Functional Overview - Oracle Procurement - r13-21D

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Oracle Procurement

Functional Overview
Table of contents

Procurement Solution Overview ................................................................................................................................................ 3


Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud................................................................................................................................... 4
Oracle Purchasing Cloud ............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Oracle Supplier Qualification Management Cloud ............................................................................................................. 14
Oracle Supplier Portal Cloud ..................................................................................................................................................... 17
Oracle Sourcing Cloud................................................................................................................................................................ 19
Identify Opportunity ...............................................................................................................................................................20
Initiate Sourcing Event ...........................................................................................................................................................20
Develop Specifications ........................................................................................................................................................... 21
Monitor Response .................................................................................................................................................................. 22
Analyze and Award Negotiations ....................................................................................................................................... 23
Finalize Contract and Ensure Utilization ........................................................................................................................... 23
Sourcing reporting capabilities ............................................................................................................................................ 24
Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud ....................................................................................................................................26
Author Contract & Ensure Policy Compliance ................................................................................................................ 26
Manage Deviations ................................................................................................................................................................. 27
Approve/ Accept Contract ................................................................................................................................................... 28
Link Deliverables ..................................................................................................................................................................... 28
Implement Spending Rules and Reporting capabilities................................................................................................ 29
Other relevant capabilities and features ...........................................................................................................................30

2 Oracle Procurement
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Procurement Solution Overview

Oracle Procurement Cloud, part of the integrated suite that is Oracle ERP Cloud, is designed to enable world
class spend management, maximize the value of business resources, and reduce the manual processes that
hinder procurement teams.

At the very highest level, there are two major areas of enterprise procurement that the Oracle Procurement
Cloud addresses, reducing the manual processes and inefficiencies found across both:

Strategic (upstream) - This includes working with suppliers and the broader market in sourcing, contracts,
supplier management, risk, and compliance activities.

Transactional (downstream) - This focuses on purchase requests, approvals, receipts, invoices, and payables,
by making resources like catalogs and self-service portals available to those in the organization that need
spend.

Strategic Operational / Transactional

Supplier Sourcing Contracts Supplier Self Purchasing Payables Reporting


Management Portal Service & Analytics

Oracle Procurement Cloud


Open at Oracle.com

3 Oracle Procurement
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Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud

Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud provides a user-friendly approach to managing requests for goods
and services. The application provides the best capabilities of consumer shopping web sites augmented with
tools to control spend. Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud delivers a friendly user experience that is
similar to the best consumer web sites. The interface delivers friendly and familiar web features such as
extensive search and filter capabilities, favorites, recent items, tagging and embedded learning for infrequent
users. With little or no training, employees can easily search, use shopping lists, browse categories, and find
what they need quickly.

Self-Service Procurement user interface

Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud includes a powerful search engine. Users can specify multiple search
criteria simultaneously to refine the search and quickly retrieve the data, they can use partial values,
wildcards, or logical operators such as “contains", "starts with", "less than", “equals”, predictive text, or recent/
favorite search.

By using Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud, users can create requisitions against a contract or against
the content of catalogues, which can be hosted either internally within the solution or held externally and
accessed via “punch-out” functionality.

The solution allows an organization to control and maintain budgets easily and flexibly with Budgetary
Control. Users can budget by any chart of account segment and by project dimension. The application allows
users to enforce budget constraints to eliminate overspending and prevent internal users from submitting
purchase requisitions for approval if there are insufficient funds. Budgeted funds can be reserved as early as
when a purchase requisition is approved or defer it until a purchase order is issued, depending on the unique
needs of the business. Requesters can preview funds available during transaction entry and engage budget
managers to resolve funds check failures.

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Free text requisitions are also supported, as is the use of recurring requisitions for repeat ordering. Oracle
Self Service Procurement Cloud helps the organization to streamline the purchase requisitioning process and
allow employee control in spending via the enforced procurement policy.

Capabilities like capture favorites and reuse of recurring requisitions reduce workload and repetitive tasks.
Users have the possibility to access personal shopping lists, which are collections of frequently ordered items
created by requesters. These lists allow the requester to quickly order items for which they often create
requisitions, effectively creating a "favorites list”.

Users will be also able to copy their own or other


users requisitions as needed via a standard
duplication capability for requisitions and Key Business benefits
purchase orders. In addition, User Requisition • Increase adoption with consumer -
Preferences can be set to specify default better and more intuitive user
information for creating requisitions. User experiences
preferences can include information such as:
• Ensure contract compliance by directing
default requisitioning business unit, shopping, purchases to approved suppliers
and delivery preferences as well default financial
• Ensure policy compliance with multilevel
coding elements such as cost center.
approval workflows
Authorized users can propose/perform changes • Minimize training
at any time on requisitions that have not yet been
• Reduce support costs
processed into purchase orders. After the PO has
been generated, requesters can amend the PO • Reduced maintenance
from the requisition, always subject to the buyer • Quickly identify and resolve user
approval. They can also delete them if necessary. problems
Changes may be subject to approval workflow
depending on how the business requirements
have been defined and a full audit trail is kept. Any number of attachments can be added to a requisition
both at header level and/or line-item level that are visible internally or externally to suppliers. The application
permits attachments of various types, including website URL, text values, desktop files, images, excel, etc.

