Oracle Applications: JDE, EBS, PSFT and ERP Cloud

Oracle shares a research note from Nucleus research.

Based on the matrix, from functionality perspective:

JDE > EBS > PSFT > ERP Cloud

From usability perspective:

JDE > ERP Cloud > EBS > PeopleSoft

Here are my observations:

Multiple Currencies in accounting systems

Almost all accounting systems support multiple currencies.

There are some key concepts about multiple currency support:

1. Revaluation

• The purpose is to ensure the account balance held in foreign currencies are represented with an accurate value in the base currency for financial reporting. This is required by GAAP.
  
• The amount needs to be adjusted because of the currency fluctuation.
  
• Revalue the account balance for balance sheet accounts (Asset and Liability), not the individual transactions.
• Currency revaluation typically happens in the period end, which is also considered as the reporting date.
• The exchange rate to be used is the spot at the end of period although sometime the accounting rule does allow the use of the average rate.
  
• Revaluation Gain or Lost adjusting entries should be posted to the base currency.
• The account balance amount will be adjusted by the adjusting entries.

2. Translation

• The purpose of translation is to translate the amount available from one base currency to the other base currency.
• Translation is typically part of the consolidation process.
• The account balances from the base currency of a company is 'translated' to the base currency of the parent company.
• The currency exchange rate to be used are the spot rates at the translation date (period-end date) for asset and liability balances and are the average rates for revenue and expense balances
  

PeopleSoft Tree Manager 8: Skip Level Tree

The PeopleSoft Tree Manager allows you to create a tree with some of the node skipping levels. Skipping level means that the parent child relationships are not strictly validated by the level the node belong to.

The Tree Levels are created as part of the tree instance, not as part of the tree structure. That is the tree levels can change from a tree version to the other version. The same Tree Name and SETID may have different level definitions.

You can add levels before you build the tree (by adding tree nodes to its parent nodes) or add levels during you build the tree.

When you build a tree, you can turn the display option "Display Level" on in order to see the levels.

You can then see the name of level for the tree node that you created or added to the tree. The level is default based on the level of the tree you add. You can change the " level" with any level below the assigned level and the tree manager will change the indentation for displaying theode tree.

Skipping level is a powerful feature for reporting.

PeopleSoft Tree Manager 7: The secret of the PSTREENODE table

The key table in the PeopleSoft Tree Manager data model is the PSTREENODE table.

The first three columns are the composite key of the table.

• TREE_NAME
• SETID
• EFFDT

This table looks like a normal parent child self-join table.

• TREE_NODE_NUM
• TREE_NODE
• PARENT_NODE_NUM
• PARENT_NODE_NAME

It seems nothing special. However, if you take a closer look, you will find that PeopleSoft Tree Manager have built the intelligence into the TREE_NODE_NUM number generation.

PeopleSoft Tree Manager 6: What are the names of the Tree tables?

The PEOPLESOFT blog provides a list of tables and their descriptions:

PeopleSoft Tree Manager 5: Winter Trees, Summer Tree, and Spring Trees

PeopleSoft application has a foundation called Tree Manager. It is the reusable component and design pattern widely used in PeopleSoft applications.

It has an interesting notions of Winter Tree, Summer Tree, and Spring Tree.

PeopleSoft Tree Manager 4: Tree Structure

A tree structure identifies fields that the tree is built on
A tree's Structure defines the link between the Tree nodes and the underlying tables the tree required.

PeopleSoft delivered one tree structure for each chartfield.

PeopleSoft Tree Manager 3: Terminology

Tree: A tree has a hierarchical structure. A tree is like the organization chart. It is visual representation of a set of values that are related to each other for the purpose of summarizing and security.

PeopleSoft Tree Manager 2: Tree and Date Effectivity

A tree always has a tree name. Some trees can have an effective date. It means that the entire tree becomes effective since that date. If two trees have the same name but different effective date, one tree will still be effective until the other tree becomes effective. As my previous posting pointed, PeopleSoft effective date support does not have the end date. A tree becomes ineffective if another effective tree with the same name exists.

In PeopleSoft Tree Manager, the individual relationships are NOT effective dated. Changes to the tree will be considered effective since the tree effective date.

The effective date at the tree level makes the tree can have multiple versions, each is effective for a period of time. If a historical image of the change needs to be kept, each change will need to be made in a copied of the entire tree even only a small branch of tree is changed.

PeopleSoft Tree Manager 1

PeopleSoft has the Tree Manager as a separate tool. It is part of the PeopleTool. When we go back to the day while PeopleSoft applications was a competing ERP apps with Oracle E-Business suite. PeopleTool Tree Manager is one of the key strength of PoepleSoft apps and the feature is used to compete against Oracle EBS. It demos very well.

Trees defined how the system groups values for reporting. It organizes and maintains the Chartfield values.

In PeopleSoft Financials, tree are used in consolidation and to organize the Chartfield values . In HR, trees are used in department security.

Hierarchy Manager in business applications

Manage a hierarchy is common seen in a business application. A hierarchy is a nature way to organize information. The file system organize the files by the tree like hierarchical structure. The Internet portal like Yahoo! started their business by providing the data structure in a tree like directory.

In business applications, the hierarchy is built for

• summarizing
• allocating
• defaulting
• looking up the business rules

Modeling the hierarchy in the data model and providing the tool to manage the hierarchy are thus required.

Here are some of commonly seen hierarchies within the enterprise applications:

Effective Dated Records in PeopleSoft

PeopleSoft application supports a the effective dated records throughout the system. PeopleTool provides the built-in functions to enable this feature for the selected records. They make the effective dated records very easy for developers to implement.

Effective dated records have the EFFDT field. The EFFDT field allows the user to enter a data ahead of time. For example, the GL accounts in PeopleSoft is effective dated. The user can design the GL accounts and create them in the system and make them not effective until next year. This is very useful since you do not want the users to rush to get the data into the system right before the next year.

The EFFDT column is part of the composite key for those tables.

Learning PeopleSoft Development Process

Recently I am working on building the PeopleSoft adapter for Oracle BI Applications. I need to drill into a certain level details of PeopleSoft application development for creating the new adapters. This is quite new experience for me.