P2208: Oracle - Question & Answer Document For Oracle AppsWorld

GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT P2208

ORACLE

QUESTION & ANSWER DOCUMENT FOR
ORACLE APPSWORLD

San Diego - January 19-22, 2003

Delivered by customers, partners and Oracle experts - the third annual Oracle AppsWorld is the only e-business conference and exhibition designed for business professionals, e-business strategists and technology experts. While at the conference, you can attend more than 170 technical sessions, case studies, hands-on sessions, and panels covering all areas of the E-Business Suite. This year, participants can receive CPE education credits for specific sessions. Check your show directory for session names. In the Exhibit Hall, attend the 11i Theater, meet Oracle Executives in the Guru Lounge and see more than 130 live product demonstrations. In addition, the Exhibit Hall has more than 150 partners exhibiting complementary products.

This document has been developed to provide you with the most up to date information on important Oracle topics. Topics include: Oracle product information, including the Daily Business Intelligence. E-Business Suite technology, globalization, multi-org architecture, training, documentation, support information and much more. The table of contents on page 2 will assist you in quickly locating the information you are most interested in. This document should be a valuable resource for you and others in your organization.

Oracle AppsNet: The Community for the Oracle E-Business Suite - http://appsnet.oracle.com/
Oracle AppsWorld Online: For User, By Users-All Day, Even day -
http://www.oracle.com/appsworld/online/

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Table of Contents

Key Contacts
Product Information
Daily Business Intelligence/Business Intelligence
Applications Technology
Upgrade Process
Globalization
Multi-Org Architecture
Miscellaneous-Enhancements, Industries, Archive/Purge
Training
Documentation
Support
E-Business Suite Maintenance
Pricing

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1. Who are the key Oracle representatives responsible for the Development, Marketing, and Support of the Oracle E-Business Suite?

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2. What are the benefits of the E-Business Suite?

1. Why Consider Oracle E-Business Suite
   Oracle E-Business Suite is a comprehensive set of enterprise-wide business applications that runs entirely on the internet. Whether you implement one module or the entire suite. Oracle E-Business Suite can help you make smarter decisions with better information, share unified information across the enterprise reduce IT expenses, and run your business more efficiently.

   Architecturally, Oracle E-Business Suite is:

   Integrated, Yet Modular
   Managing a tangle of connections between point solutions is extremely costly and complex. Any time you update a point solution, you must go back and review all integration points and potentially update the integration software. Oracle E-Business Suite is engineered to work together as an integrated system on a common IT infrastructure. You can seamlessly pass information from one application to another without incurring incremental integration costs. While Oracle's applications are integrated - they are also modular. Based on your business needs, you can implement one module, several modules, or the entire suite. Oracle's open, standards-based architecture allows you to easily integrate into a heterogeneous environment, enabling you to fully leverage your investment in existing applications.

   Built on a Common Data Model
   When you maintain information in multiple silos, no one in your organization has a complete, real-time view of your data. Oracle E-Business Suite is the first and only comprehensive set of applications for the enterprise that is integrated around a single, common data model. Oracles unified information architecture consolidates data from Oracle and non-Oracle applications and allows a consistent definition of customers, suppliers, partners, employees, and all business entities across the enterprise. You create a single global definition so that everyone, worldwide, is accessing the same data. Oracle's single, common data model ensures accurate and consistent information and transaction flows across all applications.

   Runs on a Single Global Instance
   The best-of-breed approach fragments a company's business processes and information into separate application systems and separate databases, a common and costly mistake. With financial data in one database, human resources data in another, and so on, it makes it nearly impossible to collaborate and access information across geographies and business processes. Oracle E-Business Suite, the first and only comprehensive set of applications able to run on a single global instance, allows you to maintain your enterprise-wide data in one place. This provides the foundation for complete and consolidated information such as sales positions, inventory levels and revenue across all organizations, lines of business, products, and geographies. Once information resides in the same instance, executives, managers, and users at all levels can query in a variety of ways for personalized, on-demand business intelligence. With fewer instances, it is easier to share information across organizations, enabling better cooperation and greater productivity across departments. This also eliminates the IT costs associated with duplicate data centers, hardware, and multiple databases around the world. With consolidation you can create shared service centers more easily to further decrease costs and increase operational efficiencies.

   Companies can manage their worldwide operations using a single, standard installation providing consolidated data globally while ensuring fiscal and statutory compliance around the world. Oracle offers a truly global product that supports multiple languages, multiple currencies, unique global business practices, and local statutory and regulatory requirements.

   Functionally. Oracle E-Business Suite Enables You To:

   Automate All Business Processes

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1. Many businesses have a variety of disparate systems that focus on independent functions such as sales, purchasing, order management, and manufacturing. Typically, these systems are not designed to work together, resulting in multiple silos of information and non-integrated business transactions. Oracle's applications are engineered to work together to automate end-to-end business processes, across both front-and back-office operations. Oracle E-Business Suite is the industry's most functionally complete set of business applications. It streamlines every area, including marketing, sales, service, contracts, order management, procurement, supply chain, manufacturing, financials, projects, human resources, and professional services automation. Oracle has leveraged extensive industry and implementation experience to develop standard, automated processes that are based on leading business practices.

   Collaborate with Trading Partners
   Historically, business applications were focused on improving a company's internal functions. Oracle E-Business Suite extends internal process support beyond enterprise boundaries to include customers, suppliers and other trading partners. Collaboration enables you to include your customers and suppliers earlier in product development, planning, procurement, order fulfillment, and other business processes. You can easily share real-time information with partners such as designs, forecasts, orders, and delivery status. Linking your enterprise with your customers and suppliers offers global visibility and enables bi-directional flow of business information. For instance, your customers can easily configure, price, and order products in real time on a web store, and the order information flows seamlessly to order management and shipping for fulfillment. Similarly, suppliers can get self-service access to orders, schedules and payment status on their personalized portal, accessible through a simple web browser. Connecting enterprises enables you to rapidly respond to dynamic market conditions while improving your ability to meet customer commitments.

   Deliver Integrated Intelligence
   You can spend millions of dollars on application software and still not be able to collect, let alone effectively distribute, the information that is critical to keeping your business profitable. Oracle E-Business Suite is the only comprehensive software that can provide immediate access to high-quality-business intelligence. Every application in Oracle E-Business Suite can run in one global instance. All the applications work together and share the same information. The result is a comprehensive suite of applications that provides information which is displayed in customizable portals, revealing critical details such as inventory levels, headcount, revenue, and expenses--across all organizations, lines of business, products, and geographies. Oracle's integrated intelligence spans all areas of your business and is for use by all people--including executives, managers, employees, customers, suppliers, and partners.

   Because the business intelligence systems and the data sit in the same system, you no longer wait for data to pass through a separate data aggregation and analysis system. You get up-to-date business information that reveals the state of your business every day, relative to past, present, and projected performance metrics. This allows your decision makers to reach more informed conclusions, make daily corrections, and drive the business towards achieving its profitability goals—daily, not monthly or quarterly.

   Available in a Hosted Environment

   Stop Wasting Money Managing Your Applications
   Managing your software, systems and hardware is costly and time consuming. When employing an in-house deployment and management model, you must hire and educate your in-house IT staff and invest in expensive equipment to run your systems. With Oracle E-Business Suite Outsourcing, Oracle experts host, monitor, administer, upgrade, and maintain your Oracle software so you do not have to hire additional IT staff or make further IT infrastructure investments. Oracle Applications experts are managing and maintaining your software so they can detect and resolve product support issues more quickly and efficiently. Upgrades are easy as Oracle handles both point release and major updates. And you benefit from having Oracle experts always keeping your systems on the latest version of the Oracle E-Business Suite. On average, Oracle customers save up to 50% in IT costs and achieve up to 50% better service. (Source: IDC The Financial Returns of Software as a Service. March 2002).

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3. How does Release 11i reduce IT expenses with the lowest-cost deployment options?

1. For companies looking to reduce IT costs, Oracle E-Business Suite 11i applications can be delivered as a service over the Internet. Oracle E-Business Suite Outsourcing provides customers with an extremely low-cost deployment option. With E-Business Suite Outsourcing, Oracle manages the availability, security, changes, and performance or the E-Business Suite allowing customers to focus on their core competency of running their businesses and controlling operational expenses.

   With E-Business Suite Outsourcing. Oracle Consulting or an authorized implementor installs Oracle's software on your servers or Oracle servers, and Oracle provides applications experts who maintain your software and hardware. Oracle provides a complete service offering and you access the applications through a secure browser. IDC and Gartner both say that the cost to manage enterprise applications can be up to 4x the purchase price of the software per year.

   Our customers are saving up to 84% of their business expenses by lowering implementation costs, upfront capital costs and ongoing IT maintenance expenses. In addition, companies have saved on implementation time by as much as 75%.

   Oracle Consulting continues to reduce the time frame required to implement Oracle Applications by leveraging client experience to develop rapid implementation services such as Business Flow Accelerators and to decrease the time and cost of implementation through E-Consulting.

   Business Flow Accelerators
   Oracle Business Flow Accelerators are Oracle Consulting offerings that provide a pre-configured baseline for implementing the business flows inherent in the E-Business Suite. Designed for large to medium-sized organization in a variety of industries. Business Flow Accelerators help customers around the world solve their business problems, reduce risk and realize a very fast return on investment (ROI).

   E-Consulting
   E-Consulting is a service delivery option enabling Oracle Consulting to provide implementation services over the Internet E-Consulting includes web-based project collaboration work spaces, 24x7 availability of offsite consulting experts located around the world for real-time or project oriented work, and pre-seeded project work spaces to get customers up and running quickly. Once a company starts the implementation with Oracle Consulting, we can deploy consultants around the world to collaborate over the web to expedite implementation timeframes. Consultants in remote locations are able to collaborate on projects on 24x7 basis. By fully leveraging, our resources, we're able to get customers up and running quickly and at a lower cost.

   Applications Implementation Methodology
   Our methods and tools are evolving to meet the challenge of the marketplace for faster, more cost effective implementations, AIM for business flows is the latest release of Oracle Consulting's proven Application Implementation Method (AIM). It incorporates changes that support the use of Oracle business flows, associated software environments, and tools, to keep the focus of an implementation on business processes and benefits, instead of software features and functions. Some of the key changes in the method include:

   • Rapid establishment of a pre-configured, proven application environment based on Oracle business flows to provide customers early access to a working application instance.
   • Use of Oracle's standard business flows as a starting point for defining the customer's future business processes.
   • Employment of hands-on, iterative Conference Room Pilot (CRP) evolutions, throughout the project lifecycle, to converge on a tailored solution that best meets the customer's business needs.

   In addition to these programs. Oracle has developed several product solutions to help reduce the cost of implementing an applications solution. Beginning with Release 11i, the Rapid Install is a new way to install Oracle Applications and its required technology stack. The product has been made available at all 11i maintenance levels. Rapid Install replaces the One-hour Install, which was the primary installation

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4. utility for Release 11.0. Using the Rapid Install, you unload the applications and all required technology components into an Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA) compliant configuration on a single node (machine) or multiple nodes by responding to a few setup questions and then letting the Rapid Install do the setup for you. Thus, new customers will reduce their installation time significantly as steps such as installing database objects and generating forms and reports are obviated. The Rapid Install also configures and starts all server processes, thereby reducing many manual configuration steps after the installation. For Release 11i, upgrade customers can also benefit as they can utilize the pre-configured technology stack for the new release and the pre-built Oracle Applications forms, reports and executables.

    

5. How does Release 11i architecture support integration, common data models, and a single global instance?

1. Sales
   Becoming an e-business requires using the power of the Internet to become more efficient, increase sales, and retain customers. Oracle Sales applications enable sales professionals to be more effective by providing them with up-to-the-minute prospect, customer, and product information whenever and wherever they need it. This integrated approach also enables organizations to become more efficient by allowing salespeople to use whatever interface best fits their needs — a laptop, a handheld device — or other. Oracle Sales applications help organizations achieve their goal of higher customer retention by ensuring that customers have a consistent level of service regardless of how they interact with an organization — over the phone, through the Internet, with the direct salesforce, or via partners and resellers. While this high level of service is constantly achieved, costs are also lowered through increased selling effectiveness and the collaboration of sales and customer information.

   In addition, our focus on developing solutions for sales is not just-reactive. We are committed to delivering tools that help organizations sell. This includes Quoting and Proposals systems that help your sales organization close more business. By integrating our sales tools with the full Oracle E-Business Suite, we make this process both more comprehensive and more cost effective.

   Marketing
   Oracle Marketing's integration with the Oracle E-Business Suite ensures that customer information is based on a single source. The result is that the marketing organization is connected and informed by other departments within the enterprise on customer history, preferences and data. Through this collaboration with other departments, marketing can leverage complete customer information from customer service and sales, as well as back office operations, to identify cross sell and up sell opportunities as the basis for creating effective marketing campaigns. Oracle Marketing is also workflow driven so that routine tasks are automated and streamlined allowing marketers to focus on key marketing objectives rather than administrative minutiae.

   Service
   Using Oracle Service applications global organizations can offer 24x7 customer support around the globe, eliminating the need for staff overtime in any given area. Rather than waking a service representative up with a pager, or maintaining a full night shift, global businesses can take a follow-the-sun approach by establishing call centers around the world to cater to different time zones. However, in order to successfully run a global operation, a business must be set up to access a common knowledge base, share customer information and maintain up-to-the minute status on all customer related activities across the organization in real time. Oracle Service applications make it possible for businesses to collect and maintain customer information in a single file, ensuring consistent, up-to-date information for effective customer management. Within the Oracle E-Business Suite. Oracle Service applications are able to provide a centralized customer support reporting and resolution system. Superior customer intelligence and customer care capabilities ensure that every employee who interacts with customers has access to a wealth of historical and current information about each customer they are serving regardless of location, and of interaction channel. Particularly suited for global entities. Oracle Service applications accommodate over 25 languages, all currencies, and regulatory requirements in a shared base of operations information.

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1. Interaction Center
   Oracle Interaction Center as part of the E-Business Suite shares information between applications as well as between departments, organization, sites as determined by management. Multi-site contact centers share information via the integrated applications and calls, or emails are sent to the most appropriate agent at any location depending on skill set, time of day or activity volume. Multi-site contact centers, provided through integrated Oracle/Cisco solution, provide the opportunity to cut employee costs by running contact centers in lower cost locations, or even in the employee's home.

   E-Commerce
   Oracle E-Commerce is a component of Oracle E-Business Suite, which lets you put your entire customer management, supply chain, and internal operations online. The integration of Oracle E-Commerce applications with all other Oracle E-Business Suite applications enables you to transform your e-commerce site into a powerful self-service environment. A fully integrated e-commerce solution eliminates the need to piece-together offerings from multiple vendors—saving you the cost of additional licensing fees, the complexity of custom integration projects, and the headache of trying to create a consistent interface between applications so you can present one face to your customers. Another advantage of Oracle's E-Commerce integration is that information on customer touch-points collected via the Web is stored in the Oracle database. You can blend that information with information you collect over the phone or in person. This gi_ves a business a complete 360-degree view of each customer and optimizes sales, marketing, and servicing opportunities—regardless of which interaction channel the customer uses. Additionally, integration with back office systems enables online marketing, sales, and service efforts to access past customer purchases and service histories to automatically personalize the user's Web experience. Oracle E-Commerce applications enable companies to run global storefronts, each with localized currencies, languages, and more—all from a single instance.

   The following are part of Oracle's eCommerce solution, which enable customers to serve themselves to find answers to questions, purchase products, etc. In summary these components allow organizations to establish a powerful web presence.

   Oracle iStore
   Oracle iStore is an end-to-end e-commerce application for creating, deploying, and maintaining customized online storefronts. Oracle iStore includes everything needed for global commerce: a product catalogue with extensive search capabilities, a shopping cart which can be saved and shared with other users, customer profiling and personalization, and even customer service features such as order tracking. iStore includes comprehensive integration to traditional front and back office applications in order to completely automate (streamline) the process of self-service ordering from click to final delivery.

   Oracle Marketing Online
   Marketing Onlines eMerchandising capabilities manage affiliate links, banner campaigns, online event sign-ups, surveys, discounts, coupons, merchandising and more. Web surfers click on a website link and are transported directly to the checkout stand of a merchant's site to complete the purchase. Additionally, Marketing Online can provide store shoppers with cross-sell/up-sell, or "buy this instead" recommendations. They may also track performance metrics of campaigns, such as click-throughs and resultant purchases.

   Oracle iPayment
   The iPayment component provides payment services including credit card authorization and clearing, payment routing based on business rules, and even manages credit risk. iPayment works with the most popular payment processing systems such as Cybercash and Verifone, and supports the Internet security standards of SSL and SET.

   Oracle iSupport
   Oracle iSupport is a comprehensive customer facing service portal that allows customers to receive self-service over the InternetiSupport enables corporations to setup a customer information portal where customers may view order status, outstanding invoices, payment history, service contracts, and installed

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1. products, as well as initiate service requests and return merchandise. By having customers maintain their own data, such as installed products or personal and user account information, companies can maintain a higher level of data accuracy without incurring any additional cost. By offering a secure, personalized experience for a wide range of self- service functions, iSupport enables service organizations to minimize the total cost of customer support and call center operations. Oracle iSupport also offers powerful Knowledge Management tools allowing customers to search for and resolve their own issues. Empowering customers through self-service and self-administration helps Service organizations to remain competitive and successful. Additionally, with integration to iStore, companies can provide a seamless online sales and service environment.

   Oracle eMail Center
   Oracle eMail Center manages high volumes of inbound and outbound customer emails. Oracle eMail Center automatically classifies the emails coming into an organization, and creates suggested responses based on message content. If the system cannot automatically create a response for an incoming message, the email will be routed to the appropriate call center agent based on email content and agent skills for follow up.

   Contracts
   Oracle Contracts automates the full contracts life cycle and enables companies to manage internal and external obligations, control contractual deliverables, and enforce business practices. It provides the flexibility and scalability to allow organization to change and grow as their businesses and processes evolve to keep pace with the needs of the market. Oracle Contracts is built around the concept of a standardized common data model. This data model enables companies to synchronize isolated silos of information throughout the enterprise, so marketing, sales, customer service, and back-office divisions such as distribution and manufacturing all work from a single, consistent view of each customer.

   Oracle Contracts is a component of Oracle E-Business Suite, which transforms your business into a global e-business by bringing your customers, suppliers, and employees online. In conjunction with the E-Business Suite, Oracle Contracts uses an Internet computing architecture that lets you expand markets, improve efficiencies, and retain customers.

   Oracle Customers Online
   All companies in all industries can benefit from OCO. "Dirty" data and duplicate records know no geographic or vertical boundaries. Any CRM implementation is only as good as the customer information that drives business decisions.

   The following are some of the key features of the product:

• One-Stop Customer Overview - Ability to create, view, and update customer information, such as basic profile data, contacts, relationships, notes, interactions, attachments, and more—all starting with one compact user-friendly page.
• Customer Segmentation - Customer analysis by industry, slate, province, or country, using detailed reports and summary graphs.
• Data Quality Indicators - System measures of cumulative growth in the customer database on a monthly basis.
• Dun & Bradstreet Integration - Ability to search for companies in D&B's extensive database, create new customer records starting with D&B data, and enrich existing data with D&B data. Users can purchase D&B data in real time without leaving OCO.
• Legacy Data Imports - Ability to import list and legacy data directly into the application from CSV files, using flexible data-mapping tools for aligning source and target data.
• Visualization and Maps - Complete graphical views of internal employee hierarchy and complete graphical views of a customer's relationship universe. Users can navigate and traverse business linkages via maps and diagrams.
• Easy and Accessible Searches - Ability to search for customer and employee records.
• Personalized Reports - Ability to bookmark customer records and view recently accessed items.

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Supply Chain Management

Overall
Historically, business applications focused on internal automation. Now, Oracle's supply chain solution extends automation beyond your enterprise to include your global trading partners. This means you can share real-time information with your suppliers such as designs, forecasts, capacities, and deliveries, so you can flexibly and efficiently respond to dynamic market conditions. Oracle's pre-configured, role-based portals also speed collaborative communication between trading partners located across the globe.

Product Development
Companies worldwide are increasingly extending product development activities to include ever-more-global teams. Oracle Product Development (OPD) provides a modern, web based solution for managing development and roll out of new products. OPD helps companies lower costs, accelerate time to market, and create better products by facilitating better multi-company and multi-department collaboration through the entire product development lifecycle. Within this centralized product repository, you can:

Advanced Planning
Oracle Advanced Planning is an Internet enabled solution that is architected for a global business. Oracle Advanced Planning can be deployed on a single global instance to plan your extended enterprise across heterogeneous back-end systems. The web deployed user interface facilitates global access. Oracle Advanced Planning also provides unique holistic planning and optimization capabilities designed for planners not programmers, so you to plan your extended supply chain including your trading partners in a single global plan.

Oracle Advanced Planning include:; the following additional capabilities:

1. • Calendar, Tasks, and Appointments - Ability to view, create, and update daily, weekly, and monthly calendars, as well as tasks, personal notes, and appointments.
   • Develop and share information with customers and suppliers through a collaboration workspace, a web-based portal showing specific project, product, document, and issue/change information.
   • Fully describe individual projects, products, and documents by assigning them to specific categories with category specific attributes.
   • Minimize the impact of distance and time with Internet conferencing and threaded discussions.
   • Unleash engineering & design information to the broader enterprise with Oracle CADView3D, a browser-based CAD view and markup application from Oracle.
   • Streamline the "release to manufacturing" process, so items and bills of material created or updated in OPD will be easily transferred to Oracle Manufacturing. Conversely, engineering change requests initiated in Oracle Manufacturing can be reflected within OPD.
   • Secure proprietary information using multi-company registry, functional role-based security, and single sign-on.
   • Collaborative demand planning to rapidly drive to accurate consensus forecast.
   • Inventory optimization to reduce inventory levels while increasing delivery performance.
   • Accurate promise data forecasting based on manufacturing, supplier, and transportation capacity.
   • Extended visibility and responsiveness to exceptions across all supply chain tiers.
2. Procurement
   Oracle's Procurement solution encompasses the entire procure-to-pay process, yet can be implemented modularly. It provides a powerful, self-service collaborative platform for a buyer to manage relationships with its global supply base, significantly reducing costs and improving efficiencies in its purchasing and payables departments. Since participants can view screens in their own language and choose their own functional currencies, buyers and sellers can operate in different currencies. Instead of telephone calls, faxes and emails, suppliers are immediately notified and can respond to events in the purchasing and planning process, providing an unparalleled level of service to their buyers.

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   1. With Oracle's Procurement solution you can:
   • Use a web browser to quickly find goods and services from suppliers around the world, add them to a shopping cart, and checkout.
   • Integrate transactions into existing buyer or suppliers systems using XML.
   • Monitor spending, use of pre-negotiated contracts, and supplier performance to proactively manage buyer-supplier relationships.
   • Provide easy-to-use portal for suppliers to access and send up-to-date transaction details from anywhere around the globe for business documents, including forecasts and schedules, purchase orders, change orders, receipts and returns, invoices and payments, capacity updates and inventories.
   • Address all needs of professional buyers.

   Discrete Manufacturing
   Oracle Manufacturing provides a fully integrated, complete solution for a variety" of discrete manufacturing processes (discrete, assemble-to-order, engineer-to-order, repetitive, lot-based and flow), so companies can operate efficiently in a global manufacturing environment. Some of the unique capabilities of the integrated solution include the ability to configure to customer orders, increase plant flexibility and efficiency, streamline collaboration with suppliers and subcontractors, and control product cost and quality.

   Oracle Manufacturing provides mass customization and configure-to-order production capabilities, so companies can respond to changing market demands for personalized products, in any volume and ship them anywhere in the world. Companies can use innovative lean manufacturing techniques provided by Oracle Flow Manufacturing to lower cycle times and reduce inventory. In addition to flexible production, Oracle Manufacturing can provide customers with accurate, real-time information on global product availability.

   Many companies need to simultaneously use more than one manufacturing method. Deploying various manufacturing methods concurrently across the enterprise - by plant, by product family, by production line, or by process - ensures the optimal style of manufacturing for each operation and product. All methods can be supported by a single plan in a single instance, referencing a single inventory database...to help global companies better manage their processes and inventory..

   Oracle Manufacturing and Oracle iSupplier Portal are collaborative applications that allow companies to reach beyond their internal walls to the global extended enterprise comprised of suppliers and subcontractors. With these web-based, self-service applications, your trading partners gain timely access to valuable information and free your personnel from spending their time on routine transactions that cost your organization time and money. Oracle provides the capability to share operating instructions,. component requirements, delivery and quality metrics, invoice and payment information, as well as forecast and planning schedules ever the Internet. Changes in promised delivery dates (ASN's) can be communicated via workflow notifications.

   Oracle Cost Management supports multiple costing methods (Standard, LIFO, FIFO, and Average) to meet the inventory management needs of various organizations and business climates around the world. Oracle Quality lets users collect data at the source and distribute it and analyze it across the supply chain. Tight integration with the rest of the e-business suite provides a closed loop process that supports automatically tracks issues to resolution and facilitates continuous improvement

   Process Manufacturing
   For process manufacturers. Oracle provides a fully integrated, complete application suite. Each major business flow is supported with functionality unique to process industries.

   Concept to Release: All aspects of recipe management from concept to commercial production can be streamlined with Internet based workbenches and workflow based approval authorization with change management control. Developers can simulate product costs, product composition, analytical parameters and Material Safety Data Sheets from experimental recipes saving time and expense.

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   1. Forecast to Plan: Many features unique to the process industries have been built into the Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning and Scheduling solution, including: recipe validating rules (multiple formula and routing combinations to produce the same item), by-products, co-products, fixed and linear scaling and recognition of lot expiration dates.

      Procure to Pay: You can order and receive items in two units of measure to support catch weight items and also specify a preferred quality grade. Receiving can also be based on your business practices - direct to inventory or initiate an inspection process. Pay on Receipt (aka Evaluated Receipt Settlement) provides quick payment to suppliers and minimizes processing steps for paying a vendor invoice.

