EBS 122 Cum RCD SVC

ORACLE E-BUSINESS SUITE
RELEASE CONTENT DOCUMENT

Service Management
Releases 12.1 and 12.2 (inclusive of 12.0.2 12.0.7)

Prepared by EBS Product Management & Strategy

Last Updated: May 09, 2014
Version: 2.3

Copyright 2014 Oracle Corporation
All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents
1. Disclaimer 1
2. Introduction 2
2.1. Purpose of Document 2
3. New and Changed Features in Service Management 3
3.1. Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony 3
3.1.1. Overview 3
3.1.2. Release 12.1.1 3
3.1.2.1. Direct Client-side CTI Integration 3
3.1.3. Release 12.2.4 3
3.1.3.1. Direct Client-side CTI Integration with HTML Service Applications 3
3.2. Oracle Advanced Scheduler 4
3.2.1. Overview 4
3.2.2. Release 12.1.1 4
3.2.2.1. Geographic Clustering 4
3.2.2.2. New Scheduling Optimizer 4
3.2.2.3. 2008 Navteq Digital Map Data Certification 4
3.2.3. Release 12.1.1+ 4
3.2.3.1. Segmentation of Cost Parameters and Profiles 4
3.2.3.2. Technician Shift and Skills Management 5
3.2.3.3. Stand-By Shift Support 6
3.2.4. Release 12.1.2 6
3.2.4.1. Navteq 2008 Data Certification and Global Instance 6
3.2.5. Release 12.1.3 6
3.2.5.1. Third Party Scheduling 6
3.2.5.2. Scheduling to preferred resources based on Scheduler's cost model 6
3.2.6. Release 12.1.3+ 7
3.2.6.1. Scheduler UI Simplified Territory Qualifier Selection 7
3.2.6.2. Scheduler UI Display Spares Sourcing Information 7
3.2.6.3. Auto Commit (Release) Tasks by Territory 7
3.2.6.4. Scheduling to Site Dedicated Technicians 7
3.2.7. Release 12.2 7
3.2.7.1. Uptake of Navteq ODF Data format 7
3.2.8. Release 12.2.4 8
3.2.8.1. Work Load Balancing 8
3.2.8.2. Scheduler Web Services 8
3.3. Oracle Assignment Manager 8
3.3.1. Overview 8
3.3.2. Release 12.1.1 9
3.3.2.1. Sort Winning Territory Resources by Absolute Rank 9
3.3.3. Release 12.1.2 9
3.3.3.1. Follow the Sun Service Request and Task Assignment 9
3.3.3.2. Mass Service Request and Task Updates 9
3.4. Oracle Complex Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (CMRO) 9

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document ii

3.4.1. Release 12.1.1 9
3.4.1.1. Marshalling 9
3.4.1.2. OSP Receiving 10
3.4.1.3. Enigma 3C Integration 10
3.4.1.4. Various Enhancements in Engineering (forward ports from R11.5.10) 10
3.4.1.5. Various Enhancements in Planning (forward ports from R11.5.10) 10
3.4.1.6. Various Enhancements in Production (forward ports from R11.5.10) 11
3.4.2. Release 12.1.2 11
3.4.2.1. Enhance Effectivity Details definition 11
3.4.2.2. Enhance maintenance requirement interval definition with counter start date 11
3.4.2.3. Enable WIP accounting class to be updateable in production 12
3.4.2.4. Allow creation of a non-routine from an existing non-routine 12
3.4.3. Release 12.1.3 12
3.4.3.1. Descriptive Flex Field (DFF) enablement 12
3.4.4. Release 12.2 13
3.4.4.1. FAA Compliance Reports 13
3.4.4.2. Projects Integration Enhancements 14
3.4.4.3. Enigma 3C Integration 16
3.4.4.4. Supplier Warranty 18
3.4.5. Terminology 22
3.5. Oracle Depot Repair 23
3.5.1. Release 12.1.1 23
3.5.1.1. Third Party Logistics for Repairs 23
3.5.1.2. Supplier Warranty Claims 23
3.5.1.3. Invoice Third Party 23
3.5.1.4. Disposition Rules Engine 24
3.5.1.5. Defaulting Rules Engine 24
3.5.1.6. Dynamic Repair BOM 24
3.5.1.7. Bar-Coded Traveler Document 24
3.5.1.8. Default Repair Item as Material Demand 24
3.5.1.9. Service Bulletins 24
3.5.1.10. Manage ECOs 25
3.5.1.11. Enable Back flush of Non-Serialized Repair Parts 25
3.5.1.12. Service Parts Planning: Forecast and Fulfill Demand for Spare Parts 25
3.5.2. Release 12.1.2 25
3.5.2.1. Repair Manager Portal 25
3.5.2.2. Returns Management: Planned Receipt Matching 25
3.5.2.3. Time Clock 25
3.5.2.4. Complete Work Button 26
3.5.2.5. Filter Root Cause Codes by Repair Item 26
3.5.3. Release 12.1.3 26
3.5.3.1. Recall Management 26
3.5.3.2. Returns Dashboard 26
3.5.3.3. Environmental Impact Reporting 26
3.5.3.4. Warehouse-to-Warehouse Movement of Serialized Products and Parts 26
3.5.3.5. Partner Portal for Repair Vendor Collaboration 27
3.5.3.6. Warranty Claims Portal 27
3.5.3.7. Capture Payment and Shipping Information 27
3.5.3.8. Read-only Depot Workbench 27
3.5.3.9. Automatically Close Repair Order after Shipping Item 27
3.5.3.10. Recycling and Asset Recovery 27
3.5.3.11. Manage Exchanges and Returns of Broken Parts and Field Replaceable Units 27
3.5.3.12. Refurbish Internally-owned Items and Parts 27
3.5.4. Release 12.1.3+ 28
3.5.4.1. Returns Portal 28
3.5.4.2. Environmental Impact Reporting 28
3.5.4.3. Supplier Warranty Management 28
3.5.4.4. Asset Recovery Flow 28
3.5.4.5. Service Campaigns and Field Change Orders 29
3.5.4.6. Create New Customer 29

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document iii

3.5.4.7. Batch Create J obs 29
3.5.4.8. Calculate Resolve By Date from RMA Receipt Date 29
3.5.4.9. Prevent Shipping Exchange Item until Defective Item Received 29
3.5.4.10. DFFs Added to Technician Portal 30
3.5.4.11. Create Service Requests and Repair Orders for Rental Items 30
3.5.4.12. Display Material Transaction History on Technician Portal Materials Table 30
3.5.4.13. Recommend Part Disposition from Rules Engine 30
3.5.4.14. Auto-create Repair Orders for Recovered Parts 30
3.5.4.15. View and Capture Install Base Data from Technician Portal 30
3.5.4.16. Auto-complete Operation using Time Clock 30
3.5.4.17. Auto-create Repair Warranty 31
3.5.4.18. Track Serial Numbers and Sub-inventories against Internal Sales Orders 31
3.5.4.19. Request Parts Button auto-creates Purchase Req or Internal Req 31
3.5.4.20. Service Parts Planning Integration for Serialized Items 31
3.5.4.21. Service Order Orchestration 31
3.5.4.22. Bulk Returns through the Returns Portal 31
3.5.4.23. Bulk Internal Moves: Inter- and Intra-Warehouse 32
3.5.4.24. Additional Defaulting Rule Attributes 32
3.5.4.25. Create Estimate from Technician Portal 32
3.5.4.26. Launch Quality Collection Plan upon Operation Completion 32
3.5.4.27. Extend Resolve By Date for Hold Time 32
3.5.4.28. Calculate Resolve By Date starting from Specified Status Transition 32
3.5.4.29. Returns Portal Enhancements for Oracles Own Takeback Operations 32
3.5.5. Release 12.2 33
3.5.5.1. Changing from Repair Order to Service Order 33
3.5.5.2. Automotive Industry Configuration 33
3.6. Oracle Depot Repair Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 33
3.6.1. Overview 33
3.6.2. Release 12.1.3+ 33
3.6.2.1. Expedite Late or Aging Repair Orders 34
3.6.2.2. Assign Unassigned Repair Orders 34
3.6.2.3. Identify and Resolve Process Bottlenecks 34
3.6.2.4. Identify and Resolve Quality Problems 34
3.6.2.5. Evaluate Performance of Service Technicians, Groups and Divisions 34
3.6.2.6. Ensure Supplier Warranty Claims are Settled and Paid Expeditiously 34
3.6.2.7. Ability to Evaluate Suppliers based on Product Quality and Claims Settlement 34
3.7. Oracle Email Center 35
3.7.1. Overview 35
3.7.2. Release 12.1.2 35
3.7.2.1. Display of Email Threads during Email Response 35
3.7.2.2. Agent UI Queues Tab 35
3.7.2.3. Advanced Automatic Service Request Creation 35
3.7.3. Release 12.1.3 35
3.7.3.1. SSL Enabled Download Processor 35
3.7.4. Release 12.2.4 36
3.7.4.1. SMTP Authorization for Non-SSL email accounts 36
3.8. Oracle Field Service 36
3.8.1. Overview 36
3.8.2. Release 12.0.3 (RUP3) 36
3.8.2.1. Google Maps Integration 36
3.8.3. Release 12.1.1 36
3.8.3.1. Technician and Administrator Portals Trunk Stock Management and Debrief Trunk Stock Visibility36
3.8.3.2. Technician and Administrator Portal - Task Scheduling 37
3.8.3.3. Technician and Administrator Portal Debrief Error Corrections 37
3.8.4. Release 12.1.1+ 37
3.8.4.1. Dispatch Center Usability Enhancements 37
3.8.4.2. Dispatch Center Advanced Task Management 38
3.8.5. Release 12.1.2 38
3.8.5.1. Dispatch Center - GPS Location Capture and Mapping 38

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document iv

3.8.5.2. Field Service Technician Portal Usability and Security Enhancements 38
3.8.6. Release 12.1.3 39
3.8.6.1. Field Service Third Party Administrator/Technician Portals 39
3.8.6.2. Dispatch Center Third Party Management 39
3.8.6.3. eLocation Map Viewer Option 40
3.8.7. Release 12.1.3+ 40
3.8.7.1. Reschedule, Un-schedule, and Cancel Tasks that have received Customer Confirmation 40
3.8.7.2. Commit/Release Task while recording Customer Confirmation 40
3.8.7.3. Configure Shift Task Display in Dispatch Center 40
3.8.7.4. Advanced Debrief DOA, Unused Parts, Serial Tagging 40
3.8.7.5. Debrief Return Routing Engine Integration 41
3.8.7.6. Technician Setup UI 41
3.8.7.7. Display Parts Shipping Information in Dispatch Center 41
3.8.7.8. Portals support Transfer Parts 41
3.8.7.9. Part Replacement Validation 41
3.8.7.10. Mass Unscheduling of assigned Tasks 41
3.8.7.11. Enhanced Technician Calendar, Shifts and Exception Management 41
3.8.8. Release 12.2 42
3.8.8.1. Projects Related Fields in Dispatch Center 42
3.8.8.2. Auto create Install Debrief from Recovery/Return Debrief 42
3.8.8.3. Search Recovered Item using Serial Number during Debrief Install 42
3.8.8.4. Ability to Enter Serial Number before Item Number during Debrief Install 42
3.8.8.5. Provide Ability to Receive Parts from Parts Tab 42
3.8.8.6. Display Projects Related Fields in Task Details UI 42
3.8.8.7. Provide Access Technician Setup UI 42
3.8.8.8. Field Service Report with Signature Capture Capability 43
3.8.8.9. Update Task Actuals based on Labor Service Activity Code 43
3.8.9. Release 12.2.4 43
3.8.9.1. Display Unassigned Tasks in Administrator Dashboard 43
3.8.9.2. View and Create Personal Tasks in Field Service Portals 43
3.8.9.3. Integrate new Service Tasks UI in Portal 43
3.8.9.4. Integrate Field Service Portals and Wireless with Inquira 43
3.9. Oracle Field Service Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 43
3.9.1. Overview 43
3.9.2. Release 12.1.3+ 44
3.9.2.1. Identify exceptions, escalations and Tasks in jeopardy by Geography or Customer 44
3.9.2.2. Track Task and Technician Performance Metrics 44
3.9.2.3. Continuously monitor and improve response times, service quality and cost of service 44
3.9.2.4. Review, update and submit debrief faster for creating charges and invoices 44
3.9.2.5. Reduce violation of SLAs, contractual obligations and penalties 44
3.9.2.6. Enhance Workforce Performance 44
3.9.2.7. Track spare parts usage and quality issues 45
3.9.2.8. Manage Warehouse Inventories and Reduce Spare Part Backorders 45
3.10. Oracle iSupport 45
3.10.1. Overview 45
3.10.2. Release 12.1.1 45
3.10.2.1. Multi-Party Access in iSupport 45
3.10.3. Release 12.1.2 46
3.10.3.1. Multi-Party Search 46
3.10.4. Release 12.2 46
3.10.4.1. Uptake Publish Flag in iSupport 46
3.10.5. Release 12.2.4 46
3.10.5.1. Contract Entitlement Control 46
3.10.5.2. Display of Task Notes and Task Dates for tasks related to service requests 46
3.11. Knowledge Management 46
3.11.1. Release 12.1.2 46
3.11.1.1. Attachment Import and Authoring Improvements 46
3.11.2. Release 12.2 46
3.11.2.1. Support of additional Search methods such as Fuzzy and Synonym match for knowledge search 46

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document v

3.11.3. Release 12.2 47
3.11.3.1. Single page solution authoring 47
3.12. Oracle Mobile Field Service 47
3.12.1. Overview 47
3.12.2. Release 12.0.3 (RUP3) 47
3.12.2.1. Scheduled Task Notification 47
3.12.3. Release 12.1.1 47
3.12.3.1. Multiple Field Resources using the same Laptop 47
3.12.3.2. Mobile Manager/Administrators Dashboard 47
3.12.3.3. Open Service Request against any Product/Asset owned by the Technicians Customers 48
3.12.3.4. File-based Synchronization Option 48
3.12.3.5. Wireless PDA Parts Visibility 48
3.12.3.6. Wireless PDA Excess Parts Execution 48
3.12.3.7. Wireless PDA Ability to Change Password 48
3.12.4. Release 12.1.2 49
3.12.4.1. Store and Forward Mobile Queries 49
3.12.4.2. Store and Forward Automatic Synchronization 49
3.12.4.3. Store and Forward Pocket PC Personalization 49
3.12.4.4. Store and Forward Pocket PC - Wireless Integration 49
3.12.4.5. Store and Forward Pocket PC - Usability and Security 50
3.12.5. Release 12.1.3 51
3.12.5.1. Store and Forward Pocket PC Email Query 51
3.12.5.2. Wireless PDA Enhancements 51
3.12.6. Release 12.1.3+ 51
3.12.6.1. Email Query Phase 2 - Spares Commands 51
3.12.6.2. Wireless Advanced Debrief and Returns Routing Integration 52
3.12.6.3. Wireless Support for Transfer Parts 52
3.12.6.4. Wireless Enhanced Debrief Flow 52
3.12.6.5. Wireless- Support for Special Address Creation 52
3.12.6.6. Wireless-Validation to Ensure Installed Item matches Returned Item 52
3.12.6.7. Store and Forward New Multi Platform Application 52
3.12.6.8. Automatic Synchronization for Multi Platform Application 53
3.12.6.9. Support for Expense Debrief in Multi Platform Application 53
3.12.7. Release 12.2 53
3.12.7.1. Wireless- Auto Create Install Debrief during Recovery/Return Debrief 53
3.12.7.2. Wireless- Provide Ability to Receive Parts from Parts Requirement Screen 53
3.12.7.3. Wireless- Enhanced UI Configuration Options 53
3.12.7.4. Wireless- Ability to Set the Profile Client Time zone in the Device 54
3.12.7.5. Wireless - Field Service Report with Signature Capture Capability 54
3.12.7.6. Wireless - Ability to Trigger Context sensitive mobile query from Task Details Screen 54
3.12.7.7. Wireless - Display Projects Related Fields in Task Details Screen 54
3.12.8. Release 12.2.4 54
3.12.8.1. Wireless - View and Create Personal Tasks 54
3.12.8.2. Wireless - FS Managers Dashboard 54
3.13. Oracle Service Contracts 55
3.13.1. Release 12.1.1 55
3.13.1.1. Service Contract Import Program 55
3.13.2. Release 12.1.3+ 55
3.13.2.1. Service Contract Renewal Performance Enhancements 55
3.13.2.2. Performance Enhancements to Main Billing Program for Usage Contracts 55
3.13.2.3. Mass Update Tool 56
3.13.2.4. Prevent Deletion of Line/Sub line during Contracts Renewal 56
3.13.2.5. Carry Over Self-Service Decline Code onto Service Contract Cancellation Reason 56
3.13.2.6. Revalue Contract during Change in Currency 56
3.13.2.7. Specify Cc E-mail Addresses during Quote and Reminders 56
3.13.2.8. Selective Update of Warranty Contracts upon IB Transfer of Ownership 56
3.13.2.9. Re-price on Renewal Consolidation 56
3.13.2.10. Flexible Invoice Text Defaulting 56
3.13.2.11. Service Contracts Usability Enhancements 57

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document vi

3.13.2.12. Merge Assets across Contracts 57
3.13.2.13. Drive Contract Coverage by Severity 58
3.13.2.14. Control Generation of Invoice 58
3.13.2.15. Calculate Estimated Tax with Higher Accuracy 58
3.13.3. Release 12.2 58
3.13.3.1. Solution Ordering 58
3.13.4. Release 12.2.4 59
3.13.4.1. Service Contracts Public APIs 59
3.14. Oracle Service Contracts Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 59
3.14.1. Overview 59
3.14.2. V5 59
3.14.2.1. Identify Renewal Exceptions and Manage Renewals Work Queue 60
3.14.2.2. Monitor Renewal Performance Metrics 60
3.14.2.3. Continuously Monitor and Improve Customer Service Experience 60
3.14.2.4. Identify Early Signs of Risks and Strategize Their Remediation 60
3.14.2.5. Monitor Service Revenue Leakage and Strategize Their Mitigation 60
3.15. Oracle Spares Management 61
3.15.1. Overview 61
3.15.2. Release 12.1.1 61
3.15.2.1. WRP Planned Order Release Automation 61
3.15.3. Release 12.1.2 61
3.15.3.1. New HTML Parts UIs and Distance Based Search 61
3.15.3.2. Part Returns - Flexible Routing 62
3.15.4. Release 12.1.3 62
3.15.4.1. Supersession and Substitute Notes 62
3.15.4.2. Site Dedicated Stocking Locations Support 62
3.15.4.3. Parts Return Routing Engine 63
3.15.5. Release 12.1.3+ 63
3.15.5.1. Ship-to Address Enhancements 63
3.15.5.2. Enhancements to handling Parts Orders when Tasks are Reassigned 63
3.15.5.3. Enhancements to the Parts Requirement UI 64
3.15.5.4. Spares Sourcing Options Distance Limit 64
3.15.5.5. Support for Third Party Ship-to Locations 64
3.15.5.6. Enhanced External Repair Execution flows 64
3.15.6. Release 12.2.4 65
3.15.6.1. External Repair Execution enhancement for Canceling External Repair Order for Zero Pick 65
3.15.6.2. ADF technology based HTML Planners Dashboard 65
3.16. Oracle TeleService 65
3.16.1. Overview 65
3.16.2. Release 12.0.6 (RUP6) 66
3.16.2.1. User Hook for Charges Pricing API 66
3.16.3. Release 12.1.1 66
3.16.3.1. Service Costing and Profitability 66
3.16.3.2. Improved Field Service Execution Flows 66
3.16.3.3. Service Requests Search using Secure Enterprise Search (SES) 66
3.16.3.4. Additional Attributes in the Service Request Form 67
3.16.3.5. Quick Service Request Creation and Update 67
3.16.3.6. Enhanced Service Request Tools Menu 67
3.16.3.7. Charge Call-Out 67
3.16.4. Release 12.1.1+ 67
3.16.4.1. Support for International and One Time Addresses 67
3.16.4.2. Optimization of Service Request Creation Process 68
3.16.4.3. Enhanced Service Request Search capabilities 68
3.16.4.4. Improved Service Request Tasks Management 69
3.16.5. Release 12.1.2 69
3.16.5.1. Party Site level Profile Checks 69
3.16.5.2. Optimization of Service Request Creation Process 69
3.16.5.3. Enhanced Service Request Search capabilities 70
3.16.5.4. Service Request Task Management Enhancements 70

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document vii

3.16.5.5. Inactivating a contact 71
3.16.5.6. Charges - Submit Order User Hooks 71
3.16.6. Release 12.1.3 71
3.16.6.1. New HTML Charges User Interface 71
3.16.6.2. Credit Card Capture on the Service Request and Charges 71
3.16.7. Release 12.1.3+ 71
3.16.7.1. HTML Service Request User Interface Enhancements 71
3.16.7.2. Capture additional SLA information for Service Requests 72
3.16.7.3. Creation of Part Requirements based on Task Type 72
3.16.7.4. Enhanced Charges Logistics 72
3.16.8. Release 12.2 74
3.16.8.1. Oracle Projects Integration 74
3.16.8.2. HTML Customer Service User Interface Enhancements 74
3.16.8.3. Automatic Task Creation on Service Request Status Transitions 79
3.16.8.4. Launch of Workflow on Service Request Status Transitions 79
3.16.8.5. Filter Task Template Groups LOV Based on Task Template Mappings 79
3.16.9. Release 12.2.4 79
3.16.9.1. Integration with Oracle Knowledge (Inquira) 79
3.16.9.2. HTML Service Application Enhancements 80
3.16.9.3. Public APIs to create Service Request Extended Attributes (CIC) 81
3.17. Oracle TeleService Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 81
3.17.1. Overview 81
3.17.2. V5 81
3.17.2.1. Identify and monitor critical service requests 81
3.17.2.2. Identify most active customers, most problematic products and areas, most common service request types
82
3.17.2.3. Execute corrective actions on transactional system 82
3.17.2.4. Enforce data security for service requests 82
3.17.2.5. Analyze graphical data with varying dimensions 83
3.17.2.6. Improve product and service quality through root cause analysis 83
3.17.2.7. Improve workload utilization and elevate performance 83

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document viii

1. Disclaimer
This Release Content Document (RCD) describes product features that are proposed for
the specified releases of the Oracle E-Business Suite. This document describes new or
changed functionality only. Existing functionality from prior releases is not described. It
is intended solely to help you assess the business benefits of upgrading to the specified
release of the Oracle E-Business Suite.
This document in any form, software or printed matter, contains proprietary information
that is the exclusive property of Oracle. Your access to and use of this confidential
material is subject to the terms and conditions of your Oracle Software License and
Service Agreement, which has been executed and with which you agree to comply. This
document and information contained herein may not be disclosed, copied, reproduced or
distributed to anyone outside Oracle without prior written consent of Oracle. This
document is not part of your license agreement nor can it be incorporated into any
contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates.
This document is for informational purposes only and is intended solely to assist you in
planning for the implementation and upgrade of the product features described. It is not a
commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon
in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or
functionality described in this document remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
Due to the nature of the product architecture, it may not be possible to safely include all
features described in this document without risking significant destabilization of the code.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Purpose of Document 1

2. Introduction
2.1. Purpose of Document
This Release Content Document (RCD) communicates information about new or changed
functionality introduced in Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2, and in
subsequent Release Update Packs (RUPs) and off-cycle patches. For your convenience,
it also includes new or changed functionality introduced in the RUPs for Release 12,
including 12.0.2 through 12.0.7.
The features and enhancements described in this document are grouped by product, and
then by the release in which they first became available, for example, Release 12.1.1.
Features released in an off-cycle patch have a special designation for example, a feature
released after 12.1.1, but before 12.1.2, is designated as Release 12.1.1+.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Purpose of Document 2

3. New and Changed Features in Service Management
3.1. Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony
3.1.1. Overview
Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony provides telephony integration to all major
telephone systems and leading CTI middleware. This enables users of EBS Sales and
Service Call Centers to leverage powerful CTI technology such as context sensitive
screen pops, intelligent routing and queuing. In addition, integration with CRM
applications enables agents to provide consistent handling of customer interactions.
Business benefits include increased customer satisfaction, increased agent productivity,
and decreased costs from accurate call routing.
3.1.2. Release 12.1.1
3.1.2.1. Direct Client-side CTI Integration
Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony provides telephony integration to all major
telephone systems and supports leading CTI middleware with serverside adapters.
These serverside adapters interact with the telephony systems and provide context
sensitive screen-pop functionality in the Oracle TeleService and Telesales applications.
These server-side adapters have limitations in terms of scalability of the deployment and
performance of the screen pops as the call information flows through multiple servers
such as OTM, OTAS, and UWQ.
New 12.1.1 direct client-side CTI integration addresses these issues by creating a
framework for direct integration between key CRM Forms (Contact Center, Service
Request, and eBusiness Center) and the soft phones of any middleware vendor. This not
only reduces the communication overhead (and consequentially provides faster screen-
pop for agents), but also improves scalability of the solution. As part of this integration,
the client-side communications J ava bean already available for Contact Center Form will
be provided on the eBusiness Center and Service Request Forms.
3.1.3. Release 12.2.4
3.1.3.1. Direct Client-side CTI Integration with HTML Service Applications
The direct client-side CTI integration introduced in 12.1.1 for Forms based Service
applications has been extended to HTML Service Application enabling the agents using
the HTML Service applications to be more productive through incoming call screen pops.
The agent can log into the CTI System from the HTML Service application and make
themselves available for taking incoming call. On an incoming call, this functionality
launches a context-sensitive screen-pop for the agent who is answering the call based on
the information entered by the customer into the IVR. The agents can also make
outbound calls.
Using the direct client-side CTI integration framework, the service organizations can
write custom adapters for CTI integration between the HTML Service pages and a third
party middlewares soft phone. This framework reduces the communication overhead,
provides faster screen-pop for agents, and improves scalability of the solution. In this
release, only the Service Request Update page is screen pop enabled. The IVR Parameter
for the Service Request Number is available in this release.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Advanced Inbound Telephony 3

