It processes data from OBIA tables for

invoice, purchasing, and requisition information. After Spend Classification predicts

purchasing categories for spend lines, it reassigns categories in P&SA where it has a high

confidence rating of a successful match.

3.8.2.2. Knowledge Base Creation and Incremental Updates

Spend Classification uses a sample of existing and accurately categorized spend data to

learn successful categorization based on a wide range of an organization‟s data. The

product allows the users to enrich the knowledge base with incremental data as data

evolves to increase classification accuracy over time.

3.8.2.3. Multiple Knowledge Bases

Spend Classification provides functionality to create a standard knowledge base that can

predict categories at various levels of the purchasing category hierarchy.

Spend Classification uses Oracle Data Mining as its engine for predictive analytics.

Advanced users may use Data Mining to create any of the alternate supported Data

Mining knowledge bases and then reference these knowledge bases from Spend

Classification to process future spend data.


3.8.2.4. Easy to Use User Interface

Spend Classification uses Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, a component

of Fusion middleware, for its user interface. Pages provide dynamic sorting of data,

column level search, and filters. Users can drill down to segments of data directly from

various Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) defined for classification results.

Fig. 6: Oracle Spend Classification, Classification Details Page

3.8.2.5. Export and Import to Excel

Spend Classification integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Excel. It allows users to

export all data to Excel in order to do offline processing. If manual updates are made in

Excel, the Excel file can be uploaded into OBIA. For example, this might be used in

cases where the user decides to manually reassign categories.

3.8.2.6. Ability to Classify Data into Multiple Taxonomies

Spend Classification can categorize spend data into different category taxonomies.

Category taxonomies that are supported include:

The category setup in a source financials system

UNSPSC

Three additional custom category taxonomies

There is no restriction on the number of levels defined for a category hierarchy.

3.8.2.7. In-line Commodity Classification

At times, requesters may need to order off catalog and create a Non Catalog Request.

When requesters describe the purchase, there is a high likelihood of it not being

classified into an existing commodity hierarchy. This increases misclassification of

spend information, contract leakage, lower compliance and internal controls.


In R12.1.1 onwards, requesters creating Non Catalog Requests will have the option of

category being predicted for the purchase being made. After the requester clicks on Add

to Cart they will be able to view a “suggested best fit” category with a list of categories

that could be alternate possibilities. The same window can also be used to parse the

complete Category hierarchy. This approach uses the Oracle Spend Classification in real

time to assess the category of what the requester is ordering. The requester merely picks

the purchasing category and continues checking out. This capability allows even

unstructured requests to be categorized appropriately, aiding downstream spend analysis.

3.9. Oracle Supplier Hub – New Product

3.9.1. Overview

Many organizations track supplier data in multiple ways, driven by the needs of different

business units or unconnected business processes The result is disparate supplier

definitions that make it difficult to have a complete and coherent summary of each

trading partner.

Oracle Supplier Hub is a new application that provides a portfolio of Master Data

Management tools to enable organizations to better manage their supplier master records

centrally. Built on the foundational technology used to support mastering of customer

information, Supplier Hub can be used by both organizations that need to aggregate

supplier data from a range of application systems and also by those running a single E-

Business Suite instance.

Supplier Hub consolidates supplier information from disparate systems and business

lines into a single repository, provides cleansing and third party enrichment tools for

effective data management, and provides the resulting "single point of truth" supplier

data as a service to consuming applications, enterprise business processes and decision

support systems.

Supplier Hub is a complementary solution to Supplier Lifecycle Management (SLM). It

can be implemented to extend the SLM capabilities by providing comprehensive quality

management functionality to cleanse the underlying supplier identity information that

has been enriched through the SLM tools.

Deployment of Supplier Hub enables organizations to have a consistent understanding of

the trading partners that they use to procure the various goods and services required to

support their business. This clarity is essential in order to be able to carry out effective

analysis of spending patterns so that appropriate tactical and strategic decisions can be

made about specific supplier relationships and overall company procurement policies.

3.9.2. Release 12.1.1+

Oracle Supplier Hub provides the following set of features:

Supplier Master Profile

Supplier Classification Management

Supplier Hierarchy Management

Supplier Data Import and Source Management


Supplier Data Quality Management

Supplier D&B Data Enrichment

Supplier Data Publication and Synchronization

Full details about the capabilities of the Supplier Hub application can be found in the

Master Data Management Release Content Document.

3.10. Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management – New Product

3.10.1. Overview

Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management (SLM) is a new application that provides an

extensive set of features to support the qualification, profile management and

performance assessment of suppliers as well as tools to track ongoing supplier

compliance with corporate and legal requirements. Utilizing these capabilities,

organizations can exercise proper control over suppliers throughout the lifecycle of their

relationship with the organization; from initial discovery, through qualification and on-

boarding, to ongoing maintenance and possible obsolescence.

