1/16/24, 3:53 PM oracle iexpenses process flow

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Oracle iExpenses Overview

Using Oracle iExpenses, employees can enter and submit expense reports.
There is a Workflow process that is initiated behind when an expense report is
submitted which automatically routes expense reports for approval. Oracle
Internet Expenses integrates with Oracle Payables to provide quick processing
of expense reports for payment.

This article includes these topics:

Process Overview
Approval Hierarchy
Administrative features in iExpense
Workflow Notifications — Error Handling

Process Overview:

The employees would be issued Corporate credit cards which could be used for
organization’s business expenses. The bank would send in all the credit card
transaction files on a daily basis or the agreed time interval. These credit card
transactions have to be loaded into AP_CREDIT_CARD_TRXNS_ALL table using
credit card transaction loader programs. After loading credit card transactions
data into the AP_CREDIT_CARD_TRXNS_ALL table, the Credit Card Transactions
Validation program should be run to validate the loaded data. Once validated,
employees can enter these credit card transactions on expense reports to get
re-imbursement from the company.

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Once the employee vouchers the expenses through iExpense responsibility or

Expense report screen in Account Payables responsibility and submits it, the
workflow with the internal name APEXP is initiated which would validate the
data entered, determine the Approver, sends notifications to the approver. The
Approver has to then Approve or Reject the notification accordingly. Once the
workflow activities are complete, use the concurrent program Expense Report
Import to create Payables invoices from expense reports you enter in Payables
or Oracle Internet Expenses. You can then use Payables to validate and pay
these invoices and create accounting entries for them.

Approval Hierarchy in iExpense:

If the profile option “AME: Installed” is set to Yes, then the routing rules for
approvals setup in Oracle Approvals Management are used, If set to No then
the Employee/Supervisor Approval Process is used.

Employee/Supervisor Approval Process:

In the Employee/Supervisor Approval Process, the supervisor of the Expense

report’s owner would become the APPROVER. Every Employee should be
assigned a Supervisor within Human Resources Responsibility- (New Hire:
Assignments).An employee must be set up as a supplier prior to entering the
expense report.

Managers can approve an expense report only if the total amount of the
expense report does not exceed their signing limit. The Manager (Spending)
Approval Process in the Expense Reporting workflow uses the signing limits you
define(Navigation: Account Payables responsibility – Employees> Signing Limits
)to determine which manager has authority to approve expense reports. If the
amount on the expense report exceeds the signing limit of the approver, the
expense report is automatically forwarded to the manager of the approver. This
goes up the management hierarchy until an Approver is found who could
approve the Expense report.
This process does not look at the purchasing Approval Hierarchy.

Administrative features in iExpense:

Delegating the authorization to enter the expenses on one’s behalf:

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You can authorize an employee to enter expense reports for another employee.
An employee who is assigned the responsibility to enter expense reports for
another employee is an authorized delegate

There are 2 ways this could be done:

1. Go to System Administrator>Security> Users

Query for the User’s record. Under Securing Attributes tab, add the below
details:

Attribute: ICX_HR_PERSON_ID

Application: Self-Service Web Applications

Value: Employee Id or the Person_id to whom the access to enter the

expense reports has to be given.

1. Go to the iExpense responsibility > Expense Preferences >Authorization

Preferences

Under Expenses Entry Delegations, click on the Add another row and enter the
name
to whom the access to enter the expense reports on your behalf has to be
given.
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Re-direct or Auto respond to the notifications:

If the approver is on leave, the notification could be delegated or forwarded to

the desired approver using Create Vacation Rule.

Steps to create Vacation rule:

1. iExpense Responsibility> Expenses Home

2. Select the “Vacation Rule” link
3. Select the “Create New Rule” link
4. For Item Type select “Expenses” for all Notifications or select the desired
Notification Type from List of Values
5. Select the “Next” link to proceed to the next setup page for the rule
6. Enter both a a valid Start and End Date for the new rule
7. Ensure the “Reassign” radio button is selected
8. Keep “All Employees and Users” in the menu box
9. Select the “Delegate” radio button – Assign/Reassign action is prohibited for
Purchasing Notifications
10. Select the Flashlight icon next to the blank menu box for selecting a user
11. A new sub-screen should pop-up to perform the user search
12. For “Search By” select “Username” – (DO NOT search by Name)
13. Perform the needed wildcard (%) search at the top of the page to locate
the desired username
14. Click the radio button next to the desired name of the user to have the
notifications sent to

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15. Press the “Select” button followed by the “Apply” button

16. Continue on with the saving of the Vacation Rule for latter use

Assigning the Card to another person to voucher the expenses on someone’s

behalf

This could be done if a person has to access the outstanding credit card
charges of another person to voucher them (temporarily). The
disadvantage with this would be, the charges will be vouchered under the
assignee’s name and would go to the assignee’s manager for Approval.

