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ORACLE E-BUSINESS SUITE

RELEASE CONTENT DOCUMENT

Procurement
Releases 12.1 and 12.2 (inclusive of 12.0.2 – 12.0.7)

Prepared by EBS Product Management & Strategy

Last Updated: December 19, 2014


Version: 5.3

Copyright © 2014 Oracle Corporation


All Rights Reserved
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
3.1.4. Release 12.1.3+ 4
3.1.4.1. Information Template Enhancements 4
3.1.4.2. Primary Favorite Charge Account can take Precedence over Employee Charge Account 4
3.1.4.3. Dual Budgetary Control Support 4
3.1.4.4. Attachment Support in Change Order Process 4
3.1.4.5. Account Generator Support in Requisition Import 4
3.1.4.6. Requisition Update PL/SQL API 4
3.1.4.7. Approve Requisitions On-the-Go 4
3.1.5. Release 12.2 5
3.1.5.1. Automatic Updates to Encumbrance (GL) Date 5
3.1.5.2. Visibility of Item Master Attachments in Item Search and Detail Pages 5
3.1.6. Release 12.2.4 5
3.1.6.1. iProcurement One-Step Check Out 5
3.2. Oracle iProcurement Extensions for Oracle Endeca 5
3.2.1. Overview 5
3.2.2. Release 12.1.3+ 6
3.2.2.1. Search All Catalogs 6
3.2.2.2. Advanced Filtering 6
3.2.2.3. Item Comparison 6
3.2.2.4. Easy to Implement and Configure 6
3.3. Oracle Mobile iProcurement for Oracle E-Business Suite 6
3.3.1. Version 1.1.0 6
3.3.1.1. Mobile Foundation Updates 6
3.3.1.2. Accessibility Improvements 7
3.4. Oracle iSupplier Portal 7
3.4.1. Overview 7
3.4.2. Release 12.0.3 (RUP3) 7
3.4.2.1. Forward Port of JFMIP/FSIO from 11.5.10 to R12 for Federal Customers 7
3.4.3. Release 12.1.1 8
3.4.3.1. Dispute Resolution for G-Log Invoices 8
3.4.3.2. AP/AR Netting 8
3.4.3.3. Products and Services Search 8
3.4.3.4. Business Classification Recertification 8

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document ii
3.4.3.5. Third Party Payments 9
3.4.4. Release 12.1.3 9
3.4.4.1. Work Confirmation Correction 9
3.4.5. Release 12.2 9
3.4.5.1. Integrate with Oracle Flow Manufacturing to View and Edit E-Kanbans 9
3.4.5.2. Capture Additional Supplier Contact details 9
3.5. Oracle Procurement Contracts 9
3.5.1. Overview 9
3.5.2. Release 12.0.2 (RUP2) 9
3.5.2.1. User-Defined Variables with PL/SQL Procedures as Source 9
3.5.3. Release 12.1.1 10
3.5.3.1. Structured Terms Authoring in Repository Contracts 10
3.5.3.2. Secure Enterprise Search 10
3.5.3.3. Deliverable Payment Holds 10
3.5.4. Release 12.1.2 12
3.5.4.1. Author Individual Clauses in Microsoft Word 12
3.5.4.2. Project Manager Dashboard for Maintenance of Procurement Deliverables 12
3.5.5. Release 12.1.3+ 13
3.5.5.1. Apply Multiple Templates to a Sourcing or Purchasing Document 13
3.5.5.2. APIs for Importing Templates, Rules, Questions and Constants 13
3.5.5.3. New Clause Descriptor Field 13
3.5.5.4. Clause Mandatory Attribute at Rule Level 13
3.5.5.5. Clause Section Placement by Contract Expert 13
3.5.5.6. Deletion of Provisional Sections from Solicitation to Award 14
3.5.5.7. Instruction Text 14
3.5.5.8. Multi-Row Variables 14
3.5.5.9. Display Clause Number and Sort by Clause Number 14
3.5.5.10. Contract Expert History 15
3.5.5.11. Delete Multiple Clauses, Sections and Deliverables 15
3.5.5.12. Defaulting Rules for Contract Administrator 15
3.5.5.13. Purge Process for Repository Contracts 15
3.5.6. Release 12.2 15
3.5.6.1. Repository Contracts Configurability Enhancements 15
3.5.6.2. UDA support for Deliverables 16
3.5.6.3. MS Word 2010 Certification 16
3.5.6.4. Contract Expert Performance Improvements 16
3.5.7. Release 12.2.4 16
3.5.7.1. Repository Contracts Printing Enhancement 16
3.6. Oracle Purchasing 16
3.6.1. Overview 16
3.6.2. Release 12.0.2 (RUP2) 16
3.6.2.1. Integration between Oracle Purchasing and Oracle Transportation Management 16
3.6.2.2. iSetup APIs 17
3.6.3. Release 12.0.6 (RUP6) 17
3.6.3.1. Contract Commitments Integration with Self Service Purchasing (Oracle Public Sector Financials
International) 17
3.6.4. Release 12.1.1 17
3.6.4.1. PO and Requisition Mass Update 17
3.6.4.2. Enable All Sites for Global Contract Purchase Agreements 17
3.6.4.3. FPDS-NG Integration 18
3.6.5. Release 12.1.2 18
3.6.5.1. Purchase Order Pricing Enhancement 18
3.6.5.2. Project Security within Oracle Purchasing 18
3.6.5.3. Procurement Web Services – Purchasing 18
3.6.6. Release 12.1.3 19
3.6.6.1. Landed Cost Management (LCM) Integration 19
3.6.6.2. Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) Integration 19
3.6.7. Release 12.1.3+ 19
3.6.7.1. Encumbered Document Revisions without Un-reserving Funds 19

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document iii
3.6.7.2. Approvals Management Engine (AME) for PO Approvals 19
3.6.7.3. Current and Pending Approvers in Action History Region 20
3.6.7.4. Withdrawing Purchase Order after Submitted for Approval 20
3.6.7.5. Configurable Notification in Purchase Order 20
3.6.7.6. Outside Processing Lines in Global Blanket Agreements (GBPAs) 20
3.6.7.7. Support for Importing Complex Purchase Orders 20
3.6.7.8. New ASL APIs 20
3.6.7.9. Buyer Work Center Session Preferences 21
3.6.7.10. Purchasing Document Open Interface (PDOI) Enhancements 21
3.6.7.11. PO Business Service Object (BSO) Webservices 21
3.6.7.12. Lead-Time based Promised Date calculation 21
3.6.7.13. Approve Purchase Orders On-the-Go 21
3.6.8. Release 12.2 22
3.6.8.1. Automatic Updates to Encumbrance (GL) Date 22
3.6.8.2. Support for Additional Extension Hooks 22
3.6.9. Release 12.2.4 22
3.6.9.1. Spreadsheet based authoring of PO Lines 22
3.7. Oracle Mobile Procurement for Oracle E-Business Suite 22
3.7.1. Version 1.1.0 22
3.7.1.1. Mobile Foundation Updates 22
3.7.1.2. Accessibility Improvements 23
3.8. Oracle Services Procurement 23
3.8.1. Overview 23
3.8.2. Release 12.1.1 23
3.8.2.1. Time Reporting and Contractor Assignment Flexibility 23
3.8.3. Release 12.1.2 23
3.8.3.1. Oracle Projects – Work Confirmations 23
3.8.4. Release 12.2.4 24
3.8.4.1. Advances, Recoupment and Retainage for Standard Purchase Orders 24
3.8.4.2. Support for Inventory Destinations in Complex Purchase Orders 24
3.9. Oracle Sourcing 24
3.9.1. Overview 24
3.9.2. Release 12.1.1 24
3.9.2.1. Two Stage Evaluation of RFP 24
3.9.2.2. Two Stage RFQ – Surrogate Bids 25
3.9.2.3. Supplier Response PDF 25
3.9.2.4. Enhanced Spreadsheet Support 25
3.9.2.5. Countdown Clock 26
3.9.2.6. Price Tier Enhancements 26
3.9.2.7. Cost Factor Enhancements 27
3.9.3. Release 12.1.2 27
3.9.3.1. Earnest Money Deposit 27
3.9.4. Release 12.1.3 28
3.9.4.1. Requester Field in the Sourcing Header 28
3.9.4.2. Descriptive Flex Field (DFF) in Oracle Sourcing Header 28
3.9.4.3. Landed Cost Management (LCM) Integration 29
3.9.5. Release 12.1.3+ 29
3.9.5.1. Online Discussions Attachments 29
3.9.5.2. Terms and Conditions Controls 29
3.9.5.3. Lot Price Summation 30
3.9.5.4. Delete Supervisor from Collaboration Team 30
3.9.5.5. Sort and Delete Suppliers from Invited Suppliers Page 30
3.9.6. Release 12.2 30
3.9.6.1. Add Requisition lines to a Draft Negotiation (RFx & Auction) 30
3.9.6.2. Response Withdrawal 30
3.9.6.3. Track Amendment Acknowledgements 30
3.9.6.4. Staggered Awards 31
3.9.6.5. Import of Price Breaks 31
3.9.6.6. Negative Cost Factors 31

