Monday, December 16, 2013

Service Contract Setup - Part : 7

Auto Numbering

Auto Number is an import feature of Service Contracts. It lays out the rules how the contract number will be generated. Contract numbers can be sequential number or a combination of defined prefix and suffix that can alpha-numeric.


There are number of attribute provided by Oracle that can be used in different combinations to achieve a numbering sequence. These are:
  • Site - The rule can be setup at Site level that impact the entire site. All contracts created under that site even of different business group / Operating Unit / Class will follow as numbering sequence.
  • User Function - You can write you own pl/sql to generate the numbering sequence. Till now what ever I worked I haven't seen using function to generate contract numbers.
  • Business Group - If setup at this level all contract under the business group use the same number sequence unless a specific Class or Category is chosen. If it further dependent on Class / Category then it will unique numbers with the specified combination.
  • Operating Unit - Same goes with Operating Unit. All contract under same Operating Unit will have same numbering sequence unless is further classified based on Class / Category.
  • Class - If set only at Class, all contract created for a particular class have same sequence. Contract Class is like Service Agreement, Project Contract etc.
  • Category - If set at Category level, all contract for a particular category will have same numbering sequence. Contract categories are like Service Agreement, Warranty and Extended Warranty, Subscription Agreement etc...

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Service Contract Setup - Part : 6

Contract Groups

Contract Groups lets you organize the contracts that helps in accessing it and perform certain action for contracts in the group like mass change etc. A contract can be associated with multiple groups at a time.

Defining Contract Groups

  • Navigate to Service Contracts Manager -> Contract Groups -> Contract Group
  • Enter Name and Description
  • If you want to create a group as public then click on checkbox 'Public'. If you don't check the box then group is private and its accesible by you. For you to be able to create Public group you must set the profile option 'OKC: Public Group Creator' to Yes.
  • Save
Next : Service Contracts Setups - Part : 7

    Define Serviceable Item

    Define Serviceable Item

    Defining warranty item is not much different from defining service item. We just need to choose few less attribute and associate it with item BOM.

    • Navigate to Inventory -> Items-> Master Items
    • Choose your master organization. For me its 'Vision Operations'.
    • Enter Name of the Item
    • Enter a description
    • If your organization have already created an item template for service item, apply the template to save time, else follow the details to create it manually.
    • Main Tab
      • Item Type : Choose Item Type (e.g Warranty etc.).
      • Unit Of Measure : Choose a primary UOM. Please note that we setup service as Time UOM like Year / Month not the quantity UOM like Each.
      • Status : Select an item status which is allowed to be used and not obsolete.

    Define Warranty Item

    Define Warranty Item

    Defining warranty item is not much different from defining service item. We just need to choose few less attribute and associate it with item BOM.
    • Navigate to Inventory -> Items-> Master Items
    • Choose your master organization. For me its 'Vision Operations'.
    • Enter Name of the Item
    • Enter a description
    • If your organization have already created an item template for service item, apply the template to save time, else follow the details to create it manually.
    • Main Tab
      • Item Type : Choose Item Type (e.g Warranty etc.).
      • Unit Of Measure : Choose a primary UOM. Please note that we setup service as Time UOM like Year / Month not the quantity UOM like Each.
      • Status : Select an item status which is allowed to be used and not obsolete.

    Service Contract Setup - Part : 5

    Setting Up Service Item

    Before we start on setting up Service Items in inventory lets spend few minutes on understanding what is Service Item and what other items in context with Service Contract available / used.

    Broadly we can classify item into two categories 
    1. Serviceable Item
    2. Service Item
    Serviceable Item : Serviceable items that are covered under a contract. Its the actual product that customer purchased and purchased coverage plan for service.

    Service Item : Service items are that offers service on actual product. It determines what level of service will be offered to customer by looking at the coverage template associated with it. Service Items are further divided into four types.
    • Service Item - These items will be used in service contract when contract type is 'Service Agreement'. 
    • Warranty Item - Warranties are services that are given to the customer free of charge. These items will be used when contract type is 'Warranty and Extended Warranty'. Please note that warranty contracts can not be created manually. It automatically gets created when we ship the product from Order Management considering warranty item is associated in Item BOM.
    • Subscription Item - These are used in service contracts when contract type is 'Subscription'. It will be used in cases where an organization is offering subscription service like monthly magazine.
    • Usage Item - Usage item are used when service is offered based on the usage of a particular service. Best and most popular example is Photocopier. Many organization rent Photocopier and based on the number of copies printed in a given period, it will be charged.

