Trading Community Architecture (TCA) in Oracle Apps

Trading Community Architecture (TCA) in Oracle Apps

 

Before TCA:

• There are multiple customer definitions across the enterprise.
• It was very difficult to track current and historical information about the customers.
• There was a lack of support for mixed business.
• It was quite tough to understand relationships between customers and others (suppliers, partners, competitors).

Customers: More important than anything else!

In any business, Customers and their data are always important. More than that what is important is to understand who your customer interacts with inside and outside the enterprise.

What is Trading Community?

The summation of all entities, inclusive of partners, suppliers, and competitors, that are related to your customers is called a Trading Community.

Trading Community Architecture:

Trading Community Architecture is the implementation of technology and applications to allow users to create and maintain relationships among entities. It is a way to understand who your customer interacts with inside and outside the enterprise.

It’s Main Purpose:

• Create a central repository for the entire E-Business Suite to store information relating to all members of a trading community versus separate tables for each member-Prospects, Customers, Contacts, Employees, Partners, Distributors, Suppliers, Banks, etc.
• Record complex business relationships between Trading Community entities (including 3rd party relationships).
• Support all business models, industries, and geographies.

TCA Data Model Components:

1] Party:

It represents any entity that can enter into business relationships with your organization – Organization, Person, or Group.

• Person - A unique individual (dead or alive) of interest to the user.
• Organization  - A legal entity recognized by some government authority.
• Group  - A combination of two or more people, organizations or groups.

2] Party Relationship:

It is a binary relationship between two parties such as a partnership.

• Has a Role - Specifies the nature of the relationship between parties (e.g., member of, contact at, married to).
• Indicates the Nature of the relationship - hierarchy or matrix.
• Indicates the Direction of the relationship - superior – subordinate.
• Can become a Party - a Relationship becomes a party in itself.

The relationship model enables you to:

• Understand the complex relationships among members of your trading community
• Use this information to make better business decisions

3] Location:

A Location is a point in geographical space described by a street address. In previous releases of Oracle, there was a risk of some data redundancy if more than one customer shared the same site or location. The new model eliminates this redundancy.

• Any number of location types can be defined. (e.g., bill-to, ship-to, mail-to).
• There is no duplication of an address.
• It is possible to maintain Customer History per address.
• It is also possible to maintain Important Install Base info.

4] Party Site:

It links a Party with a Location

• Describes the usage of that Location for the Party  (e.g., mailing address, billing address, home address, etc.).
• Allows Parties to be associated to one or more Locations and any one Location to be associated with Parties.

5] Contact:

A Contact is a person in the context of an organization, modeled as a relationship between an organization and a person or between two people, (this can be either a party contact or an account contact).

6] Contact Point:

A Contact Point is a means of contacting a party, for example, a phone number, e-mail address, or fax number.

This can be applied to:

• A Party (person, organization, group or relationship)
• A Site or Location
• A Party at a Site or Location

An entity may have one or more Contact Points.

7] Customer Account:

A Customer Account represents the business (selling) relationship that a company deploying Oracle Applications has with a party.

• Stores details about the Financial relationship between a Party and your business.
• A Party may have one or more Customer Accounts.

8] Customer Account Site:

A Customer Account Site is a party site that is used by a customer account, for example, for billing or shipping purposes.

9] Customer Account Contacts:

A party contact that is used as a means of contacting the customer regarding his/her account.

Parties vs. Accounts

• From an application perspective, one of the most important things to understand about the TCA model is that the concept of “customer” is separated into two layers: The Party layer and the Account layer. 
• When CRM applications refer to “Customer” they are referring to the Party Layer.
• On the other hand, when ERP applications refer to “Customer” they are referring to the Account Layer. 

New Trading Entities in R12

Below are the new entities that are merged in TCA architecture in R12.