3.2. Oracle Advanced Scheduler
3.2.1. Overview
Oracle Advance Scheduler provides powerful Field Service Scheduling and Optimization
Programs that help leading service providers run efficient field service operations. It
considers territories, technician availability in regular and standby shifts, spares
availability, skill requirements, cost factors, access hours, and spatial data to create
optimal field service schedules.
3.2.2. Release 12.1.1
3.2.2.1. Geographic Clustering
This feature provides an option for Autonomous Scheduler to sort the set of tasks being
scheduled by their geographic proximity before they are inserted into the schedule. This
reduces the total travel time and distance in the schedule as well as the number of times
disparate technicians visit the same site/area during the schedule horizon. Service
providers who value travel cost reduction over SLA violation risk (the current approach)
will find this new option produces schedules more to their liking. Another benefit of
Geographic Clustering is that it keeps field technicians evenly spread across the territory
which better positions them to quickly respond to customer emergencies.
3.2.2.2. New Scheduling Optimizer
First pass schedules are never perfectly optimized as the (cheapest insertion) scheduling
algorithm lacks insight into tasks that have not yet been created or scheduled. Also, the
current Release 12 Optimization feature only optimizes the trip of single technician for a
single day.
To address these issues, a new Optimization Program has been created to squeeze more
costs/travel out of the schedule. This program can optimize the scheduled trips of
multiple technicians across multiple days and can be leveraged to optimize technicians
trips interactively or by scheduling a background process.
3.2.2.3. 2008 Navteq Digital Map Data Certification
Oracle Advanced Scheduler uses digital map data to calculate accurate drive times and
distances, which are in turn used to build an optimized schedule. In Release 12.1.1,
Oracle Advanced Scheduler will support all geographies (around 70+countries) covered
by Navteq digital map data including North America, Europe, and World Markets.
3.2.3. Release 12.1.1+
3.2.3.1. Segmentation of Cost Parameters and Profiles
A new Scheduler Rules UI is provided that consolidates all Advanced Scheduler setups
into a single page including cost factor weights and profile options. In addition,
Scheduler Rules can now be set at the Territory and Technician levels as well as the
traditional profiles levels of Site, Application, Responsibility and User. For example,
Default Travel Distance can now vary by Territory and Overtime Cost can be set for an
individual Technician.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Advanced Scheduler 4

To further enhance Advanced Schedulers ability to create optimal schedules that match
the priorities and policies of leading service providers, five new Cost Factors are
provided:
- SLA Violation Cost by Task Priority
- Technician visiting Same Site Cost Factor
- Skill Level Cost Factor
- No Parts Cost Factor
- Stand By Shift Cost Factor

SLA Violation Cost by Task Priority was added so that missing the SLA of a high
priority task has a greater scheduling cost than missing the SLA on a low priority task.
Technician visiting same site Cost Factor was added so that there is a cost to sending
more than one technician to the same site on the same day (which increases travel and is
considered bad customer service by many leading Service Providers).
Skill Level Cost Factor was added to give Service Providers the ability to favor lower or
higher skilled technicians when scheduling. Some Service Providers want lower skilled
technicians to be utilized first (must meet the minimum skill requirement for the task)
holding back higher skilled technicians in case of an emergency. However, other Service
Providers prefer the opposite and want to use the higher skilled technicians first to
provide the highest possible quality of service.
No Parts Cost Factor was added to give preference to technicians who have the required
parts but still allow techs without the parts to be scheduled if other costs are significantly
lower (such as travel and SLA violation). Prior to this enhancement, Scheduler did not
consider technicians that did not have all of the required parts available in time to meet
the SLA (this option still exists).
Stand By Shift Cost Factor has also been added so that, if available, technicians on
regular shifts are preferred by Scheduler to those on standby shifts.
3.2.3.2. Technician Shift and Skills Management
The ability to create and adjust technician shifts interactively has been added to the
Dispatch Center. Previously, shifts could only be created and updated by a concurrent
(batch) program which proved a very rigid process. This feature gives dispatchers the
ability to quickly adjust a technicians shift if, for say, the tech will be starting an hour
latter tomorrow.
The ability to specify Shift Start and End Locations other than the techs home address
has been added to better support technicians who travel to remote locations or who start
their day from the office instead of their home. The user can select Start and End
Locations from the techs primary ship to or any of his/her other addresses. Any address
in TCA can also be used and even one time addresses can be created and used.
Currently, Scheduler provides an option to totally include or exclude travel to the first
task of the day (and home from the last task of the day) within the shift (on company
time) or outside of the shift (tech personal own time). This functionality has been
enhanced to allow Service Providers to split this time so that only a portion of the travel
is scheduled outside the shift. This is particularly useful when a tech livers far away from
his/her territory.
Advanced Scheduler matches the skills required for a task to the skills of the available
technicians. Skills can be product oriented (e.g. model TCT-500s) or non-product
oriented (e.g. French). Service Providers typically have hundreds of products to support
and find it quite difficult to maintain tech skills for each product. To elevate this issue,
we are providing the ability to define and match skills at the Product Category Level.


3.2.3.3. Stand-By Shift Support
Service Providers typically offer 23x7x265 support and field service especially when
their equipment is mission critical (e.g. medical devices). To provide this service, field
technicians are typically required to intermittently be on standby in case an emergency
call comes in after regular hours or on the weekend. To support this requirement, we
have added the ability to create standby by shifts, to view stand by shifts in the Dispatch
Center, and to include stand by shifts in the Advanced Schedulers logic. Several options
are provided on how AS uses technicians on standby shifts (never, day by day, regular
then stand by). Also, a new cost factor has also been added so that, if available,
technicians on regular shifts are preferred by Scheduler to those on standby shifts.
Many Service Providers use different Territories after hours and on weekends (usually
much larger). To support this requirement, new Territory Qualifiers (Time of the Day
and Day of the Week) have been added.
3.2.4. Release 12.1.2
3.2.4.1. Navteq 2008 Data Certification and Global Instance
In this release, Advanced Scheduler has been certified against the latest Spatial Data Set
provided by partner Navteq. In addition, support for all Navteq data (Europe, US, Asia,
etc.) on a single instance is now available.
3.2.5. Release 12.1.3
3.2.5.1. Third Party Scheduling
OEMs often outsource field service to Third Party Service Provides for a variety of
reasons including the ability to deliver service in remote geographies, after hours, and on
weekends, as well as to handle simple tasks more cheaply.
In this release, Advanced Scheduler has been significantly enhanced to support
scheduling, releasing, and managing tasks to be executed by Third Party Organizations.
Support for Third Party scheduling has been built based on the assumption that Third
Party Organizations (Service Providers) have unlimited capacity to execute field service
Tasks but are only available during the times defined in their Calendar.
Scheduling to Third Party resources can be completely automated by the background
Autonomous Scheduler engine or can be performed interactively with the Interactive
Scheduler user interface. This encompasses enhancements to support the definition and
recognition of Third Party entities in Advanced Scheduler and to allow Third Party
Organizations to perform the customer confirmation process.
3.2.5.2. Scheduling to preferred resources based on Scheduler's cost model
Advanced Scheduler sources technicians from Territories, Contracts and/or Install Base
based on the requested sourcing options. Currently, when Territories is one of the
resource identification sources along with Contracts or Install Base, Advanced Scheduler
only considers technicians that are assigned to Contracts/Install Base AND are also
assigned to the winning Territories. In this release, Scheduler is enhanced to consider all
eligible resources from the Winning Territories regardless of whether they are part of the
Contract or Install Base records. This enhanced logic effectively utilizes the existing cost
factor Preferred Resource violation Cost so that Service Providers can give preference
to the Technicians listed in the Contract/Installed Base. In addition, the Scheduler UI has
been enhanced to display Technician Source (Contracts, Install Base or Territories), to
enable the dispatchers to make intelligent decisions while scheduling interactively.


3.2.6. Release 12.1.3+
3.2.6.1. Scheduler UI Simplified Territory Qualifier Selection
Schedule Task UI is used to schedule Field Service Tasks interactively and has a Tab
where the user can specify resource selection criteria. Territory Qualifier(s) is one of the
commonly used selection criteria. Prior to R12, when the Dispatcher wanted to use only
one qualifier, he/she had to uncheck all other qualifiers one at a time. This was a time
consuming and error prone activity. In this release, the Schedule Task UI has been
enhanced to allow Dispatchers to quickly select or de-select territory qualifiers.
3.2.6.2. Scheduler UI Display Spares Sourcing Information
Spares Management integration will enable dispatchers to see vital information regarding
the plan options, when the Task being scheduled has a Part requirement. Schedule Task
UI has been enhanced to display the shipment information about the spare parts being
shipped (e.g. Sourced Warehouse, Shipping Distance, and Method of Shipment) for
making better and more intelligent scheduling decisions while interactively scheduling
Tasks using Scheduler UI.
3.2.6.3. Auto Commit (Release) Tasks by Territory
Currently the Dispatchers lack the ability to release Tasks to Technicians belonging to a
specific Territory, without resorting to writing a well tuned Task Query that can precisely
identify all Tasks, scheduled but not yet released to Technicians assigned to a specific
Territory. In this release Auto Commit Tasks background process has been enhanced to
enable the Auto Commit process to release Tasks scheduled but, not yet committed to
Technicians assigned to Territories associated to the Dispatcher. Dispatchers will now
have the ability to control the commit process for a specific time horizon with the new
Auto Commit Horizon parameter introduced.
3.2.6.4. Scheduling to Site Dedicated Technicians
In order to better serve critical customers with a large number of installed products and
tight SLAs/contractual obligations, Service Providers frequently assign field technicians
to work full time at a specific the customer site. To support this, technician trips can now
be started and/or completed at the customer address instead of the field office address or
the technicians home address. In addition, the Scheduler and Optimizer algorithms have
been enhanced to skip estimating Travel Distance/Time and calculating associated Travel
Costs for technicians already located at the customer site (same site tasks are ones that
point to same address record or to address records with the same lat/long).

3.2.7. Release 12.2
3.2.7.1. Uptake of Navteq ODF Data format
In this release, Advanced Scheduler has been certified against the new ODF (Oracle Data
Format) Spatial Data provided by partner Navteq. Customers using Advanced
Schedulers spatial features will be able to get the new datasets when the data is made
available by Navteq, without waiting for any additional certification from Oracle. Navteq
provides ODF format based datasets for several geographical regions and countries,
which are otherwise not available in older data formats. Customers planning to use the
Scheduler features in new geographic regions can take advantage from the expanded
coverage and availability of spatial data.


3.2.8. Release 12.2.4
3.2.8.1. Work Load Balancing
The EBS Advanced Schedulers/Optimizers main focus is to fulfill customer SLAs with
the lowest cost schedule. In some cases, this may lead to schedules that, while low in
cost, do not utilize all of the technicians available for work on a specific shift. Hence,
some customers have asked for the ability to balance the work load as well as optimize
service delivery costs.
To address these concerns, Scheduler engine has been enhanced to consider work load
balancing as well as other factors when scheduling field service tasks. Two approaches
to work load balancing are provided. The first is a statistics-centric approach using
various attributes of technician trips and their available capacity. The other is a new
Work Load Balancing Cost Factory that reduces the cost of scheduling work to
technicians that have more time available in the calendar/schedule.
3.2.8.2. Scheduler Web Services
Important features and functions of Advances Scheduler engine are now made available
as standards based Web Services. These web services enable Advanced Scheduler to
integrate with external business applications. REST based Scheduler Web Services are
built using Integrated SOA Gateway (ISG) technology components and facilitating
communication with external consuming application modules using XML. Scheduler
Web Services allow other applications that run either on same or different technology
stack as Advanced Scheduler to leverage Schedulers powerful features to drive complex
field service business flows. An external application built on either ADF or any other
heterogeneous technology components and that can understand EBS session and data
model can leverage Advanced Scheduler engine using the Web Services.
To cater to the varying needs of customer base and a wide array of possibilities in
utilizing of functionality of Oracle Advanced Scheduler, the most important Scheduling
operations like searching for Technicians availability, scheduling a task, batch
scheduling, canceling a scheduled Task, unscheduling, and rescheduling, etc, are made
available as Web Services. Scheduler Configuration (by defining Scheduler Rules)
essentially drives the logic of Web Services at run time and these Scheduler Rules are
made available to the Web Services as an XML document at run time. Scheduler Web
Services are implemented duly incorporating the standard security features. An Oracle E-
Business Suite Integration Repository Administrator can select the appropriate
authentication type for each web service-enabled interface.

3.3. Oracle Assignment Manager
3.3.1. Overview
In todays marketplace, it is imperative that sales forces and service teams maximize their
productivity. This can be achieved with territory structures that clearly define lines of
ownership. With Oracle Territory Manager, sales operations and territory administrators
will find it easy to manage large, complex territories hierarchies effectively and
efficiently. Oracle Assignment Manager and Oracle Advanced Scheduler leverage this
powerful territory functionality to drive the assignment Service Requests, Tasks, Leads,
etc. to qualified resources.

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3.3.2. Release 12.1.1
3.3.2.1. Sort Winning Territory Resources by Absolute Rank
Assignment Manager is used for fetching the qualified resources and assigning them to
the SR and/or Task object. It fetches resources from multiple sources, including Service
Contracts, Installed Base and the Territories setup. After fetching the resources from
Territories setup, resources are implicitly sorted based on the system generated Territory
Identifier. Many customers have requested functionality in Assignment Manager to
support a resource sort order based on Absolute Rank of the Territories. Absolute Ranks
are derived based on the setups done and hence controlled by the users.
This feature provides a configurable option in the Assignment Manager module to sort a
set of Territory Resources based upon the absolute rank associated with the Territory
definition, rather than the Territory Identifier. Advanced Scheduler is an important
consumer of the Assignment Manager module and it is one of the beneficiaries of this
change. While scheduling tasks to technicians, Scheduler looks for plan options among
technicians returned by the Assignment Manager in the order in which it receives the list
of resources. Hence the sort order of the resources by the Assignment Manager is critical.
Similarly Dispatch Center and TeleService modules will benefit from this enhancement.
3.3.3. Release 12.1.2
3.3.3.1. Follow the Sun Service Request and Task Assignment
Many service organizations provide global support on a 24 x 7 x 365 basis and need tools
to route incoming work to the correct support center/group as well as transfer work
between groups at the end of the work day/shift. In 12.1.2, Oracle Assignment Manager
has been enhanced to consider support center/group work calendars when assigning
Service Request and Tasks. In addition, an option to consider call center agent and tech
support engineer work calendars is provided for service providers who use the push
model.
3.3.3.2. Mass Service Request and Task Updates
New OA HTML based user interfaces have also been introduced to provide mass update
capability for service requests and tasks. These features can be used by support duty
managers to quickly handover high priority work items to another support center/group
when their shift ends.
Note: The ability to mass update tasks is introduced in Release 12.1.3.
3.4. Oracle Complex Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (CMRO)
3.4.1. Release 12.1.1
3.4.1.1. Marshalling
In an engine overhaul shop, once the tear down has been initiated, hundreds and even
thousands of parts are liberated from assemblies and sub assemblies that make up one
working engine. At this point, some parts need to be replaced with new, some inspected
and reused, and others reconditioned and reused. Marshalling is the organizing of these
parts and the planning for the reassembly to take place.
Marshalling Features:
Provide a place and a way to stage materials in a Marshalling area for an
upcoming visit

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Provide a view of the Marshalling area to include the unit status, material
requirements, staged materials, and the materials not yet available
Provide a way to request needed materials
Provide a view of a unit, its visits, and the status of its visits
3.4.1.2. OSP Receiving
The Service Order Receiving flow is a specific grouping of functions needed for the
receipt and subsequent return to service of parts and assemblies that are inbound from an
external repair station.
OSP Receiving Features:
Support receipt of part
Support receipt of service
Support of planned and unplanned part exchanges
Support of staging parts for inspection
Support put-away of part
3.4.1.3. Enigma 3C Integration
CMROs integration to Enigmas 3C document publication system links documents such
as the illustrated parts catalog (IPC), engine manual and wiring diagram to the master
configuration in engineering. It also enables the creation of routes and operations based
on the aircraft maintenance manual (AMM) published in Enigma 3C. For this process
CMRO receives the AMM in a XML file and automatically loads the data into route
management and builds a link to the actual manual page. If the AMM is revised on
Enigmas side CMRO will receive a revision report and revises the routes and operations
accordingly. Through this integration, Engineers and Technicians have the ability to
navigate to the manuals in Enigma 3C either from a position of the master configuration
or unit configuration, the routes in route management or from the work orders on the
shop floor.
3.4.1.4. Various Enhancements in Engineering (forward ports from R11.5.10)

Ability to add a node to a unit configuration without knowing its parent node.
The node will show up as an extra node in the unit configuration
Enable the descriptive flex-field in the unit configuration user interface
Ability to load master configuration rules through a public API
Ability to access the maintenance requirement user interfaces in a view-only
mode
Ability to search for maintenance requirements with additional attributes for
route type and program sub type
Ability to define a resource requirement in route management for a specific
department that might differ from the general department the ensuing work order
is assigned to.
Ability to access route management and document index user interfaces in read-
only mode.

3.4.1.5. Various Enhancements in Planning (forward ports from R11.5.10)


Ability to close a visit from the visit work package user interface the same way
as closing a visit from production by navigating to visit close user interface.

Ability to search for the route system key flex-field when adding maintenance
requirements to a visit

3.4.1.6. Various Enhancements in Production (forward ports from R11.5.10)

Ability to update a unit configuration from a work order in production, in order
to record the actual unit information at receipt and disassembly of a unit on the
shop floor without having to go through the parts change process.
Ability to custom configure the update of work orders through a public API and
pre- and post-user hooks within the API
Visual support in the work order user interface to indicate that a work order is
ready to be signed off (all operations have been signed off) and the ability to
search for work orders that are ready to be signed off.
Ability to specify a reason to work order status of hold and parts hold
Ability to view the net quantity of the material in a work order. The information is
viewable in the material requirements and material transactions user interface
3.4.2. Release 12.1.2
3.4.2.1. Enhance Effectivity Details definition
The Maintenance Requirement Effectivity Details UI will be split up into four separate
tables, one for defining the serial number effectivity details (as it is currently), one to
define the owner(s), one to define the location(s) and one to define the extended
attributes.
If the user wants to setup effectivity based on from-to serial number, owner and
location, they have to create a row for all permutations of from-to serial number, owner,
location and extended attributes. The user can setup any number of serial numbers (from-
to), any number of owners and any number of locations and any numbers of extended
attributes.
Each table will have the Exclude checkbox. Conditions entered in all the tables have to
be satisfied for the instance to be applicable. If the user wants to setup effectivity based
on owner or location, then they have to create 2 different effectivity and then for one
effectivity define effectivity detail based on owner and for the other define effectivity
detail based on location.
3.4.2.2. Enhance maintenance requirement interval definition with counter start
date
The interval threshold definition is enhanced with a column (yes/no), that defines
whether the first occurrence of the MR includes the interval when calculating the due
date.
If the value of the column is yes, the BUE process will calculate the first occurrence of
the MR as interval start value +interval. If the value of the column is no, the BUE
process will calculate the first occurrence of the MR as the interval start value without
considering the interval (current behavior).
The checkbox is only relevant if a start value has been defined, otherwise it should not be
enterable. A start date can be either in the future or in the past.


3.4.2.3. Enable WIP accounting class to be updateable in production
The WIP accounting class attribute will be updateable in the work order update user
interface. A valid value can be selected from a list of values. The list contains values
defined through the set up for WIP accounting class in WIP.
3.4.2.4. Allow creation of a non-routine from an existing non-routine
A new function will be provided to give a user access to log a non-routine against an
existing non-routine work order. If a user is entitled to do so, the user needs to get access
to this function. Without access to this function a user will be restricted from creating a
non-routine form an existing non-routine, which is the current behavior of the application
and will be the default.
3.4.3. Release 12.1.3
3.4.3.1. Descriptive Flex Field (DFF) enablement
The setup and transaction pages provide fields to capture most of the information
required by users. Changes in business requirements and legacy system integration can
create requirements for additional information in these pages. In order for user to capture
additional information on the CMRO pages, there is a need to enable Descriptive Flex
Fields (DFFs).
The data entry into a DFF can be setup as mandatory or optional. If the CMRO object can
be created using public API, then the user should be able to enter the DFF values using a
public APIs for that object as well. The user can also create additional triggers for
entering information in the DFFs from the data defined in other pages.
The enablement of DFFs provides the best way to capture these additional data
requirements, without the need to create hard customizations of additional fields on the
setup and transaction pages.
DFFs will be enabled on following objects:
Document index-Create Page the entity
Document index-Edit Page
Document index-Create Revision Page Entity
Document Index- Edit Revision Page
Operations- Create Page
Operations Edit/Revision Page
Operations Material Request UI
Route - Material Request UI
Fleet Maintenance Program- MR Creation Page
Fleet Maintenance Program- MR Revision Page
Fleet Maintenance Program- MR View Page
Routes-Creation Page
Routes-Revision Page
Enabling DFF on Disposition List Details (Disposition Association From Routes)
Composition List
Visit- Create Page


Visit- Edit Page
Visit Stages
Flight Schedule-Create/Update
Visit Task( Edit Mode)
Visit Task( View Mode)
Initial Accomplishment
Maintenance Requirement Deferral
Create Task / Unassociated Task.
Non-Routine Request header- Planning
Create Non-Routine Work Order/Execution

3.4.4. Release 12.2
3.4.4.1. FAA Compliance Reports
This is a forward port of a number of reports, from a previous release to 12.2, that
were delivered as a one-off to a customer. There are 8 different reports that have
been developed:
Aircraft Maintenance Status
Assembly Bill of Materials
Component Maintenance Status
Component Removal Forecast
Component Removal/Installation History
Maintenance Requirement Information and Status
Part Number Status
Unit Serial Numbers

These reports are located in the Administrative module of CMRO under two new
Tabs; Reports and Maintenance Requirement Status Reports.

Each report will include a search page UI, where the user can select search criteria
in which to customize the output of the report results. Many of these reports also
have hyperlinked search results and icons that allow for drill down into detail UIs
to view additional information about the results row.

Reports can be Printed and Exported as well as viewed Online. There is also
functionality to Save the Search, which allows the user to customize and provide
default search Views (applicable only for the Aircraft Maintenance Status &
component Maintenance Status Reports).

3.4.4.1.1. Reports Tab
Within the Reports Tab there is a subtab hyperlink to a configuration UI,
called Common Setup, where each of the 8 reports can be individually
configured by the user:


For several reports, the user is provided options for setting up parameters
for the 3 dynamic counters (Counter1, Counter 2 and Counter 3). These
dynamic counters replace the hardcoded values HRS, CY and DYS and
will become visible as labels in the following reports:
Assembly Bill of Materials (for Remaining counters)
Component Removal Forecast (for Remaining and Since Repair
Counters)
Unit Serial Number (for Spec Limit Counters)

For the other reports, the following configurations are provided in the
Common Setup UI:

o Component Removal Forecast - there is an additional parameter of
Program Subtype that is available. [In addition to the 3 dynamic
counters.] Users can add up to 10 subtypes as filtering criteria.
o Aircraft Maintenance Status and Component Maintenance Status
reports - Instance Counters can be selected.
o Maintenance Requirement Information and Status report -
Accomplished Counters can be selected.
o Component Removal/Installation History report - a Quality
Collection Plan can be selected.
o Part Number Status - users can add up to 10 subtypes as filtering
criteria.
o Unit Serial Numbers - Specification Limit Counters can be
selected.

Also within the Reports Tab are subtab hyperlinks to these 5 reports:
o Assembly Bill of Materials
o Component Removal Forecast
o Component Removal/Installation History
o Part Number Status
o Unit Serial Numbers

3.4.4.1.2. Maintenance Requirement Status Reports Tab

Within this Tab are subtab hyperlinks to these 3 reports:
o Aircraft Maintenance Status
o Component Maintenance Status
o Maintenance Requirement Information and Status

3.4.4.2. Projects Integration Enhancements
CMRO currently has a basic integration with Oracle Projects. In this release there
will be new functionality that will enhance this integration.
3.4.4.2.1. Define Cost Hierarchy for Project Tasks
New functionality will support the creation of subtasks in the project
hierarchy after transactions have been made against parent tasks. This will
support the addition of Non-Routine requirements that are discovered after
transactions have already been made. The solution will ensure that an extra


Project task is created for every CMRO task, in order to create separate
transaction branch in the cost hierarchy. More specifically, the enhancements
will include:

A single Project task will represent a roll up task for the corresponding
CMRO task, with a child Project task that will collect the cost
transactions; called the transaction task.
If an additional task is created, which should roll up to the originating
CMRO task, a new task will be created under the applicable Project roll up
task.
These roll up tasks will only be created on the Projects side. CMRO will
define and track costs in a view that excludes these tasks.
The visit task and corresponding work orders will maintain a direct
association with the transaction task.
The user will have the ability to manually change this costing hierarchy.
When changes to the cost hierarchy are made on the CMRO side, the
corresponding changes will be made on the Projects side tasks, including
both the associated task where transactions are collected and the
applicable roll up task.
Utilizing the Open APIs in the Projects product to create a hierarchy of
tasks. These tasks will be used to propagate the CMRO Visit and Task
dates to the Projects schema and to pass distinguishing attributes to the
Project Tasks that will enable the distinction of Routine and Non Routine
tasks.
3.4.4.2.2. Add Visits to Parent Projects
When creating a maintenance visit in CMRO, the user will have the ability to
create a new associated project, or to add the visit under an existing project.

