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Cloud computing is an emerging computing technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications. Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access. This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth. Cloud computing is broken down into three segments: “applications,” “platforms,” and “infrastructure.” Each segment serves a different purpose and offers different products for businesses and individuals around the world.

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I found some interesting material about how companies were named and what their names actually mean, take a look below..btw it is quite a long list!

ABN AMRO — In the 1960s, the Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij (Dutch Trading Society; 1824) and the Twentsche Bank merged to form the Algemene Bank Nederland ( ABN; General Bank of the Netherlands). In 1966, the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank merged to form the Amro Bank. In 1991, ABNand Amro Bank merged to form ABN AMRO.

Acccenture — Accent on the Future. Greater-than ‘accent’ over the logo’s t points forward towards the future. The name Accenture was proposed by a company employee in Norways part of a internal name finding process (BrandStorming). Prior to January 1, 2001 the company was called Andersen Consulting.

Adidas — from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.

Adobe — came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke .

AltaVista — Spanish for “high view”.

Amazon.com — Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world’s most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online bookstore as opposed to the then prevalent bookstores. (Alternative: It is said that Jeff Bezos named his book store Amazon simply to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo at the time. Yahoo listed entries alphabetically, and thus Amazon would always appear above its competitors in the relevant categories it was listed in.)

Apple — for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computer if his colleagues didn’t suggest a better name by 5 p.m. Apple’s Macintosh is named after a popular variety of apple sold in the US. Apple also wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the time had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral Systems, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort and Tesseract. The new company sought to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that was unlike the names of traditional computer companies, a name that also supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different. Note: Apple had to get approval from the Beatle’s Apple Corps to use the name ‘Apple’ and paid a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the derivative name ‘Macintosh’, known now as just ‘Mac’.

Blaupunkt — Blaupunkt (Blue dot) was founded in 1923 under the name Ideal. Their core business was the manufacturing of headphones. If the headphones came through quality tests, the company would give the headphones a blue dot. The headphones quickly became known as the blue dots or blaue Punkte. The quality symbol would become a trademark, and the trademark would become the company name in 1938.

Cadillac — Cadillac was named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe , sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan. Cadillac is a small town in the South of France.

Canon — Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the company’s first camera, the Kwannon, in turn named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

Cisco — short for San Francisco. It has also been suggested that it was “CIS-co” — Computer Information Services was the department at Stanford University that the founders worked in.

Coca-Cola — Coca-Cola’s name is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavouring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the ‘K’ of kola to ‘C’ for the name to look better.

Colgate-Palmolive — formed from a merger of soap manufacturers Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet. Peet was dropped in 1953. Colgate was named after William Colgate, an English immigrant, who set up a starch, soap and candle business in New York Cityin 1806. Palmolive was named for the two oils (Palm and Olive) used in its manufacture.

Compaq — from “comp” for computer, and “pack” to denote a small integral object; or: Compatibility And Quality; or: from the company’s first product, the very compact Compaq Portable.

Daewoo — the company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means “Great Universe” in Korean.

Dell — named after its founder, Michael Dell. The company changed its name from Dell Computer in 2003.

DHL — the company was founded by Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom , and Robert Lynn , whose last initials form the company’s moniker.

eBay — Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. ” EchoBay” didn’t refer to the town in Nevada, the nature area close to Lake Mead, or any real place. “It just sounded cool,” Omidyar reportedly said. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first. So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.

Epson — Epson Seiko Corporation, the Japanese printer and peripheral manufacturer, was named from “Son of Electronic Printer”

Fanta — was originally invented by Max Keith in Germany in 1940 when World War II made it difficult to get the Coca-Cola syrup to Nazi Germany. Fanta was originally made from by products of cheese and jam production. The name comes from the German word for imagination (Fantasie or Phantasie), because the inventors thought that imagination was needed to taste oranges from the strange mix.

Fiat — acronym of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Factory of Cars of Turin).

Fuji — from the highest Japanese mountain Mount Fuji.

Google — the name is an intentional misspelling of the word googol, reflecting the company’s mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.

HP — Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Hitachi — old place name, literally “sunrise”

Hotmail — Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters “HTML” — the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing. (If you click on Hotmail’s ‘mail’ tab, you will still find “HoTMaiL” in the URL.)
Hyundai — connotes the sense of “the present age” or “modernity” in Korean.

