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The key to eprentise is the Metadata Analysis process. Metadata Analysis discovers and documents the internals and architecture of your E-Business Suite environment. The discovery process includes looking at all the relationships in the database, applying recognition patterns to classify the data into different categories, and then matching what it finds with the data built into eprentise’s knowledge base about the E-Business Suite. After Metadata Analysis “learns” about your environment, it creates rules that direct eprentise software in the methods and sequences for making changes to the database. eprentise then verifies that the rules it created are valid. It does that by checking each rule against every row of data. Once a rule is verified as not compromising the data integrity, it is added to eprentise’s rule repository. Business users identify the changes they would like to make to the E-Business Suite by defining a “target”. The structure of the target determines the code that eprentise generates to execute the rule.

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.

Consider the following observations about what is not complete, consistent, or correct.

• If there are multiple E-Business Suite database instances, no instance provides the complete business data. There are often inconsistencies among instances. The inconsistencies lead business users to conclude the data is incorrect and can’t be trusted. They often have external spreadsheets to fix the data and reconcile the differences among the instances.
• When there are multiple EBS instances, you usually find data is passed between them via interfaces, to synchronize data and couple business processes together.
• Some approaches to consolidating multiple instances leave out the transaction history, so the business users are left with “sunset” instances that contain all the history up to the point of consolidation. They may need to access these sunset instances to look up prior events and transactions. Thus the single consolidated instance is not complete.
• Even when there is only a single instance, there may be different charts of accounts, or different business rules employed by different parts of the organization. If the business users employ external reconciling spreadsheets because of these differences, the instance is not complete, consistent, or correct.

This is what complete, consistent, and correct means.

An eprentise project involves:

• Managing the project.
• Defining requirements.
• Making business decisions to define the target environment.
• Obtaining consensus for changes.
• Revision and adjustment of reports and interfaces to the organization’s other systems (custom, legacy, third party software, or external) to support the changes made within the E-Business Suite.
• Running eprentise software.
• Testing to make sure that the results meet the requirements.
• Planning for cutover to production.
• Cutover to production.

Within any project, executing and analyzing Metadata Analysis usually takes between two to three weeks. For some projects, you may need to execute Metadata Analysis multiple times to account for the changes to the database that will occur by executing some of the rules. Most rules can be executed in days.

Your destination (target) E-Business Suite instance looks and functions according to how you have defined the new target. The process is that you will define what result you want to achieve, and eprentise generates the code to achieve the result. All desired history from the source has also been transformed in line with the target that you have defined. The changed E-Business Suite looks like it was set up according to your target definition since the original implementation. In the case of a consolidation, it looks as though you had always operated within a single environment. You may optionally decide to retain a copy of the source environment until your reconciliation and audits are completed. The database is functionally and technically consistent and correct.

An eprentise project is like most E-Business Suite projects these days, in that we expect the combined customer and eprentise team to be working from multiple locations across the Internet using web sessions. During key parts of the project, a small number of eprentise team members may work at the customer’s facilities. The eprentise team will provide product usage guidance and product support from offices in Orlando, FL, Atlanta, GA, Ann Arbor, MI, and Bangalore, India.

Available options appear in a drop down menu. The eprentise team will work with you after you have determined the desired result to make sure that you understand all decisions.