When tracking costs for a visit under an existing project, the user will select
the project at the visit header instead of choosing a project template. The visit
will be created as top task in the selected project, with the complete costing
hierarchy defined below, which is similar to creating a new project.

In CMRO, the following UIs will be updated to include the Project LOV:
Create Visit
Update Visit

NOTE: Visits Pushed to Production after up taking this feature will have the
changes discussed here, with existing visits maintaining the old task structure
3.4.4.2.3. Synchronize Visit and Project Task Dates
Projects are created for a maintenance visit at the push to production, or for
costing purposes while in planning. At the time project tasks are created, the
corresponding work orders are also created; which updates each work order
with the scheduled dates corresponding to the visit tasks start and end dates.

Whenever work order schedule dates are adjusted, the corresponding Project
task dates will be updated as well.
3.4.4.2.4. Define Service Type


In order to identify routine and non-routine maintenance activity, the Projects
Service type attribute will be defined in CMRO for visit tasks and work
orders. This value will be used when creating the corresponding Project roll
up, transaction and summary tasks.

In CMRO, Visit Tasks will have a Service Type and this will be defaulted
from two new profiles (one for Routine and one for Non-Routine). This
attribute will also be added to the search criteria and details page of several
UIs:
Search Visit Task
Create Unplanned Visit Task
Create Planned Task
Create Unassociated Task
Update Visit Task
Update Cost Structure
Disposition Details

3.4.4.3. Enigma 3C Integration
The integration between CMRO and Enigmas 3C is to provide an out-of-the-box
solution for MRO Service Providers to enable the maintenance technicians with a
set of tools that connects CMROs extensive back office functionality for
configuration management, engineering and maintenance planning with Enigmas
flexible and easy to use documentation centric maintenance execution system in a
wireless or disconnected environment.

This combination of the two products supports the maintenance technicians in
efficiently executing all their maintenance tasks, achieving highest level of quality
by providing the right information in the right place at the right time in a most
user-friendly form.
3.4.4.3.1. CMRO Module Functionality
Planning
Routes and Operations Creation: Enigma will produce a revision file
based on the Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM), Engine Manual (EM)
and Service Bulletin (SB) using the Enigma processing and publishing
environment. The file will be automatically loaded into CMRO Routes
and Operations.
Master Configuration Creation: Enigma will produce a revision file based
on the Illustrated Parts Catalog (IPC) using the Enigma processing and
publishing environment. The file will be automatically loaded into
CMRO Master Configuration.
Maintenance Requirement Creation: Enigma will produce a revision file
based on the Maintenance Planning Document (MPD) using the Enigma
processing and publishing environment. The file will be automatically
loaded into CMRO Maintenance Requirement; utilizing a direct link from
the CMRO to the most up-to-date content with in the Enigma repository.
This link is intended to be used by maintenance planners.
J ob Card and Work Package generation: CMRO will enable their users to
print jobs card from various locations in CMRO (including Route


Management). The job card printing process use Enigmas J ob Card
Generator (J CG). A job card will contain both the CMRO work order
attributes as well as the content from the manual that is published in
Enigma.

Execution
Content Links: Users will utilize a direct link from CMRO to the most
up-to-date content with in the Enigma repository. The link will be used by
technicians during the execution process, as it will allow them to view the
relevant documents relate to the work order they currently executing. For
example, they will be able to view the IPC in a CMRO unit Configuration
and identify required parts.
Material requirement: In order to simplify the creation of a material
requirement on the shop floor, a CMRO technician will be able to create a
material requirement directly from the Illustrated Parts Catalog within
Enigma InService MRO. The required material will be created as a
material requirement in the originated work order, from which the IPC
has been invoked.
J oe Cards: Users will be able to preview and print J ob Cards directly
from the CMRO Technician Work Bench using the InService MRO J ob
Card Generator (J CG).
Mobile Features: A Maintenance Technician can access the CMRO
Work Orders and the AMM tasks on a wireless device and execute the
major tasks through the handheld device

3.4.4.3.2. Creating Master Configurations from an IPC
The integration also provides the ability to create Master Configurations in
the CMRO DB from the IPC XMLs files provided by from Enigma.

The process uses the Oracle BPEL process manager for hosting a new web
service, which will call several new PL/SQL APIs to perform the job of
Master Configuration creation.

There will be three different types of XMLs for this; one each for item
compositions, item groups, and MC position hierarchy. These files will be
used to update the corresponding tables and views within CMRO.

Users will be able to distinguish data that was sourced from Enigma, verses
manually setup in CMRO, through the user of search criteria and results
attributes in the following UIs:

Sourced From Enigma Yes/No dropdown is added to the search
criteria in these UIs:
o Search Master Configuration UI
o Search Alternate Items UI
o Search Item Composition UI
Sourced From Enigma Yes/No attribute is displayed as read-only in
these UIs
o Master Configuration Details UI


o Item Groups Details UI
o Item Composition Details UI

3.4.4.4. Supplier Warranty
The CMRO Supplier Warranty functionality in this release will allow for
customers to define, assign, identify, record and claim warranty for potential
reimbursement from external suppliers. The new functionality has been integrated
as optional attributes through many existing task/workorder based UIs and will be
supported as well through the introduction of new administrative UIs, standard
reports, and workflows. The business functions supported are:

Warranty Set-Up:
Define Warranty Capability for a supplier (service vendor)
Create reusable Warranty Templates
Define Supplier Warranty for a single Asset or a group of Assets.
Associate Supplier Warranty at a Route and Maintenance Requirement
level.

Warranty Administration:
Flag a visit task, work order, non-routine and OSP order for warranty.
Inquire about warranty entitlements on visit tasks, work orders, non-
routine definition and OSP order lines.
Manage Warranty Contracts through for an Asset in a workbench.
Create alerts for assets with warranty expiration.
Perform warranty work internally.
Create and manage Warranty Claims.
View claim information and purchase orders related to an asset under
warranty.

3.4.4.4.1. Defining Warranty
Users can identify vendors who provide warranty coverage as well as the
associated service items. These vendors will be used to define warranty at
both the vendor and item level in the form of a warranty template. These
templates can be associated in the Engineering module to routes and
maintenance requirements and/or will be used in assigning warranty at the
item instance level.

The following UIs will gain warranty functionality:
Warranty Vendor definition a warranty capable checkbox is added
Warranty Service Item definition the vendor warranty checkbox is
viewable
Search Route warranty template added a search attribute.
Route Header Update a warranty template can be added to a route
through an LOV.
Search Maintenance Requirements warranty template added a search
attribute.


Maintenance Requirement Header Update a warranty template can
be added to a requirement through an LOV. This template will
override any templates that are contained in associated routes.

The following UIs are new to this release:
Search Warranty Template allows the search, view, copy and edit of
warranty templates. Users can also view all warranty contracts that
have been created from a template.
Create, Edit and View Warranty Template allows the user the ability
to create, edit and view warranty templates for a vendor. These
templates will allow for the definition of applicable terms/conditions
and will be supported through attachment functionality. The template
will control if an item from install base is eligible (enabled) to have
new contracts assigned at the instance level and will also provide the
parameters for the expiration date calculation method. This method
can be defined as date-based, period-based, usage-based (install base
counters) or a combination. There is also functionality to handle
future introductions of item instances in install base and to support the
auto-creation of warranty claims in Outside Processing (OSP).

3.4.4.4.2. Assigning Warranty
Users will be able to assign (create) a warranty contract(s) for a unique item
instance from a warranty template. This functionality is targeted for an item
instance which has an item and serial number and maintains the same item
instance in install base for its serviceable life. An item instance can have one
or more contracts active at any time, from one or more templates, and it is
further supported by the ability to manually define a contract for an instance.

A warranty contract will have a defined lifespan, as governed by the warranty
template and/or the warranty contract expiration attributes. These include:

Date Based fixed start and end date, which can originate from the
warranty template and/or can be user defined.
Period Based fixed time period, which begins at a user defined start
date. The end date is therefore calculated at the time of creation.
Usage Based the time period will be in counter UOM based units.
The start value will be determined by the user and a threshold value
(amount of coverage) will be added from the warranty template. The
end value will be calculated at the time of creation. If the instance has
an associated forecast, then the counters will gain utilization and the
warranty contract will be updated with a new calculated expiration
date. This is controlled by a user run expiration procedure.
Combination the Period and Usage based expirations can be used
together. This will allow for multiple expiration dates to be
established and updated routinely for a warranty contract. The first
expiration date will be displayed to the user in most UIs.



Search Warranty Contract allows the user to search, view and edit
existing warranty contracts. The historical claims for the contract can
be viewed as well.
Search Warranty Item allows the user to search for an item instance,
view existing contracts, applicable warranty templates, and to assign
(define) new warranty contracts based on these templates. The user
can also access the warranty workbench for the instance as well.
Warranty Workbench this workbench allows the user to manage an
item instances complete warranty lifecycle. The user can view current
and past contracts, define warranty, view instance counters, view
warranty provides and view historical claims. The user can also
manually define warranty contracts from here as well. This
workbench is also accessed by the OSP receiving process to manage
inbound instances that are returning from vendor repair.

3.4.4.4.3. Identifying Warranty
Users will be able to identify warranty for an activity in the planning module
of CMRO. Here the user will utilize new standard reports for an Asset to
evaluate the warranty applicability of maintenance tasks. The user will then
identify the applicable warranty contract, at the item instance level, and at the
task level, prior to pushing the task to production. They will also be able to
flag tasks as not being warranty applicable, based on the activity being
defined, despite the item instance being flagged as having activity warranty
coverage.


Search Visit Task several new attributes are added to the task results
section of this UI. This includes identification of the task being
warranty enabled (via the originating route or maintenance
requirement) and an item instance having active contracts. There is
some automation which automatically will select and set the status of a
warranty contract, if these attributes have a common warranty
template. Else, the user will navigate to the Update Task Header UI to
update warranty contract and status.
Update Task Header the user can select an active contract and update
the tasks warranty status. The item instance must have active
contracts in order to select from the LOV.

3.4.4.4.4. Recording Warranty
Front line planners and technicians will interact with warranty in the
execution modules of CMRO at the workorder level. Tasks will carry the
warranty attributes forward to the workorder during their push to production.
Front line planners will have the ability to further update / refine the warranty
definitions during execution. Front line technicians will be able to request
further warranty review (through a workflow) as well as select and update a
warranty contract for an eligible workorder. The technician changes will be
supported through an approval process that includes workflow notification.


Warranty administrators will use entitlement UIs to manage requests for
review and approve / reject changes.

A warranty entitlement record is created for each combination of workorder
and selected / approved warranty contract. These entitlements will be
managed by administrators in order to produce warranty claims.


Work Order Operations warranty information is displayed and can
be updated by front line planners.
Work Order Overview (Update Work Order) front line technician UI
in which warranty information can be viewed. If the warranty contract
is changed, the status will go to review and a workflow initiated. The
technician can also request a general warranty review as well.
Non-Routine Workorder Header Update same functionality as a
regular workorder. The non-routine workorder will inherit the
warranty attributes from its source workorder. However, if additional
maintenance requirements are added, they must be manually updated.
Outside Processing Orders same functionality as a regular
workorder. If the warranty contract included the flag for OSP auto-
creation, then a warranty claim would be produced during PO
Creation.
OSP Order Receiving The user will be presented a link to the
warranty workbench in this UI.

Search Warranty Entitlements new UI which will allow the
administrative user the ability to approve / reject entitlement records, as
well as audit entitlement records prior to claim creation.

3.4.4.4.5. Claiming Warranty
Claims administrators will be able to create, track and update vendor warranty
claims. These claims can be based on visit and/or OSP based workorder
entitlements to a vendor that is warranty enabled. The user will be able to add
turnover notes and hopefully update reimbursement attributes as well. There
is a standard claim report that is available as well.

Search Warranty Claims allows the user to view, edit and create
warranty claims. OSP auto generated claims will be flagged as well.
Create, Edit and View Warranty Claims allows the user the ability to
create, edit and view warranty claims. Users will be able to add, edit and
remove warranty entitlements for a claim. Users will also be able to
identify and enter warranty costs per entitlement, which will be summed
into a total claim amount.
Search Orders for Warranty Claim (Select Mode) allows the users the
ability search and select (add) warranty entitlements to a claim.


3.4.4.4.6. Reports
Users will be able to leverage several new reports that are intended to enhance
their existing business processes by providing warranty focused information:

Visit Instance Task Warranty Contract Report will be used to view and
print warranty entitlement of various tasks in the visit.
Visit Instance Warranty Contract Report - will be used to view and print
warranty entitlement of various instances associated to the visit.
Warranty Claim Report accessed in the Search Warranty Claims UI and
is prepared for a single claim, listing all the warranty entitlement
information.

3.4.4.4.7. Notifications
Customers that utilize notifications can take advantage of several new
notifications that involve warranty:

Warranty Expiration Notification will provide users a single notification
of all warranty contracts that are expiring in a user defined number of days
in the future.
Warranty Approval Notification will be sent to an approver when a front
line technician has made a change to a warranty contract, selected a
warranty contract (from null) or requests a general review.
Warranty Definition Notification will be sent to a supervisory level user
when a warranty contract has been defined for a workorder.

3.4.4.4.8. Warranty Procedures
There are 2 new concurrent request procedures that will enhance the existing
functionality in CMRO in support of supplier warranty:

Supplier Warranty Auto Assign this procedure will identify new item
instances, since its last run, that have been created in install base. It will
then compare this list to all enabled warranty templates and will generate
warranty contracts in a pending status, for administrative review and
completion.
Supplier Warranty Expiration Date Calculation - this procedure will
update the expiration date of all active warranty contracts, taking into
consideration counter-based usage and associated forecasts. This
procedure will also generate the data for the warranty expiration
notification.

3.4.5. Terminology
Term Definition

UMP Unit Maintenance Plan
VWP Visit Work Package
OSP Outside Processing


3.5. Oracle Depot Repair
3.5.1. Release 12.1.1
3.5.1.1. Third Party Logistics for Repairs
Broken products, repaired products, and exchanges need to be moved and tracked
between service organization, customer, and third parties. Oracle Depot Repair will
support the following models of third party repair logistics:
Ad-hoc Repairs - A repair organization can manually create orders to ship
items to a third party or RMA items back from a third party. OSP orders for
repair service can be automatically generated from repair jobs.
Cross Dock Repairs - A repair organization can send broken customer product
out for third party repair immediately upon receipt. Depot Repair defaults the
appropriate repair vendor and ship-to location based on customer-defined
disposition rules. Overdue returns trigger escalation notifications. Third party
refurbishment status is tracked via workflow and/or iSupplier Portal.
Portal Repairs - A repair organization can provide a third party repair shop
with technician portal access. The third party can view repair orders assigned to
them, update status, capture time and materials, and capture symptoms and root
causes. The repair organization gets to keep the repair intelligence without
exposing customer or pricing information to an outside party.
Control Tower Repairs - A repair organization may coordinate the repair
process without executing any repair or fulfillment operations in-house.
Customer broken products are routed to third party repair shops while exchanges
are sourced from OEMs or third party distribution centers. Depot Repair defaults
the appropriate repair vendor, ship-to location, exchange warehouse and ship-
from location based on customer-defined disposition rules. Overdue returns and
refurbishments trigger escalation notifications. Third party refurbishment status
is tracked via workflow and/or iSupplier Portal.
3.5.1.2. Supplier Warranty Claims
Organizations that perform repairs on products manufactured by other companies need a
mechanism for reporting and settling warranty claims with the OEM.
Send Claim to Supplier
Depot Repair will provide the ability to capture claim data (OEM account, OEM bill-to,
parts, labor, replaced parts, and so on) and trigger the claim submission workflow.
Multiple claims can be made against multiple vendors per repair order.
Track Approval Status and Claim Number from Supplier
Depot Repair will provide fields to capture the supplier warranty claim number and
warranty claim status from the suppliers claim management system. Multiple claim
numbers and statuses can be tracked per repair order.
3.5.1.3. Invoice Third Party
Depot Repair will allow sending repair invoices to a different party from that which
logged the service request. Invoices can be sent to multiple parties for a single repair
order.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Depot Repair 23

3.5.1.4. Disposition Rules Engine
Repair type, repair location, repair organization, third party repair vendor, exchange from
location and other values can be defaulted at time of repair order creation based on
customer-defined rules. Rules can be based on repair item, repair location, customer,
contract, and so on.
3.5.1.5. Defaulting Rules Engine
Repair queue, repair owner, priority and other repair order values can be defaulted at time
of repair order creation based on customer defined rules. Rules can be based on repair
item, repair location, customer, contract, and so on.
3.5.1.6. Dynamic Repair BOM
Dynamic Repair BOM Selection
Depot Repair will provide a new screen to display the exploded bill of materials for an
item. Checkboxes next to each component allow a technician to quickly select the parts
needed for repair, significantly reducing the number of clicks required. Parts selected will
be added to the repair estimate.
Create Job from Estimate
Depot Repair will provide the ability to automatically generate a repair job from the
repair estimate. Repair parts from the estimate will be converted to material demand on
the repair job and allowing part sourcing via Oracle Advanced Planning and Scheduling.
3.5.1.7. Bar-Coded Traveler Document
Depot Repair will provide an out-of-box bar-coded traveler document. Traveler
documents allow easy identification and disposition of items in the repair shop. Bar-
coded serial numbers and repair order numbers allow technicians to quickly find repair
records without typing.
3.5.1.8. Default Repair Item as Material Demand
Depot Repair will default the repair item as material demand on repair jobs. Because
repair jobs always create an additional quantity of the item on the job, it is necessary to
consume the repair item as material on a job to keep the inventory system in balance. In
the past, all customers using WIP for repair jobs were required to manually enter the
repair item on the job.
3.5.1.9. Service Bulletins
Depot Repair will automatically link a service bulletin to a repair order based on
customer-defined service bulletin rules. Service bulletins provide information to repair
managers and technicians regarding:
Recalls
ECOs, FCOs, or Supercessions
Regulatory Compliance - WEEE, RoHS, International Laws
Parts Shortages
Up-sells and Cross-sells
Special Customer Entitlements, Priority, or Expedited Processing
Processing Exceptions - Late Repair Orders, RMAs, Loaners, or Vendor
Shipments


3.5.1.10. Manage ECOs
Depot Repair will automatically notify technicians that there are engineering change
orders that have not yet been applied when products come in for repair. For products that
require an ECO, the system will automatically apply the BOMs and routes needed to
perform the ECO when repair jobs are created. Notifications will not be triggered for
ECOs that have already been applied to a specific item instance.
3.5.1.11. Enable Back flush of Non-Serialized Repair Parts
For non-serialized parts, allow automatic tracking of parts consumption when the repair
job is closed. This will reduce the repair technician clicks on jobs where components
arent tracked serially.
3.5.1.12. Service Parts Planning: Forecast and Fulfill Demand for Spare Parts
Oracle Advanced Planning and Scheduling will utilize historical repair order data to
forecast the demand and yield for spare parts. APS will automatically generate repair
orders within Depot Repair to refurbish defective parts into usable parts to satisfy
anticipated repair demand.
3.5.2. Release 12.1.2
3.5.2.1. Repair Manager Portal
The Repair Manager Portal provides the ability to monitor and manage the return center
from a single screen. It allows a manager to:

monitor all escalated, aging, past-due, or on-hold repair orders
bulk create and mass update repair orders
monitor how many of each product are being returned to detect quality events
set return thresholds to trigger automatic quality event notifications

The Portal provides instant visibility to bottlenecks and process exceptions and allows the
user to manage those exceptions quickly.
3.5.2.2. Returns Management: Planned Receipt Matching
The Bulk Receiving screen has been enhanced to allow the receipt of both planned and
unplanned returns from a single screen. For each package received at the return center,
the receiving clerk just enters the customer name, serial numbers, items and quantities
while the system matches expected receipts to RMAs and automatically creates and
receives new RMAs and repair orders for unexpected materials.
The Bulk Receiving screen has also been enhanced to support locator, lot and revision
controlled items. A receiving clerk can also now search for the customer name based on a
service request number, and an external reference number can be captured at time of
receiving.
3.5.2.3. Time Clock
The Repair Technician Portal has a new widget that allows the technician to clock in and
clock out for a repair. The system will track the amount of time a technician spends
clocked in on a repair and automatically capture that time as a resource transaction. The
technician no longer needs to manually track time spent on a job or manually enter that
information into the system. The technician can pause the clock when taking breaks and
can allocate time to different operations.


3.5.2.4. Complete Work Button
The Repair Technician Portal has a new Complete Work button that allows the
technician to complete jobs and operations, issue materials, capture labor time and
transact resources with a single button push. Prior to the addition of this button, a
technician had to transact all of that information in the system manually.
3.5.2.5. Filter Root Cause Codes by Repair Item
The Repair Technician Portal Debrief tab displays root cause codes for a technician to
check off after repair completion. Previously this tab displayed every active root cause
code no matter what item was under repair. However, in most businesses, not all root
cause codes apply to all items, and the list of codes could be needlessly long.
This enhancement provides a new setup screen where each root cause code can be linked
to specific items or item categories. Based on this setup, the Repair Technician Portal will
display only root cause codes that match the item or category of the item being repaired.
3.5.3. Release 12.1.3
3.5.3.1. Recall Management
New capability has been added to manage recalls. A recall is an action taken to address a
problem with an item that makes it likely to fail, cause injury or violate safety laws.
Depot Repair will provide the ability to
create and update recall records
link the list of impacted item instances to the recall
specify the service activities and corrective actions required
track and monitor progress, accrued cost and estimated remaining cost

3.5.3.2. Returns Dashboard
A new dashboard has been added to enable a company to monitor all of its return streams
and the amount and value of material being returned in each. Businesses can use this
information to reduce the overall number of returns, to react quickly to unexpected
increases in the number of returns, and create programs to increase the recovery of
higher-value assets.
3.5.3.3. Environmental Impact Reporting
A new dashboard has been added to enable a company to monitor how much returned
material is re-used, recycled, sent to landfill or disposed as hazardous material. Actual
disposition is tracked against configurable thresholds.
Businesses can use this information to develop more effective ways to re-use and recycle
materials and to build products that create less waste and hazardous material.
3.5.3.4. Warehouse-to-Warehouse Movement of Serialized Products and Parts
A new screen has been added to enable quick and easy movement of products and parts
from one inventory organization to another using Internal Sales Orders. This new
capability improves on the existing process by tracking serial numbers for serialized parts
and by removing the restriction that every move-in line must have a matching move-out
line with the same item and quantity.
For businesses that model third-party warehouses, distribution centers, repair centers or
field service drop-off sites as inventory organizations, this new screen allows easy
tracking and movement of materials to, from and between these third party locations.


3.5.3.5. Partner Portal for Repair Vendor Collaboration
The Technician Portal and Bulk Receiving screens have been retro-fitted to be deployable
to service partners over the Internet. Authorized partners can receive against RMAs,
manage discrepancies, access checklists, send and receive notes and view item/part save
lists online; furthermore, they can enter inspection data, fault codes and regulatory sign-
offs directly in the enterprises database.
For businesses that work with multiple repair vendors, providing an Internet portal with
which to capture data is significantly more cost effective than creating system-to-system
integrations with each partner, and also significantly reduces the barriers to adding or
changing partners.
3.5.3.6. Warranty Claims Portal
A new solution using iSupport and Depot Repair enables a company to receive online
warranty claims from authorized service partners (ASP). ASPs can self-register using
iSupport, and can submit claims through Depot Repair that include parts used, labor
required, root cause, checklists and notes. The system will auto-create shipment lines for
replacement part, RMAs for the return of broken parts, and actual lines for financial
settlement with the ASP.
3.5.3.7. Capture Payment and Shipping Information
A new hyperlink has been added to Sales Order Numbers in the Depot Workbench that
allow users to click on the hyperlinked Order Number and launch the Sales Order Form.
The user can then capture payment and shipping information directly on the Sales Order
Form without having to leave the Depot Workbench and navigate to the Sales Order
Form.
3.5.3.8. Read-only Depot Workbench
A new responsibility has been seeded for users whose jobs require them to view but not
update the data in the Depot Workbench. These users can now launch the Depot
Workbench in read-only mode.
3.5.3.9. Automatically Close Repair Order after Shipping Item
A new workflow node is provided that can be linked to the OM Line Type used for repair
shipments which will automatically close the repair order after the item ships. This will
reduce user clicks and improve the accuracy of data for reporting.
3.5.3.10. Recycling and Asset Recovery
New capabilities have been added to support recycling and asset recovery flows. This
Return to Recover process supports both businesses that perform recycling and asset
recovery and businesses that contract with third parties for recycling and recovery.
3.5.3.11. Manage Exchanges and Returns of Broken Parts and Field Replaceable
Units
Depot has long had the capability to manage exchanges and returns of both products and
parts, and in this release new capability has been added to simplify the movement of
broken parts to, from and between internal and third party warehouses.
3.5.3.12. Refurbish Internally-owned Items and Parts
Depot has long had the capability to refurbish internally-owned items and parts, and in
this release new capability has been added to simplify the movement of broken product
and parts to, from and between internal and third party warehouses.


