Oracle Fulfillment White Paper R12

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Fulfillment in Oracle OrderManagement

An Oracle White Paper

December 2000



Fulfillment in Oracle Order Management Page 1

Fulfillment in Oracle Order Management

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

The definition of the word fulfill is “to bring into actuality; to carry out; to measure

up or satisfy; to bring to an end or complete.” To fulfill an order line in Oracle

Order Management (OM) means to satisfy the requirements for completion. OM

provides the functionality required to recognize fulfillment of an order line, and to

cause some order lines to wait until other related order lines have been fulfilled

before they continue processing.

INTRODUCTIONOM allows you to group lines into a fulfillment set and to establish a “gate”

activity in your workflow process. Lines in a fulfillment set will wait until all lines

in the set have been fulfilled to proceed through the gate. This gate is known as

the fulfillment activity. The fulfillment feature is primarily designed to allow the

grouping of related lines and to keep any lines in the group from being invoiced

until all lines have been fulfilled. You may find additional uses for the fulfillment

functionality in your business. This feature did not exist in previous releases of

Oracle Order Entry.

Terminology

The following terms will be used to describe fulfillment:

• Fulfillment activity - The synchronization point or gate in the workflow

process at which lines wait for other lines to be fulfilled.

• Fulfillment method activity - The activity in the workflow process which

indicates that the line has been fulfilled.

• Fulfillment set - a group of lines which must all be fulfilled before any of the

lines proceed beyond the fulfillment activity in the workflow

How it Works

The fulfillment activity is a seeded workflow activity named FULFILL_LINE. This activity is the synchronization point between the lines of a fulfillment set.

There are two activities which are considered fulfillment method activities in the

seeded OM workflows. For a standard shippable line the fulfillment method

activity is the shipping activity. For a return line the fulfillment method activity is




the receiving activity. You may define any activity as the fulfillment method

activity in a workflow process. The fulfillment activity must be between the

fulfillment method activity and the invoice interface activity in the respective

workflows.

When a line workflow reaches the fulfillment activity, the activity checks to see if

the fulfillment method activity (for example, shipping or receiving) completed

successfully. If so, it updates the fulfilled quantity on the line with the shipped orreceived quantity, and sets the fulfilled flag to Yes. It then checks to see if the line

is part of a fulfillment set. If not, then it completes the fulfillment activity and

continues with the next activity in the workflow process. If the line is part of a

fulfillment set, it checks to see if the other lines in the fulfillment set are fulfilled.

If any lines are not fulfilled, it waits at the fulfillment activity. If all the lines are

fulfilled it completes the fulfillment activity for all the lines in the fulfillment set.

Setup

No setup is required to use the fulfillment functionality with the seeded workflows.

If you create your own workflows, include the fulfillment activity before invoicing

in each process. This will provide two benefits: it will update the fulfilled quantity

for the lines, and it will allow you to use fulfillment sets. For each workflow

process that you define, you will need to check the attributes of the

FULFILL_LINE activity. The FULFILLMENT_ACTIVITY attribute must be

your fulfillment method activity, which in the seeded flows is either the shipping

activity or the receiving activity. The COMPLETION_RESULT should be the

result with which the fulfillment method activity completes if it is successful. This

allows you to designate any activity as a fulfillment method activity.

If you have a workflow process with two separate branches, such as a single

workflow process with separate branches for ordered items and returned items,

then you should have one fulfillment activity for each branch which relates to thefulfillment method activity for that branch.

WATCH OUT FOR

Here are some limitations that you will need to understand:

You can have multiple fulfillment sets in a single order. If a line is a member of

two fulfillment sets then all lines from both fulfillment sets must be fulfilled for

any of the lines to complete the fulfillment activity.

If a line workflow process with a notification is in a fulfillment set, and the

notification is rejected, then the other lines will not progress in their flows. You

will have to delete or cancel the rejected line.

EXAMPLES

Example1 - Assume that you enter an order for an item which is shippable and a

service contract for that item. You would not want to bill for the service contract




until the item was shipped. Put the two lines into a fulfillment set by clicking the

right mouse button and selecting Sets. When the order is booked, the shippable

line must complete the scheduling and shipping activities. These activities are not

applicable for the service contract, so they will complete immediately. The service

contract will wait at the fulfill line activity until the shippable line arrives there, and

then both lines will continue to invoicing at the same time.

Example 2 - Assume that you are a telecommunications company and some of your order lines are for local cable service. The line is fulfilled when the technician

goes to the subscribers home and makes the connection. You call this activity

provisioning, and you have a custom system for managing this service. You could

define a new workflow activity called provisioning and define it as the fulfillment

method activity for the workflow process associated with cable installation lines.

The line for installation might be in a fulfillment set with the line for the first

monthly fee and the line for a shippable item, the cable box. When the technician

reports that the connection is complete, the custom system could update the status

of the provisioning workflow activity. When the line progresses to the fulfillment

activity, the quantity fulfilled is updated with the quantity provisioned. The other

lines in the fulfillment should already be waiting at the fulfillment activity. Thecompletion of the fulfillment activity for the installation would complete the lines

in the fulfillment set, and the installation, first monthly fee and cable box would all

proceed to invoice interface.

CONCLUSION

Order Management’s new fulfillment functionality provides a simple way to

synchronize the workflow between order lines. It allows you to prevent invoicing

of lines in a fulfillment set until all lines are ready for invoicing. Seeded workflow

processes and activities can be used out of the box to provide baseline

functionality for sales order, drop ship and return lines. The functionality is also

designed to allow you the flexibility to define other activities as fulfillment methods

so that you can model your unique business processes.



Fulfillment in Oracle Order Management

December 2000

Author: Ginger Conroy

Oracle Corporation

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This document is provided for informational purposes

only and the information herein is subject to change

without notice. Please report any errors herein to

Oracle Corporation. Oracle Corporation does notprovide any warranties covering and specifically

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Oracle is a registered trademark, and Oracle Order Management is a

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All other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Copyright © Oracle Corporation 2000

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