Oracle Internet Expense (OIE) - Policy

Objective:

Oracle Internet expense (OIE) module is used to enter employee personal and business expense so it can be reimbursed from the employer.

Today we will look how to implement company policy.

Policy:

Policy is implemented to enforce employee to flow company rule while creating expense report.

e.g.:

Meals expense should not exceed 50$ per person

Similar to above scenario there could be various other rule which customer might want to implement.

All these can be implemented through:

• Policy Schedule
• OIE Client extension.

We will go over each type and discuss in detail.

Policy Schedule:

·         Oracle has given standard method to create rule through setup navigation.

·         Go to Internet expense setup and administration responsibility

·         Internet expense setup

·         Click policy tab, decide the expense type to which you need to create policy

·         Click on policy schedule button to create new policy.

·         Select the rule, currency.

·         Create rule period (this is needed because in some company rule keep changing for each quarter/annual so multiple rule periods can be created with start and end date).

·         Active the rule

·         Assign the policy to expense type. (go to parables manager, setup, invoice, expense report template)

·         Query for the expense you want to apply policy, enter the policy and save the transaction.

Setup navigation with example:

a. 

Go to Internet expense setup and administrator responsibility, Internet expense Setup menu.
Navigate to Policy tab and choose the expense fields for which you want to create schedule.

In below example let us see how to create policy schedule for Meals expense type and the policy not to exceed more than 50$ per person, if more than 50$ then warning message should be displayed.

Warning message is define in Application message: OIE_POL_VIOLATION_REV_WRN
You may modify this message as per client needs.

Click on Create button to create policy schedule

b. 

Give name to policy and start date.
If the rule is to be for multiple currency then you may choose multiple, but for our demo purpose let us use Single Reimbursement currency.
You may apply your rule based on daily limit (limit per day), Tolerance limit (for each expense report) etc.

In our demo, we want to apply policy on daily limit.
i.e.: Requester can submit meals expense up to 50$ per day.

c. 

Oracle gives 3 different daily limit options: 

• Individual meal
• Daily Sum
• Both

Individual Meal:
When expense report is created with Breakfast meal and lunch meal.

The rule will be applied for each meal type independently.

e.g.:

If breakfast meal is set to 50$ limit and lunch meal is set to 75$ limit.
In this example assume there is only 1 participant in the expense.

The policy will be applied to individual meal type.

If you did not choose this option then how oracle works is it will sum both breakfast and lunch together and use minimum set limit.

i.e.:
Break fast - 45$
Lunch 65$
Since both breakfast and lunch are in same expense, by setting Daily limit to "individual" rule will be applied separately. In above example breakfast and lunch is within limit so no policy violation.

Daily Sum:
If you do not chose daily limit by default oracle choose daily sum.
This option works by combining all the expense type expenses and calculate the value based on lowest limit.

e.g.:
lets take same example listed above.
limit for breakfast is 50 and lunch is 75

when expense is created with
breakfast - 45$
lunch - 65$

How it works is, sum both the expense 45+65/2=55 and take lowest limit (55/50 (breakfast limit).
With this calculation, the expense report violates the policy.

But in this case there is no policy violation when you look at break fast and lunch seperatly but with daily sum option it works differently.

This is oracle standard functionality.
you can find more details in 

Two Meal Policy Schedules On One Expense Report Template Uses Lower Limit (Doc ID 580066.1)

Both: 
It takes both above options.

d.

Create period. This is used to create policy for each period as the policy keeps changing so you can have all the policy period created upfront and give start date so the policy period is activated accordingly.

e.g.: for Quarter one, meals limit is 50$ per person.

for quarter four, meals limit is 60$ per person.

So no need to create 2 different policy schedule for above case, you can have 1 policy schedule and 2 period. You need to give the limit value when you define period.

e.

You need to give the limit value in the detail section

Expense template:
Once the set up is done. Now it is time to attach policy to expense type.

Go to Payables manager, setup, invoice, expense report templates.

Query the expense template and attached the policy to the expense type.

OIE Client extension:

Oracle has given custom function to validate the expense report.

ap_web_cust_dflex_pkg.CustomValidateLine  

Merritt and demerits between the two options:

Policy schedule	OIE client extension
Easy to use/configure	Requires technical skill
Easy to maintain rules	Difficult to maintain rules
No special skill required	Requires PLSQL skill
Business can create and maintain without IT involvement	IT involvement is required as it requires coding skill
Can display warning or error message based on profile	Will display only error message
Complex validation is not possible	Easy to implement complex logic and validation
Can display only 1 custom message	Can display various message based on expense type