Document Delivery Automation | STR Software

Streamlining Document Delivery in Oracle Cloud Fusion: A Business Analyst’s Guide

Seth Petersen — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 20:44:04 +0000

Oracle Cloud (Fusion) is a powerful ERP solution that streamlines various business processes. However, when it comes to sending business documents like invoices, purchase orders, and contracts, organizations often face significant challenges. These challenges can hinder efficiency, increase costs, and compromise data security.

The Common Hurdles

Integration Complexity:
- Diverse Recipient Systems: Businesses often interact with various systems, each with unique data formats and protocols. Integrating Oracle Cloud with these systems can be complex and time-consuming.
- Customization Requirements: Tailoring document formats to specific recipient needs can require extensive customization and testing.
Security Concerns:
- Data Privacy: Ensuring the confidentiality and security of sensitive financial information is paramount. Implementing robust security measures, such as encryption and access controls, is crucial.
- Compliance Adherence: Complying with industry-specific regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) and maintaining audit trails can be challenging.
Error Handling and Reconciliation:
- Data Validation: Ensuring data accuracy and consistency is vital to avoid errors and delays in processing.
- Error Resolution: Implementing efficient error handling and resolution processes is essential to minimize disruptions.
- Reconciliation: Matching sent documents with their corresponding records in Oracle Cloud can be complex, especially for large volumes of transactions.
Scalability and Performance:
- High Volume Processing: Handling large volumes of documents efficiently can be demanding, requiring optimized integration processes and robust infrastructure.
- Peak Load Management: Managing peak periods of document exchange requires careful planning and resource allocation.
Document Formatting and Customization:
- Customization Needs: Tailoring documents to individual preferences or contractual obligations can be time-consuming.

AventX: The Solution to Your Document Delivery Woes

AventX for Oracle Cloud is a powerful solution designed to address these challenges head-on. By automating and streamlining the document delivery process, AventX offers a range of benefits:

Seamless Integration: AventX seamlessly integrates with Oracle Cloud, eliminating the need for complex custom integrations.
Versatile Connectivity: It supports a wide range of recipient systems and protocols, ensuring compatibility with diverse business environments.
Robust Security Features: AventX incorporates advanced security measures, including encryption, access controls, and audit trails, to safeguard sensitive data.
Compliance Adherence: It helps organizations comply with industry regulations by providing compliant delivery devices and security management.
Real-time Monitoring: It provides real-time monitoring and alerts for errors and exceptions, enabling timely resolution.
Advanced Reporting: Detailed reports and analytics help track document delivery, identify issues, and reconcile transactions.
Scalable Architecture: AventX is designed to efficiently handle high volumes of documents, adapting to changing business needs.
Optimized Performance: It leverages advanced technologies to maximize performance and minimize processing time.
Template-Based Approach: It utilizes templates to streamline document generation, reducing manual effort and ensuring consistency.
Automated Attachment Gathering: AventX automatically extracts and adds any required document attachments to the delivery, ensuring recipients receive all the necessary details.

By leveraging AventX, organizations can:

Improve Efficiency: Automate document delivery, reduce manual effort, and accelerate business processes.
Enhance Accuracy: Minimize errors and ensure data accuracy through automated validation and error handling.
Strengthen Security: Protect sensitive data with robust security measures and compliance controls.
Gain Visibility: Monitor document delivery in real-time and generate insightful reports for analysis.
Optimize Resource Utilization: Scale the solution to meet changing business needs and optimize resource allocation.

By understanding the challenges associated with document delivery in Oracle Cloud and implementing a solution like AventX, organizations can significantly improve their operational efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance security. By taking the necessary steps to address these challenges, businesses can unlock the full potential of Oracle Cloud and achieve greater success.

Learn how Equinix Accelerated Document Delivery and Reporting with AventX for Oracle Cloud »

The post Streamlining Document Delivery in Oracle Cloud Fusion: A Business Analyst’s Guide first appeared on STR Software.

Is Your Mobile Maintenance Strategy OSHA Compliant?

Seth Petersen — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:05:44 +0000

3 Reasons Your Mobile Maintenance Initiative May Not Be OSHA Compliant, and What You Can Do to Correct It

First and foremost, let’s be clear, OSHA—the Occupational Safety and Health Administration—doesn’t have current regulations directly addressing the use of mobile devices as a tool in the workplace.

But that doesn’t mean there are not potential pitfalls with your current iOS, Android, or other mobile device and applications.

OSHA exists to “ensure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance.”

Maintenance teams are no exception. Maintenance technicians and professionals are among a large group of employees who work in exceptionally dangerous conditions daily.

Safety and Health Program Recommended Best Practices

Under its mission to protect workers, OSHA has published a series of Safety and Health Program Best Practices. This document covers a full 36 pages of information, but can be summarized into the following seven (7) core focus areas:

(The complete guidelines can be reviewed here. A separate Best Practices for Construction is also available.)

1. Management Leadership – Organizations need buy-in from the top to put safety and continuous improvement at the forefront of all they do.

2. Worker Participation – Workers should be involved in creating, maintaining, and actively participating in a safety and health program. Any barriers or impediments to participation should be removed.

3. Hazard Identification & Assessment – Procedures and protocols should be established to identify and correct hazards and risks to employee safety. Routine inspections should take place, and any safety incidents should be investigated to determine the root cause.

4. Hazard Prevention & Control – Employers and workers cooperate to eliminate, prevent, or control workplace hazards. Plans to implement controls, monitor progress, and evaluate their efficacy should be developed.

