Setting Up Advanced Collections 11i.iex.H-V1.04

Setting Up Advanced Collections 11i.IEX.H-v1.04.doc (Dave Snodgrass) 1

Setting Up Advanced Collections Version 11i.IEX.H

Version 1.04, 07 January 2008

By Dave Snodgrass

Things to add:

• Set profile option IEX: Collector Access Level. It sets the level at which IEX: Territory Assignment assigns collectors (Party, Customer Account, or Bill To).

• Set profile option IEX: Strategy Assignment Default Resource.

• Set profile option IEX: Strategy Default Template.

• Set profile option IEX: Strategy Fulfilment Resource.

• Set profile 'IEU: Queue: Advanced Outbound Telephony' to No. This should prevent the error "APP-IEU-241011: Connection to UWQ server could not be established. You will not

be able to 'Get Work' for Media." from appearing when you open the collector’s work queue.

• To use the Send Copy button on the invoice form, set profile option IEX: Invoice

Fulfillment Template to an appropriate template.

• Set profile options IEX: Automatically Populate Grids to Yes.

• Hide or display IEX tabs by changing the exclusions on the Collections Agent responsibility.

Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................... 3

Set Up Credit Management System Options......................................................................... 3

Set Up Advanced Collections System Options ...................................................................... 3

Set Up Delinquency Prioritization Status ............................................................................. 4

Set Up Inventory Time Unit of Measure............................................................................... 6

Refresh AR Summary Tables ............................................................................................. 9

Define Collections Group ................................................................................................. 12

Set Up Collectors ........................................................................................................... 14

Create HR Employee Record ......................................................................................... 14

Create Oracle Applications User..................................................................................... 16

Collectors Method 1: Import Resources & Assign Roles and Groups ................................... 16

Collectors Method 1: Copy CRM Resources to AR Collectors .............................................. 19

Collectors Method 2: Set Up AR Collectors ...................................................................... 20

Collectors Method 2: Copy AR Collectors to CRM Resources .............................................. 21

Collectors Method 2: Assign Roles and Groups ................................................................ 22

Set Up Territories........................................................................................................... 24


Strategic Territory ....................................................................................................... 26

National Territory ........................................................................................................ 28

West Territory............................................................................................................. 29

East Territory.............................................................................................................. 31

Generate Territory Packages............................................................................................ 32

Assign Territories ........................................................................................................... 33

Daily Concurrent Programs.............................................................................................. 34


Introduction This document describes the setup steps required to get Oracle Advanced Collections up and

running. Many of the steps will be the same for any version of Advanced Collections, but some of these steps are new with Mini-Pack H (11i.IEX.H). This document builds on the high-level

description of the setup steps described in MetaLink note 282798.1: What is the Basic Collections Setup to Get this Product Running?

For general information about scoring and strategies in Advanced Collections, read Using Collections Scoring and Strategies for Superior Collecting, a white paper that’s available on the Financials Portal page for Advanced Collections. The white paper is a bit out of date (it was

written for 11.5.8), but it still provides a nice overview of scoring and strategies, and very thorough step-by-step examples of how to set up and use different scoring engines and

strategies.

Set Up Credit Management System Options Before you can use Advanced Collections, you have to complete a few setup steps in the Credit

Management application. You must select an Aging Bucket and an Exchange Rate Type. After you select the Aging Bucket, you can’t change it, so if you see that the Aging Bucket cannot be

changed, just select an Exchange Rate Type. Be sure to hit the Apply button to save your changes.

Responsibility: Credit Management Super User (N) Credit Management > Policy Management >

System Options

Set Up Advanced Collections System Options

Responsibility: Collections HTML Administrator (N) Admin/Reports > Administration > Setup

Set the Collections Strategy Level to the level at which you want to assign strategies. In this case, this was set to Account. Set the Collections Correspondence Delivery Method to either XML


Publisher (if you will be using XML Publisher to create and distribute customer-facing documents) or Fulfillment (if you will be using 1:1 Fulfillment).

If you are using Strategies, then you cannot use Dunning Plans, which means you should not need to change the values for the parameters Dunning Plan Aging Bucket and Collections

Dunning Level.