A key factor in improving the quality of an organization‟s supplier master file is to

establish proper processes to formally qualify different types of prospective suppliers.

Supplier Lifecycle Management enables any and all of the peculiar information required

to assess a prospect to be gathered and then routed through the organization to ensure

efficient review of the supplier‟s credentials.

Once a supplier has been approved, SLM also enables organizations to gather feedback

from key stakeholders as part of an overall supplier performance tracking process. In

addition, Supplier Lifecycle Management also allows key stakeholders to identify and

track critical compliance documents and attributes that need to be gathered from

suppliers on a periodic basis in order for the two parties to maintain an active business

relationship.

3.10.2. Release 12.1.1+

3.10.2.1. 360° Supplier View

One of the challenges with managing supplier information is that the pieces of

information gathered about a supplier can be stored in a variety of applications and

systems. This data disbursement can hamper organizations as they look to review

supplier performance or to comply with audit requirements.

Supplier Lifecycle Management provides a repository for storing information from

disparate sources and then enabling a 360° view of the data to be provided to the key

business users within the organization. As well as access to basic supplier information -

such as Address, Contact, Business/Diversity Classification, General Classification,

Product and Services category and Banking details - users will be able to review

qualification and on-going evaluation details for the supplier, view key documents that

have been included in the supplier‟s profile and check the status of Deliverables that the

supplier is required to provide to maintain their status within the system.


3.10.2.2. Supplier Search

To assist administrators charged with managing the vendor master for their

organizations, Advanced Search capabilities enable them to efficiently find and retrieve

supplier records.

The Advanced Search allows any of the standard and extended profile attributes to be

used as search criteria and for the results to be viewed using multiple display formats.

The profile information retrieved from the search can be exported in spreadsheet format,

modified and then re-imported to enable mass data changes to be handled in an efficient

manner. The Advanced Search criteria and display formats can be personalized both at

the administrator and business user level.

3.10.2.3. Supplier Profile Management (including Self-Service)

Most organizations maintain a team of administrators to deal with the flow of

administrative updates from trading partners containing changes to their company profile

details. To make this process more efficient, Supplier Lifecycle Management extends

existing iSupplier Portal functionality to allow supplier users to be given online access to

maintain a wider range of their own profile details.

The supplier user can maintain standard company profile details; Address, Contacts,

Business Diversity Classifications, Products and Services category and Banking Details.

Changes they provide can then be reviewed by internal administrators before approval.

Suppliers are also able to access qualification and on-going compliance information that

they are required to provide to the buying organization to maintain their status in the

system.

3.10.2.4. Extended Supplier Profile

To better understand the capabilities of suppliers in key product categories, Supplier

Lifecycle Management utilizes User Defined Attribute technology to allow

administrators to add an unlimited range of attributes to the supplier definition and to

group these into logical Profile sections. Typically, this is the sort of information stored

in paper-based systems that are maintained by different departments throughout an

organization. In addition to the attribute name, administrators are able to add descriptive

text to help explain the purpose of the attribute.

Fine-grained access control tools allow administrators to manage which users can have

access to the individual attributes in the extended set of profile details. This is

particularly important when sensitive information is stored in the profile and access

needs to be restricted to appropriate users either internally or at the supplier.

3.10.2.5. Registration and On-Boarding of New Suppliers

To help manage the stream of inquiries that come from supplier prospects interested in

doing business with the buying organization, many companies now use their corporate

websites to have potential suppliers register their interest in establishing a business

relationship. This allows the organization to get key information from the supplier that

can be used to qualify whether they are a suitable trading partner.

Supplier Lifecycle Management provides a supplier registration feature that can be

configured by business unit to gather the data elements required to assess each

prospective supplier request. The registration form can be configured to include


Address, Contacts, Business Classification, Product and Services category, Banking

detail and any of the Extended Supplier Profile attributes. The prospective supplier can

also upload attachments as part of their registration packet.

To support sophisticated and conditional qualification procedures, administrators can

also establish RFI documents that allow various profile and compliance information from

the prospect to be captured using a questionnaire format.

In addition to the walk-up process, buyers can pre-register and send invitations to

prospective suppliers, requesting them to provide additional details for pre-qualification

and approval using the self-service capability.

To support complex or lengthy supplier registration, prospective suppliers can save their

draft registration request at any time, and return to it at a later date. Once a prospective

supplier has registered, their request is routed through an approval hierarchy for review.

