Fusion Applications - What You Need To Know: Product Families

Fusion Applications are organized into seven groups of related products called Product Families. While the product features are organized according to the Business Process Model and can cross the boundaries of product families, the product family groupings are an easy way to wrap your mind around Fusion Apps. So, without further verbal hooey from me, here are the product families and the applications in each family:

Project Portfolio Management

Project Costing

Project Billing

Project Contracts

Project Control

Project Performance Reporting

Project Integration Gateway (very cool integration with Primavera)

A set of integrated reports and analytics

The integration with Primavera and MS Project is pretty impressive. And you'll find your project managers in their "happy place" when they see Project Performance Reporting.

Financial Management

General Ledger

Accounts Payable

Accounts Receivable

Asset Management

Payments and Collections

Cash and Expense Management

The really, really impressive element here is the integration with Hyperion - the analysis tools are very powerful.

Human Capital Management

Human Resources

Global Payroll

Workforce Service Delivery

Compensation

Workforce Management

Talent Management

The very best part of HCM, in my humble opinion, is that the embedded analytics eliminate the line between transactional data and business intelligence.

Supply Chain Management

Product Information Management

Asset Management

Global Order Processing

Cost Management

Distributed Order Orchestration

Logistics (which includes Shipping, Receiving and Inventory)

It's important to note that Fusion Apps version 1.0 does not include full manufacturing functionality (MRP, WIP, Work In Progress, and all that stuff).

Procurement

Purchasing

Self-Service Procurement

Sourcing

Procurement Contracts

Supplier Portal

Supplier Model

Also includes some nifty spend analysis reporting and performance management.

Customer Relationship Management

Customer Master

Sales

Marketing

Mobile

Incentive Compensation (really more of a complimentary product hosted in CRM)

Much of this product family, along with some of the Procurement product family, is built around the Trading Community Architecture (TCA - new and improved from the EBS R12 version, but more on that in a later post).

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Financial Compliance

IT Risk and Compliance

Issue Manager

Risk Manager

Access Controls

Transaction Controls

Configuration Controls

While GRC is very strong in terms of corporate governance and risk management, it is a bit of an odd duck in that the latest release is not built on Fusion Middleware like the rest of Fusion Apps. Hopefully, this will be resolved in a later release.

Next: Revisiting SOA

Fusion Applications - What You Need To Know: Business Architecture

The first of what I intend to be a short series on the basics of Fusion Applications…

An Incremental Release - Look What We Learned!

If nothing else, Fusion Applications version 1.0 represents an incremental release of a massive learning effort by the Oracle Fusion Applications Development teams. That learning consisted of:

1. Reviewing the best stuff from all of Oracle's extensive catalog of existing applications-related products (Applications Unlimited, Fusion Middleware, etc.)

2. Extensive requirements gathering, but not in the classical sense. This was more about finding out about the processes and steps people used to do their work (my friends on the Oracle User Experience team played a huge role in this effort).

3. A significant design effort focused on simplicity and flexibility, with an intent on supporting the best of the work processes explored in Step 2.

It's All About The Business Process

As part of the design effort for Fusion Apps, Oracle utilized the best business processes they observed in the learning stage to build a set of best practices known as The Business Process Model ("The BPM" - not to be confused with the Business Process Management Suite, known as "BPM".)

Fusion Applications uses The BPM as the model for tying code components to functional activities (logical business objects - see Note 1 below) and organizing the user interface flow (taskflows and activities).

The BPM structure is organized according to levels, ranging from Level 0 to Level 4:

0 - Industry
1 - Business Area
2 - Business Process
3 - Activity
4 - Task

Levels 0 through 3 are software agnostic - they're really Business Process Engineering designs. Level 4 provides detail specific to Fusion Apps. An example:

0 - Construction
1 - Project Portfolio Management
2 - Initiate Project
3 - Define Project
4 - Define Project from Template

This is the business process framework followed for all the functions of all Fusion Applications…over 12,000 tasks (I think). It's important to note that, despite my example content, Fusion Apps V 1.0 has only a generic "industry" Level 0. More are forthcoming as incremental versions are released.Now for the fun part: remember how I differentiated earlier between "The BPM" and "BPM"? Well, as is true with many of the Fusion Middleware components, you can use BPM to extend The BPM for your own needs.

Up next…Product Families in Version 1.
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Note 1: A logical business object encapsulates data, business operations and rules governing adding, changing, or removing its data. A logical business object presents information and business operations from the business user's perspective. Logical business objects do not directly access the underlying database. Instead, they use services provided by the physical business object to read, update, and delete business data.

Note 2: The XML And More blog I referenced in the task flows link above has some outstanding stuff. Stanley Guan is writing some great posts - technical, yet understandable. Definitely worth a read.