Set Up Delinquency Prioritization Status There are seven statuses that an item can have in Advanced Collections. In this step, you define

the ordering of these statuses. For example, you might decide that Bankruptcy is the most severe status, followed by Repossession, Litigation, Delinquent, Pre-Delinquent, and, finally, Current.

The Collections Header includes one Status field for the customer. This status represents the most critical status of the customer and indicates to the collector what delinquency issues this

customer has.

Responsibility: Collections HTML Administrator (N) Admin/Reports > Administration > Customers

> Delinquency Status Determination


To review one of the exist prioritizations, click the HTML link for that name. To create a new

prioritization, click the Create button.


Set Up Inventory Time Unit of Measure

Because Advanced Collections allows you to define wait times both before and after strategy work items, you need to define a unit of measure (UOM) and a UOM class in Oracle Inventory. Advanced Collections requires that the UOM class you define be called “Time” (not “TIME” or

“time”).

Responsibility: Inventory (N) Setup > Units of Measure > Classes

When you choose the Classes menu item from the Navigator, an Organizations window appears. From this window, select the Master Inventory Organization. (In this case, this was organization 101: IN_GLOBAL, the first item in the QuickPick list.)


(B) OK

Enter the information shown below for the Time UOM class. Define the base UOM as Hour; later you will define the UOM Day and the conversion between Hour and Day. (You don’t have to

define the base unit as Hour.)

(B) Units of Measure

When you click the Units of Measure button, the Units of Measure – Time window appears. The row for Hour will already be there. Add the row for Day. Save your work and close the window.


(B) Conversions

When you click the Conversions button, the Units of Measure Conversions – Time window appears. The row for Hour will already be there. Add the row for Day, recording that 1 Day = 24

Hours. Save your work and close the window.

Responsibility: System Administrator (N) Profile > System

Set the profile option “Time unit of measure class” to “Time” at the site level. Make sure you’re setting the value to “Time” (not “TIME” or “time”).


Refresh AR Summary Tables

The Credit Management application maintains the table AR_TRX_BAL_SUMMARY, which contains information about AR transactions. Advanced Collections also uses this table, and requires that

this table be populated. To initially populate this table and keep it up to date, you need to do the following things:

• Set a profile option to allow the table to be refreshed.

• Run a concurrent program one time to refresh the table.

• Schedule a background process to keep the table up to date.

Responsibility: System Administrator (N) Profile > System

Set the profile option “AR: Allow summary table refresh” to “Yes” at the Application level for

application Receivables. (It’s important that you set this option at the Application level, and for the application Receivables, as shown below.)


Responsibility: Receivables Manager (N) Credit Management

Submit the concurrent program “Refresh AR Transactions Summary Tables”.

After the concurrent program completes, run the following query:

Select count(*) from AR_TRX_BAL_SUMMARY;

If the query returns no rows, the program did not do its job, and you should run it again. In

general, you should need to run this program only once per installation. If you need to run the


program again, be sure that the profile option “AR: Allow summary table refresh” is set to “Yes” at the Application level for application Receivables before you rerun the program.

After the concurrent program has completed successfully and populated the AR_TRX_BAL_SUMMARY table, you need to schedule a background process to keep the table up

to date.

Responsibility: System Administrator (N) Requests > Run

The Workflow Agent Listener program keeps the AR_TRX_BAL_SUMMARY table up to date. You

should schedule the Workflow Agent Listener concurrent program to run periodically, perhaps every 15 minutes. (You might even want it to run as often as every five minutes or every

minute—it depends on how quickly you want updates made in AR to be reflected in Advanced Collections.) Run the program with the parameters shown below. Do not submit the concurrent program yet—you still need to schedule it to run periodically.

(B) OK

(B) Schedule

After you click the OK button, and then the Schedule button, the Schedule window appears. This is where you schedule the program to run every 15 minutes. On the left side of the window (in

the Run the Job… zone) click the radio button for Periodically. Then you can enter that you want the program to re-run every 15 minutes.


(B) OK

After you hit the OK button, a Caution window appears warning you that the job you are about to submit will be every 15 minutes forever, until you stop it. That’s what you want, so click the

OK button.

(B) OK

Don’t forget to click the Submit button, or the program won’t be scheduled or run.