3.5.4. Release 12.1.3+
3.5.4.1. Returns Portal
The Returns Portal allows customers, partners, distributors and retail associates to return
products via web portal. Products can be returned for service, repair, testing, calibration,
exchange, upgrade, trade-in or recycling.
The Returns Portal is launched from the iSupport Home Page and uses the iSupport
registration and login features. The Portal allows a user to enter one or more items for
return, and each returned item can have a different return type, return policy and terms
and conditions.
The system can automatically verify serial numbers, ownership and warranty status and
provide an estimate of charges and credits. Contract entitlements and Advanced Pricing
rules are automatically applied to the estimate. Credit card information can be captured
and authorized if required. The system will automatically determine the highest value
option for processing and routing items based on business rules. Authorized users can
select existing customer records or create new customer records when creating a return.
3.5.4.2. Environmental Impact Reporting
The Environmental Impact Dashboard was added in the 12.1.3 release to enable a
business to monitor and report on the environmental impact of its return streams and
returns processing. In 12.2, two new tabs have been added to the Environmental Impact
Dashboard: the Disposition Summary tab and the Put on Market tab.
The Disposition Summary tab enables a business to track and report on the recovered
value, cost of recovery and profit margin from processing returned materials. This allows
a business to track the effectiveness of its take-back program and to quantify the benefits
of reuse and recycling.
The Put on Market tab enables a business to track how many units of each item have been
sold or placed into specific geographic regions. This allows a business to comply with
environmental impact legislation that requires periodic reporting of put on market data
along with take back information for the impacted region.
3.5.4.3. Supplier Warranty Management
New functionality has been added to support businesses that sell and service items and/or
components that may fall under a suppliers warranty. A warranty administrator can
create supplier warranty templates, create supplier warranties and link supplier warranties
to item instances. A warranty administrator also has the ability to create a claim against
the supplier in the Claims Workbench for service to items under supplier warranty.
Warranty information is stored in the supplier warranty repository.
A technician can view whether an item under repair is covered by a supplier warranty
from within the Technician Portal. If multiple warranties apply, the technician can choose
the highest value option. If the item has failed due to a customer induced defect, the
technician can indicate that the warranty has been violated.
3.5.4.4. Asset Recovery Flow
The Asset Recovery flow is initiated by a depot manager, service advisor or spares pool
manager who wants to repair, refurbish, recondition, remanufacture or recycle in-house
items or parts owned by the service business. This may include defective parts recovered
from customer products, excess & obsolete materials, finished goods requiring rework,
aging spare parts or loaner equipment.
The user can bulk enter materials to be processed and the system can then auto-create
service orders with the highest-value processing option and auto-create internal move
order lines to move items to the best processing locations based on business rules.


This flow allows movement of materials from one warehouse to another and from one
sub-inventory to another. Moves can be one-way or multi-destination moves. The system
supports partial shipments and over-shipments. Materials moved in to a depot for
processing may be different than the material moved out, such as when materials are
upgraded.
3.5.4.5. Service Campaigns and Field Change Orders
The Depot system supports the creation and execution of service campaigns or field
change orders. A service campaign is a coordinated set of service actions focused on a
specific set of customers or products in a businesss install base. Some examples include:
Calling all customers approaching their next regular maintenance interval
Calling all customers serviced in the last month to survey their satisfaction
Emailing customers whose warranties will soon expire
Coordinating warehouse personnel to replace batteries on spare parts that have
been on the shelf over a certain period of time
Service campaigns include field change orders (FCOs), field actions, technical bulletins,
and safety alerts. A service campaign enables a business to increase service revenue,
improve product performance and increase customer satisfaction.
The system enables queries against the Oracle Install Base to create a set of specific
instances impacted by a service campaign based on attributes such as item types,
revisions, model years, and so on. A list of service requests can be automatically
generated for these instances so that execution, progress and costs of the service
campaign can be tracked and monitored.
3.5.4.6. Create New Customer
In prior releases, users had to leave the Depot Workbench and open another application
to create a new customer party. In 12.2 a new button has been added to the Workbench to
launch a screen from which a user can create a new customer party without leaving the
Workbench. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.7. Batch Create Jobs
New capability has been added to the Mass Update Repair Order screen to enable a
service organization to create repair jobs in bulk. J obs can be created based on specified
service code, BOM and/or Route. J obs can be created across repair orders, service
requests, customers and service organizations. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.8. Calculate Resolve By Date from RMA Receipt Date
Previously, the Resolve By Date for a repair order could only be calculated based on the
service order creation date. Now service organizations have the option to calculate the
resolve by date starting from the time the item is received at the service center. This
feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.9. Prevent Shipping Exchange Item until Defective Item Received
Many service businesses require that a customer return their defective item before
shipping a replacement item. Previously, users could accidentally ship replacements
before the defective item was returned, but with this new functionality users are warned if
they attempt to ship replacements before receiving the customer defective. This feature is
forward-ported to 12.2.2.


3.5.4.10. DFFs Added to Technician Portal
DFFs have been added to the Diagnostic Codes, Operations, Materials and Resources
tables of the Technician Portal to enable capture of diagnostic code failure location, and
operation test results, as well as part-level problem code, failure location, primary defect
code, action and so on. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.11. Create Service Requests and Repair Orders for Rental Items
Previously, the system would not allow customers to create service requests for items
owned by the service organization, such as rentals, leased items and loaners. New
functionality has been added to enable creation of service requests and repair orders for
internally owned items and to automatically create a relationship between the returned
item and the customer logging the service request. This feature is forward-ported to
12.2.2.
3.5.4.12. Display Material Transaction History on Technician Portal Materials
Table
Previously, the Technician Portal Materials Table only displayed net transacted quantity
for each material on the table. This meant that if one part was removed and the same type
of part was added to a repair item, the displayed net quantity would be zero.
New functionality has been added to display each material transaction as a separate sub-
line under the material row in the table. A hide/show region enables selective disclosure
of this information. Quantity transacted and disposition information is displayed for each
transaction. Additionally, the quantity issued and quantity recovered are now displayed
on the material record in addition to the net transacted quantity. This feature is forward-
ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.13. Recommend Part Disposition from Rules Engine
New capability has been added to the Defaulting Rules Engine to enable defaulting part-
level disposition codes. Each part listed on the Technician Portal Materials Table can be
assigned a disposition code, and with this new functionality the Depot Rules Engine can
recommend the best disposition for each part based on recovery value, customer
agreement, part demand and many other business factors. Technicians can over-ride the
recommendation with appropriate permission. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.14. Auto-create Repair Orders for Recovered Parts
Technicians can track each part recovered from a repair item on the Technician Portal
Materials Table. With this new functionality, each recovered part can automatically
generate a repair order to track whether the recovered part will be refurbished to stock,
shipped back to the manufacturer, recycled or scrapped. Repair Order Type, Ship-to
Location and other values are defaulted from the Depot Rules Engine. The newly
spawned repair orders are linked to the original order that spawned them. This feature is
3.5.4.15. View and Capture Install Base Data from Technician Portal
The Technician Portal has been enhanced such that a user can click on the Install Base
Reference Number to launch the Install Base screen. Instance specific values and
attributes can be captured quickly and easily. Users can return to the Depot Technician
Portal without having to re query data. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.16. Auto-complete Operation using Time Clock
Previously, clicking the Next button on the Technician Portal Time Clock stopped
accruing time against the current operation and starting accruing time against the next
operation. New functionality has been added to automatically complete the current
operation when moving to the next operation. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.


3.5.4.17. Auto-create Repair Warranty
New functionality has been added to automatically create a repair warranty for repair
work done. When the repaired item is shipped, a workflow process triggers that creates a
repair warranty and links it to the repaired item instance. Different warranty types and
warranty periods can be determined using Defaulting Rules. This feature is forward-
ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.18. Track Serial Numbers and Sub-inventories against Internal Sales Orders
The Depot Internal Moves screen enables fast creation of internal requisitions and
internal sales orders to move items and parts from one inventory location to another.
Each internal sales order is linked to the repair order that spawned it. New functionality
has been added to enable a user to indicate specific sub-inventories for shipping and
receiving, as well as the specific serial numbers that are being moved. This feature is
3.5.4.19. Request Parts Button auto-creates Purchase Req or Internal Req
A new Request Parts button has been added to the Technician Portal Materials Table to
allow a technician to automatically create a purchase requisition or internal requisition to
procure parts. The generated requisition number displays on the Materials Table, and
clicking the hyperlinked requisition number will launch the Requisition screen. Multiple
parts can be requested with a single click. User hooks enable custom sourcing logic to be
called rather than using the standard Oracle Procurement sourcing rules. This feature is
3.5.4.20. Service Parts Planning Integration for Serialized Items
Oracle's Service Parts Planning engine uses historical repair demand and fulfillment
information from the Depot Repair application to forecast repair part demand. The
Planning engine can then create repair orders to refurbish defective parts to meet that
demand, as well as create internal sales orders to move defective parts to the appropriate
depot for repair. New functionality has been added to simplify refurbishing serialized
parts by enabling a single refurbishment repair order to track many serialized defectives.
This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.21. Service Order Orchestration
A new screen enables service personnel to view the status of cross-domain documents
(for example, sales orders, purchase orders, shipping lines, WIP jobs) related to a service
order and will allow service personnel to drill into additional document details as
permissions allow. Furthermore, this new feature allows a business to define rules for
triggering repair order status changes and programmatic function calls based on status
changes to related documents and location changes of the service item. A concurrent
program monitors for events, evaluates business rules and triggers actions based on those
rules. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.22. Bulk Returns through the Returns Portal
The Returns Portal has been enhanced to support returns of material in bulk. This feature
was built to support palette-load returns of scrap or obsolete materials for which there is
no desire to track serial numbers or other attributes specific to each item. Rather,
attributes are tracked at the palette level (for example, number of boxes, total shipment
weight, shipment dimensions) and only high level item information is captured. Service
requests, repair orders and RMAs are generated, but serial number and other information
will not be captured until the material is received if at all. This feature is forward-ported
to 12.2.2.


3.5.4.23. Bulk Internal Moves: Inter- and Intra-Warehouse
The Internal Moves module has been enhanced such that inter- and intra-warehouse
movements of products and parts can be done in bulk and can automatically create an
associated service request and repair orders for the moved materials. This feature is
handy for moving material in bulk from a defective sub-inventory to a depot for part
harvesting, or moving all excess and obsolete material from a particular storage location
into a depot for refurbishment. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.24. Additional Defaulting Rule Attributes
The Depot Defaulting Rules Engine has been extended with a number of new defaultable
attributes. New attributes include J ob Status, Accounting Class, J ob Inventory
Organization, Pick Release Rule, Material Issue Sub-Inventory, Pricelist, Default
Completion Sub-Inventory and more. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.25. Create Estimate from Technician Portal
The Technician Portal has been enhanced such that technicians can create work estimates
in the Portal and export that estimate to the Depot Workbench Estimate tab for pricing
and approval. Technicians can create an estimate of the operations, parts and time
required to execute a job in the same screen in which they execute that job. Furthermore,
the Depot Workbench Estimates tab has been enhanced such that a service agent can
price estimates, approve or reject estimates, or request a new estimate from the
technician. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.2.
3.5.4.26. Launch Quality Collection Plan upon Operation Completion
Some service organizations want their technicians to capture quality data specific to
certain operations. The Operations table on the Technician Portal has been enhanced such
that a Quality Collection Plan can be launched when an operation is completed. This
feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4+.
3.5.4.27. Extend Resolve By Date for Hold Time
Many businesses have service contracts with service level agreements indicating the date
by when a reported problem must be resolved. The Resolve By Date field tracks this
contractually obligated resolution date. New logic enables the system to automatically
extend the Resolve By Date if the order goes into a hold status; for example, when the
order is on hold awaiting a customer approval. When the hold is removed, the Resolve
By Date is extended to include the amount of time of the hold. An activity record is
logged to capture that the Resolve By Date was extended. This logic is optional and
controlled by setups. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4+.
3.5.4.28. Calculate Resolve By Date starting from Specified Status Transition
Many businesses have service contracts with service level agreements indicating by when
a reported problem must be resolved. The Resolve By Date field tracks the contractually
obligated resolution date. New logic enables a business to dictate what event should mark
the starting point in time from which the Resolve By Date is calculated; for example,
from time of receipt, inspection, entitlement verification or any other milestone. This
logic is optional and controlled by setups. This feature is forward-ported to 12.2.4+.
3.5.4.29. Returns Portal Enhancements for Oracles Own Takeback Operations
A number of enhancements were made to the Returns Portal specifically for Oracles
own internal use. These include:
New defaulting rules for carrier, processor and disposition
Save partially completed return request


Export search results to spreadsheet
Additional search attributes
Flexible Item Type search
Mandatory file upload
Restrict visibility to only records created by logged in user
Web-specific user experience enhancements
Flexible page regions to enable easy re-arrangement using Personalization
Out-of-box workflow notifications for carriers, processors and repair order owner
Seeded business event for return order creation
Additional DFFs
These features are forward-ported to 12.2.4+.

3.5.5. Release 12.2
3.5.5.1. Changing from Repair Order to Service Order
In the Depot application a user can execute business flows for service, testing,
calibration, exchange, upgrade, asset recovery, trade-in or recycling in addition to repair;
however, many screen labels, menus, functions and title bars specifically say repair.
Some users dislike when the screen says repair when no repair is being done.
In 12.2 the Depot application will replace the term repair with the more universal term
service. For example, repair order becomes service order, repair type becomes
service type, repair organization becomes service organization and so on.
3.5.5.2. Automotive Industry Configuration
The automotive industry has a number of unique business flows, naming conventions and
data requirements that are unique to that industry. A new option is provided in the Depot
application to automatically configure the system to provide automotive industry-specific
setups for automotive manufacturers, dealers and service centers.

3.6. Oracle Depot Repair Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product
3.6.1. Overview
Depot Repair Extensions for Oracle Endeca is a solution that allows users to track and
manage repairs and supplier warranty claims effectively. Service managers, operations
managers and repair technicians can leverage the functionalities offered by the Repair
Order Dashboard while claims managers and claims administrators can leverage the
Supplier Warranty Claims Dashboard to: manage performance of service centers,
technicians, partners and suppliers; identify and eliminate process bottlenecks,
continuously improve the speed, quality and cost of repairs; and improve supplier
warranty claim recovery rate.
3.6.2. Release 12.1.3+
Depot Repair Extensions for Endeca provides the following features:

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Depot Repair Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 33

3.6.2.1. Expedite Late or Aging Repair Orders
The most profitable vehicle for service organizations is the service contract; however,
service organizations must have process discipline that allows aggressive delivery dates
and consistently meeting these dates or the contracts will not be profitable. The Depot
Extensions provide the tools to ensure that orders are fulfilled on-time, including the
ability to view aging and late order information, the ability to re-assign work as needed to
meet dates, the ability to expedite part requests, and the ability to communicate
instructions across the service group.
3.6.2.2. Assign Unassigned Repair Orders
To meet due dates and to ensure work is performed with appropriate quality, service
managers must assign work to the right resource in the right circumstances. The Depot
Extensions provide the ability to re-assign work as circumstances dictate, to view who
worked on a returned item the last time it came in and the ability to view unassigned
orders to make sure all are assigned in a timely manner.
3.6.2.3. Identify and Resolve Process Bottlenecks
Service organizations need visibility to the amount of time orders are spending in each
process step to identify which process steps are taking too long. The Depot Extensions
provide visibility to time in status as well as reason for holds and for repeating process
steps is vital to improving overall turnaround time.
3.6.2.4. Identify and Resolve Quality Problems
Service organizations incur high costs if they fail to provide the requested service
correctly the first time. The Depot Extensions provide visibility to repeat returns and
rework and the ability to analyze patterns related to specific technicians, groups, parts or
item so that quality issues can be resolved.
3.6.2.5. Evaluate Performance of Service Technicians, Groups and Divisions
Service managers need the ability to evaluate the performance of their teams and
technicians. The Depot Extensions provide tools that allow them to view historical
performance, compare performance to baselines and view trends.
3.6.2.6. Ensure Supplier Warranty Claims are Settled and Paid Expeditiously
Service organizations need the ability to submit claims and ensure that those claims are
processed quickly and paid in full. The Depot Extensions provide the ability to view all
claims in process, expedite aging claims, communicate with suppliers, track supplier
communication, provide additional information related to the part failure or service work,
and view the original language of the warrantee agreement in cases of dispute.
3.6.2.7. Ability to Evaluate Suppliers based on Product Quality and Claims
Settlement
Service organizations need to evaluate their suppliers for both the reliability of the parts
they provide as well as how well and how fast they honor their warranty commitments.
The Depot Extensions provide visibility to supplier performance data, product quality
data and claims settlement data.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Depot Repair Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 34

3.7. Oracle Email Center
3.7.1. Overview
Oracle Email Center is a comprehensive solution for managing high volumes of inbound
email. Oracle Email Center reduces the cost per email interaction by automatically
replying to certain email inquiries as well as routing others to a skilled set of agents and
providing them with a full featured console with cross application functionality. Oracle
Email Center increases customer satisfaction and reduces customer attrition by providing
quick, accurate and consistent responses. It also increases agent's efficiency through the
use of a full featured, Email Center agent console thereby reducing agent turnover.
3.7.2. Release 12.1.2
3.7.2.1. Display of Email Threads during Email Response
With this new capability, the agents now have easy access to the emails that have been
previously exchanged with the customer regarding the email/ issue that they are working
on. All the emails threads related to this specific email are displayed to the agent in
descending order of time. The agents can access this information by navigating to the
Thread tab on the message component.
3.7.2.2. Agent UI Queues Tab
A new Tab has been added to the Agent UI to allow agents to view the subject of each
email in their queues as well as drill down to see the entire body of the email. This
feature allows agents to cherry pick the emails they want to work on/respond to instead of
being forced to work on the email at the top of the queue. To enable similar functionality
in the UWQ, the Email Queue Node has been made visible to Agents (previously only
available to Managers).
Email Center Administrators can define queues as being visible to agents or not.
Additionally, administrators can define a group of agents that are allowed to view a
particular queue.
3.7.2.3. Advanced Automatic Service Request Creation
In R12, the service requests can be automatically created and updated from the inbound
emails. In 12.1.2, this feature has been enhanced to parse the text of the inbound emails
and extract the information such as customer, product, serial number, address, and
problem code contained in emails body as per defined parser rules. This extracted
information is passed to the service request API to populate the corresponding fields in
the service request during the service request creation process.
As part of the Advanced Service Request creation feature, the administrators can create
parser definitions i.e. define the tags within which the data needs to be parsed and define
the corresponding field on the Service Request schema this data would be mapped to.
When used in conjunction with the Auto Create Service Request rule, the data captured
by the parser definition will be sent to the service request being created from the inbound
email.
3.7.3. Release 12.1.3
3.7.3.1. SSL Enabled Download Processor
The Email Center download processor can now connect to an SSL enabled port of
the mail server. This ensures the download of emails to email center application is
secure and in compliance with corporate network security regulations.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Email Center 35

3.7.4. Release 12.2.4
3.7.4.1. SMTP Authorization for Non-SSL email accounts
SMTP authorization for non-SSL email accounts can be enabled through setup. By
default, authorization is not required for non-SSL email accounts.

3.8. Oracle Field Service
3.8.1. Overview
As service and customer care becomes a more important part of global business strategy,
field service organizations are faced with a growing number of challenges and
opportunities. Dispersed staff coordination, complex technical issue resolution, inventory
management, and increasing tougher Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are challenges to
running a profitable field service business. Oracle Field Service offers a complete
solution which leading field service organizations have successfully deployed to
optimally utilize resources, minimize costs and improve customer satisfaction.
Oracle Field Service drives profitability by supporting and automating key field service
process such as scheduling, dispatching, debriefing and billing. Oracle Field Service
improves customer satisfaction by automatically scheduling tasks to insure customer
expectations and contractual agreements are fulfilled efficiently. A variety of constraints
and objectives are considered including technician shifts/availability, skill requirements,
parts requirements/availability, and street level geo-spatial data.
3.8.2. Release 12.0.3 (RUP3)
3.8.2.1. Google Maps Integration
In this release, users can access Google Maps from the Dispatch Center and the Field
Tech Portal to display Technician and Task Locations. Color coding is used to display
task status and mouse over pop-ups display of task and tech details like address and task
type. All of the standard Google map functionality is available such as zooming in/out,
panning, scrolling, and printing. This map features does not require installation of spatial
data but does require purchase of a security key from Google.
3.8.3. Release 12.1.1
3.8.3.1. Technician and Administrator Portals Trunk Stock Management and
Debrief Trunk Stock Visibility
In Release 12, Oracle Mobile Field Service - Laptop provides trunk stock inventory
visibility while the Field Service Technician Portal (FSTP) and Field Service
Administrator Portal (FSAO) UIs do not have this very useful feature.
In Release 12.1.1, the FSTP and FSAP UIs have been enhanced so users (technician or
administrator) can view parts inventory balances and reservations in a technicians trunk
stock location as well as other inventory locations he/she has been assigned (e.g. district
office stock room, parts sheds, nearby technician trunk stock, etc.).
On this new page, the technician will have the ability to:
View inventory balances for all of the sub-inventories assigned to a technician

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Field Service 36

View reservations against the inventory balances in these sub-inventories
View transaction history details for these sub inventories
Additionally, the Item LOV in the DebriefMaterialsInstall region has been enhanced
to include On Hand Quantity and Available Quantity to hold the technician debrief
accurately.
3.8.3.2. Technician and Administrator Portal - Task Scheduling
In Release 12, Oracle Mobile Field Service Wireless PDA solution provides the
capability for technicians to schedule follow-up and new tasks while the Field Service
Technician Portal (FSTP) does not provide this capability.
A new feature is provided in 12.1.1 that gives users of the FSTP the ability to schedule
new and follow-up tasks while at the customer site. This improves customer satisfaction
as the customer knows immediately when someone is coming back to do the work at a
time that is convenient. It improves efficiency as the field technician does not have to
call his/her dispatchers to get the task scheduled. The following scheduling modes are
supported:
Self Schedule
Window to promise
Intelligent
3.8.3.3. Technician and Administrator Portal Debrief Error Corrections
In Release 12, only Parts Debrief Lines can be corrected/reversed by entering a new
debrief line. Corrections/reversals of Labor and Expense Debrief Lines are not allowed
which distorts our DBI labor utilization reports among other issues. Many customers,
such as BCI and Eaton, have requested this feature.
With this new 12.1.1 feature, users can now debrief labor and expense correction lines
and automatically generate credits from them in Charges.
3.8.4. Release 12.1.1+
3.8.4.1. Dispatch Center Usability Enhancements
The Dispatch Center UI provides Dispatchers and Service Coordinators a work bench to
perform most of their scheduling and monitoring functions. Even though the current
Dispatch Center UI provides many best in class features including Plan Board, Interactive
Scheduling Chart, Map, and Schedule Management, it is missing a few features needed
by some of our more sophisticated customers like NCR, Beckman Coulter, Hitachi, and
Telefonica. In this release, we have added the following new features:
A sortable Task Table replaces simple Task List. It displays relevant information about
each task such as task description, task status, customer name, address and SLA dates and
timings.
A Task Quick Find feature as been added so dispatchers can quickly navigate to the
desired task in the Plan Board or Scheduling Chart.
Almost all Task Attributes have been exposed in the Dispatch Center so the dispatcher
does not have to navigate to other UIs like the Service Request or Task Manger Forms to
make basic updates.


More icons have been added to the Scheduling Chart so dispatchers can see the task
attributes most critical to decision making in their particular scheduling environment.
Direct access to the new HTML Parts UI is provided making it more efficient for
dispatchers to perform Spares functions (sourcing, ordering, and receiving) on behalf of
their field technicians,
3.8.4.2. Dispatch Center Advanced Task Management
The Dispatch Center has been enhanced to allow users to easily create Follow-up Tasks
and Personal Tasks on behalf of a technician. Follow-up Tasks need to be created when a
technician cannot finish a Service Request due to lack or parts, skills, or time. Personal
Tasks are created to block out time for doctor appointments, meetings, vacation, etc.
Previously, users had to navigate to completely separate UIs to create these tasks.
All Task update UIs, including the Dispatch Center, have been enhanced to prevent the
user from putting a task into a status that conflicts with another task. For example, it
doesnt allow the tech to be traveling to two different locations at the same time or
working on tasks at different locations at the same time. This functionality is
configurable (new setup UI) so Service Providers can determine which statuses should
not be in conflict.
3.8.5. Release 12.1.2
3.8.5.1. Dispatch Center - GPS Location Capture and Mapping
Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is now commonly available in phones and
on trucks/cars. Leading service providers are taking advantage of this technology to
reduce travel, respond to emergencies and source parts.
In this release, we are providing OOB integration to leading GPS service providers to
capture and map resource/technician locations and routes. GPS locations are also used in
our new Distance Based Parts Sourcing Logic.
3.8.5.2. Field Service Technician Portal Usability and Security Enhancements
The Field Service Technicians Portal (FSTP) provides all of the functionality needed for
a field technical to receive work, report status, diagnose problems, and debrief results. It
is typically used by technicians working on a laptop with wireless connectivity. This
section describes the many enhancements provided in 12.1.2 to this key UI. A similar
UI, Field Service Administration Portal provides all of the same features but also includes
capability to enter transaction on behalf of multiple field technicians.
An option to restrict technicians to only creating Service Requests for the sites where
they are scheduled to work is provided. This feature allows service providers to more
tightly control technician behavior and forces customers to contact the call center instead
of calling a field tech to log their issue. Additionally, a new Create SR button has been
added to the Task Update UI for easy access to the SR creation page. And, the Create
Service Request UI accessed from the FSTP has been enhanced to support task creation
(previously could only create follow-up tasks on existing SRs).
The FSTP Labor Debrief Region has been enhanced to capture Actual Travel Time and
Distance and keep it separate from regular labor. To do this, a new Travel Flag has been
added to the Service Activity Code setup and two new fields have been added to the
Labor Debrief Region (Distance and UOM) to capture travel distance in addition to travel
time.