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document iv
3.9.6.7. Sourcing APIs 31
3.9.7. Release 12.2.4 31
3.9.7.1. Mass Update of Buyers 31
3.9.7.2. Surrogate Quotes for Suppliers without an User Account 31
3.10. Oracle Sourcing Optimization 32
3.10.1. Overview 32
3.10.2. Release 12.1.1 32
3.10.2.1. Sourcing Optimization Enhancements 32
3.10.2.2. Price Tier Optimization 32
3.10.2.3. Supplier Incentives 33
3.11. Oracle Spend Classification 33
3.11.1. Overview 33
3.11.2. Release 12.1.2 34
3.11.2.1. Integration with Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics 7.9.6 34
3.11.2.2. Knowledge Base Creation and Incremental Updates 34
3.11.2.3. Multiple Knowledge Bases 34
3.11.2.4. Easy to Use User Interface 34
3.11.2.5. Export and Import to Excel 35
3.11.2.6. Ability to Classify Data into Multiple Taxonomies 35
3.11.2.7. In-line Commodity Classification 35
3.11.3. Release 12.2 36
3.11.3.1. Reclassify Historical Data 36
3.11.3.2. Asynchronous Approval Flow 36
3.11.3.3. Enhanced Training Data Upload 36
3.11.3.4. Enhanced Tracking Capabilities 36
3.11.3.5. Improvements in Analyzing Batches and Excel to Export 36
3.11.3.6. Increased Flexibility in Resetting Data 37
3.11.4. Release 12.2.4 37
3.11.4.1. Delete Classification Batch 37
3.11.4.2. Run Classification on Selected Transactions 37
3.11.4.3. Simplified User Interface 37
3.11.4.4. Prevent Reset of Transactions in Classified, Unapproved Batches 37
3.12. Oracle Supplier Hub 37
3.12.1. Overview 37
3.12.2. Release 12.1.1+ 38
3.13. Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management 38
3.13.1. Overview 38
3.13.2. Release 12.1.1+ 39
3.13.2.1. 360° Supplier View 39
3.13.2.2. Supplier Search 39
3.13.2.3. Supplier Profile Management (including Self-Service) 39
3.13.2.4. Extended Supplier Profile 39
3.13.2.5. Registration and On-Boarding of New Suppliers 40
3.13.2.6. Qualification Management 40
3.13.2.7. Compliance and Profile Audits 41
3.13.2.8. Performance Evaluation 41
3.13.2.9. Supplier Notifications 41
3.13.3. Release 12.1.3+ 41
3.13.3.1. Mandatory Internal Requirements 41
3.13.3.2. Associate Address to Contacts 42
3.13.3.3. Keyword Search 42
3.13.3.4. Default User Creation 42
3.13.3.5. Reinstate a Rejected Supplier Request 42
3.13.3.6. Registration Approval Workflow Enhancements 42
3.13.3.7. Streamlined Prospective Supplier Registration Process 43
3.13.3.8. View Prospective Supplier Registration Status 43
3.13.4. Release 12.2.4 43
3.13.4.1. Registration Approval Workflow Enhancements 43

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document v
3.13.4.2. Approval History on Supplier Profile 43
3.14. Oracle Supplier Network 43
3.14.1. Overview 43
3.14.2. Version 5.0 44
3.14.2.1. Consolidated Hub Administration 44
3.14.2.2. Production Routing Controls 44
3.14.2.3. UTF-8 Support 44

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document vi
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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 1
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 Releases 12.1 and 12.2, and in
subsequent Release Update Packs (RUPs) and off-cycle patches. For your convenience,
it also includes new or changed functionality introduced in the RUPs for Release 12,
including 12.0.2 through 12.0.7.
The features and enhancements described in this document are grouped by product, and
then by the release in which they first became available, for example, “Release 12.1.1”.
Features released in an off-cycle patch have a special designation – for example, a feature
released after 12.1.3, but before 12.2, is designated as “Release 12.1.3+”.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 2
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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 3
3.1.4. Release 12.1.3+

3.1.4.1. Information Template Enhancements


Oracle iProcurement now stores eligible information template information (of size 4000
bytes or less) as long-text attachments and offers a preview display for data stored
through information templates. The Attachment icon in the Requisition Summary and
Buyer Work Center pages displays a preview pop-up upon mouse-over for requesters and
buyers.

3.1.4.2. Primary Favorite Charge Account can take Precedence over Employee
Charge Account
Employees can define Favorite Charge Accounts in iProcurement Preferences, and can
mark one of those accounts as the Primary Favorite. iProcurement uses a series of rules to
generate charge accounts during the checkout process. Under certain circumstances,
iProcurement gets the charge account from the employee record in HR. But if that is not
specified, it defaults to the Primary Favorite. However, if an employee needs the Primary
Favorite to override the charge account on their HR record, they can now do so with the
‘Override Employee Charge Account’ preference in iProcurement.

3.1.4.3. Dual Budgetary Control Support


An enabled dual budgetary control allows iProcurement users to specify the accounting
date on which they want to encumber funds. This gives users more flexibility in creating
documents involving transactions that spawn multiple fiscal years.

3.1.4.4. Attachment Support in Change Order Process


iProcurement users can now add an attachment when requesting a change on a
Requisition that has been converted to a Purchase Order. Approvers and buyers will be
able to view the attachment. Attachments marked with the category “To Supplier” will
also be visible to suppliers after the revised Purchase Order is approved.

3.1.4.5. Account Generator Support in Requisition Import


Requisition Import Process now calls Account Generator Workflow to generate charge
accounts for requisitions that are being created. When inserting requisitions into the
Requisitions Interface, users can leave the charge account columns blank, and the system
will then trigger account generator workflow to default these fields.

3.1.4.6. Requisition Update PL/SQL API


Using a new public API, third-party systems can now update an incomplete or an
approved requisition that has not yet been placed on a Purchase Order. The Requisition
Update API allows for the addition or update of requisition lines and distributions. The
API can also submit the requisition for approval once the updates have been made.
This feature is forward ported to 12.2.4.