The complete requisition and purchase order life cycle information is available to be viewed in a simple chart
display, combined with the ability for the user to drill down through the associated transactions e.g.,
Requisition > Order > Receipt > Invoice > Payment. This allows users to review the status of their requisition,
or any related transactions as required. In addition, all users can have access to the standard Procurement
dashboards and outputs where Business Intelligence reports and analyses can be consumed and worked
with. Data can be filtered and sorted as per any business requirement. A watch list can also be created to
track requisitions or purchase orders over a certain threshold.

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Procurement Dashboard – Requisition metrics

Oracle Self Service Procurement Cloud provides a rich process management framework with configurable
alerts and notifications capabilities for both transactions and composite business processes. Specifically, for
requisitions, users are provided with consolidated work lists and watch lists with notifications and alerts that
make it easy to identify areas requiring attention. Alerts and notifications can be setup to be generated both
in the application and via email for any key events as per business requirements.

Features at a glance

Powerful search Filter search results by category,


Catalog superstore
capabilities brand, and price

Best-in-class catalog Flexible accounting


Configurable approvals
management rules

Shopping lists Punchout catalogs Smart forms

Notes for approvers, buyers, and suppliers including


support for attachments

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Oracle Purchasing Cloud

Oracle Purchasing Cloud supports a flexible, controllable, yet simple to use purchasing process.

Buyer Intuitive landing page.

Creating purchase orders in Oracle Purchasing Cloud is a very flexible task. Purchase orders can be created
through conversion of one or more requisitions, or they may be created on their own. Additionally, purchase
orders can be created as an outcome of a sourcing negotiation or against a contract or they can be allocated
to contract lines and cost centers when created by users. Oracle Purchasing Cloud provides workflow driven
processes to maintain standards, ensure proper approval and keep full history.

Oracle Purchasing Cloud enables the processing of a variety of purchase order types as required by the
organization. Purchase orders can have one or more lines, which can originate from one or more
requisitions, and these lines may have different descriptions, delivery dates, charge accounts, etc. Different
delivery dates can be scheduled for different addresses and the purchase orders can be easily linked to
Projects if required as per the business requirements. In addition, users will be also able to attach
documentation and add notes to be communicated to the Supplier.

Oracle Purchasing Cloud also provides the capabilities for users to raise bulk orders where a single line is
created, and multiple goods receipts are posted against it over a period. The application also enables buyers
to consolidate requisition demand into fewer purchase orders by establishing order generation schedules for
requisitions sourced to supplier agreements. Organizations can define and set a schedule group for the
agreements with similar ordering frequency conditions. For example, define a schedule group called
"Thursdays" and associate agreements to be processed on Thursdays with that schedule group. The job can
be configured to run periodically. When the job runs, it will process only the requisitions sourced to
agreements with that schedule group.

Blanket purchase agreements are created when the details of the goods or services which users are planning
on buying have been identified over a given period. The agreed BPA specifies negotiated prices for

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items/services before purchasing them. Users can manage call off purchase requests for the specified
items/service at any time within the given period agreed in the BPA.

The approval workflow tool enables the organization to define various rules and approval workflows for
requisitions and purchasing documents. Within the approval workflow, users have a graphical view of the
approval chain relating to a given document, based on the pre-defined routing rules. Authorized users can
insert additional approvers and viewers, or they can delegate requisition approval in case of absence, out of
office etc., if required. Email notifications are then sent by the application to all approvers identified in the
workflow. The approvals can be performed directly via email or by clicking a hyperlink to approve the task
from within Oracle Purchasing Cloud. Approval rules can be defined based on business processes and
decisions, such as whether to route documents to approvers in serial or parallel, whether approvals should
be based on employee supervisory hierarchy, position hierarchy, job levels, or approval groups. Auto-
approval for certain orders can be also easily configured by leveraging the approval workflow application and
the auto approval process can be setup based on minimum value, category, or other specifics.

Users can amend or cancel the order at any point of time through the Change Order process. The current
version of the order is preserved and used as the source of truth for all downstream activities like receipts,
invoices, and sourcing against an agreement.

Users can communicate their purchase orders and agreements along with any amendments, attachments, to
suppliers using print, fax, or e-mail. Purchase orders can also be issued in PDF format and Suppliers can
access them also in the embedded Supplier portal. Purchase orders and attachments like Terms &
Conditions and other documentation can be easily printed and configured for printing in Oracle Purchasing
Cloud. The generated documentation is linked together and fully traceable in the application. The
procurement administrator can configure Oracle Procurement Cloud to use Oracle Fusion Collaboration
Messaging Framework for electronic business to business (B2B) communication with the suppliers. With
Collaboration Messaging Framework organizations can set up B2B communication to work within the
procure-to-pay business flow. Organizations can perform the configuration using the Collaboration
Messaging work area. Collaboration Messaging Framework provides ready-to-use integration with Oracle
Business Network and other predefined service providers. Messages can be enabled for inbound and
outbound communication. Attachments can be also communicated and the purchase order PDF with the
outbound purchase order and change order messages.