(B) Submit

Define Collections Group

In order for collectors to see work items in the Collector’s Work Queue, they must be set up in the Oracle CRM Foundation to belong to a group that Advanced Collections will recognize as a

Collections group. Here you will define a group, and assign Roles and Usages to it. At this point, you are just defining the group. Later you will add the individual collectors to this group.

Responsibility: CRM Administrator (N) Resource Manager > Maintain Resources > Groups

Create a new group. You can call it anything you want. For this document, I will call the group “Collections”.


(T) Roles

Click on the Roles tab and assign the two roles shown below to the group.

(B) Used In

Click on the Used In tab and assign the two application areas shown below to the group.


Set Up Collectors

Before a collector can use Advanced Collections, the following setups must be completed:

• The collector must be set up as an HR employee in the Oracle HR database.

• The collector must be set up as an Oracle Applications user.

• The collector must be set up as a CRM resource in Oracle CRM Foundation, and must be

assigned appropriate roles and group memberships. The CRM resource must be linked to the HR employee.

• The collector must be set up as an AR collector in Oracle Receivables. The AR collector

must be linked to the HR employee.

Setting up the collector as an HR employee and an Oracle Applications user should be your first

steps. After that you have two options:

1. Set up collectors in CRM and copy them to AR. Set up all of the collectors as CRM resources by using the Import Resource functionality in CRM Foundation, and

assign the appropriate roles and group memberships. Then copy the CRM resources to AR collectors using the Advanced Collections concurrent program “IEX: Resource

Collectors to AR Collectors”.

2. Set up collectors in AR and copy them to CRM. Set up all of the collectors as AR collectors and link them to HR employees. Then copy the AR collectors to CRM

resources using the Advanced Collections concurrent program “IEX: AR Collectors To Resource Collectors”. Then assign the appropriate roles and group memberships

to each of the collectors.

After describing the steps for setting up a collector as an HR employee and an Oracle Application user, I will describe both of these options.

Create HR Employee Record

Responsibility: US HR Manager > People > Enter and Maintain


When the Find Person window appears, click the New button.

(B) New

Enter the information about the employee as in the sample shown below. The Action field (in the

top-right-hand corner) should contain Create Employment. You don’t need to enter anything on any tabs except the Personal tab, and you don’t need to click any of the buttons on the form.

After you save your changes, you might want to write down the Employee Number. It’s in the field just above the Social Security number. Having this number can make it easier to import the

CRM resources in the later steps.


Create Oracle Applications User

Responsibility: System Administrator (N) Security > User > Define

Enter an appropriate User Name. In the Person field, select the HR employee you just set up in the last step. Assign the user at least one appropriate Advanced Collections responsibility, such as Collections Agent. To make the next steps easier, you should assign all of your collectors at

least one common responsibility. You can assign them many other responsibilities, but you should assign all of them at least one common responsibility, such as Collections Agent.

Collectors Method 1, Step 1: Import Resources & Assign Roles and Groups

In this step you import the HR employee into the CRM system as a resource.

Responsibility: CRM Administrator (N) Resource Manager > Maintain Resources > Import Resources

When the form appears, enter the employee number in the Number field in the Selection Criteria

zone. If you prefer, you can also search using the employee’s name or other information.

(B) Search

When you click the Search button, the employee appears in the Search Results zone, and the Select checkbox should be checked.

(B) Start Import

When you click the Start Import button, the Set Resource Attributes window appears. You don’t need to enter any more information in this window.


(B) OK

When you click the OK button, the Review and Import Selected Resources window appears, and the Select checkbox for your resource should be checked. (If the Select checkbox is not checked,

or if the Details box is not grayed out, then this HR employee has already been imported as a CRM resource.)

(B) Save Resource


When you click the Save Resource button you will see a window telling you that the resource was successfully imported.

(B) OK

When you click the OK button, the Review and Import Selected Resources window will reappear, and the Details button will no longer be grayed out.

(B) Details


When you click the Details button, the Resource window will appear. On the Roles tab, enter the two Roles shown below.

(T) Groups

On the Groups tab, enter the Group and Group Member Role shown below.

Collectors Method 1, Step 2: Copy CRM Resources to AR Collectors

Responsibility: Collections Forms Administrator (N) Submit Request


• Submit the concurrent program “IEX: Resource Collectors to AR Collectors”. When you submit this program, you can enter up to five responsibilities as parameters.