Workflow Notifications Error Handling:

In this section we will mainly focus on the notifications that are sent to the
APPROVER for the approval as it is very important to see that such notifications
reach the APPROVER on time so that there is no delay in the processing of the
expense report to avoid late fee enforced by the Credit Card company. These
notifications will have the message_name as
‘OIE_REQ_EXPENSE_REPORT_APPRVL’ in wf_notifications table. The mail status
of the notification can be SENT, CANCELED, MAIL, UNAVAIL, ERROR, NULL. Let

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us see in detail about these and the actions required to get the notification to
SENT status..

The below is the script to check the notification status:

select wn.notification_id,
aerh.invoice_num,
TO_CHAR(wn.begin_date,'DD-MON-YYYY hh:mi:ss') begin_date,
wn.to_user,
wn.from_user,
wr2.display_name preparer,
wr3.display_name reported_for,
wn.status,
wn.mail_status mail_status,
aerh.expense_status_code ,
WR.email_address ,
aerh.total,
aerh.report_submitted_date ,
aerh.description,
from wf_notifications wn,
wf_item_activity_statuses was,
wf_items wi,
ap_expense_report_headers_all aerh,
WF_ROLES WR,
wf_roles wr2,
fnd_user fu,
wf_roles wr3
where 1=1
and wn.notification_id = was.notification_id
and was.item_type = wi.item_type
and was.item_key = wi.item_key
and wn.status IN ( 'OPEN', 'CANCELED')
and wn.message_name = 'OIE_REQ_EXPENSE_REPORT_APPRVL'
and aerh.invoice_num = wi.user_key
and aerh.expense_status_code IN ( 'PENDMGR', 'RESOLUTN' )
and WN.recipient_role= WR.name (+)
and wi.owner_role = wr2.name
and aerh.employee_id = fu.employee_id

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and fu.user_name = wr3.name (+)

;

SENT: The notification has been successfully sent to the APPROVER.

CANCELED: The system is setup to send the notifications n times (n can be set
in the workflow attributes) with a timeout after 5 days. If the Approver does not
approve or reject within the time frame, the workflow will cancel the
notification automatically and then the notification will end up in the status
CANCELED.

Action: In such cases, RETRY would not work instead ask the preparer to
withdraw and re-submit the expense report.

MAIL: If the notification is not SENT to the approver, the status would be MAIL.

Action: Ask the DBA to bounce the workflow. This would solve the problem
most times. But if it doesn’t i.e if the status is still MAIL, then RETRY the activity
‘Request Approval from APPROVER’ using the Workflow Administrator
responsibility (demo below). If yet not sent, check the Attributes like Approver’s
email etc.

BLANK: Sometimes the value of the status would be NULL.

Action: Sometimes even if the status is BLANK, the notification is sent to the
approver. First check with the Approver to see if the notification is sent. If not
sent, RETRY the activity.

UNAVAIL: This would happen usually when there is problem with the
Approver’s preferences or Email address.
Action: Check the notification preference of the Approver using the below:

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SELECT WFU.NAME, WFU.display_name,WFU.notification_preference,

email_address ,wfu.status

FROM WF_USERS WFU

WHERE WFU.name in (‘NAME’) (NAME would be the user_name in FND_USER
table)

The notification_preference can be set to one of the below

MAILTEXT
QUERY

DISABLED

MAILHTM2
MAILHTML

MAILATTH

Make sure that it is set to MAILHTML

Also check if the email address returned in the above query is a valid one and
matches with the one in HR Employee record (hr_employee table), fnd_user
table and the outlook email address.

Also check if the status is ACTIVE in the above query, if the APPROVER is an
existing employee and his FND_USER account is ACTIVE.

FAILED:

Action RETRY would solve this case.

ERROR:

Action: Check the ERROR and act accordingly. Some sample Errors:

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–Failed Activity AP Validate Expense Report

Activity Type Function

Error Name -20001

Error Message ORA-20001: APP-SQLAP-10000: ORA-00984: column not

allowed here occurred in AddDistributionLine with parameters (&PARAMETERS)
while performing the following operation: parse cursor

Error Stack AP_WEB_EXPENSE_WF.APValidateExpenseReport(APEXP, 142459, 0,

Call DoAPValidationORA-00984: column not allowed here occurred in
AddDistributionLine with parameters (&PARAMETERS) while performing the
following operation: parse cursor)
Wf_Engine_Util.Function_Call(AP_WEB_EXPENSE_WF.APVALIDATEEXPENSEREPORT,
APEXP, 142459, 175587, RUN)

Check if the code combinations are all passed in correct and if it exists. There is
something wrong in the data which results in this error. If the expense report
errors out in this Stage i.e it has not passed the validation, Status in expense
report header would not be WEBEXPENSE and hence cannot see this in AP.

