advisor webcast - customizing the workflows in oracle ebs procurement

2

AGENDA

• Presentation – approximately 45 minutes

• Q&A Session – approximately 15 minutes

• Web attendees can ask questions via Q&A panel

• Phone attendees can ask questions via Q&A panel or

phone (operator assisted)

© 2010 Oracle Corporation – Proprietary and Confidential

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ATTENTION – AUDIO INFORMATION

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6

<Insert Picture Here>

Devaraju Holenarasipur

Prinicipal Software Engineer


Customizing The Workflow In EBS Procurement

7

AGENDA

• Presentation – approximately 45 minutes

• Q&A Session – approximately 15 minutes

Web attendees can ask questions via Q&A panel only

Phone attendees can ask questions via Q&A panel or phone

(operator assisted)


8

AUDIO INFO - Teleconference

Connect details:

1. Conference ID: <52225306>

2. UK Standard International: +44 (0) 1452 552 816 (UK Dial In)

3. Toll free Dial In US/Canada : 1 866 966 5189

4. List with national toll free numbers is available in note <1328989.1>

You can view this info anytime during the conference using

Communicate > Teleconference > Join Teleconference

from your WebEx menu


9

Q&A panel

type your question here1

Send your question3

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10

your question pop-up here



The following is intended to outline our general

product direction. It is intended for information

purposes only, and may not be incorporated into

any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any

material, code, or functionality, and should not be

relied upon in making purchasing decision. The

development, release, and timing of any features

or functionality described for Oracle’s products

remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

Safe Harbor Statement


12

<Insert Picture Here>

Customizing the Workflow In EBS Procurement

Devaraju Holenarasipur

Principal Software Engineer


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Agenda

• What is considered as customization?

• Why do we need to Customize?

• Issues with Customization?

• Customization Guidelines

• Generic Workflow Customization steps

• Case 1: Customizing Auto Create PO Workflow

• Case 2: Customizing Purchase Order Approval workflow

• Troubleshooting PO workflow issues

• Q&A


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What is considered as Customization?

• A customization is when an Oracle delivered product

component is changed by the customer and that

change can be affected by a patch application or an

Application upgrade.

• A customization is an undocumented modification of

Oracle business workflow processes that may

change the business logic.

• A customization is any call made to non-seeded logic.

• A customization is using any API that is not

documented or is not described as being Public.

• A customization is new workflow processes created

by customers.


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Why do we need to customize?


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Why do we need to Customize?

• You can add/modify the item attributes and message

content for better decision making.

• Extend a process to include external system processing


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Issues with Workflow customization in EBS

• What is the best way to know whether the workflow

object can be customized?

• Can the workflow Customization survive product

upgrade?

The Answer to these is the Access Protection.


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What is Access Protection?• Oracle workflow assigns a protection and customization

level to every workflow object definition stored in the

database and require every user of the workflow to

operate at a specific access level.

• The combination of protection, customization and access

level makes up the access protection feature.

• This determine whether user can modify a given workflow

object.


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Customizing the workflow objectsAccess Level:

• Level you use in the Workflow Builder or Workflow Definitions Loader.

• Every workflow user operates at a specific access level.

• The access level defines whether the user can modify

certain workflow data. You can only modify data that is

protected at a level equal to or higher than your access

level.

• For e.g a flow with protection level of 200 will be

overwritten by a flow with access level 100


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Customizing the workflow objects

ACCESS LEVEL:

• Help-> About Oracle Workflow Builder 2.6.3.5

ACCESS_LEVEL

• 1000 Public

• 100 – 999 Customer Organization

• 20 – 100 Oracle Product Developer

• 0 -19 Workflow and Application Object Library


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Customizing the workflow Objects

Protection Level:

• A numeric value ranging from 0 to 1000 that represents

which data is protected from for modification.

• When the workflow object is created in the workflow

builder, the object is protected by default at certain

access level.

• An object’s protection level determine whether other

users can modify the object based on their levels.


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Customizing the workflow ObjectsCustomization Level:

• Every workflow object, in addition to protection level will also have

customization level equal to your access level when you modify and

save the object to the database.

• Only with users with access level equal to or higher than the object’s

customization level can modify the data.