The Oracle Business Network (OBN) is a secure cloud-based business-to-business (B2B) collaboration
platform that automates electronic transactions between Oracle application customer's and their trading
partners. Participants on the OBN are only required to establish their own secure connection to the hub to
enable electronic communication on the platform. OBN facilitates electronic collaboration between trading
partners, and can be used to exchange business documents, manage the catalog punchout process and
enable transmission of catalog content from suppliers to their customers.

The organization can define and maintain their own order printout templates. Purchase order document
styles allow purchasing users to control the look and feel of the application to match the usage of the
purchasing document. Through reusable document styles, they can turn on or off various document
attributes, thereby simplifying the user interface to fit their business needs. Oracle Purchasing Cloud also
provides capabilities for users to setup different logos, name and address as required for the business
specifics.

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The Oracle Purchasing Cloud Budgetary Control feature proactively controls spending across the entire
procure-to-pay transaction lifecycle. The organization can prevent overspending with real-time checks and
reservations against budgets. Requesters and buyers can preview funds available during transaction entry
and engage budget managers to resolve funds check failures. Budgetary Control functionalities allow the
organization to keep better track of the company's spending by making sure sufficient funds are available
before a requisition/order is approved.

Click-Through:
Spend analytics - Maximize
cost savings
Open at Oracle.com

Oracle Purchasing Cloud provides a range of tools to support data validation checks and monitoring that can
be setup according to organization’s needs and help in preventing the submittal of incorrect documents that
might not follow the policies and rules. Error messages are issued via a pop-up window with a specific
message.

In addition, the Oracle Solution leverages the security principle based on privileges using the best practice of
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). Using RBAC application administrators control access to application
functions and data (create, read, update, delete), ensuring that users only see applications functions and
rows of data pertinent to their jobs. Administrators configure job roles that map to job functions (duties) and
data privileges. Separation of duties can be achieved by ensuring different users are allocated different roles
for each stage of a business process.

Spend Management
With Oracle Purchasing Cloud, organizations gain a more efficient, effective, and influential procurement
organization that helps keep costs under control by selecting the best suppliers, enforcing policy, and
managing supplier risk. Oracle Purchasing Cloud makes it possible to have both indirect and direct
procurement within one application to achieve full control of procurement process and spend control.
Additionally, spend controls based on categories can further enforce policies by automatically highlighting
them in approval notifications. By using procurement categories, the application can automatically allocate
default information to the purchase order such as a specific charge account, route it for approval, purchase
limits, etc.

Spend Classification is the tool that can be used to review any of the existing Oracle Procurement Cloud
(requisition, purchase order) spend data and either refine the accuracy of its current categorization or assign
a category for those transactions that are unclassified. Spend Classification allows batches of spend data to

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be reclassified into as many as five different customer-defined taxonomies, depending on the organization's
reporting needs. These updates can then be used to more accurately analyze the spend for the organization.

Spend Classification uses machine learning technology to process spend transactions and generate category
predictions. Spend Classification requires a data administrator to train the tool to generate category
predictions using a batch process that can be repeated as many times as is needed to yield satisfactory
results. To help reduce the time investment needed to prepare training data, the administrator can use an
automatic sampling algorithm that will analyze existing spend records for patterns and use this to generate
training set data that can be reviewed for accuracy. At a minimum, thirty to forty sample spend records will
be required for each spend category in order for the prediction engine to work properly.

Oracle Purchasing Cloud makes it easy for end-users to carry out real-time, ad-hoc multidimensional
analysis where operations like drilling down, rolling up, pivoting, slicing and dicing are natively supported.
The embedded reporting functionality within the application known as Oracle Transactional Business
Intelligence, or simply (OTBI) allows the creation of ad-hoc and routine reports, dashboards and embedded
analytics relating to all aspects of the procurement spend, including spend by category, supplier, department,
contract, cost center etc.

Procurement Dashboard

Oracle Procurement Cloud provides best in class capabilities and tools for the organization to be able to
efficiently manage the entire supplier life cycle, from supplier recruitment, through qualification, on boarding,
innovation opportunities and performance appraisal.

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Supplier registration to Supplier performance flow

The solution provides the ability to create, maintain and modify accurate supplier information across the
entire organization and based on the business needs. One single repository for all master data, available at all
times through the global Supplier Profile ensures a "single source of truth" and facilitates consistent sharing
of data across modules and processes.

Supplier registration can be initiated internally by internal authorized users (both manually and by mass
upload), but also initiated by the supplier by leveraging the supplier self-registration capabilities provided by
Oracle Purchasing Cloud (via a link from the organization’s website).

