Update 20A

Revision History

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:

Overview

This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.

DISCLAIMER

The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.

Product Development

Provide Comments or BOM Notes in Your Structure

Provide comments and BOM notes for your components within your BOM structure. Enable the Comments column in the Structures tab using the View Columns action.  Comments are specific to item revisions.

Mass Download Item Attachments

Use the Download Attachments action on the item page to download the attachments of the item and its components. With this update, you can download text and URL attachments in addition to files, and manage duplicate attachments.

Submit Change Requests from Draft to Open Status

Submit change requests from draft to open status using the View Changes task in the Supplier Portal. This feature gives your suppliers additional control to move the status of the change request from draft to open status.  Additionally, suppliers can now add a comment to the change request to give internal change analysts additional information.

Use Enhanced User Interface to Manage Affected Objects and Redlines

Manage change order affected objects and redlines more productively with an enhanced user interface.  View more components in the new compact Structure table while redlining.  Click on the red dot icon in the Affected Objects table to quickly navigate to the Redline Summary view.  Click on an item within the Redline Summary view to return to the Affected Objects detail page. Also, the pencil icon now replaces the eyeglass icon to signify editing consistently across the Product Development work area. 

Use Component Search And Panel View Within Structures

Search for Components Within a Structure

Search for components within an item structure using item name or number. You can find specific components within a large bill of material quickly and efficiently.

Visually Identify and Access Reference Designators

Quickly identify whether reference designators exist for components in your structures. A new dot icon appears against components that have reference designators. You can easily access reference designators from an expandable side panel without losing context of the component.

Manage Component Descriptive Flexfields in a Side Panel

Use the side panel view to quickly access and edit a component's descriptive flexfields. You can click the Additional Information icon within the Structure tab to open the side panel and edit fields without losing context of the component.

Product Hub

Use Additional System Attributes to Create Item Rules

Use additional attributes in item rules to create rules with the Who column attributes such as: Last Updated By, Last Update Date, and Created By. You can create rules expressions based on these attributes.

View Quality Issues and Actions for an Item in the Product Information Management Work Area

View Quality Issues and Actions related to an item when viewing item details directly from the Manage Items, Edit Item page in the Product Information Management work area.  This information is viewable in the Quality tab of the item.

Associate Item and Trading Partner Item Attachments Using Item Batch Maintenance SOAP Service

Use the Item Batch Maintenance SOAP service to associate files from Oracle Web Center Content as item and trading partner item attachments. This allows you to use the Item Batch Maintenance SOAP service to import additional attachment entities.

Leverage Improved Performance When Importing Attachments Using Compressed Files

Leverage improved performance when importing attachments in a zipped file format. An increased compressed file size limit allows you to add more files to your zipped file. Also, you can now import your attachments faster because of the reduced import-processing time.

Specify Document IDs When Importing Files in Oracle WebCenter Content Using FBDI and Import Maps

Specify document IDs when importing files in Oracle WebCenter Content for item, item revisions, and trading partner item attachments using FBDI and import maps. This feature allows for more precision when using FBDI or import maps to define, and associate an attachment to an item, item revision, and trading partner item in Oracle WebCenter Content.

Map Change Order Line Effective Date Attribute Using Import Maps

Map your change order line effective date attribute using import maps. With this enhancement, you can set the effective date of the change order line when the change order type batch option is set to User entered.

Enable or Disable Lifecycle Validation for Structures

Configure how lifecycle phase validation is done depending on the type of structures you want to build. You can enable lifecycle validation to not allow the creation of item structures with components that are of a lower lifecycle phase than the parent item. Or disable validation to allow manual correction of lifecycle phase mismatches.

Route Item Changes Dynamically Using Rules with Specific Change Order Types

Use validation rules to select change order types.  This allows you to have more dynamic workflow routing that is selected based on your validation rule criteria. 

Analyze New Item Request Definition Step Cycle Times Using OTBI

Analyze your new item request cycle times by definition step using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI).  Using the New Item Request Definitions Cycle Time subject area, your data stewards can closely monitor the cyle-time and aging of a definition step within all your new item requests that have not been completed.

Analyze New Item Request Cycle Times by Status Using OTBI

Analyze the cycle time of your new item request using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI).  With this capability, your data steward can closely monitor the aging and cycle time of new item requests in each status. This provides actionable insights in reducing overall new item request cycle times.

Sort Variant Attributes and Value Sets While Creating SKUs

Improve readability by controlling the display sequence of variant attributes and value-sets associated to a product variant. This feature allows you to display attributes based on their attribute sequence and display value-sets based on their sort order within the Product Variant shuttle when creating a new product variant SKU.

Improve Change Order Data Loading with a Maximum Limit Setting for Affected Objects

Limit Number of Items Added to a New Item Request

Validate and limit the number of items added to a new item request through the user interface or during import.  A new profile option lets you set a maximum number of items on a new item request.  If adding items to a new item request through the UI and the number exceeds the set limit, you will see an error message.  If the profile limit is reached during import, you can set the Item Batch task to split the items automatically onto another new item request. 

Integrate and Extend Product Hub Using REST Services

Manage Item Categories Using a REST Service

Use a REST API to create, update, and query a flat list of categories.

Manage Item Catalogs Using a REST Service

Use a REST API to create, update, and search for catalogs. You can also assign catalogs to functional areas.

Associate Unique Attachments in Oracle WebCenter Content Using Items REST Services

Use the Items REST service to associate specific document IDs for attachments within Oracle WebCenter Content to items at the item, item-revision, or at both levels.

Add Product Attachments from Oracle WebCenter Content Using Product Uploads REST

Use the Product Uploads REST service to add files in Oracle WebCenter Content as attachments to products.