IBM — named by Tom Watson, an ex-employee of National Cash Register. To one-up them in all respects, he called his company International Business Machines.

ICL — abbreviation for International Computers Ltd, once the UK’s largest computer company, but now a service arm of Fujitsu, of Japan.

IKON — copier company name derived from I Know One Name.

Here Below is the most famous verse of Bhagwat Gita which explains that one should excel in doing his work without keeping the end result in mind. If you do not work with the end result or preset outcome in mind & rather enjoy the way, the process, the path in doing any work, you shall certainly succeed in your work. So it is always better to perform your actions and carry out your duty in an efficient way rather than caring or worrying about the results.

कर्मण्ये  वाधिकारस्ते

माँ  फलेसु  कदाचन

माँ  कर्म -पहला -हेतुर  भुर

माँ  ते  संगो  ’सत्व  अकर्मणि

“Karmanye vadhikaraste

ma phalesu kadachana

ma karma-phala-hetur bhur

ma te sango ’stv akarmani “(Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Two verse 47)”

“Sri Krishna said to Arjuna: You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.”

This was a thought which regularly come across me, Based on my knowledge, There is only USER GROUP exists for Oracle & its related area, AIOUG ( all india oracle user group )

I am thinking to start a Local User Group , as i am in Pune so sort of “Pune Oracle User Group” or “Oracle Group – Pune” or “Oracle Group – Mumbai Pune”

There purpose and objective of this initiative is more or less same as it with any other groups. We will have platform to grow our community, Share relevant knowledge and provide education among peers.

In case if you are working in and around pune or Mumbai and echo with my thoughts then i am sure we got the team to start with. Do share and let’s take this forward.

Few things which definitely not having in my mind, Creating a separate group etc, i will take this initiative to crate a local platform and align it with other regional and international community.

Thanks – Shiv

Project procurement activities are often managed by specialists.  By this I mean that the procurement department takes over responsibility for purchasing and contract management from the project manager.  As a result of this separation of responsibilities, the steps and stages of procurement are often poorly understood by PMs.

In this and the next few blog submissions, I will attempt to shed light on procurement activities and relate these activities to the PMI PMBOK.

Procurement Steps

1. Make purchase decisions – Planning
Purchase decisions follow from project planning and analysis. Project needs are analyzed and compared with available resources and skills.  Anything the organization cannot provide must be procured.

2. Prepare bid documents
These documents include a SOW statement (Scope of Work), general terms and conditions, bid response instructions, and an explanation of how proposals will be evaluated (source selection criteria).

3. Distribute bid packages to potential vendors
Potential vendors can be identified through advertising, the internet, or through an organization’s qualified vendors list.

4. Bidder’s conferences
Bidder or vendor conferences are used to efficiently deliver detailed information to potential vendors.  The events offer an opportunity for vendors to ask questions and to hear questions posed by other potential vendors.

5. Receive responses from bidders
A suitable time-frame must be given for vendors to prepare bids.  Additional information and clarifications are often required by vendors.

6. Evaluate proposals
After all bids have been received, they are evaluated on the basis of a predetermined scoring system referred to as ‘source selection criteria.’  The comparisons are typically performed by experts from various disciplines related to the type of procurement.

7. Interview bidders
Short-listed bidders are interviewed to discuss details of their offers and to ensure a good fit with the purchasing organization.

8. Conduct negotiations
The leading candidate is invited to discuss (negotiate) contract details.  The issues that generally require clarification include such things as delivery date, shipping costs, warranty, and support.

9. Award contract
A contract is awarded for each procurement.  The contract is a legal document that clarifies the responsibilities and relationships between the buyer and seller.

10. Determine work start date

Work cannot begin until after the final contract has been signed by senior management of both the buying and selling organizations.  Delays in obtaining final signatures can result in delays to the start of work.

11. Manage contracts
‘Managing contracts’ is the supervision of actual procurement activities from both an administrative and a practical perspective.  Responsibility for ensuring that the right work gets done at the right time is typically left to the project team.  Administrative responsibility remains with the procurement department.

12. Review performance (extend or terminate)
Throughout the life of the ‘delivery’ of goods and services, the performance of the delivering organization (vendor) must be constantly reviewed and compared with contract terms.  A detailed SOW is a critical component of effective performance analysis.

If vendor performance falls below a specified standard, (such as schedule or quality) then the contract may be terminated according to terms established in the contract.  (Of course every effort should be made to correct the situation through negotiations and discussions before considering termination.)