3.10.2.6. Qualification Management

For many organizations, the processes for assessing new supplier relationships are

cumbersome and inefficient. In an effort to ensure that “business gets done”, companies

often support multiple channels for receiving new supplier requests and then follow a

very limited or haphazard procedure to review supplier credentials. Oftentimes, this is a

poorly coordinated manual process that requires tasks to be sequenced and tracked across

multiple departments as credit checks are carried out, customer references called, quality

standards reviewed and production facilities inspected.

Supplier Lifecycle Management leverages the Approval Management Engine to allow

companies to generate customized approval flows for processing supplier requests and

registrations. The details for each new supplier can be passed to multiple stakeholders

across many departments within the buying organization.

Approvers are notified when they are required to review a request and can check

graphically the overall approval status for a given request.

As part of the approval routing, SLM includes the qualification information collected

from the supplier as well as incremental feedback provided by business users assessing

the request. This allows basic supplier profile and qualification details to be gathered,

deliverables like Insurance certificates and Code of Conduct documents to be stored and

Products and Services information to be recorded within the Qualification packet.

The buying organization can apply business rules that will use the details in the request

to customize the approval flow so that the appropriate approvers can look at the details.

Once a registration request has been approved or rejected, the supplier is automatically

notified by email. Following approval, the qualification details provided by a supplier

become part of their profile that can be updated at a later date.

3.10.2.7. Compliance and Profile Audits

Whilst there are regulatory requirements for some types of organization to keep key

supplier profile elements up to date, this is also an important process for a lot of non-

regulated organizations that are looking to meet Corporate Social Responsibility

standards that they have set for themselves.


Supplier Lifecycle Management enables administrators to utilize the RFI tools to gather

and manage supplier compliance and profile information that are required on an

anniversary basis. They can define key compliance information that is required from

suppliers and then store the feedback provided by the supplier into the supplier master

profile record.

3.10.2.8. Performance Evaluation

Companies recognize that employees who interact with suppliers can provide insightful

feedback on “soft” performance metrics for the supplier. Being able to canvas opinion

from these key stakeholders and then use the information to help drive an overall

assessment of a supplier‟s performance is a key part of any collaborative program

intended to help improve supplier relationships.

Supplier Lifecycle Management will allow administrators to generate internal RFI

documents that can be sent to key personnel within the organization to evaluate and

score specific aspects of a supplier‟s overall performance. This will allow stakeholders

in a diverse range of departments, such as Procurement, Finance, Supply Chain,

Manufacturing, Quality, Design and Legal, to combine their opinions into a rating of

how well the supplier is doing.

The feedback gathered about the supplier is stored in the supplier profile allowing

performance trends to be tracked and risk to be effectively managed.

3.10.2.9. Supplier Notifications

To assist with supplier communication, Supplier Lifecycle Management provides tools to

allow notifications to be selectively communicated to a company‟s supply base.

Administrators enter notification information and then use search tools to generate the

list of suppliers that are to receive the message.

3.11. Oracle Supplier Network

3.11.1. Overview

The Oracle Supplier Network (Oracle SN) enables Oracle Purchasing customers and

their suppliers to accelerate collaboration and deliver significant efficiency savings by

conducting business electronically. Buying organizations are able to achieve quick cost

savings by leveraging the community of enabled suppliers on Oracle SN where

thousands of XML transactions are exchanged daily.

An Oracle-run service utilizing an Internet-based hub transaction model, Oracle SN

provides a wide range of features that are designed to ease the challenges of electronic

messaging.

Single Connection: Oracle SN is a messaging hub so each organization need only

setup a single connection to get access to the community of buyers/suppliers

Multiple Document and Transformation Support: The buying organization and

its suppliers can exchange Purchase Orders, PO Acknowledgments, PO Change

Requests, Advanced Shipment Notices and Invoices that can be automatically

converted between OAG and cXML formats


Self-Testing: Trading partners do not have to coordinate connectivity testing.

Instead, Oracle SN allows each partner to utilize a Test Hub to send and receive

sample documents to validate their connection

Supplier Punch-in access to multiple customer Oracle iSupplier Portal

applications

3.11.2. Version 5.0

Oracle SN 5.0 is the most recent release and offers a range of new features.

3.11.2.1. Consolidated Hub Administration

Streamlined account administration tools allow administrators to manage all the

messaging configurations for both their test and production transactions from a single

account login. Users no longer migrate account setup between hubs. Instead users

control separate transaction delivery parameters centrally for routing over the Oracle SN

Test Hub and the Oracle SN Production Hub.

3.11.2.2. Production Routing Controls

Users can restrict specific trading partners from exchanging production messages.

3.11.2.3. UTF-8 Support

UTF-8 message encoding enables Oracle SN to route messages containing multibyte

languages.

R12 NEW FEATURES

Documents

shop floor destination

earnest money deposit

private sector enterprises

asset lifecycle management

work confirmation correction

supply management costs

descriptive flex field

existing commodity hierarchy