3.1.4.7. Approve Requisitions On-the-Go


Oracle Mobile Approvals for Oracle E-Business Suite is a smartphone application that
lets employees and managers respond on-the-go to pending approval requests. From their
phone, anywhere and anytime, employees and managers can take quick action on
approval requests for expenses, requisitions, purchase orders, recruitment vacancies and
offers, and more.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 4
Employees can quickly filter approval requests by sender or subject, review header and
line details, action history and comments, and respond back with their approval or
rejection, right from their smartphone.
This feature is forward ported to 12.2.3.
For a full description, refer to the E-Business Suite Applications Technology Release
Content Document.
3.1.5. Release 12.2

3.1.5.1. Automatic Updates to Encumbrance (GL) Date


Requesters specify an Encumbrance Date for each distribution against a line at the time
of creating requisitions. If this date is within a closed period, and is hence invalid, then
the application can automatically update the date to the current date. This feature requires
a profile value setting to be activated.

3.1.5.2. Visibility of Item Master Attachments in Item Search and Detail Pages
While viewing the details of the item after having searched for them in the store,
iProcurement users will now be able to see attachments associated with the Item Master
for those items. This will enable users to gain access to item attachments like design
specifications etc, and thus better equip them to choose the right product to order.
3.1.6. Release 12.2.4

3.1.6.1. iProcurement One-Step Check Out


iProcurement now offers a simplified shopping experience by reducing the number of
steps needed for the creation of a requisition.
Users can easily view the contents in their shopping cart and submit the requisition with a
single click. Power users, interested in a detailed review of the Requisition or needing to
make changes, can now do so in a single requisition detail page before submitting for
approval.

3.2. Oracle iProcurement Extensions for Oracle Endeca


3.2.1. Overview
Employee search against catalogs is one of the most critical activities in iProcurement,
influencing adoption, user satisfaction, and the amount of buying activity that can be
automated. Endeca technology used in conjunction with iProcurement provides a
powerful new approach to search, while retaining the robust policies, controls, and
integrations built into iProcurement.
Expanded catalogs can be loaded to capture contract savings without adding complexity
to the shopping experience. Maverick spending is reduced, and non-catalog requisitions
for catalog items are minimized, further streamlining the process and reducing
procurement involvement.
Endeca functionality replaces the iProcurement home page while the shopping cart and
subsequent checkout with integration, accounting, and approvals remain unchanged. Key
product features are described below.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 5
3.2.2. Release 12.1.3+

3.2.2.1. Search All Catalogs


Universal Search allows employees to immediately search for their desired item without
having to first choose the appropriate catalog. All catalog content is queried including
catalogs hosted by punch-out suppliers. Search displays results from every eligible
source regardless of where data is hosted, and search results are displayed with
remarkable speed.

3.2.2.2. Advanced Filtering


Filters allow employees to target desired choices. Default filters include supplier name,
source contract, and shopping category. Guided Navigation filters display for items that
share similar category attributes. For example, Display Size may appear as a filter when
shopping for computer monitors.

3.2.2.3. Item Comparison


With a few clicks employees can evaluate items and detailed item attributes side-by- side.
Just as with the search engine, item comparison also enables comparison between items
from different catalogs or suppliers. Item comparison allows employees to feel confident
they have identified the best product at the best price.

3.2.2.4. Easy to Implement and Configure


Items from Supplier punch-out catalogs may be refreshed in the “search catalog” as often
as needed. If desired, items that originate in supplier punch-out catalogs can require the
user to navigate to the supplier’s item page for further information. Requiring navigation
to the supplier’s item page may be required for items that have add-on configuration,
volatile availability, calculated pricing, or specification sheets that employees must
reference prior to making a purchase decision.

3.3. Oracle Mobile iProcurement for Oracle E-Business Suite


With Oracle Mobile iProcurement for Oracle E-Business Suite, employees can monitor
their requisitions and take actions on the go.
• Track my requisitions for approval and delivery status
• View requisition, approvers, lines and shipments
• Monitor alerts for approval rejections, returns and shipment delays
• Collaborate in transaction context using device features such as email, phone and
text
Oracle Mobile iProcurement for Oracle E-Business Suite is compatible with Oracle E-
Business Suite 12.1.3 and 12.2.3 and above. To use this app, you must be a user of Oracle
iProcurement, with mobile services configured on the server side by your administrator.
3.3.1. Version 1.1.0

3.3.1.1. Mobile Foundation Updates


• Improvements in login and configuration flow
• Ability to change the URL without having to reinstall the app

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 6
• Diagnostics Improvements

3.3.1.2. Accessibility Improvements


Improvements were made in the requisition details page, related information item card,
contextual tab bar and person contact card.

3.4. Oracle iSupplier Portal


3.4.1. 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.
3.4.2. Release 12.0.3 (RUP3)

3.4.2.1. Forward Port of JFMIP/FSIO from 11.5.10 to R12 for Federal Customers
This feature addresses the delta between 11.5.10 functionality and R12 functionality,
related to meeting the requirements given by JFMIP in 2004 for iSupplier Portal. The
following iSupplier Portal pages are impacted:
3.4.2.1.1. Supplier Search Page
The DUNS number is available at the supplier site level for CCR Suppliers. A user
can retrieve distinct supplier records while performing the search using the DUNS
Number.
3.4.2.1.2. Organization Page
A CCR Supplier indicator was provided on the Organization page. If the supplier is a
CCR Supplier, then the Taxpayer ID, DUNS Number and SIC attributes, and Bank
Account tab are rendered view-only.
3.4.2.1.3. Manage Sites Page / Update Address Page
In the Update Address page for CCR Suppliers, the attributes Country, Address
Lines, City, State, Postal Code, Province, DUNS Number, and Pay Site are view-
only.
A new attribute, DUNS Number, was added and displayed in the Identification tab
within the Manage Sites page, for Federal Financials installations. If the supplier site
is a CCR supplier site, the user cannot update this field.
The newly added icon “View CCR Supplier” allows the user to access the General
Information page from the federal application, to view CCR supplier site-specific
data.
3.4.2.1.4. Tax Details Page
An indicative comment was provided on the tax details page; it identifies the Tax
Details of a CCR vendor.
3.4.2.1.5. Bank Details Page
A CCR indicator appears when the assignment level is Supplier Site, and if the site is
a CCR site. For a CCR Site, adding new bank accounts, modifying any bank, branch
or account information, changing the priority of bank accounts and update bank
account number is not possible.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 7
3.4.2.1.6. Invoice Management page
A descriptive comment “CCR Site” was added to the Invoice Management page.

3.4.3. Release 12.1.1

3.4.3.1. 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.

3.4.3.2. 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.

3.4.3.3. 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.

3.4.3.4. 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 allows 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 8
3.4.3.5. 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.
3.4.4. Release 12.1.3

3.4.4.1. 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.
3.4.5. Release 12.2

3.4.5.1. Integrate with Oracle Flow Manufacturing to View and Edit E-Kanbans
Oracle iSupplier Portal integrates with the E-Kanban feature of Oracle Flow
Manufacturing. Suppliers can now use iSupplier Portal to view a summary of their E-
Kanbans and update the status on their E-Kanbans.
For more information, consult the Manufacturing RCD.

3.4.5.2. Capture Additional Supplier Contact details


Oracle iSupplier Portal now offers the following set of additional fields to capture
Supplier Contact Information: URL, Alternate Contact Name, Alternate Area Code, and
Alternate Phone Extension. Prospective suppliers will now be able to use these fields
during registration. Buyers will be able to enter / update these fields for each contact on
the Supplier Profile. Supplier users will also be able to update these fields while
submitting a profile change request.