• Banks & Bank Branches
• Suppliers
• Legal Entity

AutoInvoice in Oracle Apps R12

AutoInvoice in Oracle Apps R12

AutoInvoice is a powerful, flexible tool you can use to import and validate transaction data from other financial systems and create invoices, debit memos, credit memos, and on–account credits in Oracle Receivables. You use a custom feeder program to transfers transaction data from an external system into the AutoInvoice interface tables. AutoInvoice then selects data from the interface tables and creates transaction in Receivables. Receivables rejects transactions with invalid information to ensure the integrity of your data. You can run AutoInvoice together with Customer Interface or separately.

Oracle Receivables can create invoices from the following Oracle applications:  Oracle Order Management, Oracle Projects,  Oracle Service, Oracle Property Manager.
Oracle Receivables can create invoices from the following non-Oracle applications:  Legacy system (for transaction history),  Non-Oracle billing applications, Non-Oracle order entry applications.

Oracle Receivables uses three interface tables for AutoInvoice:

1. RA_INTERFACE_LINES
2. RA_INTERFACE_DISTRIBUTIONS
3. RA_INTERFACE_SALESCREDITS

AutoInvoice transfers transaction data from the above three interface tables into the following Receivables tables:

• RA_BATCHES_ALL
• RA_CUSTOMER_TRX _ALL
• RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_LINES _ALL
• RA_CUST_TRX_LINE_GL_DIST_ALL
• RA_CUST_TRX_LINE_SALESREPS_ALL
• AR_PAYMENT_SCHEDULES_ALL
• AR_RECEIVABLE_APPLICATIONS_ALL
• AR_ADJUSTMENTS_ALL

RA_INTERFACE_LINES:

• This table contains information relating to all transactions to be processed by AutoInvoice.
• Transactions include invoices, debit memos, credit memos, and on-account credits.
• Each record contains line, tax, freight, or finance charges information.
• The Line_Type field identifies the type of information contained in the record.
• A record can be a parent record: Line, Header Freight, or Charges; or a child record: Tax or linelevel Freight.
• A child record is linked to the parent record using the Link-To Transaction flexfield.

RA_INTERFACE_DISTRIBUTIONS:

• This table contains accounting distributions to be used by the transactions defined in RA_INTERFACE_LINES.
• Accounts defined in this table override any accounts created using AutoAccounting.
• You can choose to pass some or all account information to AutoInvoice. Any accounts that are not passed will be derived using AutoAccounting.
• Records in this table are linked to records in the RA_INTERFACE_LINES table using the Transaction flexfield.
• Not required if AutoAccounting determines GL distributions.

RA_INTERFACE_SALESCREDITS:

• This table contains all sales credit information for the transactions in the RA_INTERFACE_LINES table.
• The two tables are linked using the Transaction flexfield.
• Not required if not tracking sales credit.

What occurs during auto-invoice:

1. Populates the RA_Interface_Lines, RA_Interface_distribution and RA_Interface_salescredit tables.
2. Lines are grouped and ordered by the grouping rule and line ordering line. Grouping rules are mandatory and determine how transaction lines are grouped into transactions. Optionally, you can use line-ordering rules to determine the order in which lines are displayed on a transaction.
3. Tax, freight, commitments and credit memos are linked to transaction line by transaction line, transaction reference and transaction link-to descriptive flex fields. To uniquely identify imported transactions and link the tax, freight, commitments and credit memos, define the Transaction flexfields.
4. GL date is determined.
5. GL accounting code combinations are assigned using auto accounting rule.
6. TAX is determined.
7. All transactions are batched.
8. Validated lines are used to create the transaction.

When run, AutoInvoice produces the AutoInvoice Execution Report and the AutoInvoice Validation Report.

Any entries which failed validation can be reviewed in Oracle Receivables’ AutoInvoice Interface Exceptions window. Depending on the error, changes may need to be made in Receivables, the feeder program or the imported records in the interface tables.

Transaction flexfields:

• Transaction flexfields are descriptive flexfields that AutoInvoice uses to uniquely identify transaction lines.
• Because they are unique for each transaction line, they can also be used to reference and link to other lines.
• Receivables lets you determine how you want to build your transaction flexfield structure and what information you want to capture.
• Define a flexfield for each import source. Specify which one to use during import.

