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Thursday, March 13, 2008

Oracle Financials Technical Interview Questions and Score Sheet

Over the last few years I’ve been involved in interviewing a number of Oracle Financials Consultants and have also in the past been sitting on the other side of the desk as an interviewee. The last time I conducted an interview it was more technical in nature and I decided to came up with a list of questions to ask the interviewee. These questions were focused along the lines of people, process and technology and I thought I would write a blog entry with the questions as I’m sure it will be useful for interviewers and interviewee’s alike. In addition to the questions I also developed a score sheet utilising the Kepner Tregoe decision making methodology, an approach I learnt when doing my Masters in Business Leadership (MBL). This score sheet allows the interviewer to develop an objective means of evaluating the answers to interview questions rather than a subjective one and can be modified to suit a number of different scenarios. I haven’t included any answers to the questions as in many cases there is no right answer, I prefer to see if someone understands the concepts and can explain them well. Having said that, if any one wants to come up with a suggested answer sheet I will gladly append it to the questions listing. Hopefully this question listing and score sheet will provide readers with a baseline/guideline that can be used in any type of interview.

• Download Oracle Financials Technical Interview Questions
• Download Oracle Financials Technical Interview Score Sheet

Technology Questions

General Ledger

• Explain the organisational concepts of business group, set of books, legal entity, operating unit and inventory organization and the hierarchical structure relating to these.
• What are the three C’s in relation to a set of books? 
• Explain the difference between a key flexfield and descriptive flexfield
• What is the difference between a cross validation rule and a security rule? 
• What is a value set and what are the different types of value sets that you will find within Oracle?

Accounts Payable

• Describe the Key Configuration decisions you would need to undertake when implementing the Accounts Payable module.
• Briefly describe the Supplier Invoice to Payment process within Oracle.

Accounts Receivable

• Describe the Key Configuration decisions you would need to undertake when implementing the Accounts Receivable module.
• Briefly describe/draw the Customer Invoice to Cash process within Oracle
• Describe the Key difference in setting up accounting for Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable
• What happens when you have a receipt in Oracle that can’t be applied to an invoice?

Fixed Assets

• Describe the key configuration decisions you would need to undertake when implementing the fixed assets module.
• Briefly describe/draw the asset additions process within Oracle.

Cash Management

• Describe the key configuration decisions you would need to undertake when implementing the cash management module.
• Outline the Statement to Reconciliation process within Oracle with particular reference to the different options you might want to consider when reconciling.

All Modules

Describe/draw the sequence of events you would undertake in closing the various financials modules.

People Questions

• Draw a typical structure relating to project implementation and describe the role each person would play within a project.
• Describe how to implement an effective training strategy within an implementation – include the timing of training relative to the project lifecycle.
• Within an implementation describe a Change Management strategy that you would put in place.

Process Questions

• Describe/draw the main phases of an implementation lifecycle and the key milestones and deliverables within each of these phases.
• Describe the key differences between a process and work instruction
• Within a project describe the different test phases that you might go through and what level of testing would be undertaken.
• Describe a typical process you would implement for managing Change Requests and Bug requests within your organization.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Oracle Jobs Galore on Google Base

Google Base launched this week hot off the heels of Google Analytics. Looks like Google is rapidly taking control of the web.

According to Google:

Google Base site is a place where you can add all types of information that we’ll host and make searchable online.

You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.

Essentially, Base is a site where you can upload files and share them with other people. I did a couple of Oracle searches and so far it looks like they only have job ads so if you’re in need of an Oracle Job it might be a good place to look. Hopefully people will begin to share other Oracle related content soon.

It’s going to get interesting if Google starts to offer free web hosting services! A lot of web hosting companies will be put out of business.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Some interesting IT, ERP and Oracle Job Sites

Over the last two weeks I’ve come across a variety of interesting job sites which I wanted to specifically highlight to readers. It seems that more job sites are getting in to the blogging thing as well as providing RSS support. The concept of job sites having RSS support appeals to me since it means that I can find out about the latest jobs without have to wade through tonnes of e-mail subscriptions.