      Demand to Build: A single product might be produced many different ways depending on season, region and ingredient quality and availability. Differences in quality can affect the purchase price, the manufacturing and storage costs and recipe used. OPM Inventory' Control tracks variability precisely with a quality based view of raw materials and products. The application incorporates customer specific attributes, grades and shelf-life into the definition of an item lot. OPM Production Management enables selection from multiple recipes to produce to specifications. The management of variability improves inventory usage, minimizes inventory investments, and enhances responsiveness to customers' specific requirements.

      Order to Cash: This fully integrated solution includes Oracle's CRM, Order Management, Pricing and Shipping applications and provides the following features:

   • Catch Weight - This term describes tracking inventory in two different units of measure. Prices are calculated based on the shipment weight of each case, not on the number of cases. OPM tracks multiple, simultaneous units of measure across the enterprise.
   • Preferred Grade Specified on the Order Line - Each sales order line can capture the customer's preferred grade for the material being ordered. This ensures that material quality and specifications meet the customer's needs.
   • Inventory Allocations - Customer specific rules using shelf life, grade and lot expiration dates guarantee delivery of fresh products. These rules also determine whether partial shipments and split lots will be acceptable to the customer. Specific lots and sub-lots may be automatically or manually allocated either at order entry or snipping.

   Order Fulfillment
   Order Management includes multi-channel order capture and fulfillment capabilities. It also provides complete functionality to meet the needs of global corporations such as export compliance checking via tight integrations with value added partners, multi-currency handling, and international tax functionality

   Oracle Configurator uses interactive guided selling to gather customer requirements and drive the product specification, ensuring valid solutions that meet the requirements of customers from around the globe.

   Oracle Advanced Pricing gives you the flexibility to define sophisticated pricing rules that target your pricing policies to the exact market you need to reach. Price both business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions with full function deals and promotions.

   Global Order Promising allows you to promise

   orders based on material availability, manufacturing capacity, supplier capacity, or transportation capacity. You can also allocate scarce supply and capacity by channel, customer, or product.

   Oracle's Logistics solution offers Global companies a complete solution including the following areas.

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   Financials
   Today's global business environment is characterized by operations that span countries, currencies and organizations. Oracle Financials 11i multinational solution includes enhanced multi-currency transaction support, invoicing in any currency, cross-charging and inter-company accounting, and internal Billing.

   In an effort to focus business units on their core competencies, increase efficiencies company-wide and better manage and access information, companies may want to consolidate non-revenue generating, administrative tasks in Shared Service Centers. The Shared Service model focuses on the best of centralization and decentralization. Centralized tasks more suited for standardization are performed at the Shared Service Center while local tasks are performed at the individual business unit. A company initiating Shared Service Centers will not only realize immediate significant benefits, but ongoing improvements even after implementation. Oracle Financial Applications support Shared Service Center.

   The Global Accounting Engine is an architectural component developed by Oracle to address accounting and fiscal audit requirements for the Global Applications Market. The Global Accounting Engine enables you to comply with fiscal and legal country audit requirements.

   The global architecture of Oracle Financials allows for coexistence of multiple localizations in a single implementation instance.

   Internet Expenses
   Release 11i contains additional self-service functionality. With the Direct Credit Card Feed feature employees can now populate their expense reports with transactional data sent directly from the credit card issuer. Input of expense data is made easier with a new multi-row user interface and an itemize window which allows users to breakdown line items and determine which charges are reimbursable and then determine the expense type for each of these charges. With Release 11i, companies are also able to pay card issuers directly on behalf of travelers to take advantage of any rebates offered by the card issuer. With the Mobile Expenses feature you can edit and submit expense reports using a web-enabled mobile device. A manager can review, approve or reject any expense report using a mobile device.

   Oracle Internet Receivables
   Fully integrated with Oracle Receivables Release 11i. Oracle iReceivables takes receivables management to a new level of customer service and process efficiency. iReceivables enables internal and external personnel to perform a variety of accounts receivable processes using a standard Web browser. For example, you or your customers can view account and transaction balances, print invoices, and submit credit memo requests.

   Projects
   With the increased market reach created by the Internet, businesses must be able to execute projects anywhere in the world. Oracle Projects 11i allows you to manage projects and resources across your global enterprise, and streamline the information flow required for such operations.

   With the Oracle Projects solution, you can:

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   1. • Network Design: Define all characteristics of the distribution network, and specify details such as lanes, distribution centers, etc.
      • Supply Chain Planning: Conduct supply and demand planning across the network, and determine transportation load planning, mode/carrier optimization and load configuration.
      • Transportation Execution: Perform freight rating, select mode/carrier automatically, tender loads, generate pickup requests, as well as enable global track, trace, and settlement.
      • Warehouse Management: Leverage automated, tailorable warehouse functions (e.g. pick. pack, ship) and RF barcoding support coupled with advanced inventory management capabilities.
      • Event Management: Monitor shipiments, handle exceptions, and notify all trading partners.

      Oracle Projects 11i global project solution includes:

      Human Resources
      Oracle HRMS provides complete support for single-instance, single schema global workforce management. Our workforce processes are managed on a single global data model with appropriate partitioning of legislative and culture-specific processes, allowing the customer to support multiple countries and payrolls on a single database or in regional service centers. This ensures that you can consolidate your data while presenting a full legislative process to the end user with appropriate security. Our single instance approach supports inter-country processes, such as a single learning catalog, global competency database, or international transfers and supervisory relationships, while appropriately preserving country-specific data.

      Oracle HRMS delivers an integrated suite of best practices for acquiring, deploying, training and developing talent on a world-wide basis, and then using that talent in the most effective manner. Through our user groups and advisory boards, as well as through direct relationships, we work with customers to understand their business model and the practical issues they face in operating globally. We identify commonalities across countries for commercial and public sector processes, and deliver these into the core product to be available to all, while ensuring that when used in any geography, details such as name formats, currency display, language preferences, and multi-lingual data are used correctly.

      Our global HR self-service processes leverage this architecture. A global manager can view his/her employees worldwide, and, for a selected employee, access a process with legislative data for the country in which the employee works.

      To support rapid implementation, we deliver country-specific extensions to the common model to capture extra data for any country needed for legal processes, or to support local policies and practices. We also deliver example best practices that fit the needs of a country when we "localize" the product, which we have done for many countries to date. We also deliver an international HRMS solution, which by following simple setup steps, can be rapidly configured for use in a country where there is no delivered local extension.

      In delivering best practices, we emphasize a number of measures for cost-reduction: line manager and employee self-service for all day-to-day transactions, easily configured for your exact needs, and extensive

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      Oracle Self-Service Human Resources
      Oracle Self-service for Human Resources allows a wide breadth of functionality for workers and line managers. Examples are as follow. Worker processes include: updating basic demographic information, addresses, and phone numbers: updating educational institutions and course work, qualifications, skills, and work preferences: updating an online resume: applying for internal jobs, and enrolling in classroom or online learning (with an option to select classes by skills desired): viewing employment, salary, job application, absence, and training history: self-assessing and concurrent team-based appraisals that support 360-degree style processes, surveys and performance reviews. Workers can update their payroll payment methods, set their US W-4 allowances and additional withholding amounts and view their country-specific payroll payslips directly through self-service, as well as entering time via configurable timesheets. With the 11i benefits capabilities, workers may enroll in benefits plans, update their elections, dependents and beneficiaries, and select or designate their primary care providers via self-service.

      A significant set of line manager capabilities includes a user configurable set of deployment processes for promotions, transfers, relocations, supervisory changes, individual compensation awards, and pay rate changes. Uniquely, these processes include country specific data for legislative compliance, as well as language support and formatting for cultural styles such as currency and name formats.

      Managers navigate through a graphical, dynamic hierarchy tree of workers/applicants on a global basis built on the supervisor chain or as a result of person search selections. Alternatively managers may access their workforce via position or organization hierarchies. They can then launch the appropriate process for the worker in a given country.

      Using the Compensation Workbench features of Self-service Human Resources, HR professionals may define the eligibility, budget, worksheet, and processing parameters for periodic compensation changes, such as salary increases, bonuses and stock options. Compensation Workbench facilitates the compensation modeling and allocation process. Managers may use the allocation wizard or matrix, or

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      Oracle Customers Online
      At the enterprise level, Oracle Customers Online streamlines business processes, enables employees to be more productive, reduces data management and operating costs, contributes to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, and provides a deeper knowledge of who your customers are.

      Specifically for marketing organizations, OCO can provide a single source for list generation and help companies save on direct mail, returned mail, and privacy suppression costs with cleaner, de-duped customer data. Improved segmentation and more targeted messaging also result in more frequent conversions of prospects to buyers. With a true understanding of your customers, marketing professionals can further enhance the lifetime value of premium customers.

      For sales organizations, OCO delivers a true 360° view of customer contacts and relationships to help close deals more effectively. Improved customer modeling creates new up-selling and cross-selling opportunities for sales professionals. Moreover, less time is wasted sifting through duplicate data and poorly organized customer information. With OCO, salespeople gain quick access to relevant customer data to do their business and be on their way.

      For customer service organizations, OCO improves employee productivity with all pertinent customer information at an agent's fingertip;. Customer waiting limes and call transfers can be reduced. The direct results of improved service are higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

      Finally, for IT organizations, OCO provides a single global instance of a clean, "de-duped" customer master instead of complicated legacy systems with many duplicate records. System-level metrics give data administrators insight into the customer database. With cleaner data and fewer customer records to track, IT organizations and the enterprise as a whole save on hardware and data warehouse maintenance costs.

      Supply Chain Management

      Overall
      In order to outpace the competition, companies need to make well-informed decisions based on metrics that represent real-time functional performance. Oracle's supply chain solution features pre-configured, role-based information portals that leverage pre-built key performance indicators, multi-dimensional analysis tools, and an intuitive user interface. This comprehensive solution covers all supply chain needs from product development to procurement to planning to mixed-mode manufacturing to order management and logistics.

      Oracle's supply chain intelligence offering is not a tool kit, but is comprised of out-of-the-box applications which are fully integrated with the underlying transaction systems. It automatically generates exception notifications based on tolerances you specify, and you can immediately drill-down to the specific transaction(s) causing the alert. For instance, you can learn of manufacturing cost overruns as they occur

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      Manufacturing Intelligence
      Oracle Manufacturing Intelligence combines performance information related to mixed mode manufacturing, such as Discrete, Process and Project, and presents it seamlessly in intelligence reports

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      Order Fulfillment
      Order Fulfillment portals provide for comprehensive analytical information for all levels of management. Key information about sales, customer service, shipping, revenues, and inventory is available via the Order Fulfillment related portal pages. The Order Information Portal provides 24x7 self-service viewing of order, shipping, and returns information. This portal can be used outside the firewall by customers or inside the firewall by customer Service. It helps provide instant, up-to-date, global access to order details - no matter what time or time zone.

      Supply Chain Intelligence
      Supply Chain Intelligence allows operations managers to monitor demand plans, manufacturing and supplier schedules, and order fulfillment to gain a real-time global view of capacity and performance information. It combines mixed modes of manufacturing (such as discrete, process, and project) and presents it seamlessly in intelligence reports and analytical workbooks.

      You can measure and analyze enterprise velocity based on key performance metrics, financial ratios, profit and loss summaries, and other performance indicators that roll up across all organizations, product lines, lines of businesses, and trading partners throughout your supply chain. It allows organizations to improve performance and efficiency.

      Financials
      Oracle Financials provides the tools you need to tap into new markets around the globe, drive costs out of your business, streamline your business processes, and generate financial information quicker than ever before. Oracle Financials provides you with immediate analysis about your operations so that you can optimize decisions. Oracle Financials are essential in ensuring your company's successful transformation to e-business by uniquely enabling finance organizations to streamline their business processes, consolidate information, and become a real time enterprise.

      Oracle's Trading Community Architecture (TCA), which underpins the E-Business Suite, enables an organization to have one customer model across all enterprise applications. One customer model ensures data integrity and provides a complete and accurate picture of the customer's relationship with the organization. Sales, customer service, marketing and finance can access accurate and timely customer information to improve account management, customer service, customer analyses, and financial management, respectively.

      Oracle Financials Intelligence is a powerful business intelligence application integrated with Oracle Financials, providing a comprehensive overview of your strategic financial information. Oracle Financials Intelligence enables you to establish and measure key financial drivers to monitor your company's performance.

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      Daily Business Intelligence/Business Intelligence

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      1. • Utilize resources across your global enterprise and enable collaborative resource deployment to get the right person on the right project based on skills, schedule, and location
         • Gain visibility to schedule and progress changes with robust work tracking
         • Improve budget and forecast oversight to manage within budget with improved visibility
         • Efficiently manage project change to reduce time required and increase visibility to any project changes
         • Manage project performance real-time with summary review and drilldown to details to take action
         • Streamline collaborative execution amongst all team members
         • Collect and manage all project costs, providing timely visibility and control to the total project cost
         • Manage the revenue and billing cycle to streamline the cash management process
         • Streamline the asset capitalization process to ensure timely, accurate asset management and adjustments
         • Automate resource sharing administration to reduce the effort and cost for cross charge accounting
         • Link to third party applications to use Oracle Projects for centralized, streamlined execution and tracking
         • Support for multiple global project operational structures typically used to manage global projects
         • Multiple currency support for costs, agreements and funding, and billing
         • Automated administration for resource sharing across organizations (cross charging and intercompany accounting/billing)
         • Enhanced tax handling
         1. automation through business rules to guide employees and managers alike and push information to them as and when needed.

            In 11i we introduced a number of new processes that are highly automated for maximum ROI. These include:

         • New self-service functions (payslips, new hires, timesheets, leave requests, localizations, focal and individual compensation reviews
         • Enhanced configuration capabilities of the self-Service interface, including flexfield extensions and local data
         • A self-Service approach to Total Compensation automation, automating eligibility and life event detection and management.
         • Enhanced payroll capabilities, such as continuous calculation, enhanced correction capabilities, pro-ration and performance enhancements
         • The creation of a single self Service and/or administrative entry point for lime information with real-time validation and approvals management
         • A service center approach to managing benefits
         • Self-service learning management- an integration of self-service learning enrolment with the authoring and delivery capabilities of Oracle iLearning
         • New HR functions, such as rules-based position control and collective agreement management
         • Increased business intelligence reporting through additional reporting and business views
         • New HR. Pay and self-service localization extensions (see below)
         • A self-service based approach to managing careers, appraisal and succession planning
         • Automated recruiting (see iRecruitment below)
         • Enhanced Public sector functionality globally (see below)
         • Enhanced management of approval routing via Oracle Approvals Manager

          

         5. manually allocate budget and worksheet values, or iteratively reallocate for a group or selected employees only. Managers may delegate allocations to their managers, perform employee validations, move employees from one
            Manager's workbench to another, and override employee eligibility. Managers submit their allocations up the approval chain through workflow.

            In addition to these functions, line managers can perform skills matching between the skills possessed by their workers and those identified as essential and/or desirable for a job. Suitability matching may progress from person to work opportunity or from work opportunity to person. HR self-service also allows managers and HR Professionals to identify successors for positions and details of the terms for succession.

            Oracle Self-service Human Resources also allows customers to configure user defined data by the addition of updateable "flexfields" in many areas, including multi-row Extra and Special Information types.

            HRMS self-service transactions are integrated with Oracle Workflow, allowing configuration of event chains and specification of processing rules such as approvals. Extensive configuration of self-service transactions is accommodated, including support for flexfield extensions.

            Oracle self-service transactions are in process of adopting Oracle Approvals Manager for easy configuration of workflow routing through a web interface to change routing rules. iRecruitment uses Oracle Approvals Manager throughout.

            Oracle iRecruitment
            Oracle iRecruitment is a major new HRMS product, which provides a set of global self-service recruiting capabilities for managers, recruiters and applicants to engage in all stages of recruitment, from initial advertisement to offers and finally hiring, iRecruitment is integrated with Oracle Human Resources. The goals of Oracle iRecruitment are to shorten the recruitment cycle while surfacing more applicants and automating the qualification of candidates. Managers and recruiters can advertise on corporate or external sites, search and sift recruiting prospects, contact possible candidates, track and progress applicants, and finally conduct the hiring process. People interested in applying for jobs can register interest to be contacted with job matches, and can apply for jobs by submitting an on-line application in multiple formats. Oracle Workflow speeds the recruitment process by notifying all parties of changes in applicant/candidate status, such as an invitation to interview. We also deliver over 100 predefined events as the basis for automated notifications. Oracle iRecruitment supports staffing exchange protocols enabling data to be posted to third party job boards.

             

         6. How does the Release 11i support business process automation, trading partner collaboration, and integrated intelligence?
         1. Sales
            Making smarter business decisions that improve sales effectiveness, means being armed with and timely and accurate sales information. Oracle Sales Intelligence provides an entire framework for setting sales goals, measuring sales performance against targets, and enabling root-cause analysis on sales issues. It enables all sales staff - from analysts and managers to the vice president - to make cost-effective decisions. Armed with extensive and timely sales information, sales organizations are better able to attract and retain the most desirable customers.

            Through its expansive reporting capabilities. Oracle Sales Intelligence gives a real-time enterprise view of sales in order to meet quotas, assess current performance, and make continuous improvements. The application is designed to provide fast answers to difficult questions, such as, which sales representative would be most effective for closing a specific deal, or who are your top customers?

            Oracle Sales Analyzer is designed to help sales and marketing professionals quickly identify new opportunities and trends, forecast results and measure the effectiveness of sales and marketing programs. Oracle Sales Intelligence and Oracle Sales Analyser integrate with Oracle's complete E-Business Suite of products to ensure

         1. that important information can easily be shared across all sales channels at any time, to drive unproved top line and bottom line revenue growth.

            Marketing
            Oracle Marketing uses Oracle 9/ Data Mining to give marketers the ability to analyze market patterns, gain insights into customer behavior and to use that aggregated information to understand and predict customer behavior thereby improving; the quality of marketing campaigns. Oracle Marketing Intelligence provides an enterprise-wide view of marketing activities enabling marketers to monitor ongoing marketing performance and make continuous improvement. It provides over 200 pre-configured reports to deliver metrics on key performance indicators such as campaign performance, budget spend, expense trends, channel activity, among others. Oracle Marketing Intelligence provides extensive reporting and analysis capabilities to offer marketing professionals the information necessary to solve complex marketing problems while maximizing ROI.

            Service
            Oracle Service uses customer intelligence and analytics to manage vital customer information and cater to the most valuable customers. Decision-makers can view and search for key customer data and manage customer portfolios through the analysis of factors such as customer acquisition, activation, retention, product gross margin, satisfaction, loyalty, and lifecycle. This information enables service organizations to personalize and tailor products and services in order to develop long-lasting relationships with customers and improve service profitability. Through a thorough understanding of customer preferences, agents can walk through each interaction in a very personalized fashion and give each customer the level of attention that is needed.

            Oracle Service provides operational data to senior executives, middle management, business analysts and front-line personnel about the service support organization. With this data, decision-makers are able to make efficient and strategic business decisions regarding their service and support organizational needs and activities. Operational analysis can involve monitoring and in-depth examinations of various metrics such as the number of service requests logged, open, escalated, closed or reworked, to name just a few. This extensive analysis enables service managers and decision-makers to determine the overall effectiveness of the service organization, identify possible product or service issues, and bring about improvements through realignment of internal resources or adjustments to processes and technology.

            Interaction Center
            Oracle Interaction Center provides he enabling technologies and applications to operate a multi-media contact center for customer service, telemarketing and telesales. Because all customer interactions are maintained in a single history file, any agent has access to the complete customer information needed to expedite the call, email, web callback or collaborative session. Oracle combines both business information and contact center call information to give a complete view of contact activities, results. All contact channels are integrated, so the contact center agent knows the customer just placed an order over the webstore, or just created a service request - allowing the agent to provide successful customer care.

            E-Commerce
            Oracle's E-Commerce applications leverage the Oracle Business Intelligence suite to continually assess and refine products, sales, customer and marketing strategies. Shared information across a variety of business areas enables a robust, accurate, enterprise-wide decision support system. Business Intelligence provides decision-makers with the detailed analytical tools to identify the most-valued customers and enables organizations to tailor product and service offerings to suit different customer types. Oracle E-Commerce also leverages Customer Intelligence functionality, enabling companies to view and search for vital customer information: manage customer portfolios through analyzing customer acquisition, activation, retention, profitability, satisfaction, loyalty, and life cycle: and monitor customer performance through the state-of-the-art Performance Management Framework. Through a better understanding of customers, companies gain a competitive advantage by using their customer knowledge as a strategic weapon.

         1. Contracts
            Oracle Contracts applications allow managers throughout an organization to efficiently and proactively manage contracts. Managers responsible for creating contractual agreements are able to pull pre-negotiated and complete contract templates for rapid deployment, or can use the library of terms and conditions to quickly customize agreements. Service procurement and project managers, who are tasked with enforcing the agreements, can automate much of the contract management process allowing more rapid and efficient account management. Sales organizations experience faster sales cycles and improved sales volumes through automated contract generation and contract renewal notifications. In addition, accurate contract trend analysis allows executives to lead their organizations in strategic and tactical initiatives. Oracle Contracts enables organizations to:
         • Improved efficiencies with improved contract visibility
         • Reduce contract management costs with automated workflow
         • Increase revenue by lowering "renewal leakage"
         • Increase customer loyalty through quality assurance
         1. and determine whether the cause is related to supplier quality issues or manufacturing process problems, so you can take action. The ability to view critical metrics based on today's activity means you can incorporate the latest results as you make adjustments to accommodate changes and drive profitability.

            Product Development
            Oracle Product Development is a secure, centralized product development repository that handles products, projects, specifications, requirements, issues and changes, costs, and expertise. It transforms data, typically isolated in silos or nonintegrated systems, into information and insight while ensuring that the right information goes to the right people.

            Accelerating product development requires the ability to set targets, monitor performance and take corrective action to stay competitive and on the critical path. Oracle Product Development Intelligence provides out-of the box analysis and measurement functionality, so companies can focus on continuous improvement of their product development process. Metrics include: project slippage, time to market, change order cycle time, issue cycle time, number of change orders, number of issues, methodology compliance, manufacturability, and reuse. You can also mine information using advanced parametric (attribute-based) searching techniques.

            Oracle Product Development Intelligence references an out-of the box strategy map and scorecard as recommended by the Product Development Management Association (PDMA). A single portal delivers complete information covering the entire product development portfolio (including any level in the hierarchy) and spanning the complete product lifecycle.

            Advanced Planning
            Oracle Advanced Planning is an integrated planning and collaboration solution that enables real time collaboration between trading partners across the extended enterprise. This eliminates decision-making latency and ensures real time synchronization of the extended supply chain. Oracle Advanced Planning is seamlessly integrated with the Oracle Supply Chain Execution and Business Intelligence systems facilitating a closed loop plan-execute-measure-improve system that enables you to drive continuous improvement through the enterprise.

            Oracle Advanced Planning uses optimization technology to automate the decision making process but is designed for planners not programmers. This allows your planners to make better decisions by configuring the system through simple decision rules and a wizard based orientation. In addition, all the planner action and exception messages are workflow-enabled ensuring a high degree of process automation across the extended enterprise.

            Procurement
            Oracle's Procurement solution offers powerful analysis tools for procurement and supply chain professionals, combined with critical portal-based reporting for management. This solution can collect information from any source to assist in sourcing new items, analyzing supplier performance, developing a commodity strategy and understanding overall spending. With up-to-date knowledge of your operations, you can quickly identify savings opportunities, improve supplier relationships, optimize internal efficiencies, and make strategic decisions that maximize profits.

            With Oracle's Procurement solution you can:

         • Maximize the profitability of your organization.
         • Analyze spend for timely insight.
         • Improve supplier relationships.
         • Maximize efficiencies and cost savings in your purchasing organization.
         • Establish personalized, up-to-date views of purchasing activity.
         1. and analytical workbooks. It is a collection of enterprise business measures, supported by web-based reports and analytical workbooks (using Oracle Discoverer), all integrated with an alert mechanism to pro-activery communicate operational performance to the management team that is up-to-date each day. Manufacturing Intelligence also provides a library of key performance indicators to benchmark actual performance against multiple targets, e.g., industry best practices, key competitors, corporate goals and commitments. It collects actual performance data from diverse Oracle Manufacturing data sources and covers Product Margin, Production, and Materials Management.

            Discrete Manufacturing
            In a highly competitive environment, the ability to control manufacturing costs drives profitability. Pinpointing non-value-added activities improves resource allocation and utilization, so companies can deliver high quality products at the lowest possible cost.

            Oracle Cost Management supports multiple costing methods (Standard, LIFO, FIFO and Average) and provides perpetual and periodic cost systems for purchasing, inventory, work in process, and order management transactions. Integration with Business Intelligence helps managers identify variances and control costs. Simulations are also supported to explore various options before finalizing decisions.

            Oracle Quality is a flexible enterprise-wide quality management system that lets you collect data at the source, and then distribute and analyze it across your supply chain. Oracle Quality's tight integration with Oracle Manufacturing, Oracle Purchasing, Oracle iSupplier Portal, and Oracle Service, provides a closed loop process that enables you to support continuous improvement programs and ensure compliance with industry standards by tracking problems through to resolution.

            Process Manufacturing
            Oracle Process Manufacturing (OPM) allows companies to track materials, products, and data associated with process manufacturing operations, so managers can always access the latest results and history.

            OPM Bi-Directional Lot Genealogy
            Many process manufacturers have a critical need to maintain lot-related information and trace inventory composition/usage to satisfy either government regulations or company quality assurance requirements and warranties. To ensure compliance, OPM delivers bi-directional lot genealogy inquiry, reporting, and analysis capabilities, so users can trace resource usage and materials enterprise-wide from receipt through customer shipment. OPM provides intuitive user access to lot genealogy information. It also improves responsiveness to lot qualify problem and minimizes the cost of product recalls by providing instant access to consolidated lot genealogy information and comprehensive reporting documentation.

            21 CFR Part 11 - Audit Trail and Electronic Records and Electronic Signatures (ERES)
            Regulated industries (pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical devices, and food/beverages) are increasingly concerned about the Food and Drug Administrations guideline on electronic records and signatures called 21 CFR Part 11. Part 11 represents the combined effort of divisions within the FDA, along with members of the pharmaceutical industry, to establish a uniform, enforceable, baseline standard by which the FDA will consider electronic records equivalent to paper records and electronic signatures equivalent to traditional handwritten records and signatures.