5. Education & Training – All workers are trained on the program, their responsibilities, and how to identify workplace hazards. Employers, managers, and supervisors should all understand their responsibility for protecting workers’ rights and how to respond to reports and concerns.

6. Program Evaluation & Improvement – Safety programs should be continually evaluated and improved where needed.

7. Communication & Coordination for Host Employers, Contractors, and Staffing Agencies – All employees should be provided the same level of safety and communication regarding any hazards. Host employers should establish standards for contractors and staffing agencies.

With these core focus areas in mind, most organizations develop a robust written Safety and Health Program that will allow them to meet all the regulations and recommendations provided by OSHA.

OSHA even provides a helpful Safety and Health Program Audit Tool to ensure your organization’s plan will be successful and identify any deficiencies or areas of improvement.

So, How Does All This Impact My Mobile Maintenance Operation?

Well, to answer that, ask yourself this:

Does your mobile maintenance application allow you to successfully execute on OSHA’s Best Practices and your organization’s established Safety and Health Program?

If you answered with an affirmative “Yep,” then you are probably in the clear! Good to go!

If you answered “No” or, better yet, “I have no idea what the heck you are talking about,” read on.

Three Reasons Your Mobile Maintenance Application May Not Support Your OSHA Initiatives

Reason #1: It Doesn’t Provide Your Technicians All the Information

Mobile maintenance apps are on the rise for a lot of reasons. They can eliminate burdensome paperwork and can support organization-wide paperless and green initiatives. They can free maintenance technicians from a desk…or rather, the need for a desktop application. They can provide better collaboration, more efficient processes, reduce errors, and much more.

We even threw our hat into the ring, developing a unique mobile application for Oracle eAM customers, which significantly eases the transition from paper to mobile by mimicking your existing work orders.

But once you connect that mobile application to your ERP, you might start seeing some pitfalls. For many Oracle eAM and JD Edwards CAM customers, your critical work order attachments are embedded in the database as files or URL links. If this is the case, and your mobile application can’t effectively pull these files for your technicians in the field, you have a pretty big problem.

As part of your organization’s written Safety and Health Program, you likely have established requirements to share critical information about the asset, important safety information and checklists, and other important files like lockout tagout procedures.

If your mobile application can’t display those critical documents, your organization is falling behind on many of OSHA’s Best Practices:

Management is not setting up staff to be successful;
Workers don’t have the information to keep them safe;
Hazard identification and assessment tools are not available; and, as a result
Hazard prevention and control is completely lost.

Quick Fix: Ensure Your Critical Work Order Attachments Can Be Consumed on a Mobile Device

Adopting a solution that can access and read all your attachments, whether they are embedded in your ERP, saved to a SharePoint or Documentum library, or even stored in a network folder is critical.

But, even if your solution can find these files, iOS and Android don’t always play nice with image files, Word docs and Excel spreadsheets.

Regardless of your preferred mobile application, a solution such as AventX that can grab all the file attachments and convert them to a single file in a standardized format (PDF) is your best bet for ensuring critical safety information is accessible and legible on all mobile devices.

Reason #2: Safety Checklists and Other Procedures Can’t Be Marked Up and Signed

Now that your maintenance technicians are getting all those crucial documents through your mobile app or device, they have the information they need to tackle their assigned work. More importantly, the files are in an easy to consume format—PDFs that can be navigated through, zoomed in on, and quickly reviewed.

You can check off the “Management Leadership” and “Worker Participation” line items on your Safety and Health Program.

But are your technicians participating? You’ve provided them the files, but as of right now, the only thing they can do is look at them.

If all your technicians in the field can do is view the files, your leadership and management team may be missing the mark on possibly the two most critical components of OSHA’s Best Practices:

Identify and assess hazards and dangerous situations; and
Prevent and control these situations before they create problems.

Without the ability to “use” attached forms—checklists, signature approvals, etc.—the whole Safety and Health Program begins to unravel.

Leaders and managers lose control of the procedures that are in place to ensure safety. Workers can ignore these critical documents because there is no system in place to monitor how the documentation is being used.

Quick Fix: Ensure Your Critical Work Order Attachments Can Be Interacted with on a Mobile Device

So, your next step is to ensure that these mobile-ready files are interactive, making sure that they can be annotated, marked up, signed, stamped, and more.

Manually created PDFs can be set up to be saved with interactive elements, like checkboxes and signature panes. When saved back into Oracle eAM, these files can then be accessed from the database by some mobile applications.

AventX for Oracle eAM’s Digital Print feature extends AventX’s attachment-gathering capabilities by saving a copy of the complete work order packet back to the Work Order header.

This provides a complete work order with all its attachments available to any mobile maintenance application that can view the work order header. More importantly, the AventX solution maintains any interactive functionality of PDF attachments.

By providing technicians with the tools to interact with your work orders and, more importantly, the safety documentation that comes along with them, your organization has the tools to maintain a safe and productive working environment.

Reason #3: Single Source of Truth for Program Evaluation and Auditing

At this point, we’ve reviewed the importance of 1) providing all the safety (and other) documents via a mobile application and 2) the ability of technicians to interact with those documents.

But you may still be missing out another critical Best Practice that may leave you open to potential OSHA compliance issues.

That is the Program Evaluation & Improvement component.

For organizations running a successful Safety and Health Program, there should be a single source of truth for evaluating the use of safety checklists and documentation. Leaders and managers need the ability to monitor the use of these all-important forms periodically.

