Oracle iProcurement

IProcurement Introduction
Empowers any employee to enter and submit a requisition online
Eliminate the need for the buyer to re-key data,
Enforce Companys requisition approval authority hierarchy,
Enforce Purchasing Policy,
Automatically source requisitions from outstanding blanket purchase
agreements or quotations received from suppliers.
Deliver electronic notifications where action or advice to an interested party
is required (i.e. Approval or Confirmation of approval / rejection).

Why Oracle iProcurement?

Key Functionality

Approval Process
In conjunction with Oracle Workflow, Oracle iProcurement facilitates a paperless, automated
approval process for purchase requisitions with the following features:

1. Submitted purchase requisitions may be tracked as they proceed through the routing and
approval process.
2. Approvers can delegate approval responsibility and/or use e-mail including proxies for
approvals rather than logging into the Oracle system. E-mail approval capability is very
useful for road warriors.
3. Supporting documents can be attached with the automated purchase requisition, which
approvers can review.
4. Hard copies and manual/physical approval processes can be eliminated.

Supplier Management
Oracle iProcurement shares suppliers tables with Oracle Purchasing, Inventory, and Payables
creating an integrated environment for supplier information that is available to select, update, or
create new in Oracle iProcurement.

q Supplier contact information, when provided (i.e., vendor contact name, phone number, e-mail
address), can be stored to the database via Oracle iProcurement and queried when creating new
requisitions in both Oracle iProcurement and Oracle Purchasing.

Catalog Management
Oracle iProcurement is optionally a catalog-driven procurement system, which helps businesses
organize the items, services, and vendors they routinely procure products from.

q The catalog management process allows the creation of catalogs containing items and services
from which organizations procure goods.
 Oracle iProcurement
q The catalog management process allows requesters to select and purchase items and services
from on-line catalogs using drop down functionality.
q Requesters creating purchase requisitions can easily do so following easy-to-use, wizard-driven
catalogs with instructions for ordering items and services.

Order Process
The approval and order creation process provided by Oracle iProcurement simplifies the
procurement process with the following functions:

q The shopping process locates and selects items AND can be used to perform a comparative
analysis of different items.
q The receive order process allows requesters to receive items and control the details for the
delivery of orders.
q The checkout and submit process allows requesters to specify the quantity of purchase.

Data Validation
Like any Oracle product, business rules, cross-validation and security rules, and other data
validation rules can be defined and enforced. Oracle iProcurement validates drop-down lists
(LOV) for Project Accounting, for example:

q Expenditure Type and Project Number can be selected from a pick list during data entry of
purchase requisitions.
q Project sub-tasks are validated against Oracle Projects, and transaction controls are used to
prevent purchase requisitions against sub-tasks.

Integration with Oracle E-Business Suite

Oracle iProcurement integrates seamlessly with the Oracle E-Business Suite and supports a
single global instance allowing multiple users simultaneous access to key functions and features.

Oracle General Ledger Integration

Oracle General Ledger shares accounting accounting flexfield and charge account combinations
with Oracle iProcurement, in addition to providing a set of books (SOB) and exchange rates for
the module.

Oracle Purchasing Integration

Oracle Purchasing can use the Catalog Extract feature to load and create the Oracle iProcurement
catalog.

Oracle Purchasing can use the purchase orders created via Oracle iProcurements requisitions
option for inquiry and for receiving activity.

Oracle Payables Integration

Oracle Payables manages catalog content and requisitioning using Oracle iProcurement
functionality.
 Oracle iProcurement
Oracle Payables uses the purchase orders and receipts created in Oracle iProcurement and Oracle
Purchasing for two and three-way matching and accounting.

Oracle Payables tracks projects and the expenditures related to projects created in Oracle
iProcurement.

Oracle HRMS Integration

Oracle iProcurement requesters and approvers are validated against in the employee-supervisor
relationship defined in Oracle HRMS.

It is also possible to validate requesters and approvers against Oracle Projects project and task
manager assignments, but this does require some customizations of the workflow to achieve.

Oracle Workflow
Integration
Oracle Workflow sends Oracle iProcurement notifications to requesters and approvers, using the
Requisition Approval Workflow, PO Create Document Workflow, and PO Approval Workflow.

