Clean Up Your Data Before Upgrading to R12

Problem

After years of running E-Business Suite 11.5.9, a global company was planning an upgrade to R12 but realized that it would be difficult to utilize the additional functionality of R12 without cleaning up the data first. While they previously had several sets of books to accommodate different statutory and regulatory requirements as well as different currencies, they wanted to use the subledger accounting features of R12 and use a single primary ledger along with multiple subsidiary ledgers that would handle the local requirements.

Solution

The company used FlexField software to change the accounting flexfields in each set of books to the same chart of accounts and put its accounts in clean logical ranges, standardizing the accounting structure and making consolidated financial reporting easier. They then used eprentise Reorganization software’s MS Sets of Books module to consolidate the different sets of books into a single set of books to prepare the instance for subledger accounting with a single primary ledger in R12.

Eliminate Thousands of Cross-validation Rules

Problem

A financial services company had over 2000 cross validation rules to enforce which departments could use which cost centers and accounts. In their current chart of accounts, they had run out of digits in the ranges that were defined, so the structure that was supposed to have Revenue starting from 1000 to 1999, Liabilities from 2000 to 2999, Expenses from 3000 to 3999, Assets from 4000 to 4999, and owner’s equity from 6000 to 6999 now looked like this:

It was almost impossible to remember what account went with which cost centers for each department. Every time the company wanted to add a new value, they had to rearrange all their cross validation rules. Maintenance on the chart of accounts was taking days each year end when they added new tax accounts.

Solution

The company expanded their account segment to 6 digits using FlexField software, put everything in ranges, and went down to a total of 17 cross-validation rules. There was no longer any maintenance to add new accounts or new departments. As an aside, they were also able to streamline their reporting so new reports were generated quickly.

Consolidate Multiple Production Instances of EBS Into a Single Instance

You want to go to a central data center and consolidate your Oracle E-Business Suites into a single instance.

Problem

A manufacturing company had 7 different implementations of Oracle E-Business Suite. Each application instance was configured at the plant level and had different product numbers structure, and different business processes that were implemented in their application. They could not consolidate their inventory into a single warehouse because of the different structures. The customer wanted to standardize all products and consolidate the databases into a single data center. They determined that they would save maintenance costs and license fees by having a single global instance, resolve business process inconsistencies, and save operating expenses when all the data resided in a single data center. The instances and the set-up decisions from their initial implementations were not well documented.

Solution

The company used eprentise Metadata Analysis to identify differences among the systems. After defining the target instance, the company used FlexField software to implement a single chart of accounts. Finally, the client used eprentise Consolidation software to identify and resolve configuration differences, other flexfield differences, and resolve duplicates across instances before merging all seven instances into the new target environment. They were able to quickly determine common customers, suppliers, and product lines so they were able to streamline their operations, understand their customers better, and leverage common business practices across the enterprise.

Integrate Your E-Business Suite with an Acquired Suite

You have just acquired a company who also uses Oracle E-Business Suite.

Problem

A global manufacturing company running Oracle E-Business Suite recently acquired a smaller competitor who also uses OEBS. They needed to Standardize Oracle Financial and Manufacturing Applications from both companies so that they could operate as a single company. They needed to quickly identify the differences in data between systems, standardize and consolidate data from the merged company, determine common customers, suppliers, and product lines so duplicates can be resolved, and obtain an accurate view of current and future operating requirements.

Solution

The company used eprentise Consolidation software to consolidate the two systems. eprentise Metadata Analysis generated a report listing all the differences in database objects and in the set-up data. The parent company’s E-Business Suite was identified as the target. After changing the chart of accounts and the calendar for the acquired company, the business users decided how the data was to be merged into the target. The company standardized all configuration data and resolved duplicates for all master data using eprentise Data Quality software. All transaction data from the acquired company was synchronized with the cleansed master data and moved into the target database. The history from both companies was preserved. There was no coding, and the instances were merged and went into production within 180 days of the acquisition.

They identified the benefits as being able to operate as a combined entity quickly. They captured the economies of scope and scale and leveraged the combined information resources, reduced the cost of internal support services, and achieved process efficiencies and business synergies quickly.