Moreover, you may, at some point, need to show these documents to officials should you ever undergo an OSHA audit.

While the right file type (PDF) and annotation capabilities of many mobile maintenance applications provide much of the needed infrastructure to be successful, they often can’t distribute these necessary documents, once completed, to a final destination. This is especially true for organizations running Oracle eAM with a third-party application, which often don’t send completed documents back to the eAM module.

These files need a final resting place for leaders and managers to track progress and discover areas for growth.

Quick Fix: Ensure Marked and Signed Documents are Saved to a Single Location

Ensuring that your mobile application can save completed work orders and their safety documents back to a central location is critical.

Leaders must have the ability to monitor employee usage and manage to deficiencies. For many organizations, this single source of truth is Oracle eAM itself.

If your mobile application cannot save the document back to Oracle or to an external library, like SharePoint, you may be setting yourself up for disaster.

To supplement third-party applications, the Digital Print feature of AventX can make these critical files accessible from your networked libraries for both initial usage and for archival or auditing purposes. Or, the AventX Mobile for Oracle eAM application easily saves these documents back to the work order in Oracle eAM.

In Review

Mobile applications are undoubtedly the future of the maintenance industry. However, there are three key areas that may present challenges for organizations, especially when it comes to OSHA Best Practices and compliance.

Missing or incomplete information making it to the field
Critical safety sheets and checklists that are not interactive
No mechanism available for program evaluation and auditing

For organizations to execute effective Safety and Health Programs in support of OSHA’s mission, they must review the available Safety and Health Program Best Practices and the Safety and Health Program Audit Tool.

Organizations must also understand and document the role of maintenance applications as they relate to established safety programs. If your maintenance application is deficient in even one of the three areas above, you may be opening the company to violations and fines.

White Paper

Improving Asset Maintenance Productivity, Safety, and Reliability

For maintenance organizations running Oracle E-Business Suite Enterprise Asset Maintenance (eAM), a functionality gap that users commonly recognize is the inability to print work orders with their associated attachments. In asset-intensive industries, maintenance departments bear the burden of ensuring the reliability of aging equipment. The key to keeping up with asset reliability is scheduling preventative and corrective maintenance, and providing maintenance crews with the documentation they need to be safe and successful at their jobs.

White Paper Download

Plus, learn about AventX’s Digital Print feature in the Spring 2020 Release Summary.
Contact us for a demonstration »

The post Is Your Mobile Maintenance Strategy OSHA Compliant? first appeared on STR Software.

The Problem with Vendor Portals

STR Software — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 16:09:48 +0000

Why your supplier portal may be doing more harm than good

Everyone loves vendor portals, right? They’re a one-stop-shop for sending and receiving important business documents with your valued suppliers. It makes doing business super easy…for you.

But what about the human beings on the other end? Your suppliers.

Put yourself in their shoes—

“Oh, great. Another login to remember.”
“Didn’t I already create this account?”
“I just need the Purchase Order.”
“Where is the ‘upload’ button?”

These are just some of the day-to-day struggles of using a big box portal or even a homegrown solution. This assumes, of course, your suppliers completed the vendor setup process already (hopefully they did it right) and learned how to successfully navigate your portal. Yes, that’s right, your portal. Crazy right? Your suppliers probably have dozens of other customer portals to deal with!

And we aren’t the only ones that feel this way. Others have written about how suppliers feel about portals and how portals are causing companies headaches.

Portals aren’t exactly a breeze on your end, either. Onboarding new suppliers can be an infuriating and time-consuming process. And there’s nothing better than sending out 25-page, 4MB PowerPoint files with how-to information, troubleshooting with top suppliers struggling to get the hang of the portal, talking customers through the password reset process. These things aren’t fun for either side.

Not to mention that some suppliers will outright refuse to use them—they’re too much of a burden to manage.

But your company loves the transparency that supplier portals offer. You know when a purchase order was received and accepted. You *might* even be able to send order acknowledgements directly from your ERP without having to upload them into the portal manually.

At the end of the day, it may make it easier for you and your company. But, forcing suppliers to do the work of managing your purchase orders—in your portal—could prevent your orders from being first in line.

Order Fulfillment at its Finest

Here’s a fairly common scenario: A busy order processing team, who typically relies on email, receives 20 POs into their inbox. Ten of those POs come directly into the email inbox as HTML or PDF Purchase Orders. The other ten come into the inbox from a vendor portal. Guess which orders are more likely to be processed first? If your order is for a hot item in short supply, that could leave you stuck in Backorder City!

So you ask, “Is there some sort of middle ground where I can get this transparency but not put my suppliers through the wringer?” I’m so glad you asked…

Solving the Supplier Portal Puzzle

The simple fact is…vendor or supplier portals are overly complicated. They are layered with features and functionality that may not be necessary for the day-to-day operations of most businesses. They tend to be a “jack of all trades,” but at the same time, they haven’t mastered any of them. They’ve focused on providing a solution for each and every unique business case, but not the most important ones to ensure purchase orders are received and products and supplies are delivered—on time.

What purchasing teams really need is automated delivery & tracking of Purchase Orders (transparency for you) without the hassles of a cumbersome vendor portal for your vendors (simple, easy PO processing for suppliers).

Delivery Transparency for Purchasing Teams

For you, this means that you can send purchase orders directly out of your ERP and get confirmation that the email (and attached PO) has made it to its destination. If it didn’t make it to the other side, you’ll get better, more detailed information on why it failed. You also can configure Accept/Reject functionality so your supplier can easily confirm back to you that all’s well and your order is in process.