Note 3: I have a new tool in my Fusion Applications kit. The book Managing Oracle Fusion Applications - Best Practices for a High-Performance Enterprise Application Management Strategy is turning out to be a great reference as I work with Fusion Apps. Helpful with my blogging as well...I've borrowed liberally from the book lately. Kudos to author Richard Bingham (Richard, I owe you a burger). I'm hoping this will come out on Kindle soon, so I can carry it with me to client sites.

Note 4: If you want the real skinny on the latest developments with Fusion Apps, check the updates from the skinny Debra Lilley here. Debra, while generally an Oracle advocate, has no problem with calling 'em as she sees 'em.

Keeping The Faith on 11i

You can get just so much from a good thing

You can linger too long in your dreams

Say goodbye to the "Oldies But Goodies"

Cause the good ole days weren't always good

And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems

- From Billy Joel's "Keeping The Faith"

So while we let the hubbub over the Conditional Availability of Oracle Fusion Applications die down a bit, let's talk about the E-Business Suite…which is the "here and now" situation for many of us.

I've been a little surprised by the continued resistance of many EBS customer to upgrade to R12.1.3, choosing instead to stick with 11.5.10 as long as possible. I get the most commonly-heard arguments for standing pat: not seeing value in R12 functionality, can't really afford the cost of the upgrade, waiting to see what happens with Fusion Apps and EBS. And I'd offer the following counterpoints:

1. Value - stuff you could leverage for better, faster, cheaper

-- A fully-configurable home page

-- Look-ahead List-Of-Value technology

-- More leverage of BI Publisher (write reports once, use them many times)

-- Multi Org Access Control

-- SubLedger Accounting

2. Can't really afford the cost of the upgrade

-- the upgrade from 11.5.10.2 to R12.1.1, subsequently patching up to 12.1.3 (cum patch, no 12.1.2 required), is the most straight-forward upgrade I've ever seen from a technical perspective for any Oracle product. It really doesn't get much simpler or less expensive than this.

3. Waiting to see what happens with Fusion Apps, EBS, and everything related.

-- Stop waiting. Fusion Apps v1 is not a full-functionality replacement for EBS and likely won't be a good fit for many current Oracle EBS customers. Upgrading is the right answer for most.

Now a thought in favor of the upgrade: the longer you wait, the more it will cost...resources, dollars, any way you measure it:

-- We'll soon see EBS 12.2, which will include the transition from OC4J to WebLogic. Upgrading from 11.5.10.2 and replacing the middle-tier in the same upgrade? As simple and straight-forward as the upgrade from 11.5.10.2 is now, it promises to be much more complex when moving from 11i to 12.2…and complexity = cost.

-- The sand is running through the hourglass for 11.5.10.2 support. Personally, I don't want to be the CIO in the shop that can't resolve a payroll or HR issue because they missed the support deadline for 11i. That story will have a costly end (maybe including a search for a new CIO).

So, here's the upshot for those of you "keeping the faith" with 11i. The iceberg is melting, the curtain is coming down, the lights are dimming, the fat lady is singing. The later versions of 11i were good things…we got bundles of value out of 11i…but, like it or not, it's winding down in favor of a better product in R12.1.3. It's time to upgrade. Frankly, the longer you keep the faith with 11i, the more you'll miss out on the value of the new products…and the more it will cost when you do make the move. Maybe it's time to get on it?

UPDATE: A recent quote from Steven Chan, the Oracle EBS Technology guru, puts it very well:

When it comes to ERP software, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. It's always best to make your plans around releases that are currently available.

You should plan your upgrade to EBS 12.1.3 today. The upgrade from EBS 11i to 12 is technically-straightforward but has many new updates and features on the functional side. These functional product updates and new features have the potential to introduce significant changes that will affect your business users.

If customer feedback is any indication, it is likely that you will spend more time working through the implications of the new EBS 12.1 features than anything else. This process may be time-consuming, so it's best to get started now. If you're on EBS 11i today, you should focus your efforts on getting up to EBS 12.1.3 as the immediate priority.

Here We Go!

If you check Oracle E-Delivery, you'll see that Oracle Fusion Applications 11g R1 (11.1.1.5.0) for Linux x86-64 are now available for download. It's a very controlled download, but it's out there nevertheless.

Houston, we have ignition! Here we go!!!

UPDATE: Learned on June 7 that Fusion Apps will be under "controlled availability" for the foreseeable future (based on the context of the update, I take that to mean around the end of the calendar year). As I understand it, Controlled Availability ("CA") is different from General Availability ("GA") in that CA allows Oracle to advise customers as part of the buying process in order to help maximize the chances for customer success with the product.