            E-Business Suite 11i provides an extensive set of tools for managing electronic records, in accordance with the technical requirements in 21 CFR Part 11, including strong security, audit trails, archiving, operational system checks built into GxP-critical business flows. The toolset is completed in OPM Family Pack J (11i.9), with a comprehensive solution for capture of electronic signatures, and management of the resulting signed records. Signatures can be captured on-line or deferred via electronic routing with the Oracle Workflow toolset. Standard query and reporting capability are provided such that the complete historical journal of critical electronic records can be easily accessed, viewed and printed in human readable output format. The e-record is securely stored in an XML format providing advanced search capabilities, portability, conformity with FDA standards, and the ability to reconstruct the eRecord in the future, regardless of changes in technology.

         1. OPM Quality Management
            In OPM Family Pack J (11i.9), OPM Quality Management introduces role-based workbenches to provide visibility and centralized access to all quality information. Additional quality data elements support more powerful specifications management and approval, sampling scenarios, and results evaluation. These features deliver a more proactive, comprehensive quality management system with tighter integrations with process execution, inventory, receiving, and shipping operations.

            OPM Recipe Lifecycle Management
            The OPM Product Development application includes role-based workbenches to provide visibility and centralized access to product development information. They also make it easy to maintain information such as formulas, routings, operations, activities and resources by leveraging the following capabilities:

         • A recipe structure that complies with industry standards for recipe definition.
         • A graphical, hierarchical representation of recipe data.
         • Mass search and replace of recipe components such as ingredients, resources, or operations.
         • Automated recipe change management for all recipe components.
         • Rules to validate recipes and analyze formulas
         1. Daily Business Intelligence can be delivered to your browser using Financial portlets, delivering daily executive briefings and updates from your Financial system. These Financial portlets use portal and portlet technology and automatic, integrated processes to inform management on key dimensions such as organization, product and line of business. Financial portlets that are currently in development include cost center management, product revenue management, and financial statements, such as the daily profit and loss and balance sheet.

            Projects
            The Oracle Projects solution streamlines the entire project lifecycle, from selling through delivery to accounting and closeout, and is integrated to functions across the Oracle E-Business Suite (including Financials, Human Resources, Supply Chain, and CRM). Based on a single, complete enterprise project repository. Oracle Projects provides consistent, timely information to all project stakeholders via personalized role based views. Visibility and control to timely, accurate information for the various roles enables better decisions for all project stakeholders, including: project and program managers, team members, executive management, customer and sponsors, and financial analysts.

            Oracle's Projects enables you to "manage by project" for visibility, accountability, control, and agility for many business activities in your enterprise. Managing by project provides timelier and more granular information than provided by typical financial controls. Project managers are able to view all information about the project in a single repository, allowing them to effectively manage the schedule, budget, financials,. scope, and quality toward project success. They can view project and task level information and drill down into supporting, detailed transactions. Resource managers can improve resource utilization with effective resource deployment to projects, matching skills, schedule, and priority of resources and projects. Key project stakeholders are notified of project status, allowing them to make critical decisions to ensure their project portfolio continues to align with current business objectives.

            Oracle Project Intelligence provide; management reports, metrics, and analytics for many aspects of your projects: opportunity management, financial management, resource management, and delivery management. The reports are also available as portlets, which allow role-based access within a portal framework.

            Human Resources
            Oracle HRMS Applications delivers a suite of pre-defined business intelligence reports, metrics, and analytics leveraging our single global architecture for improved global intelligence. We have over 170 reports and Discoverer worksheets on the operational real-time database which itself includes summarized data dimensions to support embedded analyses. These enable the user to understand workforce trends and spot potential problems or correlators and take action on a daily basis. Changes to every aspect of worker information, from deployment to compensation and utilization are managed on a daily basis to enable the user to spot issues as they occur. Much of this is automated through the Performance Management Framework (see discussion on Daily Business Intelligence following) that allows the customer to take a structured approach to defining automated, pro-active notifications based on tolerances and exceptions. News and warnings covering recruitment, workforce analysis, learning and compensation are pushed to the appropriate users through our roles-based portal.

            We also deliver a number of predefined reports and on-line summaries designed to assist complex or high volume processes, such as legislative compliance, such as focal compensation reviews, global headcount analysis, data privacy, payroll operations, sifting and prioritizing of recruitment applicants. We are able to provide real-time advisory content with information directly relevant to a process, through partnerships with a number of collaborative content providers.

            We are currently working on a number of portlets that allow roles based reports to be staged within the portal framework on a region of a web page with predefined metrics running automatically when the page is accessed. The portlets foe as on line manager information, such as headcount and salary trends, turnover analysis and salary totals. We are also working with partners to deliver industry benchmark statistics for comparison with the customer's internal metrics.

         6. Integrated Business Intelligence/Daily Business Intelligence
            Oracle E-Business Suite provides state of the art transaction management systems as well as integrated management reporting for each department of your business, enabling managers to measure and monitor performance daily, instead of monthly or quarterly as most do today. Oracle Portal is a primary tool used to assemble pages that provide each user a set of focused web pages providing access to all information and functions they need to do their jobs.

            In additional, Oracle E-Business Suite includes Strategic Enterprise Management and Analytical Applications to help companies make better strategic decisions, and to better execute their strategy.

         • Oracle Balanced Scorecard provides tools to formalize and broadly communicate performance targets and results for the key performance indicators (KPIs) that correspond to company strategy.
         • Oracle Activity Based Management and Performance Analyzer provide advanced tools to better understand profitability of products and customers.
         • Oracle Financial Analyzer and Sales Analyzer through advanced multidimensional analysis provides the capabilities to navigate easily through large amounts of data, identify trends, evaluate risks and formulate future plans and budgets
      2. What are Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications? What modules are included in Release 11i?
         1. Oracle's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications help manage all aspects of customer relations, from marketing to sales to service. Oracle's CRM applications provide an enterprise wide view of all customer interactions, whether these occur through direct sales contact, customer access over the Web, a call center, or indirectly through partner channels.

            Managing customer relationships is about more than simply streamlining a sales force. It's also about putting the strength and skills of an entire organization behind every customer interaction--from the first time a customer sees your product to when a customer service representative is able to accurately identify a customer and view customer history. Oracle CRM helps companies understand, anticipate, and respond to customer needs. We distinguish ourselves from our competitors by offering customer intelligence (analytics), single customer views, and a solution that is fully available over the Internet Oracle Customer Relationship Management applications deliver a complete lifecycle view of the customer including all customer interactions to help you attract and retain customers and increase your market profitably.

            • Keep Customers: Improve customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention by targeting the right customer with the right campaign
            • Save Money: Improve operational efficiencies in marketing, sales, and service organizations
            • Stop Lost Revenue: Manage customers' profitability with intelligent information for better business decisions.

            CRM 11i includes the following modules (please see OracleStore for product descriptions and pricing):
            Marketing: Marketing Online (including Marketing Intelligence, Content Management Trade Management and Partner Relationship Management.
            Sales: iStore, iPayment, TeleSales, Sales Online, Sales Offline, Sales Intelligence, and Incentive Compensation
            Service: iSupport, Teleservice, Service Online (including Support, Customer Care), Depot Repair, Spares Management, Advanced Scheduler, Mobile Field Service, Contracts, and Customer Intelligence
            Contracts: Contracts Core, Contracts for Sales, Contracts for Service, Contracts for Rights, and Contracts Intelligence (Project Contracts is also built upon the Contracts Core application, however, it is part of the back office Projects family).

         Interaction Center: Advanced Inbound (including Connectors), Advanced Outbound (including Interaction Blending, Connectors),. Scripting,. eMail Center, and Call Center Intelligence
         E-Commerce: iStore,) iPayment, Quoting, Configurator

          

          

         7. Can Oracle E-Business Suite applications be integrated with other vendors' applications?
         1. Yes. The E-Business Suite enables integration of strategic solutions such as Procurement and CRM with customers' existing ERP applications. Integration is achieved with flexible technology options ranging from simple batch interface tables to XML and SOAP transactions, supporting comprehensive business flows. Oracle Workflow and the XML Gateway are key technologies in the E-Business Suite employed to provide pre-configured business process integration with other applications, as well as enabling B2B collaboration. Combined with the data transformation and propagation features of Oracle 9iAS Interconnect, these business process flows can be integrated directly to other vendors' applications within the enterprise, as well as with trading partners over the Internet.
         8. What is Desktop Integration? What Desktop Integration products are available and scheduled?
         1. Desktop Integration is the process of bringing data from a desktop application together with that of another program. It can be easily described as the convergence of Oracle's web applications with desktop applications, such as Excel.

            Many customers have discovered the benefits of using a simple spreadsheet application to harness the power, speed and business rules inherent in Oracle Applications. With Application Desktop Integrator (ADI), Oracle's spreadsheet-based extension to Oracle Financials, you can create budgets, record journal transactions, define financial report;, create assets, reconcile physical inventory and even perform account drill down and analysis - all without leaving the desktop.

            ADI 7.0 is the 11i compliant version of the product. Enhancements in ADI 7.0 include improved subledger drilldown. You can use the Analysis Wizard to drill from a financial report to transaction-level detail for the following Oracle subledger applications:

            • Oracle Receivables
            • Payables
            • Assets
            • Projects
            • Purchasing
            • Inventory
            • Work in Process (WIP).

            ADI 7.0 also introduces the ability to publish Report and Request Sets using the ADI Request Center. This allows you to publish multiple reports and programs in a single batch, reducing manual intervention.

            ADI 7.0 and higher are compatible with Release 10.7, 11. and 11i.

            ADI runs on Windows 95, NT, 98, 2000, and can be deployed centrally via Windows Terminal Server and Citrix. ADI supports Excel 7.0 (Microsoft Office 95), and 8.0 (Microsoft Office 97), and Excel 2000. Complete requirements are listed in the ADI Installation Guide (part # A85328).

            Report Manager enables e-reporting by replacing paper reports with self-service reports accessible via a web browser. Report Manager provides immediate access to all Financial (FSG), Standard, Variable Format and third party reports.

            Accessible through a secured web portal, Report Manager provides a central, secured self-service report repository that delivers information to thousands of subscribers simultaneously.

          

         9. This revolutionary report distribution paradigm cuts costs by eliminating the need to ship paper reports, allowing people in your organization to make smarter business decisions through easier, more timely information access.

            The next generation of desktop integration is the Oracle Web Application Desktop Integrator (Web ADI) utilizing Oracle's industry leading Internet platform. Using the Internet Computing Architecture (ICA). Web ADI greatly reduces the total cost of ownership for customers through reduced complexity, and by eliminating the need to install on client machines. One installation of Web ADI on the middle tier for every client to share over the web eliminates the headache of maintaining separate installations for each client. Upload performance is greatly improved because ICA lessens the number of network round trips between client and server. In addition, this new architecture lends itself to future application integration, customization, scalability, and portability.

            The first release of Web ADI includes the Journals solution. Web ADI's Journal Solution lets you design and automatically generate spreadsheet-based journal entry worksheets that utilize powerful spreadsheet data entry techniques. With these worksheets, you can quickly and accurately enter data using all the functionalities of the spreadsheet program and upload them to Oracles General Ledger.

            Web ADI combines the familiarity and comfort of desktop applications with the power of Oracle's E-Business Suite to provide true desktop integration. The Web ADI platform is easy to deploy and because it's Internet-based, it has a low cost of ownership. It is built to be robust and flexible, which allows the ease for potential integration with other CRM, ERP and Business-to-Business applications.

            Web ADI runs on Internet Explored 5.0 and higher and supports Excel 97 and Excel 2000.

             

         10. Does Oracle provide wireless/mobile E-Business Suite applications?
         1. Oracle has extended the functionality of many of the core applications in the Oracle E-Business Suite to make them available from mobile devices. These new mobile applications are simply an extension to the existing desktop applications of the Oracle E-Business Suite, providing customers with the ability to access business critical enterprise applications from any device, thus dramatically improving employee productivity, customer satisfaction, and relationships with partners and suppliers.

            Applications of the Oracle E-Business Suite that are available today for mobile access include:
            CRM:

            • Mobile Field Service
            • Mobile Customer Intelligence
            Financials:
            • Mobile Expenses
            • Mobile Property Manager Contact Directory
            Manufacturing:
            • Mobile Supply Chain Applications
            • Warehouse Management System
            General:
            • Mobile Customer Directory (TCA)

            In addition. Oracle has announced that the following applications are expected to be mobile-enabled in 2002: Pharmaceuticals, Time Entry, Asset Management, additional Human Resources, and Internet Receivables. In addition, Oracle Healthcare is currently reviewing appropriate applications currently under development that will be mobile-enabled.

            Availability
            Existing Oracle E-Business Suite customers can enhance their application by downloading the additional mobile functionality that complements their desktop application from MetaLink, Oracle's online service

          

         10. for customers. New Oracle E-Business Suite customers will receive the mobile functionality as part of their purchase.

              

         11. What does Oracle offer small business customers?
         1. Oracle offers the Oracle Small Business Suite, a completely integrated and easy-to-use application to handle all the business processes of a small business. Oracle's Small Business Suite offers accounting, bill payment, payroll, sales and service, time and expense reporting applications over the Internet as an online service. The Oracle Small Business Suite eliminates redundant processes and increases productivity by taking common information and applying it across business functions. A recent study conducted with 71 customers revealed an average savings of 75% in less than one month.

            With the Oracle Small Business Suite, you will:

            • Save time and money by simplifying business processes
            • Make your business more efficient with self-service capabilities
            • Instantly access information from multiple locations
            • For $99 a month, it is the best business decision for small to medium size companies.
         11. What is Oracle AppsNet?
         1. Oracle AppsNet is an online applications community for customers and partners. This website provides members with a collaborative forum to share their applications knowledge and experience. In addition to obtaining the latest product and industry information for Oracle's E-Business Suite. AppsNet members can also find the latest 11i Upgrade information in the completely updated section complete with videos about why to upgrade and seminars on how to upgrade along with presentations and white papers. In recent months, many exciting new features have been added to the website. We have more than 130 iSeminars available for viewing at your convenience. In addition to our applications technology section, we have a section devoted to small business integration technologies, a section for Shared Services, and a section for Mobile-enabled applications. We have also added products demos to the site. You can access this collaborative information exchange by registering at the AppsNet Web site at http://appsnet.oracle.com.
         12. Where can we get a list of Release 11i enhancements (all in one place, not from individual Q&A sessions)?
         1. The Release 11i Product Announcements provide a description of what's new in Release 11i for each product. In addition, we have put together Product Announcements for each product family for each of the point releases. These are available on the Oracle AppsNet website at http://appsnet.oracle.com.
         13. What is "Daily Business Intelligence"? Why is it a revolutionary breakthrough for Management Reporting?
         1. Daily Business Intelligence refers to the Oracle E-Business Suite capability to measure and monitor the performance of your business daily instead of monthly or quarterly like most do companies today - and at dramatically lower cost than the current solutions.

            Although some companies today get daily reports for selected areas of the business for selected users, they do so at extraordinary cost and complexity. They implement separate decision support and data warehousing systems and employ large teams of business analysts to prepare and reconcile reports. These separate systems are costly to implement but also lead to information latency, duplication, and fragmentation - making it difficult to reconcile. More business analysts then determine why the same information from different systems is not quite the same.

            To dramatically lower costs and improve your information. Oracle E-Business Suite combines tranasaction management and Daily Business Intelligence reporting into a single system based on a single database.

            This revolutionary breakthrough is made possible by the integration of three Oracle product lines:

            1. Oracle E-Business Suite 11i - Complete, integrated transaction management
            In order to provide complete management information and to compare information across functional boundaries - such as ability to relate sales growth rates to turnover rates in sales groups - the transaction system must be complete so that it captures the information required to provide Daily Business Intelligence reports.

            Oracle E-Business Suite is the first business transaction management system with nearly complete coverage across CRM. Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Projects, Product Development, Financials, and Human Resources.

            2. Oracle 9iAS -Embedded OLAP, Data Warehousing, and Decision Support Reporting Technologies
            Oracle has worked over the past 5 years to embed and include advanced management reporting and presentation technologies into E-Business Suite, so that Daily Business Intelligence portal pages and web-based reports can be included.

            3. Oracle 9iR2 - Database Real Application Clusters (RAQ and Embedded OLAP Services
            Oracle 9iR2 includes key features that make it possible for the first time in history to manage transactions, data summarization and transformation, and management reporting all from a single database.

            Real Application Clusters (RAC) allows the database to effectively use multiple computers to manage a single database providing more computing power behind a single database than ever before.

            Materialize Views allow automatic summarization and transformation of transactional data into meaningful information - all in a single database and with minimal engineering and operational cost.

            Embedded OLAP Services allow advanced multidimensional reporting directly from the database, without requiring separate OLAP and Decision Support systems.

            The convergence and application (of these technologies makes the Daily Business Intelligence possible.

         14. How do I purchase "Daily Business Intelligence"? Is it a separately priced product?
         1. No. Oracle Daily Business Intelligence is not a separate product. It refers to management reporting capabilities that are delivered through the following Oracle Business Intelligence products:

         Oracle's Business Intelligence products bring together all of the applications, tools, and technology required to improve decision-making across the extended enterprise and deliver Daily Business Intelligence. By providing fast access to corporate data and applications to track and analyze that data. Oracle Business Intelligence enables decision makers to reach decisions based on facts, objectives and operating exceptions. The business intelligence products include specific applications to support every decision-making role, including corporate strategists, business analysts, and Line of Business decision makers. Oracle's Business Intelligence solution is built upon Oracle's rich data layer, which includes operational data, materialized views and embedded data warehouse that runs within the Oracle E-Business Suite of applications. It includes a family of business intelligence modules to support every management area within the business (Business Intelligence products), analytical applications to support in depth analysis by business analysts (Strategic Enterprise Management applications) and a suite of strategic applications for executive decision-makers (Analytical applications). Sharing a common foundation, these applications enable companies to deliver business insight throughout the enterprise, discover opportunities and understand risks, and align operations with corporate goals and objectives.

         Daily Business Intelligence contains the following Key Features:

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         15. • Financials Intelligence
             • Projects Intelligence
             • Manufacturing Intelligence
             • Purchasing Intelligence
             • Human Resources Intelligence
             • Supply Chain Intelligence
             • Marketing Intelligence
             • Sales Intelligence
             • Service Intelligence
             • Interaction Center Intelligence
             • Customer Intelligence
             • Portal Homepage: The Oracle Portal home page that each user gets after logging in to E-Business Suite. The portal homepage enables each user to create a customized environment for integrating and viewing information from many E-Business Suite pages, other web site sites and systems, and navigational links to other E-Business Suite pages, all on one home page.
             • Key Performance Indicators provide managers with pre-configured performance metrics across all business management areas. Daily Business Intelligence pages begin with a list of KPI's showing a performance snapshot for that area.
             • Performance Management Framework (PMF) provides Alerts and Workflows to notify managers when performance levels fall outside performance objectives set by management. PMF includes a repository for performance objectives so that managers can assign a target value for each performance measure. Different objectives can be set for each organization level in the company. For instance, profitability target ranges can have high and low values set at department, company and industry levels. Workflow sends messages and reports to responsible managers when actual performance measures falls outside performance objectives. Workflow supports continuous improvement of business processes by providing a mechanism for setting future improvement targets and taking immediate corrective actions.
             • Pre-built Web Pages and Discoverer Workbooks are provided for all business areas so that users can get started with Daily Business Intelligence reporting as soon as the Oracle E-Business Suite modules are installed. These modules have easy to use graphs and charts for fast analysis. Users can perform predefined drill down analysis of performance measures to view information at many levels. Each report has links to related reports for further analysis on a particular subject.

              

              

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             Applications Technology

             15. • Oracle Applications Business Views and BIS End User Layer (EUL) enable sophisticated users to create and modify Intelligence Reports and Analysis Workbooks for powerful management information reporting. Oracle E-Business Suite includes over 600 Business Views that let you view Oracle Applications data as real world business objects. The EUL groups these business objects into logical business areas, such as "Order Management" enabling power users to access and build their own workbooks for ad hoc reporting.
                 • Business Views Catalog enables business analysts and power users to do simple queries for information in Oracle Application Business Views and BIS End User Layer. This search engine helps you locate a business view containing information that matches your search criteria.
             16. What is Oracle Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM)?
                 1. A key strategic objective of any company is to increase shareholder value. Oracle Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM) applications facilitate this objective. SEM is a suite of analytic applications that support the implementation of strategic management techniques such as activity based costing and management and balanced scorecard. By leveraging these techniques, executives can coordinate strategic planning, measure progress against the plan, identify and recommend improvement opportunities, and compensate based on performance.

                    SEM is an enterprise-wide solution, and a complementary addition to the Oracle E-Business Suite systems. Oracle will leverage its relationships with management consulting and system integrator partners to help deliver SEM products and services.

                    The SEM components include:

                    • Activity Based Management
                    • Balanced Scorecard
                    • Activity Based Management (ABM) uses Activity Based Costing (ABC) information in the management process. Activity Based Costing (ABC) is a methodology that measures the cost and performance of activities, resources, and cost objects, resources are assigned to activities, and activities are assigned to cost objects based on their use. ABC is a methodology for determining product, customer and channel profitability. Within ABM. ABC data is used as a source of key performance indicators of organizational effectiveness and provides the foundation for activity based budgeting and process improvement.
                    • Balanced Scorecard (BSC) provides senior executives with a comprehensive framework that translates a company's vision and strategy into a balanced set of internal and external performance measures. It enables senior executives to articulate the enterprise's strategic goals, communicate these goals to the organization, and help align individual, and cross-departmental initiatives. BSC uses a series of cause and effect relationships of key performance indicators derived during the strategic planning process to facilitate business management.
                 16. What are the Analytical applications? Are they bundled or separately priced applications?
                 1. Oracle provides five analytical applications: Financial Analyzer, Sales Analyzer, Demand Planning, Activity Based Management and Performance Analyzer. Financial Analyzer and Sales Analyzer work with Oracle's business intelligence solutions to provide business analysts with a full suite of analytical functions including budgeting, forecasting, modeling, what-if, and exception reporting. Financial Analyzer is a complete application for financial reporting, anlaysis and planning and budgeting. Financial Analyzer enables organizations to make, manage and measure decisions across the enterprise. Executives, line of business managers, and business analyst use the Financial Analyzer to develop and analyze performance metrics, evaluate risks and formulate future direction. On the other hand, decision makers uses Sales Analyzer built-in sales and marketing intelligence, a central, integrated information source and powerful, Internet-based analytical capabilities to identify new opportunities, measure promotional effectiveness, track product sales, and forecast future results. These two applications enable

                  

                 17. business analysts to navigate easily through large amounts of data, to identify trends, evaluate risks and make new plans or recommendations. Financial Analyzer and Sales Analyzer are licensed as a bundle.

                     Demand Planning is part of Oracle's Advanced Planning products. Demand Planning is used to collect and aggregate product forecasts to create a total demand forecast. Users can generate a forecast using a wide variety of techniques or ask the system to generate a forecast based on a best-fit analysis of historical data. Forecasts can be entered at any level of a hierarchy and the results spread across the remainder using weighted factors or past history. Users can adjust the forecast that the application generates online. This application can also analyze the accuracy of previous forecasts and apply that information to improve the forecast accuracy. Also, product life cycle related issues like new product introductions and phase-outs, as well as events and promotions are supported. Demand Planning is a separately licensed product.

                     Activity-Based Management is an enterprise application that provides accurate cost information to managers. Managers use Oracle Activity-Based Management to improve profitability and examine resource allocations. Oracle Activity-Based Management goes beyond traditional cost allocation, and allows companies to model the complexity of costs based on activities, materials, resources, and product or service components. Oracle Activity-Based Management is used across many industries including manufacturers, service providers, retailers and government agencies. Oracle Activity-Based Management is part of the Oracle E-Business Suite, an integrated set of applications designed to transform your business to an e-business.

                     Performance Analyzer links ledger statistical, account, and transaction level data to develop comprehensive profitability information at the customer, product, and business-unit levels. Oracle Performance Analyzer supports multiple approaches to the development of profitability measures (such as net interest income, risk-adjusted capital, and loan loss reserves) and production measures (such as RAROC, EVA, ROE, and activity-based costing). Oracle Performance Analyzer gives you the ability to develop and apply these measures it an aggregated (that is, organization) or detail (that is, account transaction) level. Along with other vital analytical applications, Oracle Performance Analyzer is an integral part of the Oracle Financial Services Applications (OFSA) suite.

                      

                 18. What is "EDW" and how does it relate to "Daily Business Intelligence"?
                 1. EDW means "Embedded Data Warehouse".

                    Daily Business Intelligence is a pre-built reporting solution embedded in Oracle E-Business Suite and tightly integrated with the transaction applications while EDW is an extensible platform for custom reporting/analysis, and data warehousing.

                    EDW refers to a specific set of multidimensional data cubes (fact tables), summaries, and corresponding Discoverer workbooks and intelligence reports that use Oracle Warehouse Builder as its foundation. EDW is intended to provide an extensible platform for customized, multidimensional or OLAP reporting and analysis.

                    EDW is an ideal foundation for data warehousing projects since it is based on Oracle Warehouse Builder, allowing customers or consultants to easily extend the EDW schema and also consolidate data from disparate data sources.

                    EDW uses a modern data warehouse architecture that imports all data through interface tables and revalidates and reassigns all foreign keys in the process. As such, EDW can run in a separate database from the transaction systems from which it collects data.

                    Daily Business Intelligence on the other hand is an embedded, pre-built management reporting solution for Oracle E-Business Suite and is designed to dramatically drive down business intelligence implementation costs. Daily Business Intelligence makes extensive use of Oracle 9iR2 materials view technology so for the first lime, performance summaries can be maintained on a daily basis in same database as the transaction system, eliminating the need to move volumes of transaction details to a data

                  

                 18. warehouse. As such, Daily- Business Intelligence is designed for implementation in the same database as the E-Business Suite transaction systems.

                     Most customers have traditionally filled in the gaps in pre-built reporting solutions through data warehousing and custom reporting projects. As such, EDW is a very important and strategic platform for such projects, driving down costs by providing a pre-integrated set of tools and some pre-built collection programs and Discoverer Workbooks.

                     Over time, Daily Business Intelligence will provide many more pre-built management and analysis reports, requiring customers to build fewer reports themselves further driving down Business Intelligence implementation costs.