The program will copy the CRM resource to an AR collector if the following conditions are met:

• The resource has the appropriate roles and group memberships (as described above).

• The Oracle Applications user (which is linked to the HR employee, which is linked to the CRM resource) is assigned one of the responsibilities you enter as a parameter when you

run this program.

You can verify that this program created AR collectors by navigating to Setup > Collections >

Collectors in the Receivables Manager responsibility and reviewing the newly-created collectors.

Collectors Method 2, Step 1: Set Up AR Collectors

Responsibility: Receivables Manager (N) Setup > Collections > Collectors

Enter the Name of the collector. You can enter anything you want here; it doesn’t have to be the same as the Oracle Applications user name. In the Employee Name field, select the HR employee you just set up a few steps ago. You can also enter values for Description, Correspondence

Name, and Telephone Number, but you don’t have to.

When you complete this step, you will have created a collector in AR and linked the AR collector

to the HR employee. Next you run a concurrent program to copy the AR collector to a CRM Resource.


Collectors Method 2, Step 2: Copy AR Collectors to CRM Resources


• Submit the concurrent program “IEX: AR Collectors to Resource Collectors”.

The program will copy the AR collectors to CRM resources. You will see in the next step that the CRM resource was created.


Collectors Method 2, Step 3: Assign Roles and Groups

Now that you’ve copied the AR collector to a CRM Resource, you need to update this new

resource with roles and group assignments so they can be an Advanced Collections collector.

Responsibility: CRM Administrator (N) Resource Manager > Maintain Resources > Resources

Enter the collector’s name in the Name field. (Use the HR employee name, not the Collector

Name field from AR.)

(B) Find

When you click the Find button, the Resource Search Results window will appear.


(B) Resource Details

When you click the Resource Details button, the Resource window will appear. Notice that the resource has already been assigned the Collections Agent role. The concurrent program “IEX: AR

Collectors to Resource Collectors” created both the resource and the role. On the Roles tab, you still need to add the Telesales Agent role.

(T) Groups

On the Groups tab, enter the Group (Collections) and Group Member Role (Collections Agent).


Set Up Territories

In Advanced Collections, collectors can be assigned to customers based on territories. You set up territories that define which customers belong in which territories, and you assign a collector to

each territory. Then you can run a concurrent program to assign collectors to customers based on the territories you set up.

In this document I will describe how to set up four territories:

• Strategic, which will include certain named customers.

• National, which will include customers with Category equal to National. Customers

assigned to the Strategic territory will not be available to be assigned to the National territory).

• West and East, which will include customers based on zip code ranges. Customer assigned to the Strategic and National territories will not be available to be assigned to the West and East territories.

Before you can define territories, you need to enable territory qualifiers. Territory qualifiers are the customer attributes you use to define territories.

Responsibility CRM Administrator (N) Territory Manager > Territory Administration

When you get to the territory Navigator (shown in the screen shot below), you should always be sure you are working in the Oracle Sales and Telesales usage. You may notice that there is also

an Oracle Collections usage, but Advanced Collections is not yet using this. For Advanced Collections, all of your territory setup must be done under the Oracle Sales and Telesales usage.

This Group Name should be “Collections” not “Coll Manager”. It should be the Group Name you set up above.


To enable territory qualifiers, you need to run the Setup Qualifier form by selecting it from the

menu bar.

(M) Administration > Setup Qualifiers

When you choose Setup Qualifiers from the menu, the following form appears. Enter Oracle Sales and Telesales in the Usage field and Click the Find button.

(B) Find

When you click the Find button, the bottom of the form will display all the available qualifiers. For the setup described in this document, you need to enable three qualifiers: Customer

Category, Customer Name, and Postal Code. To enable the qualifiers, check the Enabled checkbox and save your changes. When you close the Setup Qualifier window, you will be returned to the territory Navigator.


Strategic Territory

To create a new territory, right click on Oracle Sales and Telesales in the territory Navigator and select New. The Territory Details windows will appear. Fill in this form as shown below. Set Name=Strategic, Parent=Catch All, Transaction Types=Account, and Rank=2.

For all territories you define for Advanced Collections, Transaction Types should be set to Account. (This is true even whether Advanced Collections is set up to assign strategies at the

Customer, Account, Bill-To, or Delinquency level.)