Both the internal and the self-registration processes can be easily tailored because the registration processes
and the approval flows associated with them are fully configurable. One-time suppliers (used for invoice
processing) can also be created in the supplier master and the application allows for the differentiation of a
regular supplier from a single purchase supplier via the one-time supplier option available in the supplier's
profile.

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Users can leverage Oracle DataFox Supplier Intelligence Cloud’s AI and natural language processing to create
and maintain accurate supplier profiles. Risk visibility is enhanced across the supplier lifecycle with
configurable alerts and scores.

Click-Through: Oracle
DataFox Supplier Intelligence
Cloud
Open at Oracle.com

The format of the registration forms can be tailored to capture as much information as possible and to cater
for the organization’s prerequisites. Standard data fields (like company name, tax registration number,
address etc.) are already configured and additional data can be captured using descriptive flex fields that can
be looked-up during searches and can also be used when generating reports. To enforce the policies and to
increase accuracy mandatory data fields can be set and data validation capabilities ensure duplicate
prevention and compliancy for the key data fields like bank details.

Simple or advanced supplier search capabilities


are provided as standard functionality, including
wildcards and predictive text functionalities. Key Business benefits
Searches can be also performed against Specific
• Streamline procurement processes
key fields or classifications that are set in the
master data to facilitate supplier search as per the • Enforce procurement policies
business requirements. • Create purchase orders from requisition
without manual intervention
Suppliers can be either Prospective or Spend
• Automatically leverage negotiated
Authorized. Prospective suppliers are suppliers
pricing and terms from supplier
that are not yet fully on boarded therefore, they
agreements
require minimal profile information to participate
to the bidding process and they can be promoted • Efficiently manage document revisions
with visual notifications and full change
to Spend Authorized if required. Independent of
history
their business relationship, ("Prospective" or
"Spend authorized") suppliers can be also setup
as "Active" or "Inactive”. The proposed solution
provides the capabilities to activate/ inactivate a supplier for payments only or for purchasing only.

Several supplier categories can be assigned to one supplier. Suppliers can be classified by any classification
as the organization wishes to use. In Oracle Purchasing Cloud users can build a multi-level purchasing
category structure, (e.g., IT-Hardware-Laptop-Mouse). These products and service categories can be linked
to supplier profiles, for the organization to know what categories of items and services the supplier provides.

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In addition, the application has an Approved Supplier List (ASL) that can be used to control which item or
categories of items can be procured from which suppliers.

Oracle Purchasing Cloud offers a central database where supplier data is stored. The unified supplier record
stores both financial and purchasing details. Each supplier master record keeps information such as general
details (supplier name and type, tax organization, creation date, etc.), organization details (D-U-N-S Number,
corporate web site, etc.), products and services that the supplier sells, tax details (e.g., VAT and CIS), payment
details, etc. Oracle Purchasing Cloud offers rapid access to supplier information. The Suppliers Work area
overview page contains reports that highlight supplier issues requiring attention and provides easy access to
maintain and update supplier records. Notes and attachments can also be added to the supplier profiles.

The Oracle Purchasing Cloud master supplier capabilities enable the configuration of multiple locations and
contacts for a supplier. Contact details may include several locations, and one or more contact persons with
various roles for each location, if applicable. Contact details can include information such as e-mail address,
phone number, and job title.

Maintenance of supplier data can be performed by the Supplier themselves through the embedded Supplier
portal and/or by internal staff by direct input to the application. The changes performed are subject to
configurable approval flows ensuring compliance and audit policies are followed.

Features at a glance

Buyer work area Robust change Center-driven procurement


management

Comprehensive Support for centralized, decentralized and Foreign currencies


lifecycle visibility hybrid procurement organizations

Global
Multiple languages Streamlined order processing
agreements

Control approvals by amount, business unit, account


segment, item, category, and location

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Oracle Supplier Qualification Management Cloud

Oracle Supplier Qualification Management Cloud is a comprehensive qualification management application


designed to improve supplier compliance, data accuracy and visibility.

Oracle Supplier Qualification Management Cloud, an integral part of Oracle’s Procurement Cloud solution,
provides a complete solution for managing suppliers’ qualifications and capabilities, including monitoring
compliance with business policies, requirements and storing any supporting documentation.

Oracle Supplier Qualification Management Cloud allows users to build questionnaires to gather supplier
information that is critical to the business. These online surveys can capture information from suppliers
directly as well as from internal stakeholders (e.g., employee, buyer, procurement manager). The application
keeps the latest supplier qualification information and helps users determine the status of all assigned
qualifications. In addition, when initiating a sourcing event, users can utilize existing supplier qualification
information to build supplier invitation list.

Supplier Qualification Model

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Oracle Supplier Qualification Management Cloud provides multiple predefined reports such as Qualifications
for suppliers, Pending questionnaire responses, Pending question responses for a qualification area,
Suppliers by purchase orders and qualification details, Track progress for qualifications, but additional
reports could be created and/or configured using reporting tools such as Oracle BI Publisher and Oracle
Transactional Business Intelligence.

