otm: locations, customers, parties and contacts
TRANSCRIPT
Agenda
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• Overview• Requirements• Business Scenarios• OTM Capabilities• User Experience• Business Needs• Configuration to achieve Business Needs• What we couldn’t control• Potential Enhancements• Design Discussion
Overview
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• Scoular is a privately owned organization involved in Commodities Tradingand Transportation Services
• Managing International and Domestic Transportation under differentBusiness Units
• We have business units that perform pure domestic transportation as wellas business units which perform purely international transportation
• Requirement to manage shippers, shipping locations, customers,Consignees is a every day need
Requirements• Our Location, Item, Party Management requirements include but not
limited to:• Ability to quickly add/modify shipping locations as we expand our business
• Need for managing customers/service providers quickly in the system as the business is verydynamic
• Ultimate Consignee management for all export transactions for accurate reporting togovernment
• Add Items and commodities as quickly as possible for Freight Forwarding business
• Maintain integrity of master data, to avoid duplications and confusion
• Ease of use in system for identifying and managing customers, shipping locations, commoditieseasily and effectively
• Avoid system integration issues between OTM and ERP
Business ScenariosScenario 1: Managing Shipping Locations
Domestic Transactions Export Transactions Import Transactions
Request to add a newshipper Warehouse
Integrate the Location toOTM Real Time
Write a transaction quicklyusing the location ID
Request to add a newInland/Foreign UNLoc
code
Integrate the Location toOTM Real Time
Populate ScheduleD/Schedule K against the
Location
Request to add a newInland Ramp Information
Integrate the Location toOTM Real Time
Populate Inbond/FirmsCode against the Location
Business ScenariosScenario 2: Managing Customers
Shipper/Bill-To Parties
Request to add Shipper/Bill-To Parties
Integrate customers to OTMReal Time
Populate additional PartyContact Information in OTM
Request to add a newservice provider like
Trucker/Agent
Integrate Service Providerto OTM Real Time
Use the SP in OTM togenerate Invoice/Bill
Request to add a UltimateConsignee in OTM directly
Populate additionalConsignee information like
AES UC Type
Complete Customs Filinglike AES using Ultimate
Consignee
Service Providers Ultimate Consignees
Business ScenariosScenario 2: Managing Items/CommoditiesTrading Commodities
Request to add a newCommodity
Integrate Commodities toOTM Real Time
Populate additionalCommodity Information like
Product ClassificationInformation
Request to add a DomesticFreight Forwarding
Commodity
Add Commodity andPackaging Information
Directly in OTM
Use the Commodity in OTMfor Domestic Shipping
Transactions
Request to add a ExportCommodity
Add Commodity andPackaging Information
directly in OTM
Add Product Classificationinformation
Freight ForwardingCommodities Domestic
Freight ForwardingCommodities Export
OTM Parties/Locations/Items• OTM stores all address information against Locations
• All contact information is stored in Contacts
• Additional contact information like Company Name, AES Ultimate Consignee Type are stored in GTM Parties
• All Item/Commodity information is stored in Material Management Section
• All Product Classification information like HTS US and Schedule B information is only stored in GTM Item screen
• Only parties can be screened for Denied Parties Screening, Locations Can not be screened Directly
• Every Location should also be represented as Contact just for performing Screening
• This makes it difficult to separate Shippers/Bill-To and locations in OTM
• Every Service Provider is also a Location in OTM
• Now we have Service Providers, Shippers and Shipping Locations every thing showing up as locations and alsoparties in OTM
User Experience• It is very confusing for users to separate shipping locations/customers/service providers in OTM.
• Lot of frustration for users by picking wrong codes at various places while writing transactions in OTM.
• Selecting Shipper codes as Source/Destination on a transaction and selecting shipping locations asinvolved parties
• Selecting the right “ID” is in the top 5 frustrating Items in OTM
• Not able to differentiate between a service provider and shippers in OTM
• No clear way of separating locations and customers in OTM and allowing users to only select appropriatecodes at appropriate places in OTM
• Too many places in OTM to manage one single object, like Contact/ GTM Parties, Items/GTM Items.
User Experience• Searching for a Involved party on a transaction is a
multi-step process• First click “f” on the involved party contact
• Then click “f” on the location again and search by locationname.
• Then click finished on location search results
• Then click search again to get involved party
User Experience
User Experience
Business Needs• Separate Shipping Locations/Customers/Service Providers clearly in OTM
• Avoid downstream issues in the system by restricting the user to select correct objects at correct places while writing the transactions
• List only locations while populating source location and destination location
• List only parties while populating Involved Parties
• Use any customer code while writing secondary charges
• One place to manage locations/parties/Items in OTM, Avoid the need to move to multiple screens
• One Screen to manage all party information like address and contact information
• One Screen to manage all Commodity information like packaging/Product Classification
Configuration• Integrate every customer and shipping location from ERP as both Location and Contact to OTM because of Denied Party Screening
Requirements by OTM
• Mark every location coming from ERP as a Shipping Location/Customer as part of Integration
• Mark “identified” Customers as Service Providers in OTM to integrate them as service providers so users can issue Invoices/Customer
Bills in OTM
• Use User Exit data validation to write custom PL/SQL Procedures to do data validation before saving transactions to database
• Use a lot of Action Checks to validate master data upfront
• “Consolidate” all required information in one screen and use automation agents to populate data at various level to satisfy data
requirements
• Setup a process to use different naming convention in the ERP for Shipping Locations/Customer setup so it is “easy” to differentiate the
codes visibly
What we couldn’t control• User have to request specifically to mark “identified” customers as “Service Providers” in ERP, so that they can issue Invoices in OTM
• Users have to navigate to different screens in OTM to populate information for the same object
– 1. Customer
• 1. Use Locations Screen to populate Address Information for a customer
• 2. Use Contacts Screen to populate contact information for the same customer
• 3. Then use GTM Parties Screen to populate Ultimate Consignee Type/Company Name field for the same customer
• Then navigate to customer screen under Brokerage and Forwarding to populate Tax ID/EIN/SSN information
– 2. Items
• 1. Use Item Screen to populate Item/Commodity information and packaging information
• 2. Use GTM Item screen to populate Product Classification Information
1. Customer Setup
2. Item/Commodity Setup
Potential Enhancements• Separate Parties, Shipping Locations completely in OTM, have only two objects
• List only shipping locations while selecting source and destination locations
• List only Parties while populating involved parties on a transaction
• Provide Bill To as a standard field on the customer bill screen, just like Service Provider ID is. Notjust as involved party
• Ability to screen a location or Party directly, do not force to create a contact for every shippinglocation just for screening purposes
• Ability to use any customer record as a service provider as we need. Do not force to createseparate object called “Service Provider” just for the purpose of being able to create an invoice orCustomer Bill
Potential Enhancements• One Screen to enter Customers in OTM
– Populate Address
– Populate Contact Information
– Populate Company Name/AES Ultimate Consignee Type
– Populate EIN/Tax ID/SSN information
• One Screen to enter Items in OTM
– Populate Item Information
– Populate Packaging Information
– Populate Commodity Information
– Populate Production Classification Codes
Design Discussions• How are other customers managing Customers, Locations in OTM
and be able to integrate transactions properly with ERPs
• Are there any other best practices recommended to manage dataintegrity while making system more user friendly for users withrespect to shipping locations and customers
• Is a Master Data Management tool a potential solution to normalizevarious objects, so confusion can be avoided
Thank You