This chapter covers the following topics:
Oracle Asset Tracking is a tracking system that integrates with and stores information collected from Oracle Inventory, Oracle Purchasing, Oracle Projects, Oracle Assets, Oracle Payables, and Oracle Install Base.
With Oracle Asset Tracking, you can give users access to tracking information without allowing them access to sensitive processes related to assets and purchasing. You can also track inventory items after they have been installed and link financial transactions to the physical movement of equipment.
Oracle Asset Tracking integrates with Oracle Install Base as its data repository. Every transaction that Oracle Asset Tracking tracks will be recorded in the Install Base transaction table and each record affected by such transactions will be recorded in the instance and instance history tables.
To track inventory items and assets, Oracle Asset Tracking must interact with several enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. It sends to and receives messages from those applications about the status and location of the items you want to track.
Oracle Asset Tracking provides an enterprise tracking and asset management system where all inventory, project and asset-related material information is stored, providing a complete view of your assets. Users can locate materials anywhere in the system—in warehouses, on trucks, installed in the network, or on project sites, facilitating financial transactions using physical movements of material and equipment. In addition, Oracle Asset Tracking can provide a life-cycle history of all activity for that equipment.
An asset comprises a collection of items. The items may be trackable or not trackable; the tracking is performed in Oracle Install Base and Oracle Asset Tracking.
During implementation, items are designated as trackable at the item master level in Oracle Inventory. Oracle Asset Tracking tracks the activity of the trackable items through inventory, projects, and into fixed assets.
In Oracle Asset Tracking, you perform the Mass Additions concurrent process to create assets.
Summary of Oracle Processes that Track Internal Products and Assets
The following diagram shows a summary of the Oracle application modules, and the transactions and messages associated with Oracle Asset Tracking.
For example, when a field service technician enters a report that equipment has been placed into service, the deployment system may send a message to Oracle Asset Tracking. This message updates the status of the equipment to “In Service,” and gives its in-service date to Oracle Projects. The asset is now ready to be created in Oracle Assets.
Messaging Architecture in Oracle Asset Tracking
The messaging architecture receives requests from external publishing systems in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format. Based on the input requirements, the application updates the status and keeps a history of transactions for the tracking unit. Subsequently, the application publishes outgoing requests to the subscribing systems for further processing. The publishing and subscribing systems include: Install Base, Inventory, Purchasing, Payables, Assets, Projects, Workforce Management, and other legacy systems.
This section provides an overview of the features of Oracle Asset Tracking.
Functional Overview
This application supports the standard functions found in Oracle Inventory, Oracle Purchasing, Oracle Projects, and Oracle Assets.
Oracle Asset Tracking supports the following functions (that is, item instances are not updated if you perform inventory transactions other than those in the following list):
Purchase order receipt of items into inventory
Purchase order receipt of items into operating projects
Move orders
Miscellaneous issue to a project
Miscellaneous receipt from a project
Installation and uninstallation of equipment
In-Service/Out-of-Service of equipment
Subinventory transfers
Inter-organization transfers
Miscellaneous receipts and issues
Placement of assets into or out of service
Retirement and reinstatement of the partial or full cost of an asset
Asset item moves and asset item transfers
Physical counts
Oracle Asset Tracking has the following integration points with Oracle E-Business Suite:
Oracle Inventory
Oracle Purchasing
Oracle Order Management
Oracle Payables
Oracle Assets
Oracle Projects