Beginners Guide : Understanding the Structure

In today's scenario there are many ERP Players - SAP and Oracle being the market leaders with global presence.

Oracle HRMS is an ERP application of Oracle E Business Suite. It falls under vertical HCM or Human Capital Management. It covers following modules :

1. Core HRMS
2. Payroll
3. Advanced Benefits
4. Self Service
5. Recruitment
6. Talent Management
7. Performance Management
8. Time and Labor
9. Learning Management
10. Business Intelligence
11. Compensation Workbench
12. Incentive Compensation

Oracle HRMS is integrated with Financials, Purchasing, Projects, Sales etc modules of Oracle E-Business Suite.

The Oracle E-Business Suite

The Oracle E-Business Suite is a packaged application with integration of financials, supply chain, inventory, projects, sales, human resources and many other business modules. This helps in automation of organization processes at global level. And it is well integrated with Business Intelligence for corporate reporting.

The structure of applications is modules and organizations are free to choose the modules they wish to implement as well as flexile enough for adding modules after implementation of initial ones. Like Supply Chain can be added after an organization has implemented Financials. The flexibility and the robust model makes the E-Business Suite highly rated ERP. The methodologies or the best practices are well defined and tested over many years on variety of organization and projects models. This makes the success of implementation of Oracle E-Business suite products very high.

The Oracle E-Business Suite sits on a multi-layer platform which includes:

■ Oracle Database

■ Oracle Application Server

■ Common Services and Components

■ Oracle Internet Business Intelligence

Oracle Database

All applications reside on the Oracle Database. The Oracle database drives

enterprise E-Business applications, online transaction processing applications

(OLTP), query-intensive data warehouses, and high capacity Web sites. Because the

Oracle database is available on many different platforms, applications can scale

from handheld to laptop to desktop to enterprise providing consistent information

over multiple channels.

Oracle Application Server

The Oracle Application Server (Oracle 9iAS) is a middle-tier server which

independently delivers the technology needed to build Web sites and applications,

create personalized portals, extract business intelligence, and manage a secure Web

site infrastructure. Oracle Self Service , iRecruitment, iExpenses are some of the Oracle modules using the same.

Common Services and Components

All the applications can leverage the common infrastructure and services

components. Functionality includes Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports, Oracle

Application Object Library (AOL), the Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle Discoverer

development tools, the coding and UI standards, and other functionality used by

the applications.

For example, you can extend the applications according to your business needs

using flexfields. You can create and assign responsibilities using the system

administrator responsibility. Also, you can use Oracle Workflow to configure

background processes and set up notifications so that all the appropriate managers

and groups are notified.

Oracle Internet Business Intelligence

Above the E-Business Suite sits the Internet Business Intelligence application. This

application integrate data from all of the E-Business Suite applications to provide

key performance measurements, operating alerts, and management reports to every

decision maker across the enterprise.

The ERP applications include following and more:

■ Oracle Order Management

■ Oracle Supply Chain Planning

■ Oracle Manufacturing

■ Oracle Financials

■ Oracle Human Resources Management System

Companies use the ERP applications to control their back-office operations. For

example:

■ Oracle Order Management applications feature advanced configurator

functionality, global available to promise, flexible pricing support, efficient

delivery, high volume transactions and flexibility to adapt to changing business

conditions.

■ Oracle Supply Chain Planning applications provide the tools required to

optimize flow of material, cash, and information across the extended supply

chain.

■ Oracle Manufacturing applications support all styles of manufacturing -

engineer-to-order, discrete, process, flow, lot based, and project based

manufacturing.

■ Oracle Financials provide solutions for strategic planning, accounting, treasury,

project management, and travel management.

■ Oracle Human Resources Management System is a comprehensive solution for managing a company's human resources, allowing organizations to attract, retain and develop critical skills and knowledge on a global basis.

Common Application Architecture

The Common Application Architecture includes functionality that supports both

CRM and ERP applications. For example, TCA, Oracle's Trading Community

Architecture, consists of a database schema and Application Programming

Interfaces (APIs) where you can model the complex relationships that occur within

a business community and enter that data consistently throughout the enterprise.

Because the model is not hierarchical, Oracle applications can model complex

B2B2C relationships and not to be limited to either a B2B or B2C implementation.

TCA delivers a 360-degree view of the customer.

* Some of the data has been taken from www.oracle.com so as not the change the context, for more information on oracle products please visit Oracle site.

*ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning

*SCM – Supply Chain Management

*CRM – Customer Relationship Management