To improve debrief efficiency and accuracy, the FSTP Debrief UI has been enhanced to
optionally default travel and labor start and end times from the task assignment status
changes. For example, Travel Start Time can be defaulted when the Task Status changes
from Accepted to Traveling.
An option to make Labor Debrief Mandatory is provided to force technicians to report
their labor before changing the task status to Completed or Closed. Also, a similar
option to force the technician to enter a Resolution Code before completing or closing at
task has been provided.
The SR Regions in the Dashboard and Task Update UIs have been enhanced to display
Site Name, Site Number, and Addressee for the Incident Address. These are key fields
that service providers need to use to store important data like Wal-Mart Store Number.
In addition, the Service Create SR UI and View SR UI are enhanced to also display these
key address fields.
The Service Request Region of Task Update UI has been enhanced to allow users to
update service request severity. A new dropdown is provided to upgrade/downgrade
severity. Note, if severity is changed, the Respond By and the Resolve By dates get
recalculated.
The Google Map UI (access from the FSTP Dashboard) has been enhanced to provide
driving directions capability. Technicians can simply click on a task and its address gets
automatically pulled in the driving directions UI.
The Service Request region of Task Update UI has been enhanced to display Contract
Coverage Days and Times and the existing Contract Number field has been changed to a
hyperlink. This hyperlink invokes the HTML Contract Coverage UI which displays
contracts details such as coverage name, reaction times and resolution times.
Additionally, if the product on the SR is not under contract, the Contract Number field in
the Service Request region displays a message indicating that no contract coverage exists
for this product.
The ability to filter the Task List on the Field Service Administrators Portal Dashboard
by Group and Territory provided so the administrator can locate just the tasks needed to
be work on. In addition, the portal personalization UI is enhanced to add group and
territory.
3.8.6. Release 12.1.3
3.8.6.1. Field Service Third Party Administrator/Technician Portals
In 12.1.3, both Field Service Administrator/Technician portals have been enhanced to
support use by Third Party Administrators/Dispatchers and Third Party Technicians. The
Admin Portal has been enhanced to add security functionality so Third Parties can only
see Field Service Tasks and Spares Inventory assigned to their Organization/Technicians.
The Tech Portal has been enhanced so Service Provides can personalize it for use by
Third Party Technicians (e.g. turn off access to create Service Requests)
3.8.6.2. Dispatch Center Third Party Management
The Dispatch Center UI has been enhanced to support monitoring Tasks scheduled to
Third Party Organizations and their Technicians. Dispatch Center Spread-table view has
been enhanced to query and view Tasks scheduled to Third Party Service Providers. To


support this feature, Advanced Find UI has been enhanced to create intelligent queries.
Dispatchers can now be able to commit and release Tasks scheduled to Third Party
Service Providers. Dispatchers can monitor these tasks in the list and perform all
scheduling functions with the Right Click Menu. In addition, task schedule to Third
Party Organizations (Resource Groups) will not be displayed in the Plan Board and Gantt
Chart but tasks assigned to Third Party Techs will be displayed.
3.8.6.3. eLocation Map Viewer Option
The Dispatch Center UI has been enhanced to integrate to the eLocation Map UI as an
alternative to the Google Map UI already supported. The eLocation Map UI has the same
features and the Google Map UI with the additional capability to display multiple tasks
for the same site/address (icon changes to a Red Star if more than 1 task is scheduled for
a single site/address). The advantage of the eLocation Map is that is an Oracle Product
so the Service Provider does not have to buy a Google license. In addition, a Geo Code
Validation UI is provided to help implementers diagnose address geo-coding errors.

3.8.7. Release 12.1.3+
3.8.7.1. Reschedule, Un-schedule, and Cancel Tasks that have received Customer
Confirmation
In prior releases, if a Task has its Customer Confirmation Status set to Received, the
menu options Reschedule, Unschedule, and Cancel are disabled. Dispatchers have to
execute several steps to reset the Confirmation status to either Required or Not
Required, before being allowed to perform these functions. With this enhancement,
Dispatchers can perform this functions on Tasks for which Customer Confirmation has
already been received and recorded.
3.8.7.2. Commit/Release Task while recording Customer Confirmation
In this release, the Customer Confirmation UI is enhanced to allow Dispatchers to release
(Commit) the Task while recording receipt of customer confirmation.
3.8.7.3. Configure Shift Task Display in Dispatch Center
Until now, if a Technician works both in Regular and Standby Shift, then 4 shift Tasks
are displayed on the Plan Board. Dispatchers have an option to hide these Shift Tasks
interactively. They can choose to hide either Regular Shift Tasks or Standby Shift Tasks
or both. Once they close and re-open the Dispatch Center, however, the previous Shift
task display options selected are not retained. With this enhancement, Dispatchers can
configure shift Tasks display in the Dispatch Center through the profile CSF: Display
Shift Tasks. This profile is honored every time the Dispatch Center UI is launched.
3.8.7.4. Advanced Debrief DOA, Unused Parts, Serial Tagging
The Tech, Admin and Third Party Portals Debrief UIs along with the Wireless Debrief UI
have been enhanced to support debrief of Defective on Arrival (DOA) and Unused Parts.
The Debrief Posting program has also been enhanced to process DOA and Unused Parts
differently from parts debriefed as being installed into the customer site/equipment.
In addition, the SCM Serial Tagging functionality has been up taken in Debrief so service
providers need only capture serial numbers when installing/removing parts (instead of
having to also enter them every time a part moves in the supply chain).


3.8.7.5. Debrief Return Routing Engine Integration
The Tech, Admin and Third Party Portals Debrief UIs along with the Wireless Debrief UI
have been integrated with the Return Routing Engine (new in 12.1.3) so the user can be
instructed where to return DOA, Unused and Defective Parts as soon as he/she saves the
debrief line.
3.8.7.6. Technician Setup UI
A new HTML UI is provided in this release so Administrators have a single UI to
perform all on-boarding setups and quick maintenance of existing setups including:
User Name and Responsibilities
Groups
Territories
Skills
Inventory Locations
Home and Ship to Addresses
Calendar (Regular and Stand by)
3.8.7.7. Display Parts Shipping Information in Dispatch Center
Dispatchers will now be able to view the Spare Parts Expected Arrival Date, Warehouse,
Shipping Distance, Shipping Cost and the Method of Shipment in the Dispatch Center
Spares Tab. This information will enhance Dispatchers ability to communicate and
collaborate with warehouse personnel, customers and technicians in the field.
3.8.7.8. Portals support Transfer Parts
The Trunk Stock management UIs in Tech, Admin and Third Party Portals have been
enhanced to provide the ability to transfer parts from one technicians sub inventory to
another technicians sub inventory.
3.8.7.9. Part Replacement Validation
Debrief install region has been enhanced to check whether the part being installed is a
valid replacement for the part being removed. The validation includes evaluating
whether the new part is supersession or a substitute for the defective part being replaced.
This validation is optionally done when the Replacement Debrief Line is saved (warning)
and again when it is posted (hard error).
3.8.7.10. Mass Unscheduling of assigned Tasks
Schedule Management screen in the Dispatch Center UI is now enhanced to provide
Dispatchers with the capability to unschedule assigned Tasks from the trips of several
Technicians at once, within a specific date range.
3.8.7.11. Enhanced Technician Calendar, Shifts and Exception Management
Field Service Administrators now have the ability to setup repeating holidays (like New
Years Day and Christmas) as a single exception in the Calendar. The Generate Trips
program has been enhanced to honor these repetitive exceptions and prevent creating
Trips on those dates.
Schedule Management screen in the Dispatch Center UI has been enhanced so
Dispatchers can generate Trips for all their resources or for jus specific selected
resources. They can also select the Calendar and Shift Name to be used when generating


trips. Dispatchers also have an option to invoke Generate Trips concurrent program from
within the Dispatch Center, with the additional capability to select a Calendar and Shift
Name interactively.

3.8.8. Release 12.2
3.8.8.1. Projects Related Fields in Dispatch Center
Dispatch Center UI has been enhanced to display projects related fields (read-only) in
Service Request Tab: Project Number, Project Name, Project Task Number, and Project
Task Name. The project information present in the SR header will be defaulted to the
Task Details. Advanced Find Tasks UI (Service Request Tab) is also enhanced to allow
Dispatchers to search Tasks based on Project Number and Project Task Number fields.
3.8.8.2. Auto create Install Debrief from Recovery/Return Debrief
In the Tech/Admin Portals, users can now automatically create a Part Install transaction
when entering a Part Recovery/Return which increases debrief reporting efficiency and
accuracy.
3.8.8.3. Search Recovered Item using Serial Number during Debrief Install
In the Tech/Admin Portals, the Debrief Install region has been enhanced provide ability
to search for recovered item and parent item Installed Base Records using serial number.
3.8.8.4. Ability to Enter Serial Number before Item Number during Debrief Install
In the Tech/Admin Portals, the Debrief install region has been enhanced to display Serial
Number at the row level. When the technician/administrator enters the serial number,
item number and item description will be backfilled.
3.8.8.5. Provide Ability to Receive Parts from Parts Tab
In the Tech/Admin Portals, the Parts Tab in Task Details UI has been enhanced to show
parts requirements in the show/hide region. Additionally, a new Receive button is
displayed on the Parts Tab to launch the Receive Parts UI which displays all orders
created for the task so the use can receive the parts.
3.8.8.6. Display Projects Related Fields in Task Details UI
In the Tech/Admin Portals, the Task Details UI has been enhanced to display projects
related five new fields (read-only) in service request region present in the Task Details
UI: Expenditure Organization, Project Number, Project Name, Project Task Number,
and Project Task Name. The project information present in the SR header will be
defaulted to all debrief lines (Labor, Material, and Expense). Line level project
information fields will be editable in order to allow technician to capture data if it is
different from SR header level information.
3.8.8.7. Provide Access Technician Setup UI
In the Tech/Admin Portals, the quick links region present in dashboard has been
enhanced to provide a link to access to Field Service Technician setup UI. Technician
setup UI allows administrators to assign Territories, Calendars, Skills, Address and
Subinventories to the individual technicians (on boarding).


3.8.8.8. Field Service Report with Signature Capture Capability
In the Tech/Admin Portals, the Task Details UI has been enhanced to allow technician to
view a consolidated action report done for the task. This report displays Labor, Material,
Expense and attached notes and allows technicians to collect the signature from the
customer once they validate the report. This feature also allows technicians to generate
and email a pdf report to the customer. Implementers can create their own custom report
and replace the existing one using the profile CSF: Default Task Report Template.
3.8.8.9. Update Task Actuals based on Labor Service Activity Code
Service Activity Code Setup UI has been enhanced to add a new Update Task Actuals
flag. This will drive the automatic update of the Task Actual Dates instead of the hard
coded logic we had previously.
3.8.9. Release 12.2.4
3.8.9.1. Display Unassigned Tasks in Administrator Dashboard
Field Service Managers/Administrators have the ability to review all unassigned tasks (no
tech assigned and not schedule dates/times) owned by the groups in which administrator
is a member or owned by the administrator themselves. They can then schedule these
tasks (manually or use Scheduler UI) to the appropriate technicians.
3.8.9.2. View and Create Personal Tasks in Field Service Portals
The existing views present in Portal have been enhanced to display personal tasks.
Additionally, a new link Create Personal Tasks has been seeded in the Quick Links
section on the dashboard to allow the technicians or administrators to create personal
tasks.
3.8.9.3. Integrate new Service Tasks UI in Portal
A new HTML Service Tasks UI was delivered in 12.2 which provides all of the task
functionality available in Forms. In this release, the Field Service Portals have been
enhanced to provide access to this new HTML Service Tasks UI instead of the old
generic Task Pages.
3.8.9.4. Integrate Field Service Portals and Wireless with Inquira
The existing Knowledge base Search region in Portals and Wireless Dashboards has been
enhanced to provide an option to launch the Inquira Knowledge Base UI.

3.9. Oracle Field Service Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product
3.9.1. Overview
Oracle E-Business Suite Endeca Extension for Field Service is a solution that allows
users to proactively monitor field service tasks, effectively manage field workforce
utilization, and efficiently control spare parts inventories, to achieve maximum customer
satisfaction. Field operations managers and field service technicians can leverage the
functionalities offered by Tasks and Parts Dashboards, while Field service administrators
can leverage the Administrator Dashboard. With the powerful search, guided navigation
and drilldown capabilities of Endeca Extension for Field Service, field service
organizations can improve compliance with service level agreements by quickly finding
opportunities to load balance field jobs and increase daily throughput.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Field Service Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 43

3.9.2. Release 12.1.3+
Field Service operations managers need to know how best to prioritize and monitor
workload, where operational deficiencies exist, which task debriefs have not been
reviewed and submitted for invoicing, which technicians are performing well or badly
and which spare parts are being used heavily or not used at all, and why.
Endeca Extension for Field Service provides the following features:
3.9.2.1. Identify exceptions, escalations and Tasks in jeopardy by Geography or
Customer
The Endeca Extension for Field Service provides Field Service Operations managers with
information on Tasks with high probability of SLA violation or already in violation
contractual obligations, Tasks that are escalated and/or unattended to; as well as the tools
needed to expedite, resolve and reschedule Tasks in real time, if necessary. Managers will
have a comprehensive view of field activities across geographies they are responsible for,
and if required, can focus on a specific state/city or even to a specific customer.
3.9.2.2. Track Task and Technician Performance Metrics
Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of Task and Technician performance like
First Time Fix Rate, Tasks started and finished on-time, and Tasks per Technician, etc.,
provide critical insights into the operational efficiencies, which may also reflect the
measure of customer satisfaction. These KPIs will help service organizations to
benchmark operational performance across regions, identify opportunities for
improvements and make informed timely decisions.
3.9.2.3. Continuously monitor and improve response times, service quality and cost
of service
Business intelligence tools for Field service enable a field service organization to monitor
operational bottlenecks, rework, repeat site visits, issues with spare parts and poor quality
performance. This will allow managers to track down root causes for these operational
deficiencies and initiate appropriate remedial measures.
3.9.2.4. Review, update and submit debrief faster for creating charges and invoices
Field Service Administrators can proactively work towards achieving their revenue goals
by identifying Tasks with incomplete or pending debrief. They can review, update and
finalize debriefs so that charges can be submitted and invoices generated in a timely
manner.
3.9.2.5. Reduce violation of SLAs, contractual obligations and penalties
Having visibility to all open Tasks, accurate status, escalations and SLA based response
times and having the tools to communicate, remove bottlenecks, re-schedule and release
Tasks to the field in a timely manner enables a field service organization to minimize
violation of contractual obligations and penalties for missed SLAs.
3.9.2.6. Enhance Workforce Performance
Providing field service administrators the visibility into task and Technician status in real
time and any operational bottlenecks, along with the necessary tools to expedite Task
execution and resolve issues in the field empowers the decision makers to streamline
operations. Field Service operations managers have visibility to repeat same site visit,
rework and excessive travel. They can identify the root causes and responsible parties.
They can take corrective or preventive actions based on the insights gained. Field Service

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Field Service Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 44

Managers can monitor the performance of technicians and third party service providers to
reward good performance and address any performance deficiencies.
3.9.2.7. Track spare parts usage and quality issues
By tracking the spare parts usage in the field, field service warehouse and logistics
coordinators can identify trends of excessive usage of any specific spare parts and narrow
down issues in a specific region or a warehouse or with specific field technicians. They
can also track parts frequently flagged as dead or defective on arrival (DOA) and
address any quality issues with the suppliers and initiate necessary claims to recover
entitled warranties on those spare parts.
3.9.2.8. Manage Warehouse Inventories and Reduce Spare Part Backorders
Field Service Warehouse and Logistics coordinators can proactively identify and manage
backorders for spare parts. By gaining insights into the inventory levels across spares
supply chain, they can facilitate parts movement to avoid any excessive stock piling in
some locations, and at the same time, minimize any backorders in other locations.

3.10. Oracle iSupport
3.10.1. Overview
Oracle iSupport enables you to provide a secure, web portal that delivers self-service
functionality to customers and employees 24/7. It provides a variety of transaction and
query capabilities including product configurations tracking, orders, invoices and
payments, shipments, returns, and contracts. Oracle iSupport has been implemented at
many leading companies who have achieved improved customer satisfaction while
driving down service costs.
3.10.2. Release 12.1.1
3.10.2.1. Multi-Party Access in iSupport
Oracle iSupport Release 12 only allows a business user to view data and create
transactions for a single TCA party. Many organizations have expressed the need for
their iSupport users to view data (e.g. view account balance) and create transactions (e.g.
create service request) for multiple parties without having to re-log in with a separate
User ID. This frequently occurs when a central IT or Engineering group is managing
vendor service for a large multinational modeled with a complex structure in TCA (e.g.
Motorolas Global IT Department logs Service Requests with SUN for all of its divisions
which SUN models as separate Parties in TCA)
In this release, the Multi-Party Access feature will allow the business users of iSupport to
view and do transactions for the parties and accounts for which they have been granted
access. The iSupport administrators or the primary users (customer administrators) will
be able to grant a user access to multiple parties and accounts. After logging into
iSupport, the users can select the party for which they want to view data/create
transactions (Party Context) from a list of authorized parties.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle iSupport 45

3.10.3. Release 12.1.2
3.10.3.1. Multi-Party Search
In 12.1.2, the Multi-Party Access feature introduced in release 12.1 has been extended to
allow users to search service requests for all the parties that the users has access without
manually switching the party context.
3.10.4. Release 12.2
3.10.4.1. Uptake Publish Flag in iSupport
The service request has a flag Publish that can be set using the Service Request
Form and Customer Support HTML UI. In previous releases, Oracle iSupport did
not honor this flag when displaying the service requests to users. In this release,
the system can be configured to display only the published service requests to
iSupport users.
3.10.5. Release 12.2.4
3.10.5.1. Contract Entitlement Control
The automatic contract entitlement on service request creation can now be enabled or
disabled through setup for service requests created through iSupport. In earlier releases,
automatic entitlement is always done when service requests are created from iSupport.
3.10.5.2. Display of Task Notes and Task Dates for tasks related to service requests
The scheduled, planned, and actual dates for service request tasks can now be displayed
under Resolution Actions region of the service request details page. Published task notes
can also be accessed in this region.

3.11. Knowledge Management
3.11.1. Release 12.1.2
3.11.1.1. Attachment Import and Authoring Improvements
Attachments can now be imported along with the Solutions they are attached to. Solution
attachments can be files (any standard document of file type such as doc, pdf, and xls).
Attachments can also be imported for existing Solutions. In addition, the KM Search
Logic has been enhanced to search these Solution Attachments.
Spell checking capability has been provided in Knowledge Management Statement Page.
Users can now run the spell checker before saving the knowledge solutions or notes.
3.11.2. Release 12.2
3.11.2.1. Support of additional Search methods such as Fuzzy and Synonym match
for knowledge search
A support for additional search methods for searching knowledge such as Fuzzy and
synonyms match are enabled in this release making it easier to search knowledge.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Knowledge Management 46

3.11.3. Release 12.2
3.11.3.1. Single page solution authoring
The solution authoring UI has been streamlined to allow the creation and update of
solutions using a single page, minimizing the need to navigate to multiple pages to
complete the task.

3.12. Oracle Mobile Field Service
3.12.1. Overview
Oracle Mobile Field Service (MFS) provides 3 distinct offerings: Store and Forward
Laptop, Store and Forward Pocket PC, and Wireless PDA Browser. These applications
are used by thousands of technicians all over the world in a variety of industries. With
MFS, technicians can view their work queue, record status, access knowledge and service
history, order and transact parts, as well as debrief travel, expenses, parts, and labor. In
addition, technicians can create service requests as well as create and schedule follow-up
tasks.
3.12.2. Release 12.0.3 (RUP3)
3.12.2.1. Scheduled Task Notification
A seeded Oracle Workflow has been provided to send important task related notifications
to field technicians. This extendable Workflow supports the three notifications listed
below as email, SMS or Workflow Message:
New Task Assignment
Task Assignment Delete or Cancel
Task Reschedule
3.12.3. Release 12.1.1
3.12.3.1. Multiple Field Resources using the same Laptop
The current Release 12 MFS Laptop software only supports a single user. However,
some customers, like the USMC, need to share a single laptop among all members of a
team/unit as it is not cost effective for each resource to have his/her own device. In 12.1,
Mobile Field Service Laptop and Oracle Lite Database have been enhanced to allow all
members of a Resource Group (e.g. a USMC Maintenance Unit) to work on a single
laptop
3.12.3.2. Mobile Manager/Administrators Dashboard
Customers, like the USMC, have requested functionality to support a user who is leading
a team/group of technicians sharing a single MFS Store and Forward Laptop. As such,
the MFS Technicians Dashboard page has been enhanced to allow a Group/Team
Lead/Administrator to assign tasks, monitor task progress, record task debriefs, order
parts, and create service requests and tasks for any Field Technician who is a member of
the Group.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Mobile Field Service 47

3.12.3.3. Open Service Request against any Product/Asset owned by the
Technicians Customers
Currently, only the customer and asset/IB records referenced on Service Requests/Tasks
assigned to the field technician are downloaded to the MFS device. This prevents field
technicians from opening service requests against equipment they have never serviced
before. Service providers, like the USMC, have a requirement to open new Service
Requests, in the field, against any piece of equipment owned by their internal/external
customers.
To implement this enhancement to the MFS Data Download Program, a new setup
UI/Table has been created to map Field Technicians to the Customers they service.
Enhancements have also been made to the MFS Service Request and Task creation pages
to allow field technicians to create an SR without copying it from one that already exists.
3.12.3.4. File-based Synchronization Option
Some Mobile Field Service customers, like the USMC, have Field Service Operations in
very hostile environments where network connectivity for synchronization is not
available or intermittent for long periods of time.
This new File Based Synchronization option uses file-based transfer to transmit Service
Request data between a mobile field service device and an Oracle Field Service instance.
The data will be saved into a file that can be attached to an email or saved in certain
storage device (a CD or a USB drive).
3.12.3.5. Wireless PDA Parts Visibility
In Release 12, technicians cannot search and view spares inventory balances on their
hand held wireless device. In Release 12.1.1, technicians now have the ability to search
for parts inventory balances on their wireless hand held device. To accommodate this
feature, the parts search UI has been enhanced to include a new radio button called on
hand quantity. Additionally, the search results page now displays Location, On hand
good and On hand bad quantities.
NOTE: This was an enhancement was released as a patch on top of 11i10CU2.
3.12.3.6. Wireless PDA Excess Parts Execution
In Release 12, technicians only had the ability to view their Return Parts List on their
wireless hand held device. In Release 12.1.1, technicians now have the ability to execute
return transfers from the Return Parts UI (for both excess and defective parts residing in
their trunk stock inventory location).
3.12.3.7. Wireless PDA Ability to Change Password
In Release 12, technicians have to login to the enterprise applications to reset or change
their passwords. In Release 12.1.1, the technicians have the ability to change their
passwords from their wireless device


3.12.4. Release 12.1.2
3.12.4.1. Store and Forward Mobile Queries
The ability for technicians using offline (store and forward) MFS devices to run queries
against the enterprise data base is provided. A new enterprise UI allows administrators to
define SQL queries and download them to technician mobile devices. A new query UI is
provided on mobile devices for technicians to select one of the pre-defined queries, enter
variables, and submit to the enterprise for execution on the next synchronization. After
the sync, results are displayed in the new UI.
3.12.4.2. Store and Forward Automatic Synchronization
In previous releases, all data synchronization was initiated manually by the field
technician from his/her mobile device (laptop or PPC). Release 12.1.2 supports full
automatic synchronization capability so the technician and enterprise always have up to
date information. Automatic synchronization can be initiated in 3 different ways:
Instantaneous
Synchronization is initiated whenever a change is made to key service objects (such
as service request) on either the enterprise data base or the mobile device.
Timer
Automatic synchronization is initiated from the enterprise server on a specific time
interval.
Exception Event
The mobile device initiates automatic synchronization when certain types of
exceptions are raised. Exception events include network bandwidth, battery level and
detection of A/C power.
3.12.4.3. Store and Forward Pocket PC Personalization
The Pocket PC Software Developers Kit now includes a tool which allows
personalization the MFS PPC application screens without having to write custom code.
This feature supports the ability to Hide/Show fields, Re-order fields and make fields
mandatory for input. These personalizations are also upgrade safe.
A new Personalization icon has been added in the toolbar section of the UIs that are
enabled for the personalization (Task details and SR details). Clicking on the icon opens
the Personalization UI where Administrators can define the personalizations. Once the
personalizations are uploaded to the server, they are downloaded each mobile device the
next time it syncs to the enterprise. Personalizations are only available at the site level
(all devices receive the same personalizations).
3.12.4.4. Store and Forward Pocket PC - Wireless Integration
Field service technicians require the ability to work offline (Store and Forward) as well as
the ability to access functionality that is only available when connected to the enterprise
DB (Wireless). Seamless integration between these two solutions is provided in this
release including the ability to only log in once, to easily access to the Wireless screens
from the S&F screens, and to pass context information and results back and forth. The
following Wireless features are now available from the S&F Pocket PC when the device
has connectivity to network:


Parts Receiving
Excess Parts Returns
Defective Parts Returns
Parts Search
Knowledge Base Search
Driving Directions
Password Change
3.12.4.5. Store and Forward Pocket PC - Usability and Security
In this release, quite a few usability enhancements have been made to the Store
and Forward PPC software. The section briefly describes each of these
enhancements.
A new SR Copy UI is provided to allow field technicians to quickly create new SRs.
Data defaults from the source SR and then the technician can update the following fields:
Severity, Problem Code, Problem Summary, Item Number, Instance Number, Serial
Number, SR Type, P.O. Number, Primary contact and Phone Number.
The Synchronization Download Program logic has been enhanced to download all
customer contacts associated with the customers being downloaded allowing the
technician to add contacts to new and existing service requests.
An optional new validation has been added to the SR Creation flow to restrict technicians
to only create SRs for sites that they are scheduled to work at (have open tasks). This
forces customers to contact the call center to log new service requests instead of calling
their favorite tech unless the tech is already on site (or scheduled to be on-site soon).
The ability to enter Serial and/or Instance Numbers without validation has been added to
support service providers who do not want to download Installed Base records to their
mobile devices. With this feature, Serial Numbers are validation is deferred until the SR
is uploaded to the enterprise data base. If the serial number is valid, its Item Number
and Contracts are added SR on the enterprise data base and downloaded to the mobile
device during the next synchronization.
The Debrief UIs (and Service Active Code Setup) have been enhanced to support the
capture of Actual and Billable Travel Time and Distance distinct from regular working
labor.
To improve debrief efficiency and accuracy, the Debrief UI has been enhanced to
optionally default travel and labor start and end times from task assignment status
changes. For example, Travel Start Time can be defaulted from the time when Task
Status changes from Accepted to Traveling.
An option to make Labor Debrief Mandatory is provided to force technicians to report
their labor before changing the task status to Completed or Closed. Also, a similar
option to force the technician to enter a Resolution Code before completing or closing at
task has been provided.
A new Contracts Detail UI is provided so technicians can view contract details like
coverage name, coverage hours, reaction times and resolution times. This UI is accessed
from a new button on the existing View Contracts UI.
The Dashboard UI has been enhanced to allow field technicians to update task
assignment status without having to open another UI.