Forcing suppliers to do the work of managing your purchase orders—in your portal—could prevent your orders from being first in line.

Simplified PO Processing for Suppliers

For your suppliers, it makes it easy for them to get what they need to quickly process and deliver your orders. Setting them up for success sets YOU up for a great relationship!

Procurement Software: How do we get Just-In-Time Inventory?

By enhancing your ERP, not replacing it, alternatives to potentially complex and burdensome Procurement Software can provide the core functionality organizations need to operate effectively.

AventX for Oracle EBS (and other ERP systems like SAP, JD Edwards, and more) can provide Purchasing teams with an automated delivery tool that tracks your emailed purchase orders. Advanced logic makes AventX configurable to meet your delivery needs, while implementing embedded tracking mechanisms into your emailed POs, providing you with detailed delivery insights like “delivered,” “opened,” “clicked,” “accepted,” “rejected,” and even “bounced.”

As an alternative to your clunky portals, AventX satisfies your purchasing users’ need to ensure their purchase orders are received and makes it extremely easy for suppliers to trigger the fulfillment request.

Say goodbye to your vendor portal and hello to a better supplier experience!

The post The Problem with Vendor Portals first appeared on STR Software.

Rollup of Product Updates [Fall 2019]

Seth Petersen — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 14:10:10 +0000

We’ve been teasing it for the better part of six months, taking up a regular part of our communications during the last two releases—Spring 2019 and Summer 2019. Well, it’s time to finally make it official.

The AventX Translation Server now officially supports Linux installations!

Source: Giphy

What does it mean? Read on below for more details—and check out the Spring 2019 and Summer 2019 Rollups.

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Operating System Improvements & Enhancements

Linux Support for AventX Translation Server

We first began talking about this in the Spring of 2019. Well, we are proud to announce that the AventX Translation Server can now be installed on Linux operating systems. Gone are the requirements to host a physical or virtual Windows Machine and maintain separate Microsoft Office licenses. And, in most cases, the Translation Server can run on the same Linux machine as your other AventX products like AventX for Oracle EBS or AventX for Oracle eAM. Companies AventX for JDE CAM can continue to install and operate the latest Translation Server on Windows as well.

This new release, AventX Translation Server v5.4.00, in combination with previous releases in 2019, completes a significant overhaul of the product focused on streamlining how it processes files, improving file conversion speed, and reducing the IT footprint required to maintain the program. Look for more improvements in the future to enhance the configuration and management interface.

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs & AventX UNIX

Support for CentOS v8

AventX UNIX now officially supports CentOS version 8, in addition to versions 6 and 7.

AventX is certified for use with several other operating systems as well, predominantly:

Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) versions 6, 7, and 8
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) versions 6, 7, and 8
CentOS versions 6, 7, and 8 (as stated above)

Availability: AventX UNIX

Document Delivery Features

Multiple Archive Destinations

Sometimes you just need to automatically email or fax a file. Other times, it’s necessary to not only email or fax it, but also archive it to a file server for historical purposes or additional work. And, in some critical cases, that file is so important that needs to be archived to multiple destinations.

Perhaps the file needs to be saved to two different directories with two different names. Or maybe, in addition to an on-site directory, you need to save the file to a remote server at the corporate headquarters. Whatever the situation, AventX for Oracle EBS now supports the ability to deliver a file to multiple archive destinations each with a unique naming convention.

Availability: AventX for Oracle EBS

Work Order Creation & Distribution Features

Enhanced Work Order Download Functionality

In the last release we included a major new feature that allowed users to filter available work orders, making it much easier to see relevant ones before downloading them. But there were still some flaws in the system. We’ve sped up the process of downloading work orders with two enhancements:

Download All – Users now have the option to “Download All” work orders. This is particular useful with the Filtering ability added in the Summer ’19 release.
Download Confirmation – In previous versions it could be hard to tell which work orders had already been downloaded to the app. The newest version introduces an icon to indicate when a work order has been successfully downloaded.

Availability: AventX Mobile for eAM

Enter Meter Readings and Charge Time without Completing the Work Order

The latest version of the AventX for Oracle eAM mobile app includes a highly requested feature to allow users to enter meters and charge time without closing/completing the work order. Maintenance planners loved the idea of being able to collect meter readings and technician time from the field directly from the work order application, which would write the data directly into Oracle. But, we quickly learned that these work orders can often remain open for longer periods of time. Which meant users couldn’t actually submit meter readings or charge time on a consistent basis. To provide this functionality, we’ve added the ability to quickly send meter reading data and time entries to Oracle without having to close/complete the work order.

Availability: AventX Mobile for eAM

Create and Complete an Emergency Work Order on the Fly

When completing an assignment, technicians regularly “find another issue” that needs to be resolved or “just take care of that” while they’re at it. The problem is all that work needs to documented. That just means planners are on the hook for all the follow up work to log the information in Oracle eAM accurately. With the v1.4.00 enhancements, when a user identifies work that needs to be completed immediately, and for which a work order doesn’t already exist, he or she can quickly create the work order from the AventX Work Request app. From there, AventX can automatically process the work request and create a work order that magically appears in the AventX Work Orders app.

Availability: AventX Mobile for eAM

The post Rollup of Product Updates [Fall 2019] first appeared on STR Software.

