AME Rules Using Dynamic Approver Groups

Barbara Armstrong Pradip Baniya Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc.

Agenda

What is AME? Initial design of AME at SSI Why change the process? New AME design Maintenance process Comparison Conclusion Q&A
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What is AME?

Oracle application product that lets you define approval rules that defines the approval process of the transactions in Oracle Applications.

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Key Terms

Attributes

Business variables with single value for each transaction. Invoice_Amount, Organization_ID, etc. Statement that evaluates to True/False for each transaction and rule is applied to the transaction if all the conditions are True. Invoice_Amount >= 50000.
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Conditions

Key Terms contd

Action and Action type It modifies the transactions approval process.

Action Type Supervisory Action Require approval from first three supervisors

Approver Group Ordered set or list of persons who will approve the transaction.

CEO Group

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Anatomy of AME Rule

Approval Rule

IF invoice_amount >50000
Rule

AND Attribute organization_id = 101 THEN Supervisory Level Requires approval from first 3 supervisors Post Approval Requires approval from CEO Approval group

Condition

Action

Action Type

Approver Group

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SSI Initial AME Design

Based on attributes

Attributes used for Rule

Operating Units 4

Preparer/ Requestor same? 2

AFE? 2

Gated Role 2

Supervisory Levels

= 400+ Rules
10

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How many rules?

Design led to

150+ rules for AP Invoice Approval 400+ rules for Purchase Requisition and 400+ rules for Requestor Change Order And growing

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Drawbacks

Difficult to manage. Very hard to understand the rules. Hard to troubleshoot when we have issues. Creation, update, test and configuration of the rules - time consuming process.

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Led to re-design

To streamline and simplify the AME rules. Based on standard AME provided functionality, supported by Oracle. Use of dynamic approver groups. Requires minor customization for maintenance of the approver groups.
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How it works?
Attributes OU Preparer/ Requestor AFE Gated Role Supervisory Levels Transaction Amount Approver Groups CFO Group Controller Group Operations Group Supervisory Level AFE Group Requestor Group

Transaction

Dynamic SQL PL/SQL Package

AME Approver List

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Approver Group

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PL/SQL Package

Features

Gets the required attribute values Based on compliance rule, gets correct approver(s). Returns null or one or more approvers per approval group to AME engine. select column_value from to handle multiple approvers.
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How is the Rule?

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Rules contd

Supervisory rules

Based on approval level 1..10 Create 10 rules.

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Approver Maintenance

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How much improvement?

Number of Rules
Initial Design New Design

AP Invoice PO Requisition Requestor Change Order

150+ 400+ 400+

10 10 10

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Time Savings - Benchmark

Previous Process IT
Design Test Configure

New Process IT Bus.

Bus.

20 50 10

5 10 0

2 2 1

5 10 2

Total

80

15
(In Hours)
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Conclusion

Unmanageable set of rules, and growing. Aim to streamline the rules creation and update process. Use of the standard functionality with small customization led to fewer rules. Offer business capability to manage the changes in efficient and timely fashion.

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Q&A
Thank you!
B. Armstrong barmstrong@schn.com P. Baniya pbaniya@schn.com
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