    Tuesday, December 10, 2013

    Service Contracts Setups - Part : 4

    Coverage Types

    Coverage Types are nothing but a lookup which holds information related to the type of coverage. It just gives a reference in Coverage template that what type of coverage you are going to create.

    Define Coverage Types

    • Navigate to Service Contracts Manager -> Setup -> Service Offerings -> Coverage Types.
    • Add a new row.
    • Enter a unique value in code code. It can be any alphanumeric value like P, SVC_GOLD, G101
    • Enter a name for the coverage type, like Platinum.
    • Optionally Enter a description for the coverage type.
    • Enter the importance level (numeric value). In the Coverage window the importance level automatically appears, after the Coverage Type is selected.
    • Confirm the effective dates.
    • Select the Enabled check box.
    • Save.

    Sunday, December 8, 2013

    Service Contracts Setups - Part : 3

    In our last section we discussed about categories. In categories we have seen Roles. You me been wondering what it takes to define your own roles. 

    The roles can be categorized in two :-

     - Party Roles
     - Contact Roles

    Oracle Service Contracts provides party roles such as Vendor , Customer, Third party etc. Party roles works at Service Contracts header level, they generally represent an entity that owns the contract. You can define your own business specific roles.
    On the other hand Contact roles are related contacts of party/customer associated at header level. Contact roles like Sales Representative, Service Agent etc.

    If you need your custom roles in Service Contract Authoring form then perform the below two steps :-
     - Define Party / Contact Roles
     - Define Role Sources

    Service Contracts Setup - Part : 2

    Setup Categories

    Well a category is nothing but a type type of contract like Service Agreement, Warranty and Extended Warranty or Subscriptions. In Oracle categories are seeded (Defined by Oracle) and user defined categories are not supported.

    The only thing that we do here is assign responsibility for a category to allow level of access (Read Only /Modify). We can also add new party roles (Customer / Third Party / Service Provider etc.), that we will talk in  later section.

    To set up categories:-

    • Navigate to Service Contracts Manager -> Setup -> Service Contracts -> Categories and Sources -> Categories.
    • Query the form for 'Service Agreement' class.
    • Go to the Responsibilities tab. Select the responsibility from LOV to provide access.
    • Select an access level (Modify / Read Only). Confirm the start date.
    • Save.

    Saturday, December 7, 2013

    Service Contracts Setups - Part : 1

    Lets start with mandatory setups.

    Mapping Time Unit Of Measure (UOM) :-

    You might be thinking why we need to setup unit of measure in Service Contract. Well Service Contracts need unit of measure conversion for time. There is possibility that unit of measure defined in Inventory module don't suite Service Contract requirement, So we have our own UOM mapping that will be used while we create contract.

    Its just the mapping that we do here actual UOM are already defined in Inventory. If the business requirement needs some special time UOM then first define the UOM in Inventory and later map in Service Contracts.

    There are six internal base time units: seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years. Make sure to map each time unit you want to use in Oracle Service Contracts. An example of a mapping: Day (your definition) = 1 day (base definition).


    Service Contracts Setups - Introduction

    Setting up Service Contracts is really interesting and based on your business requirement you need to customized applications. I will take this opportunity to share the detailed steps involved in setting up Service Contract.

    All right folks lets start with steps involved in setting up Service Contracts. I am going to categorize setups into two categories:-
    • Mandatory
      • Mapping Time Units of Measure
      • Setting up Statuses and Operations
      • Setting up Categories
      • Defining Roles and Roles Sources
      • Defining Coverage Types
      • Defining Coverage Templates
      • Setting up Service Items in Oracle Inventory
      • Setting Up Contracts Groups
      • Setting Up Autonumbering
      • Setting Up Approval Management Engine (AME)
    • Optional
      • Extending Lookup Codes
      • Defining a Process
      • Defining Quality Assurance Checklist
      • Registering a NEW Source as JTF Object
      • Defining Service Availability
      • Defining Service Cotermination
      • Setting Up Multi-Org Access Control (MOAC)
    We will start with mandatory setups in our next section.
    Next - Service Contracts Setups - Part : 1
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