1. Operations Guide
  2. Introduction

1 Introduction

Welcome to the Oracle Retail Allocation Operations Guide. The guide is designed so that you can view and understand key system-administered functions, the flow of data into and out of the application, and the application's behind-the-scenes processing of data.

Note:

Users should not access Oracle Retail Allocation during the Merchandising batch window as it may cause some unpredictable results.

Allocation Overview

A retailer that acquires Oracle Retail Allocation gains the ability to achieve more accurate allocations on a stable product. Having the right product in the right stores or warehouses allows for service levels to be raised, sales to be increased, and inventory costs to be lowered. By accurately determining which locations should get which product, retailers can meet their turnover goals and increase profitability.

The Oracle Retail Allocation retailer benefits from the following capabilities:

  • Built on ADF Technology stack, it allows the ability to quickly add UI based on ready to use design patterns, metadata driven tools and visual tools. Debugging can be performed more rapidly; maintenance and alteration costs are kept low using the metadata driven application development.

  • The application's interface takes advantage of the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), ADF's built-in transaction management, along with connections to data sources handled in WebLogic server which minimizes the interface points that need to be maintained.

  • The application's robust algorithm executes rapidly, and the call to the calculation engine has been ported over from C++ library to a Java Library, thus minimizing the overhead/issues related to maintaining codebase consisting of two disparate languages.

  • For retailers with other Oracle Retail products, integration with the Oracle Retail product suite means that item, purchase order, supplier, sales, and other data are accessed directly from the Merchandising tables, with no need for batch modules. Purchase order, item, location, and allocation information are passed from Merchandising to a warehouse management system.

  • Access control to the system is managed by using Fusion Security Architecture.

  • The application allows for retailers to adjust to changing trends in the market by facilitating real time allocations.

  • Oracle Retail Allocation accounts for flexible supply chain paths to support importing and domestic inventory supply.

Merchandising owns virtually all of the information that Oracle Retail Allocation needs to operate, and the information that Oracle Retail Allocation provides is of primary interest/use for Merchandising. As a result, Oracle Retail Allocation has limited interaction with other Oracle Retail Merchandising Operations Management applications. For Oracle Retail Merchandising Operations Management applications that Oracle Retail Allocation does interact with, it is managed through direct reads from Oracle Retail Merchandising Operations Management application tables, direct calls to Oracle Retail Merchandising Operations Management packages, and Oracle Retail Allocation packages based on Oracle Retail Merchandising Operations Management application tables.