13. Claims administration
Claims administration involves the management of conflicts between the buyer and seller.

How claims are administered is determined by the procedures set out in the contract.  When the remedies specified in the contract are insufficient to resolve conflicts, the issue may ultimately end up being settled in court.

14. End contracts
After all work is complete, or if the contract is terminated, the contract is formally ‘closed.’

Contract closure involves the formal notification of all parties regarding the status of the contract.  In addition, a contract archive is created that documents exactly what work was completed and what payments made. Records are kept of all correspondence generated during the life of the contract.

15. Lessons learned
An important part of helping an organization to avoid repeating mistakes is the gathering of ‘lessons learned.’  This includes an analysis of what went according to plan, what went wrong, and what should have been done differently.

16. Ongoing claim administration – litigation
Conflicts between the buying and selling organizations can continue long after a project is formally completed.  An organization’s legal and procurement departments take responsibility for ongoing claims administration, which can take years to be resolved.

Hello Friends,

As we are planning to start online training / mentoring etc , to start with i need to test an online webinar/ meeting tool, so if you are online and available , having some time then let me know. I like to test it to see that how easily and comfortably it is while working with people remote.

1. Sent me your availability , i will try to be online around same time.

2. please sent me a mail with your gtalk or yahoo id to start chat do share feedback and instruction from myside

3. use below url to launch online sharing tool.

http://my.dimdim.com/shivmohan/

4. Let’s see , if we able to pick few people and see if that help and work for us.

– did some testing, initial it seems some latency and difference in speed, may be it need to try with few more people together from difference places to make a appropriate feedback.

thanks – Shiv

It looks like the job market for Oracle is opening up. I’m seeing many of my friends find new jobs and I’m doing a lot of interviewing at work. I hope this is a trend that continues. In this entry, I share my method for interviewing Oracle resources and provide some sample interview questions and answers for developers.

Interviewing anyone can be difficult. Interviewing technical resources is very difficult. To me, probably the hardest thing is pinpointing exactly what you want this person to do. What, exactly, will this person be doing in their day-to-day job? It’s easy to say having a good job description makes it easier but in many cases, employers have a generic template when looking for someone.

First off, is there a difference between a developer and a programmer? I think there is. A programmer is a coder. I don’t mean that as a bad thing. Every project needs coders. A developer should be part analyst and part coder. A developer should be able to handle requirements gathering through implementation. Every project should have at least one good developer. In your interview, you should distinguish between the two.

Before you start to interview people, make sure you really know what you’re looking for. It’s not fair to the candidate to say you’re looking for forms experience and then spend all of your time on advanced back end programming. And don’t ask a backend coder the fine details of forms.

When I interview someone, I look for more than yes/no answers to my questions. In an interview, I expect a candidate to communicate with me. I’m looking for a comfort level. If the person says they don’t know a particular topic, that’s acceptable. If they fumble and make something up, that’s a problem to me. I don’t look for textbook definitions. I want to know they understand what I’m asking and what they’re answering. I also don’t believe in tricky interviews. What’s the point?

Regardless of the exact position, any Oracle resource, including a DBA, should know some basic things about SQL and PL/SQL. Some sample questions I ask are:

For Basic SQL:

• How do you convert a date to a string? To_char. A bonus would be that they always include a format mask.
• What is an aggregate function? I’m looking for “grouping”, sums or accounts, etc.
• What is an interval? Specifies a period of time.
• What is a nested subquery? A subquery in a where clause.
• What is the dual table? A single row table provided by oracle for selecting values and expressions.

For Basic PL/SQL:

• Describe the block structure of PLSQL. Declaration, Begin, exception, end.
• What is an anonymous block? Unnamed PL/SQL block.
• What is a PL/SQL collection? PL/SQL Table, Varray, PL/SQL Array, etc.
• What is the difference between an explicit cursor and a select into. You might get something about performance but that’s a myth. An explicit cursor is just more typing. A cursor for loop would be used to return more than a single row.
• Why would you choose to use a package versus straight procedures and functions? I look for maintenance, grouping logical functionality, dependency management, etc. I want to believe that they believe using packages is a “good thing”.

These are pretty basic questions. If I don’t get a warm fuzzy from these, and they are 100% answerable by anyone with some real experience, then the person goes no further.

