Keith Ewen

This is a presentation on how I implemented the integration between Salesforce and Oracle E-Business Suite. It highlights areas of concern, e.g., security and suggestions on how an implementation could be done.

After acquiring multiple companies over the years, the IT department had a separate app and database tier for each acquired company's time and attendance system.

The number of companies that could be added to this model was at the limit of what the IT department could support. With a new proposed merger that would add an additional 21 divisions, a new solution was required for the time and attendance system.

As each individual time and attendance system had not diverged very much over the years, I developed a proof of concept to consolidate all of the databases into a single database using the virtual private database (VPD) technology. After extensive performance testing, this solution was adopted and additional divisions were added.

As part of an accounts receivable implementation, we discovered that many customers needed statements in a specific format (e.g., CVS, XML, EDI, consolidated for selected locations within a group, or individual statements for each location and type of delivery method).

I redesigned the solution, developed the statement process, and reduced the run for the statement process from 30+ hours to four hours. This reduction in time was achieved by performance tuning the SQL statements and rewriting the PL/SQL to be more efficient.

When a client reached a particular stage within the sales cycle in Salesforce, they then needed to be interfaced into Oracle E-Business Suite. Once complete, it could be maintained via either system, but any update also had to be uploaded to the other one.

Our main goals were to ensure a correct update sequence and that once updated, it did not cause the update to be sent back to the source system. For example, a Salesforce update needed to be applied to the Oracle E-Business Suite system, however, it shouldn't also double-back and attempt to update the Salesforce system. To prevent this type of double-backing of updates, I designed a solution that made sure that the updates only interfaced with the target system.

When a purchase requisition was created for a non-catalog item, the approval routing would be based on the information provided in the purchase requisition.

I designed and developed the procedures to be used by Oracle E-Business Suite's approval management engine (AME) to route the requisition. The routings included FYI notifications, parallel, and serial approvers; and once the requisition had been fully approved it would automatically create the purchase order.

After a merger, it was necessary for a list of customers to be imported into E-Business suite from an MDM solution. I designed and developed the customer import process using Oracle EBS standard trading community APIs for the initial customer load and ongoing data maintenance.

Typically when a customer placed an order, some items would be sourced locally and others would be sent to a third party for shipment.

I designed and developed the solution to send the required items to the third-party supplier and receive updates on the status of the delivery. The status of the order in EBS needed to be maintained to reflect the status of the third-party delivery so that the the order could be invoiced on completion of the shipment from either the third-party supplier and/or the internal warehouse. The confirmation of the shipment by the third-party supplier would also cause an AP invoice to be created.