3.5. Oracle Procurement Contracts


3.5.1. 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.
3.5.2. Release 12.0.2 (RUP2)

3.5.2.1. User-Defined Variables with PL/SQL Procedures as Source


Procurement Contracts supports the concept of system and user-defined variables that can
be embedded in clause text or used in Contract Expert rules. System variables are defined
by the application and the values are sourced from attributes on the Oracle Purchasing
and Sourcing documents (e.g. payment terms). User-defined variables are defined in

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 9
Contract Terms Library and the values are provided by users when they author contract
terms and conditions.
Contracts customers have requested the ability to create user-defined variables whose
values can be sourced from descriptive flex fields, custom tables, or even a Purchase
Agreement or RFQ that are not supported as system variables. With RUP2, user-defined
variable values can now be sourced from any data source. The data source is
encapsulated as a custom PL/SQL procedure that is associated to the user-defined
variable definition. As a user authors contract terms and conditions, the system will
automatically obtain the values from the data source eliminating the need for users to
manually enter them.
3.5.3. Release 12.1.1

3.5.3.1. 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 such as contract party, dates, amount, etc., and managing 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. Risks associated with non-standard contracts are mitigated by
ensuring approvers have visibility to all policy violations.

3.5.3.2. 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.
This feature requires licensing of Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (SES).

3.5.3.3. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 10
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.

3.5.3.3.1. 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.
3.5.3.3.2. 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.
3.5.3.3.3. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 11
3.5.4. Release 12.1.2

3.5.4.1. 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 later.

3.5.4.2. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 12
3.5.5. Release 12.1.3+

3.5.5.1. Apply Multiple Templates to a Sourcing or Purchasing Document

A buyer or contract administrator may apply a contract template to quickly draft a


compliant legal contract as part of a Sourcing or Purchasing document. A contract
template may include internal and supplier deliverables to encourage execution of a
standardized and complete process. Now the buyer may add multiple templates to these
contracts. All clauses and deliverables from new templates flow into the document.
Each template that has been applied can be viewed as part of the contract record, for easy
identification by a buyer or contract administrator.

Contract Expert rules specified in the original template continue to govern exclusively.
For instance, if a new template is added that contains Contract Expert rules these rules
will not be retained as part of the contract.

3.5.5.2. APIs for Importing Templates, Rules, Questions and Constants

Migrating elements from the Contract Terms Library from one environment to another is
sometimes necessary, for instance to graduate templates and rules created in a test
instance into production. Once created in a test instance, it can be time-consuming to
reproduce these rules in production.

Now, interfaces (APIs) can be used by technical staff to efficiently upload and create new
entities. New APIs include:
• Templates
• Rules, and
• Questions and Constants
APIs can be used to create new entities and update existing templates and rules. These
APIs return error and warning messages to simplify troubleshooting.

3.5.5.3. New Clause Descriptor Field

A clause descriptor field displays on the Contract Template, Rules Definition and
Contract Terms pages. This field can be updated from Contract template and Rules
definitions page. This field is hidden by default, and references a user-defined lookup for
the list of values.

3.5.5.4. Clause Mandatory Attribute at Rule Level

Now it is possible to specify if a clause suggested by the Contract Expert is mandatory or


optional when defining a rule.

If undefined at the clause level, the template level setup will be used to determine
whether a Contract Expert suggested clause should be added as mandatory or optional.

3.5.5.5. Clause Section Placement by Contract Expert

Today when a clause is added to a contract via Contract Expert, it is added to the default
section. Now, contract administrators have the flexibility to add the clause to different
sections based on attributes of the contract.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 13
When creating a clause, the contract administrator may insert a variable such as the
contract printing format (see image below). The user can now define the appropriate
section for a clause based on variable values. When the clause is added to the document
by the Contract Expert, the clause will get added to the section based on the value of the
variable of the document.

Fig.1: Buyer Analysis of Bid Responses from Suppliers

3.5.5.6. Deletion of Provisional Sections from Solicitation to Award

There are a number of clauses which are specific to a sourcing (Solicitation) document
and should not move onto the final contract. These are called Provisional Clauses.

Now, the user can indicate that certain sections are provisional. Provisional Sections and
their clauses do not flow to the award document when the award contract is created from
the solicitation document.

3.5.5.7. Instruction Text

The clauses in a document may contain URLs of external websites where additional
information is available. One can add the destination URL in the instruction text of the
clause with the appropriate HTML tags. This will now make the URL available as a
hyperlink which will be available for the user to click from the clause details page.

3.5.5.8. Multi-Row Variables

Currently the variable field in a contract clause only accepts single values. However,
there is a need to provide multiple values for a single variable in the form of an n X n
matrix. For example, the variable contact number can have 3 columns – Country, City
and Number with multiple rows. Users can now leverage the UDA (User Defined
Attribute) framework to set up attributes groups and refer these groups in Multi-Row
Variables.

The variable creation page will allow the user to designate the variable as multi-row and
associate attributes and printing RTF templates to them. These variables when available
in a contract for a Sourcing or Purchasing document will allow the user to enter multiple
rows for a given variable and this will be printed in the PDF document as per the defined
RTF template. This is available for buyer updateable variables and does not support
PL/SQL values.

3.5.5.9. Display Clause Number and Sort by Clause Number

The clause number may be used by contracting professionals for many purposes. Now,
the clause number may be used for searching, updating or adding clauses. The clause
number has been added to the Contract Terms page, the Search results page for clauses,
and the summary page after Contract Expert in run.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 14
It is also required to sort the clauses in a section by the clause number. There will be a
button available which will sort all the clauses in a section by the clause number. This is
currently optimized for the Federal clause numbering scheme as follows:
<NUMBER 1>.<NUMBER 2>-<NUMBER 3><Some text>

Search is an alphanumeric sort on the clause number. A code hook is provided, enabling
customers to embed desired sorting logic (for example, the numbering schema is
different) which will be called when sorting occurs.

3.5.5.10. Contract Expert History

Contract Expert History allows buyers to view the Contract Expert questions, the
responses provided, and the resultant policy deviations and net clause additions. For
revisions in orders or amendments in a Sourcing document, the user will also be able to
enter the amendment description and also view it in the Contract Expert summary page.
This capability will simplify audit requirements and will provide details around the
responses provided and changes in different revisions and amendments.

This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.5.5.11. Delete Multiple Clauses, Sections and Deliverables

A delete function on the Contract Terms page allows users to delete multiple clauses,
sections and deliverables from a draft document. Clauses marked as mandatory will not
be allowed to be deleted.

This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.5.5.12. Defaulting Rules for Contract Administrator

The Check Contract Administrator Warning is displayed today when the user validates
the Contract terms or tries to publish / submit for approval a Sourcing or Purchasing
document that has contract terms added to the document. For purchasing documents,
users can now provide the default value for the contract administrator using the profile
option OKC: Default Contract Administrator for Contract Terms. We will not display the
warning message for a Sourcing document, though the feature will still be available.

This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.5.5.13. Purge Process for Repository Contracts


The contract administrator can purge selected contracts using the Purge Repository
Contracts concurrent program. Users can purge a contract only if the status of the
contract is terminated, cancelled or rejected, or if the contract has expired. This
concurrent program deletes the selected contracts and all related entities.

This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.5.6. Release 12.2

3.5.6.1. Repository Contracts Configurability Enhancements

Repository Contracts now provides greater flexibility and improved capabilities to the
contracting professional. The contract administrator can now control the different entities

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 15
that are available for each contract type. Custom signature and approval workflows may
be defined individually for each contract type, which enhances the applicability of
repository contracts in different business scenarios. Customers can leverage repository
contracts to integrate them within their existing business flows in different application
modules. Repository contracts also support UDA (User Defined Attributes) pages. So,
each contract can contain multiple additional pages to capture specific business
information. This will allow the repository contracts to be used a as solution for modeling
different document management requirements along with their own process lifecycle.