Oracle e-Commerce and XML Gateway Integration

Oracle iProcurement integrates with e-Commerce and the XML Gateway for use with electronic
purchase order transmissions

Conclusion

Oracle iProcurement is a mature product designed to facilitate online shopping that provides
requesters the ability to create, manage, and track purchase requisitions and purchase orders, and
helps managers and buying professionals to source and approve requisitions before needless
spending occurs.
 Oracle iProcurement

The Oracle iProcurement functionality provides the essentials for

the ordering portion of the procurement process. This includes
catalog content management, requisitioning, purchase order
creation, and receiving orders.
 Oracle iProcurement

Oracle iProcurement 11i enables internal corporate requesters to independently order items from
both local (internal) and remote (external) catalogs. Oracle iProcurement 11i is fully
integrated with Oracle Applications Release 11i.

Oracle iProcurement is part of Oracle Applications, an integrated suite of E-Business solutions

designed to transform your business into an E-Business. Along with the rest of the Oracle E-
Business suite, iProcurement helps an enterprise streamline the procurement process with end-to-
end business automation. It is the starting point for the ordering process and provides powerful
self-service requisitioning capability with an intuitive, web shopping interface. It constitutes a
key component of the complete procure-to-pay business flow and helps an enterprise to process
and manage requisitions and receipt of the requested goods/services in an efficient and
automated manner.
 Oracle iProcurement

Indirect & Direct

Indirect sourcing is:
The purchase or procurement of any goods or services that are not directly related to/included in
the manufacture of any of our primary products
Examples include (but are not limited to): Office supplies, Advertising, Training & Tools etc.
Direct sourcing is:
The purchase or procurement of any goods or services that are directly related to/included in the
manufacture of any of our primary products
Examples include (but are not limited to): Standard Inventory Item (Laptop), Manufacturing
Item (Car)

iProcurement should be used for the purchase of ALL goods and services

Why are we switching to iProcurement?

Simplicity:

There are several different ways to acquire indirect materials right now, each with its own rules
Cost Savings: Transactional costs are reduced by lowering the number of touches a requisition
experiences eBusiness Direction All Businesses have implemented/are implementing Oracle
Purchasing systems

Ability to buy administrative items

Ability to buy production items

Self-guiding catalog

Desktop receiving

Single global instance

Punch-out to other exchanges

Integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) system

 Oracle iProcurement

The basics components of the iprocurement product are

Catalog and Content Management
Shopping
Checkout and submit requisition
Approval and Order creation (Requisition Tracking and Management)
Desktop Receiving

Catalog and Content Management

Oracle iProcurement 11i offers a flexible solution to catalog and content management, enabling
you to select from several approaches based on your business model.
1. Load catalogs directly into the Oracle iProcurement catalog using the Catalog bulk
loader, which supports catalogs formatted in XML, standard text, catalog interchange format
(CIF), or cXML. Using the catalog bulk loader, you can load
new catalogs, update existing catalogs, and delete catalog content. Oracle iProcurement 11i also
supports catalogs created in multiple languages and currencies to support requester communities
worldwide, respecting their cultural backgrounds.

2. Use the catalog extractor to load items and services from Oracle
Purchasing into the iProcurement catalog.
 Oracle iProcurement
3. Punch-out to an Oracle Exchange marketplace, such as
Exchange.Oracle.com, or a supplier's Web store to access their catalogs. This punch-out can be a
direct link to the store, where the requester searches, shops, and returns items to
Oracle iProcurement. Alternatively, you and the supplier can set up a transparent punch-out that
works in the background to return matching items from the external site directly to the
requesters search results.

4. Use informational catalogs, which contain instructions or links for ordering other
items or services at your company. The informational catalog enables Oracle iProcurement to be
your companys portal for all ordering.

Shopping

Oracle iProcurement employs the concept of stores. Using stores, organizations can define an
intuitive collection of their content areas. Stores can be configured to include any combination of
local catalogs, punch-out catalogs, information catalogs and transparent punch-out catalogs.
For most organizations, restricting access to content by role is very important. After configuring
catalogs and stores, administrators can easily control which are available to different classes of
requesters within the employee population.

Internally Sourced Items

In a buying organization, goods are sourced either from external suppliers or from internal
inventory and warehouse locations. In Oracle iProcurement, externally sourced items are
requested using purchase requisitions and items sourced from an internal source are requested
using internal requisitions. Internal requisitions are not converted into purchasing documents
(purchase orders. blanket releases, and so forth). Rather, internal requisitions are converted into
internal sales orders. These internal sales orders are subsequently processed and then the
requested items can be received in Oracle iProcurement.

Checkout
Once items have been added to the cart, requesters have three options to complete the requisition
process. Regardless of the checkout option selected, at the end of each checkout a requisition is
submitted.