After a supplier has been onboarded, Oracle


DataFox Supplier Intelligence Cloud allows
organizations to continually monitor them for Key Business benefits
risks that may affect the ability of doing business
• Ensure suppliers comply with corporate
with them. Procurement organizations often policies
conduct periodic assessments to qualify their
• Improve visibility to key supplier
suppliers. Since supplier risks tend to arise with
characteristics and capabilities
little warning, companies also need a way to
augment their risk management programs with • Reduce risk of supplier-related issues
timely information that enables them to detect • Improve sourcing decisions by
and respond to emerging risks. Oracle DataFox considering relevant supplier factors
Supplier Intelligence Cloud enables procurement
managers to continually monitor potential risks in
their supply base. Delivered through Oracle Procurement Cloud, user-defined indicators, such as
continuously updated risk scores and alerts that are based on specific events, provide up-to-date actionable
insights into potential supplier issues.

Oracle Procurement Cloud provides several ways in which users can receive alerts and risk scores at specific
time intervals. User-configured risk scores use attributes and weighting criteria defined by company’s specific
needs. The scoring model can be configured quickly and intuitively by selecting from an extensive list of
attributes and weighting values. In addition to risk scores, DataFox Supplier Intelligence Cloud provides the
ability to monitor potential risk through signals and alerts.

In addition, periodic supplier performance evaluation is done using embedded reporting and analytics where
Oracle Purchasing Cloud provides the framework to rapidly develop procurement reports, spend analysis
reports, supplier management reports, key performance indicators (KPIs) and dashboards. Supplier
Performance Analytics enables the organization to have a complete picture of the performance of their
suppliers, including complete supplier scorecards, supplier price performance, delivery performance, product
receipt quality, on-time payment ratings, payment activity and volume and payments due / overdue analysis.
Reports can also be drilled down into a Supplier Site, Category, and Item level. Specific colors can be assigned
to criteria and a final report on a supplier may be forwarded to the appropriate supplier automatically using BI
Publisher, on specifically scheduled times.

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Features at a glance

Manage important Organize supplier data


Survey suppliers with easy-to-use
supplier qualification into meaningful
online questionnaires
information qualifications

Save questions in the Evaluate specific


Score suppliers automatically based
library for future re- qualification areas and
on predefined criteria
use assess suppliers

Use qualification data


Leverage internal and Take actions to respond to recent
in supplier research
external data sources activity
and RFx invitation lists

Receive alerts when relevant supplier information Receive early notifications on expiring
becomes available qualifications

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Oracle Supplier Portal Cloud

Oracle Procurement Cloud incorporates a Supplier Portal, enabling the organization to provide suppliers a
secure, self-service, fully integrated work area to engage with the organization.

Fig. Supplier portal

Oracle Supplier Portal Cloud provides a variety of capabilities including full enquiry and visibility of
transactions, closed loop collaboration, profile details maintenance, and options for the creation of invoices
(using a facility known as “PO Flip”). Any changes/ actions performed by the supplier can be subject to
custom approval flows and notifications as per the policies and business specifics.

Supplier catalogue authoring is a key capability of Oracle Purchasing Cloud, allowing suppliers to maintain
item pricing and descriptions with minimal intervention by procurement staff, but fully supported with
approval workflow prior to any updated catalogue information being published out to end users.

Active suppliers can easily manage their contact and business details to ensure they are current, and the
organization will be able to automate the collection and appraisal of pertinent information from suppliers,
both initially and on an ongoing. All supplier
change requests are tracked, routed, and
approved to ensure controls are maintained. The Key Business benefits
organization will be able to limit/ customize the
• Improve communications with suppliers
supplier’s access to information according to the
policies and business requirements. • Deliver best in class supplier
collaboration
In Oracle Supplier Portal Cloud, suppliers can
• Easy supplier setup and support
create invoices online, or 'Flip' from the Purchase
Order details, adding any attachments or other • Reduce errors and inquiries
information such as freight costs, tax, and • Faster issue resolution
miscellaneous charges to easily create accurate

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invoices. Invoices are automatically routed and matched to open purchase orders, ensuring compliance to all
policies.

Features at a glance

Web based supplier self- Supplier profile self- Consolidated supplier work
service management area

Supplier agreement Supplier change order Electronic invoice


collaboration management presentment

Information driven user


Embedded learning
experience

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Oracle Sourcing Cloud

https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/s/quicktours/scm/gqt-scm-prc-sourcing/index.html

An integral part of Oracle Procurement Cloud is the Oracle Sourcing Cloud module that provides the next
generation application for smarter negotiation.

Smart Sourcing

The application provides a flexible sourcing and tendering solution that can be configured to support
whatever style of procurement exercise is required. Oracle Sourcing Cloud inspires adoption, improves
performance and simplifies sourcing processes by providing users with an intuitive user interface and
powerful analysis tools. It drives supplier competition and provides comprehensive tools to help achieve cost
savings resulting in increased business performance. The entire sourcing process is fully auditable and user’s
access to functionalities is enforced by Oracle’s Role Based Access application. The Oracle Sourcing Cloud
module is fully integrated with the other Procurement modules.