                     Both Daily Business Intelligence and EDW functional content is licensed through the Intelligence products. Neither are packed as separate products. Licenses to the Intelligence products provide license to both the Daily Business Intelligence and EDW modules.

                      

                 19. How do new Daily Business Intelligence features compare to the EDW features described above?
                 1. With Daily Business Intelligence introduction, Oracle has again improved its standards and architecture for Business Intelligence - leading to better information, better user interface, and faster, lower cost implementations.

                    By taking full advantage of new Oracle 9iR2 database features such as data warehousing and OLAP services, materialized views, and Real Application Clusters". Oracle is now able to completely integrate business intelligence reporting and analysis with transactional applications.

                    This represents a breakthrough in business applications where one seamless, integrated system can provide users all the tools they need to manage their business - dramatically reducing cost and complexity.

                 19. Will Oracle continue to support EDW?
                 1. Yes.
             
             
             17. Technology Stack
                 20. Are technology stack changes included in mini-packs or maintenance packs?
                 1. Mini-packs and maintenance packs are applied to an existing R11i installation. They contain updates to the Applications code, but not to the technology stack. In general, Applications code with dependencies on new technologies is kept separate from Applications mini-packs and maintenance packs so that customers taking updated Applications code for maintenance are not required to consume the new technologies.

                    By upgrading to the latest technology stack and applying the associated Applications interoperability patches, customers can take advantage of additional features not included in the maintenance pack, such as Enterprise-Wide Single Sign-On, Oracle Portal, or LDAP integration.

                    We occasionally find that a technology has been certified for long enough that most customers have already taken it, and dependencies on it are widespread. In those cases, exceptions are made to include the Applications code with technology dependencies in a standard mini-pack or maintenance pack, and to treat the installation of the technology as a prerequisite to applying the Applications patch.

                    E-Business Suite Outsourcing customers never need to be concerned with updating their application code. E-Business Suite Outsourcing provides problem and change management of the E-Business Suite as part of the complete service.

                 21. Are technology stack changes included in the Rapid Install?
                 1. Each version of Rapid Install includes currently certified technologies along with Applications code from the currently available maintenance pack.

                    For example, customers who start with the 11i8 Rapid Install have both the latest Applications code and the latest technology stack components. Their configuration will be different from the configuration of customers who apply the 11i8 maintenance pack without upgrading their technology stack. Of course, customers who apply the 11i8 maintenance pack have the option of upgrading to the latest technology components and applying the associated interoperability patches following instructions that are provided on Oracle Metalink.

                    E-Business Suite Outsourcing customers never need to be concerned with updating their technology stack. E-Business Suite Outsourcing provides problem and change management of the E-Business Suite as part of the complete service.

                 22. Can customers update the technology stack without applying the current maintenance pack or Rapid Install?
                 1. Yes. For example, it is possible to upgrade to the technology stack components included in the 11i8 Rapid Install without taking the Applications code included in the 11i8 maintenance pack.
                 23. Is Oracle doing anything to further improve the manageability of Oracle Applications systems?
                 1. Oracle is continually working to make its E-Business Suite easier to manage. Oracle's efforts to improve the manageability of the E-Business Suite fall into three categories:

                    A) Enhancing the E-Business Suite technology: Technology enhancements can lead to dramatic improvements in manageability. Recent examples include the new Service Management capabilities built into Release 11i. Now application tier services can take advantage of the same fault tolerance and process distribution features that were formerly available only to Concurrent Processing. Additionally, Services such as Forms Listeners, HTTP Listeners, and Concurrent Managers can now be monitored and controlled from a single console.

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                 1. B) Providing powerful system management tools: Oracle is constantly evolving its integrated suite of management tools to improve the daily effectiveness of both novice and expert database and system administrators. The introduction of Oracle Applications Manager 11i represents a significant step forward for E-Business Suite system management. Oracle Applications Manager provides administrators with an HTML console from which they can manage services, manage Oracle Workflow, examine system configuration, review applied patches, measure system usage, and much, much more. Oracle Applications Manager can stand-alone or be integrated with the Oracle Enterprise Manager to provide a comprehensive solution for managing the entire Oracle environment.

                    Oracle has projects underway that will allow a customer to determine the impact that a patch will have on the system, prior to actually applying the patch. In addition, the patch prerequisite feature enables Oracle developers to identify dependencies to be automatically checked on the customer system, allowing smaller patches to be developed, and ensuring that all necessary dependencies are present before a patch is applied.

                    C) E-Business Suite Outsourcing is the third and most effective method for improving the management of Oracle E-Business Suite applications. In particular Oracle Outsourcing provides world-class availability, security, performance, and problem and change management with predictable costs.

                 24. Does Oracle plan to support organizations implementing the 'one login/password for all systems' approach?
                 1. Release 11i supports a single sign-on service using LDAP. This is implemented as part of the Portal product and requires 9iAS VI.0.2.2.

                 Global Single Database

                 25. What is Oracle's Global Single Database strategy?
                 1. Oracle recommends that you run the E-Business Suite in as highly consolidated a deployment as possible, ideally in a Global Single Database. Oracle's single, complete data model supports a single definition of products, customers, suppliers, partners, and all other business entities, so that you can automate a full range of business processes in a single installation of the E-Business Suite.
                 26. What are the benefits of Oracle's Global Single Database?
                 1. The benefits of Oracle's Global Single Database are:

                    Better information
                    Because we have a single, complete data model, all global information can reside in a single database, a single source of truth within your enterprise that crosses every functional department and geography.

                    More Complete Automation
                    With all global information in a single database, Oracle E-Business Suite can automate everything you need to automate. Since any application can make efficient SQL access to any data. E-Business Suite can support integrated flows spanning functional areas.

                    Lower Cost
                    Consolidating all your data onto a global single instance means fewer data centers, fewer computers, and fewer administrators -- all of which leads to lower IT costs.

                 27. How does Oracle's Global Single Database strategy differ from competing approaches?
                 1. Some suite vendors are recommending that data be partitioned across separate functionally-specialized databases and a data warehouse, with messaging and replication used to loosely couple those instances.
                 28. What's wrong with functionally partitioning data across multiple databases?
                 1. Functional partitioning causes the following problems:

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                 29. Fragments data for business intelligence
                     The resulting data fragmentation limits your ability to get good business intelligence. If you want to consolidate or summarize data, you must select data from different databases and move it to your data warehouse.

                     Limits transactions that can span functional areas
                     Data fragmentation complicates the flow of transactions across different functional areas. You must resolve the complex issues involved in moving a transaction across instance boundaries from one functionally specialized system to another, each with its own data model. For example, consider the boundaries that must be crossed by a flow that includes getting a lead, issuing a quote, taking an order, executing a contract, billing, and accounting for payment received.

                     Depends on synchronizing multiple copies of data
                     Functional partitioning relies on synchronizing copies of data across multiple different systems. This is inherently more complex than consolidating all data onto a single system. When data is de-normalized across two or more databases, then s a good chance it is wrong in at least one of those databases. With multiple databases, and multiple messages in transit between them, it would be extremely difficult to attempt a point-in-time recovery of the entire system. By contrast, in a single Oracle database point-in-time recovery is possible with standard database features.

                      

                 30. Can Oracle E-Business Suite support all languages and localizations in a single database?
                 1. Oracle supports 30 languages, all currencies, and many regulatory requirements in a single database. All 30 are installable in the same Unicode instance. Trading partners receive business documents in their language of choice, and users view and enter dates, numbers, and currencies in their format of choice.

                    There is no separate U.S., Japanese, or French software version of the E-Business Suite. Support for local business practices, address formats, date formats, and reports is all part of the standard product.

                 30. Is it risky to consolidate all your e-business information into a Global Single Database?
                 1. IT people sometimes express concerns about putting all their eggs in one basket. They hope that by spreading business operations across multiple instances, they can ensure extreme scalability, high availability in case of server failure, and high availability in case of data center disaster. In fact, Oracle can satisfy all these goals with Oracle Real Application Clusters.

                    With Real Application Clusters, multiple instances of the Oracle database program, each running on a separate node in a cluster, access single set of database files stored on a shared disk array. The servers and disk array are connected by a fiber channel or shared SCSI. Users can connect to any node in the cluster to access database services.

                 31. How does Oracle achieve the extreme scalability needed to support a global enterprise on a single database?
                 1. Oracle addresses the extreme scalability requirement with Real Application Clusters. Based on Oracle's Cache Fusion architecture. Real Application Clusters provide transparent application scalability by quickly and efficiently sharing frequently accessed data across all the servers in a cluster, resolving any contention between servers in the process. With the Cache Fusion architecture, read requests may be served by any of the memory caches in the cluster of servers. In cases where data is being updated, coordination between the caches of each server becomes necessary so that both the data being read and the data being updated are consistent and correct.

                    When a query request is served by a remote cache, a block is transferred across the high speed cluster interconnect from one server's cache to another. This "fusing of caches" happens automatically and is transparent to the application. This transparency is key to the fast, efficient scaling of Real Application Clusters.

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                 32. Oracle's benchmark tests have demonstrated the near-linear scalability of the Real Application Clusters architecture. If you have one server that supports a 500-user load and you deploy a second server, you can support about 900 users, for 90 percent scalability across the two servers.

                     The Real Application Clusters architecture gives you a new way to think about your computing resources. Traditionally, you've thought of locally attached disk as peripheral to your database server. With Real Application Clusters, you can think of a centralized storage array with data as being supported by as many servers as are needed to do database processing. The database servers are peripheral to the key resource, which is the data consolidated in ire single database.

                     Another way to improve the ability to scale your business needs is by outsourcing the management and administration of Oracle software to Oracle.

                      

                 33. How does Oracle protect against server failure?
                 1. It may be tempting to think that by spreading your business operations across multiple, functionally-specialized databases, you are insuring yourself against a single point of failure. But even if your system is functionally partitioned across multiple databases, you can't afford for any individual database to fail. You would need to implement a high availability solution to guard against server failure for each database, which would require more work, resources, and complexity than implementing it for a single integrated database.

                    The Oracle technology stack underlying the E-Business Suite is designed to protect you from a single point of failure. You can run the E-Business Suite on Real Application Clusters, with either an Active-Active or and Active-Passive node configuration. With Oracle Fail Safe, a failure of your primary node automatically shifts your operations to a secondary node. Oracle Fail Safe also enables flexible fail back after the primary node is returned to service.

                    You can also have a multi-node cluster, where surviving nodes take over when there is a loss of Service on any other node. Users are automatically switched from a failed node to an operating node.

                 33. What about data center disaster?
                 1. Protecting against the possibility of data center disaster is prominent in the minds of IT directors. In fact, protecting against data center disaster is something you need to do regardless of whether you deploy on a single global database or across multiple, functionally-partitioned databases.

                    You can choose to do this yourself or engage Oracle Outsourcing today to provide world class disaster recovery Services - not only to insure the integrity of the data, but the application as well.

                    In the event of data center disaster, Oracle's Data Guard feature allows your primary production database to switch over to a remote standby database. Using Data Guard, your production database sends redo log information to a remote location at prescribed intervals (which could be minutes or hours, depending on your configuration.) With 9i, the redo log information is converted into SQL statements that are applied to your standby database. The standby database is always up, available as a hot standby or even for ongoing query activity.

                 34. What about patching down time?
                 1. There are only a few windows of opportunity (perhaps a few hours on the weekend) during which users around the world are simultaneously inactive. Enterprises deployed on single, global instance cannot afford to lave their entire business off-line for extended periods of time for patching upgrades.

                    Oracle recognizes the requirement to perform maintenance in short time windows, and has made many technical improvements to vastly reduce maintenance times. More improvements are expected.

                    For more information, refer to the E-Business Suite Maintenance section in this Q & A document.

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                 35. What about selective updates?
                 1. Oracle recognizes that customers do not want to upgrade all functional areas at once, which requires different functional groups to synchronize when they upgrade. As a result, Oracle E-Business Suite allows customers to perform upgrades at whatever granularity they prefer. Oracle offers mini-packs that apply to one functional area, and family packs that apply to one product family. Mini-packs and family packs are certified to work with previous maintenance levels of E-Business Suite, so customers can be sure that they are taking a configuration that was tested and certified by Oracle.

                    For Oracle's E-Business Suite Outsourcing customers, all upgrade are completed every 6 to 8 months.

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                 Upgrade Process

                 36. Why should I upgrade to Release 11i?
                 1. Oracle E-Business Suite 11i provides new capabilities and significant technology improvements that complement your existing Oracle Applications. These (unreadable) real-time visibility control into your enterprise and unparalleled of your operations, workforce, and key business processes, while towering your business costs and increasing efficiencies. For example, Health Alliance saved over US $5.4 million by improving their supply chain and using Oracles Internet-based procurement system. ViewSonic is saving more than US $2.5 million per year by consolidating to a single global instance.

                    Maintaining customizations is a very expensive and time-consuming process. Staff Leasing Inc. estimates that, before upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 11i, 50% of its IT budget was spent maintaining customizations. Now, you can eliminate the need for many, if not all, of your customizations--and save time and money--with the expanded functionality, standard business processes, embedded workflows, and 100+ new applications modules of E-Business Suite 11i. Many Oracle customers are already decreasing upgrade and ongoing maintenance costs by leveraging the new functionality and standard processes in 11i to reduce customizations. For example, ViewSonic upgraded from 10.7 to 11i and went from 500 to just 12 customizations.

                    Oracle E-Business Suite 11i is engineered to work together as an integrated system on a common IT infrastructure. Oracle applications share the same data and work seamlessly together--completely eliminating the need for integration. Upgrading to 11i also offers you scalability and agility-as your needs change: simply plug in a new Oracle application. In addition. Oracle's open, standards-based architecture allows you to easily integrate into a heterogeneous environment, so you can fully leverage the investment in your existing applications. With Oracle E-Business Suite 11i, you can allocate resources to spend more time on strategic projects and less time on application integration.

                    To compete in today's economy, you must streamline your operational processes to run effectively and efficiently. Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 11i helps by automating business processes from end to end, for both your front and back office. With Oracle's extensive industry and implementation experience, you'll get complete, integrated processes based on leading business practices. You'll be able to identify problem areas across your organization and define opportunities for growth and cost savings.

                    When you maintain information in multiple silos, no one in your organization has a complete, real-time view of your data. But Oracle E-Business Suite 11i uses a single definition for all your data records, including customers, suppliers, employees, and products, so you get accurate and consistent information for all your applications. Everyone in your organization, from executives to line-of-business managers, can access enterprise-wide data via a personalized portal. With better information, you can make more informed decisions and drive profitability daily-not just once a month or once a quarter.

                    Data fragmentation makes it difficult and costly to access timely, accurate information for critical decision-making. Only with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i can you take advantage of a single, global instance to provide the most comprehensive information at the lowest possible cost. You can incorporate country-based localizations, industry-based features, multiple languages, and an international Unicode character set - all into the same instance - letting you run your global operations from anywhere in the world. With 11i you can have fewer, scalable data centers, and a centrally located IT staff. Thus, in

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                 37. addition 10 reduced operating costs, you can eliminate costs associated with duplicate data centers, extensive hardware, and multiple databases.

                     Further, with consolidation, you can centralize enterprise-wide processes into shared service centers to increase operational efficiencies and decrease costs. By consolidating processes you can implement, policies, ensure accuracy, and increase agility for more effective control of organizational processes.

                      

                 38. How many copies of R11i have shipped? How many customers are live? _[OI]
                 1. As of December 2002, we have over 5000 customers live on Release 11i. 75 percent of our customers are currently working with 11i. This percentage includes those that are implementing, upgrading, and testing in preparation for implementation. Fewer than 20 percent of our customers remain on 10.7 and of these, at least half are working with 11i. You can view information about some of our live customers on Oracle.com at http://www.oracle.com/applications/index.html?upgrade_customers.html.
                 38. What is the current version of Release 11i? When will the next version be available?
                 1. We are currently shipping version Release 11i.8. released in November 2002.
                 39. On what platforms is Release 11i available?
                 1. Release 11i Rapid Install supports the following platforms for use as the database tier, middle tier or both:
                    • AlX-based
                    • HP Tru64 UNIX (formerly Compaq Tru64)
                    • HP 9000 Series HP-UX
                    • Linux Intel
                    • MS Windows NT / 2000
                    • Solaris[TM] Operating Environment

                    For detailed information about which specific platforms are certified with each E-Business Suite release: please refer to Certify via the Oracle MetaLink website (http://metalink.oracle.com/).

                    Release 11i is also available as an Internet hosted release through Oracle Online Services.

                 40. How do I upgrade an existing translated system?
                 1. You follow the normal upgrade process and will apply the language translation at the target release level. Afterward, you can then use License Manager and AutoPatch to license and install any new language translations.
                 41. Is there a minimum prerequisite patch level required to upgrade from 10.7 or 11.0 to 11i?
                 1. There are no pre-requisite 10.7 or 11.0 minimum patch level requirements before upgrading to R11i.
                 42. I am trying to decide whether we should upgrade to R11i or if we should do a re-configuration/re- implementation. What are the factors that we should consider? _[O2]
                 1. While there is no single technical reason for re-configuring rather than upgrading the installation. Oracle recommends an upgrade to R11i. The AutoUpgrade routine is the standard approach to upgrading the Oracle E-Business Suite. However, each upgrade should be treated on its own merits. Where there has been significant business change, it may sometimes be worth considering a re-implementation.

                    Individual customer's requirements vary and must be evaluated prior to embarking on a program of this nature. There is no one solution to fit all scenarios, however, there are common themes that will drive the decision process:

                    • Historical Data
                    • Business Change (i.e. acquisitions, etc.)
                    • Applications Configurations (i.e. Chart of Accounts, Accounting Calendar, etc.)
                    • Module integration
                    • Current and future business drivers

                 CONFIDENTIAL - ORCL-EDOC-00244117

                 In a recent study IDC is quoted "many companies underestimate the costs of managing applications". As you consider upgrading your Oracle applications have you thought about the costs and complexity of availability, security, performance, and problem and change management, and can you perform these disciplines all within a predictable cost structure? Oracle Outsourcing provides a complete outsourcing Service and once you are transitioned to this service, it will be the LAST upgrade you will ever complete!

                  

                  

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                 Globalization

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                 43. • Downtime required to upgrade versus re-implement.
                 44. Where can I find tips on reducing downtime during the upgrade?
                     1. The 11i Upgrade Roadmap on AppsNet is a start-to-finish guideline that discusses upgrade planning, information gathering, upgrade preparation, execution, maintenance and documentation. In addition to defining the overall upgrade process, this site contains links to many documents and white papers with tips on streamlining an 11i upgrade.
                     44. Can I upgrade to Release 11i and Oracle 8i in a phased approach or do I have to upgrade both applications and database simultaneously? Is this the same for Oracle 9i?
                     1. Customers may take a phased approach when upgrading to Release 11i. Customers do this by migrating to Oracle 8i while remaining on Release 10.7 or 11.0. This requires an Oracle8i interoperability patch. Then, they can upgrade to Release 11i when ready.

                        The phased approach is advantageous because it allows you to perform part of the upgrade ahead of time thus saving downtime during the upgrade to 11i. It also gives your technical staff time to become familiar with operating in a split configuration (server partitioned) mode that is required by 11i.

                        Because neither Release 10.7 nor 11.0 are certified with Oracle9i for runtime use, customers cannot take a phased approach to upgrade to Release 11i and reduce downtime in this manner.

                     45. Can I use the file system from a successfully upgraded Test system during the Production upgrade?
                     1. Yes. This enables you to perform the Production upgrade on the same environment used during testing. Details are described in the Upgrading to Release 11i White Paper and Presentation available from AppsNet at http://wvw.oracle.comappsnet/technology/upgrade/planning/index.htm.
                     46. I've followed the Oracle Applications coding standards when customizing forms and reports, do I need to do anything to use these in the new release? _[O3]
                     1. As with any upgrade, you will want to review all customizations and determine if they can be eclipsed with new functionality. Because the database schemas are different in R11i you will want to review all your customizations thoroughly. Some data models have changed more than others, such as the new Order Management that was upgraded from Order Entry, so be prepared to schedule additional time as needed. Customizations will need to be written for Cost-Based Optimization rather than rule-based.

                        If you still need customizations that you made to the Release 10.7 character mode interface, you will need to recode these according to the Oracle Applications Coding Standards for Release 11i. The coding standards are documented in the Oracle Applications Developer's Guide. Release 11i (part no. A75545-02).

                        If you still need customizations that you made to Releases 10.7SC. 10.7NCA. or 11, your custom forms will need to be regenerated to Oracle Forms Developer 6i, though you will want to make the manual layout changes needed (primarily adding tabs) to make your custom forms consistent with the standard look of Release 11i. Be aware that many of the user interface features such as colors and behavior are automatically inherited and do not require additional coding if the original form adhered to Oracle Applications coding standards. For more information, please see the Upgrading Custom Forms to Release 11i information on AppsNet at http://www.oracle.com/appsnet/technology/customization/index.htm.

                        Reports that were developed with SQL*Report Release 1. 2. or 3 cannot be moved directly to the Reports 6i release for recompile. Instead, you must first recompile them with versions 4.0, 4.5, or 5.0. After that

                      

                     47. intermediate conversion, you can then recompile them again on this release. Note: Reports written in RPT will need to be re-written.

                          

                     48. What database and tools versions are used for Release 11i development? _[O4]
                     1. Release 11i takes advantage of features found in Oracle8i, version 8.1.7. The applications run in split configuration ("server partitioned") mode: the code is compiled and linked with Oracle 8.0 on the middle tier, but utilizes the advanced features of the 8.1.7 server version. On the middle tier Release 11i uses Oracle Developer 6i and Oracle HTTP server powered by Apache. Release 11i can also be run with Oracle9i server versions.
                     48. Does Release 11i take advantage of cost-based optimization? _[O5]
                     1. Yes. Oracle Applications Release 11i has been fully converted to use the cost-based optimizer (CBO). CBO is used to achieve the best response time for SQL. SQL statements in custom code will also generally perform better and require less tuning than under rule-based optimization in the vast majority of cases, although all custom code will need to be reviewed and modified. Customers should also benchmark their custom code to ensure the optimal execution plans as part of their 11i upgrade project. In addition, the upgrade to R11i uses CBO therefore you will need to analyze your data prior to the upgrade.
                     49. Do I have to move to Multi-Org if consolidating multiple instances?
                     1. Yes. See answer to question 75.

                        For more information this topic, please look for the following Multi-Org white papers:

                        • "Strategic Approaches for Consolidating Multiple Oracle Applications Instances"
                        • "Strategic Planning for an Oracle Applications Instance Consolidation Project"
                        • " The Advantages of Moving to Multi-Org"
                     50. What is Oracle doing to decrease the large number of manual pre and post upgrade steps for each upgrade?
                     1. Decreasing the number of pre- and post-upgrade steps has been a focus area during Release 11 and Release 11i development. A task force was formed to address install and upgrade issues and testing. Pre-and post-upgrade steps, which were published early in the Release 11 and Release 11i development cycles, have undergone several rounds of review and revision.

                        In Release 11i.7. Oracle Applications Development introduced The Upgrade Manual Script (TUMS), to minimize the number of manual scripts for any given customer upgrade. (See next question.)

                        Of primary importance are the Category 3 pre-upgrade steps and the Category 4 post-upgrade steps that fall in the critical system downtime window of the upgrade process. The critical system downtime is comprised of the Category 3 pre-upgrade steps, the AutoUpgrade process, the AutoPatch process, and the Category 4 post-upgrade steps. All users must be logged off of Oracle Applications during these phases. There has been a continual decrease in the number of upgrade steps during the critical system downtime. This equates to a shorter window of time during the upgrade process when users cannot use Oracle Applications.

                     51. What is TUMS?
                     1. TUMS is The Upgrade Manual Script, a utility available in conjunction with Release 11i.7 and higher. This script identifies steps that do not need to be run based upon the customer's specific configuration and implementation. Use this script to complement your usage of the Upgrade Assistant Spreadsheet.
                     52. Have there been any changes to the Upgrade Assistant Spreadsheet?
                     1. Available in conjunction with 11i.7 and higher is The Upgrade Management Script (TUMS). This utility identifies steps that do not need to be run based upon the customer's specific configuration and implementation. The Upgrade Assistant Spreadsheet has been enhanced to easily record those steps identified by TUMS as not having to be performed.
                     53. How long should I target for the actual Production upgrade downtime? What is "Critical System Downtime"?
                     1. Critical System Downtime is when none of the user community can access Oracle Applications during the upgrade process. Minimally, this includes the Category 3 pre-upgrade steps, running AutoUpgrade. applying the 11i.X Maintenance Pack, applying required functionality patches, and the Category 4 post-upgrade steps. The 64 hour timeframe for the Critical System Downtime window should be achieved by a vast majority of customers given the usual caveats that all patches to the upgrade have been applied (FCUPs), re-integrating customization is not included, the upgrade to Oracle8i is performed before upgrading Applications (i.e. all normal and reasonable efforts are made to reduce the downtime). Of course, you will run test upgrades on a copy of Production until you are satisfied with the results and have ensured there are no failures or there are approved workarounds for any exceptions.
                     54. What is the largest customer database that has been upgraded within the 64-hour critical system downtime window? Has Oracle development performed test upgrades on copies of customer databases?
                     1. There have been many successful upgrades of large databases to date. Among them was Oracle's own upgrade of its 11.0.3 system to 11i.2. The database was around 800 gigabytes and comprised a wide variety of implemented products in financials, human resources, manufacturing and projects product families.

                        Oracle Development performed numerous test upgrades of copies of actual customer databases prior to the initial rollout of Release 11i and continues to do so. One database used in our testing is over 300Gb. Thus, we can catch classes of performance and configuration problems earlier in the testing cycle. However, every customer database is unique, so we won't necessarily encounter all problems. When fixes are made for general upgrade issues they are then rolled into the FCUPs and released on an as needed basis.