Manage Security Grants for Items and Trading Partner Items Using a REST Service

Enable bulk or criteria-specific security assignments for items and trading partner items. With the Product Management Data Securities REST API, you can query, create, update, and delete data security policies for items and trading partner items.

Product Development & Product Hub Common Features

View Changes by Structure Component Using OTBI

View released and pending change orders for each component in a structure using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI).

Find Change Order Redlines and Define Data to Include in Event Response

Use the Find Change Order Redlines SOAP service to search and retrieve redlined change order data.  You can search and retrieve specific data, such as redlined components or approved manufacturer lists. Additionally, there is a new version of the change order business event that helps in the the orchestration service within Oracle Integration Cloud and returns only change number and ID in the response payload.

Rerun Unsuccessful Change Order Jobs Automatically

Automatically reinitiate the processing of change order jobs that were not successfully completed due to parallel processing requests from different sources.  Concurrent parallel processes can occur when change orders are created through various sources such as: the user interface, web services, or scheduled processes. The system now waits for some time and then reruns the job without user intervention.  This is repeated several times.

Copy Additional Change Order Data When Using Save As

Use Save As to quickly create a new change order from a commercialization change order, with the same descriptive flexfields, contextual attributes, attachments, tasks, affected objects, and affected object descriptive flexfields. In the Product Information Management work area, you can use Save As to create any type of commercialization change order. In the Product Development work area, you can use Save As to create any type of engineering change order or change order without revision control.

Prioritize New Item Requests and Change Orders Automatically

Automatically assign a default priority to your new item request or change order types to help users determine which tasks to execute first.  The default priority for the type can be modified at runtime.

Identify Completion Errors in Change Orders and New Item Requests Using OTBI

Use Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) to identify change orders and new item requests that have become stuck or have a previous or current effectivity date but are not in complete status.  The new subject area Product Management - Approval Notification Archive Real Time enables business users to identify scheduling errors due to vacation rules, inactive users, blank effective dates, and item status rule changes on the archived tasks

Analyze Change Order Cycle Times by Status Using OTBI

Analyze the cycle time of your change order using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI).  With this capability, your change analysts can closely monitor the aging and cycle times of change orders in each status. This provides actionable insights in reducing overall change order cycle times. 

Restrict Update of Change Order Task Status

Restrict who can update a change order task status. Your change analyst can update all the task statuses on a change order while a task assignee can only update the change order task status for the tasks assigned to him or her.  

Add More Flexibility to Change Order Approval Management

Provide additional flexibility within the change order workflow so that your change analyst can add approvers to a change order that is already in progress. With this update, you can easily handle unforeseen approver resource changes for an ongoing workflow.

Improve Change Order Data Loading with a Maximum Limit Setting for Affected Objects

Limit Number of Affected Objects on a Change Order

Validate and limit the number of affected objects added to a change order through the user interface or during import.  A new profile option lets you set a maximum number of affected objects on a change order.  If adding affected objects to a change order through the UI and the number exceeds the set limit, you will see an error message.  If the profile limit is reached during import, you can set the Item Batch task to split the affected objects automatically onto a new change order.

Quality Management

Set Up Quality Object Types in Setup and Maintenance Work Area

Create and configure quality issues and quality action types in the Setup and Maintenance work area. You can find related setup tasks listed in a new functional area called Quality Issue and Action Management, under the Product Management offering.

Include Additional Attributes for Quality Objects in REST Services and Groovy Expressions

Include additional attributes for quality issues and quality actions when you work with REST services and Application Composer.  In addition to ID, you can use a user-friendly name and code for Workflow Template, Status, Organization, and Type.

Inspect Inventory Prior to Serial Number Generation

Inspect inventory without specifying a serial number if serial number generation is enabled at point of use during sales order, transfer order, work order issue or inventory pick. You can also enter serial numbers for inventory inspection after serialization has occurred.

Mark Inspection Characteristic as Optional or Default Specification Target Value for Result Entry

Simplify inspection results entry by identifying which inspection characteristics are considered optional and which values can be defaulted from the specification target in the inspection plan. You can skip results entry for optional inspection characteristics and override specific, defaulted results that do not meet specifications in order to record failures.

Increase Sampling Size to 100% Inspection for a Receipt Line

Increase the sampling size to 100% inspection for a receipt line if a visual check indicates that further inspection is required. You can continue to inspect the entire quantity received to determine accepted versus rejected quantities.

View Quality Issues and Actions for an Item in the Product Information Management Work Area

View quality issues and actions related to an item directly from the View Item page in the Product Information Management work area.

Use the Audit Report to View Changes to Quality Issue Attributes and Attachments

Use the Audit Report to view all changes made to the attributes and attachments of a quality issue. Changes made through the user interface or REST APIs are captured in the report.

Generate Configuration Report to View Configuration

Use the Configuration Report in Application Composer's Metadata Manager to view a summary and details of configuration changes made to the layout of a published sandbox.  You can see who made the changes and when, and also export the report to HTML or Excel for offline viewing.

Integrate and Extend Quality Management Using REST Services

Expand REST Services to Manage Relationships for a Quality Issue or Quality Action

Use a REST API to allow external applications to manage related objects such as ideas, requirements, change orders and more, for quality issues and quality actions. 

Expand REST for User-Defined Quality Issue or Quality Action Number

Provide an issue or action number when you use a REST API to create a quality issue or quality action, as permitted by the defined number generation method for the object type. If the number is user defined, the number attribute is mandatory. If the number is sequence generated, the number attribute is read-only.

Extensibility

Enable Auditing of Your Configured Objects

Use the Manage Audit Policies task in the Setup and Maintenance work area to enable auditing of the business objects you create. After enabled for audit, you can use audit reports to view changes made to the objects or their attributes, such as when they were created, updated, or deleted.