How to Create Custom Customer Statement Report??

Business Requirements

Client business needs to generate and send the statements with outstanding balance to their customers. Oracle eBS provides the functionality to generate the statement from ‘Receivables’ application:

Receivables > Print Documents > Statements

However, the output generated by the program (AR Customer Balance Statement Letter) needs to be formatted as per the business standard layout and additionally the output needs to be emailed to the customers based on the registered contacts.

Build Constraints

Following section describes the seeded process and the constraints around the extension to cater the requirements.

Study of the Seeded Process

Once the application user enters the statement data from the ‘Print Statement’ form and ‘Submit’ the program, it submits the ‘Statement Generation Program’ concurrent request.

This is a ‘Spawn’ process and it populates the temp tables based on the data entered by the user in the form.

Finally it submits the ‘AR Customer Balance Statement Letter’. This is a java concurrent program which executes the query in the temp table and generates the PDF output as per Oracle defined template. The SQL query is attached as a XML data template in its data definition in ‘XML Publisher Administrator’.

The data in the temp table is purged once the process is completed.

The navigation to Submit Customer Statement Print Documents -> Statements

Select the Operating Unit and then Select Cycle and Statement Date and Click Submit. It actually Submits AR Customer Balance Statement Program

The program is submitted in all installed languages concurrently.

Where is the Customization?

To fulfill the requirement, following customizations are required:

1.      Create a new custom XML data template to include the new field ‘EMAIL_ID’ for the customer contact.

2.      Create a bursting control file so that the output PDF is split based on the ‘EMAIL_ID’.

3.      Upload the custom XML data template and the bursting control file to the data definition of the concurrent program ‘AR Customer Balance Statement Letter’ (identified by the short name ‘ARCUSBALSL’).

4.      Create a new rich text template (RTF) based on the proposed layout and upload the document to XML template related to the above data definition.

Thus the ‘AR Customer Balance Statement Letter’ will be submitted by the seeded process but it will execute the query in the custom data template and generate the output as per the custom layout. The bursting program will split and send the email to the intended recipients.

Where is the Constraint?

Oracle has restricted to upload any custom data template or bursting control file against the data definition ‘ARCUSBALSL’. Thus generic customization approach stated in above section can not be done in this case.

A parallel custom process (like ‘XXX AR Customer Balance Statement Letter’) can not be designed because it can’t be executed alone. It has to be submitted by the parent program ‘Statement Generation Program’, spawned from the ‘Print Statement’ form to generate all the data required for the report.

Revised Technical Approach

Since there was no alternative, the technical team has completed a PoC by altering seeded Oracle process which violates the Oracle standard practice of implementation.

This section highlights the steps to be done to implement the solution:

1.      Create a custom data definition (XX_ARCUSBALSL) and add new RTF layout.

2.      Download the XML data template ARXSGPO.xml and Save it as XX_ARXSGPO.xml.

-          Modify to add the new field ‘EMAIL_ID’ element

-          Add code in “beforeReport” trigger to update the template name in the table FND_CONC_PP_ACTIONS for the current request id.

UPDATE FND_CONC_PP_ACTIONS
   SET argument1 = 'XXCUSTOM'
      ,argument2 = 'XX_ARCUSBALSL'
 WHERE action_type = 6
   AND concurrent_request_id = P_CONC_REQUEST_ID;

By updating the FND_CONC_PP_ACTIONS table you ask Post Processor to pickup the custom Data Definitions and Templates

XXCUSTOM is the Custom Application Name

-          Add the code “AfterReport” trigger to execute the bursting program.

3.      Create a bursting control file for sending email.

4.      Attach the ‘XML data template’ and ‘Bursting Control File’ with the data definition XX_ARCUSBALSL.

5.      Now ARCUSBALSL (‘AR Customer Balance Statement Letter’) executes the java class oracle.apps.xdo.oa.cp.JCP4XDODataEngine (executable name XDODTEXE)      .

Create a new java class XXJCP4XDODataEngine to call the custom data definition ‘XX_ARCUSBALSL’ instead of the seeded data template.

Create a new executable XX_XDODTEXE with the new java program and attach it with the seeded concurrent program ‘ARCUSBALSL’.

6.      Thus the seeded ‘Statement Generation Program’ will invoke the ‘AR Customer Balance Statement Letter’ and this will execute the query in the custom XML data template to create desired PDF files which will be emailed by the bursting program.

Risk and Mitigation

The approach described above does not alter any process in ‘Statement Generation Program’. It is only altering the mechanism of producing output; yet there are some potential risks in this solution.

Risks

1. The executable of the seeded concurrent program ‘ARCUSBALSL’ is changed to a custom executable – so this can be reverted after the patch application.

2. New functionality will not be available after patch application since ‘ARCUSBALSL’ will be executing a custom query. Although this is not much relevant since for a custom report (which is a copy of seeded report with extended functionality) is never upgraded with the patch application.

3. Oracle Support may not be available for this program.

Mitigations

1. A script will be provided which can be executed as a post patching activity. This script will replace the seeded executable with the custom one.

2. If ARXSGPO.xml is upgraded then XX_ARXSGPO.xml can be rebuild based on that. This is however may not require at all.

3. In case of any issue in live instance, it can be reproduced in any support instance by replacing the executable of the concurrent program with the seeded one. Then it can be observed if there is issue exists with the seeded process and accordingly it can be reported to the Oracle Support.

Cheers.....