                     55. Is there a Support FAQ or MetaLink Note that lists all outstanding upgrade issues, for example, all issues with upgrading to 11i.5?
                     1. Yes, there are Notes available on Oracle MetaLink discussing upgrade issues. On MetaLink choose Top Tech Docs -> ERP Applications -> Applications Core Technology -> Applications Installation and Upgrade (http://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/showdoc?db=NOT&id=132072.1&blackframe=0. For example, 11.5.7 and 11.5.8 install and upgrade issues are listed in OracleMetaLink Note 170835.1.
                     56. Where can I find requirements for 11i (such as disk space, CPU, memory)?
                     1. Requirements are discussed in the Installing Oracle Applications manual.
                     57. I have CRM modules installed with 10.7 or 11.0. Are there any special upgrade requirements?
                     1. Oracle Applications development is actively re-architecting the upgrade for 10.7, 11.0 and 3i versions of CRM modules. The new upgrade will be available in March 2003. The CRM module upgrade will be a consolidated add-on to the standard 11i upgrade. The new CRM upgrade will be compatible with 11i.8 and later releases of the E-Business Suite. Oracle Development is working with two customer partners to ensure that the upgrade meets all functional requirements and is straightforward to run.

                        An existing CRM upgrade is available today. However, the existing upgrade is only compatible with Release 11i.5, and there are separate upgrade routines for each product.

                     58. Are there are workshops or services available to help me get started?
                     1. Oracle offers a free 1-on-l Consultation service. These consultations help you get started, organized, and equipped to initiate your upgrade project with confidence.

                        For more information or to schedule a consultation is the privacy of your office see: http://www.oracle.eom/start/11iupgrade/intro.html?src=1046474&Act=82

                     1. Note: During Appsworld San Diego we will host these l-on-1 Consultations onsite. Send an interested customer to the reception desk of the 11i Upgrade Central area located within the demogrounds.
                     59. Do you have any services to assist me to evaluate the value/ROI and help craft my business case?
                     1. Oracle has a fee-based service called the Oracle Upgrade Business Case Analysis Service. Download the datasheet: http://www.oracle.com/consulting/offerings/upgrade/bizcase_ds.pdf
                     60. Is there a service to help me document my current environment large or small?
                     1. Oracle offers a fee-based service call the 11i Detailed Upgrade Asssessment Service. Download the datasheet: http://www.oracle.com/consulting/offerings/upgrade/details_assess_ds.pdf
                     61. Can you provide me with any help to reduce or eliminate my customizations?
                     1. Yes. This is by far the most popular service we have outside of end-to-end upgrade services. The Customization Simplification workshops provide a framework and process to help you reduce, perhaps eliminate your customizations. When complete, you will have addressed any customizations that are displaced by features in the new release. For those customizations that "must' continue to exist, this workshop provide you with a clear estimate of how much labor (technical/functional) are required to carry each item forward. Visit this web page for whitepapers, presentations, and a datasheet for this service: http://www.oracle.com/appsnet/technology/customization/content.html
                     62. Are there any hosted environments I can use to configure and test my upgrade on?
                     1. Yes, contact Oracle Consulting to arrange for a hosted environment. This is a for fee service.
                     63. Is there a service to help me with running the actual technical upgrade?
                     1. Yes. Oracle Consulting Online offers an over-the-wire technical upgrade only service often available on a fixed price basis.
                     64. Does Oracle provide upgrade Services?
                     1. Yes. Oracle Consulting has a whole portfolio of Upgrade Services such as the Component Based Fixed Price Upgrade. Fixed Price Technical Only Upgrade, Advanced Upgrade, and the Unlimited Upgrade Program.

                        For more information: http://www.oracle.com/appsnet/technology/upgrade/docs/upgrade_services.html

                     65. What is the current status of Oracle's move to a single database? Where can I find white papers on Oracle's experiences, so I can apply what Oracle has learned to my install?
                     1. Over the past three years. Oracle has made significant progress moving all of its operations to a single global instance. We have reduced our number of ERP instances from over 70 down to the current 3 as of the end of January 2003, while standardizing business practices, implementing new applications, upgrading all major instances to release 11i (11i.8 by end of January 2003) and 9i while moving to a shared Services model. We plan to to combine the remaining 3 ERP instances into 1 by October and then move our single CRM instance into this instance by the end of the calendar year 2003.

                        Find more information about our experiences in the 11i Upgrade section at http://www.oracle.com/appsnet/tehnology/upgrade/index.htm. Look for the following white papers in the Planning section under the Multi-Org heading.

                        • Strategic Approaches for Consolidating Multiple Oracle Applications Instances
                        • Strategic Planning for an Oracle Applications Instance Consolidation Project

                        Additionally, please reference the AppsWorld presentation from the Spring 2002 conference on Oracle's Global Single Instance, which is posted on AppsNet.

                     66. What translations will be available for Release 11i?
                     1. Oracle currently supports the following 30 languages:

                        English, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Canadian French, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Korean (Hangul), Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin American Spanish, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai, and Turkish.

                        For some of the languages, not all modules are translated. Please check Oracle MetaLink to determine translation availability for your language and modules.

                     67. What has Oracle done in terms of Financials globalization in Release 11i? Will these be part of the base product or applied to the standard applications through patches? Running under the same instance/executables, could localizations applied for one country potentially conflict with those installed/enabled for another?
                     1. First, our globalization process delivers local functionality as part of our standard applications release. It is available on the same day as the base application release. Oracle has done an incredible amount of work in the area of globalization for Release 11i. We enhanced our existing globalizations for many countries.

                        Europe has celebrated its first complete year of euro usage. Sweden has scheduled a referendum on the euro for September 13^th. 2003, and membership of the euro remains a topic of debate in the United Kingdom.

                        In 2002, the European Union took another major step towards financials consistency: they have mandated the use of IAS (International Accounting Standards), no rechristened IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) by all listed companies by 2005. Detailed legislation is currently in the consultative stage. The EU is joined in this mandate by Australia. The U.S. FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) and the IASB (IAS Board) have agreed to identify differences between their standards by late 2003. And eliminate them by 2005. Some 27 other countries already mandate IFRS for public companies.

                        One can be hopeful that the adoption of common financial reporting standards by so many countries will erode the differences between local reporting requirements and external reporting - it is anticipated that

                     1. the enabling and mandating legislation will allow the two to converge. Of course, differences between tax reporting, income lax reporting, and external reporting will always remain.

                        The IAS and recent US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission share another trend: both adopt a management approach towards Segment Reporting, and both require that you share with your investors the information you publish to your CEO - that is, both require you to publish a summary of your management information.

                        This double convergence of national and parent, and of management and external reporting suggests enormous opportunity to focus executives of your company throughout the world on your investors' expectations, while managing ethical and local citizenship responsibilities to the highest standards.

                        European E-Business Suite users have been deploying many Oracle products designed to help you manage an economic area the size of the Eurozone. Oracle iStore serves the continent, Oracle Treasury helps you manage the euro instruments and cash in most European cities. Multiple Reporting Currencies can show you euro editions of your Sterling or Kroner monetary subledgers. Oracles Shared Service functionality allows yon to reduce Euro Zone processing costs. Oracle General Ledgers Translation will create Temporal Method or Equity Method euro financial statements from your Swiss Franc, US Dollar or other foreign accounting systems.

                        This is also an excellent time to review the number of instances you deploy, and to validate that your installation is indeed the most economic way to meet your requirements, and amend it if not. Given a common reporting standard, the fewer the instances you use, the faster and more direct will be the consolidation of your worldwide date.

                        Oracle's common data model allows you to achieve a worldwide IAS view of information, from products through cost centers, from employees through customers.

                        Daily Business Intelligence invites you to create "Financial Catagories" for the lines on the IAS Financial Reports, and "Lines of Business" for your IAS Segments, and monitor progress against your processes and against business developments during the course (not just after!) of your accounting periods, in your parent currency.

                        Specific Oracle products are designed to give you IAS valuations, and where required, satisfy local requirements too. Assets maintain IAS values in one asset book, and national tax values in another. Treasury marks to market and tracks cost. GL provides Revaluation of Financial Instruments like Receivables without impacting local subledgers. Inventory values your products to IAS 2 and IAS 18. Human Resources tracks your defined benefit liability - and your stock options. GL's Translation and MRC are both configurable to your choice of IAS 21 or FASB 52.

                        In Europe, each of Oracle's General Ledger Global Consolidation System, the Oracle Business Intelligence and Oracle's data ware housing products provide appropriate means - financial reporting, management direction, and transactional data analysis - of combining euro denominated data from across your national sets of books. Sets of books continue to provide you with the control and localization mechanism to comply with the continuing different legal and regulatory requirements of the fifteen EU countries, as well as those countries outside the EU.

                        On a worldwide basis, these tools, combined with single instance and the common data model, can eliminate the "reporting package" forever. All of your information, defined by a common worldwide standard (IAS or US GAAP). with defined reconciliation to local requirements, on a single instance, using a common model, accessible in a browser, through tools that manage the currency.

                        We share your enthusiasm for the advancement of harmonization between the various European corporate legislation and regulation agencies It is noteworthy that from the arrival of the Dollar as the single currency of the United States after the American civil war, to the completion of American harmonization

                     1. with the SEC Act of 1932, took around 65 years. For now, satisfying national regulations make it impossible in most cases to share a Set of Books between different countries.

                        There are now 44 countries with specific features in our global code. Through configuration and reporting options, we support over 120 countries' national legislation.

                        An exciting feature introduced in Release 11 is the Global Consolidation System. This is a complete consolidation solution that is lightly integrated with Oracle's operational accounting systems. It includes a consolidation workbench where you can perform your consolidation steps and monitor your progress in a single form. You can also get ledger-to-ledger drilldown, can now consolidate summary balances, and can describe your consolidation network in a graphical tool.

                        In Release 11i we have continued to enhance our globalizations in key areas such as tax, bills of exchange, and specific country functionality. Specifically localizations for Taiwan, Thailand and Korea are now addressed in Release 11i along with enhancements for Italy and Spain. We have also introduced Oracle Treasury, a comprehensive corporate treasury solution.

                     68. What has Oracle done in terms of Oracle HRMS Applications globalization in Release 11i? Will these be part of the base product or applied to the standard applications through patches? Running under the same instance/executables, could localizations applied for one country potentially conflict with those installed/enabled for another?
                     1. Designed from the start with a core global infrastructure. Oracle HRMS (including Oracle Payroll) now includes local extensions for delivered statutory compliance, legislative reporting and the cultural user interface of the US, UK, Ireland, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In addition to the above, local extensions for Oracle HR are available for, Belgium, Germany, including some public sector processes, Italy, and the Netherlands. Public Sector extensions for HR/Payroll are available for the US and UK and are in progress for the Netherlands. Phased delivers of HR public sector processes for additional European countries are also in progress. New HR and /or payroll local extensions are in progress for the Netherlands, China, Saudi Arabia and GCC countries. Others are planned, and these these will be announced in due course.

                        In addition to the country-specific localizations, an International HRMS solution is also available. Through a series of rapid implementation steps, this can be configured to provide a solution for either non-country-specific bodies (eg. UN organizations) or countries for which no delivered local extension exists.

                        Local extensions for Self-service Human Resources are also available for key processes, such as deployment and termination, and personal information such as name formatting. As new local extensions are built, we review the self-service processes to update them with local features. A manager can view all their staff globally, and automatically access the processes appropriate to the employment location of each person, within a single menu.

                        Global requirements are addressed in the core HRMS applications. As noted above, localization requirements are added to the core global architecture. The initial deliveries of localizations may be within the context of a main release or a patch, determined by the timing of applications-wide releases. However, subsequent releases include previously released local extensions as part of the base application release. Note that the global architecture of Oracle HRMS allows for coexistence of multiple localizations in a single implementation instance.

                        In 11i we introduced a number of inter-country management processes. These enable a customer to:

                        • Create supervisory and other management relationships between people in different countries
                        • Support international transfers by synchronizing data about a person on a global basis
                        • Synchronizing data about a person in any country with a single global person definition for the use of other Oracle applications

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                     1. • Creating single global records of non-legislative data such as competencies and qualifications
                        • Creating a single global catalog of definitions of learning and competencies
                        • Supporting global security by building inter-country security hierarchies
                        69. How is globalization supported by Oracle Supply Chain Management applications?
                        1. Oracle Supply Chain Management applications are designed to support the business processes of companies that operate globally, either directly or through the extended supply chain, while at the same time comply with the local legislative requirements of countries they operate in.
                           Key capabilities supporting global business practices are:
                           • Global item master: Oracle Supply Chain Management applications enable a common definition of items that is shared across application modules and organizations of the global enterprise. The item master definition is supports multiple languages and allows users in different locales to refer to the same item number while viewing the item description in their preferred language.
                           • Global inventory management: Oracle Inventory improves the global inventory management through a single, real time view of all inventories, across plants and warehouses located in multiple countries. In addition to that, and Oracle WMS, in conjunction with the rest of the Oracle E-Business Suite, allows to deploy a single consistent, and centrally managed WMS solution for all the warehouses of the enterprise.
                           • Global supply chain planning: Oracle's Advanced Planning solution provides global visibility to demand and supply across an extended multi-enterprise supply chain. It enables quick detection and collaborative resolution of problems at all locations and tiers within a supply chain.
                           • Intercompany Invoicing: Oracle Inventory supports the transfer of material across legal entity and the automatic generation of the required intercompany invoicing. The integration with Advanced Pricing allows you to specify the desired transfer pricing within organizations of the global enterprise.
                           • Global credit checking: Oracle Order Management lets you define a credit limit denominated in a given currency and apply it against an exposure calculated including transactions in any set of currencies. This feature allows you to control your credit exposure globally and independently on the currency used by your trading partners.
                           • Cost-effective global shipments: Oracle Transportation allows the international shipment of goods while ensuring regulatory compliance in multiple countries, languages and laws. This is achieved through partners by connecting reliable, accurate content to fulfillment transactions.

                           Key capabilities enabling local legal compliance are:

                           • Multiple perpetual costing methods: Oracle Cost Management supports standard, average, FIFO and LIFO costing, which allows you to meet the inventory valuation requirements of most countries.
                           • Periodic Average Costing (Brazil and EMEA): Periodic average costing allows you to cost one or more inventory organization; on a periodic basis. These costs are based on invoice price. You can match additional invoiced charges such as freight, duty, to the material receipts. For manufactured items, periodic average costing lets you value inventory by also including full absorption of resource and overhead costs. You can cost inventory for several periods such as monthly, quarterly, and annually.
                           • Periodic Incremental LIFO Costing (EMEA): Oracle Global supports the statutory requirement in Italy for all manufacturing and distribution companies to annually value their inventory based on the periodic incremental LIFO inventory valuation method. This includes the ability to maintain period end cost layers. Cost calculations will use the periodic average costing method. You can enter the market value to be used in place of the value given by the incremental annual LIFO algorithm. You can use this costing information to then produce the detailed and summary LIFO costing reports as required by Italian law.
                           • Inventory Valuation Reports (Italy and Greece): This set of reports enables you to track and cost all transactions that are at a physical location that change the on-hand balance of the inventory and those that change the value of the item. This satisfies a legal requirement, for the purpose of fiscal (tax) reporting, to create an official periodical journal or historical listing of transactions that contribute to the inventory value (for stock valuation).

                        All of these features are delivered as part of the core 11i products and do not require the installation of any additional modules.

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                        Multi-Org Architecture

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                        1. • Exchange Rate Based on Receipt Date (Global): Purchasing now automatically captures and stores the exchange rate at the time of receipt. When Payables matches invoices to purchase order receipts, the receipt-based exchange rate can be used to calculate any variance.
                           • Tax Triangulation (EMEA): Order Management provides support for tax triangulation for all transactions including Europe in Union triangulation for international drop shipments. You can now calculate tax amounts (VAT) for cross-border international drop shipments, where the goods are shipped from the supplier's location directly to the customer.
                           • Partially Recoverable Tax (EMEA): Purchasing is expanding tax management functionality with the Partial and Non-Recoverable Tax feature, enabling you to account for the taxes paid that are recoverable, only partially recoverable, or not recoverable at all. You can compute and encumber partially recoverable tax on both requisitions and purchase orders.
                           • Inventory Inflation Adjustment Support (Colombia): Oracle Global supports inventory inflation adjustments for Colombia, in order to reflect the effects of inflation in the financial statements.
                           • INTRASTAT (EMEA): Purchasing, Order Management, Inventory and OPM (replaces 4.10.x versions of Intrastat) provide the ability to support the automatic creation of the INTRASTAT and EXTRASTAT movement statistics declarations to governmental authorities.
                           • Country of Origin (Global): You can specify country of origin for all purchased inventory, on the approved supplier list, on the standard or planned purchase order, or receipt. This allows you to track the country of origin for import and other international trade requirements.
                           70. I have operations in the United Kingdom and Sweden, and am anticipating migrating to the Euro sometime in 2004 or 2005. In what ways does Oracle plan to support me?
                           1. Oracle is committed to helping customers with UK or Swedish operations, or indeed operations in any new EU member country such as Poland, Hungary, or Turkey migrate to the euro when the time is appropriate.
                              1. Euro Trading features, such as NCU-Euro matching in transactions, triangulation between NCUs, and order management are supported in all releases.
                              2. Euro migration features under the regulations applicable to the first wave of countries are supported in all releases up to and including 11i.7. It is anticipated that regulations for the next wave of countries may be different - indeed, such detail floated already is quite different (the migration period is reduced from 36 months to 21, for example) - and the code will follow suit. Of course, pending voter approval, no regulations are in place.
                              3. Oracle will provide migration functionality when the situation in clear. The functionality will address not merely differences in regulations, but also advances in technology since 1999. The functionality will include the migration features and technology pre-requisites from any Release 11 edition.
                           71. What additional countries does Oracle plan to support with country-specific requirements and when?
                           1. Over time, Oracle intends to support all countries with unique requirements where our customers do business. For timing information, please contact your Oracle representative who will address your issues, taking into account the version and modules you are running.

                              For Release 11i, we have significantly enhanced our Financials applications global solution with additional or improved features for Canada, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Spain and Taiwan. We have also improved country specific reporting through the Tax Reporting Ledger and Tax features. For a detailed update on our significant progress in Financial product globalization, please reference the Financials Globalization Functional catalog, available from your Oracle representative.

                           1. For the Release 11i HRMS product family, localization support has been introduced for Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, Korea, Singapore and South Africa. Payroll localization has been added to the existing HR localizations for France, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Further enhancements have also been made to the existing localizations for US, UK, Japan and Canada. HR localizations for China and Mexico mid payroll localizations for China, Mexico, Germany and The Netherlands are in process.
                           72. What additional countries does Oracle plan to support with country-specific Public Sector requirements and when?
                           1. With release 11i, Oracle Public Sector Financials provides support for the unique public sector requirements for the U.K., Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Spain.

                              Oracle Public Sector HRMS will be available in all languages supported by Oracle Applications. Country-specific public sector extensions are available today for US, UK, France and Germany, while extensions for the Netherlands are in progress.

                           73. When will the applications be MLS capable, including the translation of all seed and configuration data, and some operational data?
                           1. Oracle continues to extend multilingual capability throughout the applications.

                              In Release 11i Oracle extends multilingual support to additional reference data. This data supports producing customer and supplier facing documents such as invoices, dunning letters, and statements in the trading partner's preferred language. In Release 11i, we support the Unicode character set which can represent the characters of all languages, so it is possible to install all 30 of our supported languages into a single Unicode database.

                           74. When will the applications be multi-cultural capable with the ability to display dates, amounts and other pieces of data in the culture of the user?
                           1. In Release 11i the Oracle Applications forms can display dates and amounts in the culture of the user. Reports display dates in a fixed format and amounts in a flexible format.
                           75. Why is Multi-Org a key architectural component of Oracle's E-Business Suite?
                           1. Introduced as standard functionality in Release 10.7. Multi-Org is a key component of Oracles E-Business Suite that:
                              • Allows you to logically partition all your application data in one database. A type of Organization called an "Operating Unit" secures your application data.
                              • Supports multiple organization of the enterprise structure in a single database
                              • Provides secure access to the data of the different organizations in your enterprise. Each application Responsibility is associated with an individual Operating Unit. To see and work with application data that is relevant to a specific Operating Unit, you choose the appropriate Responsibility after logging on to Oracle Applications.

                              For an overview of Multi-Org, please refer to the white paper," Multi-Org Release 11i Today". For detailed information on Multi-Org. please refer to the "Multiple Organizations in Oracle Applications" user's guide for Release 11i, Release 11, and Release 10.7.

                           76. What is new in Multi-Org for Release 11i?
                           1. Faster Multi-Org Conversion
                              The Convert to Multi-Org process has been improved to significantly reduce the time needed to convert a non Multi-Org system into a Multi-Org enabled system. It uses AD's parallel update method to increase server's CPU utilization for updates. The performance gain is dependent on several factors such as the number of CPUs, memory, and the volume of data to be updated. The improved Convert to Multi-Org process is available for download from Metalink.

                              Cross-Organization Reporting
                              Cross-Organization Reporting functionality was introduced in Release 11i. It provides the ability to report on critical financial information at different levels of an enterprise. Selected standard reports for various applications of the Oracle E-Business Suite have been enhanced to allow you to report at the following levels:

                              • Set of books
                              • Legal entity
                              • Operating unit

                              Two new parameters have been added to the reports that are enabled for Cross-Organization Reporting: Reporting Level and Reporting Context.

                              • Reporting Level - Allows users to choose the level at which they want to report. The valid options are Set of Books, Legal Entity, and Operating Unit.
                                The reporting level a user can choose is restricted by the setting of the profile option. "MO: Top Reporting Level." By default, the value of this profile option is set to Operating Unit at the site level. Your system administrator can set this profile option at the Responsibility level. To run reports across organizations, the profile option value should be set to Legal Entity or Set of Books.
                              • Reporting Context - Allows users to choose an entity within the reporting level that they have selected. Valid options are Set of Books names, Legal Entity names, or Operating Unit names, depending on the value of the "MO: Top Reporting Level" profile option.

                              The following is the list of currently available reports that have been enhanced with Cross-Organization Reporting functionality:

                              Oracle Receivables

                              • Aging - 4 Buckets Report
                              • Aging - 7 Buckets Report
                              • Aging - 7 Buckets - By Amount Report
                              • Aging - 7 Buckets - By Account Report
                           1. • Aging - 7 Buckets - By Collector Report
                              • Aging - 7 Buckets - By Salesperson Report
                              • Credit Hold Report Customer Credit Snapshot Payables
                           2. Oracle Payables
                              • Trial Balance
                              • Posted Invoice Register
                              • Posted Payment Register
                              • Payables Accounting Entries Report
                              Enterprise Tax
                              • US Sales Tax Report
                              • Tax Reconciliation Report
                              • Canadian GST/PST Tax Report
                              • Tax Register
                              • Use Tax Liability Report
                              • Tax Audit Trail
                              • Intra-EU VAT Audit Trail
                              • Financial Tax Register
                              Oracle Financials Singaporean Localizations
                              • Singaporean GST F5 Report
                              Oracle Financials Thai Localizations
                              • Thai Payables Incomplete Tax Invoice Report
                              • Thai Payment Delivery Report
                              • Thai Input Tax Summary Report
                              • Thai Output Tax Summary Report
                              Oracle Financials Taiwanese Localizations
                              • Taiwanese Output VAT Report
                              • Taiwanese Receivables Government Uniform Invoice Report
                              • Taiwanese Receivables Zero-Rate Tax Report
                              • Taiwanese Payables Sales/Purchase Return and Discount Certificate
                              • Taiwanese Pro Forma 401 Report
                              • Taiwanese Purchase Return and Discount Report
                              • Taiwanese Sales Return and Discount Report
                              77. Is Multi-Org required in R lease 11i? When should Oracle's E-Business Suite users consider implementing Multi-Org?
                              1. Oracle Applications strongly recommends that our customers convert to Multi-Org as soon as possible. We are making this recommendation in order to prepare for improvements to performance across the E-Business Suite as well as to prepare for supporting Multi-Org Access Control, an upcoming feature of the E-Business Suite:
                                 • Performance Improvement: the Multi-Org functionality is being improved to take advantage of the new core database features of Oracle Release 9i, which improves the overall performance of the E- Business Suite. In future releases, the existing Multi-Org view layer will be replaced with the Oracle 9i Virtual Private Database technology.
                                 • Multi-Org Access Control: Multi-Org Access Control is an upcoming feature of the E-Business Suite that will allow a user to process and report on data that resides in an unlimited number of Operating Units from within a single applications Responsibility.

                                 There is no loss of functionality when migrating from a default of "no organization" to a default of "one organization" for your installation.

                                 For more information, please read the technical white paper: "Release 11i Use of Multiple Organizations in Oracle Applications". For detailed information on Multi-Org, please refer to the "Multiple Organizations in Oracle Applications" user's guide for Release 11i, Release 11, and Release 10.7.

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                              78. Should Oracle's E-Business Suite users move to Multi-Org if consolidating multiple instances?
                              1. Yes. See answer to question 75.

                                 For more information on instance consolidation, please refer to the following Multi-Org white papers:

                                 • "Strategic Approaches for Consolidating Multiple Oracle Applications Instances"
                                 • "Strategic Planning for an Oracle Applications Instance Consolidation Project"
                                 • "The Advantages of Moving to Multi-Org"
                              79. Is Multiple Sets of Books Architecture -MSOBA- supported in Release 11i?
                              1. No. Multiple Sets of Books Architecture -MSOBA- is obsolete and not supported in Release 11i. Customers who implemented the Multiple Sets of Books Architecture -MSOBA- should migrate to Multi-Org before upgrading to Release 11i.

                                 Multiple Sets of Books Architecture -MSOBA-allowed multiple installations of an application on one database. Each installation of the applications mapped to a unique Set of Books. Multiple Sets of Books Architecture -MSOBA- was intended to help companies meet their application data security requirements for statutory, tax, reporting and other reasons by providing for separate installations of Oracle Applications, such as the Oracle Payables, Receivables and Purchasing modules within the same database instance. The multiple-installation implementation allowed for physical partitioning of application data, but was also necessary if multiple Sets of Books were required.

                                 For more information on the transition away from Multiple Sets of Books Architecture -MSOBA-, please refer to the white paper. "Supported Approaches for Migrating a Multiple Install Architecture (MSOBA) to Multi-Org and 11i.

                              80. Does Oracle provide a utility to consolidate applications from multiple instances into one instance?
                              1. Yes, iMerge is a utility developed and used exclusively by Oracle Consulting to assist customers with migrations from Multiple Sets of Books Architecture -MSOBA- to Multi-Org or for consolidation of multiple Oracle Applications instances into a single instance. Oracle's iMerge Utility is currently available with Oracle Applications Release 10.7.