The Ridiculously Simple Way to Improve Emailed Invoice Delivery from Oracle

Seth Petersen — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 19:31:40 +0000

Note: This guide can be applied to more than Oracle EBS. This technique will also work with SAP, JD Edwards, and even homegrown, UNIX-based systems.

“Did you get my email?”

We’ve covered this topic in the past, in a particularly fun post titled “Oracle Email Delivery — Why Schrödinger’s Cat Matters.”
Business Users of Oracle (and other ERPs) often lack insight into the status of their emailed invoices. They get sent via batch delivery, or even individually, but you have no idea if the recipient opened the invoice. At a more fundamental level, you don’t know if the email was even delivered.

So what do you do?

Pick up the phone and call to find out?
Fire off another email from your mailbox to inquire?

These both sound like great options, but more than likely, you probably just hang tight hoping the payment comes in. Until it doesn’t. Then you’re forced to follow up with the customer when the payment is already late.

What is the Order-To-Cash process? And how can it be improved?

The Order-to-Cash process is a series of steps that looks something like this:

Accept Customer Order
Fulfill Sales Order
Deliver Product / Service
Create & Send Invoice
Collect Payment
Reconcile Invoice

Look back at that list. ☝️

How many of those steps in the process do you have control over? How many do you rely on the customer for?

That’s right. There’s only one step in the cycle that you can’t control. Step 5: Collect Payment.

Not surprisingly, this one step is usually the step that takes the longest. So how can we speed up time-to-payment?

1 Simple Way to Improve the Order-To-Cash Process

B2B Email Delivery Tracking

Throughout the year, your AR team will spend countless hours on the phone or sending simple emails JUST to find out if the intended recipient even got the email with the invoice.

Oracle EBS’s native functionality is excellent for getting simple documents out quickly. However, it lacks the in-depth insights your team needs to manage those outbound documents—like critical invoices—effectively.

By delivering Oracle email through a third-party email delivery service (such as MailGun or SparkPost) you can easily track the status of your emailed documents and files. The service will then allow you to see when an email was received, if (and when) it was opened, or if the file bounced for some reason.

With these insights, your accounting team will be able to conduct more focused follow-up and even hold customers accountable to defined payment terms.

Integrate Email Tracking Directly with Oracle EBS

Using a third-party delivery service is a straightforward solution to improving cutting days, or even weeks, from the Order-to-Cash process.

But, you can take it even a step further to integrate the data from your service provider with a tool like AventX for Oracle EBS. AventX will allow your AR team to quickly access the relevant data right in Oracle and even get alerts when failures or critical events occur.

You’ll even be able to implement unique tracking mechanisms into your emails to allow customers to acknowledge emailed invoices.

AventX can share detailed status information—such as open, click, accept/reject,
& bounce data—directly inside Oracle for your emailed invoices, POs, & and more.

Reducing the Payment Bottleneck

As you are already aware, receiving payment for goods or services is usually the most time-consuming step in the Order-To-Cash process. And, unfortunately, it involves a lot of waiting.

Our best tip to improve the time to payment is to track email deliveries with a third-party delivery service—instead of native functionality (likely your companies own email server connected to Oracle). You can even take it a step further by integrating the service with Oracle through an automation tool. Automation tools, like AventX, can display delivery status information directly in Oracle and provide even more functionality to AR teams to help manage the invoicing process, trigger Oracle workflows, and simplify manual tasks.

If you’re interested in exploring how we can streamline the Order-To-Cash Process, send us a message.

The post The Ridiculously Simple Way to Improve Emailed Invoice Delivery from Oracle first appeared on STR Software.

Rollup of Product Updates [Summer 2019]

Seth Petersen — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 13:16:03 +0000

Every business has a list of KPIs—Key Performance Indicators—which they target as a means to ensure the company hits its goals. With a local donut shop just a few short steps from our front door, we often joke that one of those KPIs for STR Software is donut consumption. Our annual KPI for donut consumption company-wide is 1,000. We are currently well ahead of this goal.

In between those donut (and coffee) runs, our developers crank out code that produces some great new features and product enhancements. Here’s a look at some of those enhancements from Summer 2019.

If you have questions or comments about any of the features please reach out. We’ll be happy to show you a quick demo and work to get the functionality set up in your environment. You can also check out the highlights from our Spring ’19 Releases. Roll Up of Product Updates [Spring 2019]

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New Document Delivery Features

Improved File Conversion Support

The AventX Translation Server engine no longer requires a local installation of the Microsoft Office suite. In the past, our file translation utility required the use of a Windows server with its own licensed copy of Microsoft Office. This server allowed for any file type, including Microsoft Office files, to be converted from their native format to a PDF (which ensured formatting stayed intact). The latest version of AventX can complete file conversion without the use of MS Office. This is ideal for many reasons, but directly benefits organizations that are moving to Office365. Keep an eye out for even more great updates to this module coming in the Fall!

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs & AventX UNIX

Combine all Attachments to a Single PDF

The AventX Translation Server was traditionally used to support the conversion of most files types to a PDF format to ensure the formatting of delivered files. The latest release of the software now supports the ability to combine all attachments into a single PDF document suitable for emailing, faxing, or archiving.

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs & AventX UNIX

Electronic Signatures with Adobe Sign

We are continuing to improve our lineup of document delivery integrations with AventX. First, it was Email Tracking with SparkPost and Mailgun. Then we added eSignature capabilities with an integration into DocuSign. In the latest release of AventX, we added support for another electronic signature application—Adobe Sign. With this integration, AventX now connects on-premises ERPs to the two leading cloud-based electronic signature applications. Automatically delivering Purchase Orders, Contracts, Employee Onboarding files, and more directly from Oracle EBS, SAP, and more has never been easier.