Avoid a Reimplementation

Oracle has told you that the only way to solve your problem is to reimplement.

Problem

Over time, businesses undergo major changes — reorganizations, mergers, or divestitures. They develop new lines of business, set up global operations, or work in different ways to comply with new statutory and regulatory requirements. Similar to many of the companies that use our software, this global security software company was always going through major changes. They had acquired several smaller companies, sold about 15 different divisions, and in general, didn’t have the same business as they did when they implemented Oracle E- Business Suite 12 years ago. The problem is that as their business changed, their EBS was stagnant. In order to keep up with the changes, the security software company maintained thousands of spreadsheets, implemented a data warehouse, and used a middleware product to integrate a variety of systems. There were literally hundreds of people trying to determine what parts of their business were profitable.

Solution

At first, the company was told that their only choice was to reimplement their EBS. They were told that a reimplementation would take two years and about 50,000 hours of consultants. They didn’t like this option both because of the time involved and the costs. They were worried about the skill levels of the consultants, whether they would be able to accurately create what their future state would look like, and the project generally going over budget with the scope continually changing as the business changed. Instead, they decided to purchaseeprentise Reorganization software to reorganize their existing EBS, resolve duplicates, and as an ongoing solution to accommodate the ongoing changes of their business and the resulting underlying changes to the setup of the EBS environment. eprentise produces software that reliably enables organizations to adapt existing systems to meet ever-changing business conditions. At the heart of the eprentise solution is a rules-based engine containing actions (copy, merge, filter, and change) and built in integrity rules that can be combined to affect changes to a relational database environment. The eprentise software provides testable, repeatable, rules-driven results, without custom coding.

By allowing applications to be changed to meet your changing needs, eprentise provides the ability to recognize the financial rewards of business and technology initiatives quickly and reliably.

Merge Ledgers or Sets of Books

Problem

A large system integrator put each line of business into a separate primary ledger in their E-Business Suite. Realizing that the same customer may use each of their ERP implementation services, their security services, and their data warehouse services, they decided to merge their ledgers. The chart of accounts, the currency, the calendar, and the accounting conventions were the same for all 9 of their ledgers.

Solution

The firm used eprentise Reorganization software’s MS Sets of Books module to merge their 9 ledgers into a single primary ledger. They created operating units for each of the lines of business to keep the transactions separate and to maintain controls within the organization. They used Multiple Organizations Access Control in R12 to enable cross organizational processing and reporting on operating units in their subledgers.

Move to a Single Global Chart of Accounts

Problem

A pharmaceutical company is upgrading to R12 in their Oracle E-Business Suite because of the capability to have multiple ledgers. Their current set up had a separate set of books for each of the European countries because they implemented before the Euro was the European standard currency. Since they originally implemented with seven separate sets of books for each of the countries where they did business in Europe, they didn’t see a need to standardize on a single chart of accounts. Now, in R 12, they can record all transactions in a single ledger because the currency is the same. However, in order to use a single primary ledger, they need to have a single chart of accounts.

Solution

The company created their new chart of accounts, and mapped each of the seven charts of accounts to the new chart of accounts. Using FlexField software, they completed the conversion process to their new chart of accounts with three test runs in 5 months. In two of the segments, they made the segments large enough to allow each country to have its own range of values. Using security and cross validation rules, they were able to restrict access to those values, giving each country some freedom in the way they controlled operations without limiting the company’s ability to operate globally with consistent data. As a side, they are able to close their books each month in 3 days instead of the 12 days that it took before the chart of accounts change. They estimate that they have reduced operating costs for their accounting team by approximately 35%.

Inventory Consolidation

You are acquiring a new plant and want to consolidate the inventory into your existing inventory.

Profile

A manufacturing firm recently acquired a plant and needed to integrate the new inventory with its own. Not only did the inventoried products need to be added to the new system, but the historical data from the acquired plant was necessary in order to allow the acquiring company to continue to provide accurate forecasting data to management.

Solution

The company used eprentise Reorganization software’s MSM Inventory Organizations module to consolidate their inventories into a single warehouse as well as to consolidate their inventory organizations. They were able to reduce their warehouse costs by 35% and their inventory costs by 25%.