Delivery -Multiple Destination Types

You can use Oracle iProcurement 11i to create requisitions for requester-initiated inventory
replenishment requests, such as stocking a shop floor crib. Alternatively, requested items can be
delivered to an expense destination.

One Time Addresses

There are occasions where requesters want items delivered to a location that is not an office
location or other pre-defined location established in the database. This is considered a one time
address and can be defined as a deliver to location during the requisition creation process.
 Oracle iProcurement
Integration to EAM
Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) is an Oracle Applications module that identifies,
schedules and tracks all work activity/costs related to assets throughout an organization. Oracle
iProcurement requisitions update EAM work orders.

Multiple Account Distributions and Account Generation Workflow Integration

Charge accounts for requisition lines are generated using Account Generator Workflow rules.
You can split charges for requested items across multiple accounting codes, allowing multiple
departments or account to bear the cost of items on a single requisition line. This eliminates the
need to create multiple requisition lines when the same item is being requested for multiple
departments.

Encumbrance Support
For customers using budgetary controls, Oracle iProcurement provides the ability to check funds
online before submitting requisitions. If a request carries costs past their budgetary limit, the
requester is informed and can take appropriate action.
Funds are automatically reserved during the requisition submit process.

Requisition Tracking and Management

After the requester has created and submitted a requisition, the requester can quickly and easily
track further processing of the requisition using the Oracle iProcurement application.

Requisition Tracking
The requester receives real-time notifications to keep the requester up-to-date with actions taken
against the requisition. Requesters can optionally launch enhanced queries to gain additional
intelligence and insight into the progress of their
requisitions.

Requisition Management
If there are changes to be made to an existing requisition, the requester has the capability to
withdraw the requisition, make the necessary changes and resubmit it, or if the original request
for the goods/services is no longer valid, the requester can simply cancel the original requisition.
Requesters can also submit a request for changes to the purchase order created from their
requisitions.

Requisition Approval Routing

Oracle iProcurement provides flexibility in streamlining the approval process:
Vacation Scheduling: Approvers can indicate dates of planned absence and specify proxy
approvers for their notifications, eliminating potential bottlenecks in the approval process.
Approval Manager workflow can reassign, forward, or request more information during the
approval process.
Approver checkout: When the requisition goes to the approver for approval, the approver can
also make changes to the requisition before approving it.
 Oracle iProcurement
Desktop Receiving
In Oracle iProcurement requesters can receive items, return items, correct items that have been
previously received, and view their receiving transaction history.

Catalog Management

Oracle iProcurement uses stores and catalogs to organize items

for requesters.
 Oracle iProcurement

What Are Catalogs?

A catalog is a cohesive source of supplier product and service

information that provides a means by which the information can
be found quickly by the requestor.

Attributes of a good catalog are:

Content (product categories)

Accuracy (product descriptions)
Robustness (availability)
Ease of use (good indexing, searching)

Why Use Catalogs?

An internet-based procurement solution is only effective if the

user can reliably order the items they need. Poor catalog
management leads to:

Contract leakage
Maverick buying
Workarounds
Decreased spend control

Each store contains one or more catalogs of items. When

requesters search, Oracle iProcurement searches across all
catalogs in the store and displays the results. (You search one
 Oracle iProcurement
store at a time.).Grouping similar catalogs into a single store
provides the following benefits:

Provides logical groupings. In some cases, requesters may

understand store groupings better than categories, which
may be too technical or granular for requesters.
Produces more relevant search results. For example,
searching for battery can return AAA battery, industrial
battery, and notebook computer battery. If, however, each
battery is in a separate catalog and you segment the
catalogs by store, the notebook computer battery can
belong to a Computer Supplies store. Searching for a battery
in the Computer Supplies store returns only computer
batteries.

Types of Catalogs:

Oracle iProcurement supports the following types of catalogs:

Local catalog (also known as the base catalog - extractor &

bulk loader)

Punch-out catalog hosted by a supplier or marketplace

Transparent punchout catalog hosted by a supplier or

marketplace

Informational catalog

Local Catalog:

There are two sources for data residing in the local catalog. One
of these sources is your internal procurement system. Using the
catalog extractor, data from purchasing documents such as
blanket purchase agreements and requisition templates can be
 Oracle iProcurement
made available to requesters in Oracle iProcurement. The other
source for local content is data loaded directly into Oracle
iProcurement through the catalog bulk loader. This data may have
originated from a supplier or third-party content management
service, downloaded from Exchange.Oracle.com, or created
internally.