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Identify Opportunity
The proposed solution provides the intelligence needed to help professionals uncover savings opportunities.
It provides a timely understanding of spending patterns, employee expenses, and supplier performance. It
uses state-of-the-art analytics to pinpoint top opportunities, monitor trends, and deliver performance metrics
across an organization’s heterogeneous applications.

Oracle’s Cloud ability to drive savings doesn’t stop with analytics. It delivers role-based dashboards that
prioritize procurement actions. It consolidates worklists and watch lists and makes it easy for procurement
professionals to identify areas requiring attention. With sourcing programs, organizations have a way to set
measurable goals across sourcing initiatives and proactively determine whether those goals are being met.
Users can define goals with tangible objectives that are tied to negotiations and enter other data that
contributes to the objective can proactively measure and monitor program progress and results with
embedded analytics for key metrics. Being able to track and manage sourcing programs yields visibility into
how the sourcing organization is performing, improves buyer productivity, and helps identify cost-savings
opportunities.

Initiate Sourcing Event


Oracle Sourcing Cloud greatly simplifies the negotiation process by guiding the users step-by-step through a
negotiation. Oracle Sourcing Cloud enables the users to easily create negotiations, apply proper regulations
and best practices through pre-defined negotiation templates and approvals that facilitate automation. Users
can tailor the negotiation to their needs, leverage information from past events, and collaborate with
individuals from across the organization. As a result, the organization can reduce the negotiation cycle time
and achieve savings more quickly.

Within the application, there are three types of negotiations: auction (response type - bid), RFI (response), or
RFQ (quote). The proposed solution also enables users to create a two stage RFQ. This process involves the
submission of quotes in two separate sealed envelopes. One contains what is called the technical quote, and
the other contains what is called the commercial quote.

In addition, Oracle Sourcing Cloud also supports 'negotiation abstract' functionality, enabling the organization
to advertise negotiations from there, or any other, external website. This advertisement gives suppliers an
equal opportunity to learn about purchases and determine if they want to participate. Suppliers can then
register via a URL to participate in the procurement activity. The organization can proactively measure and
monitor program progress and results with embedded analytics for key metrics. Being able to track and
manage sourcing programs yields visibility into how the sourcing organization is performing, improves buyer
productivity, and helps identify cost-savings opportunities.

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Develop Specifications
Sourcing excellence requires combining the specialized skills of procurement professionals and subject
matter experts by leveraging their expertise and gathering feedback. Online collaboration makes it easy for
experts in specific areas to lend their expertise to the sourcing process.

Manage team scoring

Certain types of negotiations demand visibility control of pricing information from supplier responses. In
scenarios where team members need to evaluate supplier responses without consideration for price, the
category manager can restrict their access to pricing information. This restriction ensures that pricing
information is only available for the appropriate team members. Users can control the price visibility for team
members in any type of negotiation, including two-stage request for quotes (RFQs). Users can download the
requirements attachments organized by sections. Team members can score requirements offline by
downloading the scoring spreadsheet.

By using the Supplier Portal functionalities, suppliers can also benefit from an intuitive user interface so they
can quickly engage and respond to negotiations. Suppliers are provided with a comprehensive overview of
sourcing activity that makes it easy for them to take action. By reducing the effort to train suppliers
companies can focus on what’s important: getting the most value for their organization.

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Supplier Portal

Having visibility to sourcing activity is paramount to ensuring that organizations are exploiting the largest
opportunities with the best available talent. Oracle Sourcing Cloud gives users visibility into sourcing activities
and key metrics to help drive sourcing effectiveness. They can drill down into recent sourcing activities and
keep informed of the latest actions.

Monitor Response
The negotiation monitor can be used to accurately assess the competitive landscape and potential savings.
Immediately, users can quickly see how a negotiation is progressing and take actions such as extend or
pause an auction.

Monitor Negotiation

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Analyze and Award Negotiations
With Oracle Sourcing Cloud, everyone has the visibility they need and the collaborative tools to get things
done. Leaving savings on the table is not an option. Manually compiling and comparing supplier proposals
can be time consuming and ineffective. Oracle Sourcing Cloud provides users with award analysis tools
which allow users to quickly determine the best award decision for the business based on factors such as
price, quality, and value.

Award Analysis

Users can view supplier responses side-by-side with graphical tools to show the procurement managers
which responses best meet their business needs. They can also export their award information for offline
spreadsheet analysis. Once they finalize their award decision, users can submit their award for approval.
Flexible award methods enable the organization to arrive at the best possible award based on their unique
business requirements.

Finalize Contract and Ensure Utilization


Oracle Sourcing Cloud also makes it easier to capitalize on opportunities. It provides integrated sourcing and
contract management to help negotiate enforceable agreements. By integrating e-sourcing with universal
contract standards, a universal contract repository, and universal search, it provides visibility into contracts
while standardizing collaboration and compliance. Users can seamlessly create an enterprise contract for
each supplier from Sourcing. This allows the users to negotiate terms upfront, and pass the terms, line items,
pricing, and quantities finalized during negotiation award to the contract document in the Contracts
application.