So, where do you go after the basics? That really depends on what you’re looking for. If you are hiring a Java coder to work with your Oracle group or you’re looking for a DBA, you might end the coding part here. You would expect a DBA to know more but I would move on to administrative questions. You might also stop here if you’re looking for a junior developer to train.

If you’re looking for a senior PL/SQL coder type, you will want to go deeper. You need to remember to ask specific questions about a person’s background and forms developers will have different experience than a back-end developer. But either should have a good grasp of advanced topics.

The hard part is that there are so many advanced topics; it’s hard to know what to ask. You need to tailor it for your environment. If you use a lot of AQ, ask AQ questions. If you’re very OO, ask OO questions.

Here are some more advanced, but still generic questions:

For Advanced SQL:

• What is the difference between an aggregate and an analytic function? I’m looking for them knowing that a sum aggregate (or any other aggregate function) will return one row for a group and a sum analytic will return one result for each row in the group. If they mention the “Window”, they get a bonus point.
• How do you create a hierarchical query? Connect by.
• How would you generate XML from a query? The answer here is “A lot of different ways”. They should know that there are SQL functions: XMLELEMENT, XMLFOREST, etc and PL/SQL functions: DBMS_XMLGEN, DBMS_XMLQUERY, etc.
• What do you need before implementing a member function? You need to create a type.
• How do you tune a query? I’m looking for a discussion of autotrace and/or explain plan. Ask them what they’re looking for in a plan. This should not be a single sentence. Look for a comfort level.

For Somewhat Advanced PL/SQL:

• What is the default value of a boolean? NULL. This is somewhat tricky but apparently there are languages that default boolean to false. A PL/SQL developer needs to know all variables default to NULL.
• Why is using implicit conversions a poor programming practice? For dates, you must ASSUME that the default date format will always be the same (and it won’t be). In some cases, implicit conversion is slower. I want to feel like they don’t believe writing to_char or to_number is more work than it’s worth. BTW, this also applies to SQL.
• How can you tell if an UPDATE updated no rows? SQL%NOTFOUND.
• How can you tell if a SELECT returned no rows. NO_DATA_FOUND exception.
• How do you run Native Dynamic SQL? Execute immediate.
• What is an autonomous transaction? Identified by pragma autonomous. A child transaction separate from the parent that MUST be committed or rolled back.

At this point I usually ask the candidate to explain specific statements on the resume. If they say they tuned queries or improved performance, I say how? What did you do? What tools did you use?

That’s my interviewing method. I hope that helps you get the best people for your organization.

Apple Computers
It was the favorite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filling a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn’t suggest a better name by 5 o’clock
CISCO
It is not an acronym as popularly believed. It is short for San Francisco.
Compaq
This name was formed by using COMp, for computer, and PAQ to denote a small integral object.
Corel
The name was derived from the founder’s name Dr. Michael Cowpland. It stands for COwpland Research Laboratory.
Google
The name started as a joke boasting about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named ‘Googol’, a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders- Stanford graduate students Sergey Bin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to ‘Google’
Hotmail
Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing email via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters ‘html’ – the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective uppercasing.
Hewlett Packard
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
Intel
Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company ‘Moore Noyce’ but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.
Lotus (Notes)
Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from ‘The Lotus Position’ of ‘Padmasana’. Kap0or used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Microsoft
Coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the ‘-’ was removed later on.
Motorola
Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.
ORACLE
Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consulting project for the CIA(Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was called Oracle(the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or something such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL code by IBM. The project eventually was terminated but Larry and Bob decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they kept the same name for the company.
Sony
It originated from the Latin word ‘sonus’ meaning sound, and ‘sonny’ a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.
SUN
Founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym for Stanford University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim built a microcomputer; Vinod Khosla recruited him and Scott McNealy to manufacture computers based on it, and Bill Joy to develop a UNIX- based OS for the computer.
Yahoo!
The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! Founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos. Yahoo stands for Yet Another Hirarchy for Officius Oracle.

If your database server is running on multiple processor system. You can make all your processors conspire to run a query. You might want to do this when the query is known to take a long time and there is no way it would return in sane time. At the same time, be careful to run this on production systems as it may hamper performance of the database.

select /*+ parallel(x 4) */ count(1)

from huge_table

where huge_table.x = ’somevalue’

ACCEPT – Get input from the user

DEFINE – Declare a variable (short: DEF)

DESCRIBE – Lists the attributes of tables and other objects (short: DESC)

EDIT – Places you in an editor so you can edit a SQL command (short: ED)

EXIT or QUIT – Disconnect from the database and terminate SQL*Plus

GET – Retrieves a SQL file and places it into the SQL buffer

HOST – Issue an operating system command (short: !)