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs & AventX UNIX

Added Support for PCL Conversion

We’ve added configuration options for automatic PCL to PDF conversion using GhostPCL. Users of JetPCL will still be able to use the conversion utility; however, the added support for GhostPCL means customers have another option for PCL to PDF conversion. Better yet GhostPCL is a free utility, so customers can now save approximately $1,000 per year on subscription services.

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs & AventX UNIX

Email Poller

We’ve added a new email poller option to AventX designed to seamlessly integrate with the Oracle EBS Purchase Order Approval process. This feature can be used to remove the need for PO workflow customizations while maintaining all the great AventX delivery options. We know from experience that Oracle upgrades and patches can often replace or reset customized workflows. With the new integrated email poller module you can eliminate the need to customize the PO Approval workflow making upgrades and patches easier in the future.

Availability: AventX for Oracle EBS

Added Support for XML Output for Printing

Managing printers in Oracle is not an easy task. To help organizations that print specialty information, such as barcodes for tagging and tracking, we’ve added support for XML Print Output. This ability will extend AventX for Oracle EBS to support specialty printers, like those from Zebra Technologies. Regardless of the need—transportation and logistics, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and more—AventX for Oracle EBS can help simplify the management of your printer ecosystem.

Availability: AventX for Oracle EBS

Work Order Creation & Distribution

Additional Mobile Work Order Filtering

Our users often have more than a few Work Orders open at any given time. To make finding the right work order(s) easier, we’ve implemented new sort functionality to the AventX Mobile for eAM application that lets users sort by Asset, Maintenance Org, Department, and/or Resource. This functionality is ideal for maintenance teams that assign work orders to Resource Groups instead of individuals.

Availability: AventX Mobile for eAM

Improved Work Order Completion

Several enhancements were made to improve functionality when completing Work Orders in the AventX Mobile for eAM application. Here’s a quick rundown:

Fillable form fields on annotated PDF's are now "flattened" prior to uploading to preserve data integrity and prevent modification after Work Order completion.
Added the ability to specify time parameters on the Work Order completion screen. This helps to support maintenance orgs running multiple shifts, as well as teams that may work in different time zones from where Oracle is running.

Added support for archiving completed Work Orders directly to SharePoint Online.
Added metadata to show the employee name in a column when completing Work Orders to SharePoint and SharePoint Online.

Availability: AventX Mobile for eAM

Improved Administration Features

Configuring AventX has improved significantly in the latest release of the AventX for JDE product suite. Previous versions of the software required many settings to be configured manually using a configuration file. Now, administrators can make configuration change directly in the AventX web client. Whether you need to tweak a timeout variable, change an email configuration, or even set up a new report, AventX now provides the ability to manage all your settings from any machine though the AventX web client.

Availability: AventX for JDE CAM

Work Order Output Enhancements

AventX has always been the backbone of the Work Order creation and printing process. With a focus on attachment gathering to ensure technicians get every document they need to successfully—and safely—complete their assigned jobs. This latest improvement focuses on distribution. Now, when printing Work Orders, the Table of Contents includes the Work Order title. It may seem like a small enhancement, but this little addition is ideal for individually printed WO’s (because it ensures the WO title is on the cover page), it also makes it easier for planners and schedulers to parse batch printed WO’s.

Availability: AventX for JDE CAM

The post Rollup of Product Updates [Summer 2019] first appeared on STR Software.

Roll Up of Product Updates [Spring 2019]

Seth Petersen — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 16:12:31 +0000

At STR Software, our goal is to deliver integrated business solutions that customers rally behind. Those solutions come in the form of document delivery and data transfer automation tools—AventX and AventX A2A (formerly DataVaya), respectively.

The good news is that both AventX and AventX A2A (formerly DataVaya) have seen many changes and enhancements over the last six to nine months!

So, to catch you up, here’s a quick recap of some of the key updates for the AventX and AventX A2A (formerly DataVaya) product lines. We look forward to keeping these product updates coming your way in the future!

(Please visit the Portal for a full review of product enhancements.)

If you have questions or comments about any of the features please reach out. We’ll be happy to show you a quick demo and work to get the functionality set up in your environment.

Schedule a Chat

New Document Delivery Features

Deliver Docs via DocuSign Secure Web Portal

ERP system users who regularly need to send documents to a customer or vendor for signature need tools to make their lives more efficient and effective. System Administrators and Department Managers are constantly evaluating compliance and security to improve operational efficiencies and make effective decisions. This unique integration adds important collaboration functionality to ERP systems such as Oracle, SAP, and PeopleSoft. With AventX for DocuSign, users can now deliver and track documents for collaboration and required signatures. ERP users will no longer have to download documents from the database or file server to email to customers and vendors for approval. With just a few clicks in your ERP these documents—like POs, contracts, and T&Cs—can be sent and tracked via the AventX WebManager. Plus, with built-in email tracking capabilities, you’ll immediately know when deliveries fail and why, and if the recipient opened the email.

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs

New Web-based Delivery Status Manager with Real-time Monitoring

AventX for Oracle EBS users get a brand new way to view and manage their outbound deliveries. The web-based form provides a clean, intuitive interface that is easily sortable to tackle errors and resend documents. The page also allows users to save search queries, making follow up faster and timelier. Plus, IT Administrators now have a new web interface for monitoring real-time system usage and metrics.