3.5.6.2. UDA support for Deliverables


Deliverables in both Procurement and Repository Contracts also support UDA (User
Defined Attributes) attribute groups. So, each deliverable can contain UDA fields to
capture additional information as needed by that specific deliverable. A new entity called
deliverable category has been introduced that can be used to link the required UDA
attributes to a deliverable.

3.5.6.3. MS Word 2010 Certification


The clause and contract terms sync process is now certified for Microsoft Word 2010.
Users can now download and view clauses and contract terms in MS Word 2010 and also
upload documents edited in MS Word 2010

3.5.6.4. Contract Expert Performance Improvements

The Contract Expert engine now has improved performance of the complete flow.
Impacts include faster UI and better formatting of the question and answer fields. There
is no change to the Contract Expert process itself.

3.5.7. Release 12.2.4

3.5.7.1. Repository Contracts Printing Enhancement

UDA (User Defined Attributes) fields may be used to capture additional data for each
contract type. The Contract Type setup page now allows the contract administrator to
specify the manner in which UDA attributes are printed by selecting appropriate data and
layout templates.

3.6. Oracle Purchasing


3.6.1. 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.
3.6.2. Release 12.0.2 (RUP2)

3.6.2.1. Integration between Oracle Purchasing and Oracle Transportation


Management
Oracle E-Business Suite integrates with Oracle Transportation Management to enable
transportation features and functionality in existing products, including Oracle Order
Management, Oracle Shipping Execution, Oracle Payables, Oracle Warehouse
Management, and Oracle Purchasing.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 16
Oracle Transportation Management combines transportation planning and execution
with freight payment, inbound freight logistics, and freight rating and routing. Oracle
Transportation Management adds the following features and enhancements to Oracle
Purchasing:
 Carrier selection and tender
 Freight rating and routing
 Actual ship quantities update and re-rate
 Freight payment, freight payment audit, and approval
 Visible in-transit statuses
 Inbound carrier selection
 Inbound in-transit statuses

3.6.2.2. iSetup APIs


This feature makes it easier for customers to move Setup data between EBS instances.
iSetup automates the setup and management of setup data for Oracle EBS. The iSetup
migrator moves setup data across multiple EBS instances. Each business entity supported
by iSetup requires an API created by the owning product team to handle export and
import of setup data.

3.6.3. Release 12.0.6 (RUP6)

3.6.3.1. Contract Commitments Integration with Self Service Purchasing (Oracle


Public Sector Financials International)
Contract Commitments with Dual Budgetary Control is now integrated with Self Service
Purchasing. Users can now create purchase orders and perform funds check and funds
reserve using the self service version of Purchasing, when using Contract Commitments
with the Dual Budgetary Control feature enabled.

3.6.4. Release 12.1.1

3.6.4.1. 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

3.6.4.2. Enable All Sites for Global Contract Purchase Agreements


Contracts may 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 17
3.6.4.3. 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.

3.6.5. Release 12.1.2

3.6.5.1. 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.

3.6.5.2. 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.

3.6.5.3. 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 (PO): Cancel PO, Create PO, Delete PO, Approve PO, Query
PO, and Update PO

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 18
• Requisition: Create Requisition, Delete Requisition, Query Requisition, and
Update Requisition.
Note that these support requisitions in iProcurement as well as Purchasing.

3.6.6. Release 12.1.3

3.6.6.1. 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 ensures 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.

3.6.6.2. Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) Integration

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. Enhancement is key for budgetary control.

3.6.7. Release 12.1.3+

3.6.7.1. Encumbered Document Revisions without Un-reserving Funds


Users may now create revisions for approved and reserved purchasing documents without
first un-reserving funds. Permitted changes include changes to quantities and tax
attributes. When the revision is approved, the system automatically adjusts the amount
reserved by calculating the difference between the reserved amount and the document
amount. Users may also manually reserve an increase or decrease in the document
amounts as well as view encumbrance-related accounting entries for a Purchase Order or
Global Blanket Purchase Agreement document. This feature is supported in OAF pages
only and not in the Forms interface.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.2. Approvals Management Engine (AME) for PO Approvals


Oracle Purchasing users now have the option of using the Approvals Management Engine
(AME) for approving PO documents. Approvers can be defined either in parallel or
sequential manner using AME. AME also brings in multiple voting methods for

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 19
approving the PO documents. Enterprises can use the predefined AME transaction type
and PO workflow process or they can create custom transaction type and workflow
process based on their business requirements. Buyers can add adhoc Approvers and
Electronic Signatories using the Approval Options screen. The AME process can also be
used to add multiple reviewers and electronic signatories to the approval hierarchy.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.3. Current and Pending Approvers in Action History Region


The application will allow users to view current and pending approvers if the order
document is undergoing an AME approval process. Approver details and approval
sequence are available in the Action History. The system also tracks reminders sent to the
Approver. If there is no response from an Approver after two reminders, the Approval
process times-out and a Timeout action is recorded plus the Supervisor of the Approver is
notified.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.4. Withdrawing Purchase Order after Submitted for Approval


Buyers using the Professional Buyers Work Center may now withdraw a Purchase Order
that is in the approval queue in In Process or Pre-Approved status. Based on control
options, Approvers may receive an FYI notification giving reasons for withdrawal when
the Buyer withdraws the purchasing document. This feature is supported in OAF pages
only and not in the Forms interface.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.5. Configurable Notification in Purchase Order


The PO Approval Notification Region can be configured to enable enterprises to
personalize the notification page according to their business requirements. The
notification region can be personalized to add or remove columns in header as well as in
lines region according to their business needs. In addition this region can be configured to
control what approvers can or cannot view in the notification. This feature is also
available to modify the notification text sent via email.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.6. Outside Processing Lines in Global Blanket Agreements (GBPAs)


Oracle Purchasing now allows Global Blanket Purchase Agreement (GBPA) lines to have
items that are defined as “Outside Processing Items”. When standard POs are created
against these GBPAs, these items can be ordered and delivered to “Shop Floor”
destination.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.7. Support for Importing Complex Purchase Orders


Purchasing Users can now import complex purchase orders using the PDOI (Purchasing
Document Open Interface).

3.6.7.8. New ASL APIs


Purchasing now comes with APIs for ASL creation through direct data upload. Users can
use this API to create new ASLs as well as update the existing ones. This API comes with
error and warning messages to simplify troubleshooting.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 20
3.6.7.9. Buyer Work Center Session Preferences
Purchasing now provides user preferences for setting default values in the Buyer Work
Center. Default values for various attributes can be specified using the Preferences page
of Buyer Work Center for quick and easy creation of Purchase Orders. These values are
defaulted when a new Purchase Order is created, thereby reducing repeated data entry.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.10. Purchasing Document Open Interface (PDOI) Enhancements


Several enhancements are now offered with the Purchasing Document Open Interface
(PDOI). Features include:
1. Import the requisition reference number of purchase documents.
2. Import the global blanket purchase agreement and global contract purchase
agreement reference number in purchase documents.
3. Utilize Advance Pricing setup when importing purchase documents.
4. The “Import Contract Purchase Agreements” concurrent program enables users
to import contract agreements
Users can also provide Contract Purchase Agreement references while using the
Autocreate process to create their Purchase Orders.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.11. PO Business Service Object (BSO) Webservices


