Implementing Oracle iStore

Basic setup of a Specialty Store does not involve a whole lot of effort, provided backend ERP parameters related to General Ledger, Order Management, Payment Methods (in Receivables), Freight Methods (in Shipping) , Inventory Organization and various others are setup appropriately.

Initial setup of a Specialty Store is also dependent on the hundreds of IBE (related to iStore) Profile Options that need to be populated or unpopulated. The values in the IBE Profile Options will determine how the Store will behave and perform. Additionally, there are ASO Profile Options (related Oracle Quoting or Order Capture, as it used to be called till the version 11.5.6 or so) , that control the End User UI, specifically the Cart functionality.

Oracle Quoting is an interface between Oracle iStore and Oracle Order Management, in essence, all the value from an iStore UI are passed to Order Management via the Quoting module. There are Quoting PL/SQL APIs that pick the information from the Quoting (ASO) tables and pass it on to the Order Management APIs. If you come across an error while placing an order via iStore, the first question that you need to ask is ‘Will the data work if I create a Quote using Oracle Quoting’, if it does then there is something wrong with, either the iStore (IBE) Profile Option setups or it could be some bug within iStore JSPs or it could be some customization on iStore that may have caused it. If Quoting fails, then take it one level above, i.e. Order Management and try to create an Order for the same values used in iStore and/or Quoting. If the Order fails there then there is something wrong with the setups in Order Management.

For eg. these are some of the issues you may come across

1. If you are etting an error such as , Price List Not Found or List Price is Null, when adding an item to cart

a. Verifiy if the profile option, IBE: Use Price list associated with Specialty Store is set to ‘No’ for iStore application if the price list for the user should be determined by the Pricing engine. Default behavior is assumed to be ‘Yes’ and the price list at the specialty store is used for registered/business users.

b. ASO: OM Defaulting to ‘Yes’ at the desired level. (This profile is available at Site/Application/Responsibility/User level)

c. Using the Oracle forms login, Select Oracle Pricing Manager Responsibility and navigate as follows
Setup -> Event Phases -> Query for all event phases. Set Search Flag = ‘Yes’ for pricing event ‘LINE’ in all phases.

d. Make sure that Defaulting Rule is setup correctly in Order Management For example, lets setup a Defaulting Rule for Order TypeUsing Oracle forms login, Select Order Management Super User Responsibility, navigate as followsSetup -> Rules -> Defaulting Rule –> Search for ‘Application: Oracle Order Management’ and ‘Entity: Order Header’ Select ‘Order Type’ from the Item Attributes –> Click on ’Defaulting Rules’ –> Add an entry in the ‘Default Sourcing Rules’ with the following information:
Sequence: 1
Source Type: Constant Value
Order Type: Standard

2. The price shows up as 0 (Zero) amount after an item is added to the cart This is because the Profile Option IBE: Pricing Event for Shopping Cart needs to be set to ’Enter Order Line’ at the Application (Oracle iStore) level.

I will take up the various troubleshooting techniques in a separate blog. For now, it would suffice to mention Implementing a vanilla iStore version is a matter of a day, definitely not more than week. The reason why it could vary from a day to a week, is because the instance could be missing few iStore, Quoting, Order Management, Pricing or Inventory related patches. Additionally, you may have to meet with the business heads of various departments such as Order Management, Inventory, Pricing, Receiveables to determine what the business would like to see for an iStore Order – for eg. what should be the Order Type, the Order Source, what Payment Methods should show up, are credit cards allowed as a method of payment, what features would they like to hide or display on the Web store front, such that it does not increase the call volume for the CSRs, handling the Orders coming via phone or EDI. Call volumes would increase if iStore Orders does not following the standard process in Order Management. Look for further updates in the iStore category that will discuss various other setup and features of iStore.