Recently, Oracle announced that Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) Release 12.2.12 was now available for consumption, delivering a plethora of new functional innovations centered mainly on industry-focused features and cross-industry investments.
As with every release, we’ll give you the inside scoop on what’s the latest and greatest in EBS, covering every innovation made across the key categories of Modern User Experience, Functional Innovation, and Operational Efficiency.
In addition, you can hear directly from Cliff Goodwin’s announcement by heading over to this video where he breaks down the details of the new Oracle EBS 12.2.12 updates, along with the latest updates on EBS Enterprise Command Centers (ECC) for November 2022.
Let’s get going!
Oracle EBS Updates in April 2022
Back in April 2022, Oracle announced the EBS Enterprise Command Centers Update along with three Oracle EBS Cloud Manager Updates (22.1.1 – March 2022, 22.2.1 – September 2022, and 22.2.1.1 – October 2022). This carries out the expected pattern of consistent new releases that pair well with Oracle’s Continuous Innovation pledge for Oracle EBS Release 12.2, which commits the tech giant to deliver ongoing application and technology updates without requesting clients to perform a major upgrade.
What does this mean, specifically? Clients who are already upgraded to any version inside Oracle EBS Release 12.2 will no longer have to worry about performing major upgrades as their upgrade to Release 12.2 is their last major upgrade. Additionally, and importantly, clients on Release 12.2 of Oracle EBS will continue to enjoy ongoing Oracle Premier Support for Oracle EBS until at least 2033 with yearly increments to the support timeline.
Enterprise Command Center Updates for Oracle EBS
What started in 2018, is now a staple of modern Oracle EBS: Enterprise Command Centers (ECC). ECCs continue to garner plenty of investment and attention from Oracle, and as of November 2022, there are now over 135 new ECC dashboards across different Oracle EBS product areas, including:
- Financial Management: General Ledger, Receivables, iReceivables, Payables, Assets, Lease Contracts (Financials), Lease and Finance Management.
- Order Management and Logistics: Order Management, Inventory Management, Advanced Pricing, iStore, Landed Cost Management, Channel Revenue Management, Incentive Compensation.
- Asset Lifecycle and Service: Enterprise Asset Management, Asset Tracking, Service Contracts, Service (TeleService), Field Service, Depot Repair.
- Procurement and Projects: iProcurement, Procurement, Projects, Project Procurement, Contract Lifecycle Management for Public Sector.
- Manufacturing: Bills of Material, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing,
- Outsourced Manufacturing, Project Manufacturing, Cost Management, Quality.
- Human Capital Management: Human Resources, Payroll.
The April and November 2022 ECC updates presents and expands the strategic scope with the introduction of new command centers, dashboards, and updates to existing dashboards, including:
- 2 New Command Centers
- General Ledger Command Center (November 2022)
- Bills of Materials Command Center (April 2022)
- 6 New Dashboards in Existing Command Centers
- Cost Management: Margin Analysis
- Inventory: Physical Inventory
- Order Management: Returns
- Projects: Investment Turn
- Lease & Finance Management: Cash Flow Management
- Human Resources: Person Reporting Hierarchy
- 7 Track and Trace Dashboards
- Inventory: Inventory Track & Trace
- Discrete Manufacturing: Genealogy & Trace
- Process Manufacturing: Genealogy & Trace
- Project Manufacturing: Track & Trace
- Outsourced Manufacturing: Track & Trace
- Quality: Quality Track & Trace
- Service: Service History Diagram
There are also significant ECC improvements to the framework, including:
- Network Diagram Enhancements, including Hierarchical View
- Timeline Viewer and Timeline in Diagram
- Pivot Tables, including Pivot Dynamic Behavior
- Dynamic Date Buckets, Date Calculation, Relative Date Filters
- Default Saved Search
- Key Flexfield Support
- Inline Views
More and more, E-Business Suite users can start their sessions with command center dashboards that let them browse and drill down on key indicators, charts, and graphs and use consumer-like search and filters to quickly find and act on their top business priorities.
With command centers, E-Business Suite users have a better and more productive experience, and the IT department has less need for custom operational reports. Thankfully, Enterprise Command Centers are easy to set up and are free for licensed users of the E-Business Suite products they are based on. You must be running Oracle EBS 12.2.4 or higher to deploy the command centers, but you don’t have to be running one of the latest 12.2.X release levels, like 12.2.12, to get the latest command center updates.
