Collaborative Inventory Visibility

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Overview
• Setup
• Create Groups
• Define Group Members
• Define Security Rules
• Upload Unallocated On-hand Inventory
• Search for Inventory

Overview

Collaborative Inventory Visibility enables you to share inventory levels at key locations with your strategic trading partners.

With Collaborative Inventory Visibility, you can:

• Create trading partner groups with whom you share inventory levels

• Create security rules that enable member companies to view your inventory levels

• Maintain a supply of unallocated inventory at strategic locations

Setup

The following steps outline the setup for Collaborative Inventory Visibility:

• Create groups

• Define member companies of groups

• Create security rules

• Upload unallocated on-hand inventory

• Enable customer search for inventory

• Configure descriptive flexfields (this step is optional)

The step to configure the descriptive flexfields is required only when you want to support non-standard columns in an upload file. For more information about descriptive flexfields, refer to the Oracle Applications AOL Manual.

Create Groups

Use group.dat to define you group. To create a group, complete the following steps:

1. Navigate to the Load Setup Data window.

2. Select Download templates.

3. Open group.dat.

4. Enter the group name.

5. Enter the group type Private (use the type Public only when other companies use the group).

6. Enter the source instance code (your specific instance code).

7. Save the file.

8. Return to the Load Setup Data window and upload group.dat.

Define Group Members

Use groupcompany.dat to define group members. To define group members, complete the following steps:

1. Open groupcompany.dat from the previously downloaded templates.

2. Enter the group name.

3. Enter the company names.

4. Enter the source instance code (your specific instance code).

5. Save the file.

6. Navigate to the Load Setup Data window and upload groupcompany.dat.

Define Security Rules

Define security rules that enable group members to view your unallocated on-hand inventory. The following fields are required:

• Access Given By

• Privilege

• Access Given To

Complete the following steps to define security rules:

1. Navigate to Create New Rule window.

2. Enter your company name in the Access Given By field.

3. Enter the order type. For example, if you want group members to view your unallocated on-hand inventory, enter Unallocated On-hand.

   Note that you should set up exclusive security rules to share projected available balance and safety stock order types to significant suppliers and customers. In Collaborative Planning safety stock and projected available balance order types are not associated with any customer or supplier company. Therefore, by default these records are not visible to users of any trading partner company.

4. Enter the item number (this step is optional, if you do not enter item number, all items will be considered for the security rule).

5. Select one of the following privileges for your group members:

   • View

   • Update

6. Select one of the following for Access Given To:

   • Company

   • User

   • Responsibility

   • Group

   • Global

7. Enter the Assigned To field.

8. Select effective dates.

9. Select Submit.

You also must define specific security rules to display a graphical comparison of safety stock and PAB on the Horizontal View screen. The comparison is based on the order types Safety Stock and Projected Available Balance. You can drill down to Vertical View to see details of each record. You must also select any of the following display order types for the data to be graphed:

• Order type: Safety Stock: Deletes records selectively in Collaborative Planning between the horizon dates and replaces them with the records from the selected plan.

• Order type: Projected Available Balance: The Horizontal Views in Collaborative Planning and ASCP display the same values for projected available balance.

Note that the safety stock and projected available balance information that are displayed in the Horizontal View are editable for both the order types.

Upload Unallocated On-hand Inventory

Complete the following steps to upload unallocated on-hand inventory. You can skip steps 1 and 2 if you have already downloaded the templates.

1. Navigate to the Load Supply/Demand window.

2. Select Download templates.

3. Open supplydemand.dat.

4. Enter the Synch Indicator.

5. Enter the Item Name.

6. Enter the Order Type.

   Note: For the Unallocated On-hand order type, do not enter customer or supplier name.

7. Enter the Quantity.

8. Enter the UOM.

9. Enter the Publisher Company.

10. Enter the Publisher site.

11. Save your work.

12. Return to the Load Supply/Demand window and upload your file.

Search for Inventory

Your customers can now search for your inventory using Vertical View. Complete the following steps to search for and find inventory:

1. Navigate to the Vertical View window.

2. Enter information in at least one of the following fields:

3. Item

4. Order Type

5. Select search.

6. Choose an item from the results.

Note that you can search inventories based on the trading party who is responsible to handle them, or based on the item categories to which the inventories belong. Complete the following steps to search information based on a buyer code or item category:

1. On the Vertical View screen, select Advanced Search.

   The Advanced Search window for Vertical View opens.

   The Advanced Search Window for Vertical View

   

2. To filter records based on buyer code, in the Add Another list, select Buyer as the new search field and select Add.

   To filter records based on item category, in the Add Another drop-down list, select Category as the new search field, and select Add.

3. The Buyer Code field, the Category field, or both are appended.

4. Select the search criteria. For more information about advanced search, see "Horizontal and Advanced Horizontal View: Advanced Search."

5. In the Advanced Search window, select Search. The Collaborative Planning engine filters and displays the transactions for the buyer, the item category, or both on the Vertical View screen.

The Vertical View screen now displays new columns for the buyer code, the item category, or both that are used as filtering criteria. Note that the Buyer column or the Category column displaying the selected buyer code and item category are added only after the user performs a filtration using the advanced search or preference sets based on the buyer code, the item category or both.

Note: You must associate a buyer with an item in Oracle Inventory to search transactions based on buyer code. For more information about setting up this search field, see "Setup: Setting Up Buyer Code and Item Category for Advanced Search."