• You can set the the customization level for an object from Access tab

of the object's property page.

- Check or Clear the Preserve Customizations check box.

- Check or Clear Lock at this access level

• If checked, it Protects the object at the current access level and

does not allow the object to be customized by higher access levels.


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What is not supported?


• Modifying a workflow object that has a protection level

less than 100

• Altering a workflow object’s protection level if its original

protection level is less than 100

• Changing access level to an unauthorized level of less

than 100 for the purpose of modifying workflow objects

that are protected at levels less than 100.

• Customizations that are explicitly documented as being

UNSUPPORTED in the seeded workflow's product-

specific User's Guide or documentation update notes.

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Customization Guidelines• Attributes: You can modify only the attributes listed as customizable in the

documentation. Refer to the product specific documentation for more details.

• Function Activities: Usually, you cannot modify a seeded function activity,

but can replace it with one of your own, unless the documentation for the

workflow advises against removing default function activities.

- The result type of your new function activity must match the result

type of the default activity.

- Any attributes that were set by the default function activity must also

be set by your customized function activity.

• - Any database state maintained by the default function activity must

also be maintained by the customized function activity


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Customization Guidelines

• Notifications: If a notification has a reply code, make sure that the

Result Type of your customized notification matches the transitions in

the workflow diagram.

• Processes: In order to Modify any customizable process

- Ensure the basic flow remains intact

- Any database state maintained by the default process must also be

maintained by the processes you customize.

- Run the pl/sql script powfcust.sql to get an idea of removing a

seeded function activity.

• Lookups: If you change a customizable lookup type, be sure that all

activities that use the lookup type allow for the change.


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Generic Workflow Customization Steps1. Download: Download the workflow to a wft file using

WFLOAD utility, and take a copy of the file as a backup.

2. Customize: Open the file using the workflow builder tool

and do your customization.

3. Upload: Upload the customized workflow using WFLOAD

to the test database.

4. Test: Test the customization in the test instance.


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WFLOAD Utility

- UPGRADE

- Preserve customization

- UPLOAD

- Overwrite customization, Takes care of protected seeded data.

- FORCE

- Overwrite all, Used for fixing data.

- DOWNLOAD

- Download one or multiple items.

E.g. WFLOAD apps/pwd 0 Y UPGRADE file.wft


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Workflow item types in PO Module

• AutoCreate: CREATEPO (poxwfatc.wft)

• Approvals:

• POAPPRV - Purchase Order (poxwfpoa.wft)

• REQAPPRV - Requisition (poxwfrqa.wft)

• Change Requests:

• POREQCHA - Requisition (poreqcha.wft)

• PORPOCHA - Purchase Order (porpocha.wft)

• Account Generator:

• POWFPOAGO - Purchase Order (poxwfpag.wft)

• POWFRQAG - Requisition (poxwfrag.wft)


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Customizing CREATEPO Workflow

• Business requirement :

- Stop Automatic Purchase Order Creation.

- POs to be automatically approved when created

by the workflow?


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Customizing CREATEPO Workflow

Where to begin:

• Open and study the CREATEPO workflow definition using

the workflow builder

• The node(2) „Is Automatic Creation Allowed?‟

- Open the underlying pl/sql code, This function activity

checks the item attribute Is Automatic Creation Allowed?


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Customizing CREATEPO workflow• Business requirement :

- Stop Automatic Purchase Order Creation.


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Customizing CREATEPO workflow• Business Requirement:

- POs to be automatically approved when created

by the workflow?

• In workflow ‘PO Create Documents’, set item attribute

‘Is Automatic Approval Allowed?’ to ‘Y’


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About PO APPROVAL workflow

• This Workflow controls the approval of Purchase Orders.

• Additionally this Workflow is called when changes are

made to a Purchase Order that causes its Status to

change to ‘Requires Reapproval’, the document revision

number increases and the ‘Submit for Approval’ is

selected.


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Customizing the PO APPROVAL Workflow• PO document goes for re-approval when there is a change

made to some of the PO fields.

• For e.g. some of the ‘Header Information‟ change can

cause reapproval.