                                 With iMerge, you can:

                                 • Consolidate data held in multiple application schemas into one schema within the same instance. The existing data conforms to Multiple Sets of Books Architecture -MSOBA-, which in the course of consolidation into a single applications schema is converted into Multi-Org architecture.
                                 • Consolidate data held in multiple instances into a single instance. In each of the instances, the data should be held in a single schema (i.e. should comply with Multi-Org architecture).
                                 • Consolidate multiple GL Sets of Books into a single GL Set of Books when the Chart of Accounts, Calendar and Currency are the same.
                                 • Customers can thereafter successfully migrate from Oracle Applications Release 10.7 to Release 11i.

                                 The contacts for the iMerge consulting solution at Oracle are:

                                 • Lori Coleman, Practice Director, Global Applications Service Line
                                 • John Lane, Practice Manager, Global Applications Service Line
                              81. Does the Multi-Org architecture scale to handle large volumes?
                              1. The Multi-Org design ensures that there is no performance penalty when you implement a system with multiple operating units.
                              82. What does the future hold for Legal Entity organization types in Oracle's E-Business Suite?
                              1. In the future there will be additional functionality around the GRE/Legal Entity organization type. The legal entity is a key component in current and future software development in the areas of accounting.

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                              1. reporting, intercompany accounting, accounting sequence numbering, document sequence numbering, bank account definition, cross Operating Unit transactions, and more.
                              83. What does the future hold for Multi-Org in Oracle's E-Business Suite?
                              1. Multi-Org Access Control
                                 Multi-Org Access Control will allow more efficient processing of business transactions by allowing users to process, and report on data that resides in an unlimited number of operating units, within a single applications responsibility.

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                              Miscellaneous-Enhancements, Industries, Archive/Purge

                              84. How does Oracle decide what features or new modules to add to each release? What criteria does Oracle use to assign features or mid modules to future release^s?
                              1. Oracle receives input for new features and modules from many sources: customers, internal Oracle (sales representatives, consultants and industry experts), external marketing materials. Oracle partners and industry analysts.

                                 From a customer perspective, there are two key sources of input: the enhancement survey process and our customer councils. (In addition, we have some direct customer contact on topical areas, and lots of input from customers in product direction and Q&A sessions.) Customer councils are organized by major global areas (Americas and EMEA), and meet on a quarterly basis. We use the customer council to give us broad feedback on our release direction and specific feedback on our feature and module content for a release.

                              85. How has Oracle enhanced archive/purge features in the Oracle E-Business Suite?
                              1. We have been enhancing the archive/purge functionality in many areas over the last several releases. In 10.6. we introduced AR archive/purge functionality. In 10.7. we greatly enhanced the GL archive/purge capability by allowing periodic purge of data and expanded the types of data that could be archived. Oracle Projects delivers archive purge functionality that is currently available for R10.7, R11.0,. and R11i.

                                 Oracle Payroll delivers purge capabilities for the following large-volume payroll tables: run results, run result values, assignment actions and payroll actions for R10.7 and R11.0 and R11i. In addition Oracle Payroll's archive capabilities, which previously included quarter-end and year-end archival, have been extended to include a periodic payroll results archive to support, for example, tax filing and self-service payslip display. The periodic payroll archive is available for R11i only.

                                 Order Management includes a capability to purge completed orders from the active order database. Coming soon in a future release of 11i is an Order Management audit trail that will allow for the tracking of order changes historically. Oracle Process Manufacturing greatly improved the performance of the existing archive/purge systems for inventory journals, production batches, quality date, purchase orders and sales orders. These routines are included in R11 and R11i.

                              86. What are Oracle Business Flow Accelerators and what offerings are available for customers?
                              1. Oracle Business Flow Accelerators are Oracle Consulting offerings that provide a pre-configured baseline for implementing the business flows inherent in the E-Business Suite. Designed for large to medium-sized organization in a variety of industries. Business Flow Accelerators help customers around the world solve their business problems, reduce risk and realize a very fast return on investment (ROI).

                                 The customer benefits are significant in terms of time, cost and risk. Business flows are designed to enable, end-to-end business processes. These flows identify and map the critical business processes an organization utilizes to support a complete business strategy for managing operations, customers, suppliers, partners, employees and more. Rather than being focused around a specific application's features or functionality, or one organization's activities, Oracle business flows map business processes across multiple organizations and many applications to represent a streamlined, efficiently integrated flow of information throughout business organizations and across geographies.

                                 Oracle's business flow implementations are predefined processes based on experience with thousands of customer implementations across diverse industries and geographies. In addition, the tight integration among Oracle Consulting. Development and Support helps to decrease problem resolution time.

                                 The Business Flow Accelerators implementation offerings available are:
                                 Supply Chain Distribution

                                 • Order to Cash
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                              1. • Procure to Pay in 30 Days
                              2. Manufacturing
                                 • Forecast to Plan
                                 • Demand to Build (for Discrete Manufacturers)
                                 Financial/HR Management/Projects
                                 • Accounting to Financial Reports
                                   • Self-service Expenses Option
                                 • People to Paycheck
                                   • Self-service Employee Data Option
                                 • Project to Profit
                                 CRM: Marketing, Sales and Service
                                 • Plan to Campaign
                                 • Campaign to Results
                                 • Incentive to Payment
                                 • Call to Order
                                   • Interaction Center for Advanced Inbound Option **
                                   • Interaction Center for Advanced Outbound Option
                                   • Configure Quote to Order Option
                                 • Opportunity to Global Forecast
                                 • Call to Resolution
                                 • Click to Resolution
                                 • Contract to Renewal
                                 • Dispatch to Repair
                                 • Depot to Repair

                                 Industries
                                 Government

                                 • Accounting to Financial Reports for US Federal Government ***
                                 • Citizens Contact to Resolution ***
                                 • Accounting to Financial Reports for US State and Local Government *
                                 Healthcare
                                 • Accounting to Financial Reports for Healthcare Providers *
                                 • Plan to Deliver for Healthcare Providers *

                                 Telecommunications

                                 • Call to Order for Telecommunications **
                                 • Call to Resolution for Telecommunications **
                                 Higher Education
                                 • Accounting to Financial Reports for Higher Education *

                                 * Based on 11i.7 - looking into moving to 11i.8 ?
                                 ** Based on 11i.4 ?
                                 *** Based on 11i.7

                                 87. What is E-Business Suite Outsourcing? What applications are available?
                                 1. The entire E-Business Suite is available in an outsourced model E-Business Suite Outsourcing provides the management of the security, availability, performance, problems and changes to the E-Business Suite from the moment the application is purchased. Oracle brings world-class expertise and automation to the management of the E-Business Suite providing much better service, much faster service at a much more predictable cost than customers choosing a traditional model.

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                                 1. Oracle E-Business Suite Outsourcing is 100% Web-enabled, allowing businesses large and small to run Oracle and other leading applications directly through a Web browser. So there is no investing in costly IT equipment and more importantly costly performance management, change management, problem management, availability management and security management people. With the Oracle applications experts maintaining your applications, your staff can spend more time focusing on your core business.

                                    E-Business Suite Outsourcing includes the flexible "Any Place"" deployment model, which uses pre-built and standard Certified Configurations of hardware and software. With the @Oracle model, software and hardware is hosted in the secure Oracle data center. With the @Customer model, the E-Business Suite resides in the customer's data center or a data center of the customers choosing and is managed 7x24 by Oracle.

                                    With the Oracle E-Business Suite of Applications 11i as a foundation, Oracle's E-Business Suite Outsourcing includes a complete set of critical business applications for an entire organization. This includes enterprise applications for supply chain management, financials, projects, and human resources departments, as well as CRM applications for sales, service, contracts, e-commerce, interaction center, and marketing. Regardless of the functional area, Oracle E-Business Suite Outsourcing offers an integrated outsourced service. Behind the scenes, Oracle E-Business Suite Outsourcing focused on availability, performance, problem, change and security management of the E-Business Suite.

                                 88. Which vertical industries does Oracle support with our E-Business Suite products?
                                 1. Oracle is committed to providing our customers a fully integrated Oracle E-Business Suite to address change in any industry. That level of commitment is what enables our customers and partners, from the Bank of America to Barclays, POSCO Steel to Pepsi, make the changes they need to understand their customers, cut costs, and optimize every part of their operations, manufacturing and supply chain.

                                    We have defined and have available specific solutions that address key business issues for the following twenty industries:
                                     

                                    Discrete Manufacturing Industries High Technology Industrial Manufacturing Automotive Consumer Products Aerospace and Defense Asset Intensive Industries Communications Travel and Transportation Utilities Energy Public Services Government - Civilian Government - Defense Healthcare Provider Education

                                    Process Manufacturing Industries Life Sciences Chemicals Consumer Packaged Goods Service Industries Financial Services Professional Services Engineering and Construction Retail

                                    To help demonstrate this Oracle Applications World 2003 features deep dive Industry Accelerator sessions with industry and Oracle experts, analysts, case studies, and presentations from some of the top companies. Here is just a sample of what will be covered at this year's sessions

                                    • Aerospace & Defense: How to addressing Project Contracting, Maintenance Repair & Overhaul and Advanced Planning and Scheduling.

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                                 To find out more check your show guide for the listings under your industry or see your industry in our software at one of the industry demos offered in this year's Oracle demo grounds.

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                                 1. • Automotive: How to enhance executive decision-making, achieve cost reductions, and share knowledge globally through a single workspace for competitive advantage.
                                    • Communications: How to accelerating new service innovations, achieve operational efficiencies, and enhance customer loyalty.
                                    • Consumer Goods: How to address trade promotion management, supply chain excellence, and rapid implementation of industry standards.
                                    • Financial Services: How to gain insight into customer profitability, achieve operational efficiencies, and drive shareholder value.
                                    • Healthcare: How to leverage information across your organization to meet business objectives.
                                    • High Technology: How to survive the demand downturn through a combination of continuous innovation, intense customer focus, and rapid execution of supply chain strategies.
                                    • Higher Education: How to accelerate productivity improvements and streamline information access for virtually all aspects of student and campus administration.
                                    • Life Sciences: How to accelerate your discovery pipeline, comply with 21 CFR Part 11, and streamline clinical trial data capture.
                                    • Government: How to meet the President's Management Agenda and increasing public demands for homeland security with shrinking budgets.
                                    • Retail: How to eliminate waste in real estate spending, improve workforce productivity, run profitable campaigns, implement standards for commerce transaction, and reduce IT support costs by eliminating redundant efforts.
                                    • Utilities: How to maximize asset utilization, increase operational efficiency, and enhance customer satisfaction with the Oracle E-Business Suite.
                                    89. What are the strategic objectives of Oracle Public Sector Financial Applications in Release 11i?
                                    1. Oracle's Public Sector Applications strategy is to provide high productivity. Internet-based solutions to manage and streamline business processes in Government and Higher Education. Oracle Public Sector Applications is an integrated business solution that extends Oracle Applications by providing additional features to address the requirements of Government and Higher Education markets.

                                       Oracle Public Sector Financials:
                                       Oracle Public Sector Financials offers enhanced financial controls, better data collection, easier information access, business intelligence and better financial reporting. They are an integrated suite of business solutions designed to support continuous process improvement and meet the business-critical requirements of today's and tomorrow's Government and Higher Education institutions. A number of features have been added to meet Public Sector requirements.

                                       Major features of the current release include the following:

                                       • Encumbered Purchase Orders provides the ability to change purchase orders even after funds have been reserved. The "unreserve" action lets the user remove encumbrances on the purchase order make the required changes, and then reserve funds on the changes made.
                                       • Multiple Receivable Line Accounting provides the ability to process receivable transactions with multiple balancing segment values with an invoice.
                                       • Improved interfund balancing and close process enhancements
                                       • Payment on receipt and invoice matching to receipts

                                       Oracle US Federal Financials:
                                       Oracle US Federal Financials is an integrated suite of JFMIP certified financial and administrative applications. It incorporates the latest reporting requirements of the US Federal Government. Some of the key features of the current release include the following:

                                    Oracle Public Sector Financial (International):
                                    Oracle Public Sector Financials (International) offer enhanced financial controls, better data collection, easier information access, business intelligence and better financial reporting. A number of features have been added to meet Public Sector requirements.

                                    The Combined Basis Reporting is new functionality in Oracle Public Sector Financials (International) relating to Oracle General Ledger, Oracle Payables and Oracle Receivables.

                                    Sub-Ledger Security is amended in Oracle Public Sector Financials (International) for Release 11i. If a Multiple Organizations structure is used, Sub Ledger Security can be used to partition data within a single operating unit. This enhances security as not only data is secured by operating unit, the access is further restricted by Sub-Ledger Security group. This striping, or securing of data, allows an organizations' business units to manage their own financial affairs without affecting other business units, as well as ensuring confidentiality between business units.

                                    Internal Trading been enhanced in a number of way in Oracle Public Sector Financials (International) 11i. This has included improved workflow handling and a new Self Service version incorporating all the features of the back office solution but with the easy of Oracle Self Service look and feel.

                                    Dossier has been enhanced in Oracle Public Sector Financials (International) 11i to include more flexible workflow processing to allow for larger organization set-ups.

                                    Oracle Public Sector Budgeting:
                                    Oracle Public Sector Budgeting provides a complete budget solution for Government and Education institutions. Full integration with Oracle Public Sector General Ledger allows organizations to generate complete multi-year capital and general operating budgets. Integration with the Oracle Human Resource Management System allows users to accurately project position costs in preparing a budget that includes positions. It incorporates Oracle Workflow technology for decentralized worksheet distribution and approval routing. Standard reports and integration with Oracle Discoverer, Oracle Financial Analyzer and popular spreadsheet functionality support fully customized reporting and budgeting.

                                    Key features include:

                                    Oracle Grants Accounting:
                                    Oracle Grants Accounting provides the ability to completely track grants and funded projects from inception to final reporting. It provides a fully integrated system that supports multi-funded projects and the required compliance terms and conditions by award. Oracle Grants Accounting supports validation of allowable cost and effective dates as well as budgetary control to ensure compliance. Reporting is

                                    CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244136

                                    Oracle Grants Proposal:
                                    Oracle Grants Proposal is a self-service application that provides organizations with the ability to completely track proposal activities from project inception to proposal submission 10 the funding agencies. It incorporates various levels of role based security which allows users to access one or more sections of a grant proposal. Using Oracle Grants Proposal, principle investigators/program directors and administrators can develop all aspects of a proposal including budgets with multiple indirect cost rates, route it electronically for internal approval and then submit it to sponsors for funding considerations. When a proposal is funded, users can transfer proposal data to create award, installment, and award budget in a simple to use interface with Oracle Grants Accounting.

                                    Key features include:

                                    Oracle Labor Distribution:
                                    Oracle Labor Distribution provides organizations with the ability to accurately and flexibly schedule, create, correct and certify labor cost distributions. After importing labor costs from Oracle Payroll and third-party payrolls, Oracle Labor Distribution allocates these costs to both Oracle Grants Accounting and Oracle General Ledger utilizing a labor-costing schedule.

                                    Key features include:

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                                    Public Sector HR extensions for new geographic markets in progress include:

                                    CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244138

                                    1. • Enhanced transaction code processing allows authorized users to create "Accounting Events" to identify the type of transaction, and the values of the chart of accounts associated with the went.
                                       • Budget execution processing and analysis provides the ability to establish budget operating plans in accordance with Federal Appropriations law.
                                       • Prompt Payment Act is supported by tracking invoice returns, tracking user-defined holiday and non-working days, and generating Prompt Payment Statistical report and Prompt Payment Due Date report.
                                       • The capability to process intra-governmental funds transfers via IPAC. IP AC is a government-owned and operated application that will replace the existing On-line Payment and Collection System (OPAC).
                                       • Prior Year Adjustments process ing will provide an automated method of recording upward and downward adjustments to prior year obligations.
                                       • Budget Creation
                                       • Budget Distribution, Modification, Submission and Approval

                                       comprehensive, supporting internal and external reports and queries needed to effectively manage funded projects.

                                       Key features include:

                                       • Distribution Patterns provides the ability to determine charging instructions for expenditure items based on a predefined pattern for cost distribution based on the awards funding a project and/or top task combination.
                                       • Award Management
                                       • Budgetary Control provides the ability to fund multiple projects with multiple awards. Funding multiple projects satisfies complex funding arrangements.
                                       • Award Status Inquiry feature monitors award performance, budget data actual and committed costs at summary and detailed transaction level.
                                       • Integration with Grants Proposal
                                       • Proposal Development
                                       • Budget Development
                                       • Narrative Development
                                       • Electronic Approval and Routing
                                       • Special Review
                                       • Assurances and Certifications
                                       • Proposal Security
                                       • Electronic Proposal Submission
                                       • Integration with Oracle Grants Accounting
                                       • APIs to Import Legacy Proposal Data
                                       • Distribution Adjustment Workflow allows the users to automate and improve approval processes
                                       • Multiple Organization allows users to define multiple organizations and the relationships among them in a single installation
                                       • Creation of Encumbrances for Labor Costs
                                       90. What is available/planned for Oracle Human Resources Public Sector in Release 11i?
                                       1. • Oracle Public Sector Human Resources
                                            Public Sector extensions to Oracle Human Resources provide the unique functionality critical to state and local government and higher education. Oracle Public Sector Human Resource extensions enhance the rich foundation of Oracle Human Resources. Thus, all functionality available in the standard product is also available to the public sector customer base.

                                       The following core public sector functionality is available in R11i.

                                       Global Public Sector

                                       • Position Control
                                       • Budget Management
                                       • Enhanced Visa Data
                                       • Tenure Eligibility, Tracking, Monitoring
                                       • Sabbatical Eligibility, Tracking, Monitoring
                                       • Contract Term Appointment
                                       • Payroll exception reporting
                                       • US
                                         US HR public sector extensions include but are not limited to:
                                         • IPEDS Reporting
                                         • EEO4. 5 Reporting
                                       • UK
                                         UK HR public sector extensions include but are not limited to:
                                         • Vehicle repository and employee vehicle assignment
                                         • Automated ITE processing, Payroll Calculations, including,
                                         • Rates history
                                         • Previous Employer Service history
                                         • Auto increment processing
                                         • Ability to store and process employee working / shift patterns
                                         • Car and Mileage processing
                                         • Deductions & Employer charges
                                         • Union Deductions
                                         • Pensions and AVC
                                         • Stakeholder pensions
                                         • GTC Deductions
                                         • Reports and Interfaces
                                       • France
                                         French HR public sector extensions include but are not limited to data and processing for:
                                         • Assignments
                                         • Military Service & Army Situation
                                         • Contacts
                                         • Competencies
                                         • Diplomas
                                         • Markings
                                         • Accommodations
                                         • Seniority
                                         • Corps and Grades
                                         • Positions
                                         • Employment Status
                                         • Awards &Decorations
                                         • Organizations
                                         • Previous Employment History
                                         • External Organizations
                                         • Previous Services Validation

                                       Release 11i of Oracle UK Payroll features the following public sector extensions in addition to the U.K. Payroll functionality:

                                       Planned Release 11i of Oracle NL Payroll features the following public sector extensions in addition to the N.L. Payroll functionality:

                                       CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244139

                                       In addition to those features in the base product it should be noted that there is now Self Service Benefits Enrollment for US Federal Government available with HRMS Self Service.

                                       CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244140

                                       CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244141

                                       CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244142
                                        

                                       Training

                                       CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244143

                                       CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244144

                                       1. • Germany
                                            German HR public sector extensions include but are not limited to data and processing for:
                                            • Work contracts
                                            • Mandators
                                            • Workplace and validation workplace.
                                            • Remuneration processing
                                            • Position and Stellen processing.
                                          • Netherlands
                                            Dutch HR and Payroll public sector extensions include but are not limited to pension enrollment, processing, calculation and distribution.
                                          • Oracle Public Sector Payroll
                                            Public Sector extensions to Oracle Payroll provide the unique functionality critical to state and local government and higher education. Since public sector features are extensions to the core Oracle Payroll product, all functionality available in Oracle Payroll is also available to public sector customers.

                                          Release 11i of Oracle Payroll features the following US public sector extensions in addition to the core and US commercial functionality:

                                          • Support for US 403b Tax Sheltered Annuity Plans (includes recent EGTRRA changes for Catch up processing and pre-tax arrearage support)
                                          • Support for US 457 Deferred Compensation Plans (includes recent EGTRRA changes for Catch up processing and pretax arrearage support)
                                          • Alien taxation processing & Windstar tax navigator interface (I042S processing)
                                          • TIAA/CREF pension interface
                                          • Support for Defined Benefit and Defined contribution plans (STRS/ PERS)
                                          • STRS / PERS reporting and transmission interface
                                          • Payroll Calculations, including, for example, rates history, teachers pay calculation, auto increment processing, working/ shift patterns. And service history.
                                          • Car and Mileage claim processing
                                          • Occupational Sick pay and Occupation maternity pay
                                          • Deductions & Employer charges
                                            • Union Deductions
                                            • Pensions and AVCs
                                            • Stakeholder pensions
                                            • General teaching council GTC Deductions processing and interface
                                          • Reports and Interfaces (Teacher Pension extracts)
                                          • Support for various NL specific pension schemes
                                          • Ability to store and process employee working / shift patterns
                                          • Oracle US Federal Human Resources
                                            The US Federal extensions to Oracle Human Resources support HR management activities for the US Federal government. The system provides comprehensive functionality to support the unique business of managing the federal sector work force according to the rules and regulations of the federal government including. The Guide to Processing Personnel Actions, the Code of Federal Regulations, the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Art of 1990 Title 5. United States Code. Government Organizations and
                                          1. Employees and other regulatory guidelines. Oracle Federal HR delivers new functions geared to support "mass" actions and to extend the capability of Request for Personnel Action (RPA) processes. These enhancements include mass awards processing, position copy facilities, improved selection when processing mass actions, and the extension of RPA to capture benefits information.

                                             Major New Features in Release 11i.x include:

                                          • Applicant Maintenance
                                          • Enhanced Personnel Action
                                          • Employee Benefits
                                          • Mass Awards
                                          • Position Copy
                                          • Person Summary
                                          • Enhanced EEO Tracking
                                          • Enhanced Benefits Management
                                          • Contact Relationships
                                          • Improved Paid Time Off Management
                                          • Salary Survey Information
                                          • Integration with HR Self-service Applications
                                          91. What are the strategic objectives of the Oracle Financial Services Applications (OFSA) release 4.5?
                                          1. Measuring and managing the profitability of customers, products, organizational units and other key-aspects of your business through the use of OFSA offers tremendous profit opportunities. Processing efficiency is maximized by leveraging the enormous power of the Oracle suite of products and tools through integration, not only data and processes, but also of analytical concepts and business rules.
                                             • Analytical CRM is fully integrated with the OFSA suite to provide true SEM and CRM integration that allows you to manage your customers based upon their individual profit contribution to your organization.
                                             • OFSA provides sophisticated predictive modeling capabilities through integration with Oracle's Darwin product from Thinking Machines. Inc. to maximize your acquisition, cross-sell and retention marketing efforts.
                                             • Oracle Budgeting and Planning leverages the enormous flexibility and scalability of Oracle Express. Users can now create the accurate, performance-based plans and forecasts for which BP is known, within the most powerful analytical OLAP tool available on the market.
                                             • Oracle Performance Analyzer and Transfer Pricing provides the muscle to calculate sophisticated, accurate account, customer, and household profitability for millions of customers which can be delivered to the point of customer contact through campaigns & promotions managed by Marketing Online.
                                             • The valuable information created through OFSA is now delivered to the desktop using the power of Oracle Discoverer.
                                             • Oracle Risk Manager provided even more accurate account level projections of cash flows, which can be used within Budgeting and Planning.

                                             To facilitate the distribution of information throughout a financial institution, particularly to the point of customer contact and to facilitate decision making throughout the organization, we offer:

                                             • Oracle Discoverer for timely access throughout the organization to information generated throughout the OFSA computation engines. Information that is quickly and easily prepared using the Discoverer Integrator Tool.
                                             • Oracle Transfer Pricing Online for crucial and timely funding cost information to the point of customer contact, permitting officers to make informed, profitable decisions when pricing relationships with individual customers.
                                          1. Deliver scalable, efficient applications.
                                          • Using Discoverer Integrator, valuable financial reports can be created almost instantly.
                                          • Complex allocation calculations can be performed rapidly through multiple-host processing.
                                          • Continue to provide state of the art analytical capabilities tailored for financial institutions.
                                          • For helping customers assess, measure, and reduce the risk on their balance sheet. Oracle Risk Manager computes earnings at risk, value at risk and the sensitivity of the balance sheet to changes in both interest as well as exchange rates using both deterministic and stochastic methods
                                          • Oracle Risk Manager provides the flexibility for customers to define their own re-pricing and prepayment characteristics.
                                          • Oracle Budgeting & Planning provides the ability to deal with complex financial instruments with teaser rates, multiple cap/floor structures, and additional desired customization to reflect the behavior of their products and markets.
                                          92. Does Oracle have any plans for Healthcare?
                                          1. Yes. Oracle started a project approximately two years ago to address many of the critical needs in healthcare information technology. Oracle Healthcare is a web-based, patient-centric healthcare information system designed to accommodate the needs of a healthcare organization. Oracle Healthcare is part of the Oracle E-Business Suite, an integrated suite of e-business solutions for a healthcare organization.

                                             Oracle Healthcare provides healthcare organizations with enterprise applications, developed on a service architecture and technical platform known as the Oracle Healthcare Transaction Base (HTB). The HTB provides a single, comprehensive source of patient information and supports the seamless integration of Oracle Healthcare applications, third party applications, and Oracle's E-business suite. It provides critical, common services such as security, audit control, messaging, HIPAA compliance, and enterprise terminology services. It should be noted that the Oracle Healthcare Transaction Base includes a comprehensive information repository for healthcare institutions, based on the HL-7 version 3, reference information model.

                                             It also includes a robust J2EE compliant API library that allows other software vendors and individual provider organizations to rapidly create robust healthcare applications

                                             The First version of the HTB was released in December 2002. Additional platform functionality and enhancements will be released throughout 2003. In addition to delivering the HTB, we are now beginning a project to develop healthcare-specific business intelligence. Along with the HTB, these intelligence applications will provide healthcare organizations with the functional infrastructure necessary to create a next-generation healthcare solution.