The Customer details UI has been enhanced to include Site Name and Site
Number. Additionally, the Sync Program logic has been enhanced to download
Site Name and Site Number for each address being downloaded.
The Create Personal Tasks UI has been enhanced to allow selection or enter of address
information so personal tasks cab be displayed on maps and so Advanced Scheduler can
better integrated them into the technicians daily schedule
The toolbar regions of the Task Update UI and SR Update UI have been enhanced to
enable the attachments icon when an attachment is associated with the service request or
a task.
Cross Task Validations have been added to prevent technicians from putting a
task into a status that contradicts the status another task for a different site (e.g.
cant be traveling to or working at 2 different sits at the same time).
3.12.5. Release 12.1.3
3.12.5.1. Store and Forward Pocket PC Email Query
In Release 12.1.3, the existing Mobile Query Engine has been enhanced to make it
available through any email interface. Some highlights of this new feature are:
Ability to execute standard field service business functions (such as get technicians
daily task list, update task status, etc.) using email interface.
Ability to execute these functions using any devices available in the market that has
email capability.
Extends support to third party service providers to execute field service business
functions through email.
3.12.5.2. Wireless PDA Enhancements
In Release 12.1.3, Labor debrief region has been enhanced to capture Actual Travel Time
and Distance and keep it separate from regular labor.
Additionally, existing task scheduling feature has been enhanced to allow technicians to
schedule follow-up task using intelligent mode.
3.12.6. Release 12.1.3+
3.12.6.1. Email Query Phase 2 - Spares Commands
Existing Mobile Query Engine (available in all devices that supports email) has been
enhanced to support the following Parts related commands:
Partinfo: This command allows technicians to view following Item attributes:
Item, Description, Recovered part Disposition, Item Revision, Lot control,
Locator control, Serial Control, IB Trackable
Partsub: This command allows technicians to view following information about
substitute item: Supplied Item, Description, Item Type, Substitute Item,
Description, Source Org, and Source Subinventory


Partavail: This command allows technicians to view following information:
Item, Description, Item Type, Quantity, Source Org, Source Subinventory,
Source Type, and Distance
Partrtninfo: This command allows technicians to view following information:
Item Name, Description, Org, Disposition, Revision, Locator, Subinventory,
Location Control, Lot Control, Serial Number control, IB Trackable
Additionally, some existing commands are enhanced to increase the usability.
3.12.6.2. Wireless Advanced Debrief and Returns Routing Integration
Debrief UI has been enhanced to support Defective on Arrival (DOA), Parts Unused, and
Serial tagged items. Additionally, debrief UI has been enhanced to support Return
Routing Rules as well as debrief posting in real time.
3.12.6.3. Wireless Support for Transfer Parts
This feature allows technicians to transfer parts from their sub inventory to another
technicians sub inventory.
3.12.6.4. Wireless Enhanced Debrief Flow
Wireless application has been enhanced to allow technicians to execute debrief flow
much faster and efficiently. In addition, optimized design reduces the data transfer
between device and the server over the network which in turn reduces the cost. The new
design allows technicians to do the following:
Scan multiple Item Number or Serial Numbers using built-in bar code scanners and drive
debrief flow (it can be either installing parts at the customer site or recover parts from the
customer site )based on scanned Item Numbers or Serial Numbers
Default parts from the parts requirement attached to the task that allows faster debrief
with less data entry errors
3.12.6.5. Wireless- Support for Special Address Creation
A new value Special Address has been added to the address type drop down. This
allows technicians to create Special Address just like is available in the HTML Parts
Requirement UI.
3.12.6.6. Wireless-Validation to Ensure Installed Item matches Returned Item
Debrief install region has been enhanced to validate whether the part being installed is
similar to the part being replaced. The validation includes evaluating whether the new
part is supersession or a substitute for the defective part being replaced. This validation
will be done when the Replacement Debrief Line is saved and again when it is posted.
3.12.6.7. Store and Forward New Multi Platform Application
This paragraph introduces our new EBS MFS Multi Platform Application which is
supported on 12.1.3 and later releases. This application has been developed using
Oracles Mobile Applications Development Framework technology (HTML5 and J ava)


which allows most code to be reused on multiple mobile operating systems. The first
release of this new application supports iOS and Android devices.
This new application provides all of the basic field service functions offline and certain
data intensive functions (like parts inventory search) when the device is connected. The
application runs in hybrid mode and leverages native device features (Camera, Voice)
and touch screen capabilities thereby providing intuitive and easy to use user interfaces.
3.12.6.8. Automatic Synchronization for Multi Platform Application
Automatic synchronization provides the ability to synchronize the client data in the
background whenever the device data changes on the client side or when the device that
was previously offline detects a connection. Implementers have the ability to set auto-
synch interval based on the user preference. The design allows a visual indication on the
screen whenever auto synch is initiated in the background. This feature allows provides
the ability to notify Field Service Engineer if the data is not synchronized with the server
for a given period of time.
3.12.6.9. Support for Expense Debrief in Multi Platform Application
This feature provides the ability to capture expense debrief during task progression. A
new Expense menu item is displayed in the Task Details Screen. Additionally, Action
menu present in Task Details is enhanced to display new menu Expense in addition to the
existing Travel, Labor, Install, and Return options.
3.12.7. Release 12.2
3.12.7.1. Wireless- Auto Create Install Debrief during Recovery/Return Debrief
Users can now automatically create a Part Install transaction when entering a Part
Recovery/Return which increases debrief reporting efficiency and accuracy.
3.12.7.2. Wireless- Provide Ability to Receive Parts from Parts Requirement Screen
Parts Order screen and context sensitive action menu on the Task Details UI has been
enhanced to display a new Receive button. Upon tapping the receive button, existing
Receive Parts screen will be launched and all orders that are created for the task will be
displayed. Technician will have the ability to select the order using the check box and
click Receive button in order to receive the order. A confirmation message will be
displayed once the receipt transaction completes successfully
3.12.7.3. Wireless- Enhanced UI Configuration Options
The Preference screen has been enhanced to display additional fields on the Task list
screen. Additionally, task display lov will now contain the following additional list of
fields to display on the task list screen:
Duration
Priority
Task Subject
SR Number


3.12.7.4. Wireless- Ability to Set the Profile Client Time zone in the Device
Preferences screen has been enhanced to provide technicians the ability to set the profile
Client Time zone of which all Dates/Times on the Wireless UIs are rendered.
3.12.7.5. Wireless - Field Service Report with Signature Capture Capability
The Task Details screen has been enhanced to allow technician to view a consolidated
action report done for the task. This report displays Labor, Material, Expense and
attached Notes and allows technicians to collect the signature from the customer once
they validate the report. The technician can also email a pdf report to the customer.
Implementers can create their own custom report and replace the existing one using the
profile CSF: Default Task Report Template.
3.12.7.6. Wireless - Ability to Trigger Context sensitive mobile query from Task
Details Screen
Enhanced mobile query feature allows users to execute context sensitive queries from
task details screen.
3.12.7.7. Wireless - Display Projects Related Fields in Task Details Screen
Task Details UI has been enhanced to display projects related five new fields (read-only)
in service request region present in the Task Details UI: Expenditure Organization,
Project Number, Project Name, Project Task Number, and Project Task Name. The
project information present in the SR header will be defaulted to all debrief lines (Labor,
Material, and Expense). Additionally, users has the ability to change the project details at
debrief line level.
3.12.8. Release 12.2.4
3.12.8.1. Wireless - View and Create Personal Tasks
The existing views present in Wireless have been enhanced to display Personal tasks.
Additionally, the technicians also have the ability to create, update Personal tasks.
3.12.8.2. Wireless - FS Managers Dashboard
A new Admin dashboard screen has been designed to allow Field Service Wireless
administrators to manage their groups from their smart phones. This feature is similar to
the functionality present in the Field Service Administrator Portal:
View Tasks assigned to the group/territory or individual task assigned to the
Field Service technicians belonging to the group
Reassign the existing tasks to one of the group/territory member using manual
mode
Create, update and post debrief on behalf of the technicians
Create and Order Parts on behalf of the technicians
Return Excess and Defective parts on behalf of the technicians.
Receive parts on behalf of the technicians


3.13. Oracle Service Contracts
3.13.1. Release 12.1.1
3.13.1.1. Service Contract Import Program
Oracle Service Contracts now offers a feature to import Warranties, Extended
Warranties, unbilled or fully-billed Service Contracts and intangible Subscription
Contracts. This capability allows a service contract to be captured from an external
system. Once the service contract has been imported, Oracle Service Contracts can be
used for Entitlements and Billing.
3.13.2. Release 12.1.3+
3.13.2.1. Service Contract Renewal Performance Enhancements
3.13.2.1.1. Date Assembler Changes
Currently when a large number of service contracts expire on the same date and
simultaneously need renewing, it can take a long time for the renewal process to
complete. To improve the performance of the service contract renewal process, the
Date Assembler Workflow Manager feature controls the number of service contracts
to be processed concurrently for renewal.
Instead of creating a workflow process for each service contract to be renewed, the
date assembler will insert the details into an interface table and then specific numbers
of workflow processes are created to process the renewal. A new concurrent request
Service Contracts Date Assembler Workflow Manager has been introduced to fetch
data from the above mentioned interface table and create the workflow processes for
service contract renewals. The number of records to be fetched is controlled by a new
profile option OKS: Date Assembler Workflow Queue Size.
3.13.2.1.2. Re-Pricing enhancements
Oracle Service Contracts has made performance enhancements to the re-pricing of
service contracts during contract renewal.
Re-price in bulk mode: Bulk mode features will be leveraged to re-price
service contracts. A new profile option OKS: Use Bulk Loading for Line
Re-price has been introduced to enable bulk mode re-pricing.
Re-price in concurrent mode: If the number of lines/sub lines crosses the
pre-defined threshold value, service contracts will be re-priced in concurrent
mode. The threshold is controlled by a new profile option OKS: Subline
Threshold Value to Launch a Concurrent Program. When the number of
lines/sub lines cross this threshold then the re-pricing will be done through a
concurrent request to improve the pricing performance. This feature is also
available for manual/automatic renewal processes.
3.13.2.2. Performance Enhancements to Main Billing Program for Usage Contracts
Oracle Service Contracts has made performance enhancements to the pricing of usage
contracts during the Main Billing Program. When there are a large number of usage
lines, then the Advanced Pricing engine will be called in bulk mode for the eligible lines.
New profile options have been introduced to manage this process:
OKS: Call QP In Bulk Mode for Usage Line Billing to enable calling the
Advanced Pricing engine in bulk mode
OKS: Skip QP call in Usage for Zero Quantity to determine whether zero
quantity lines are interfaced to Advanced Pricing

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Service Contracts 55

OKS: Number of Child Requests for Service Contracts Main Billing to control
the number of child requests to be spawned. The default value is 30 in order to
maintain backward compatibility.
3.13.2.3. Mass Update Tool
A new Mass Update Tool, which is available from the Service Contract Authoring form,
can help users manage service contracts with a large number of lines/sub lines. Users can
sort and then update individual lines or a group of lines such as all lines, all lines for a
configuration, or all lines for a given serial number. Changes are processed in the
background, so that the user can immediately continue onto their next task.
3.13.2.4. Prevent Deletion of Line/Sub line during Contracts Renewal
Oracle Service Contracts has introduced the ability to disallow deletion of lines/sub lines
during contracts renewal to improve contract revenue leakage analysis. When the
customer does not want to continue a service, the line/sub line should be cancelled during
the renewal process. Disallowing deletion of renewed lines/sub lines will ensure users
are properly cancelling lines/sub lines. Administrators and management have the ability
to configure which users will not be allowed to delete lines/sub lines during contract
renewal process.
This is managed using the profile OKS: Delete Renewed Contract Lines or Sublines.
When the profile is set to No, then the user will be required to cancel lines using an
appropriate status value along with an appropriate reason for cancelling the line.
3.13.2.5. Carry Over Self-Service Decline Code onto Service Contract Cancellation
Reason
When customers decline to renew service they select a decline code. This decline code
will now carry over onto the service contract cancellation reason to improve contract
revenue leakage analysis.
3.13.2.6. Revalue Contract during Change in Currency
A new profile option OKS: Revalue Contract Using Currency Conversion Rate allows
users to configure whether to automatically re-price or allow manual revaluation when
the currency is changed on a service contract.
3.13.2.7. Specify Cc E-mail Addresses during Quote and Reminders
Users can specify cc email addresses for email quote and reminders as a part of the
contract renewal process.
3.13.2.8. Selective Update of Warranty Contracts upon IB Transfer of Ownership
In certain business scenarios the service during warranty period is provided by the OEM
and during extended warranty is provided by a Partner. In such cases, this feature allows
you to update only the warranty contracts upon IB transfer of ownership.
3.13.2.9. Re-price on Renewal Consolidation
As a part of Renewal Consolidation, only the lines/ sub lines that are moved from the
Source to the Target Contract are Re-priced as per Target contracts Price List. All the
lines existing on the Target contract prior to Renewal Consolidation exercise are not re-
priced automatically.
3.13.2.10. Flexible Invoice Text Defaulting
A new profile option OKS: Update Invoice Text during Renewal allows users to
configure whether the invoice text will be defaulted from the original contract or the
renewed contract.


3.13.2.11. Service Contracts Usability Enhancements
In Release 12.1.3+, the following usability enhancements have been made to improve
user productivity:
When adding sub lines to an Extended Warranty service line, the Product List of
Values shows available instances with several different sort sequences to choose
from: Party, Site, Customer, System, Item and Model. Now Configuration will
also be an option which displays available instances based on the installed base
configuration. It shows top level instances and allows the user to drill down to
see all instances in the configuration. As with other levels, users should be able
to select one or more displayed instances to add to the contract.
The cascading attributes action has been enhanced to support concurrent
processing. When a service line had a large number of sub lines, users were
forced to wait until the entire cascade action completed. Now users can specify
attributes to be cascaded to all sub lines in the Cascading Attribute form, and the
user can continue updating the contract while the concurrent program completes
in the background. This is managed through a profile OKS: Cascade Attributes
Using Concurrent Request. In the case of the user changing the Effectivity Date
on a service line, then using this feature the user can default the same effectivity
date to all the associated sub lines.
Users can review the contract details from the FYI (For Your Information)
notification page. When a FYI notification is received by an external user, then
the user can access the contract details link on the notification and launch the
Contract Details page. The user can launch the page only if he/she has access to
the contract.
During entitlement search, users have the option to view the subscription
contracts having service lines covering item instances. This is managed using the
profile option OKS: Display Subscription Contracts in Entitlements.
During entitlement check, the Respond By and Resolve By dates are returned to
the service request even when they fall outside of the contract coverage effective
start date and end dates.
During entitlement check, the calculation of Response By and Resolve By
time takes into consideration the customers availability defined in the Access
Hours setup in Field Service application.
Users can view the line and sub line number in the status change history page.
Users can update the billing streams based on the original billing streams
duration. Also, the end date gets adjusted to match the new end date for the line.
Users can now view the Card Holders name for the card specified in the
Payment Method both at the header as well as contract lines. The card holders
name is shown in the Credit Card Number LOV while selecting the credit card.
In addition, if the user is required to enter the details for a new credit card, they
can specify the card holders name.
Users can now choose to display either the item description or item part number
in forms as well as HTML pages. This is controlled via the profile option OKS:
Line Level Item Display Preference.
3.13.2.12. Merge Assets across Contracts

Contract consolidation can have multiple business drivers, such as customers request,
installation location of a group of assets etc. Users can now move assets from multiple


source contracts, to a single target contract. This helps in improving the maintainability
of customer contracts, and avoids duplication of assets across the contract base. The
movement of assets is recorded in the execution history of the source contracts.

A new profile option OKS: Change Party in Contract Merge allows users to move
assets across the customer base. The re-pricing of the assets moved to target contract is
controlled using OKS: Pricing Method for Contract Merge profile option.
3.13.2.13. Drive Contract Coverage by Severity

There might be business need to cover High priority tasks round the clock, but it doesnt
justify providing similar coverage to a Low or Medium priority task. Oracle Service
Contracts now provides the capability to define contract Coverage Time, Reaction Time
and Resolution Time based on the severity of the task. This enables service organizations
in providing assistance to tasks as per the severity. This results in cost savings by
avoiding manual interventions that are otherwise needed for modifying the planned end
dates and rescheduling tasks as per the severity.

Prior to this release, users defined Reaction and Resolution Times based on specific
number of hours it took to respond to a task. With this release, Reaction and Resolution
Times can be defined as variable number of hours depending on when a task gets created,
thereby ensuring compliance with the promised service level agreements.
3.13.2.14. Control Generation of Invoice

In certain geographies, such as Latin America, the customers accept invoices only till a
specific day of the month after which they are sent back to the service provider. With this
release, the application provides users the ability to specify the range of days on which
the invoices are accepted by the customers. Any invoice falling outside this range is sent
to the customer in the next billing cycle.
A profile option OKS: Enable Interface Date Range with a value of Yes enables users
to honor customers invoicing preferences by recording the range of days on which the
invoices are accepted by the customer.
3.13.2.15. Calculate Estimated Tax with Higher Accuracy

The tax rate and its effectivity can change over the contract duration. Hence, service
organizations need to provide an accurate picture of the estimated tax that the customer
might end up paying. Prior to this release, the application calculated the estimated tax
based on the line/ sub line start date. With this release, Oracle Service Contracts provides
users with an option to calculate tax at contract billing schedule level thereby considering
the changes in tax rate effectivity at that level.
A profile option OKS: Calculate Tax at Schedule with a value of Yes enables the
application to calculate tax at billing schedule level for all lines/ sub lines.

3.13.3. Release 12.2
3.13.3.1. Solution Ordering
Users can now order Subscriptions using Oracle Order Management and have the
application create the subscription contracts automatically. The value of the OKS:
Category for Order Management Originated Contracts profile option is not considered


during subscription contracts creation. The Oracle Order Management attributes required
for creating subscription contracts are Subscription Template, Duration and Period,
Service Start Date and Service End Date, Service Billing Profile, and Service Billing
Option.
Service Billing Profile is the value that is set for a sales order and lets the user to bill
using multiple periods. If this value is not set for a sales order, then the service or
subscription lines consider the Service Billing Option value as Full Billing from Order
Management.
Service Billing Option values are Full Billing from Order Management, Full Billing
from Service Contracts and First Period Billing from OM, Subsequent from Contracts.

3.13.4. Release 12.2.4
3.13.4.1. Service Contracts Public APIs

Oracle Service Contracts now offers a wide range of public APIs to carry out Create and
Update operations at various levels in the entire contract document. With this release,
users can create and update contract header, lines, sub lines, billing streams, billing
schedules and contract templates. In addition to these, the APIs also enable users to take
actions on contracts, such as changing contract status, terminating active contracts,
deleting contracts, activating contracts, renewing contracts and cascading attributes from
header to lines/ sub lines. These APIs will help in increasing the usability of the
application and productivity of the users.

3.14. Oracle Service Contracts Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product
3.14.1. Overview
Oracle E-Business Suite Endeca Extensions for Service Contracts is a solution that allows
users to effectively manage contract renewals, proactively monitor performance metrics,
and efficiently monitor customers service experience, to achieve maximum customer
satisfaction. Renewal sales representatives can leverage the functionalities offered by
Sales Representative Command Center dashboard and renewal sales managers can
leverage the Sales Manager Command Center dashboard. With the powerful search
feature, guided navigation, and drilldown capabilities of Endeca Extensions for Service
Contracts, service organizations can improve compliance with service level agreements
as well as keep the entire organization in sync. Higher customer satisfaction levels can be
achieved by constantly monitoring and addressing issues in a timely manner, which
otherwise could potentially have an adverse effect on the quality of service being
delivered.
3.14.2. V5
Renewal sales representatives main job is to ensure on-time renewal of all the assigned
contracts and provide timely response to all customer queries. Information about
customers satisfaction with past service experience, their financial health and credit
rating assist the sales representatives in forecasting whether customers would be
renewing their contracts or not.
Renewal sales managers, on the other hand, need to monitor the day to day activities of
the sales representatives reporting to them and track their performance. Their main tasks

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content DocumentOracle Service Contracts Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 59

are ensuring accurate renewal forecast, mitigating cancelation and termination risks and
determining patterns in cancelation and termination reasons.
3.14.2.1. Identify Renewal Exceptions and Manage Renewals Work Queue

The Sales Representative Command Center dashboard allows sales representatives to
effectively manage contract renewals and perform renewal related activities to ensure that
the contracts are renewed on time. Sales representatives receive alerts about renewed
contracts that are yet to be booked and about active contracts in grace period for which
the renewed contracts have not yet been booked. For sales managers, the Sales Manager
Command Center dashboard provides a comprehensive view of the alerts and work
queues of the sales representatives reporting to them.
3.14.2.2. Monitor Renewal Performance Metrics
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like Renewal Rate, Cancelation Rate, Termination
Rate and On Time Renewal provide critical insights into the renewal process and a good
idea about the extent of service revenue leakage and customer satisfaction levels. These
KPIs also help service organizations in evaluating the performance of the sales
representatives by helping them compare the actual performance with the targets assigned
to them.
3.14.2.3. Continuously Monitor and Improve Customer Service Experience

The Command Center allows users to monitor customers service requests and address
issues in a timely manner thereby ensuring high quality of service being delivered. It
allows them to proactively take actions to keep the entire service delivery organization in
sync and ensure that all the agreed terms and conditions are impeccably honored.
3.14.2.4. Identify Early Signs of Risks and Strategize Their Remediation

Business events such as bankruptcy, litigations, claims, and so on, provide indication
about customers financial health and resultant credit rating, thereby providing an
indication of their likelihood of renewing the contracts in the future. The Command
Center dashboard is the single source of truth of all the customer information that can
help in accurately forecasting contract renewals. Thus the service delivery organization is
able to get a more accurate picture of forecasted service revenue and is able to
proactively monitor high risk contracts that could potentially get canceled or terminated.
3.14.2.5. Monitor Service Revenue Leakage and Strategize Their Mitigation

The Command Center dashboard provides visibility into the service revenue leakage
occurring due to the cancelation or termination of contracts by customers for different
reasons. It provides the sales managers the necessary tools to determine trends in contract
cancelations and terminations. These insights can help the service delivery organization
to take corrective or preventive actions.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content DocumentOracle Service Contracts Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 60

3.15. Oracle Spares Management
3.15.1. Overview
Oracle Spares Management fully leverages the EBS Supply Chain Products to deliver
world class spare part logistics and planning capabilities. Tight integration with Mobile
Field Service and Advanced Scheduler provide for efficient spares sourcing, ordering,
receiving, tracking, debriefing and costing/billing.
3.15.2. Release 12.1.1
3.15.2.1. WRP Planned Order Release Automation
This new Warehouse Replenishment Planning (WRP) feature automates the release of
planned orders (i.e. creation of purchase, repair, and internal orders) when certain
business rules are met. These rules include planned order value, tracking signal (forecast
error) and lead time for each of the supported supply types (excess, repair and new buy).
This functionality lets Parts Planners automate the routine/low risk planned orders
leaving more time to focus on the exceptions and high value items.
3.15.3. Release 12.1.2
3.15.3.1. New HTML Parts UIs and Distance Based Search
Parts search and ordering is a key process for any field service operation that uses parts.
The functionality provides the technician, dispatcher or logistics analyst with tools to
quickly locate parts and execute the lowest cost delivery to meet the customers Service
Level Agreement. Finding parts in a field service supply chain can be complicated by
conditions unique to field service. For example, the field service supply chain can have
many locations to search with some having limited access hours
In this release, a new HTML Parts Search and Ordering UI is provided with the following
key new features (in addition to all of the functionality contained in the Part Requirement
Form which this UI replaces):
Search for spare parts by distance from customer site or technician location
New search parameters/filters in addition to distance including
o manned (open or closed),
o unmanned
o other technicians (working or not)
Considers supersessions and substitutes in the search results
Map display of search results showing stocking locations with the parts
This new UI is accessible from the Service Request UIs, the Dispatch Center as well as
directly from the Menu. This new functionality is also available in EBS Mobile Field
Service Wireless and Store and Forward solutions.
The Parts Search and Ordering Module will replace the current Parts Requirement
functionality in Spares Management. It will also be included in Mobile Field Service

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle Spares Management 61

Wireless and Store and Forward applications. The functionality will be embedded in the
Dispatch Center and Service Request UIs.
3.15.3.2. Part Returns - Flexible Routing
Reverse logistics is a key process most every field service operation where defective,
excess and unused parts are returned back up the supply chain to be repaired, used in a
warranty claim, or better positioned in the case of excess.
In this release, the Part Returns UI has the following enhancements:
Allows shipping/transfers to any Inventory Location (local warehouse,
regional/national warehouse, repair depot, etc.) in the spares supply chain
A User Hook has been added to the Returns Program so customers can insert
their own Returns Routing Logic/Rules
Support for Consolidated as well as Individual Part Returns
Automatic creation of the appropriate Logistics Order (Internal Order, Mover
Order, Transfer, etc.) to execute the return
3.15.4. Release 12.1.3
3.15.4.1. Supersession and Substitute Notes
Notes are used throughout the field service operation to remind users that something
needs to be done or to provide information that is important to the process. Supersession
is where one part is replaced by another and its usually driven by product engineering
with mandatory implementation. The supersession for field service is created in Spares
Management. A Substitute, on the other hand, is where two independent parts are
compatible in form, fit and function. The substitute is never mandatory. Its used by
field service for convenience, usually in situations where a shortage condition has
occurred and the requested part is not available. The substitute is created in Oracle Item
Relationships. The Spares Management Parts Search and Ordering functionality includes
supersessions and substitutes, which together are referred to as alternate parts. This
alternate parts functionality is used to present supersessions and substitutes in the search
result when the primary part is not available.
Oracle EBS has existing Notes functionality that will be used to create the notes for the
supersessions and substitutes. The Spares Management Parts Search and Ordering UI has
been enhanced to display Supersession and Substitutes Notes in the Search Results
Region when alternate parts are displayed.
3.15.4.2. Site Dedicated Stocking Locations Support
Customers of field service will often request (and pay extra for) inventory positioning
that is dedicated to a specific mission critical site. This strategy is employed so that spare
parts are always available for that site and a very fast restore can be achieved when a
break down occurs.
The Parts Search functionality has been enhanced to not source/display parts in Site
Dedicated Stocking Locations unless the Service Request, for which parts are being
sourced, is for a dedicated site. The Spares Management Planners Desktop has been
enhanced to allow Spares Inventory Locations to be tied/dedicated to certain customer
sites (addresses).


