Data Migration and Conversion Strategies in Oracle E-business Suite

Data Migration and Conversion Strategies in Oracle E-business Suite:

Data Migration and Conversion Strategies in Oracle E-business Suite

Businesses spend billions of dollars migrating data between information-intensive applications. Yet up to 75 percent of new systems fail to meet expectations, often because flaws in the migration process result in data that is not adequately validated for the intended task.

Data migrations generally result from the introduction of a new system. This may involve an application migration or consolidation in which one or more legacy systems are replaced or the deployment of an additional system that will sit alongside the existing applications.

Whatever the specific nature of any data migration, the ultimate aim is to improve corporate performance and deliver competitive advantage.

Especially while implementation of Oracle e-business Suite and migration of the data from other legacy system to Oracle 

Steps To Design an Effective Data Conversion Process:

Below are the steps for effective data migration and conversion process for any implementations in Oracle ERP.

1-              Data Need for Conversion.

2-            Data Mapping / Conversion Design

3-            Finalization of Data for Migration

4-            Loading of data for QA (Validation)

5-             Data Migration /Data loading to Production.

6-            Data Validations - Production

Data Need for Conversion:

The first point is to decide which data is required for conversion and requirement. It is normally depend on your implementations domain and modules. Which modules are implementing during the imp mentation and that basis it is decided what is the requirement of the data.

For example it is Oracle Financials and SCM implementation and for that you need to load the data from Financials modules let say for Oracle Fixed Asset data and from Supply chain you need to load data for Oracle Inventory.

Data Mapping / Conversion Design

After identifying the data for migration the next stage is to make the conversion design and data mapping.  Few are the important points for data conversion design.

• ·       Extraction of data from Legacy System
• ·       Templates for data loading
• ·       Preparation of mapping sheet to map the legacy data to Oracle required data.
• ·       Field to Field mapping of data legacy to required data.
• ·       Legacy system data validation for mapping sheets.
• ·       Data conversion if required during mapping and validation

Finalization of Data for Migration:

Once the Mapping is complete, the next step is to preparing and finalization of data for migration. This step is very crucial, because whatever data is finalized and migrated will be affected the performance of the ERP and it is saying garbage in and garbage out.

Each and every aspect of the data should be reviewed and analyzed that every piece of information that is required from the legacy data is available and converted into Oracle required form.

Like for Assets data for migration to oracle from legacy system, should be checked that each and every information is included in the data sheets like Assets number, tag number, Asset Category, Manufacturer, Invoice number, serial number etc...

Loading of data for QA:

It increases the effectiveness of the data migration process. Data is loaded into Test Instance (Sometimes called-QA Instance) for detail quality assurance. Mostly QA teams are deployed on QA for data loading. But many cases the imp mentation team validates the data when it loaded to Test Instance.

After QA it identifies all the issues/ deficiencies of data uploaded then the same issues to be resolved from the actual data before final upload.

Data Migration / Data loading to Production:

After data validation the next step is data migration to Production. This step is relatively straightforward. However, it would likely be quite time-consuming due to the size of the legacy database.

Data Validations:

Once the data is migrated to prod, the last step is to validation of prod data. Mostly this validation is high level and summary level data is validated because detail validation is done on QA (Quality Assurance) level.

iExpense- Oracle (Payables)

iExpense Setup in Oracle

iExpense is basically an extension Oracle Payables. Employee and Contingent Worker expense reports become supplier invoices and get paid from Payables. You will need following responsibilities to set up Internet Expenses: Payables Manager, Internet Expenses Setup and Administration, System Administration, Application Developer, and AX Developer. If you are also planning on charging expense reports to projects, you will also need Project Billing Super User and General Ledger Super User responsibilities. You will also need access to Oracle Workflow Builder to customize the Expenses workflow and Project Expense Reports Account Generator.

Setups for iExpenses :

1. Define MOAC
2. Define Job
3. Define Position
4. Define Employee
5. Define Financial Options
6. Define Expenses Template
7. Define Payable Options
8. Assign Cost Center Flexfied qualifier to Department segment or Cost center segment
9. Define Signing Limits.
10. Assign Profile Option to IExpense Responsibility.
11. 
    

iExpense Process:

How to use iexpense :

Employees can enter and submit expense reports using a standard Web browser or a Web-enabled mobile device.

Oracle Workflow automatically routes expense reports for approval and enforces reimbursement policies.

Oracle Internet Expenses integrates with Oracle Payables to provide quick processing of expense reports for payment.

Some Expenses-related Workflows: 

1.Expenses Workflow manages the notifications between managers, accounts payable, and users related to reviewing and approving expense reports

2.Credit Cards Workflow manages the notifications related to the processing and management of credit card transactions.

3.Expenses Analysis Workflow sends notifications when proxy reporting access is granted

Expense Receipts Workflow manages the notifications related to submitting receipts and missing and overdue receipts

Integration with Other Applications:

Internet Expenses works together with other applications to provide a full array of services devoted to managing and streamlining.

Oracle Payables.

Use Payables to create expense report invoices and to manage the processing of credit card and procurement card transactions.

Oracle Projects.

 Internet Expenses integrates with Oracle Projects to enable users to add project-related information on expense reports.

Oracle Grants Accounting.

Oracle Grants Accounting extends the functionality of Oracle Projects and integrates with Internet Expenses to enable users to enter award information on their expense reports and collect reimbursement from the award that sponsored the activity

Oracle Approvals Management.

 Use Oracle Approvals Management to build routing rules for expense report approvals

Oracle Application Framework.

Oracle Application Framework lets you personalize the display of Internet Expenses without modifying the underlying code.

Expense Report Process

Creating Expense Reports:

User can create Expense Reports Online using their computers and a standard Web browser.

User can create Expense Reports Online using Web-enabled mobile devices.

User can create Expense Reports Offline using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets from a configured template.

Sending Receipts to Accounts Payable

After an employee submits an expense report, Internet Expenses displays a confirmation page with instructions for the employee. 

For example, you may want to inform the employee that a notification will be sent when the report is approved by management and at that time all original receipts must be sent to the accounts payable department

Expense Report Workflow Process

When an employee submits an expense report for approval, the Expense Report  workflow process begins. The Expense Report workflow is used to obtain manager and Payables approvals on expense reports.

The Manager (Spending) Approval process routes expense reports to managers for approval. When an expense report receives approval,  the workflow transitions to the AP Approval process. If a manager rejects the report, the workflow transitions to the Rejection process.

The AP Approval process first determines whether an expense report requires the approval of the accounts payable department. If approval from the accounts payable department is not required, the process automatically approves the expense report.

If the report requires approval from the accounts payable department, the process waits until it receives a response from that department before continuing. Once the workflow process is complete, the expense report in the Payables Expense Reports window has a number of restrictions on user interaction.

Converting Expense Reports into Invoices

Oracle Payables pays invoices only, so before an approved expense report can be paid, it must be converted into an invoice. The Oracle Expense Report Export converts expense reports created in Internet Expenses into invoices in Oracle Payables. 

An expense report can be processed by the Expense Report Export program only if it receives approval from both the approval manager and the accounts payable department during the Expense Report workflow process.

Reimbursing Expense Reports

After the Expense Report Export program creates invoices for expense reports, you can create payments for the invoices using the same method as for other invoices

Approve the expense report 

Once an employee submits the expense report the approver associated with the expense reports gets a notification for the same. The approver can approve, reject or request more information. Only approved expense requests are transferred in to oracle payable as invoices

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