Author: Michael Bowpitt, ERP Practice Lead, Namos Solutions
I know at the moment it can feel like groundhog day – each day feels much like the last – but one thing is different and that is Oracle’s latest three monthly ERP Cloud updates. Its been three months already is the collective gasp! Well yes, it is and yes the latest update will be uploaded to your system in the next month or so.
What can you expect? Will that long requested change final get included? – well wait no more! We have included some of what we think are the most important changes below, it’s not exhaustive so if you want to understand them all please get in touch.
Common Features
Employee Vacation and Delegation Rules Report – A fairly common feature requested by clients. Using vacation rules is a very common functionality, however, previously there was no simpler way to report on users who set up these vacation rules, at least not out of the box. Employee Vacation and Delegation Rules report now allows viewing the vacation and delegation rules set by business users in Oracle Business Process Management (BPM) which should make approval admin much smoother.
Advance Collections
Collections Data Point for Account Total Amount Past Due – 21c has introduced a new Scoring Data Point in Advanced Collections. Data Points are included in Scoring Formulas, which are the foundation of Collections activities, as they are used to determine which transactions are delinquent, and also to determine the collectability of a customer. The new Data Point introduced in 21C calculates the Total Amount Past Due at account site level, rather than just at account level. This is a useful new function for users that want to calculate different scores for different bill-to sites within a customer account, rather than score all sites collectively, particularly when Collections is being run at bill-to site level. Users that are already running Collections will not be impacted as the existing data point for Total Amount Past Due will still exist. But this will give them options to expand or amend their scoring formulas to a more granular level going forward.
Procurement
Derive and Validate Descriptive Flexfield Values Using Purchasing Document Header Attributes – A very interesting new feature that should enhance client reporting opportunities. This feature allows attributes to default context or individual segment values, or to define value sets to limit the list of possible value. While the current list is limited to the attributes below, it can be reasonable expected that Oracle will expand this feature in the future:
- Requisitioning BU ID
- Procurement BU ID
- Document Type
- Sold-to Legal Entity ID
- Document Style ID
This feature requires the implementation consultant or your application administrator to enable.
Use Refresh To View Updated Purchase Order Status – Often within Oracle’s UI, you have to close and reopen pages to see any new updates, and this was one of these examples. Now, this refresh button will remove this need, and allow users to refresh the PO page allowing the status updates to be viewed in real time.
Populate The Purchase Order Description From The Requisition Description – How often have you searched through Manage Orders and seen blank description fields, now you can populate the purchase order description from the backing requisition description automatically when creating new purchase orders. This feature requires opt in to be enabled, so would require an application administrator to enable to benefit from this feature.
Accounts Payables
Recognition Rate Report for Image Invoices – This feature will generate a report that indicates the recognition rate of invoice attributes created from imaging. A very useful feature for clients where they would be able to get an accurate report on the scanned invoicing success rate and adjust configuration accordingly.
The report is available in two formats:
- Supplier Summary: Monthly invoice rate recognition for various invoices like matched, unmatched and Total. The report also show the recognition rate of various invoice attributes like Supplier name, PO etc. The report also provides information of supplier and supplier sites invoices image recognition rate which helps Business to analyse which supplier or supplier sites invoices ate not getting recognized by the system.
- Invoice Summary: Monthly invoice overview of image recognition for various invoice attributes. The report also shows information of the invoice data at the time of invoice creation by IDR and after completion supplier wise.
Expenses
Dual Currency Corporate Card Support – With this release, 21c now supports a corporate card which have transactions in dual currency. With dual currency support, you can seamlessly process dual currency corporate card charges and enable employees to submit these charges directly from the Expenses work area. This feature requires the implementation consultant or your application administrator to enable.
Projects Portfolio Management
Financial Resource Planning Directly At Task Level – A great new feature which now allows you to enter an amount in Project Currency (for Raw Cost) to plan a financial resource on the task eliminating the need to explicitly add a Financial Resource assignment to each task.
Attachments in Project Status Change Approval Workflow – A new feature to attach documents, links, and text to the project status change approval workflow for approvers to review is available now. Project administrators can optionally include attachments for the project to the approval workflow while making a project status change which is a desired feature for Project approval.
Inventory Management
Access SCM Application Pages Using Quick Actions – Quick actions embedded on the left-hand side of the UI springboard provides ease in navigating to tasks without entering the application. It will also help not to overcrowd the favourites.
Use Improved Item Search Capabilities – Enhanced Item search capability allows users to search items using other identifiers and now includes smart autosuggest as seen in other modules such as Security Console whereby you enter 3 characters or more for related
About Namos Solutions
Namos Solutions are an award-winning Oracle Partner, specialising in the implementation and support of ERP, EPM and HCM business solutions, both in the Cloud and on-premise.
With global experience together with an impeccable track record, our business is built on our passion for delivering successful business transformation. Passion underpins everything we do at Namos – passionate about delivering beyond expectations, earning trust and building long-lasting relationships with our clients.
Although based in central London, we work wherever our clients need us to be. Many leading organisations located all over the world trust and rely on our expertise to deliver industry-leading business solutions. Namos customers can currently be found in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, North America and Africa.
For more information, please visit www.namossolutions.com or email info@namossolutions.com.