Types of transaction flexfields:

• Invoice Header (optional): Specifies invoice header information
• Line (required): Uniquely identifies invoice lines
• Link-To (optional): Link tax and freight to invoice lines
• Reference (optional): Links credit memos to transactions

What is inside AutoInvoice?

AutoInvoice is a tool consists of 3 main programs. Each program will have unique nature of work to do and they are called internally except Purge program whose execution is derived on the setup otherwise ready to execute stand alone.

• Master (RAXMTR)
• Import (RAXTRX)
• Purge (RAXDEL)

1] Auto Invoice Master program:

Selects and marks records in the interface tables to  be processed based on the parameters the user entered and then calls the AutoInvoice Import program. Auto Invoice Master program has no report output.

• Gathers statistics, it means it gathers the stats on interface tables and set the stats on certain indices on interface tables.
• Marks interface records for processing by marking request_id.
• Submits multiple workers for Parallel Processing by creating instances for request.

2] Auto Invoice Import Program:

Validates the selected record and creates transaction if it passes validation. Any record that fails validation is left in the interface table with an error code. Depending on the setup, related records may be rejected as well. This program has an output file called Auto Invoice Execution report, which you can view by clicking the View Report button in the Requests window.

• Workhorse of Auto invoice
• Validates data
• Inserts records
• Deletes interface data
• Only when system option purge set to ‘Y’

3] Auto Invoice Purge Program:

Deletes records from the interface tables. If you set the Purge Interface Table system option to No in Define System Option window, Auto Invoice does not delete processed records from the interface tables after each run, and we must submit Auto Invoice Purge Program periodically to clean up the interface tables. This program only deletes transaction lines that have been successfully imported.

AutoInvoice Exception Handling:

Records that fail validation are called ‘Exceptions’

• Exceptions stay in Interface Tables which is RA_INTERFACE_ERRORS_ALL.
• Errors can be corrected in the Exception Handling window.
• Once corrections are made, Auto invoice must be resubmitted.
• Records that pass validation get transferred to Receivables tables.

AutoInvoice Exception Handling Windows:

• Interface Exception window displays exception messages associated with all invalid records.
• Interface Lines window displays records that fail validation, provides an error message and can be used to correct the errors.
• The Line Errors windows displays errors associated with a specific line, and can only be opened from Interface Lines window.
• Interface Exceptions window displays Interface Id, Exception Type, Error Message and Invalid Value associated to the error.
• Data cannot be edited in this window, but error can be viewed and corrected by clicking the Details button.
• Error Message and Column name with invalid data are displayed in the Message column, and the invalid value that needs to be corrected is displayed in the Invalid Value column.

Order to Cash (O2C) Cycle

Order to Cash (O2C) Cycle

Order to Cash means Customer’s Order Placing to Vendor’s Cash Receiving. When your final product is ready to be sold, you market it. The customer gets fascinated with the marketing campaign and decides to buy your product and from here starts the O2C cycle.

Step 1] Order Entry:

Customer sends details of order or sales dept brings order from customers. After that the order is entered in Order Management (OM)

Navigation: Order Management Super User> Orders Returns >Sales Orders

Here we need to enter the Customer Details (Customer Name , Number, Contact Ship to and Bill to address etc.), Order type. In the Lines tab we need to enter the Item to be ordered and the quantity required. Here we can also check the availability of the order. Here we can save the order. Once saved the Order Status is changed to ‘Entered’.

Key Tables:

• OE_ORDER_HEADERS_ALL – All header information is stored here.
• OE_ORDER_LINES_ALL – All the line information is stored here.

Step 2] Order Book :

When we book the order, we are just confirming and freezing our order.

The final step in the Sales Order Entry process is to Book the order. This signifies that the Order Entry process is complete and that the order is eligible for the next stage in the line flow for this order, as defined by its Transaction Type. Select the Book Order button. The Entry Status of the Order will change to Booked.

After Order Booking:

Order Header: Booked

Order Line : Awaiting Shipping

Shipping Transaction form: Ready to release

Table Level :

• OE_ORDER_HEADERS_ALL : Flow_Status_code –Booked
• OE_ORDER_LINES_ALL : Flow_Status_code – Awaiting Shipping
• WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS : Released_Status – R ( means – Ready to release)

Step 3] Launch Pick Release :

Pick Release is the process in which the items on the sales order are taken out from inventory.