Standard | Planned |Blanket |Contract | Release

- Buyer* X X X X X

- Contact X X X X

- Brief Note X X X X

To Supplier

• Also the approved PO goes for reapproval if the changes

are done to the fields in PO lines, shipment and distribution.

* Refer to the purchasing user guide.


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Customizing the PO APPROVAL Workflow

• The PO document goes for reapproval if there is any

change done to the vendor site or the buyer at the PO

header level.


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Customization Requirement:

The business requirement is that the approved ‘Standard

Purchase Order’ should not go for reapproval if the changes

are done to the fields Vendor Site or Buyer on the PO

header.


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• Where to begin?

- Look at the existing PO approval flow using the workflow

builder tool.

- Refer to the product documentation for more details on

the customization guidelines.


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(N)-> Purchasing super user-> Setup-> Purchasing->

Document Types.


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• Open the POAPPRV workflow using the workflow builder.

• Sub process ‘Do Document Change Require Reapproval?’

decide whether the doc require reapproval.


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• This sub process has several function activities for

different document types which decides whether a

specific document can go for reapproval or not.


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Customizing the PO APPROVAL Workflow• Open the underlying pl/sql package

• PO_CHORD_WF6.STANDARD_PO_REAPPROVAL


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• Review the package and copy the package with a different

name ‘xx_PO_CHORD_WF6.XX_STANDARD_PO_REAPPROVAL‟ to make

the necessary changes.


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• Comment those part of the if statement in the code where

changes to the vendor site id and buyer parameters require

reapproval in the procedure XX_STANDARD_PO_REAPPROVAL .

• Compile the new package xX_PO_CHORD_WF6

• Copy the item type and create a new function activity to

replace the seeded workflow function


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• Ensure a new item type is created based on the changed

pl/sql package.


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Customizing the PO APPROVAL Workflow• Upload the changed workflow definition back to the

database.

• Test the workflow for the changed behavior.


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Troubleshooting • Run the scripts wfstatus.sql and wfstat.sql found under

$FND_TOP/sql/ directory. The first script gives general activity

information and errors, and the second script gives the same but with

slightly more technical/debug information.

• Run the script wfmlrdbg.sql, if you have any issue with the

notification activity. This script asks for notification ID of the

problematic notification.

• In addition, there is an even more 'user-friendly' way of accessing the history of a

problem workflow, using the Workflow Administrator Responsibility. This can also

be found using the following navigation:

• Responsibility: Workflow Administrator Web Applications

• Administrator Workflow > Status Monitor

• Search for the problematic Item Type (e.g. 'PO Requisition Approval')

• Check result list for the last test where the problem was found (compare date/time,

owned-by etc).

• Select the required entry and use the buttons to see more detail.


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Troubleshooting(Contd…)

• The capture of these lines is done by:

• Firstly clearing any existing debug entries using:

SQL> truncate table po_wf_debug;

• Set Profile Option ‘PO: Set Debug Workflow ON‟ to

Yes, then reproduce the issue.

• To retrieve debug data select the rows and save in a

delimited text format easy reading.

SQL> SELECT document_id, document_number,

authorization_status, debug_message FROM

po_wf_debug

• You can optionally add criteria on itemtype and itemkey

to limit the data returned.


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Q&A panel

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51

Further Info & Help

• Advisor Webcast Calendar [ID 1083713.1]

• Current Schedule can be found on Note 740966.1

• Post Presentation Recordings can be found on Note 740964.1

• Procurement Newsletter via Document 111111.1.

• MOS Community <Procurement Community>


https://support.oracle.com/oip/faces/secure/km/DocumentDisplay.jspx?id=1083713.1



https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=740966.1
















Upcoming Webcast

Topic “LCM Integration with Procurement”

Date & Time Tuesday, Aug 23, 2011 at 2:00 pm London, 9:00 am EDT, 7:00

am MDT, 6:30 pm India).

Details (Document ID 1336192.1)

Registration https://oracleaw.webex.com/oracleaw/onstage/g.php?d=596417

667&t=a

According to Procurement Advisor Webcast Calendar [ID 1083713.1], following is the next webcast

https://oracleaw.webex.com/oracleaw/onstage/g.php?d=596417667&t=a

https://oracleaw.webex.com/oracleaw/onstage/g.php?d=596417667&t=a



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