Purchasing now comes with Business Service Object (BSO) web service for creating and
updating in bulk all types of orders and agreements. You can use this web service to
create and update orders and agreements during integration with third party systems.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.12. Lead-Time based Promised Date calculation


At times the promised date is not provided by the user for new Purchase Order lines. In
these cases, Purchasing now references the lead time specified in the Blanket Purchase
Agreement line to automatically populate the promised date on the corresponding
Purchase Order Lines.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.6.7.13. Approve Purchase Orders On-the-Go


Oracle Mobile Approvals for Oracle E-Business Suite is a smartphone application that
lets employees and managers respond on-the-go to pending approval requests. From their
phone, anywhere and anytime, employees and managers can take quick action on
approval requests for expenses, requisitions, purchase orders, recruitment vacancies and
offers, and more.
Buyers and Managers can quickly filter approval requests by sender or subject, review
header and line details, action history and comments, and respond back with their
approval or rejection, right from their smartphone.
This feature is forward ported to 12.2.3.
For a full description, refer to the E-Business Suite Applications Technology Release
Content Document.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 21
3.6.8. Release 12.2

3.6.8.1. Automatic Updates to Encumbrance (GL) Date


Buyers can specify an Encumbrance Date for each distribution against a line at the time
of creating purchase orders. If this date is within a closed period, and is hence invalid,
then the application automatically updates the date as the system date. This feature
requires a profile value setting to be activated.

3.6.8.2. Support for Additional Extension Hooks


Oracle Purchasing provides additional extension hooks that enable usage of custom
validations for the Purchase Order submission process. Buyers now have the ability to
make changes to the target document during the Autocreate flow.

3.6.9. Release 12.2.4

3.6.9.1. Spreadsheet based authoring of PO Lines


Purchasing users can now use Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to create or modify Purchase
Order Lines, Schedules and Distributions. At the PO Header level, users can author lines,
schedules and distributions in Excel and import these additions into the document. This
feature may also be used at the line, schedule, pay item and distribution levels. This
spreadsheet based authoring uses WebADI setup for users to specify the columns and
their order sequence of display for authoring the PO.

3.7. Oracle Mobile Procurement for Oracle E-Business Suite


With Oracle Mobile Procurement for Oracle E-Business Suite, buyers and purchasing
users can monitor purchase orders and take actions on the go.
• Track purchase orders requiring attention (on hold, rejected, delayed, pending
approval) and drill into details
• Search purchase orders based on key attributes (supplier, item, requestor, buyer,
dates etc.)
• Monitor alerts for shipment delays
• Collaborate in transaction context using device features like email, phone and
text.
Oracle Mobile Procurement for Oracle E-Business Suite is compatible with Oracle E-
Business Suite 12.1.3 and 12.2.3 and above. To use this app, you must be a user of Oracle
Purchasing, with mobile services configured on the server side by your administrator.
3.7.1. Version 1.1.0

3.7.1.1. Mobile Foundation Updates


• Improvements in login and configuration flow
• Ability to change the URL without having to reinstall the app
• Diagnostics Improvements

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 22
3.7.1.2. Accessibility Improvements
Improvements were made in the Purchase Order details page, related information
messages, contextual tab bar and person contact card.

3.8. Oracle Services Procurement


3.8.1. 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 services
spend.
3.8.2. Release 12.1.1

3.8.2.1. 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.
3.8.3. Release 12.1.2

3.8.3.1. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 23
3.8.4. Release 12.2.4

3.8.4.1. Advances, Recoupment and Retainage for Standard Purchase Orders


Users of Standard Purchase Orders can now specify advance amounts against Purchase
Order lines. Prepayment invoices can be created and matched against these Advance
amounts.
Users can also specify recoupment rates for the advances which can be used to recoup the
advances paid while matching invoices against these PO lines.
The standard Purchase Orders has also been enhanced to support the Retainage
functionality. Users can specify Retainage as an amount or percentage, which will be
retained for later release when Invoices are matched against these shipments.

3.8.4.2. Support for Inventory Destinations in Complex Purchase Orders


Users can now specify whether a Complex PO line requires a Pay Item or Schedule in a
Complex PO. With this capability in Complex Purchase Orders, inventory items in
Purchase Order lines can be made delivered to Inventory Destinations.
Users can also mark the Complex PO lines as “Not Separately Priced” or “No charge”
which allows such lines to have zero price. Pay Items can be mapped to one or multiple
Schedules within a Complex PO. While approving Work Confirmations, the application
ensures that all the related schedule items are received before Work Confirmation can be
approved.

3.9. Oracle Sourcing


3.9.1. 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.
3.9.2. Release 12.1.1

3.9.2.1. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 24
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.

3.9.2.2. 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.

3.9.2.3. 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.

3.9.2.4. 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.

Response – Lines

Bid Total
Calculated
Instantly
Line Filter

Predefined
List of
Link to Values
Scoring
Worksheet

Fig. 2: Line Level Response for Suppliers

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 25
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.

Analysis – Lines
Overall Savings
Calculated Instantly

Side-by-Side
Bid
Comparison

Perform
What-If
Analysis

Award and Savings


Amount per Supplier
Calculated Instantly

Fig. 3: 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.

3.9.2.5. 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.

3.9.2.6. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 26
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.

3.9.2.7. Cost Factor Enhancements


Cost factors allow buyers to model the total cost of a product or service. Cost factors
operate under one of 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, now the formula utilizes the award quantity to
distribute the fixed amount cost factor: resulting in a more accurate award amount
calculation.

3.9.3. Release 12.1.2

3.9.3.1. 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:
• Cash
• Check (Cheque)
• Demand Draft
• 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.
• 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

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 27
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.

3.9.4. Release 12.1.3

3.9.4.1. 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.

Fig. 4: 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.

3.9.4.2. 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. 5: 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

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 28
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

3.9.4.3. Landed Cost Management (LCM) Integration


Customers sourcing overseas (25% or more) find that the item cost (procurement price)
accounts for more than half of the cost to acquire the product. From a strategic sourcing
perspective, Oracle has tried to give users some visibility into these potential costs,
however, at PO creation time, users need the same and even more refined insight. The
integration with Landed Cost Management (LCM) allows them to make more tactical
decisions about how to source an item. Additionally, it gives an organization better and
early visibility into what their potential liabilities might be. For bigger ticket items such
as heavier or bulkier goods, users can run through a number of different scenarios and
compare the potential output before firming up the estimate. Then, once they prepare to
receive an item, they can use this estimate as basis for that receipt. With LCM more
closely tied to Procurement, Oracle is giving customers the information they need to
make better tactical decisions and is giving them early insight into their outstanding
liabilities. In fact, many of our customers don't want to approve a PO without having
visibility into this. Finally, we observed that virtually all retailers, wholesale distributors
and customers require this functionality and have modified their systems to give some
visibility into this today. When faced with an upgrade, they will have to migrate these
solutions to R12 or will need a solution like LCM.

3.9.5. Release 12.1.3+

3.9.5.1. Online Discussions Attachments


Buyers and suppliers can now upload attachments in the context of an Online Discussion.
This is especially useful when highlighting information during the negotiation process.
For example, the buyer may want to forward additional technical clarification to suppliers
during a negotiation to procure complex machinery.
In addition, for negotiations with a style of “sealed”, supplier users can now send
messages exclusively to the buyer. This allows clarification of unique queries without the
mandate to broadcast every message to all participants. Buyers can respond to all
suppliers or only the sender, as needed.