3.15.4.3. Parts Return Routing Engine
In an efficient field service spares supply chain, defective, excess or unused parts need to
be returned to various destinations based on Return Routing Rules such as Product Line,
Item Number and Country. The source of the returns could be a technician, warehouse or
customer. The destination can be a consolidation warehouse, a repair depot or a vendor.
This release provides a new, rule based, Parts Return Routing Engine. This routing
engine has been integrated into the Return Program so that each Return Record it creates
can be stamped with the appropriate Ship to Location. Hence, when the user opens the
Return UI, each Return Record will have a Ship to Location (which the user can change).
A new HTML Return Rules UI has been provided which supports the creation of Return
Routing Rules based on the following factors/parameters:
Source (warehouse, technician, or customer)
Location (country, territory)
Return Type (Defective, Excess, Defective on Arrival, or Warranty)
3.15.5. Release 12.1.3+
3.15.5.1. Ship-to Address Enhancements
The Parts Requirements and Ordering UI has been enhanced to allow users (Dispatcher
or Tech) to update the Ship to Address before the order is booked. This UI is also
enhanced to default the Ship to Address based on a new profile to either the SR
Incident/Task Address, the SR Customers Default Ship to, or the Techs Primary Ship
to.
The Parts UI and the Spares Scheduler Integration has been enhanced to create Parts
Orders in Enter or Booked Status based on a new profile option. A complementary
enhancement is also provided to move Parts Orders from Entered to Booked Status when
the tech accepts the associated field service task. Note, creating the Parts Order in
Entered instead of Booked status will prevent the order from immediately going into the
pick/pack/ship process.
3.15.5.2. Enhancements to handling Parts Orders when Tasks are Reassigned
Currently in 12.1.2, when tasks with parts orders are reassigned, its not possible for the
second technician to receive the parts order that was created for the first technician except
when using the third party portal. To avoid the possibility of creating two parts orders for
the same task, the reassignment process is currently blocked when the first technicians
parts order cannot be cancelled. When the Ship-to address is task or customer there
would be no need to block the reassignment process if the second technician can receive
the parts order from the first technician.
To improve this proves the following enhancements have been added:
Allow the reassignment process to complete when the parts order for the first
technician cannot be cancelled and the ship-to address is task or customer.
When a task reassignment is made, allow the second technician to receive the
parts order from the first technician when the ship-to address is Task or Customer
and the first technicians order cannot be cancelled.
The reassignment process has been standardized across all applications where the
reassignments are made: Scheduler, Gantt, Service Request Form, Optimizer and the
Admin and Third Party portals


3.15.5.3. Enhancements to the Parts Requirement UI
The following is a list of enhancements added to the Parts Requirement UI:
Show both the reservation and the internal order after the technician has received
the order.
Show all cancelled parts orders
Only allow Parts Requirements to be created for certain Task Types.
Create parts orders in Entered or Booked status in the Parts Requirement UI and
MFS Wireless (based on a profile)
Show the distance from the source warehouse to the Ship-to address in the parts
order details region after sourcing
Add Ship-to Contact to the header region
3.15.5.4. Spares Sourcing Options Distance Limit
Large complex supply chains can involve a very large number of setups especially when
the local field service warehouses support each other and shipments are made directly to
the task or customer address. Customers who have this very large setup task are looking
for ways to cut down on the setups particularly when the method of shipment is only
intended for local delivery.
This enhancement filters out sourcing options based on Method of Shipment and
Distance so that methods of shipment intended only for local delivery are not considered
when shipping longer distances. For example, if the method of shipment is Courier, this
filter could be used to eliminate that method of shipment as a sourcing option when the
ship-to address is greater than say 50 miles. This would eliminate Courier as a sourcing
option where, for example, the warehouse was in Boston and the ship-to address was in
San Francisco.
A distance limit field has been added to the Spares Delivery Times Setup UI to support
this new feature. This is a much simpler setup than creating Zones for each MOS at each
Warehouse which was the only way this functionality could have been implemented
previously.
3.15.5.5. Support for Third Party Ship-to Locations
Third Party addresses/locations are often used to ship and return parts from field
technicians (e.g. Kinkos, Post Office, Gas Station, etc.). To support this requirement, a
new Ship to option for Third Party addresses has been added to the Parts Requirements
and Ordering UI. Prior to this ER, customers had to create these third party addresses for
every technician. To share Third Party Addresses, these addresses only need to be
associated to a Resource Group for all the techs sharing the address.
3.15.5.6. Enhanced External Repair Execution flows
External Repair Execution (ERE) is the Oracle Field Service Spares Management module
that manages the parts repair cycle when the repair supplier is external/out-sourced.
Repair Administrators now have the ability to assign a reason code for Scrap and
Adjustment Transactions. In addition, customers can set up account aliases for Scrap
and Adjustment Transactions. These account aliases will be stamped on the ERE
Inventory Scrap and Adjustment Transaction for downstream posting to the General
Ledger/Financials.
Repair Purchase Order balance due quantities are now automatically updated to account
for warehouse Short-Picks as well as for Scrap and Adjustment transactions.


3.15.6. Release 12.2.4
3.15.6.1. External Repair Execution enhancement for Canceling External Repair
Order for Zero Pick
At times, the defective parts are not traceable at the defective warehouse for various
reasons, making it impossible for Warehouse Administrator to ship the defective parts to
the Repair Supplier against the internal order created by the ERE system (this is also
known as Zero-Pick situation). External Repair Execution has been enhanced to allow
the Warehouse Administrator to cancel the internal sales order in its entirety (and also
cancel the corresponding External Repair Order, this process is also known as Auto-Kill
Order). Sometimes the parts planning systems may also trigger creation of PO
Requisition for external repair of defective parts (which in turn creates an External Repair
Order). If the External Repair Order is created in error or duplicate orders created, now
the Repair Administrator has the ability to cancel the External Repair Order (and also
cancel the corresponding internal sales order). Warehouse and Repair Administrators can
also capture the reason for cancellation of external repair order, while initiating
cancellation using External Repair Execution user interface.
3.15.6.2. ADF technology based HTML Planners Dashboard
Existing Planners Desktop has been re-designed using the latest ADF Technology and
renamed as Planners Dashboard. Most features available in the existing Forms based
Planners Desktop are made available in the ADF Planners Dashboard.
In addition to the features of Planners Desktop, additional features like QBE (query by
example), Detach Table, Drag & Drop Nodes etc, provided by ADF technology are
implemented in the new Planners Dashboard. The new user interface is designed to
provide rich user experience.
Planners Dashboard will be shipped with a default Spares Planning node that serves as
the top level of the planning tree. From this node, Users can create sub-nodes to model
organizations and subinventories. Users will have the ability to search for Organizations
and Subinventories modeled in the Planners Dashboard.
From within the new Planners Dashboard page users will be able to manage forecast
rules, excess rules and recommendation rules.
Users will have capabilities to submit the following concurrent programs from within
Planners Dashboard:
Create Parts Availability Data
Generate ASL Recommendations
Calculate Failure Rates
Roll-up Usage.

3.16. Oracle TeleService
3.16.1. Overview
Oracle TeleService provides contact center and technical support solutions that have been
successfully implemented at hundreds of leading service providers. Oracle TeleService
integrates seamlessly with many other CRM and ERP applications, including Service
Contracts, Depot Repair, EAM, Field Service, MRO, Installed Base, Spares, and Order
Management.

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle TeleService 65

3.16.2. Release 12.0.6 (RUP6)
3.16.2.1. User Hook for Charges Pricing API
A new user hook for the Charges Pricing API allows customers to execute custom logic
for the retrieval of prices for Charge line items. The user hook is invoked from the
Charges UI as well as the public Charges Create and Update APIs. Users can embed
custom logic to calculate the price of an item based on pricing rules defined in Advanced
Pricing for Charges submission.
3.16.3. Release 12.1.1
3.16.3.1. Service Costing and Profitability
Service request costing and margin reporting functionality has been requested by many
organizations in the high technology and manufacturing sectors. These organizations
need the ability to monitor and track the costs and profits incurred providing service to
their customers.
Currently, the Oracle TeleService/Field Service Products do not capture cost information
for the parts, labor, and expenses debriefed during the resolution of a service request.
This new feature will provide the ability to automatically capture the item cost for parts,
labor, and expenses debriefed and for manually entered Charge Lines. Service Request
Cost records will be created and stored in a new table automatically whenever debrief
lines and manually entered charge records are created/updated.
In addition, a new report will be provided to display the costs, charges, and the related
profit margin at a service request level. The XML Publisher technology will be leveraged
to provide a configurable report in multiple display formats such as PDF, RTF, HTML,
and EXCEL. The users will be able to access this report from service request form and
the customer support service request page.
3.16.3.2. Improved Field Service Execution Flows
In the field service scenarios, it is a common for the Call Center Agent (tier 1) or Tech
Support Engineer (tier 2) to specify the parts and skills required for field service task. In
addition, the Call Center Agents need the ability to put Access Hours on a Field Service
Task as well as record whether customer appointment confirmation is required.
In R12, the users do not have the ability to enter parts requirements, skills requirements,
site access hours, or customer appointment confirmation during the creation of field
service tasks from the service request form. The only way to input or review this
information is by accessing the Dispatch Center which is very inconvenient for a Call
Center Agent or Tech Support Engineer who works primarily in the service request form.
To alleviate this inconvenience and streamline the field service flows, the task tab in the
service request form has been enhanced to allow users to quickly enter part requirements,
skills requirements, access hours, and capture customer confirmation status.
3.16.3.3. Service Requests Search using Secure Enterprise Search (SES)
AppSearch (short for Applications Search) is a new feature offered by Application
Technology Group for EBS release 12. Search is a very common function of any
Enterprise application. Indeed, the most common usage patterns begin with a search,
whether from a first-time self-service inquiry or a heads-down power user. AppSearcha
metadata driven search framework provide a new Search paradigm to search EBS data
instead of Find by utilizing Oracles Secure Enterprise Search.
In 12.1, this search paradigm is enabled for customer service agents to perform a text
based search on the service requests that they have access to. The service request search


function is added to the agent dashboards included in the following applications:
Customer Support, Service Desk, and Case Management and to. This search paradigm
will be available to the users in addition to the current find functionality.
3.16.3.4. Additional Attributes in the Service Request Form
Service Request Additional Attribute functionality is currently available in the Contact
Center and iSupport UIs. Customers have requested this functionality also be made
available in the more heavily used Service Request Form. This feature allows customers
to define service request attributes specific to their business requirements. Additional
attributes can vary by Service Request Type.
In 12.1, this feature is available directly from the Service Request Form. A new icon to
access the Additional Attributes Form has been added to the Workbench tab. In addition
to entering and updating Additional Attributes, dependent functionality (Duplicate
Checking and Automatic Task Generation) has also been added to the Service Request
Form.
3.16.3.5. Quick Service Request Creation and Update
In Release 12.1.1, a Quick Service Request Entry feature has been added to the Service
Request Form to help agents enter and update service requests more efficiently (fewer
clicks). All required fields have been added to the SR Header Region along with the
ability to add notes. This eliminates the need to open multiple tabs to get an SR created
which should greatly improve call center and tech support agent productivity.
3.16.3.6. Enhanced Service Request Tools Menu
In Release 12.1.1, the Service Request Forms Tools Menu items have been reorganized
into logical grouped buckets for ease of use and better navigation.
3.16.3.7. Charge Call-Out
In Release 12.1.1, a new user hook has been provided in the Charges Pricing API to
enable integration of the charges module with Advanced Pricing and other customer-
driven functionality. Many customers want to calculate the price of an item in Charges
based on the pricing rules such as modifiers, qualifiers, and price breaks defined in
Oracle Advanced Pricing. The user hook for Charges pricing allows customers to embed
logic of their own to calculate the price of an item leveraging Advanced Pricing features.
3.16.4. Release 12.1.1+
3.16.4.1. Support for International and One Time Addresses
International Address Styles (flex field popup) are now supported in the Service Requests
Form (for permanent and one time address) so address can be created and viewed in the
format of the country they are located. In addition, validation against TCA Geographies
Data (cross validates Country, State, Province, City, etc.) when creating a new address
permanent or one time address is now also supported.
The Service Request one time address feature has been enhanced to allow one time
addresses to be utilized downstream in the Field Service Products (geo-coding,
scheduling, driving directions, shipping, trip start/end locations, etc.). To do this, one
time addresses are now stored in the TCA Tables instead of in the Service Request Table.
In addition, the Service Request UI has been enhanced to display one time address Site
information (Site Number, Site Name, etc.)


3.16.4.2. Optimization of Service Request Creation Process
In this release, many enhancements as listed below have been done on the Service
Request Form to make the service request creation and update process more efficient and
intuitive:
The LOVs and interrelationships between the following key fields in the SR
Form Header have been enhanced (Incident Address, Installed Base, Customer,
and Item). The Incident Address LOV has been made configurable so service
providers can filter the Incident Address by the SR customer and its related
parties instead of displaying every address in TCA. In addition, the IB fields
LOVs (Instance, Serial and Tag) can now be filtered by the Incident Address so
the user can more quickly find the Installed Base record the customer is calling
about.
A new Incident Address Search UI is provided so users can search for the correct
address using a wide variety of criteria (Customer Name, Site Name, Site
Number, Addressee, Site Phone, City, State, and Zip Code). This new UI is
accessible from the Service Request Form, the Service Request Tab in the
Contact Center, and the Find Service Requests Form.
The Install Base Search Form has been enhanced to make it easier for agents to
find the correct Install Base record to open the SR against. New search fields for
Site Name, Site Number, Addressee, Site Phone, Customer Number, City, State,
and Zip Code have been added to the Basic Search form. It is also possible now
to search products by Customer and Account since these fields have been
enabled. The search has been made more powerful and intuitive by providing the
ability to enter free form text with wildcards for most of the search fields.
A new option to start SLA (Service Level Agreement) calculations when the
service request is saved has been introduced. Previously, the Service Request
form calculates the SLAs (Respond by and Resolve by dates and times) from
the time the Service Request Form is opened. We added this feature because
several of our key customers do not want to consume SLA time while defining
the issue with the customer on the phone
Site Name, Site Number, and Addressee fields are now available for the selection
of permanent and the creation/display of one time incident addresses in the
Service Request form, Contact Center Service Request Tab, Create Service
Request Page (OA HTML), Update Service Request Page (OA HTML), and the
View Service Request Page (OA HTML). Users can now also view, create, and
update Site Phones information in the Service Request Form. These site fields
are also available in the Find Service Request form to allow users to search for
service requests by the Site Name, Site Number, and Addressee of Customer and
Incident Addresses.
3.16.4.3. Enhanced Service Request Search capabilities
In this release, many enhancements as listed below have been done to the Find Service
Request Form:
The Incident Address Fields on the SR Search UI have been fully enabled
(previously they were just displayed after the user selected the address from an
LOV).
The Site fields are now available in the Find Service Request form to allow users
to search for service requests by the Site Name, Site Number, and Addressee of
Customer and Incident Addresses


Partial search capability for some key fields (free form entry with wildcards) is
now available
3.16.4.4. Improved Service Request Tasks Management
In this release, many enhancements as listed below have been done to the tasks
management functionality available from the service request form:
The Service Request Task Tab has been enhanced to provide an option to filter
the Task Assignee LOV based on the Type of the Task Owner. For example, if
the Task Owner is a Group, the Task Assignee LOV only displays Resources that
are a member of the owner group.
The logic to default the Task Planned End Date/Time has been enhanced to
provide several calculation options (Respond by, Resolve by, or Respond by if
null Resolve by less Planned Effort). This enhancement gives Service Providers
several options on how they want to run their business by treating Planned End
Date/Time as the latest Start Time or the latest Finish Time and by supporting
Resolution Based SLAs.
3.16.5. Release 12.1.2
3.16.5.1. Party Site level Profile Checks
Customer Profiles (statistics), visible from the Contact Center and the Service Request
Form, can now be collected and displayed for individual Customer Sites. . For example
a profile could be created to display the number of service requests open for the site.
3.16.5.2. Optimization of Service Request Creation Process
In this release, many enhancements as listed below have been done on the Service
Request Form to optimize the service request creation and update process as described
below:
Customer Search Form, previously only available from the Contact Center is now
accessible from the Service Request Form. This allows users to search for
customers based on multiple criteria such as Site Name, Site Number, Addressee,
Site Phone, City and Zip Code instead of just selecting from a simple LOV. The
Customer Search Form has also been made accusable from the Find Service
Request Form.
The Service Request Form logic has been enhanced to allow the user to enter
Product, Customer and Problem Description before selecting Service Request
Type and Severity. This allows users to identify who is calling and what is the
problem before determining the type of service that is needed and how sever the
problem is.
The duplicate checking logic has been enhanced to consider Service Request
Status as many customers do not want closed or completed service requests to be
considered duplicates. Also, an enhancement has been made to allow service
provides to configure the Status and Problem Code assigned to service requests
designated by the user as duplicates. These values were previously hard coded.
The Service Request Log and Notes UI now have full Time Zone support
including Corporate (Server), Agent, Customer, Contact, and Incident Time
Zone. The Service Request Bill To and Ship To Addresses can now be
optionally defaulted from the installed base record selected on the SR.
The contracts region on the Service Request Form has been enhanced to provide
more information like Coverage Name and Coverage Description.


3.16.5.3. Enhanced Service Request Search capabilities
In this release, several enhancements have been done to the Find Service Request Form:
New fields have been added to the Basic and the Advanced Search criteria to
allow users to search for service requests using Postal Code and City.
The Advanced Search has been improved by adding more search fields including
Incident Address Site Name, Incident Address Site Number, Incident Address
Addressee, Incident Address, Incident City, Incident State, and Incident Postal
Code.
A new icon has been added next to invoke the Search Installed Base UI
(available on the Service Request form also). This UI allows the users to find the
right instance based on multiple criteria such as Site Name, Site Number,
Addressee City or Postal Code before searching for service requests.
3.16.5.4. Service Request Task Management Enhancements
In this release, several key enhancements have been done to the tasks management
functionality available from the service request form (Task Tab):
Complete Task Audit Details are now visible in the Audit Tab of the Task Details
Form. In this release, the size of the Task details Form has been increased so that
users can see more fields without scrolling. In addition, the log and notes form
available from the service request form has been enhanced to show more audit
details for the service request tasks. The level of Task Audit details in the log and
notes section is the same as is displayed in the audits tab of the Task Details
Form.
Site Access Hours can be automatically associated to a Field Service Tasks when
they are created so agents do not have to enter them manually.
A warning message will be displayed to the agents when they manually scheduler
overlapping Field Service Tasks to the same technician. The overlapping task can
belong to the same or a different service request.
A new check box has been introduced in the Copy Service Request form to
enable tasks to be auto generated on a new service request being created with the
copy utility (uses the Service Request Attribute to Task Template Mapping
setups).
Task Actual Start and End Dates/Times can now be automatically updated when
Task Status changes to a Working Status (start) and from a Working Status (end).
This feature reduces error and key strokes.
Service Request Tasks can now have their own address separate from the
Incident Address on the Service Request. This feature is especially useful when
technicians need to work on both ends of a pipe or wire. Task Addresses are
defaulted from the service request incident address whether the address is a
permanent or one-time.
Previously, when service request tasks were automatically created from Task
Templates, their task owner (required field) was simply defaulted from a profile.
In this release, Assignment Manager and Territories can now used to assign the
task owner just like it can be done in the Task Tab UI.
A new button has been added on the Service Request Form Task Tab to allow
users to create and view attachments for the specific task (previously attachments
were only supported at the service request level).


The More, Notes and Debrief buttons on the Task Tab are now always enabled
even if the Task is closed. However, when the task is closed, read only versions
of the More, Notes and Debrief Forms are opened when the user pushes the one
of these buttons.
3.16.5.5. Inactivating a contact
Users now have the ability to end date Service Request Contacts in the Service Request
Form and HTML UIs. Users can view inactive contacts in iSupport but cannot inactivate
them there.
3.16.5.6. Charges - Submit Order User Hooks
In this release, Service adds user hooks to the Create Order and Update Order API to
enable customers to execute custom logic when submitting charge lines to order
management.
If activated, the user hooks are invoked before an order is created or updated. These user
hooks can be used by customers to override the order line type associated with the service
activity code or to pass information into the order header flex fields and order line flex
fields.
3.16.6. Release 12.1.3
3.16.6.1. New HTML Charges User Interface
Prior to this release, the functionality to manage charges for a service request is available
only from the service request form.
In this release, a new HTML Charges interfacebuilt on the Oracle Applications (OA)
Framework has been provided to allow users to manage charges more intuitively and
easily. This functionality is available in two options:
A standalone page that can be invoked from a Forms based application e.g.
Service Request Form, Dispatch Center or from another OA Framework page.
An embeddable OA Charges region that can be included in an existing OA page
e.g. HTML Service Request Update page.
3.16.6.2. Credit Card Capture on the Service Request and Charges
In this release, credit card functionality has been added to service request and charges to
allow service billing using credit cards.
The credit card information can be captured on the service request and the charge line
level. New user interfaces based on Oracle Applications (OA) Framework has been
provided to capture new credit cards or update the information pertaining to an existing
credit card.
The credit card information captured at the service request level is automatically
defaulted on individual charge lines and can be overridden by the agents. This
information is passed to Order Management upon submission of charge lines so it can be
passed to A/R to bill service charges to the credit card.