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Sourcing reporting capabilities
Using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) ad hoc reporting capability supplied within the
application, users will have access to real time pre-configured analysis of sourcing data and transactional
procurement data in general. The solution allows users to report on data from awards, negotiations,
responses to analyses negotiations. Moreover, users can tailor these reports and create new reports to suit
their specific requirements using OTBI. All users can have access to the standard Procurement dashboards
and outputs where Business Intelligence reports and analyses can be consumed and worked with. For
instance, every user can have their personalized dashboard with his/ her important key Sourcing metrics
organized in form of boxes that can be arranged as the user pleases. Data can be viewed, sorted, filtered, or
sliced by any data dimension or attribute within the solution.

Sourcing Dashboard

Procurement organizations are challenged to provide tangible results based on internal goals to help
measure sourcing performance. Currently, there is limited visibility into the overall value delivered by multiple
sourcing initiatives and a lack of insight into results.

With sourcing programs, organizations have a way to set measurable goals across sourcing initiatives and
proactively determine whether those goals are being met. Organizations can define goals with tangible
objectives that are tied to negotiations and enter other data that contributes to the objective.

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A Sourcing Program provides a way for organizations to set specific measurable savings and spend goals,
group various sourcing initiatives together under
a single program to achieve the set goals, track
progress, and record results across negotiations. It Key Business benefits
provides visibility to performance metrics at a
• Lower costs
higher program level as well as granular
negotiation level. Thus, the customer can obtain a • Collaborate for better results
holistic view of the organization's achievements. • Enhance negotiation strategies

Organizations can create a wide variety of types of • Streamline supplier negotiation process
programs. Examples include creating a program • Drive competitive behavior from
based on a commodity, category, department suppliers
and/or timeframe. The program can be even • Minimize training and ongoing support
track by Category Manager for performance, etc.
• Determine best award decisions

Features at a glance

Guided negotiation Online supplier Re-usable negotiation styles and


creation negotiations templates

Question library for Multiple question Alternate lines Two-stage


requirements types and proposals RFQ

Team scoring Sourcing programs Abstracts to publish to external website

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Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud

Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud provides the next generation application for superior contract
management allowing the organization to gain complete visibility into agreements, shorten cycle-times and
manage compliance.

Contract to Spend Compliance.

Author Contract & Ensure Policy Compliance


Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud helps users to create quality contracts faster and reduce risk with
consistent enterprise standards, policies that govern their use and flexible tools. Users can boost contract
quality by ensuring that their contract creators adhere to established contracting policies. They can use
flexible approval rules to ensure that every contract gets reviewed appropriately. The contract module comes
with a unique central contract repository fully integrated with sourcing, catalogue, and purchase orders.

Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud expedites the contracting process by automating these rules and
policies, enabling contract authors and legal department to focus energy on higher-value and higher-risk
areas while streamlining routine agreements. The application allows users to execute best practices
consistently across all their contracting activity by establishing a library of standard contract terms and
preapproved templates. Users can embed the contract variables based on the supplier into the contract
terms.

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Regional administrators can tailor standards for local regulations and translate them to a local language.
Templates also provide consistent style and layout. Completed contracts may be output in PDF, hardcopy, or
Microsoft Word format for consistent printing or email transmission.

Having visibility and staying on top of contract activity helps users to maximize the value of negotiated
agreements. Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud allows them to quickly find contracts and related
documents through structured search terms, free-text string searches, contract tags, as well as through
enterprise-wide search engines. In addition to tracking the legal contract document, users can connect to the
underlying purchasing agreement transaction in their execution application. This allows them complete
visibility both to the contract itself and to its usage activity.

The look and feel of the section and clause icons in the contract terms tree have been updated thus making
the overall UI experience more consistent, simplified, and visually engaging.

Users can use the Edit Contract page to view the source document used for creating a buy contract. The Edit
Contract page also lets users navigate to the source document from the contract document and each of the
contract lines.

In addition, the application allows users to specify contract risks by selecting the risk type, probability of such
risk occurring, impact of such a risk, and any other relevant comments. They can record the occurrence of
any of these contracts risks by entering the date of occurrence for the contract risk, at any point of time.
Recording contract risks helps organization to prepare for potential problems. It does not affect contract
processing. Entering or editing contract risk information does not require users to amend the contract.

Manage Deviations
Users will undoubtedly encounter situations while negotiating where they or the supplier need to change the
terms. Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud captures these updates easily in Microsoft Word and, more
importantly, recognizes them as requiring special attention during the review and approval process. They can
automatically add additional approvers, summarize the important deviations from standard policy and to
track the deliverables and service level agreements captured in the contract over its life, ensuring realization
of the negotiated benefits.

