Deloitte Consulting LLP

OTM Support – Winning Approach

Post Production Support Made Easy

August 2014

2

Presenters

• Oracle Technology Consultant with Deloitte Consulting LLP

• Over 3.5 years of experience in OTM implementations

• Experience with a variety of clients in areas such as:

• Industrial Manufacturing

• Retail

• 3rd Party Logistics

• High-tech Manufacturing

• Experience with OTM versions 6.2 and 6.3

Cameron Gauntner

Satya Narayanamurthy Vabilisetty

Madhavi Chinnam

Paroma Biswas

3

Contents

Introduction

Objectives

Right Approach to Drive Support

Plan and Design for Support

Identify and Categorize Issues

Define Resolution Process

Enlighten, Educate. Equip Users

Best Practices

Appendix – Some common issues and resolution provided

4

Objectives

The purpose of Post Implementation Support is to establish a methodology and structure to manage and

support the production environment with the appropriate resources, tools and procedures. This

presentation highlights the following key areas:

Support Challenges in OTM

Expectation Management

Demarcation of the Support function

SLA/SLO Management

Support Resources

Documentation & User Training

Educate and Empower the End Users

OTM support issues Matrix

Functional areas

Technical areas

Support Tools

Best Practices of OTM support

5

The Right Approach to Drive Support

A well-managed production environment can provide cost-effective long term use of systems and realize a

higher rate of return on investment.

Identify and Categorize

Issues

Define Issue Resolution

Process

Enlighten, Educate.

Equip Users

Plan and Design for

Support

Successful Support

Define clear categories for day

to day issues based on

Parameters

Train Client and Support user

community to categorize the

issues

Capture as much data as

possible

Understand, Educate and train

the client and the support

teams.

Empower the client community

with tools and accelerators

Prepare and maintain

knowledge repository

Continue to enhance the

process

Define clear Service Level

Agreements

Implement a resolution process

to meet the SLA’s

Use Support tools to monitor

and report

Establish a clear escalation

path

Monitor Support matrix

Identify Support team and

define roles and responsibilities

Demarcate the Support teams

based on the roles and

responsibilities

Identify client SPOC for the

team

Lay down a clear

communication process

6

Plan and Design for Support

Plan Support

Team

Identify Roles

and

Responsibilities

Lay down

Communication

Path

Identify Client

Team

Components Issue and Impact Leading Practices

OTM solution support requires knowhow, experience and deep

application expertise

Likely Impacts: lack of trained teams to support issues, Inadequate

contingency plan, longer timelines for issue resolution

Unclear roles, inadequate support teams and poor resource planning

Likely Impacts: Passing the buck, user community is unable to

assign issues to the right team; longer resolution time and missed

SLA’s

Lack of a good communication templates and tools to identify, raise

and communicate issues and missing information.

Likely Impacts: Inadequate information in the issue, unable to

assign issue to right team and resource, lengthier resolution time

Lack of client super users and business users

Likely Impacts: Unable to assign accountability for testing resolution

Post implementation support is often overlooked by businesses keen to return to business as normal. Planning support for

an OTM implementation is key to the success of the solution.

Transition and

Training

Lack of proper transition about the client business processes, OTM

solution, configurations and issues faced in the testing cycle

Likely Impacts: Unable to resolve issues efficiently, unable to

realize criticality and business impact

Clearly define team structure including

responsibility, ownership, and

expectations of all team members.

Institute a strong governance program,

in which procedures and

communication channels are explicitly

outlined.

Collaboration between teams in

order to ensure understanding of

ownership and accountability of

testing and approval process.

Routinely update design and

configuration documentation and also

augment end user system knowledge

through ongoing training and support.

Establish a comprehensive, scalable

support team to support the day to day

needs of the application.