Punchout Catalog Hosted by Supplier or Marketplace

While creating a requisition, requesters can punch out directly to

an Oracle Exchange marketplace, such as Exchange.Oracle.com,
or to a supplier's Web store (to access supplier-hosted catalogs).
After selecting items for purchase, requesters return to Oracle
iProcurement to add additional items to their cart and check out
as they normally do. For more information on setting up
punchout, see the Punchout and Transparent Punchout Guide for
Oracle iProcurement and Oracle Exchange.

Transparent Punchout Catalog Hosted by Supplier or Marketplace

A transparent punchout catalog (also known as a distributed

search) allows requesters to search for items on an external site
without leaving Oracle iProcurement. Unlike punchout, requesters
do not access the site directly. Instead, when the requester
searches for items, the transparent punchout works in the
background to access the remote catalog and returns the
matching items directly to the search results in Oracle
iProcurement. Requesters do not necessarily know the items
came from an external site. From the Search Results page,
requesters add the items returned from the transparent punchout
to their shopping cart and check out as they normally do. From
Oracle iProcurement, you can set up a transparent punchout to a
supplier site or to an Oracle Exchange marketplace, such as
Exchange.Oracle.com.
 Oracle iProcurement
Informational Catalog

An informational catalog enables you to provide to requesters

instructions or links for ordering items or services that may not fit
into the other catalog types. For example, your company may
already have internal Web pages containing purchasing
information for employees. You can use the informational catalog
as the starting point for accessing those pages. The informational
catalog enables Oracle iProcurement to be your companys portal
for all ordering

Oracle iProcurement module List

of database tables:
ICX_AUDIT ICX_CAT_ITEMS_B

ICX_CART_DISTRIBUTIONS
ICX_CAT_ITEMS_CTX_TLP

ICX_CART_LINE_DISTRIBUTIONS
ICX_CAT_ITEMS_TLP

ICX_CATG_DETLS_INFO
ICX_CAT_ITEM_PRICES

ICX_CATG_DETLS_INFO_TL
ICX_CAT_ITEM_SRC_DETAILS

ICX_CAT_ADV_SRCH_SETUP
ICX_CAT_POPULATE_CTX_GT

ICX_CAT_BROWSE_TREES
ICX_CAT_PRICE_HISTORY

ICX_CAT_CATEGORIES_TL
ICX_CAT_PRICE_LISTS

ICX_CAT_CATEGORY_ITEMS
ICX_CAT_SCHEMA_VERSIONS

ICX_CAT_DELETED_ATTRIBUTES
ICX_CAT_STORES_B

ICX_CAT_DESCRIPTORS_TL
ICX_CAT_STORES_TL

ICX_CAT_EXT_ITEMS_TLP
ICX_CAT_STORE_CATALOGS
 Oracle iProcurement
ICX_CAT_UPLOAD_IT_DUMP ICX_PARAMETERS

ICX_CAT_UPLOAD_PRICE_DUMP ICX_PORTLET_CUSTOMIZATIONS

ICX_COLORS ICX_POR_BATCH_JOBS

ICX_CONTEXT_RESULTS_TEMP ICX_POR_BATCH_JOB_DETAILS

ICX_CUSTOM_MENU_ENTRIES ICX_POR_BROWSE_CATEGORIES

ICX_ENABLED_PLSQL ICX_POR_BUGSEYE_CONFIG

ICX_FAILURES ICX_POR_BUGSEYE_FLAGS

ICX_ITEM_DETLS_INFO ICX_POR_BUYER_APPROVAL_JOBS

ICX_ITEM_DETLS_INFO_TL ICX_POR_CATALOG_ATTACHMENTS

ICX_MARGIN_ANALYSIS ICX_POR_CATALOG_PREFERENCES

ICX_MARGIN_ANALYSIS_ERR ICX_POR_CATEGORIES_TL

ICX_OE_CARTS ICX_POR_CATEGORY_DATA_SOURC
ES
ICX_OE_CART_ERRORS
ICX_POR_CATEGORY_DEFAULTS
ICX_OE_CART_LINES
ICX_POR_CATEGORY_ITEMS
ICX_PAGES
ICX_POR_CATEGORY_ORDER_MAP
ICX_PAGES_TL
ICX_POR_CONFIG_PARAMETERS
ICX_PAGE_COLORS
ICX_POR_CONTEXT_POLICY
ICX_PAGE_COLORS_TL
ICX_POR_CONTRACT_REFERENCES
ICX_PAGE_COLOR_SCHEME
ICX_POR_CTX_TL
ICX_PAGE_PLUGS
ICX_POR_DAILY_NOTIFICATIONS
ICX_PANEL_SUMMARY
ICX_POR_DESCRIPTORS_CACHE
 Oracle iProcurement
ICX_POR_DESCRIPTORS_TL ICX_POR_PRICE_LISTS