Firstly, I wanted to point out that Jobserve now has RSS support for job searches. Monster, another really large job site now has a blog as well as an RSS feed available on their Career advice site. Jobster also has a blog here.

IT Jobs Watch is another interesting site I came across that gives you a good indication of earnings in the UK IT Sector. According to the site:

ITJobsWatch offers you a unique perspective on today’s UK IT jobs market. Our aim is to present you with a concise and accurate map of the prevailing IT jobs market conditions. Our goals include helping you:

• Determine the level of demand for particular IT skills with a guide to the average salary and contractor rates offered.
• Discover how various IT skills interrelate.
• Determine which IT skills are popular in specific locations.
• Determine the level of demand for a certain IT skills required by specific IT Job Titles.

ERPMate.com is a job site which has a forum mainly consisting of SAP job vacancies and advertisements. GeekInterview.com is an open database where you can share interview questions. They have 102 questions for Oracle Apps. Also of note is the site Exforsys.com which has a number of tutorials for Oracle Applications 11i. To mention a few:

• Getting started with Oracle Applications
• Concurrent Processing
• Implementing Key and Descriptive Flexfields
• Overview of Popular ERP Products
• Internet Computing Architecture

From an Oracle perspective you should check out the official Oracle Jobs site as well as this OracleJobSite which has an array of RSS feeds you can subscribe to.

Once again, I wanted to point out that I’m frequently updating my del.icio.us job site listing with new sites I come across such as the ones mentioned above, hence I recommend you subscribe to the OracleAppsBlog jobs RSS feed. You’ll also find a listing of Job sites in the Jobs folder of the OracleAppsBlog Blogroll. If you want to see a job site with an interesting and sometime humorous twist, check out Simply Fired.

Anyone know of any other job sites that have RSS feeds?

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Oracle & ERP Job Sites - which are the best ones to use?

I often get e-mails from people looking for jobs and in most instances I have to tell the applicants to go through the normal channels i.e. send your CV or Resume to the myriad of job sites out there. To help job hunters I thought it would be interesting to get some feedback from readers on their experiences with job searching.

I’d be interested to know from reader’s who they think are the best sites to use if you are trying to find a job in the Oracle & ERP field. Personally, I tried using hundreds of different sites when I came to the UK but found that there were only two that were really effective in getting me to the interview stage, namely Reed and Jobserve. I heard that Monster is pretty good if you are looking for a job in the States. I’m not sure how good dedicated Oracle sites like the Oracle Job Network, OraSearch or Oracle People are. Please add your comments and also participate in the poll.

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Find an Oracle Partner using the PartnerNetwork’s Solutions Catalog

This post outlines how you can find and contact an Oracle Partner using the Oracle PartnerNetwork’s Solutions Catalog.

If you are looking for an Oracle Job or you are a prospective implementor of any Oracle Software, the Oracle PartnerNetwork’s Solutions Catalogue will provide you with easy access to information relating to Oracle Partners as well as their contact details. According to this site,

The Oracle PartnerNetwork’s Solutions Catalog is your gateway to Oracle Partner products and services worldwide. You will find that many of the world’s premier hardware, software, system integration, and services vendors are Oracle Partners.

There are 3 ways you can perform a search using this site. Firstly, you can perform a simple search which will return a maximum of 200 results. Secondly you can perform an advanced which will allow you to find Partner solutions by: -

• Keyword
• Partner Name
• Solution Name
• Membership Levels
 
• Certified Advantage Partner
• Certified Partner
• Member Partner
• Partner Categories
• Association
• Content Provider
• Education Provider
• Hardware and Infrastructure Vendor
• Independent Software Vendor (ISV)
• System Integrator
• Value Added Distributor (VAD)
• Value Added Reseller (VAR)
• Other
• Solution Availability (by country or region)
• Industries
• Oracle Products
• Database Versions
• Operating Systems

Lastly, you can Browse the solutions Catalog by the following categories: -

• Applications - Business
• Applications - Industry Specific
• Services - Consulting, Development and Integration
• Tools - Application and Web Development
• Tools - Infrastructure and Systems Management

If you are an Oracle Partner and have your login information handy, you can also update your profile from this site so that anyone trying to find you will be given relevant and up to date information about you or your organisation.