Oracle EBS 12.2.12 Enhancements
Specific to different product families within Oracle EBS, there were several noteworthy enhancements that make this the best release of Oracle EBS as of now. Let’s explore some of these innovations and enhancements.
General Ledger Command Center [ECC November 2022 Update] – the new General
Ledger Command Center, generally applicable to most Oracle EBS clients, helps:
- Understand journal processing
- Enhance account analysis
- Review subledger details at a granular level
- Optimize the accounting cycle
Property Manager: Lease Versions and Approval Workflow [EBS 12.2.12] – This update helps clients figure out how proposed lease changes will affect finances before agreeing to them.
G-Invoicing for US Federal Program Agencies [EBS 12.2.10 – 12.2 .12] – G-Invoicing is the long-term way for Federal Program Agencies to handle their Buy/Sell transactions with other parts of the government. Since 2020, Oracle has worked with requesting and servicing agencies that use EBS to help them with G-Invoicing in both Projects and Procurement. In 2022, the U.S. Federal Government started using G-Invoicing on a large scale.
Inventory Management Command Center [ECC April 2022 and November 2022 Updates] – The Inventory Management Command Center helps users prioritize and speed up materials management tasks.
Returns for internal sales orders in order management and inventory [EBS 12.2.11 — 12.2.12] – There is a formal way to return materials to the organization that sent them, which makes it easier to handle internal sales orders (ISOs). The process includes keeping an eye on things that are in transit.
Order Management/Inventory: Cancellations for Internal Sales Orders (ISOs) [EBS 12.2.12] – Improvements to the fulfillment and shipping of internal sales orders (ISOs) make it possible to cancel orders that are already in progress and get materials back into stock.
Inventory: Inter-Org Transfers of Consigned Materials [EBS 12.2.12] – Consigned materials are items that belong to the supplier but are stored at a customer facility. When the materials are used up, the customer becomes the owner, not the supplier. Examples of common uses are:
- Distributors
- Manufacturers for raw materials and parts used in the process of making something
- Service providers of spare parts
With 12.2.12, you can now move consigned items from one inventory organization to another without taking ownership of the items. For instance, you can get tires sent to your distribution center and then send them to a specific service station without taking ownership.
Order Management: Archive Sales Orders [EBS 12.2.12] – New features make it easier to get rid of closed or canceled sales orders, such as:
- Archive orders instead of getting rid of them right away
- Get sales orders that have already been saved
- Purge sales orders straight from the archive
Discrete Manufacturing: Support for Two Units of Measure (UOM) for Assembly and Component Items [EBS 12.2.12] – Oracle EBS now supports two units of measure for assembly and component items for discrete manufacturers. Clients can also track inventory in both the primary and secondary units of measure. With the new features, clients can buy and sell items in two different units of measure in the Mobile Supply Chain App and interfaces.
Clearance Instructions [EBS 12.2] for Process Manufacturing MES .12] – The new feature called “clearance instructions” has been added to help clients have more control over production tasks that need to follow rules or be closely watched for several reasons.
Enhanced Quality Management in iSupplier Portal, EAM, and Receiving [EBS 12.2.10–12.2.12] – Improved how Quality Management works with iSupplier Portal, Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), and Receiving. Benefits include more help with collecting quality data and support for Electronic Records and Electronic Signatures (ERES).
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM): Functional Asset Hierarchy [EBS 12.2.12] – Clients can now use different “functional asset hierarchies” to manage enterprise assets. Clients can group maintenance tasks together using different functional asset hierarchies.
Indoor Maps of Assets in Buildings for Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) [EBS 12.2.12] – A new workbench makes it easy to see and manage enterprise assets on an indoor map. The Indoor Map Workbench works with the ESRI ArcGIS Indoors service and lets you set up and display map layers. It lets you look for assets, work orders, and work requests, as well as make work requests and work orders for assets.
These innovations and enhancements are a glimpse into the numerous ways Oracle has invested to deliver the golden standard of Enterprise Resource Planning applications, Oracle EBS. To learn more about the full list of innovations, visit this site.
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