R12 Approvals Management Engine (AME) FAQs

2. AME – What is it?

i. AME is a simple to use Rules Engine for Defining Approval Policy

ii. AME is generic engine can be used where no integration currently exist, even with non EBS modules

iii. Standardizing on one engine reduces costs for customer as well as consulting since only one set of skills required

iv. None or only minimal coding required to setup rules

3. AME – When can it be used?

a. AME can be used to derive lists of approvers based on user defined rules and maintain a history of approvers statuses when: -

i. Transferring employees from one division/cost centre to another

ii. Authorizing expenses

iii. Paying invoices

iv. Approval of Purchase Requisition

v. Much more – review EBS Module Integration List

4. AME – Module Integration List

i. 11i8/9 11i10

b. E-Records (ERES) User Management iSupplier

c. Quoting ODM – BOM Sourcing

d. Accounts Payable ODM – Engineering iProcurement

e. Credit Management ODM – Inventory R12

f. iExpenses ODM – Quality Mgt E-Tax

g. Lease Management ODM – Receiving Grants

h. iRecruitment ODM – WIP Core Pay

i. Training Administration (SS) AR – Credit Memo Public Sector

j. Self Service HR (4.1) Internal Controls Mgr Proposals

k. OPM – Inventory OTA – Learner UI Distribution

l. OPM - New Product Dev OTA – Manager UI GL-Journals

m. OPM – Process Execution iAssets (Transfer) Account Planning

n. OPM – Quality Mgt. Deal Registration Service Contracts

o. Oracle Partners Mgt Referral Management Collections

p. AR – Credit Mgt PO - Requisitions Incentive Comp

5. Business Processes for Transactions and approvals Create Transaction Manage Approvals and Notifications

a. Approve

b. Reject

c. Return

6. Submit for Approval Update when approved 1 3 2 4

7. Approval Policies

– AME Rules Approval Policies translate to rules in AME and are made up of the following components: if and then Transaction Category In {Salary} Salary Increase Pct > 15 require approvals up to the first two superiors Rule Conditions Action Types Attributes require post approval from CIO

8. Setup Details – Profile Options

i. AME responsibilities can be directly assigned in 11i.AME.A. But in 11i.AME.B & R12 &

higher, the responsibilities are assigned through roles.

ii. AME: Installed – Set this profile value to ‘Yes’ at required application level.

iii. HR:Defer Update After Approval: Set this profile value to ‘No’ to avoid the status ‘Pending Approval’ after transactions’ approval.

iv. AME: Append to List option on Approvers region – To control the requesters/initiators to append approvers to the approval list. If set to the value ‘No’ would not allow the users to append the list.

9. AME – How to assign the role?

a. Login as ‘System Administrator’ (not a responsibility) & navigate to ‘User Management >

Users > Query the user and click Update > Search & Add the AM Admin roles as shown below

10. AME – How to grant transaction type access to users?

a. AME restricts access to transaction types using Data Security. Grant users access to the transaction types using the Grants page.

b. Login as ‘Functional Administrator’ responsibility & click on ‘Create Grant’

11. AME – How to grant transaction type access to users?

12. Setup Details – Configuration Variables

i. Important configuration variables are shown below:

ii. Please note the values for these variables can vary for each transaction type.

13. Setup Details – New Transaction Type

a. A new transaction type can be created using ‘Approvals Management Administrator’

responsibility

14. Setup Details – New Transaction Type

a. There are 4 steps in creating a new transaction type

b. The new transaction type can be created with different item classes like Header, Line Item, Cost Center, Project, etc depending on the requirement

15. Setup Details – New Transaction Type

a. There are 11 mandatory attributes whose values can be derived using SQL queries

16. Setup Details – Approval Process

a. The approval process for the newly created transaction type can be setup using ‘Approvals Management Business Analyst’ responsibility.

