01/17/07 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 3.9 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.1 Getting Started With Approvals Management Engine John Peters JRPJR, Inc. [email protected]

01/17/07 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 3.9

John Peters, JRPJR, Inc. 1

Getting Started With Approvals Management

Engine

John PetersJRPJR, Inc.

[email protected]



• How many of you have used approvals in Workflow?

• How many of you have had to customize the Workflow to accomplish the required approvals?

• How many of you have tried Approvals Management Engine?

Before We Start A Quick Audience Survey



• E-Business Suite Modules that currently utilize Approvals Management Engine

• Technically where is AME• Where does Approvals Management

Engine fit into the Workflow approvals processing

• System Administration steps to enable Approvals Management Engine (briefly)

• Definition of AME processes• Testing AME processing• Quick Demo of AME (time permitting)

What we are going to cover



Modules that currently utilize AMEApplications Module Transaction Types

Advanced Benefits 2Bills of Material 4Cash Management 1E-Records 13Engineering 9Enterprise Performance Foundation 1Human Resources 2Internal Controls Manager 3Inventory 11Labor Distribution 1Learning Management 1Lease Management 8Partner Management 4Payables 2Process Manufacturing Inventory 13Process Manufacturing Logistics 2Process Manufacturing Process Execution 14Process Manufacturing Product Development 44Public Sector HR 1Purchasing 8Quality 23Quoting 1Receivables 4Sourcing 1Trade Management 2Work in Process 3iAssets 2



• Requisition Approvals can not be forwarded to other approvers

• Quote Approvals can not process approvals in parallel

• Please review the restrictions for your OraApps Module on Metalink

Many OraApps Modules Have Restrictions



• Tables exist in HR schema

• Tables begin with AME_%

• This tells us that Oracle views this as a component of HR

• This is very important to realize since the functionality is HR centric in the approval list building process

Technically Where is AME



• AME builds approval lists.• AME uses the logic you setup to

control the building of the approval list.

• AME does not send notifications or handle any of the other required “glue” in an approval process.

• Typically AME is just a few new processes/functions on an existing approval process defined in Workflow.

How does AME fit in?



Using the Requisition Approval process as an example



Using the Requisition Approval process as an example (cont.)



Using the Requisition Approval process as an example (cont.)



1. Assign responsibilities/roles to your system administrators

2. Setup AME System Wide Configuration3. Setup module specific Profile Options4. Assign responsibilities/roles to your

functional users who will be setting up AME

5. Setup AME functionality for module

• Steps 1-4 are only covered briefly here and are quite involved, we are going to instead concentrate on step 5

Sysadmin steps to enable AME



• AME uses the new User Management functionality

• You must assign the responsibility ‘User Management’ to the people who will assign AME responsibilities to others

• Have to do this assignment as the SYSADMIN OraApps user

• The role to be assign is ‘Security Administrator’

Assign resp/roles to Sys. Admins



• Using the responsibility ‘Approvals Management Administrator’ the SysAdmin’s can assign setup the AME Configuration Parameters.

• For the most part these parameters can remain with their default values.

Setup AME Configuration Parameters



• The SysAdmin’s must assign AME functional roles to the required OraApps user accounts using the User Management

• The responsibility ‘Approvals Management Business Analyst’ is assigned along with the required roles, viewable in the Indirect Responsibilities tab of the Define Users form.

Assign resp/roles to functional super users



• 'AME:Installed' at the Application Levels– Oracle Quoting = Yes

• For quoting there are several others to setup, these are module specific– 'ASO : Enable Approvals' = Yes– 'ASO : Allow Skip Approvers' = No

Setup AME Profile Options



• AME Approvers must be setup as FND_USER’s

• AME Approvers must be setup as Employees

AME Approvers



• The responsibility to be used is: ‘Approvals Management Business Analyst’

• Each OraApps module has different specific values, but the same general setup process holds true for each.

Setup AME Module Functionality



An example of Quote Approval Requirements:– Discounts have different approval limits by product

line by operating unit– Terms non-standard (non-default)– If the Sales Person is New– Sales Person Technical Review Required– Total Quote Price is $0– Verify quote total is not less than GSA total– Remove Service Agreement items from

quote/discount totals– Quote approvals go no higher than the VP of Sales

All of these were implemented through customized of AME Attributes

AME Allows For Very Complex Approval Rules



1. Define Attributes2. Define Conditions3. Define Action Types4. Define Approval Groups5. Define Rules6. Test Process

All of this takes place on the AME Business Analyst Dashboard

Definition of the AME Process



Example of Approval Rules



AME Dashboard



• AME Attributes are the variables which are evaluated by your AME Process as it runs

• AME Attributes can be Header or Line Item

• Dynamic Attributes are filled in at run time by an SQL query

• AME Attribute values are all stored internally as string values limited to a length of 100 characters