ICX_POR_DOWNLOAD_JOB_DETAILS ICX_POR_PRICE_LIST_LINES

ICX_POR_EXT_QUERY ICX_POR_PRICE_LIST_LINES_CACHE

ICX_POR_EXT_QUERY_TL ICX_POR_REALMS

ICX_POR_FAILED_ATTACHMENTS ICX_POR_REALMS_TL

ICX_POR_FAILED_LINES ICX_POR_REALM_COMPONENTS

ICX_POR_FAILED_LINE_MESSAGES ICX_POR_SEARCH_CONFIG

ICX_POR_ITEMS ICX_POR_SEARCH_CONFIG_POLICY

ICX_POR_ITEMS_TL ICX_POR_SITE

ICX_POR_ITEM_CONSTRAINT ICX_POR__OF_CONTENTS_TL

ICX_POR_ITEM_CTX_INDEX ICX_POR_TEMPLATE_FILES

ICX_POR_ITEM_SITE ICX_POR_THIRD_PARTY_LOGS

ICX_POR_ITEM_SOURCES ICX_POR_THIRD_PARTY_LOG_VALUE
S
ICX_POR_ITEM_SOURCES_TL
ICX_POR_TITLE_ADMIN
ICX_POR_LOADER_VALUES
ICX_POR_TITLE_ADMIN_TL
ICX_POR_LOAD_ITEM_MATCH
ICX_POR_TITLE_REGISTRY
ICX_POR_LOG
ICX_POR_UNIT
ICX_POR_MANAGE_GROUPS_CACHE
ICX_POR_UNSPSC_CODES
ICX_POR_ORACLE_ITEM_SUB
ICX_POR_UPLOADER_SUB
ICX_POR_PRICE_BREAKS
ICX_POR_UPLOAD_ITEMS_IT
ICX_POR_PRICE_HISTORY
ICX_POR_UPLOAD_IT_DUMP
 Oracle iProcurement
ICX_POR_UPLOAD_PRICES_IT ICX_TEXT

ICX_POR_UPLOAD_PRICE_BREAKS_ ICX_TRANSACTIONS
DP
ICX_UNSPSC_CODES
ICX_POR_UPLOAD_PRICE_BREAKS_I
T ICX_USER_PROFILES

ICX_POR_VERSION_INFO ICX_VERSIONS

ICX_PO_REVISIONS_TEMP ICX_WEB_STORE_OPTIONS

ICX_PROCUREMENT_SERVER_SETU POR_CONFIGURABLE_USER_DATA

P
POR_CONTAINER_IMAGES
ICX_PROMPTS
POR_EMPLOYEE_LOADER_VALUES
ICX_QUESTIONS
POR_FAVORITE_LIST_HEADERS
ICX_QUESTIONS_TL
POR_FAVORITE_LIST_LINES
ICX_QUESTION_FUNCTIONS
POR_FAV_CHARGE_ACCOUNTS
ICX_REGIONS
POR_FEED_FIELD_FORMATS
ICX_RELATED_CATEGORIES
POR_FEED_HISTORY
ICX_REQUISITIONER_INFO
POR_FEED_RECORDS
ICX_REQ_CART_ERRORS
POR_IMAGES
ICX_SESSIONS
POR_IMAGE_LANG_SETTINGS
ICX_SESSION_ATTRIBUTES
POR_ITEM_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES
ICX_SHOPPING_CARTS
POR_LOCATION_LOADER_VALUES
ICX_SHOPPING_CART_LINES
POR_LOV_DISPLAY_RESULTS
ICX_STORE_INDEX
POR_LOV_RESULT_VALUES
ICX_TEMPLATE_TAGS
 Oracle iProcurement
POR_TEMPLATE_ASSOC POS_ACK_SELECT

POR_TEMPLATE_INFO POS_ASN_SEARCH_RESULT

POR_USER_DATA_CONF_LIST POS_ASN_SHOP_CART_DETAILS

POR_USER_DATA_CONF_LIST_ITEMS POS_ASN_SHOP_CART_HEADER