17. Setup Details – Attribute

a. Attributes are the base element for an AME Rule. Attribute values are retrieved from the EBS Applications database

b. AME is seeded with attributes relevant to the transaction type and the user can create new attributes in AME for use in AME rule

18. Setup Details – Condition

a. Conditions identify values and value ranges for some or all of the attributes available

b. AME rules refer to these conditions to determine if a particular rule is applicable for the specific document (requisition) being approved

c. There are 2 types of conditions – Regular & List Modifiers

19. Setup Details – Action Type

a. An action type is a collection of actions having similar functionality

b. Every action belongs to an action type. Action types are enabled or disabled for a particular transaction type

c. Voting method (or regime) decides how the responses to the action types are treated

20. Setup Details – Approver Group

a. It is an optional setup. Required only when additional approvers are required for particular conditions

The rules defined for the transaction can be based on Approver Groups, Jobs defined in HR setup, or Positions defined in HR setup Additional approvers are added here

21. Setup Details – Rule

Rules specify approvers to be included in the approval list under specific conditions Rule category can be either approver or FYI

22. Setup Details – Rule

a. Actions are added from action type associated with the transaction type

23. Setup Details – Test Workbench

a. This is used to determine which AME rules apply to a specific document (requisition)

24. Test cases with values for various attributes can be saved for repeated use

Setup Details – Test Workbench

a. For real transaction test, requisition’s header ID need to be entered as transaction ID. This would pull values for all the attributes

25. Setup Details – Test Workbench

a. Final approver list is displayed along with the applicable rules

26. Setup Report

a. A setup report can be run from Business Analyst’s dashboard which would show all the attributes, conditions, rules used in the transaction type.

b. A sample output of the report is attached below

27. Implementation Guidelines

i. Read the Implementation Guide – never go in blind, you will make mistakes

ii. Some SQL and EBS entities knowledge required if additional Attributes or Dynamic Approval Groups needed

iii. Design approval matrix / decision tree on paper and use that as basis for your rules

iv. Don’t create custom Action Types unless you really have to

v. If DFF’s need to be used in AME, then custom attributes need to be created using SQL query

vi. Purge transaction data using the concurrent program ‘Approvals Management Transaction Data Purge’

vii. In 11.5.10 AME supports only employee-supervisor hierarchy. But in R12, position

hierarchy & FYI notifications are supported.

28. Implementation Guidelines – Approval Decision Tree

i. Model the decision tree based on the approval rules.

ii. Path from the root node to a leaf node represents a rule

29. Error Messages

i. Approval List could not be generated. Please contact your System Administrator to review AME rules setup.

ii. The procedure getNextPosition could not find parent position for : HR Positions:

MM400.Materials Manager

30. Limitations

a. Terminations (of the initiators) are not handled efficiently though AME would rebuild the chain of approval after each approval

b. Not possible to create custom AME responsibilities because of RBAC limitations other than the 2 seeded responsibilities – ‘Approvals Management Administrator', 'Approvals Management Business Analyst'

c. It is not possible to have ‘Notification TimeOuts with Reminders’ within AME.

31. References

i. How to Create the Approval Transaction Type for AME.B or higher ( Metalink Note: 420387.1 )

ii. How To Setup And Use AME For Purchase Requisition Approvals ( Metalink Note: 434143.1 )

iii. How To Diagnose Issues in Building The Requisition Approval List ( Metalink Note: 412833.1 )

iv. How to Create the Approval Transaction Type for AME.A ( Metalink Note: 420381.1 )

v. Frequently asked Questions on AME 11i ( Metalink Note: 431815.1 )

vi. 11.5.10 FAQ for Approvals Management (AME) Integration For iProcurement and

Purchasing ( Metalink Note: 293315.1 )

32. Case Study

i. Requirements / Approval Policies:

ii. If the total requisition value is more than 25,000 USD, then it requires approval from 2

positions above the requestor. If it is less than 25,000 USD, then it can be approved by the requestor himself if he has enough approval authority

iii. If any of the requisition line has an item category ‘COMPUTER.PC’, then it needs to be approved by a specific user

iv. If any of the line item has an item category ‘COMPUTER.MISC’, then ‘IT Director’ position needs to be notified

v. Let us now see in the application, how these policies are modeled