The Rank field determines in which order strategy assignments are done. Lower-numbered territories are assigned before higher-numbered territories. So, if a customer is assigned to the

Strategic territory (with a rank of 2), the customer will not be considered for assignment to the National territory (with a rank of 4).


(T) Transaction Qualifiers

You use the Transaction Qualifiers tab to define the parameters that determine which customers will be assigned to each territory. The Strategic territory will be assigned only to customer with

the four names shown on the screen shot below.

(T) Resources

Use the Resources tab to assign a collector to each territory. In addition to selecting a Resource Name, you need to specify the Access Type Account.


National Territory

The second territory, National, will be set up for all customers who have Category=National. For

this territory, set the Rank to 4. Because the National territory has a higher rank number than the Strategic territory, customers that are assigned to the Strategic territory will not be assigned to the National territory.


West Territory

The third territory, West, will be set up for all customers who have zip codes between 60000 and

99999-9999. For this territory, set the Rank to 6. Because the West territory has a higher rank that the Strategic and National territories, customers that are assigned to the Strategic and

National territories will not be assigned to the West territory.


Note the use of the BETWEEN operator for defining ranges of postal codes.


East Territory

The final territory, East, will be set up for all customers who have zip codes between 00000 and

59999-9999. For this territory, set the Rank to 6. The rank for the East territory can be the same as the rank for the West territory because the territory definitions do not overlap—no customer could belong to both the West and East territory.


Generate Territory Packages

After you define territories, you have to run a concurrent program to generate territory packages. This program doesn’t assign territories or collectors to customers. It just validates the territory definitions and prepares the territories to be used by Advanced Collections.

Responsibility: CRM Administrator > Requests > Run

Submit the concurrent program Generate Territory Packages. Enter Oracle Sales and Telesales

for the Usage parameter. Do not enter a value for the Transaction Type parameter.


When you run this program with no value for Transaction Type, the program will end with a Warning, which can be ignored. You should be able to enter a value of Account for the

Transaction Type parameter, but there is a bug outstanding about this issue. See bug 5173718 for more information.

Assign Territories Note: Prior to 11i.IEX.H, Advanced Collections used the Territory Manager concurrent program

“Assign Territory Accesses” to assign customers to territories. When that program ran, it created rows in the AS_ACCESSES_ALL table to record the assignment of customers to territories.

Since 11i.IEX.H, Advanced Collections uses its own concurrent program “IEX: Territory

Assignment” to assign customers to territories and collectors. Instead of inserting or updating rows in the AS_ACCESSES_ALL table, Advanced Collections updates the table

HZ_CUSTOMER_PROFILES to record the collector for each customer. After “IEX: Territory Assignment” runs, you can see which collector is assigned to each customer by going to the Customer – Standard form in Receivables and looking at the Profile: Transactions tab.


Submit the IEX: Territory Assignment concurrent program. The recommended parameters are

Range = All and Run Mode = Total.


Daily Concurrent Programs

There are several concurrent programs you should run regularly, probably daily. There are the programs that process promises to pay, score transactions and accounts, and assign strategies. You can choose to run these programs more or less often if you wish.


The IEX: Promise Reconciliation program reviews all promises for which the promise date has

passed and marks each promise as either kept or broken.


You need to run IEX: Scoring Engine Harness at least two times: once to determine which transactions are delinquent, and once at the level at which you are assigning strategies. In this

case we will submit this program two times: once to determine which transactions are delinquent, and once to assign scores to accounts.

First submit this program one time for scoring engine 2 (Delinquency Status Determination) to determine which transactions are delinquent. If you want to change the definition of delinquency, or add logic to include pre-delinquencies, you will need to create new scoring

components and a new scoring engine, and then submit this program for that new scoring engine.

Submit IEX: Scoring Engine Harness a second time to score the accounts. Note that the screen

shot below shows this program being submitted for scoring engine 6 (Account Scoring). If you create your own scoring components and engine for scoring accounts, then choose that new scoring engine when you run this program.


Submit IEX: Strategy Management to assign strategies. If you choose to assign strategies at the account level, then this program will determine the correct strategy for each account based on the account scores that were determined in the last step.

Documents

Setting Up Advanced Collections 11i.iex.H-V1.04