–. No Approver/Performer ERROR:

Check to see if there is any supervisor assigned in HR

Check to see if Supervisor exists in USERS list and in HR.

If everything is fine, In the status monitor, query for the Item key

Click on Active History

Check Request approval from APPROVER, hit Update attributes.

Fill in the appropriate Manager Id (Employee ID), Manager
name(WF_USER.NAME), Manager Display Name(WF_user.display_name),
approver ID, approver name ,Approver display name and hit Apply.

Go back to Active history, Check Request approval from APPROVER, hit Rewind.

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–DISCARD folder error:

Failed Activity Request Approval from APPROVER

Activity Type Notice

Error Name WFRSPPR_BOUNCE

Error Message 2405: Notification ‘1251131’ has bounced. Check mailer log and
discard folder. STATUS=ERROR ROLE=ABHI

Ask the DBA to resend the notification from Workflow mailer. This is due to
Mail Format or OUTLOOK version issues.

–Environment context Error:

Failed Activity Request Approval from APPROVER

Activity Type Notice

Error Name WF_ERROR

Error Message [WF_ERROR] ERROR_MESSAGE=3835: Error ‘-20001 – ORA-

20001: Oracle error -20001: ORA-20001: APP-FND-02500: Error occurred during
product initialization for MO when executing ‘begin MO_GLOBAL.INIT; end;’.
SQLCODE = -20001 SQLERROR = ORA-20001: APP-FND-02902: Multi-Org
profile option is required. Please set either MO: Security Profile or MO:
Operating Unit profile option. has been detected in FND_GLOBAL.INITIALIZE.’
encountered during execution of Generate function ‘WF_XML.Generate’ for
event ‘oracle.apps.wf.notification.send’. ERROR_STACK=
Wf_Engine_Util.Function_Call(AP_WEB_EXPENSE_WF.CALLBACKFUNCTION,
APEXP, 144392, SET_CTX) Wf_Engine_Util.Execute_Selector_Function(APEXP,
144392, SET_CTX)
Wf_Engine_Util.Function_Call(AP_WEB_EXPENSE_WF.CALLBACKFUNCTION,
APEXP, 144392, TEST_CTX) Wf_Engine_Util.Execute_Selector_Function(APEXP,
144392, TEST_CTX) Wf_Engine.CB(TESTCTX, APEXP:144392:175390, ::::)
Wf_Engine.oldCB(TESTCTX, APEXP:144392:175390, ::::)
WF_MAIL.SetContext(1252292)
WF_XML.GenerateDoc(oracle.apps.wf.notification.send, 1252292)

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WF_XML.Generate(oracle.apps.wf.notification.send, 1252292)
WF_XML.Generate(oracle.apps.wf.notification.send, 1252292)
Wf_Event.setMessage(oracle.apps.wf.notification.send, 1252292,
WF_XML.Generate) Wf_Event.dispatch_internal()

Error Stack

RETRY would resolve the problem.

If all the attempts were futile in sending the notification to the Approver, the
last action to resolve would be to ask the approver to go to IExpense
responsibility and approve manually.

RETRY Demo:
Log into Workflow Admin responsibility
Go to Administrator Workflow > Status Monitor
Key in the following values:

Type Internal Name: APEXP

User Key: Expense Report Number

Click Go
Select the Radio button and click on Activity History.

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Select the Activity you want to RETRY say “Request Approval from APPROVER” and
click on the Retry button on the top.

Click on Submit button in the next screen.

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Confirm the details in the next page by clicking the OK button.

REWIND Demo:
Log into Workflow Admin responsibility
Go to Administrator Workflow > Status Monitor
Key in the following values:

Type Internal Name: APEXP

User Key: Expense Report Number

Click Go
Select the Radio button and click on Activity History.

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Select the Activity which you want to REWIND for example say “Request Approval
from APPROVER” and click on the Rewind button on the bottom.

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Choose the activity to which you want the workflow to return in the next screen
and select the “Apply” button. This would REWIND the activity.

UPDATE ATTRIBUTES Demo:

In the “Activity History” screen, click on the “Update Attributes” Button at the
bottom. This opens up a page with all the attributes where you could update
the necessary and hit “Apply” button to save the changes.

March 25, 2011 Haritha Articles, Financials, iexpenses iexpenses

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