AME Rules Using Dynamic Approver Groups
Barbara Armstrong Pradip Baniya Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc.
Agenda
What is AME? Initial design of AME at SSI Why change the process? New AME design Maintenance process Comparison Conclusion Q&A
NWOUG - Aug 2010 2
What is AME?
Oracle application product that lets you define approval rules that defines the approval process of the transactions in Oracle Applications.
NWOUG - Aug 2010
Key Terms
Attributes
Business variables with single value for each transaction. Invoice_Amount, Organization_ID, etc. Statement that evaluates to True/False for each transaction and rule is applied to the transaction if all the conditions are True. Invoice_Amount >= 50000.
NWOUG - Aug 2010 4
Conditions
Key Terms contd
Action and Action type It modifies the transactions approval process.
Action Type Supervisory Action Require approval from first three supervisors
Approver Group Ordered set or list of persons who will approve the transaction.
CEO Group
NWOUG - Aug 2010
Anatomy of AME Rule
Approval Rule
IF invoice_amount >50000
Rule
AND Attribute organization_id = 101 THEN Supervisory Level Requires approval from first 3 supervisors Post Approval Requires approval from CEO Approval group
Condition
Action
Action Type
Approver Group
NWOUG - Aug 2010
SSI Initial AME Design
Based on attributes
Attributes used for Rule
Operating Units 4
Preparer/ Requestor same? 2
AFE? 2
Gated Role 2
Supervisory Levels
= 400+ Rules
10
NWOUG - Aug 2010
How many rules?
Design led to
150+ rules for AP Invoice Approval 400+ rules for Purchase Requisition and 400+ rules for Requestor Change Order And growing
NWOUG - Aug 2010
Drawbacks
Difficult to manage. Very hard to understand the rules. Hard to troubleshoot when we have issues. Creation, update, test and configuration of the rules - time consuming process.
NWOUG - Aug 2010
Led to re-design
To streamline and simplify the AME rules. Based on standard AME provided functionality, supported by Oracle. Use of dynamic approver groups. Requires minor customization for maintenance of the approver groups.
NWOUG - Aug 2010 10
How it works?
Attributes OU Preparer/ Requestor AFE Gated Role Supervisory Levels Transaction Amount Approver Groups CFO Group Controller Group Operations Group Supervisory Level AFE Group Requestor Group
Transaction
Dynamic SQL PL/SQL Package
AME Approver List
NWOUG - Aug 2010
11
Approver Group
NWOUG - Aug 2010
12
PL/SQL Package
Features
Gets the required attribute values Based on compliance rule, gets correct approver(s). Returns null or one or more approvers per approval group to AME engine. select column_value from to handle multiple approvers.
NWOUG - Aug 2010 13
How is the Rule?
NWOUG - Aug 2010
14
Rules contd
Supervisory rules
Based on approval level 1..10 Create 10 rules.
NWOUG - Aug 2010
15
Approver Maintenance
NWOUG - Aug 2010
16
How much improvement?
Number of Rules
Initial Design New Design
AP Invoice PO Requisition Requestor Change Order
150+ 400+ 400+
10 10 10
NWOUG - Aug 2010
17
Time Savings - Benchmark
Previous Process IT
Design Test Configure
New Process IT Bus.
Bus.
20 50 10
5 10 0
2 2 1
5 10 2
Total
80
15
(In Hours)
NWOUG - Aug 2010
17
18
Conclusion
Unmanageable set of rules, and growing. Aim to streamline the rules creation and update process. Use of the standard functionality with small customization led to fewer rules. Offer business capability to manage the changes in efficient and timely fashion.
NWOUG - Aug 2010
19
Q&A
Thank you!
B. Armstrong barmstrong@schn.com P. Baniya pbaniya@schn.com
NWOUG - Aug 2010 20