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Approve/ Accept Contract
Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud provides a standard integration for electronic signature using the 3rd
party DocuSign eSignature solution. Based on the Contract Type, documents are sent to the Suppliers for
signature and after signing are attached to the contract. Integrating DocuSign (3rd party solution) with
process creates a complete, reliable, and integrated solution that ensures compliance of business practices
and legal standards. It uses standards-based technologies and supports comprehensive integration patterns
spanning UI, data, security, web service, Java Cloud, DB Cloud, and more.

Fig. DocuSign integration

Link Deliverables
Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud allows users to create fulfilment lines for their contracts, which make it
possible for users to track goods, services, reports, and other fulfilment items they are purchasing.
Depending on the type of contract they are creating, users can use contract fulfilment lines to initiate the
creation of purchase orders or purchase agreements within Oracle Purchasing Cloud or in other integrated
purchasing applications and monitor their execution from within the contract. The contract must be active
before initiating the creation of the purchasing documents and include details related to the item, amount,
start/ end date, type, owner, remaining amount, etc.

Contract deliverables can be used to establish and track both contractual and non-contractual commitments
that must be honored as part of negotiations and contractual agreements between businesses and suppliers
or customers based on contract intent. These deliverables can be used in enterprise contracts, purchasing
documents, and in negotiations. Through contract deliverables users will be able to record the status of the
tasks, keep everyone notified of past and future deadlines and use the functional workspace as a repository
of the deliverable documents themselves.

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For example, suppliers agreeing to supply a monthly report can log in to their sourcing portal and attach the
report or ask for an extension. If they fail to respond by the specified deadline, the deliverable can trigger an
automatic notification that the deliverable is overdue.

Implement Spending Rules and Reporting capabilities


Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud enables the organization to automate order creation from contract
suppliers. By leveraging embedded Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence reporting tool users can
monitor leakage via dashboard driven view of contract utilization vs. terms, leakage & KPI.

Contract fulfillment makes it possible to track goods, services, reports and other fulfillment items purchased
in buy-intent contracts. Depending on the type of contract, organizations can use contract fulfillment to
initiate the creation purchase orders or purchase agreements within Oracle Purchasing Cloud or in other
integrated purchasing applications and monitor their fulfillment from within the contract.

Organizations can specify which internal contacts are automatically notified about contract fulfillment
milestones and when. Different notification types are available for different fulfillment types. The internal
contacts can be notified when: a purchasing document is created from one or more fulfillment lines, the
purchasing activity is complete for a fulfillment line, the purchasing document creation fails for the
fulfillment, the fulfillment line is placed on hold and with specified number of days before or after the
fulfillment due date.

Oracle Procurement Contracts Cloud enables contract professionals to search and view all contracts from a
single location. The Contracts Dashboard provides a snapshot of all contracts-related activities, including
deliverables progress, approvals, and contracts that need attention.

Contract Dashboard

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Additionally, by leveraging the embedded
reporting tool, users can use pre-defined or
custom Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence Key Business benefits
(OTBI) reports that will include all the relevant data • Improve compliance and reduce risk
that might need to see.
• Improve standardization and negotiation
Reports can be built with ease, to match the exact best-practices
requirements of a particular business requirement • Manage contracts in a single searchable
and may subsequently be saved and shared, so it repository
can easily be run again whenever needed. All • Highlight proposed changes and
listed reports available in OTBI can furthermore be deviations
assigned to the user dashboard, for ease of use.
• Streamline contract creation
• Pre-populated templates simplify
contract creation
Other relevant capabilities and
• Standard terms and conditions with
features approved alternate language
As part of the solution, Oracle Procurement • Contract Expert guides the process and
Contracts Cloud provides a set of best practice inserts additional clauses to make sure
alerts and notifications. Each user will have access appropriate language is included
to role-defined dashboards and when logging in, • Releases Legal to focus on more
the notifications that require action will be clearly complex cases
visible to advise the user. The application also • Clause analysis identifies risky or
includes functionality to allow users to set up frequently modified language
email alerts (reminders) to notify them of key
• Rules based on simple logic operators
events in the contract lifecycle e.g., renewals,
approvals, contract changes, contract expiry, • Clause and template selection rules help
contract review meetings etc. ensure accuracy of contract language
• Policy deviation rules flag exceptions
Within the proposed solution, contracts from standards
categorization is possible by using out-of-the-box
• Streamline contract creation using pre-
categories, but users can also create their own
populated templates
contract categories as per any business
requirements. In addition to these, descriptive flex • The overall UI experience is more
fields can be added by the internal users, to the consistent, simplified, and visually
engaging
contract document to add even more capabilities
in the categorization area. Moreover, access to • Automatic Contract creation from
read the contract can be limited for different user Negotiations
groups based on the contract category or legal • Allows multiple templates for different
company. contract types or specific business unit
requirements

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Features at a glance

Guided Enterprise Guided procurement Microsoft Word add-in for improved


contract management contract creation authoring and collaboration

Drag and drop contract Fully searchable Amendments


Deliverable tracking
authoring repository tracking

Manage Simplified
Contract deviations Renewal
Contract Terms as a Digital signatures
management notifications
Docx file

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