A Method to Design and Build Oracle E-Business Suite Customizations - 2 of 2
Author: Riccardo Lanzuolo
Alba Spectrum – Synergy of Business and Technology
This is the second article about our method to design and build Oracle Applications Customizations. To read the first one have a look at http://www.albaspectrum.com/Customizations_Whitepapers/Oracle/A-Method-to-Design-and-Build-Oracle-E-Business-Customizations1-2.htm . We found we should customize Oracle’s Build and Design Method because, as a software factory, we are focus on productivity and quality. We are not an Oracle E-Business Implementation Project, so a method is crucial and very important to us and our customers.
At the first article we describe our objectives, approach and success factors, now we are going to repeat the process overview and follow with the phase’s description.
As we said, the ADBM is a customization of the Oracle’s Method for Design and Build. We simplify it based on our experience and to focus on our business strategy. We keep the same name for the documents and templates keeping them “upgradeable” and useful for those already familiar with Oracle’s Method.
Developer’s Guide
This block has all the standards used by the designers and developers during “Design and Build” Phase as well as the standard to calculate the efforts at each project
This is a guideline to define the main strategy to build extensions to Oracle Applications. It is a document to respond how the project responds to customization requests and it is used by the project team to choose the options they have. It is a generic document; it is not supposed to be instantiated at each project although some projects have special needs;
This is a document used as a guideline to estimate time and effort to complete a project; it uses as input all the business requirements formalized by the customer at MD.050. It is very important for the commercial proposals because it is the base to propose a price to the project being quoted at the document “Elaborate Work and Commercial Proposal”. This is one of the ways to have a fairly and open relationship between Alba and its customers. Anyone can know how much effort the project will take, based on clear and well established rules, which can be repeated many times as needed.
This document defines the standards to be used by the designers during theirs customizations activities; these standards will help Alba to have the same kind of products independently of the designer being in charge; it is also very important to define some quality standards and keep the same look and feel among the projects. Its main objective is to create a clear communication of features and functionalities to users and developers.
This document describe the coding standards to be used by developers; this is another standard to improve quality and keep the customizations with high quality and fully compatible with the Oracle Applications with which they will integrate; keeping coding standards the customizations code will be easier to maintain and support. The benefits waited are: improved user interface; efficiency of operation; speedier development and; higher quality;
Requirements and Proposal Establishment
This block contains the steps necessary to formalize requirements and the work and commercial proposal
This document formalizes the functional features, use, and behavior of required customization; it is the document used to confirm the understanding of user requirements. It is supposed to be done by the customer, so it describes each customization in business and user terms; it must communicate all the features provided by the customization in non-technical terms. Alba may be hired to do this document, this is a business requirements analysis task so will be charge per hour at a separated quotation.
This is the work and commercial proposal that Alba will give to the customer. It consider all the business requirements formalized at the App. Extension Functional Designs – MD.050 document, show the computation to reach the effort, detail the deliverables and tasks offered by Alba, describe the tasks that should be done by the customer and finally gives a quotation for the service being described;
Test Scripts
This block describe the standards to be used for unit testing, during the coding phase as well as the link/integration tests the customer should do to homologize the customization being delivered
This Unit Test Script verifies that each application extension conforms to development standards by using a standards checklist given by Oracle. These test scripts will also considered all the implementation site own standards. The tests should be performed as the first step during unit testing of each application extension;
The Link Test Script checks the linkage and integration between two or more components that are part of the same application extension; Thos should be done by the customer as part of the its homologation process. The customer will write one Link Test Script for each Application Extensions Functional Design (MD.050). This the kind of task that should be done by the customer, Alba might be hired to build this document to guide the customer’s users to test the customization being delivered;
Design and Build
This block contains all the activities to be done solely by the software factory; it represents all the technical activities should be done by the Alba’s developers; it orients them to code and test properly, guided by testing procedures given by the customer and built by Alba
This document is used to document the technical specifications for the extensions being planned; it describes the technical requirements for each program module that comprises an application extension. It provides the technical specifications needed by the developer to build the customization and serves as the source for technical documentation needed for maintenance and update of the modules.
This task is used to develop automated functions and detailed instructions to install customizations in the testing and production environments; The deliverable for this task is a set of Installation Routines. These routines include documented instructions for installing all of the custom modules in the testing and production environments. Not all customizations can be installed with an automated script, so the instructions may include manual steps as well;
The deliverable for this task is the Module Source Code. It consists of the actual program code for the approved application extensions identified in Approved Designs (MD.080 is an optional task, depending on the customer’s choice); This task defines the cycle to code and test, considering the initial activities to link tests as well;
When the software factory finishes the designing, coding and testing cycle, we wish to make final tests. This activity is not done by the developers; we keep a team to mitigate the customizations built. This is a kind of quality assurance.
This is an optional activity that might be done according to Alba and customer’s choice. Projects demand a functional and technical design before it goes to code. Usually there is a need to confirm the understanding, because there would be a difference between what is asked for and what is understood by the analysts. If this activity is going to be done by the customer, after the possible feedback corrections, he will assign an Acceptance Certificate. This is to confirm the design projected and is a kind of technical contract.
Delivering and Validation
This activity is to be done by the customer. It is the time to procedure with the installation and test the service being delivered; Alba might be hired to make the installations routines, but the tests to validate must be done by the customer.
Alba has developed its own templates to be used by its own developers and customers. These documents should be supplied at the right moment, according to the process described at the item 2.1.
We are going to use an estimating technique that was proposed and built by Oracle. This technique calculates the total amount of effort we take to build the reports. It basically uses as input the number of SQL Statements, the processing logic and the work to format the report.
We are always open for new requirements and changes. If the new requirements will not change the total effort already calculate and we have not already worked on, we will not change the quotes already given. On the other hand, any proposed changes that would increase the estimated work must be re-approved, and a new estimative and quota will be given.
We will keep track of all requests and any unexpected conditions that affect the time required to deliver the products.
Having a method is the best way to establish clear rules, one of the objectives we have, so everybody can know how much it would cost, what and when would receive the Oracle E-Business customizations. We know we need always to improve this, but right now, customers and ourselves take advantage of using this method. It improves, not only, the relationship between Alba and ours customers, but, mainly because we really use metrics to charge and to manage, this culture spread to ours customers, so even the software users keep in mind that each request has its cost and need to worthy to spend money on.
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