3.16.7. Release 12.1.3+
3.16.7.1. HTML Service Request User Interface Enhancements
HTML Customer Service module, built on the Oracle Applications Framework, provides
an easy to use and configurable HTML user interface. The following features have been
provided in 12.2 to enhance usability of the service request pages:


3.16.7.1.1. Display of Job and Department information for Service Request Contacts
In the Create and Update Service Request pages/ Service Request Form, the J ob Code
and Department information is displayed for the service requests contacts. This helps the
agents to select the service request contacts more easily.
3.16.7.1.2. Display Email and Phone Number for Service Request owner
In the Create and Update Service Request pages/ Service Request Form, the email
address, work phone number, and cell phone number of the Service Request owner are
displayed. This additional information enables people within a service organization to
easily contact the service request owner if needed.
3.16.7.1.3. HTML Tasks Search User Interface
With a new HTML Tasks Search user interface accessible from the Agent Dashboard,
support agents can easily search and manage their owned and assigned tasks.
3.16.7.1.4. HTML Service Request Escalations User Interface
With the new HTML Escalations user interface, support agents can manage the escalation
of service requests from the Update Service Request page. This functionality is similar to
the functionality in Forms. In addition, the escalation level field has been added to the
service requests queues on the Agent Dashboard which enables the agents to have a quick
look at the escalated service requests and their escalation levels.
3.16.7.2. Capture additional SLA information for Service Requests
6 SLA dates and 2 SLA durations attributes have been added to all of the Service Request
user interfaces (Service Request Form, HTML Service Request Pages and iSupport
Service Request details page). These attributes are for customers who want to track
SLAs in addition to the OOB Respond by and Resolve by SLAs. Examples include
Restore By and Workaround By. Out of the box, these dates are not tied to any
functional behavior as they are free-form attributes and customers can choose to use them
as needed.
3.16.7.3. Creation of Part Requirements based on Task Type
Prior to this release, part requirements could be created and viewed from service request
user interfaces (Service Request Form/ HTML Service) for field service tasks only.
Customers have asked for more fined grained control of the creation of Part
Requirements/Orders so now the creation of parts requirements will only be allowed for
certain task types. A new flag to enable/disable creation of part requirements has been
added to the task type setup user interface.
3.16.7.4. Enhanced Charges Logistics
3.16.7.4.1. Spares Sourcing Integration
The Charges UIs (Forms and HTML) have been integrated to the Spares Sourcing UI so
the agents can leverage the Spares Sourcing Engine to select the Warehouse and Shipping
Method needed to fulfill the shipment of a part. This allows agents to select the best
source from which to send parts to customers based on cost, distance, delivery date, and
need-by date, and shipping method.

If a need-by date is entered by agents, it is used to filter the Inventory/ Sub-inventory
LOVs such that only those sources which have the specified item/part available AND can
be delivered by the specified need-by-date are displayed in the LOVs. This feature is only
available in Charges HTML UI.


The agents can also see the distance between the Ship-From Warehouse (Inventory/ Sub-
inventory) to the Ship-to-Address in the Inventory/Sub-inventory LOVs. Once an entry
has been selected, the distance is displayed on the Charges HTML UI as a read-only
field.
3.16.7.4.2. Spares Return Routing Integration
The Charges UIs (Forms and HTML) have been integrated with the Spares Return
Routing Engine to inform the user where (warehouse and ship to address) returned parts
should be shipped by the customer.

3.16.7.4.3. Multi-Currency Support
Agents can now dynamically create and view charges in different currencies. They can
select any currency that is defined in the currency conversion list associated with the
selected pricelist.
3.16.7.4.4. Specification of Calculate Price Flag
Prior to this release, the order lines created through charges are created with a value of
Freeze for the calculate price flag with value. This prevents the order line prices from
being updated in the sales order interface. In this release, organizations can specify the
value of this flag to be used in the creation of the order lines. A new Calculate Price LOV
has been added to the Service Activity Codes setup UI to allow organizations to choose
an appropriate value Freeze, Calculate, and Partial for the Calculate Price flag for each
service activity code.
3.16.7.4.5. Capture and Parent Instance on Shipment Lines
In prior releases, the field service technicians have the ability to specify the parent
instance of an item on a material line debrief. But in charges UIs, the agents cannot
capture this information on manually created charge lines.

In this release, this ability has also added to the Charges. For shipment lines in Charges,
the agents can specify a parent instance for the item being shipped so that the shipped
item can be added properly in the customers system configuration in the Install Base.

A new profile is introduced to control the behavior of defaulting of parent information on
the Charges shipment lines. The service organizations, based on value of a profile option,
can choose to default parent information based on the selected product in the service
request, the recovered item information on the Charges line, or not default any parent
information at all.
3.16.7.4.6. Selection of Service Request Operating Unit
During the service request creation process, the operating unit is defaulted from a profile
option. In this release, agents can choose any active operating unit that he/she is
authorized to see and override the defaulted value. Once the service request is created, the
operating unit cannot be updated.
3.16.7.4.7. Restriction of Service and Request and Charges Operating Units by MOAC
In this release, the service organizations can restrict the operating unit LOVs in the
service request header and charge lines to only show the operating units which the agents
are authorized to see as dictated by their MOAC security profiles.

3.16.7.4.8. Drill Downs on Sales Order Number and Instance Number from Charges


In this release, the agents can drill down on the sales order number to view the sales order
details and any invoice details from the Charges HTML UI. The Sales Order Details UI
includes information on shipping status, pricing and taxes, and invoice details. The agents
can also view the instance details and graphical representation of the instance
configuration for installed base tracked items on the charge lines.
3.16.7.4.9. Update Sequence of Charge Lines
In this release, agents can update the sequence number of un-submitted charge lines.
This can be used to dictate the order in which they appear in the resulting sales order and
subsequent customer invoice.
3.16.7.4.10. Specify Default Price List on Service Request Header
In this release, the agents can choose a price list on the service request which is used to
default the price list of the subsequently created charge lines. As a result, agents do not
have to manually select the price list on each individual charge line.
3.16.7.4.11. Control list of parties/addresses displayed in Charge Line Bill-to/Ship-to
In this release, the customers can control the list of parties and addresses being displayed
in the Bill-To Party/Address and Ship-To Party/Address fields on charge lines. A new
profile is provided to configure these fields to show 1) Only service request customer and
its addresses, 2) Service request customer party and its related parties and their addresses
or 3) All active parties and their addresses.
3.16.7.4.12. Charges Setup UIs in HTML
The setup UIs for Charges such as Service Activity Codes are now available in OA
HTML interface.
3.16.8. Release 12.2
3.16.8.1. Oracle Projects Integration
In this release, the Service Request costs captured in SR Task Debrief can be posted into
Oracle Projects. Flexibility is provided through a series of setups that determine the type
of costs that are tracked and how they get pushed/ imported into EBS Projects as
Expenditures. This interface is an alternative to using Service Request Charges/Order
Management to post service costs to the Oracle General Ledger
3.16.8.2. HTML Customer Service User Interface Enhancements
HTML Customer Service module, built on the Oracle Applications Framework, provides
an easy to use and configurable HTML user interface. There are four different
configurations HTML Customer Service pages Customer Support, Service Desk, Case
Management, and ITIL. The following features have been provided in 12.2 to make it
functionally a richer user interface:
3.16.8.2.1. Customer Profiles Dashboard
Customer Profiles Dashboard in Service Request Form and Contact Center displays key
customer profiles attributes such as Open Service Requests, Critical Service Requests,
Active Contracts, Expired Contracts, Open Orders etc. for a given customer/ contact/
account/ address. The service organizations can use the customer profiles definition
functionality to define these profiles. With this release, this functionality is now also
available partially in HTML Customer Service module. The drill-down from the
customer profiles to actual transactions as available in Forms is not supported.
3.16.8.2.2. Universal Work queues in HTML
The Universal Work Queue interface, currently available only in Forms Applications, is
now also available in HTML Customer Service. The work queues as defined using the
Universal Work Queue Setup are made available to the agents through this new interface.


This new interface is available as an embeddable region in the Agent Dashboard and also
as a standalone page. For the service request and task nodes, the work panels are
available which allows agents to make quick update and initiate other actions on these
work items. For UWQ, the media integration is not currently supported.
3.16.8.2.3. Full Task Management in HTML Customer Service
In this release, many enhancements have been done to the Service Request Tasks Pages
used by CS HTML as well as the Field Service Portals:
The Task Queues in the Agent Dashboard and the Tasks List in the Update
Service Request Page have been enhanced to support the following field service
functionality:
o Debrief field service and non-field service tasks
o Enter part requirements for a field service tasks
o Schedule a field service task
o View Individual/ All Tasks on Map
The Service Tasks Pages have been enhanced to support the following:
o Definition of Customer Access Hours and Required Technician Skills for
a field service task. Site Access Hours can also be automatically
associated to Field Service tasks when they are created so that the agents
do not have to enter them manually.
o Capture Customer Confirmation
o A new option has been added to the Update Task Page to allow agents to
copy a task. This is very similar to the functionality already supported in
the SR Form.
o The logic to default the Task Planned End Date/Time in the Task Pages
has been enhanced to provide several options: Respond by, Resolve by,
or Respond by if null Resolve by less Planned Effort.
o The Task Pages have been enhanced to provide an option to filter the
Task Assignee LOV based on the Type of the Task Owner. For
example, if the Task Owner is a Group, the Task Assignee LOV only
displays Resources that are a member of the owner group.
o Schedule dates are synchronized with task planned effort. The Planned
effort will be updated if Scheduled Start date or Scheduled End date is
updated. If Planned effort is updated, the Scheduled End date will be
changed
o A warning message will be displayed to the agents when they manually
schedule overlapping Field Service Tasks to the same technician. The
overlapping task can belong to the same or a different service request.
o Service Request Tasks can now have their own address separate from the
Incident Address on the Service Request. Task Addresses are defaulted
from the service request incident address whether the address is a
permanent or one-time.
o The Task pages have a new dropdown menu to set the time zone to be
used to show the SR and task dates. The user can select the time zone
from the following options: Corporate (Server), Agent, Customer,
Contact and Incident Time Zone.


o The enhanced Task Pages now honor the service request status flags.
Users will not be able to update a task when the service request has a
restricted status (Disallow Request Update flag is checked or Disallow
Task Update flag is checked)
o A new tab has been added to the Task Pages to show additional Task
details like Resources, Dependencies and Audit
o A new flag has been added to the Task Status Setup UI to identify the
statuses that will restrict the updates on the tasks. If the flag for the task
status is checked, users will not be able to update a task.
The Service Request Task Search page has two new options. The agents now
have an option to create and save Tasks searches. Once the search results are
displayed, the agents can also export them in an excel format.
3.16.8.2.4. HTML Service Request Audit Report
A new HTML Audit Report page is available in this release to display the following
information to the agents for a service request:
Who made the change
What attribute changed (new and old value displayed)
When was the change made
Why was the change made

This Audit Report is accessible from the existing Actions drop down list in the Update
service request page.
3.16.8.2.5. Capture and display Interactions and Interaction Activities
Interactions and activities are created whenever Service Requests are created and
updated. In prior releases, the interactions and activities were captured and displayed only
in the Service Request Form. From this release, interactions and activities are captured
when service requests are created and updated from HTML Customer Service module. A
new region is added in the update service request page that displays all the Interactions
and Activities captured for that service request.
3.16.8.2.6. Service Request Additional Attributes
Service Request Additional Attribute functionality, currently available in the Contact
Center, Service Request Form, and iSupport UIs, allows the service organizations to
define service request attributes specific to their business requirements. These attributes
can vary by service request types.

The agents, using HTML Customer Service module to create and update service requests,
can now capture these additional attributes which are defined based on the service request
Type. Based on the values entered for these attributes, tasks can be generated
automatically as per setup both during creation and update of service requests. In prior
releases, tasks were auto generated only when a service request was created. In this
release, tasks are generated automatically whenever the values for extensible attributes
are captured for the first time (either during the service request creation process or during
an update process).
In prior releases, two service request notes are automatically created for the extensible
attribute feature. One Note captures the Incident Address and the second captures the
name value pair of the extensible attributes. In this release, these notes are created only if
the values for extensible attribute are not null.
3.16.8.2.7. Enable Party Search Region in Customer Support configuration


The Party Search option is introduced on the Agent Dashboard. This region allows
agents to look up for a Customer, and review customer details like Contact Points,
Addresses etc. and the past service requests reported by the customer. In prior releases,
this option was available only for the Case Management flavor.
3.16.8.2.8. Uptake service request status restrictions
The HTML Service Request Create and Update Pages now support controlling updates
based on SR Status just like the SR Form. The updates are controlled by the status
attributes (flags) on the SR Status Setup UI.
3.16.8.2.9. Duplicate Checking for Service Requests
Duplicate checking is done in the Service Request Form in the following scenarios:
When agents attempts to save a service request for the first time (not on update)
When agents tabs out of the Item Instance or Serial #field during service request
creation
When a service requests created from Oracle iSupport or Oracle Email Center is
queried up in the service request form
This feature of Duplicate Checking for Service Requests is now also available in HTML
Customer Service module.
3.16.8.2.10. Ability to view Instance Configuration from service request
Agents can now view the details of an Item Instance in a hierarchical view with a single
click from the Create and Update Service Request pages. A new button is introduced in
the Product Information region of the Service request pages to invoke the hierarchical
view of an Item Instance.
3.16.8.2.11. List of Contracts for a Service Request on Create and Update Service
Request pages
In the Service Request Form, the agents can view a list of Entitled or All Contracts
(Entitled as well as not Entitled) in a tabular format. Using this list, the agents can select
the appropriate contract to entitle the service request. This feature is now available in
HTML Customer Service module.
3.16.8.2.12. Sharable Saved Searches
The service administrators can define Saved Searches and share them with:
All Users or
Users of certain Responsibilities
If there are specific searches that typically need to be executed by all users or by a group
of users, these can be defined once and shared with the target group. This ensures
consistency in a service organization and avoids having the agents to define their own
saved searches. Agents can focus on resolving issues and improve their productivity.
3.16.8.2.13. Update Service Request Status directly on Agent Dashboard
The service request work queues that are displayed on the Agent DashboardMy Service
Requests and My Group Owned Service Requests are enhanced to allow agents to
update the status of the service request from the queue itself without navigating to the
service request page. Many times, the agents need to only update the status of one or
more service requests before beginning to work on them. This feature provides that
ability to the agents and improves their productivity.
3.16.8.2.14. Manual Service Request Assignment during Creation


In prior releases, the agents could not manually assign a Group or Individual Owner
during service request creation as available in the service request form. Only fully
automated assignment was supported. In this release, agents can select Group and
Individual SR Owners from a LOV during service request creation..
3.16.8.2.15. Ability to launch Email Center from Contact Email Address
The agents can now send an email to a service request contact with one click. An
envelope mail icon is added next to the contacts Email Address (if the contact method is
Email) that launches the Oracle Email Center Compose Email window when clicked. The
To address is defaulted to the service request Contacts email address and the body can
be setup to default from a template. This improved agents productivity by reducing the
amount of work agents have to do to compose and send an outbound email.
3.16.8.2.16. Time Zone Support
There are a couple of improvements done in this area:
The SLA datesRespond To/By and Resolution To/By can be viewed in three
different time zones: Agent time zone, Contact time zone, and Incident Address
time zone. Being able to view these dates in the different time zones allows the
agents to better prioritize their work and accurately respond to customer
enquiries.
The dates/times displayed in the History tab by default are displayed in the
agents time zone. These dates can be toggled to be viewed in the following time
zones: Primary Contacts time zone, Incident Address time zone, and Server time
zone.
3.16.8.2.17. Copy Service Request Enhancements
When making a copy of a service requests agents can now do the following:
Change the Customer of the new copied service request
Create a link between the new copied service request and the existing service
request
This improves agent productivity because in most cases, the copy service request
operation results in changing the customer and establishing a link between the two
service requests.
3.16.8.2.18. Search by Created By User in Service Request Advanced Search
The existing Service Request Advanced Search feature is enhanced to allow agents to
search for service requests created by a particular user or a group.
3.16.8.2.19. Ability to select Item Revision Description from LOV during service
request creation/ update
In some implementations, an Item can have hundreds of revisions and each revision has a
number and a description. The agents are more likely to remember a description than a
number. In prior releases, only the Revision Number was available in the Create and
Update Service Request pages. In this release, the Revision Description attribute is added
that allows agents to search for an item via its revision descriptionthus making it easy
for agents to identify the correct item.
3.16.8.2.20. Uptake profile to default Bill to and Ship to Addresses during service
request creation/ update
The Bill To and Ship To addresses can now be defaulted based on the setting of the
profile Service: Default Bill To and Ship To Address Options. The two values of this
profile are:


Default from Customer In this case, the service requests Bill To and Ship To
addresses are defaulted from the Customers primary Bill To and Ship To
addresses
Default from Installed Base In this case, the service requests Bill To and Ship
To addresses are defaulted from the Instances Bill To and Ship To addresses. In
case when these addresses are not defined in Installed Base, the Bill To and Ship
To will be defaulted from the customers primary Bill To and Ship To addresses.
3.16.8.2.21. Service Request Usability Enhancements
The phone number associated to the service request contact is displayed with the
Country Code and Extension in the Contact Information region.
The Note Type and Note Visibility fields are displayed on the Service Request
create page.
When linking Service Requests, the service request type is displayed to the
agents enabling them to identify the service request more easily.
The following profiles are now honored in HTML Customer Service module:
o Service: Make Contact Mandatory
o Service: Default New Note Type
o Service: Interaction Logging Mode
3.16.8.3. Automatic Task Creation on Service Request Status Transitions
In prior releases, SR Tasks can be automatically created during service request creation
based on a mapping of Task Templates to SR attributes. In this release, SR Tasks can be
automatically created on specific SR Status Transitions (e.g. from New to Entitled).
3.16.8.4. Launch of Workflow on Service Request Status Transitions
In this release, an ability to launch service request workflow when a certain service
request status transition happens has been provided. Each service request status
transition can be mapped to a workflow with an item type of SERVEREQ. When the
service request status changes as described in the status transition, the appropriate
workflow is kicked off.
3.16.8.5. Filter Task Template Groups LOV Based on Task Template Mappings
In this release, the task template groups LOV during task creation can be filtered based
on the task template mapping attributes of service request type, item category, item, and
problem code.
3.16.9. Release 12.2.4
3.16.9.1. Integration with Oracle Knowledge (Inquira)
Oracle Knowledge (Inquira) is a best of the breed knowledge management system. It
enables the service organizations to easily create, manage, and share content across
languages. It provides a powerful Natural Language Search (NLS) to search unstructured
content, structured data, and transactional business applications.
In this release, a new integration with Oracle Knowledge (Inquira) allows the agents to
search knowledge stored in Inquira system from various service user interfaces such as
Contact Center Form, Service Request Form, Field Service Tech portal, and HTML
Service Request page to resolve customer issues. InQuiras patented Intelligent Search
technology finds exact answers to inquiries based on their meaning. The agents can also
attach solutions to the service requests.


The service Organizations can configure to either use the knowledge stored in Oracle
Knowledge (Inquira) or in the Oracle e-Business Knowledge Management System
available from previous releases.
3.16.9.2. HTML Service Application Enhancements
3.16.9.2.1. Direct Client-side CTI Integration with HTML Service Applications
The direct client-side CTI integration introduced in 12.1.1 for Forms based Service
applications has been extended to HTML Service Application enabling the agents using
the HTML Service applications to be more productive through incoming call screen pops.
The agent can log into the CTI System from the HTML Service application and make
themselves available for taking incoming call. On an incoming call, this functionality
launches a context-sensitive screen-pop for the agent who is answering the call based on
the information entered by the customer into the IVR. The agents can also make
outbound calls.
Using the direct client-side CTI integration framework, the service organizations can
write custom adapters for CTI integration between the HTML Service pages and a third
party middlewares soft phone. This framework reduces the communication overhead,
provides faster screen-pop for agents, and improves scalability of the solution. In this
release, only the Service Request Update page is screen pop enabled. Service Request
Number is available as an IVR Parameter in this release.
3.16.9.2.2. Optimization of HTML Service Create and Update Service Request Pages
The HTML service request Create and Update pages have been enhanced to improve
their usability and look and feel. The changes include improving the layout of various
regions, fields, and buttons displayed on these CS HTML pages, removing extra white
space, and creating a new region for the Assignment options.
3.16.9.2.3. New Modal pop-ups for quick Create/Update/View of Service Requests
New modal pop-ups have been created to allow agents to quickly create and update
service requests and to review service request notes history. They pop-ups can be invoked
from the Universal Work Queue and the queues available in the Agent Dashboard page.
3.16.9.2.4. Enhanced Service Request Audit Report
The Service Request audit report is enhanced to display the audit information related to
the both Service Request Flex fields.
3.16.9.2.5. Display of Task Audit details in the Service Request History Region
The History Tab now displays the information similar to the Service Request Log and
Notes in Service request form. More task fields are displayed in this region. This tab has
new filter checkboxes with the following options: All, Service Request Notes, Service
Request Audit, Knowledge, Interactions, Tasks, and Service Request Escalations.
3.16.9.2.6. Complete Incident Address Logic in HTML Service Request Pages
Now the HTML Service Request pages support the same behavior for the Incident
Customer and the Incident Address fields as it exists in Service Request Form. It is done
by honoring the profile Service: Address Filter Options.
3.16.9.2.7. Display/Update of Service Request Business Process on Service Request
Pages
A new field has been added to the Service Request Pages to capture business process. It
defaults from the business process associated to the selected Service Request Type.
However, the users can the business process without changing the Service Request type.
If the business process is changed, the service request will be automatically re-entitled by
calling the service contracts entitlements API.


3.16.9.2.8. Display of Customer Credit Hold on Service Request Pages
A new field has been added to the Create and Update Service Request pages to display
whether the Customer Account/ Bill to Account selected on the service request is on
Credit Hold.
3.16.9.2.9. Uptake of Notes Security by User/Role in Service Request History Tab
The Service Request History Tab has been enhanced to uptake the security model already
provided by common foundations Notes module. Different subsets of notes for a service
request may be accessible to different users based on their privileges as defined by
security in Notes Module.
3.16.9.2.10. Capture Sales Order Number on the Service Request Pages
A new field has been added to the Service Request Pages to capture Sales Order Number
at the service request header level. This field is also available in Service Request Forms
user interfaces. The Sales Order Number captured at the service request level is used as
the default Sales Order Number when creating Charge Lines.
3.16.9.2.11. Uptake Rich Text Editor for Notes
The notes section in the Service Request pages was enhanced to uptake the new rich
text editor functionality.
3.16.9.3. Public APIs to create Service Request Extended Attributes (CIC)
New public APIs to Create, Update, and Delete Service Request Extended attributes for
service requests (also referred to as CIC Extended Attributes) are provided.

3.17. Oracle TeleService Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product
3.17.1. Overview
Oracle E-Business Suite TeleService Extensions for Oracle Endeca is a solution that
improves the efficiency and productivity of service managers and service agents. The
newly introduced Service Operations Dashboard improves operational efficiency by
allowing service managers to identify bottlenecks, rebalance work queues, and measure
utilization and performance of support teams. They can elevate service quality by
monitoring service requests in jeopardy, performing root cause analysis, and taking
corrective actions to help resolve top priority issues. By proactively monitoring service
requests, they can reduce service level agreement penalties and improve customer
satisfaction and loyalty, thereby increasing overall profitability.
3.17.2. V5
Service managers and agents need to know how to prioritize their workload. The Service
Operations Dashboard is designed to provide critical metrics and information instantly so
that they can direct their attention to the most critical issues. This product is compatible
with releases 12.1.3 and 12.2 of EBS.
TeleService Extensions for Oracle Endeca provides the following features:
3.17.2.1. Identify and monitor critical service requests
The Service Operations Dashboard provides a metrics bar to highlight the following
critical metrics:
Open - service requests which are open
Escalated service requests which are escalated

Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2 Release Content Document Oracle TeleService Extensions for Oracle Endeca New Product 81

Response in J eopardy service requests which are in jeopardy of missing the
expected respond by date
Resolution in J eopardy service requests which are in jeopardy of missing the
expected resolve by date
Missed Response service requests which have already missed the expected
respond by date
Missed Resolution service requests which have already missed the expected
resolve by date
Unassigned service requests which have not been assigned to a group or an
individual owner
Unassigned Owner service requests which have been assigned to a group but
not to an individual owner
Service managers can immediately direct their attention to the areas as highlighted by
these metrics and take appropriate corrective actions.
3.17.2.2. Identify most active customers, most problematic products and areas,
most common service request types
The Service Operations Dashboard provides tag clouds which highlight the following:
Top service request types
Top products reported in service requests
Top problem areas reported in service requests
Top active customers reporting service requests
The information provided by these tag clouds gives insights on the nature and source of
the service requests. Service managers can use this information to improve the quality of
the products, improve training for service agents, and improve customer knowledge to
reduce the number of service requests.
3.17.2.3. Execute corrective actions on transactional system
Service managers can drill down directly into the service requests details page to update
the service request with diagnosis, change status, reassign to a different owner, or ask for
additional information.
Service managers and agents can also perform mass update actions on a selected group of
service requests to quickly change status, update a note, provide a resolution, or change
owners in a single transaction.
These corrective actions can prevent breach of service agreements, and minimize the
penalties incurred on service requests that have already missed the SLAs.
3.17.2.4. Enforce data security for service requests
In addition to enforcing the currently available service request type security, the Service
Operations Dashboard supports three levels of data security to control access to the
service requests. Agents and managers can be given access to either:
Access all service requests
Access only service requests owned by them or the groups they belong to
Access only service requests owned to them


3.17.2.5. Analyze graphical data with varying dimensions
The dashboard provides interactive graphs for each critical metric which allows managers
and agents to group data by two different sets of dimensions such as:
Group Owner
Individual Owner
Item Name
Request Type
Status
Severity
Urgency
Customer Name
Problem Code
They can also drill down into specific attributes to dynamically view data based on the
newly chosen criteria.
3.17.2.6. Improve product and service quality through root cause analysis
Service managers and agents can perform root cause analysis by searching for specific
attributes or keywords through the search box or the guided navigation components.
3.17.2.7. Improve workload utilization and elevate performance
Service managers can track the backlog of resource groups and individual owners to
ensure that all agents are utilized effectively and assigned the appropriate service requests
to achieve effective throughput. To expedite the resolutions for the service requests,
service managers can rebalance the work queues by reassigning service requests, make
staffing changes, and implement more effective training plans for improved performance.


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