LIST – Displays the last command executed/ command in the SQL buffer (short: L)

PROMPT – Display a text string on the screen. Eg prompt Hello World!!!

RUN – List and Run the command stored in the SQL buffer (short: /)

SAVE – Saves command in the SQL buffer to a file. Eg “save x” will create a script file called x.sql

SET – Modify the SQL*Plus environment eg. SET PAGESIZE 23

SHOW – Show environment settings (short: SHO). Eg SHOW ALL, SHO PAGESIZE etc.

SPOOL – Send output to a file. Eg “spool x” will save STDOUT to a file called x.lst

START – Run a SQL script file (short: @)

ERP are huge apps with so much to explore in terms of functionality, business process, technology components, software architecture and organization dynamics. Working in implementation project Oracle Apps really brings you close to all this aspects. Some of the key things I discovered/learned about E-Business suite

Ad-Utilities for managing middle tier components.

Integrated data model. Example: there’s one entity hosting customer data which is referred by all the module ranging from Customer Management, Order Management, Advance Shipping

Open Interface tables to flow in or out the transactions from one module to other. The same interfaced tables could be used to bring the data from other not E-Business suite systems

APIs corresponding to virtually all the online functionality. The is key for any ERP application. Integration needs always requires creating master data and transactions from the scripts or programs. APIs make this simpler to approach since it will be impossible for any way to go and update all the underlying base entities without breaking the integrity. APIs have always been powerful since they centralize the business logic and all sort of integrity checks at one place. I will stop on API here. Every one knows about the advantage reusability, modularity, refactoring, OO and other core aspects of software designing.

Approaching integration with third party applications. This really requires proper planning for developing the custom scripts, testing and rolling out the customization.

Consistent UI. Consistent usability and user interactivity.

Power of Concurrent request manager.

I came to learn about CUSTOM.pll, which allows in non-invasive manner you put the custom hooks in the standard forms.

There were lots of learning on how to go abound customizing E-Business suite apps. CUSTOM.pll, database triggers, modifying standard reports (though not recommended), defining custom Application, DFF and KFF, lookups etc.

Coding standards. E-Business suite taught me some of the nifty coding practices.

One of the big learning was the philosophy and thinking that goes behind designing and developing packaged applications. The E-Business suite apps are perfect for business needs across industries and wide range of business requirements from different organization. This is achieved by the flexibility, setups and configurations provided by E-Business suite applications. On top of theses, there are avenues to do additional customization to achieve very specific business need. Sometime back I did post on how the development of software product differs from the custom solution, but Oracle E-Business Suite holds a special place. Lot of expertise, effort, planning and experience goes in developing products like E-Business suite.

The Chart of Accounts (COA) is the account structure the organization uses to record transactions and maintain financial account balances. Oracle General Ledger defines the COA structure in the Accounting Flexfield. The structure enables the organization to categorize accounting information during the recording process. The structure is comprised of multiple uniquely defined segments. Each segment contains a list of values, such as the list of Cost Centers or Natural Accounts. The various combinations of the segment values represent the unique account combination to which accounting transactions are posted and account balances are maintained.

When defining the Accounting Flexfield (COA) segments, Oracle requires one segment be designated as the balancing segment and one segment be designated the account segment. The balancing segment identifies an entity requiring a self-balancing trial balance, such as Company. The Account segment identifies the segment used to produce the Financial Statements such as Cash, Accounts Payable, or Revenue. Additionally, Oracle allows the designation of a cost center segment. The cost center segment identifies functional areas of the business such as Finance and Marketing. The cost center segment value is primarily used for reporting in Oracle Assets or Projects.

