Here are the main functional components of the eprentise software. Each plays its part in transforming the data in an E-Business Suite instance according to your specifications.

Project Administration. A project administration function creates projects, and associates projects, eprentise users, and E-Business Suite instances. Instances are either sources or destinations (targets). The destination of a project is always a single application database instance. At the end of the project, the software populates the destination instance.

Metadata Engine. The metadata engine discovers, stores, and analyzes the current metadata and configuration within your E-Business Suite instances. The engine also looks at the data to determine whether the actual content follows the rules and constraints called for in the metadata. eprentise maps the metadata (structures of and relationships between data), the actual data (identifying duplicates and applying standards), the business rules, and the business processes. Then it generates code to enforce changes.

Configuration Analysis. Configuration Analysis is a part of Metadata Analysis. It documents the set up parameters in the E-Business Suite. For every set-up, Configuration Analysis details every value that has been set up. For example, Configuration Analysis shows the operating units that have been set up, how many sets of books or ledgers have been created, the status of each open period, and the value sets used for each flexfield. The purpose of Configuration Analysis is to identify the “as-is” state of E-Business Suite before transforming the data. Depending on your application, you may have to run Configuration Analysis multiple times during a project.

Rules Tester. The Rules Tester is also a part of Metadata Analysis. eprentise validates everything it learns about your environment by testing each rule or constraint against every row of data in your E-Business Suite database instance in order to identify which rules are “broken”. A rule or constraint is considered broken if, for example, a foreign key relationship doesn’t refer to a valid value in another table, or if a unique constraint pulls in duplicate values, or if there is a null value in a primary key or foreign key constraint.

Rules Templates. You use templates to create high level operations on an E-Business Suite database. You fill in the templates using E-Business Suite data presented in pull-down selection lists, functional selection items, and data you enter. There are numerous built-in rules templates for operations like changing a calendar’s period dates, changing an inventory organization’s valuation accounts, merging a set of books, filtering data, resolving duplicates, and moving a legal entity. These templates are used in a specified order to achieve the results you want.

Four Data Operations. There are four basic types of eprentise rules: copy, filter, change, and merge. When you run a rule, the eprentise software copies, filters, changes, or merges data from one or more source application instances into a destination. Rules may be combined to perform more complex functions. For example, an instance consolidation project will use many rules of each operational type to resolve differences and anomalies between two database instances, so that the end result (a) meets the business requirements, and (b) provides a complete, consistent, and correct single instance of E-Business Suite.

Rules Engine. The rules processing engine runs the rules you create with the rules templates. When there is a difference between the source application and the destination, the software automatically performs all actions necessary to move the source into the destination. eprentise makes changes in a particular sequence, maintaining all the database constraints. That preserves data integrity, which results in complete, consistent, and correct data that is aligned with the business processes.