Change Your Calendar in E-Business Suite

Problem

A pharmaceutical company has been acquired. The old company used a fiscal 4-4-5 calendar (so period 1 ended on January 28) and the new parent company uses a monthly calendar (with period 1 ending on January 31).

Solution

Using eprentise Reorganization software’s Calendar Change module, the acquired company changed the start and end dates of each of their GL periods. eprentise created unposted journal entries to add all the transactions from January 29-31 to period 1 and subtract them from period 2. It did the same for all the periods in the year. After changing the start and end dates for the GL periods, they used eprentise to synchronize the Fixed Assets calendar, the project accounting calendar, and the inventory calendar to the GL calendar. Everything tied out to the penny with the new calendar.

What is eprentise software?

eprentise hd_suite is a family of functional modules used to manipulate the data in Oracle E- Business Suite (EBS) while maintaining consistent and correct data. For many solutions, it runs one time, propagating all changes throughout your existing EBS data and then is removed from the EBS instance. It gives you the ability to make changes to your EBS that used to be available only through a reimplementation.

In what kind of situations would I use eprentise?

How much does an eprentise project cost? How long do the projects take?

We suggest that our customers plan from one to six months for most projects, depending on the complexity. Consolidations are usually complex and will typically take between six months and a year. We welcome the chance to talk with you about the type of project you are contemplating. After a few discussions we will create a project profile which will include the estimates of the schedule, costs and required resources. It usually takes a few weeks of discussions and discovery for us to create and present a proposal.

How does eprentise software work? How are you sure that you are not compromising the integrity of the database?

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.

How does the software identify and give us the decisions we have to make? The options and choices we have available?

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.

Is eprentise a software solution or a consulting solution where you write custom code?

The eprentise solution is software. However, the eprentise team will be needed to help the customer use the software, at least during the initial runs. The eprentise team’s role is product usage guidance and product technical support, based on over 20 years’ experience with the E-Business Suite and having developed eprentise software. eprentise software includes the fundamental functions of metadata discovery, comparison, and analysis, plus data copy, filter, change, and merge. The eprentise team understands how to interpret the metadata analysis and instance comparison reports, and then, based on the analysis results, plans which of the software operations the customer needs to execute.

Business and technical people who have seen brief eprentise demonstrations have told us the user interface is clear, uncluttered, and easily understood. You will not need specialist IT resources or consultants to run the software or to write extensions.

The eprentise team works with your team to determine the best approach to get the desired results.

eprentise E-Business Suite Cost Savings Calculator

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Reducing costs is the major strategic focus for most companies. An often-overlooked cost is the general operation of financial operations. Also see the white paper “Show Me the Money: Reduce the Costs of Running Oracle EBS Before Upgrading to R12”.

Overview of eprentise

Most industries are seeing a need for their ERP systems to be more flexible than they are today. Companies running Oracle E-Business Suite (OEBS) have particular challenges when they “upgrade” their business at a macro level and want their Oracle instance or instances to follow and support the new “release” of the business. The table shows the “Upgrade” scenarios and solution operations.

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Adding Business Value to Database Consolidation

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The consolidation of IT assets, particularly databases, has garnered considerable interest in recent years, and the general concept of IT consolidation – migrating multiple, heterogeneous systems to run on a single hardware and/or software instance – is relatively well-understood in the market. The typical rationales for IT consolidation, largely centered around cost reduction, improved operational efficiency, and the development of more responsive, dynamic, and customer-centric IT systems, are also familiar in the literature, and are fairly well-understood.

In the vast majority of cases, IT consolidation – and in particular database consolidation – while providing some value, falls far short of its potential to positively impact the business side of the enterprise.

According to research carried out by Enterprise Applications Consulting (EAC), most examples of database consolidation focus only on the benefits of the technical aspects of consolidation: With the consolidation of database licenses, a reduction in personnel and hardware costs are the predominant results. These examples ignore the benefits of a business consolidation – one that goes beyond typical technical consolidations by consolidating current and historical data and business processes – that could deliver significant value to the business side of the enterprise as well.