Availability: AventX for Oracle EBS

Integrated Email Delivery Tracking

Send emails directly from your ERP (including attachments) with peace-of-mind about the status of the delivery. Track and monitor the email using the web-based AventX Delivery Status Manager (or the original Oracle Delivery Status Form)—know immediately why a delivery failed, if it was opened, when it was clicked, etc. Plus, email templates can be customized with Accept/Reject tracking to make it easy for recipients to acknowledge that they received your email—perfect for PO & Invoice delivery without the need for a portal. (Even better, Oracle users that want Accept/Reject tracking do not need to modify standard workflows.)

More details:

Users and admins get real-time feedback on the status of every delivery
Troubleshoot delivery issues faster with detailed bounce reports and customizable queries
Customers using Oracle PO Approval that want Accept/Reject tracking do not need to modify standard workflows

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs

Dynamic Digital Signatures

Digital Signatures provide organizations a secure mechanism to address complex regulatory and legal requirements associated with emailing documents. Aside from helping meet compliance requirements (like HIPAA, GLBA, FERPA, eIDAS, and more), Digital Signatures provide your customers and clients with assurances that the document has not been tampered with in transit. AventX dynamically inserts your global and/or individual Digital Signatures using flexible logic.

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs

PDF/A Format

PDF/A is widely becoming the standard across all industries for archiving digital files. In simple terms, PDF/A is a PDF format which prohibits the use of features that could hinder long-term archiving and future reproduction. The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) recognizes PDF/A as the standard format for long-term preservation. Further, it can be leveraged as a security tool, for delivery of legally binding documents, storing files in different languages, full-text searching, and more.

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs

Apply Document Restrictions & Watermarks

The standard PDF format allows file creators to implement advanced security features in documents. Ideal for outbound delivery of files, such as DRAFT Contracts, AventX provides the ability to apply these document watermarks automatically using flexible logic.

Availability: AventX for All Supported ERPs

Support for file extraction from SharePoint Online

AventX now has the ability to automatically extract files from SharePoint Online, giving organizations another flexible location to store important attachments that need to be included with POs, Invoices, Work Orders, and more.

Availability: AventX for Oracle EBS, AventX for JDE

Oracle EBS Printer Management

New Print Client with Support for Java 11

Oracle’s decision to deprecate Web Start starting with Java 9 removed a core component of the AventX local printing functionality. However, when your organization rolls out the latest Java version, you’ll also be able to roll out an updated AventX Print Xpress application. Even better, the redesigned application can be pushed out to key users via group policy and no longer requires an active Oracle EBS login to run.

Availability: AventX for Oracle EBS (requires upgrade support)

Work Order Creation & Distribution

New & Redesigned Table of Contents

When you’re printing work order packets in large batches, including a table of contents is critical to ensure accuracy and completeness. Not only are the redesigned (AventX for JDE CAM) and new (AventX for Oracle eAM) TOCs easier to read, but users gain better insight into the status of each work packet and every individual attachment.

Availability: AventX for Oracle eAM, AventX for JDE CAM

Digital Print Support for Work Packets

We get it, not every work order packet needs to be printed. Maybe you want to just have the complete work order available to view, or maybe display it on a mobile device. In addition to allowing complete packets to be archived to the file system or emailed to sub-contractors, users can submit a Digital Print job—a complete version of the work packet—and have it automatically attach to the work order header. This means anyone or any mobile application that has access to the work order has access to the complete packet need to finish a job.

Availability: AventX for Oracle eAM

Automate Maintenance Technician Time from Mobile Devices

Our mobile solution has always let your technicians see and interact with complete work order packets on a tablet—marking work as complete, uploading notes and photos, and passing a work order along to the next technician. With the latest release, technicians can now also add their time directly to the mobile work order and have it automatically posted back into Oracle eAM.

Availability: AventX Mobile for eAM

Automate Meter Reading Entries from Mobile Devices

Much like automating technician time entries (above), we can do the same for your meter readings. As your technicians perform the assigned maintenance, simply add the meter readings to the mobile work order and the data gets pushed to Oracle when the work order is completed.

Availability: AventX Mobile for eAM

Filter Mobile Work Orders

The AventX Mobile for Oracle eAM application now supports filtering work orders by Maintenance Org, Department, and Resource. This update makes it easier for enterprise maintenance teams to assign work to the right team to get the job done.

Availability: AventX Mobile for eAM

File extraction support from SharePoint Online

AventX now has the ability to extract files from SharePoint Online, giving organizations another flexible location to store important attachments that need to be included with Work Orders.

Availability: AventX for Oracle eAM, AventX Mobile for eAM, AventX for JDE CAM

File extraction support from Documentum

AventX now has the ability to extract files from Documentum, giving organizations another flexible location to store important attachments that need to be included with Work Orders.

Availability: AventX for JDE CAM

Faster, Easier Document Management

With the launch of a new role-based AventX Web Client, users can now easily manage all previously submitted jobs. There are countless scenarios where you might need to search for past jobs and batches—diagnose errors, download completed jobs, and many more. Accessing the client with an admin role also provides the ability to edit the main configuration file from the web interface.

Availability: AventX for JDE CAM

Data & File Transfer

Automate Meter Reading Entry to Oracle Maintenance Cloud

We’ve mastered batch and mobile meter entry with Oracle eAM on-premises. Now with AventX A2A's (formerly DataVaya) latest action, you can easily transition from your operation from on-prem Oracle eAM to Oracle Maintenance Cloud. Just create your meter readings like you normally would and point the configuration to OCM. AventX A2A (formerly DataVaya) can even run both processes concurrently if you’re transitioning from on-prem to cloud applications.