                                          93. What is the Oracle Student System?
                                          1. Oracle Student System is an integral part of our solution for customers in higher education. This solution, among the broadest in the industry includes our CRM solutions to support Advanced Recruitment, the core Oracle Student System release, Oracle Financial Aid, Oracle Financial, Oracle Human Resources and Grants Management. These solutions offer not only functional breadth but also the unique advantage of a single data model and single technology foundation.

                                             The Oracle Student System was originally obtained in an acquisition, Release 11i of OSS included compliance with the standard applications technology stack and integration with Oracle's application architecture including security, menus, messages, etc.

                                             In July of 2002, the Oracle delivered the latest version of our core student system offering, in addition to adding modules for financial aid and student recruiting. This release was focused at the US and UK and includes a comprehensive solution that makes student-centric higher education information systems a

                                          1. reality. Critical components include: advanced recruitment, admissions, enrollment, progression, records, student finance and financial aid.

                                             The Oracle Student System project has benefited from the direct involvement of seven US and UK institutions that have acted as our advisory board for system priorities, design reviews, and implementation discussions.

                                             As part of this release, the OSS team is also developing Portals for the key constituents in higher education, including students, faculty, and administrative professionals.

                                             We will be delivering additional releases of Oracle Student Systems throughout 2003.

                                          94. What Release 11i training is currently available from Oracle University?
                                          1. Oracle University (OU) offers a comprehensive curriculum for all Oracle 11i products and is providing the most comprehensive, flexible, education solution to date with its new PROCESS BASED CURRICULUM OFFERINGS. These new processed based curriculum offerings are packaged by job role, and allow implemented and end users individual options, as their training needs are quite different.
                                             • The Implementation Consultant Role focuses on functional implementation where business considerations and setup decisions are critical.
                                             • The Technical Consultant Role addresses the learning needs of the Applications DBA, Developer, and System Administrator.
                                             • The End User Role includes tasks and transactions that end users complete, and are job role focused. Although these job roles are targeted primarily at end users, it is also critical that implementation consultants have access to this training in order to understand the basic features, functions, and flows of the product(s) before attending implementation offerings.

                                             To learn more about Oracle University's process based curriculum offerings, check out http://www.oracle.com/education/index.html?jobroles.html

                                          95. I've taken Oracle classes before. How are learning paths different from the old training?
                                          1. Learning paths are designed so the student may learn with minimal travel requirements and time away from work. Prerequisites for inClass courses are included in online offerings, so basics are learned at home or on the job, as time allows. InClass offerings have been scaled down from as many as 15-20 days to 5-7 days, and include the fundamental information learners need to implement a process and/or product module. Advanced subject matter, which is not relevant to all learners, has been moved from the classroom to another online offering that is relevant to implemented needing specific information for ad hoc scenarios.
                                             • Education offerings are transformed from being all things to everyone to implementer or end user focused
                                             • Numerous and overwhelming options are consolidated into a systematic, intuitive, training program
                                             • Learn via a variety of format...online, self-study, or inClass.
                                             • Basics and Advanced Topics are available in Online Offerings
                                             • In-Class Materials are condensed to the Fundamentals
                                             • Creating a single "11i Essentials for Implemented" inClass offering has reduced redundancy between classes
                                          96. What specific training is available if I am upgrading to 11i?
                                          1. Oracle University (OU) offers specific Learning Paths for customers upgrading to 11i.
                                             • DBA 11i Upgrade: 11i E-Business Suite Upgrade-Database Administrator
                                               Tying an Oracle Applications upgrade to a business plan can accomplish both short-term results as well as long-term strategic goals. Learn the technical infrastructure of the E-Business Suite as well as important upgrade strategies and tools to help your business stay on the leading edge of Oracle technology.
                                             • Functional Financials Implementer Upgrade: Oracle 11i Financials Migration
                                               Companies are maximizing their competitive advantage by realizing the e-business benefits possible with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i. Oracle University's Financials Migration implementation consultant learning path will equip you with skills to manage your Oracle Financials upgrade process.
                                             • End User Upgrade: 11i E-Business Suite for End Users
                                               End User Roles include tasks and transactions that end users complete, and are job role focused. Although these job roles are targeted primarily at end users, it is also critical that implementation consultants have access to this training in order to understand the basic features, functions, and flows of the product(s) before attending implementation offerings.

                                             These course offerings consist of online learning and inClass components, which can be attended in an Oracle Education Classroom, or may be delivered as a private event at your company site.

                                          97. What training is available for CRM?
                                          1. Oracle now offers a new comprehensive curriculum for CRM implemented. Three new courses, 11i Implement Sales and Marketing, 11i Implement Service and Contracts, and 11i Implement eCommerce have content specifically for implementers and concentrates on product information and key business flows across an entire CRM product family. Each is a two-week course and covers what an Implementer needs to know to begin implementing one of Oracle's CRM product families. After completing the course, a functional implementer will be prepared to begin implementing the Oracle CRM products. For more detailed knowledge on any one of the products. Oracle University offers a complete set of CRM courses that teaches students how to implement and use specific CRM products.
                                          98. What is Oracle University Online Learning?
                                          1. Previously Oracle Learning Network, Oracle University Online Learning is Oracle University's online education utility, with a comprehensive offering of in-depth eClasses designed to expand your knowledge of Oracle's E-Business Suite. This robust collection offers cost-effective access to hundreds of hours of eLearning. so you can learn what you want, when you want. Tutorials, demos, practice tests and chats are included and delivered online by expert Oracle instructors. Oracle University Online includes everything from navigation courses to upgrade training, product training, key business flow training and technical training. For a complete listing of online courses, go to www.oracle.com/education/oln

                                             Subscriptions and Offerings

                                             • 11i E-Business Suite for End Users offers job role specific training, with hours of in-depth demonstrations, practices, and quizzes that can be refered back to during the yearlong duration of the subscription.
                                             • Oracle University Professional Subscription for advanced Oracle professionals offers advanced topics for implementers involved in ad hoc implementations. New topics are added on a regular basis to ensure an offering that is constantly evolving and up to date.
                                             • Self Study Online courses are online alternatives to the inClass fundamentals offerings.
                                             • Oracle Partner Network members have unlimited and unrestricted access to the professional subscription courses and partner only content.
                                          99. What is Oracle Tutor?
                                          1. Whether you're implementing Oracle E-Business Suite for the first time and training new hires, or upgrading your existing implementation for experienced users. Oracle Tutor leverages Oracle's generic business processes to provide a base for building your company's own customized policies and procedures. Create and document custom business procedures in a fraction of the time it takes to develop them from scratch.
                                             • Ensure compliance to new policies by providing employees relevant business scenarios with Oracle Tutor's graphical decision-support procedure representation.
                                             • Update procedures online and use the Web to distribute reference materials and procedures only to the users who need them.
                                             • Develop training courses and desktop reference manuals tailored to your company's specific needs.

                                             Tutor focuses on the human component of the technology implementation. It provides a bridge between the implementation project teams and the end users, thus enabling a faster adoption of the E-Business Suite applications.

                                          100. What is Oracle iLearning and why do I need it?
                                          1. Oracle iLearning is the core of Oracles Learning Management Suite. The Oracle Learning Management Suite provides a complete infrastructure for organizations to manage, deliver, and track training, in online and classroom based environments. By optimizing the blend of online and classroom based training, our Learning Management Suite provides a quantifiable return on investment by automating your training processes and reducing total training costs. The Oracle Learning Management Suite consists of the following:

                                          Oracle iLearning can help you solve the problem of delivering fast, consistent, and cost effective learning solutions across your organization - no matter how large or geographically dispersed.

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244145
                                           

                                          Documentation

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244146
                                           

                                          Support

                                          Service	Description
                                          Update Subscription Service (15% of product license per year)	Rights to Oracle product upgrades, maintenance releases and patches released during the subscription period. This annual subscription service entitles customers to the latest available product releases, patches and documentation, as well as access to Oracle Metalink's rich web-based technical resources - including technical repositories. (Note: The ability to log and track Service Requests is NOT included in this service.) (Purchasing the Updates Subscription Service is a prerequisite for all other Oracle Support Services)
                                          Product Support: Diagnosis & Triage Service (7% of product license per year)	Around the clock problem diagnosis and resolution through access to Oracle technical information and assistance. Real-time solutions through 24 X 7 web and telephone access to technical expertise. Rich web-based technical resources - including technical repositories and the ability to log and track Service Requests using Oracle Metalink Access to non-technical customer service during normal business hours. (Purchase of Update Subscription Service is a prerequisite)
                                          Assisted Services: (Variable pricing)	Customer-focused support services through an Oracle engineering team that understands both the customer's Oracle software environment and the customer's unique business requirements (Purchase of Update Subscription Service and Product Support is a prerequisite)

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244147
                                           

                                          Technology Outsourcing: (3% or 5% of license per month)

                                          Remote management of Oracle Technology at the customer site (Network connection through Oracle Authorized Network Provider and Oracle Certified Configuration from an authorized hardware partner is required). (3% license per month) Hosting and management of Oracle Technology, including hardware and system management at in Oracle Data Center (5% per month) (Purchase of Update Subscription Service and Product Support is a prerequisite)

                                          E-Business Suite Outsourcing Service: (3% or 5% of license per month)

                                          Remote management of E-Business Suite at the customer site (Network connection through Oracle Authorized Network Provider and Oracle Certified Configuration from an authorized hardware partner is required) (3% of license per month) Hosting and management of Oracle E-Business Suite, including hardware and system management at an Oracle Data Center. (5% of license per month) (Purchase of Update Subscription Service and Product Support is a prerequisite)

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244148

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244149

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244150

                                          Severity 2: The problem causes a severe loss of service. No acceptable workaround is available: however, operation can continue in a restricted fashion.

                                          Support's Commitment: Support will work on Severity 2 Tars during normal business hours at the originating Global Support Center.

                                          Customer's Responsibilities: To ensure effective use of the customer resources and support resources the following is required for a Severity 2 TAR:

                                          Severity 3: The problem causes minor loss of service. The impact is an inconvenience, which may require a workaround to restore functionality.

                                          Support's Commitment: Support will work on Severity 3 Tars during normal business hours at the originating Global Support Center.

                                          Customer's Responsibilities: To insure effective use of the customer resources and support resources the following is required for a Severity 3 TAR:

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244151

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244152

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244153

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244154

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244155
                                           

                                          E-Business Suite Maintenance

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244156

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244157
                                           

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244158

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244159
                                           

                                          Pricing

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244160

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244161

                                          CONFIDENTIAL ORCL-EDOC-00244162

                                          1. • Oracle iLearning - Oracle iLearning can be used as a standalone Learning Management System (LMS) to deliver the optimal blend of online and classroom training at the lowest cost, or can be used as part of an integrated solution. Our enterprise LMS, Oracle iLearning, is at the core of Oracle Learning Management Suite, and provides the infrastructure to assemble content, view course catalogs, view online courses, assess and measure knowledge, and review training history for employees, customers, and partners.
                                             • Oracle Training Administration - Also a core product of the Oracle Learning Management Suite is Oracle Training Administration (OTA). With the combination of OTA and Oracle (Learning, you get the benefits of the LMS, plus an enhanced feature set for managing employee competency information. OTA can also be used standalone to manage instructor led training as well as the cost and revenue aspects of classroom training delivery such as resource supply, scheduling, and utilization.
                                             • Oracle HRMS - By adding Oracle HRMS to the OTA and Oracle /Learning integration, human capital management becomes more robust by using competencies to identify individual and team knowledge gaps. This information can then be used to plan and deliver the appropriate learning to close those gaps. The same information can be used throughout other E-Business Suite applications.
                                             101. What is included in the Oracle E -Business Suite documentation set?
                                             1. The Oracle E-Business Suite documentation set includes users guides by product, implementation manuals, product update notes, install, maintain, and upgrade manuals. We also provide online, context-sensitive help from forms, which includes the content of our user's guides, an online messages manual, and technical reference information through the eTRM interface on MetaLink.
                                             102. In what media will Oracle produce future documentation? Reference manuals? Technical documentation?
                                             1. Reference manuals (we call them user's guides) are available in three formats: online help, paper manuals, and manuals on the Applications Documentation Library CD. For Release 11i, online help files are in HTML format, and manuals on CD are in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. Customers can print PDF-format manuals in part or in their entirety, producing high-quality, hard copy output that includes graphics and screen shots. In addition, manuals are available in PDF formal on MetaLink and on AppsNet.

                                                Beginning with R11i.4, technical reference information is available through the eTRM interface on MetaLink. eTRM is a utility that reads an Oracle Repository and displays its contents as HTML. The Oracle Repository holds the database design for the E-Business Suite along with a copy of the source code. The database design and source code are parsed to create dependency information.

                                             103. How is documentation bundled with the Oracle E-Business Suite?
                                             1. Electronic versions (PDF) of product user guides, product update notes, install, maintain and upgrade manuals are provided on the Oracle Applications Documentation Library CD. The Documentation Library CD is included with the Oracle E-Business Suite CD pack and is orderable separately. The entire Oracle E-Business Suite documentation set (with the exception of eTRM) is available in bound, paper manuals, available for order by customers.
                                             104. What documentation is revised it each maintenance pack?
                                             1. Online help files are patched on an ongoing basis to reflect new functionality and to correct any bugs. With each maintenance pack, we revise the Oracle Applications Documentation Library CD to reflect any changes to the documentation, including the install, maintain, and upgrade manuals. In addition, eTRM information is revised as needed, generally with each maintenance pack.
                                             1. This version of the Support section is for the Americas region only. Answers may vary for some of these questions in the EMEA, Asia Pacific and Japan regions. You are advised to contact your local support center for any local variations.
                                             105. How is Oracle Support Services (OSS) structured as a business unit?
                                             1. There is one Senior Vice President, Mike Rocha, who manages worldwide OSS operations and reports directly to the CEO.
                                             106. Do all customers automatically get services?
                                             1. No. Support is a separate contract that must be purchased at the same time as the product license. It is renewable on an annual basis.
                                             107. What are Oracle Support's plans for new services and enhancements to existing services?
                                             1. Oracle Support Services is taking advantage of Oracle's CRM applications, the Internet and emerging technologies to make the support experience more productive for our customers. Customers get instant access to Support's knowledge repositories via our enhanced MetaLink Internet based self-service tool. Customers solve many of their problems in less time and with as much accuracy as they could over the phone. Use of the Internet enables enhanced routing capabilities that ensure issues are sent to the Support analysts who can best respond accurately and quickly regardless of where they are located.
                                             108. What are the levels of Support offered by Oracle?
                                             1. The Oracle Product Services currently include:
                                             109. How can customers get short-tern support for critical periods (upgrades, installs and year-ends)?
                                             1. Advanced Product Services allows you to get the exact support service you need when you need it. Advanced Product Services are designed to provide enhanced service levels above and beyond traditional product support.

                                                For further information on Oracle Support Services and Advanced Product Services, go to:
                                                http://www.oracle.com/support/

                                                For outsourced customers, all critical periods are supported in real time. Having a 7x24 organization monitoring the test, development, and production systems ensures performance, security, availability, and problem and change management.

                                             110. What Oracle Support tools can customers' access?
                                             1. Oracle Support Services his an easy-to-use web site to get non-technical support information. To access it, go to http.//wvww.oracle.com/support/ where you will see the following features:
                                                • Support Service Offerings
                                                • MetaLink Information /link to MetaLink tool
                                                • Contact Information
                                                • Customer Stories

                                                This site contains useful information that will aid you in your use of Oracle Support Services.

                                                For technical information, customers should utilize MetaLink, described below....

                                                MetaLink is a powerful web-based support service available 24x7. If you are a Product Support customer, this service is included with your support contract. MetaLink is the preferred method of obtaining support and product information, such as problem/solution articles, white papers, documentation, patches, and assistance from technical analysts.

                                                First-time users must register to use Oracle MetaLink. To register, please navigate to http://metalink.oracle.com and select the registration link. You will need your CSI (Customer Support Identifier) in order to register. Please fill out the registration questions and submit your request. In doing so, you will be prompted to create your username and password. You will need this username and password to access MetaLink, so please write these down. After registration, you have immediate access to MetaLink. If you do not know your CSI, please contact your Oracle sales representative.

                                             MetaLink Features:

                                             iTAR: Through MetaLink you are able to create, update, query, and even close Technical Assistance Requests (TARs). Because you are presented with possible solutions to your problem as you create an iTAR, you can often get the answers you need without creating a new iTAR. You can interact with Oracle Support analysts entirely through the web using MetaLink. Never wait on hold again! Of course the Oracle support team will still be on hand to answer pressing technical inquiries by phone. But with iTARs, less urgent inquires can be created via the MetaLink web site.

                                             Bug Text Availability: Customers can query and view bug information in MetaLink. The bug information can be used to check status as well as a knowledge repository for known issues.

                                             Top Tech Docs: Customers can use the same information that Oracle Support Services personnel refer to. This facility makes is easy to find hot topics, installation assistance and product reference materials. MetaLink users can access ALL content, not limited by licenses. By clicking on Top Tech Docs icon on the left side of the MetaLink homepage and drilling down into a specific product area, you can access the following information, product-by-product: alerts which detail known issues, supplemental documentation (user, administrative, error message manuals, release notes, README files, etc.), technical notes, patch information, white papers, functional information, troubleshooting tips, frequently asked questions (FAQ) documents and set-up and usage information. To access Top Tech Docs, go to the MetaLink home page and select Top Tech Docs icon from the menu on the left side of the page.

                                             Queries of the Technical Support Knowledge Base: This is a very popular feature within MetaLink with customers accessing our knowledge base over 12,000 times per quarter. MetaLink allows customers full text query against technical-support bulletins, problem/solution articles, alerts, README files, white papers, release notes, step-by-step installation instructions and text in the technical forums. All Oracle Support analysts contribute to a technical database using standardized processes. These processes provide a uniquely powerful environment that enables customers and technical partners to access an enormous library of information quickly and easily. The ownership of this repository is assigned to individual analysts and dedicated knowledge workers who accept responsibility to keep the knowledge base for their specialist subjects up-to-date. Content can be searched for via the Top Tech Docs section, while relevant updates can be proactively delivered to MetaLink users on the My Headlines customizable home page, both online and through e-mail.

                                             Technical Forums: Users in the Oracle community can share information and ideas in these forums as well. Forums are a great area to ask "how to" questions and to hear from others on best practices. Forums should not be used for structured problem analysis - those types of problems should be submitted to support in a Service request (iTAR).

                                             Patches: This section on MetaLink provides customers with the ability to download patches and patch sets directly from within MetaLink. Customers should review the Readme files to find out which bugs have been fixed in the maintenance packs. Please note that customers now have the capability to search for all patches for a particular product (or products) via the search for high priority patches. The patch download area has gone through a complete rewrite. This new interface is available in FULL PRODUCTION for your use and review.

                                             Product Lifecycle: This tab on the MetaLink home page allows users to access the Certify database, which contains information regarding certification and interoperability issues, based on the particular versions of Oracle products and operating system version you are using. Once in the Certify section, customers can also query and learn about the relevant desupport information. (To access the Product Lifecycle section, go to the MetaLink home page and click on Product Lifecycle from the left hand menu.)

                                             E-Business: This tab on the Metalink home page allows users the capability to review information specific to Release 11i such as release availability information, urgent installation and upgrade issues.

                                             1. migration information, documentation, release notes, alerts, technical articles, NLS information, Release Content Documents, and a link to the e-TRMs (electronic technical reference manuals).

                                                User Profile: In this tab off the main MetaLink homepage, users can add and remove support identifiers, view other users registered under the same support identifier, sign up in your user profile to receive via email product alerts whenever a new product or version is released on platforms of interest via the Proactive Product Availability Alerts and change their MetaLink passwords.

                                                Help: Context-sensitive online help can assist you in using the service. It describes the service features and provides an Oracle glossary no matter where you are on MetaLink.

                                                Feedback: We encourage all MelaLink users to tell us what they think of the service. This feedback has proven extremely valuable in the past and we have incorporated it into the new service design.

                                             111. I've heard MetaLink will be changing; can you explain?
                                             1. MetaLink has recently been updated to include some new important troubleshooting and management features:
                                                • Enhanced environment management and configuration assistance using My Support!
                                                  • Manage your environment by Projects
                                                  • Catalog all your Oracle environments
                                                  • Receive configuration details for each environment
                                                  • Generate Health check reports for critical areas
                                                • Improved Self Service using the Instrumentation/Scripting Project and associated functionality
                                                  (See QA listing #113)
                                                • Improved Patch search and download functionality
                                                • Translated user interface for Chinese, Korean and Japanese customers
                                             112. If a customer calls Oracle Support Services, how is the call routed?
                                             1. If customers do not find solutions to their problems themselves in Oracle MetaLink's knowledge repository or technical libraries, they can either submit an electronic Technical Assistance Request (iTAR) via MetaLink or place a telephone call to Oracle Support Services, where an analyst will gather information about the customer system and type of problem and submit an iTAR on behalf of the customer. Once the iTAR is logged, it is electronically routed to the most appropriate product service engineer for problem resolution. Customers who choose to log service requests directly via MetaLink experience faster resolution times as the up-front phone time is eliminated. Today, over 90% of our customers choose to use MetaLink to request service instead of placing a telephone call.

                                                Oracle E-Business Suite Outsourcing customers enter a separate queue. These customers no longer have to answer any questions regarding their current software version, their current set up, their current patch level set, or any info regarding the current issue that are calling for. In all cases, Oracle can see the software in real time and observe any issues the customer is having. In most cases (~80%) Oracle Support can spot issues and correct them without the customer even being aware of the issue.

                                             113. Define Severity 1,2,3, and 4 Tars What are Support's responsibilities and the customer's responsibilities for managing Severity 1,2,3, and 4 Tars?
                                             1. Severity 1: The problem causes complete loss of service. Work cannot reasonably continue, the operation is mission critical to the justness and the situation is an emergency. A Severity 1 problem has one or more of the following characteristics:
                                                • Data corruption
                                                • A critical function is not available
                                                • System hangs indefinitely, causing unacceptable or indefinite delays for resources or response System crashes, and crashes repeatedly after restart attempts
                                             1. Support's Commitment: OSS will work 24x7 until the issue is resolved or as long as useful progress can be made. 24 X 7 work may continue on a Severity 1 TAR in the support center where the TAR originated even after the center's closing time or may be transferred to another Global Support Center that is operating within the normal business hours.

                                                Customer Responsibilities: To ensure effective use of the customer resources and support resources the following is required for a Severity 1 TAR:

                                             • Complete problem description with associated versions, errors and log files. Steps to reproduce problem
                                             • Customer should provide the impact this situation is having on their operations/implementation plans
                                             • Customer must provide OSS with a contact during this 24x7 period, either on site or by pager (but with access to the system), to assist with data gathering, testing, and applying fixes. If a contact cannot be provided for 24x7 average the TAR will be addressed as a Severity 2. and will be work as described in the Severity 2 definition section
                                             • If OSS cannot duplicate the problem in-house, or if special diagnostics are needed, the analyst will request dial-in information to access the customer's environment. This will allow Support and Development to access the customer instance/environment as needed during the life of the TAR. Dial-in information is kept confidential.
                                             • Customers are requested to propose Severity 1 classification with great care, so that valid Severity 1 situations obtain the necessary resource allocation from Oracle.
                                             • Complete problem description with associated versions, errors and log files. Steps to reproduce problem.
                                             • If support cannot duplicate the problem in-house, or if special diagnostics are needed, the analyst will request dial-in information to access the customer's environment. This will allow Support and Development to access the customer instance/environment as needed during the life of the TAR. Dial-in information is kept confidential.
                                             • Complete problem description with associated versions, errors and log files. Steps to reproduce problem.
                                             • If support cannot duplicate the problem in-house, or if special diagnostics are needed, the analyst will request dial-in information to access the customer's environment. This will allow Support and Development to access the customer instance/environment as needed during the life of the TAR. Dial-in information is kept confidential.
                                             1. Severity 4: The problem causes no loss of Service. The result is a minor error, incorrect behavior, or a documentation error that does not impede the operation of a system.

                                                Support's Commitment: Support will work on Severity 4 Tars during normal business hours at the originating Global Support Center.

                                                Customer's Responsibilities: To ensure effective use of the customer resources and support resources the following is required for a Severity 4 TAR:

                                             • Complete problem description with associated versions, errors and log files. Steps to reproduce problem or, if a documentation error, part number for the manual or section.
                                             114. What has Oracle done to improve my ability to self-service?
                                             1. One of the most significant initiatives in Oracle Support Service's organization currently is to help customers help themselves. One of the ways we are facilitating this is through the Instrumentation/Scripting Project. We are developing diagnostic tools and scripts that provide self service diagnostic capabilities to our customers. In doing this, we are able to obtain quality information which reduces time to resolution and aids in decreasing the number of incoming Service requests.

                                                One of these tools, the Diagnostic Framework, is available to all customers using Oracle Applications Release 11i.4 and above. The Diagnostic Framework is a self-service tool that provides customers with the ability to review and diagnose the configuration and setup of their Oracle Applications instances. The project team has been busy designing, developing and publishing additional content for this tool in order to troubleshoot and resolve common issues for which Support is typically contacted. For further information regarding the Diagnostic Framework, and to download the latest collection of diagnostic tests, please refer to Note: 167000.1 in MetaLink.

                                                In addition to the Diagnostic Framework, several other diagnostic tests/tools have been developed which can be run independently. These are referred to as "standalone" diagnostic tests. A catalog has been created in MetaLink (note # 178043.1) containing a listing of the diagnostic tests available for the Oracle Diagnostics and/or as standalone tests. OSS is working diligently with Oracle Development on the design and development of tests with plans to incorporate diagnostic aids into the product to improve usability.

                                                An example of a very useful standalone tool is the Applications Collection Tool (ACT). The Applications Collection Tool is a tool that a customer can run on their own which automatically captures the information typically required by OSS and Development for problem resolution. This helps reduce the number of interactions between OSS and the customer, thus reducing the amount of time required to resolve an issue. The Applications Collection Tool primarily extracts information on the customer's installation such as database triggers, profile option values, and version of products, forms, libraries, reports, listeners, workflow files, etc. The Applications Collection Tool is available to customers via MetaLink.