Navigation: Order Management Super User> Shipping > Release sales Orders > Release sales order

Based On rule: Select the Grouping rule the reaming details will default in Order, Shipping and Inventory tab

Order Tab:

• Order Number: Select the Order Number. Values for the Order Type and Customer fields of this form default to those for the order number you enter here.
• Ship Set: Select the Ship Set to be released. The Order Number must be selected first.

Shipping Tab:

• Auto creates Deliveries : Select Yes in this box to automatically create deliveries for  delivery lines once they are released
• Release Sequence Rule: Select Rule to specify the order in which the picking lines are released.
• Auto Pick Confirm –Yes/No

Inventory tab:

• Warehouse: Select the Warehouse
• Sub inventory: Select the Sub inventory
• Pick Slip Grouping Rule: To determine how released picking lines are grouped onto pick slips.
• Default Stage Sub inventory: Select the Default Stage Sub inventory

Click on Execute Now Button to complete the pick release of the order. Normally pick release SRS program runs in background . Once the program get completed these are the table get affected:

• OE_ORDER_LINES_ALL (flow_status_code ‘PICKED’ )
• WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS (released_status ‘S’ ‘submitted for release’ )
• mtl_txn_request_headers
• mtl_txn_request_lines
• Mtl_material_transactions_temp (link to above tables through move_order_header_id/line_id

Step 4] Pick Confirm the Order:

If Auto Pick Confirm in the above step is set to NO, then the following should be done.                             

Navigation: Inventory Super User > Move Order> Transact Move Order

In the HEADER tab, enter the BATCH NUMBER (from the above step) of the order. Click FIND. Click on VIEW/UPDATE Allocation, then Click TRANSACT button. Then Transact button will be deactivated then just close it and go to next step.

• Items are transferred from salable to staging Sub inventory.
• mtl_material_transactions
• mtl_transaction_accounts
• wsh_delivery_details (released_status ‘Y’ ‘Released’ )
• wsh_delivery_assignments

Step 5] Ship Confirm the Order:

The Shipping Transaction window provides a centralized workbench that consolidates three major shipping functions: planning, pick releasing, and ship confirming.

Navigation: Order Management Super User>Shipping >Transactions.

Here ship confirm interface program runs in background . Data are removed from wsh_new_deliveries.

• oe_order_lines_all (flow_status_code ‘shipped’)
• wsh_delivery_details (released_status ‘C’ ‘Shipped’)
• mtl_transaction_interface
• mtl_material_transactions(linked through Transaction source header id)
• mtl_transaction_accounts

Data are deleted from mtl_demand, mtl_reservations and Item is deducted from mtl_onhand_quantities.

Step 6] Enter Invoices in Receivables:

Run workflow background Process. Workflow Background Process inserts the records in RA_INTERFACE_LINES_ALL with

• INTERFACE_LINE_CONTEXT     =  ’ORDER ENTRY’
• INTERFACE_LINE_ATTRIBUTE1 =   Order_number
• INTERFACE_LINE_ATTRIBUTE3 =    Delivery_id

Then it spawns Auto invoice Master Program and Auto invoice import program which creates Invoice for that particular Order.

Navigation: Order Management >view >Requests

Underlying tables:

• RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_ALL will have the Invoice header information. The column INTERFACE_HEADER_ATTRIBUTE1 will have the Order Number.
• RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_LINES_ALL will have the Invoice lines information. The column INTERFACE_LINE_ATTRIBUTE1 will have the Order Number.

Step 7] COMPLETE LINE:

In this stage order line level table get updated with Flow status and open flag .

• oe_order_lines_all (flow_status_code ‘shipped’, open_flag “N”)

Step 8] CLOSE ORDER:

This is last step of Order Processing . In this stage only oe_order_lines_all table get updated .

• oe_order_lines_all (flow_status_code ‘closed’, open_flag “N”)