OracleAppsBlog

A day in the life of an Oracle Applications Consultant

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Oracle Internet Expenses Setup Steps

It’s a Feature has a useful How to, for configuring Oracle iExpenses.

According to the Oracle Internet Expenses Site:

Oracle Internet Expenses is a travel and entertainment solution that streamlines and automates travel spend management. The result: a dramatic and immediate return on investment with direct impact on the bottom line.

The Key Steps Mentioned in the It’s a Feature blog entry are:

1. PA: Enable Project Expenditure Types for Expense Report Entry
2. AP: Define Expense Report Templates
3. AP: Define Financials Options > Accounting
4. AP: Establish Multiple Currencies Setup
5. AP: Defining Expense Report Options
6. AP: Assign Signing Limits
7. OIE: Define iExpense Policies
8. OIE: Enable Expense Allocations
9. OIE: Define Receipt Notification Rule Set
10. OIE: Assign Receipt Notification Rule Set
11. OIE: Define Mileage Rate Schedule
12. AP: Complete Mileage Expense Type Definition in Payables
13. SA: Define Profile Options
14. WF: Customize Project Expense Report Account Generator
15. GL: Assign Your Customized Project Expense Report Account Generator to your chart of accounts
16. WF: Customize the Internet Expenses Workflow
17. WF: Define Workflow Notification Performers
18. Change the Find Approver Method
19. Personalize Expense Report Submission Instructions
20. Compile the Expense Types Descriptive flexfield!
21. Enable the Display of Project and Task
22. Other Configuration Considerations

Oracle to buy communications infrastructure software vendor HotSip

According to a recent Press Release:

HotSip is a provider of telecommunications infrastructure software and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) enabled applications for IP telephony, presence, messaging and conferencing on new converged networks. “The addition of HotSip’s technology will allow Oracle to build on its leadership in middleware and in carrier-grade communications infrastructures,” said Thomas Kurian, senior vice president, Oracle Server Technologies.

This is Oracle’s 16th acquisition in just under 14 months. I assume we will see some sort of  “fusion” with Oracle Collaboration Suite.

 

Oracle Apps Blog ranked in Top British Blogs

I noticed a couple of inbound links coming from the Top Blogs listing on the British Bloggers Directory. To my surprise I’m listed as number 12 – I’ve taken a screen shot of it as I’m not sure I’ll be there for long. There’s probably a lot of other Oracle and British Blogs that get more traffic than I do but apparently the ranking is based on your Technorati rating and mine is sitting at 53,391 at the moment.

Sitting in the top 10:

1. Girl with a one-track mind.
2. - Take your Medicine
3. little red boat
4. A Welsh View
5. Philobiblon
6. Iain Dale’s Diary
7. boakes.org
8. Pepys’ Diary
9. Europhobia
10. ShaolinTiger - Kung-fu Geekery

A couple of other sites I recognise, having met the authors at various events in the UK:

Perfect Path – Lloyd Davis
A PR Guru’s Musings – Stuart Bruce
NevOn – Neville Hobson

Update at 27th Feb 2005

Obviously the bit of blogging I did over the weekend improved my rankings, I’m now sitting at number 5.

Tips for a successful Compliance and Governance Initiative

The following seven steps were noted in an article entitled A 4-Step Blueprint for Achieving Sustainable Compliance by Neetin Datar of SAP, published in SAPInsider.

1. Think strategic, not tactical
2. Think processes, not projects
3. Think enterprise wide, not in silos
4. Focus on business value, not just on cost of compliance
5. Think company DNA, and make compliance part of its core
6. Think agility and aim for a flexible compliance architecture. Technology is an imporant enabler of data quality, accountability and efficiency.
7. Make compliance repeatable, scalable and cost-effective

Good points. More on Oracle’s Strategy for Corporate Governance and Compliance stategy here.

Introduction to Project Mendocino

Last night I read an interesting article in the SAPInsider Magazine which described what’s happening with Project Mendocino.

SAP Insider is the premiere source of information on product and service initiatives coming from SAP and its partners. The magazine provides SAP customers with strategic direction and practical advice to make the most of their investment in SAP technology.

The article by Dennis Moore – General Manager, Emerging Solutions PTU, SAP Labs, LLC is entitled SAP as Easy as Opening E-mail? Introducing Project Mendocino 

It describes how Project Mendocino links mySAP ERP business functions to Microsoft Office Applications and how Desktop applications will trigger transactions in the ERP system.

The paper states that in its first release, Project Mendocino will support four common business scenarios:

1. Time and Billable meetings management – Transferring information from an electronic personal calendar to a company timesheet or accounting form is one of the most cumbersome tasks. With Project Mendocino’s Time Management Capability, information collected in Outlook Calendar can be directly fed into mySAP ERP.

2. Budget Monitoring – Tracking budgets and acting upon changes in status is one of the most powerful features for managers in Project Mendocino. Users can configure Outlook using Project Mendocino to alert them of financial conditions affecting a budget, but instead of getting a text e-mail with a link to another system, the user can get the context they need and access to the actual business processes that will enable them to act upon the alert in the e-mail itself.

3. Team and Organization Management Processes – Team Management, although not a replacement for SAP Manager Self-Service, will make many common HR tasks possible via Microsoft Outlook. Users can use Outlook contacts to retrieve up to date information about employees, open positions and organizational structures.

4. Leave Management Requests – Planning time off from work usually requires users to jump from one calendar to another, creating a paper chain that can leave calendars out of sync. With Project Mendocino’s Leave Management Capability, users can user their Outlook Calendar to schedule leave requests and the approval workflow can all be contained in Exchange.