                                                In addition to the Serviceability Framework Project, Oracle continues to place a heavy emphasis on the Top Tech Docs (formerly known as Self Service Tool Kits or Technical Libraries) section of MetaLink. This section of MetaLink is described in depth in question #109 above.

                                                In addition to Oracle Support's diagnostic tools, customers are also encouraged to use OEM (OracleEnterprise Manager), and OAM (Oracle Application Manager).

                                                If you'd like to see a demonstration of the diagnostic tools, please visit the Oracle Support Services booths in the Oracle exhibit hall (demogrounds). Members of the Automation project team will be there to provide a demonstration and answer your questions.

                                             115. What is the procedure for a customer to escalate a TAR?
                                             1. The TAR Escalation Process is now documented on Metalink in note 199389.1. If a Customer has an open TAR (that is critical to their production environment, go-live date, acceptance test cycle, or any other critical business cycle) where the current level of response they are receiving is not meeting their immediate need, the Customer may use the TAR Escalation Process to request an additional level of attention from Support. Before requesting TAR escalation from a support manager, the customer should first update the TAR with any new information and change to the business impact. If the issue impacts an implementation or upgrade milestone date, for example a month end close or other scheduled process, make sure to update the TAR with information pertaining to needed fix dates. The customer should then call in on their CSR as if opening a new TAR, and request the responding analyst to escalate the TAR to a support manager. The support engineer will engage their manager or the support manager on-call. The support manager's goal is to respond to the customer in less than 30 minutes.

                                                The paged support manager will call back the customer to identify- him/herself, provide direct contact information, and acknowledge the escalation. He/she will also document the business situation within the TAR, and will work with the customer to define an acceptable action plan to resolve the situation. The Support Manager will then document the mutually agreed to action plan in the TAR. The TAR escalation manager will own the escalation until resolved or escalated to a higher level of management. If the issue needs to be passed to a different support manager, this will be done with a warm handoff to the next support manager, and the customer will be notified of the change and the new managers' contact information.

                                                The TAR is updated at every step, ensuring a clear history of the issue and actions taken to resolve it. This documented history assists in identifying the appropriate resources needed to resolve the situation.

                                                In response to OAUG's concerns about customer requests for escalation and as part of Oracle's strategy to provide the customer an electronic medium to communicate with support. Oracle Support has a future plan to allow customers to electronically escalate a TAR via MetaLink. Customers will be prompted with a template to provide details on the reason for the escalation, impact of the problem on their business or implementation/upgrade plans, and contact information for the person requesting escalation and their manager. After initial contact with a support manager, the process as described above will remain in place.

                                             116. What if a technical issue is putting my business milestone at risk?
                                             1. Let your support engineer know. Explain the business situation. Over time we've found that applications customers log more issues prior to going live than after they've gone live. Applications implementations typically have many milestones. If the failure of a milestone will impact the go live, let the Support analyst know. Document the date your business must run a specific process or perform a specific function. Issues opened previously as a Sev 3 may become more critical and require more attention as your milestone date approaches. Talk to the support analyst and discuss the situation together. For example, some Tars are not showstoppers for a major milestone. When your analysis shows that a business critical milestone is imminent, you may want to raise the tar to a Severity 1 and provide a 24 X 7 customer contact name to OSS.
                                             117. I see an indication in my TAR that my bug is being updated, but I cannot see any updates in the bug itself on Metalink.
                                             1. Bugs that are visible on Metalink are visible to all customers, not just the customer for whom the bug was filed. Just as Oracle Corporation wants its' own proprietary information hidden in the bug, we do not publish bug entries externally that could be risky in the hands of your competitors. This type of information could include dial-in scripts, discussions about your data, company contact names and phone numbers, etc. Even knowledge of a problem you are encountering could give your competitor an advantage.

                                                When you see a series of TAR updates indicating that your bug is being updated, that is a good sign that your bug is being worked, and you can ask your Support analyst to filter through those bug updates to let you know what is happening.

                                             118. How does Oracle Support use the customer's experience with Oracle products to drive product improvements?
                                             1. There are several ways OSS uses the customer's experience with Oracle products which improve our products and their usability.

                                                The Customer Problem Prevention (CPP) helps prevent problems already discovered by someone else from recurring to improve the quality of the products so our customers will not need to contact Support about the same issue. Oracle works on determining the root cause of what is causing our customer difficulties and then devises corrective actions to solve the problems. The result of this approach is increased customer satisfaction and improved product quality. Through the CPP program. OSS acts as a feedback mechanism to other Oracle divisions, such as Product development, on product issues, customer issues, and recommendations for solutions. Some of OSS's recommendations for fixing a problem will result in an immediate patch whereas other recommendations will be larger in scope and may not appear until a future release. Most issues that generate significant volume will require action plans that span several organizations with both short term and long-term corrective actions. The CPP program has provided us with significant benefits: focuses our daily operations on the most complex and unique customer issues and increases our customer's ability to self-service.

                                                In addition to the CPP program, OSS periodically solicits customer feedback through surveys conducted with customers. We ask customers questions that help us identify areas for improvement. The information is then fed back into the various teams within Oracle who can improve these areas in the future.

                                                Finally, customer beta programs are active elements in providing feedback to OSS and Development. Beta programs help OSS work through potential installation issues prior to the general customer release. These programs are tightly coupled with the Product Release Process program described in the question below.

                                                Additionally, Oracle outsourcing customers provide the development organization a unique opportunity for the future development of software enhancements. The environment that the development team uses to develop new enhancements is identical to the one used for each outsourcing customer. This along with the use of current customers' key business flows allows the development organization to reduce patch failures (less then 2% for Outsourcing customers), and allows for superior advancement in the development of Oracle technology and applications.

                                             119. What is Support doing to improve reliability, availability, supportability and product quality?
                                             1. We've already mentioned several efforts within the Support section of the FAQ which have resulted in improved reliability, availability, supportability and product quality: the Customer Problem Prevention Program, the features in MetaLink and the Serviceability Framework efforts described above. Additionally, many of our product releases follow the Product Release Process (PRP). which is the corporate standard for product releases in Oracle. The PRP team's goals are to ensure that each product is released only when it is complete and of acceptable quality, and that all processes are in place and field personnel are trained.

                                                The Support function addresses product support needs for the life cycle of the product through active participation in the PRP from development through obsolescence. The Support function ensures dial a product is planned, designed, developed, and verified to be supportable as well as to prepare OSS to support the product.

                                                Support plays a key role in each of the phases of the PRP through first-hand experience and providing valuable customer input to the PRP team. We partner with other organizations throughout Oracle to ensure that reliability, availability and supportability considerations are identified and fed back into the process and the resulting product.

                                             120. When does Oracle plan to desupport the following product releases?
                                             1.  

                                                PRODUCT	DESUPPORT DATE
                                                Applications 10.7 (includes Character Mode, SmartClient and NCA)	June 30, 2003
                                                Oracle 8.1.7	December 31, 2003
                                                Oracle (Web) App Server v4.0.8.2	October 21, 2002
                                                Oracle Workflow Cartridge v2.0x/2.5x	December 27, 2002
                                                Oracle Workflow Cartridge v2.6x	January 21, 2003

                                             121. What are Oracle's plans for Release 10.7 support?
                                             1. Error correction support for Release 10.7 is available through June 30, 2003. The recommended migration path for customers is to Release 11i.

                                                Product Obsolescence/Desupport Summary:
                                                Oracle Corporation announces the end of Error Correction Support for E-Business Suite (Oracle Applications) version (s) 10.7 on all platforms, effective June 30^th, 2003. E-Business Suite (Oracle Applications) customers will continue to receive patches for P1 and P2 bugs UNTIL June 30^th, 2003. There will be no new maintenance releases and no new operating system or database certifications.

                                                Extended Assistance Support (EAS) after 30-JUN-2003 will NOT be provided.

                                                Support for Oracle Payroll will be limited to legislative changes only.

                                                Customers must upgrade their database software to Oracle 8i. Customers who are not upgrading their Applications or their database, and are already using Oracle 8.0.6 may continue to receive support on Oracle 8.0.6 until 30-June-2003.

                                                The desupport date extension for Applications 10.7 specifically EXCLUDES

                                                -Support for OPM 4.1
                                                - Enhancements or backports of functionality, including legislative changes other than for Oracle HRMS
                                                - Support for US Payroll legislative changes for quarter-end processing for Q-2, 2003 onwards
                                                - Support for UK Payroll legislative changes effective 06-April-2003 onwards
                                                - Support for Japanese Payroll 2002 Year End processing
                                                - Support for Japanese Payroll legislative changes effective 0l-Jan-2003 onwards

                                                Oracle recommends that customers upgrade/migrate to Release 11i as soon as possible to maintain the highest level of support for their products and systems.

                                                For additional information, please review the Product Obsolescence and Desupport Notice available on Oracle MetaLink (note *99266.1).

                                             122. What are the different types of Oracle Applications Updates?
                                             1. Oracle Applications organizes updates based on granularity:
                                                 

                                                UPDATE TYPE	DESCRIPTION
                                                One-off	This is the most granular update required to change a particular behavior or fix a particular defect. These updates tend to be smaller, but due to product dependencies may be large. These patches are generally intended to fix a single problem. Integration testing of one-off patches is minimal.
                                                Mini-pack	This is an aggregation of all updates for a particular product, such as as Applications Object Library (FND). The updates are aggregated into a single, easily applied patch that will take you to the latest code level for a particular product area. Mini-packs are named successively by letter. For example, 11i.FND.A, 11i.FND.B, etc. Mini-packs replace the previous concepts of Applications patchsets, or mega-patches. Minipacks are regression tested by development. Most product teams now bundle product mini-packs into Family Packs.
                                                Family Pack	This is an aggregation of all updates for a particular product family, such as the Procurement Family (PRC_PF), which is made up of Purchasing, Internet Procurement, Supplier Scheduling, and Internet Supplier Portal. The updates are aggregated into a single, easily applied patch that will take you to the latest code level for the entire product family. Family packs are named successively by letter. For example. 11i.PRC_PF.F. 11i.PRC_PF.G. Family packs are regression tested by development to ensure not only the quality of the product patches, but also the interaction of all products in the product family.
                                                Maintenance Pack	This is an aggregation of all updates for the entire E-Business Suite, including all ERP and CRM products. The updates are aggregated into a single, easily applied patch that will take you to the latest code level for the entire E-Business Suite. Maintenance Packs are numbered as point releases, 11i.7, 11i.8, etc. Additionally, for customers not yet using Release 11i, the Rapid Install is repackaged at each Maintenance Pack level. Maintenance Packs receive the highest level of testing, as it is possible to test the interaction of all products in the E-Business Suite in a known configuration. Maintenance Packs are tested by Support and Consulting in addition to Development prior to release.

                                                Oracle Applications updates can also be classified by type:

                                                UPDATE TYPE	DESCRIPTION
                                                Interoperability patch	This is an update to Oracle Applications code that will enable a change to the underlying technology stack. For example: Applications Release 11i interoperability patch for Oracle 9i. Applications Release 11i interoperability patch for Developer 6i patch 9, etc.
                                                Diagnostic patch	This type of patch is intended to gather additional information about a particular issue being encountered at a customer site. It is often used when the issue cannot be reproduced on-site at Oracle.
                                                Translated update	This is a translated version of a patch. It contains only the components requiring translation. Language independent portions of a base patch are not included in a translated patch: therefore you must always apply the base US patch as well as the translated patch.
                                                Product Introduction	This type of update introduces a new product to a release using the patching

                                             infrastructure. Examples include Oracle Process Manufacturing for Release 11.0. And Oracle Enterprise Asset Management for Release 11i.

                                             123. How can customers get patches and updates?
                                             1. All patches can be downloaded via Oracle MetaLink for any supported platform or language. Customers can query a specific patch, or they can query for patches based on Release, Products, Platforms, or Languages. The search can also be limited to high priority patches, mini-packs, or patches not in the latest product mini-pack. The patch READMEs can also be viewed online.

                                                All of Oracle Outsourcing customers receive patches and updates as part of their service. The responsibility- to ensure that all patches and updates are tested (with customer participation) and completed during off hours (thus reducing downtime) is part of the standard Outsourcing service.

                                             124. What improvements have been made for maintenance in 11i?
                                             1. In Release 11i Oracle introduced tin: Rapid Install for all customers new to 11i. including customers upgrading from release 10.7 or 11.0. Unlike earlier releases, the 11i Rapid Install is repackaged at each maintenance point release, allowing customers to easily get started on the latest versions.

                                                We also introduced Consolidated Upgrade Patches specifically for upgrade customers to allow them to take advantage of any upgrade improvements made after the Rapid Install was packaged

                                                After the installation or upgrade, customers can reduce their maintenance costs by only applying aggregated patches released at regular intervals. The aggregated patches (Mini-packs, Family-Packs, and Maintenance Packs) are defined in a question above. Release 11i patches are "platform aware" to keep customers from applying patches on the wrong platform. The patches are also "translation aware" to inform NLS customers when they need to apply translated patches.

                                                We have also moved all patch tracking information into the database and introduced a patch history UI capability as part of the Oracle Applications Manager 11i. This allows customers to easily view detailed information on all patches applied to their system.

                                                AD Mini-pack G introduced the concept of "rear" prerequisite patches. While creating a new patch, common modules or widely deployed patch levels can be defined as prerequisites Rather than including the prerequisites in the new patch being created, the information is recorded with the patch, allowing a smaller patch with less overhead. At the time the patch is being applied, adpatch confirms that the prerequisite is satisfied prior to applying the patch.

                                             125. What has Oracle done in 11i to reduce the downtime required to apply patches?
                                             1. Reducing the downtime required to apply patches is one of Oracle's highest priorities. Significant advances have been made to the patching utilities to reduce downtime, and we continue to work on further enhancements. The following tables list the enhancements to reduce downtime introduced in our most recent AD Mini-packs:
                                                 

                                                AD Mini-pack E, released November 2001
                                                Faster file copies	Adpatch no longer performs a binary compare when patching files.
                                                Large driver support	Adpatch uses more efficient memory structures that scale with large drivers.
                                                Reduced worker idle	AD workers look for jobs every second.
                                                Increased parallelism	The maximum number of jobs running in parallel has been increased.
                                                Faster restart	When restarting a patch, adpatch can quickly move to where it left off.

                                             Multiple languages	Adpatch can now apply patches with multiple language files.
                                             Admrgpch improvements	Admrgpch can merge all types of patches, and performs characterset conversion.
                                             Checkfile feature	Adpatch records database actions in the database and avoids duplicate actions in future patches. Previous database actions are retroactively loaded.

                                              

                                             AD Mini-pack F, released February 2002
                                             More reduced worker idle	AD workers look for jobs every quarter second.
                                             Execute PL/SQL directly	AD workers execute PL/SQL code object creation in their own process instead of forking a new process.
                                             Parallel report generation	Ad patch generates reports in parallel.
                                             Parallel MLS synch	Multi-Lingual Support tables are now synchronized in parallel by product.
                                             Checkfile improvements	Checkfile feature is enhanced to allow easier uptake.

                                              

                                             AD Mini-pack G, released November 2002
                                             Prerequisites	Adpatch determines prerequisites from patch driver file, and analyzes existing implementation to determine if prerequisite is needed.
                                             Automatic job deferral	Adpatch will automatically re-queue a failed job, rather than tie up a worker.

                                             126. What future enhancements is Oracle planning to reduce the downtime required to apply patches?
                                             1. Other potential enhancements for future AD Mini-packs include support for multiple AD sessions, granular linking and generation, and seeddata pre-loading.

                                                Oracles E-Business Suite Outsourcing customers experience little or no downtime that has not been agreed to in their maintenance plan. Oracle Outsourcing takes the responsibility to proactively monitor the system and load all proactive patches and maintain in real time a system to view, diagnose, and fix all other issues.

                                             127. What has Oracle done to improve translation availability?
                                             1. Oracle has streamlined the translation process. Translations are now done during development and QA of the base patch. Beginning with Release 11i.7 we are able to simultaneously release all supported languages for Maintenance Packs. The goal is simultaneous shipment of all languages for all mini-packs, and family packs.

                                                Many one-off patches are also available simultaneously. Otherwise. Oracle Support can expedite processing or provide an immediate "Merged Translation". We plan to provide this capability to customers via MetaLink in the near future.

                                             128. When will Oracle support "hot patching" - patching of a 24x7 system?
                                             1. Some patches already can be applied "hot"
                                                - Translated database updates
                                                - Help text uploads

                                                Beyond this, Applications Development continues to design mechanisms and processes to reduce or eliminate downtime. Among other things this includes aggressively reviewing relevant features in the data server, making improvements with existing tools, adding standards to increase parallelism and prototyping more radical changes.

                                             129. What has Oracle done to improve the quality of Release 11i and future releases? What QA processes has Oracle implemented?
                                             1. A number of quality improvement and process improvement projects have been defined and implemented by Oracle Applications as part of Release 11i. The large number of products in the E-Business Suite, the richness of the toolset with which it is developed, and the rate of functional enhancement require a focus on automation of Quality Assurance. Oracle Applications Development has recently adopted several methods of automation to better assure quality.

                                                Coding standards violations and potential bugs are now identified by an automated utility. A patch cannot be released if it fails to pass the checks run by the Global Standards Compliance Checker. There are currently over 200 automated checks that are potentially run whenever a developer creates a patch.

                                                An automated SQL performance tool executes and characterizes over 14,000 SQL statements in the E-Business Suite. SQL statements are run against multiple databases with different data distributions. With this tool developers can identify potentially long-running or poorly performing SQL. It also provides valuable where-used information as developers design changes to SQL or the underlying schema.

                                                And, there is a vigorous focus on automated regression tests. Applications Development has standardized on a third-party regression-testing tool that allows us to test all tools and interfaces under a single infrastructure. New standards have been defined for a more comprehensive set of tests that can be used for testing patches, new functionality, technical certifications and other changes. Beginning with Release 11i.7 we are sharing test standards and sample tests with customers by including the Test Starter Kit as part of our shipped product.

                                                Automation is the key to implementation of quality processes. But measurement is fundamental to determining focus areas as well as the success or failure of initiatives. Applications Development is constantly reviewing and improving the metrics and tools used to track product quality. Senior applications management reviews TAR and Bug metrics weekly. Snapshots and six-month trends are used to assess current and historical quality.

                                                Oracle Support is working closely with Development on TAR avoidance. As the interface to the customer, Oracle Support is well qualified to identify those issues causing the most problems or confusion, whether they be defects in the software or simply the need for better documentation or diagnostic tools. Applications development product teams meet weekly with designated Support representatives. Support and Development together have an objective to aggressively reduce the incoming TAR rate month over month with targeted enhancement; to product code.

                                                Release 11i continues to follow the Oracle Product Release Process (PRP), which is the corporate standard for all product releases in Oracle. PRP ensures that each product is released only when it is complete and of acceptable quality, and that ordering procedures are in place, the sales and consulting forces are prepared, education programs are in place, partners are ready, and support is trained. PRP provides the key cross-divisional, cross-functional definition of the plans, deliverables, activities, milestones, and communication necessary between Oracle divisions to release products. Its scope includes the development and testing processes. For example, as part of the PRP for Release 11i, representatives from consulting, support, education, partners, as well as customers, participated in Product Assurance Testing to provide feedback to the development organization on the quality of Release 11i. PRP also includes a pre-release sign-off by senior management, who review quality criteria for the release, including open bug counts, and the breadth and depth of the functional system, integration, performance, and regression testing that was performed. PRP not only enhances the overall product quality of the release, it enhances overall customer satisfaction by ensuring that all Oracle support and implementation related personnel are trained and knowledgeable on the new release.

                                             130. What is the E-Business Suite pricing?
                                             1. The E-Business Suite pricing is a new pricing model that enables customers to license Oracle's E-Business Suite using a minimal number of metrics. This new pricing model is targeted at customers who are standardizing on Oracle Applications.

                                                The E-Business Suite pricing model is in addition to the component pricing model (traditional pricing model), it does not replace it.

                                             131. Why is Oracle introducing an additional pricing model?
                                             1. The E-Business Suite pricing model was developed to facilitate the purchasing experience for customers who are licensing the entire E-Business Suite versus a few individual applications. With the release of 11i and the seamless integration of all the applications. Oracle introduces a simple and flexible model that customers who wish to standardize on the E-Business Suite could easily manage.
                                             132. Can some applications be licensed with the E-Business Suite pricing and others with the component pricing model?
                                             1. No, the E-Business Suite pricing model and the component pricing model are two separate models and they cannot be interchanged.
                                             133. What are the license fees for the E-Business Suite pricing?
                                             1. The E-Business Suite pricing is licensed using the metrics listed below:
                                                • The E-Business Suite Professional User metric is used to license individuals who are accessing any of the following applications: Marketing Online, Advanced Marketing Online, Trade Management, Marketing Intelligence, TeleSales, Collections, Sales Online, Mobile Sales, Wireless Option for Sales, Quoting, Partners Online, Sales Intelligence, Incentive Compensation, Order Management (internal orders only), Advanced Pricing (internal orders only), Configurator, Mobile Supply Chain Applications, Warehouse Management, Purchasing, Purchasing Intelligence, iSupplier Portal, Discrete Manufacturing, Flow Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Manufacturing Intelligence Enterprise Asset Management, iSupport (support personnel and managers), TeleService, Service Online, Depot Repair, Spares Management, Wireless Option for Service, Advanced Service Online, Advanced Scheduler, Mobile Field Service, Qualify Online, Service Intelligence, Customer Intelligence, CRM Data Model, Sales Contracts, Service Contracts, Rights Contracts, Projects Contracts, Contracts Intelligence, Project Costing, Project Billing, Project Resource Management, Product Development Exchange, CAD View-3D, Financials, Treasury, Financials & Sales Analyzers, Financials Intelligence, Human Resources, Self-service HR (HR personnel and managers), Advanced Benefits, HR Intelligence, Advanced Inbound, Advanced Outbound, Scripting, eMail Center, Interaction Center Intelligence, Data Librarian, iProcurement, iSupport (non-support personnel), Internet Time, Internet Expenses, iReceivables, Self Service HR (non HR Personnel), Training Administration, Customers Online, The E-Business Suite Professional User price is USD $4,000.00.
                                                • The E-Business Suite Employee User metric is used to license individuals who are accessing any of the following applications: iProcurement, iSupport (non-support personnel), Internet Time, Internet Expenses, iReceivables, Self Service HR (non HR Personnel), Training Administration, Customers Online, The E-Business Suite Employee User price is USD $400.00.
                                                • The Order metric is used to license electronic orders generated through any of the following applications: iStore, iPayment, Configurator, Advanced Pricing, Order Management, Release Management, Purchasing. A tiered pricing structure applies to Orders. Its range is between USD $2.00 per Order and USD $0.10 per Order.

                                                Individuals who are not employees, contractors or outsourcers and who are using any of the applications listed under the E-Business Suite professional User and the E-Business Suite Employee User must be licensed using the E-Business Suite Professional User-external and the E-Business Suite Non-Employee user, respectively. The fee is $1,000 and $100, respectively).

                                             1. Any of the applications that are not listed above must be licensed separately as add-ons, using the metrics that are offered with the component pricing.
                                             134. Are there minimum licensing requirements?
                                             1. Yes. The minimum is based on a combination of E-Business Suite Professional and Employee User licenses, as well as the total list license fee, whichever is greater.

                                                The minimum number of Professional User is 10% of the total employee population and a combination of Professional User and Employee User for at least 20% of the total employee population. The minimum list license fee is USD$ 250,000 (support does not count towards this minimum).

                                             135. To meet the required minimum, can 20% of the total company population be licensed as E-Business Suite Professional Users, instead of the minimum requirement of 10% for E-Business Suite Professional User and 10% for E-Business Suite Employee User?
                                             1. Yes. However, you cannot license 20% of your company population as E-Business Suite Employee Users even if it exceeds the $250,000 minimum license threshold. You must license at least 10% of your company as Professional Users.
                                             136. If my Company's employee population grows and no longer meets the minimums, do I need to purchase additional licenses to meet the minimums?
                                             1. If your employee population grows by 10% or more and no longer meets the minimum licensing requirement, you are required to purchase incremental licenses to satisfy the minimum licensing requirement of 10% E-Business Suite Professional Users and 10% E-Business Suite Employee Users. However, at any such time the company has incremental users using the application, they must be licensed.
                                             137. Does the number of E-Business Suite Professional User licenses have to match the number of E-Business Suite Employee User licenses?
                                             1. No. The number of E-Business Suite Professional User licenses does not need to match. Nor is there a specific ratio to be maintained between the number of E-Business Suite Professional User licenses and the number of E-Business Suite Employee User licenses. A customer must license all his Professional Users and all his Employee Users, regardless of the number required. The minimums as stated below must be met.
                                             138. If I do not use the Professional Applications frequently, am I still required to purchase E-Business Suite Professional User Licenses?
                                             1. Yes,. frequency and intensity of use are not a determinant for licensing the software. Anyone using the applications must be licensed, based on the user type designated for those applications.
                                             139. What are the support fees?
                                             1. Product Support and Update Subscription are 7% and 15%, respectively, of the perpetual license fee. The E-Business discount applies. Effectively, total net support fees are 22% of net license fees.
                                             140. Can I purchase a 2-year or 4-year term license with the E-Business Suite pricing?
                                             1. No, the E-Business Suite pricing is only available with a perpetual license. However, you can purchase a "hosted" one-year term license. Oracle.com will provide the hosted services.
                                             141. Can existing Oracle applications customers migrate to the E-Business Suite pricing model?
                                             1. Yes. Oracle will credit the existing application customers for the net fees paid for previous applications purchases. Non-application products cannot be applied toward the purchase of the E-Business Suite.
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                                                _[O1]Reviewer = Reggie Duda
                                                Page: 39
                                                _[O2]Reviewer = lori.coleman
                                                Page: 40
                                                _[O3]Reviewer = lisa.parekh (I think RPT was desupported starting with 10.7)
                                                Page: 41
                                                _[O4]Reviewer = lisa.parekh (add note about Discover and iAs bundle?)
                                                Page: 41
                                                _[O5]Reviewer = ahmed.alomah