Improvements in Oracle Financials and Oracle HRMS R12 Webinar Q&A Transcript

How does the XML Publisher reports sending to customers electronically ? Is it In Build feature in R12 or do we need to customize the Email Client? ITC: The e-mail address is set up in the Customer record under the Communications tab at the site level or at the account level. To send a dunning letter, for example, one must have the customer set up with an e-mail address. Create contact, include e-mail address and add a role of 'dunning'. There are also setups in the Collection Administrator responsibility for the dunning plan. The correspondence method should be 'e-mail'. Define the e-mail host under the section 'Oracle XML Publisher' in Operations setup under Correspondence. Mass Rate Updates for benefits is available in 11i have they made improvements in R12 that vary from 11i? ITC: No, there is little variation between releases with respect to the Mass Rate Updates functionality. How many enhancements have been made to the R12 HR module? ITC: R12 HRMS release includes: Family Pack (FP) J March 05 Family Pack (FP) K July 05 Family Pack K Rollup Pack 1 May 06 OTA.J + RUPs IRC.E + RUPs HXT.J + RUPs HRI.G AME.B ATG_PF.H + CU#2

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These are features available only in R12, not including specific country legislative changes, and they amount to about less than 50 enhancements. HR Secondary Assignment functionality has always been out of alignment with Oracle Project. Has this been resolved in r12 HR/OPA? ITC: No, this issue has not been resolved in Release 12. You mentioned that all the enhancements are aligned with SOA. What exactly do you mean by this statement? ITC: With SOA, application components become standardized Web services, using middleware to orchestrate components into a business process. E.g. the HR New Hire Checklist component. The traditional solution is based on integration where components must be mapped by hand to a step in a specific business process because each application has its own interface and this required lots of knowledge. Oracle is migrating form a windows-based architecture o web based architecture so that SOA can take care a lot of traditional interface requirements behind the scenes. SOA definitely makes it easier for implementers and users who do not need to know the complexity of the interfaces. Service Oriented Architecture is the next technology paradigm, and extends and further enables the promise of Internet based technologies with the capabilities that companies need to compete effectively. The Advanced Collections is a module available in Release 11.5.10 itself. How do you say that it's taken out from Receivables and a separate module in Release 12? ITC: The Collections Workbench module in Oracle Receivables is obsolete and replaced with similar functionality in Oracle Advanced Collections. This includes functionality relating to customer interactions and correspondence, transaction processing, and dunning activities.

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Talk more about change to financial legal entities and how that has changed in R12 ITC: The GRE/LE will continue to be used as they were in the previous release. Financials legal entity orgs that existed in 11i will continue to be seen through the Define Org in R12. Are there any changes to Financials Legal org definitions that are made using the Legal Entity Configurator that will not be seen in HR? ITC: From an HR perspective, prior to R12, the classification is called GRE/LE LE data entered prior to R12 will be continue to be completely visible in HR Define Org form.. (be it out-dated). The LE data from HR form is no longer used by any application. The GRE component of the GRE/LE will be used as before, no functionality changes for HR. Data changed in the LE Configurator is not visible in the HR form, therefore, the LE info in HR form is out-dated and should not to be used for any decision making. What are the major changes from 11.5.10 Advanced Collections to Release 12 Advanced Collections? ITC: MOAC, New implementation checklist and setup screens, Improved payment processing and customer refunds capture, and a vartiety of Collections best practices+ from 11i mini pack H --> XML publsihing for collections correspondence, a new configurable metrics tools, aging based dunning plans. Our company is planning to implement iPayments in 11.5.10 in a few months. We are not planning for R12 upgrade for at least an year. Will our iPayments implementation be obsolete when we eventually migrate to R12 in a couple of years? ITC: Yes when you upgrade to R12, iPayments is obsolete and your configurations for iPayments will be transferred to Payments