• Most customization activity is around Attributes

AME Attributes



• Boolean – True or False

• Currency – (amount,denomination,conversion

method)• Date

– ’YYYY:MON:DD:HH24:MI:SS’• Number

– Integer or decimal (using user’s character set decimal point)

• String– Up to 100 characters in length

AME Attributes – Data Types



• An SQL routine which populates a Currency Attribute must return three columns:

– Amount = decimal value– Denomination = 3 Char Currency Code – Conversion Method = ‘Corporate’

• Static definitions are like the following:‘5000.00,USD,Corporate’

Currency Attributes



• SQL routines should run the numeric values through the PL/SQL function: fnd_number.number_to_canonical

Number Attributes



• Stored as a string

• There is a PL/SQL date format mask you can use to format dates:ame_util.versionDateFormatModel

– ’YYYY:MON:DD:HH24:MI:SS’

• Notice there are no spaces.

Date Attributes



• Dynamic attributes can be populated by an SQL expression.

Select to_char(sysdate, ame_util.versionDateFormatModel) from dual;

• All Attributes are stored internally as strings.

• Must return one row.• The :transactionid is passed as a bind

variable to the query. This is the key for the AME processes execution.

• Limitation on SQL of 2000 characters

Dynamic Attributes



• It is often advantageous to call a PL/SQL function rather than embed an SQL script in the attribute definition.

• This has the added benefit of preventing functional users who can setup AME from modifying the underlying SQL.

• Drawback is that Currency values require three PL/SQL function calls.

PL/SQL Usage



PL/SQL Example



PL/SQL Currency Example

You end up with Currency PL/SQL calls like the following.

select MY_PACKAGE.GET_MY_AMOUNT(:transactionId), MY_PACKAGE.GET_MY_CURRENCY(:transactionId), MY_PACKAGE.GET_MY_CONVERSION_TYPE(:transactionId)from dual



There are two types of conditions:• Regular Conditions

Simple logic statements– Technical Review Required = ‘Y’– Discount is greater than -12 and less than

or equal to -7.23

• List Modifier Conditions– Any approver is ‘Adams, John’

Conditions



Regular Conditions



Regular Conditions



List Modifier Conditions



• Action Types are groups of similar actions that build your approval list for you.

• Common Predefined Action Rule Types are:– Chain of authority action types– List Modification action types– Post List Approval Group – Pre List Approval Group

Action Types



Job Level• absolute job level

– chains of authority based on absolute job level • relative job level

– chains of authority based on relative job level• final approver only

– chains of authority containing only the final job-level approver Position• hr position

– chains of authority based on a particular HR position • hr position level

– chains of authority based on HR positions Hierarchy• manager then final approver

– chain of authority includes requestor's manager and then the final approver

• supervisory level – chains of authority based on number of supervisory levels

Some of the Chain of Authority Action Types



Job Level



Chain of authority action types



Actions:• Require approvals up to at most level 2• Require approvals up to at most level 3or• Require approvals up to at least level 2 • Require approvals up to at least level 3

Whats the difference:– Chain of approvers have levels 1,2,3,5 (4 is missing)– Requires Level 4 approval– At most => 1,2,3– At least => 1,2,3,5

Absolute Job Level



• final authority – grant final authority to an approver

• nonfinal authority – extend the chain of authority past an

approver

List Modification Action Types



List modification action types



• These actions add a list of approvers either before or after the approval is built.

• Approvals in group can be serial or parallel.

Pre or Post List Approval Groups



Pre or Post List Approval Groups



• Either static or dynamic lists of approvers

• Approvals can be:– Serial Voting (one after another, all for approval)

– Consensus Voting (majority wins)

– First-Responder-Wins Voting (parallel voting)

– Order-Number Voting (one after another, all for approval)(allows for parallel voting)

Approval Groups



Approval Groups



Rules• Rules are where one or more conditions result in an action.• This is what everyone has been waiting for.



Rules – Level 2 Approval• Actual Definition form



Rules – List Modification• Actual Definition form



Testing the Process• AME has an excellent Test Workbench for seeing

how all these rules will actually work in real life.



Testing the Process• Put in Transaction ID. For Quoting that is the Quote Header ID.• Historical transactions are required.



Testing the Process• This dumps the attribute values



Testing the Process• This dumps rules and final approver list



• AME is complex, don’t try to understand it all at once

• Put in some OraApps Module Transactions

• Dive into AME and just try some simple test cases

• You will end up making changes• With the Test Workbench you can

easily see how your setups are working

My Suggestion



• Approvals Management Engine allows for complex approval processes

• Customizations are primarily accomplished with minimal code to pull in new Attribute values

• This product is complex and the documentation is very difficult to understand, hopefully this presentation has given you a brief introduction to Approvals Management Engine

Summary



• My contact information:

John [email protected] http://www.jrpjr.com

• Additional reference papers can be found at:http://www.norcaloaug.orghttp://www.jrpjr.com

Documents

01/17/07 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 3.9 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.1 Getting Started With Approvals Management Engine John Peters JRPJR, Inc. [email protected]