3.9.5.2. Terms and Conditions Controls


The Terms and Conditions display can now be controlled by the Sourcing Administrator
with new settings. The page can be displayed to a bidder in the following manner, as
required by the organization’s business policies:
• Before creating an offer
• Before accessing the negotiation document, or
• Never
The explicit supplier acceptance of Terms and Conditions can be captured, before
allowing the supplier to proceed further.
To accommodate specific terms and conditions across business entities, the system
allows for terms and conditions to be created for each Operating Unit. Finally, Terms
and Conditions supports attachments to allow for displaying additional information.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 29
3.9.5.3. Lot Price Summation
Certain negotiations use a Lot hierarchy to organize bidding lines. For Lots, the actual
award happens at the parent “Lot” level with detailed bid information collected at the
child (or “Lot Lines”) level.
Sourcing professionals can now view a Lot price, calculated as the sum of the price for
each Lot Line in that Lot. One example where this capability is applicable is for basic
bills of materials, where the item (Lot) level costing is naturally a summation of the
individual components (Lot Lines).

3.9.5.4. Delete Supervisor from Collaboration Team


Today the buyer’s manager is added by default to the collaboration team when a
negotiation is created. Sometimes, especially for negotiations where the total amount is
less than certain threshold values, it is not required to add the supervisor to the
collaboration team. Now, the buyer will be able to remove the supervisor using the
remove icon.
This feature will be forward-ported to 12.2.5.

3.9.5.5. Sort and Delete Suppliers from Invited Suppliers Page


In previous releases the Invited Suppliers page allowed deletion of invited suppliers one
record at a time. Now multiple suppliers may be removed as a group. In addition,
suppliers can now be sorted in the alphabetic order of the supplier name which will
facilitate easier navigation to the desired supplier record.
This feature will be forward-ported to 12.2.5.
3.9.6. Release 12.2

3.9.6.1. Add Requisition lines to a Draft Negotiation (RFx & Auction)


Currently, buyers can select requisition lines using Demand Workbench and use them to
create a draft negotiation or an amendment negotiation document. Buyers can also select
requisition lines and create a new draft negotiation using the Document Builder.
However, buyers may want to add some additional requisition lines to the negotiation.
With this release, buyers can use Demand Workbench, select requisition lines, provide
the negotiation number, and add the lines to the negotiation. Alternatively, buyers can
navigate to the Demand Workbench page from within a draft negotiation by selecting the
add requisition lines from the Lines tab. This provides flexibility to the buying
organization in the negotiation creation process, as buyers can add demand to the draft
negotiation during the negotiation creation process.

3.9.6.2. Response Withdrawal


Oracle Sourcing now provides suppliers with the ability to withdraw responses submitted
on an RFI/RFQ. A new negotiation control enables Sourcing buyers to determine if
suppliers can withdraw submitted responses on that negotiation. Suppliers can withdraw
submitted responses only as long as the negotiation is open for bidding. Surrogate
withdrawal is also possible where the Sourcing buyer withdraws surrogate responses on
behalf of the supplier.

3.9.6.3. Track Amendment Acknowledgements


The Supplier Activities Page now shows a chronological log of all the supplier activities
on the negotiation. Sourcing buyers can now track acknowledgements from invited
suppliers to amendments made to a negotiation.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 30
3.9.6.4. Staggered Awards
Sometimes sourcing awards are desired only for part of a negotiation. In these cases,
optimal timing for awarding different parts of the negotiation occurs at multiple dates.
For example, a large project scenario may involve a negotiation with many lines, with the
entire project in one document. In this case a single award timeframe may be premature
for the decision on certain lines.
With staggered awards a sourcing professional may evaluate and award one or more
lines, and later revisit the negotiation and award additional lines. The staggered award
process allows the buyer to award different lines at different points in time. New awards
can be used to create a new Purchase Order or Agreement in Purchasing.

3.9.6.5. Import of Price Breaks


A new spreadsheet upload supports the buyer uploading price tiers when creating a
negotiation. Support for both price tiers and price breaks makes spreadsheet use more
effective. Price breaks uploaded via spreadsheet may reduce manual effort updating line-
level price breaks, especially for complex negotiations or negotiations having a very large
number of lines. As before, price breaks on awarded bids may automatically generate
Blanket Purchase Agreements in Oracle Purchasing for rapid implementation of
negotiated terms.

3.9.6.6. Negative Cost Factors


Cost Factors are typically positive values which are added to a bid price for a line to help
a buyer understand total effective cost in competitive bidding scenarios. To expand this
valuable capability, the buyer may now define cost factors whose values may decrement
the total cost for a line. For example, a bidder may want to submit a rebate or discount as
a cost factor to improve the competitiveness of a bid.

3.9.6.7. Sourcing APIs


Many sources of demand can automatically populate a negotiation in Sourcing with
relevant, integrated data. Now an additional scenario is supported: an API to create
negotiations through direct data upload. The API supports the creation of RFIs, RFQs
and Auctions, and negotiations are created in draft status. Organizations can now
leverage an API to directly create a draft negotiation document from information
available outside the system.

3.9.7. Release 12.2.4

3.9.7.1. Mass Update of Buyers


It is sometimes necessary to update the buyer on a negotiation document. A buyer may
leave the organization and their negotiations must be reassigned. A new concurrent
program now allows you to add a new buyer to existing negotiation documents based on
the parameter values provided.

3.9.7.2. Surrogate Quotes for Suppliers without an User Account


Organizations using surrogate quotes may not have provided each supplier user with
access to Sourcing. Buyers may now create surrogate quotes for suppliers even if the
supplier user does not have a user account in the system. All notifications for such
supplier bids are sent to the email address specified for the supplier contact.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 31
3.10. Oracle Sourcing Optimization
3.10.1. 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.
3.10.2. Release 12.1.1

3.10.2.1. 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.

3.10.2.2. 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

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 32
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.

3.10.2.3. 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.

3.11. Oracle Spend Classification


3.11.1. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 33
Fig. 6: Oracle Spend Classification, Classification Summary Page

3.11.2. Release 12.1.2

3.11.2.1. Integration with Oracle 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 P&SA 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.

3.11.2.2. 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.

3.11.2.3. 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.

3.11.2.4. 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,

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 34
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. 7: Oracle Spend Classification, Classification Details Page

3.11.2.5. 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.

3.11.2.6. 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.

3.11.2.7. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 35
3.11.3. Release 12.2

3.11.3.1. Reclassify Historical Data


Currently, Spend Classification supports classifying a Batch against a particular
taxonomy once, and can reclassify a batch up to a maximum of 5 times, each time against
a Knowledge Base having a different taxonomy.
With this release Spend Classification can be used to reclassify a previously classified
Batch or a range of data belonging to a previously classified batch, as required, against a
Knowledge Base with the same taxonomy. This feature provides the flexibility to
reclassify the Batch if the earlier classification is not satisfactory.

3.11.3.2. Asynchronous Approval Flow


Asynchronous approval flow enables approval of classified batches in parallel, thus
allowing users to perform other tasks while the Batch is being approved. As in previous
releases, users can monitor the approval status of batches submitted for approval through
the Approval Activity Log under the Monitor Activity tab.

3.11.3.3. Enhanced Training Data Upload


Using Spend Classification, users can now upload Dataset files as large as 100MB, and
can specify the number of errors as a threshold up to which the upload should continue. If
the number of errors exceeds the threshold, then the upload stops and the errors can be
viewed in a log file.
Also the Data Template can be downloaded directly from the application, where the
format for dates and numbers can be specified. Additionally, the Category Codes instead
of the Category ID can be entered in the template. This helps users save considerable
time as they can avoid checking database tables to determine mappings for Category IDs.
The datasets that are uploaded can be deleted by navigating to the Configuration, Manage
Datasets tab. This helps users free up database space by purging potentially large datasets
that are no longer in use.