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We are currently on 11.5.10.2. We use software like Optio or Evergreen for various printing needs, since R12 extensively uses XML Publisher, will we not need to use 3rd party software like Optio when we migrate to R12? ITC: You will not need to use any third party software, unless you want to. XML Publisher can handle your print output needs. Our Company is planning for a immediate implementation of Advanced collections replacing get paid. We are in 11.5.10 and advanced collections is a separate module in 11.5.10. Do you advise that we go with 11.5.10 Advanced collections OR Release 12 advanced collections? ITC: You can implement 11.5.10 Advanced Collections now and upgrade to R12 when you are ready. For you to implement R12 Advanced Collections, you will need to upgrade all your 11.5.10 applications. Does 11.5.10 have an Advanced Collections module or is only what is in collections workbench in AR? ITC: Yes - Advanced Collections is available in 11.5.10 My company would likely revise the use of one of the segments of their COA when we upgrade to R12. How much of a typical upgrade path could be utilized if this was the case? Additionally, we have maintained our same COA for last several years, but significantly amended the hierarchies within some of the segments, would that have an impact? ITC: If you modify the AFF (accounting flexfield) structure by adding segments or adjusting the number of characters, then that will mean you are re-implementing the applications and not upgrading. The hierarchies will get transferred intact during an upgrade for a reimplementation, they will need to be recreated. If I implement Advanced collections in 11.5.10.2 now, am I wasting effort because we may move to R12 in another year? ITC: No you can implement now and the upgrade process with transfer your configurations to Adv Coll R12.
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What functionality moved from AR to Advanced Collections? ITC: The collections workbench and related functionality has been carved out of AR in R12 and is now part of Advanced Collections. If you use Ebusiness TAX do you still need to have Vertex or Taxware? ITC: No Vertex or Taxware is not required to use EBusiness Tax. However, for those organizations with tax reporting requirements in many states and localities, and have the need to maintain many rates, then they should seriously consider using a tax subscription service like Vertex or Taxware. In R12, are there enhancements to limit the need to add people in both business groups to facilitate approvals? ITC: With Global Deployment, you will be able to transfer employees permanently or temporarily between business groups and application creates or updates Person, Assignment, Contacts and Person Extra Information records using information from the deployment proposal. Depending on how your approval rule, for example, based on employee-supervisor relationship, approval will be taken of. Any comments on response time using R12? ITC: I have personally found the applications very responsive and have not encountered performance issues that are due to the Oracle applications. System performance is dependent on many factors include network speed and capacity, RAM on the client PC, server RAM and speed, other processes or applications from other systems that are being processed simultaneously. For HR, there is a concurrent request Participation Process: Life Events which usually takes time to run, we have not encounter any performance issue. There is improvement in performance if you have security profile based on static user. It can now re-evaluate permission for just one particular static user for one security profile.

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What's the impact to historic data with the changes in legal entities. How does it impact HR and are there any extra steps that need to be done that are not documented? ITC: The GRE/LE will continue to be used as in previous release. How are compensation statement configurable? ITC: Using the Total Compensation Setup Wizard for you to do the mapping, OA Framework to perform personalizations (if any), Fast Formula for any business rules. How long have your customers been on R12? ITC: One of my clients went live on 12.0 last year, and is currently on 12.04, with the plan to go to 12.05 in the next few months. Another client upgraded from 11.5.5 to 12.04 this past spring and has been live for over two months. Since October 2007, they have gone thru a Payroll yearend, a benefits Yearend, the year end process went through very smoothly. What is the biggest advantage in R12 HR if I need to make business case for the upgrade? ITC: A huge consideration if you have licensed Talent Management/iRecruitment due to significant great features. Another area is WEB ADI, there are new integrators, esp the Participant Enrollments. In DBI, there is a new responsibility called Chief HR Office which allows data to be viewed at an enterprise level. We use ADP will there be any impact to the integration between Oracle R12 and the interfaces? We did not experience any anomalies during our implementation.

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Do we have to use payables manager? I hear there were issues with this. ITC: The payment process manager is used to process disbursements from Payables. I have not encountered any issues with this process and it has worked smoothly. It is new in R12 and the end user needs to get familiar with the screen layout and how the process works We need to implement Cash Management in our 11i environment - should we wait for R12. Is there an impact for the upgrade? ITC: No, you do not need to wait for R12. You can implement CE in 11i and the upgrade process will not negatively impact the upgrade. Any areas that I need to prepare for implementing EBus Tax? Yes, make sure your supplier and customer information is accurate, and complete so that address validation functions properly. Also, gather up-to-date tax rate information if youre not using Taxware or Vertex. And get your tax department involved. There are new concepts and terminology introduced in EBusiness Tax. We need to rollout to Europe countries - will the EBus Tax support VAT taxes? ITC: Yes, EBusiness Tax supports VAT Ive heard there are problems closing with AP. Have any of your customers experienced that and do you think Pack 5 will still have these problems? ITC: No, my customers have not had any problems closing AP in R12. Roll up pack 5 for R12 provides many fixes to known issues, so problems and issues should be minimized.

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Can I process refunds in R12? ITC: Yes - Receivables automates the refunds of credit memos that are imported by AutoInvoice. The imported credit memos can apply to credit card or non-credit card transactions. For CC transactions Receivables submits a refund request directly to Oracle Payments to create the disbursement. Payments applies the refund to the same credit card used on the original transaction. For Non-credit card transactions - Receivables submits a refund request to Oracle Payables, which uses Oracle Payments to create the disbursement End of Webinar Thank you for participating IT Convergence will be holding an additional on R12 Delta Training on August 15th. You can learn more about this Webinar or register for it by clicking here. We also invite you to visit our white paper library, where we have two white papers on Oracle R12, with more to be published soon.

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