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

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.


3

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


5

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.


6

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

Centralized operation and diverse
communication

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.

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.

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.


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
commitment control

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.

budgetary

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


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.

8

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 postcalculation of the costs recorded on the order
dimension from the management accounting
and assigning the value of a resource from
the estimate.

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.

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


9

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.

Software and consulting you need
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: george.faur@genesissoftware.ro
www.genesissoftware.eu


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
any other warranties, including implied warranties and
conditions of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
This document is provided for marketing and information
purposes, and does not entail any contractual liability. The
content hereof is protected by the Copyright Law L8/1996 and
allied rights, as subsequently amended and supplemented.
All Genesis trademarks are used under license and are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Genesis Software
Consulting.

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Activity plus operational dashboard for Oracle Apps

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