3.11.3.4. Enhanced Tracking Capabilities


An enhanced tracking capability now monitors the progress of the knowledge base
creation, enrichment and classification processes. During the execution of any of these
processes, an indicator reminds analysts of the current step of the process and for certain
steps, percentage completion. Historical data for each process can now be tracked
individually in the Monitor Activity screen. Similarly, during the Dataset Upload process
the system provides indication about the upload of data.

3.11.3.5. Improvements in Analyzing Batches and Excel to Export


While viewing the KPIs pertaining to the classification process, analysts now see
information about the batch whose data is being analyzed. While analyzing batches,
should an analyst decide to filter the transactions within the batch, a count of transactions
resulting from any query is now displayed. This helps the analyst to decide if she has a
good sub-set of data to work with or if she needs to filter it even more.
Also available is ability to export only the filtered rows to Excel. With the count of
transactions now available in the filtered data set, analysts are able to estimate the time it
would take to export to Excel, based on past experience. Spend Classification analysis
provides analysts the best and second best predicted classification codes, with
corresponding confidence levels. Now analysts can export these values at each level of

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 36
the taxonomy structure. This provides access to knowledge base prediction patterns at
each level of the taxonomy for additional evaluation and analysis.

3.11.3.6. Increased Flexibility in Resetting Data


Now, when analyzing classified data, it is possible to reset the classification code for
certain records. Analysts can select transactions records by specific values of
classification code. This provides greater flexibility to reset the classification code for
specific records.

3.11.4. Release 12.2.4

3.11.4.1. Delete Classification Batch

Users can now delete classification batches that are no longer required for any business
function. This will allow users to get rid of batches that are no longer of any use, such as
a batch created after an unsuccessful classification run.

3.11.4.2. Run Classification on Selected Transactions

Prior to this feature, when a classification run was initiated the application created a
single batch and picked up all eligible transactions. This sometimes created a huge
classification batch.

Now users can explicitly specify the set of transactions that need to be classified, leading
to manageable batch sizes. Smaller batches lead to improved query performance,
reduced download time, quicker batch analysis, and faster approval and reset.

3.11.4.3. Simplified User Interface

Spend Classification now comes with a simplified user interface. Most key functions
such as creating a knowledge base, enriching a knowledge base, and initiating a
classification run are centrally organized around the Dataset entity In addition, users can
now view the entire history of actions performed in the context of each entity.

3.11.4.4. Prevent Reset of Transactions in Classified, Unapproved Batches

The ability to reset dataset transactions that were part of a classified but unapproved
batch was possible. However, this could be confusing as once the batch was approved; all
transactions within the batch were stamped with the predicted category codes.

Now the application ignores resetting transactions that are part of a classified,
unapproved batch.

3.12. Oracle Supplier Hub


3.12.1. 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 E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 37
Oracle Supplier Hub is an 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.
3.12.2. 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 current capabilities of Oracle Supplier Hub can be found in the
Master Data Management RCD.

3.13. Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management


3.13.1. Overview
Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management (SLM) 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 38
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.
3.13.2. Release 12.1.1+

3.13.2.1. 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.

3.13.2.2. Supplier Search


To assist administrators charged with managing the vendor master for their organizations,
Advanced Search capabilities enable them to efficiently find and retrieve suppliers.
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.

3.13.2.3. 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 can also access qualification and on-going compliance information that they are
required to provide to the buying organization to maintain their status in the system.

3.13.2.4. 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

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 39
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.

3.13.2.5. 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.

3.13.2.6. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 40
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.

3.13.2.7. 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.

3.13.2.8. 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.

3.13.2.9. 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.

3.13.3. Release 12.1.3+

3.13.3.1. Mandatory Internal Requirements


Today the requirements that are sent to the internal evaluation team cannot be marked as
mandatory, making it challenging to get complete responses from the evaluation team in
a single iteration.
With this enhancement the administrator may specify internal requirements as
“mandatory” or “optional”. Each evaluation team member will have to respond to
mandatory requirements before submitting responses; otherwise the response may not be
submitted. This capability will increase the efficiency of the internal evaluation process.
This feature is also provided for Sourcing.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 41
3.13.3.2. Associate Address to Contacts
Prior to this release, while creating a registration request a prospective supplier did not
have the option of associating an address to a contact. This was done by an administrator
within the buyer’s organization once the supplier was registered.
This feature allows the prospective supplier to associate an address to a contact during
registration process. All the addresses defined by the supplier in the system will be
available for association, streamlining the registration process.
This feature is also provided for iSupplier Portal.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.13.3.3. Keyword Search


Keyword search for a Supplier is now possible within Supplier Lifecycle Management. In
a keyword search, the system searches across primary and user-defined attributes of a
supplier matching the words provided by the user with their occurrences in these fields.
For example a search with keywords “John Doe” and “Canada” will return a list of all
suppliers with these keywords in either their primary or user-defined attributes.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.13.3.4. Default User Creation


This enhancement allows the buyer administrator to control the default account creation
for supplier contacts. In prior releases, a user account was created by default for the
supplier contact whose details were provided during the registration process. Now the
buyer administrator will be able to decide whether a user account should be created or
not.
This feature is also provided for iSupplier Portal.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.13.3.5. Reinstate a Rejected Supplier Request


Prior to this release, if a supplier registration request was rejected it was not possible to
make updates to the registration request and resubmit the same. Hence, if a Buyer
Organization wanted to reconsider the supplier at a future point in time the supplier had
to re-register.
Now buying organizations can reconsider rejected suppliers by re-opening earlier rejected
requests and asking for specific additional details from suppliers. Suppliers need to re-
register themselves, thus saving them time and effort. This also allows the buying
organization to work closely and efficiently with their suppliers to handle their
registration requests.
This feature is also provided for iSupplier Portal.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.13.3.6. Registration Approval Workflow Enhancements


Approvals Management Engine (AME) is now available for the Registration Approval
process. Key features of AME like forwarding, re-assigning, and vacation rules are
available for use. If AME is enabled action notifications are sent to users as per the
workflow definitions.
In addition, AME approvals will be represented graphically for quick comprehension.
This feature is also provided for iSupplier Portal.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 42
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.13.3.7. Streamlined Prospective Supplier Registration Process


The prospective supplier registration process has been revamped to make it more
structured and organized. Usability enhancements allow Suppliers to more quickly and
easily register themselves.
This feature is also provided for iSupplier Portal.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.13.3.8. View Prospective Supplier Registration Status


Prior to this release, suppliers were notified only after their registration request was either
approved or rejected. Until this point there was no way for the Supplier to determine the
status of their registration requests.
Now a registration link is sent to supplier as soon as the supplier registers with the buying
organization. Using this link a prospective supplier can track the status of their
registration request and take appropriate action based on the different statuses.
This feature is also provided for iSupplier Portal.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4.

3.13.4. Release 12.2.4

3.13.4.1. Registration Approval Workflow Enhancements


Two AME features are now supported in the Registration Approval Workflow:
• Ad-hoc approvers
• FYI notifications
These features improve the reach and completeness of this approval process.
This feature is also provided for iSupplier Portal.

3.13.4.2. Approval History on Supplier Profile


The approval history for a supplier now appears on a supplier’s profile page. This will
help internal users to track the history of the supplier record such as who approved or
rejected the supplier and when.
This feature is also provided for iSupplier Portal.

3.14. Oracle Supplier Network


3.14.1. 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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 43
• 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
3.14.2. Version 5.0

3.14.2.1. 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.

3.14.2.2. Production Routing Controls


Users can restrict specific trading partners from exchanging production messages.

3.14.2.3. UTF-8 Support


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

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document 44

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