There are several constraints that should be adhered to when defining the organization’s COA in Oracle

• COA structure must contain at least 2 segments (Balancing and Natural Account) and no more than 30 segments
• Total length of segment combinations cannot exceed 240 characters
• Each Natural Account value must have only one Account Type (e.g. Expense, Asset, etc…)

Benefits of Common Chart of Account Structure

Some of the benefits of using a Common Chart of Accounts are the following: -

• Drives consistency of reported information across business units and ensures compatibility
• Reduces the effort to consolidate information to satisfy management requests
• Reduces reconciliation procedures
• Provides easier benchmarking between different business units/territories
• Allows ability to leverage staff between different business units
• Reduces learning curve due to commonality
• Provides a framework to introduce financial shared services

Chart of Accounts Impact on Reporting

The primary purpose of the General Ledger is financial reporting and financial analysis. The Chart of Account structure defines the nature, ranges, and groupings of information available for reporting and inquiry. Reporting is generated by ranges and groupings of values for one or more segments. Management must define the dimensions by which financial data will be analyzed and reported and ensure those dimensions are reflected in the segments contained within the COA structure.

Chart of Accounts Best Practices and Development Guidelines

Structure

• Determine the scope that the chart of accounts must support. The scope should begin with GAAP reporting requirements followed by management reporting requirements. Common examples of Management reporting requirements are Geographic Regions, Product Line reporting, Activities, and Cost Centers.
• Team members in the chart of accounts design process should be functionally aligned as opposed to geographically aligned. This facilitates the aim of developing a standard COA across global boundaries.
• Design a flexible chart of accounts that will reflect current business processes and accommodate organizational changes in the future. Consider future segments if involved in a high-growth, dynamic industry or environment.
• Each measured dimension of the business should be a separate segment. Segments used for more than one dimension limit the use of standard default values and complicates reporting by making data difficult to isolate. In addition, it precludes the user from using more than one dimension in an individual transaction. This also complicates the processing of consolidations and allocations, validation/security rules, and reporting.
• The resulting COA structure should be more horizontal in design with reporting across segments instead of using individual values for multiple dimensions.

Values

• Limit detail in values and report on information in the appropriate source (subledger) system unless the data is scattered among multiple systems. (e.g. create the minimum number of accounts for GAAP reporting of PP&E.  Create Asset Categories in Oracle Assets that “roll-up” to the respective natural accounts and report detail out of the Assets subledger)
• Product segments should be carefully considered for inclusion in the Accounting Flexfield Structure if there are extensive product lines. Try to identify major product lines for meaningful reporting in the General Ledger and look to the relevant subledger for detail reporting.
• Project segments may be considered if not using Project Accounting. Project Segments are not recommended if Project Accounting is to be used. All project reporting should be generated from the Projects subsystem.
• Carefully consider usage of summary accounts to capture information. Balances are stored at both the detail and summary levels and can negatively impact some concurrent processes. Summary Accounts may significantly improve FSG reporting.
• Avoid intelligent numbering (Assigning a meaning to every digit of a segment value). This complicates allocations and reporting.
• Avoid using dependent segments.  Allocations work off independent segments and may not function properly with dependent segments.
• Define segments as Character Type
• Avoid alpha characters in segments, except for parent values. Alpha Characters complicate sorting data, using ranges, assigning codes, and creation of validation/security rules.
• Use all capital letters for data entry.  This promotes consistency and simplifies query retrievals.
• Use parent/child relationships to facilitate reporting versus creating additional segments values.
• Assign segments in the most logical data entry order. Default segments should be at the very beginning or end of the accounting flexfield structure.
• Verify that you can perform complex allocation schemes.
• Document mappings to legacy chart of accounts. This will assist in populating conversion tables and in reconciling discrepancies.

The code behind the API’s has lots of trace statements. You can turn it on by calling “hr_utility.trace_on;”. But the output is now only available through a tool called PYUPIP. This is the one support asks many times for.

Just add one extra call to the previous one, and the trace messages are rerouted to dbms_output.

BEGIN
hr_utility.set_trace_options(’TRACE_DEST:DBMS_OUTPUT’);
hr_utility.trace_on;
END;

What is  PYUPIP

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Cost Accounting It provides information for both management accounting and financial accounting. It measures and reports from financial and non financial data.

• Cost accounting measures and reports information relating to the cost of acquiring and utilizing resources

• Cost accounting provides information for management and financial accounting

• Cost management describes the approaches and activities of managers in short-run and long-run planning and control decisions

• These decisions increase value of customers and lower costs of products and services

• Cost management is an integral part of a company’s strategy

This document is for those who are interested to learn Financial Accounting Basics which will help them in Oracle Applications (e-Business Suite) accounting entries. In the document after accounting entries of Oracle different modules are also provided for guidance