Integrating Oracle ECM with ERP Systems: JDE, EBS and PeopleSoft JERRY ABER FISHBOWL SOLUTIONS, INC.

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1 Integrating Oracle ECM with ERP Systems: JDE, EBS and PeopleSoft JERRY ABER FISHBOWL SOLUTIONS, INC. i

2 Fishbowl Solutions Notice The information contained in this document represents the current view of Fishbowl Solutions, Inc. on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Fishbowl Solutions must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Fishbowl Solutions, and Fishbowl Solutions cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. This Whitepaper is for informational purposes only. FISHBOWL SOLUTIONS MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Fishbowl Solutions Inc. Fishbowl Solutions Inc. may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Fishbowl Solutions, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property Fishbowl Solutions Corporation. All rights reserved. Fishbowl Solutions is a registered trademarks or trademarks of Fishbowl Solutions Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners Fishbowl Solutions Corporation. All rights reserved.

3 Contents 1 Introduction Executive Overview 1 2 The Three Tenants of Positioning ECM 1 3 What s Available from Oracle ECM 2 4 How to Accomplish the Integration Between Oracle ECM and the ERP Solution 2 5 Conclusion 3

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5 1 Introduction Executive Overview Enterprise resource planning (ERP) as it is described integrates internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. The three main players in this space are J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft and Enterprise Business Suite. The core of the ERP definition is integrates internal and external management information across an entire organization. As we look at the opportunities to improve an organization s access and management of un-structured information Oracle Enterprise Content Management (Oracle ECM) and all its related components offers a great deal of flexibility and power to enhance the ERP solution. At the core of each of the ERP systems is the ability to collect static and transaction data for sales, accounting, finance and service, but what is most often left out of the conversation is all the unstructured content that goes into creation and support of the transaction data. For example, a common use case is the management of the accounts payable function for an organization. Data is entered and managed around the process of handling invoices for payment. But what about the paper invoice? In most companies the process is a manually driven activity that captures the transactional data for payment processing but stores the paper invoice in a file system for permanent storage. Along those lines there are many other opportunities to provide a means for integrating the unstructured content for other areas of the ERP landscape. Some examples include: General Ledger Supporting documentation related to journal entries. Manufacturing Design schematics. Human Resources Resumes, W9 s, Evaluations. Sales Enabling content on product information. 2 The Three Tenants of Positioning ECM In order to visualize how to solve for this type of solution we need to review what we call the three tenants of positioning ECM. Content injection \ Contribution - Refers to the collection and ingestion of content Centralized Content Repository - Refers to the concept of centralizing your content repository for maximizing shared information. Delivery Channel(s) Refers to the means by which the content can be consumed.

6 3 What s Available from Oracle ECM The Oracle ECM product suite is a collection of products that support those three tenants of positioning your ECM solution for ERP integration. From our viewpoint the products that fit the three tenants are as follows: Centralized Content Repository o Universal Content Management o Imaging and Process Management Content injection \ Contribution o Document Capture o Forms Recognition From a consumption perspective the ERP system becomes the delivery channel. Other delivery channels within the product stack are Site Studio, Site Studio for External Applications (SSXA) and WebCenter 4 How to Accomplish the Integration Between Oracle ECM and the ERP Solution Laying down the foundation using UCM or IPM and the central repository is the primary goal. Without the central repository the rest of the solution will not work. Figure 1 below illustrates the central repository as part of a unified architecture approach to position for shared information access. IPM will be best used when using scanned in documents as the IPM Viewer is a handy way to for viewing TIF images created as a part of a scanning or faxing solution.

7 Figure 1: view of a unified architecture with Oracle ECM and ERP systems in place Integration can be accomplished with the API s via the product directly or via a middleware services layer designed to abstract the query layer further from the repository. Some organizations can make the jump to the SOA-based architecture if the business rules and reusability make sense for the organization. For the IPM accounts payable solution, Oracle provides adapters to make the integration work. For other types of integration that s not leveraging an adapter, SOAP calls using IPM queries are useful ways to access the images from the IPM solution. Metadata definition is a critical part of the integration as well. The primary metadata field will be the ERP internal ID for the transaction, such as the oracle id from E-Business Suite. Depending on the relationship model, your application will need to account for returning one item or many from the query results and handling the display from that point. 5 Conclusion Oracle ECM is a fantastic way to position your organization for sharing unstructured content with your enterprise resource planning systems and beyond. Take care to understand the business problems that exists and look for ways to show value and return on the time and effort invested to make the integration a success.