Availability: AventX A2A for Oracle eAM

The post Roll Up of Product Updates [Spring 2019] first appeared on STR Software.

Oracle Email Delivery — Why Schrödinger’s Cat Matters

Seth Petersen — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 13:00:49 +0000

Erwin Schrödinger, an Austrian winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics back in 1933, had an interesting theory that just may be important to your email delivery from Oracle EBS.

In a simplistic form, Schrödinger stated that if you place a cat in a box, then sealed the box closed for a period of time, you essentially would not know if the cat was dead or alive until the box was opened.

Sending emails—like your time-sensitive invoices and POs—from Oracle’s Delivery Manager is pretty much the same. While Oracle may report that your email was a “Success,” you really have no idea whatsoever whether it reached its destination.

Did someone on the other end really receive that invoice keeping your company’s cash flow moving? Did the intended recipient really lay eyes on your PO ensuring that your organization will have the items needed to function properly?

Is Schrödinger’s cat alive or not?

Did you get my email?

Because of this lack of insight from Oracle’s “Success” status, senders are, unfortunately, stuck waiting to see if their invoices get paid. However, the whole time the email was never delivered—it was caught in a spam filter or it bounced back to a mailbox that is not monitored.

When the invoice doesn’t get paid on time, senders are required to pick up the phone and call your customer to ensure everything is ok with the payment. The customer says, “I never received the invoice.” Now the employee has to manually resend the invoice via email or, even worse, print the invoice and send it via snail mail to the customer. Then your invoicing department has to constantly check with the customer to ensure the invoice was received.

Unfortunately, this process can take up hours of following up with customers and resending emails while resulting in a delayed payment.

A similar scenario can arise for POs. If your PO doesn’t get delivered your operation can come to standstill while the PO is resent.

So what can you do about it?

Fortunately for your invoices and other important documents, and apologies to the cat, advanced tracking methodologies now exist so you access the status of your emailed document at nearly any point in time.

By delivering your documents through AventX, you can embed tracking mechanisms to any outbound email you send through Oracle EBS. This technology allows the sender to know with a large degree of accuracy whether the email was received, if it bounced (and why!), and if it was clicked or opened.

This level of detail allows Accounts Receivable Managers to monitor invoice delivery proactively and, ultimately, deliver better cash flow to the organization.

By accessing insights into which invoices did not reach their destinations or, more importantly, which invoices were ignored, your AR team can be more targeted with their follow up to your customer.

Supplementing Oracle with AventX delivery technology allows AR teams to be more informed about every email delivery and more targeted with their follow up to customers regarding missing or late payments.

It also provides the information you need to maintain a more accurate email database. By reporting bounced emails with detailed information, you can ensure that you have an accurate email address for every invoice.

So, before you fire off your next customer invoice or purchase order, consider what that “Success” status really means. There’s a chance you’ll be following up in a day or two to confirm that it was received. But with the right technology in place, you’ll know more about your email delivery than Schrödinger knew about his cats.

The post Oracle Email Delivery — Why Schrödinger’s Cat Matters first appeared on STR Software.

How to Streamline the Delivery of Oracle Reports

STR Software — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 17:00:41 +0000

When it comes to managing the outbound delivery of your EBS-generated documents, native Oracle functionality leaves much to be desired. The requirements for sending documents from EBS vary, so IT must develop custom processes depending on report type, EBS module and delivery method. Once the development effort is done, your IT team remains consumed with ongoing maintenance and troubleshooting.

These internally-developed delivery processes are highly customized and difficult for end users to navigate. Without a consistent approach to delivering documents, it becomes impossible for users to gain visibility into what happened to their documents after delivery. When users can’t track their own documents, IT tickets for troubleshooting help often pile up until there is a business consequence, like a missing invoice or purchase order, which can threaten your organization’s bottom line.

Watch the video above to see how the AventX Oracle Connector unifies document delivery from all EBS modules with one seamless solution, so users and IT teams can stop navigating fragmented delivery processes and your organization can get the most out of Oracle EBS.

What’s Next?

Learn more about the benefits of standardized document delivery in Oracle EBS
Watch an on-demand video demo to see AventX Oracle Connector for yourself

The post How to Streamline the Delivery of Oracle Reports first appeared on STR Software.

Unleash your IT team from fragmented, unreliable document delivery in Oracle EBS

STR Software — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 16:12:00 +0000

Trying to deliver documents by fax or email with the native functionality in Oracle EBS can be a nightmare. Far from the easy functionality you may be used to in industry standards such as Outlook, your IT team is frequently forced to get involved to troubleshoot or customize document delivery.

What if you could free-up your valuable IT resources from the fragmented, unreliable document delivery functionality in Oracle EBS? Have a look at this infographic to find out:

What’s Next

Learn more about benefits of automated email and fax delivery for Oracle E-Business Suite.
Find out what you are missing with the fragmented, complicated Oracle EBS document delivery functionality with our blog post Get 4 of Outlook’s Best Features Inside Oracle EBS.
Discover how to maintain simple and uniform document delivery in BI Publisher from our whitepaper “Moving to BI Publisher – Now what?”

The post Unleash your IT team from fragmented, unreliable document delivery in Oracle EBS first appeared on STR Software.