7

Identify and Categorize Issues

OTM Configuration OTM User Interface Integration with ERP General and 3rd Party

Capture Issue using Support Tools

Assign to the correct Queue

Assign Severity to Issues based on Score Card

• Bulk Plan Outputs

• Null Pointer exceptions

• Route built by the plan

• New carrier has been

contracted

• Remote exception while

processing Tender

• PCMiler/ Kewill / Carrier

Connect fetching wrong

data

• Missing Fuel Surcharge

• Fields not available on

the screen

• Fonts on the screen

set

• New users and access

related issues

• Increase the count of

records in the screen

• Inbound Order Interface

• Outbound Trip interface

• Tenders to carriers

• Data integrity in the

interface

• Time taken for interface

jobs to complete

• Reports and the related

data

• Code and mapping

• Bulk Plan

performance and time

• OTM and ERP

systems have time

zone mismatches

• Application is brought

back after bounce

• PCMiler/ Kewill /

Carrier Connect

servers not

responding

Typic

al S

upport

Are

as

Support

Accele

rato

rs

Cate

go

rie

s

A successful support model must clearly define a simple way for the user community to identify and categorize issues in

buckets or queues followed by assigning severity levels that will determine resolution timelines.

The more the information the faster the resolution

8

Identify and Categorize Issues – Common Examples

• Proactive Response: Proposing /

recommending fixes for potential

issues:

Notify the user before the rate

expires

Monitor Business Monitors

Monitor and investigate Bulk

plan diagnostics

• Reactive Responses: Fix any

configuration related areas

Set up access and controls to

enable correct users from

controlling master data

Set OTM to send notification

emails on integration failures

Shipment Tender offer for

multiple logistics involved party

contacts on a shipment

Increase Bulk Plan numbers

Enable service providers to add

equipment initial number on an

accepted shipment

Technical

General and 3rd Party

OTM Configuration and UI

• Reuse the code fixes for recurring issues

• Tune performance to increase bulk plan

throughput and reduce time.

Large Bulk plans, elaborate

workflows, lengthy saved queries

used in reports/agents

• Tune interface performance to expedite

the inbound and outbound flow of orders

and shipments into and out of OTM

Web Tier: slow painting of screens,

large number of users logged into

OTM

App Tier: Multiple Bulk plans and

large volume of transactions

running simultaneously, slow web

logic memory, high App server

CPU usage, OTM threads related

to workflows

DB Tier: DB locks, updates to OTM

are slow, Retrieval of data to

results screen is slow

• PCMiler/ Kewill / Carrier Connect

servers not responding

• Integration with 3rd party EBS tools

• Integration with GTM related 3rd party

tools

• Data loading CSV files

• Set up a recurring processes to send

shipments to external systems without

duplication

• Reload data into FTI(Fusion

Transportation Intelligence) Database

after it was already sent

Categorizing issues can save time and increase efficiency by leveraging knowledge from prior experience. Some examples

of common customer requests that can be mitigated quickly and efficiently include:

Details provided in the Appendix

9

Capture Issues and Assign Severity

…helps quick assignment to the correct Support

queue

…causing least impact, ensuring steady

business as usual…

Capturing an issue at the right time and recording all required information such as static element, business impact, and user

impact are critical for an effective resolution process.

… assigning the correct severity using pre-

determined criteria…

10

Change

Management

Plan

Define Resolution Process

Control and

Advisory Board

Approval

Support reaches

out for more

information

User raises ticket

using support tool

Defined

Process Flow

Monitor SLA’s and

Metrics regularly

Change Advisory

Board

Resolution and

Documentation People & Change

Assigns severity

Reach out to

Support

Knowledge

base

Request for

more

information

Information

analysis &

evaluation

Maintain

KPI’s, SLA’s

Technology

Enhancement IT

Enhanceme

nt Plan

Risk

Management

Training

Development

& Delivery

Training &

Transformation

Issue

categorized into

a bucket

Support Excellence

It is important to understand the nature of a problem before jumping straight to solutions. Establish a methodology and

structure to manage the resolution process.

Enhanc

ement?

Internal

investigation and

Issue resolution

Resolve

d?

Test the

solution with

Customer if

required

Deploy

resolution

Train and

educate the

users

11

Enlighten, Educate and Equip Client Community

Information and Awareness streamlines good business processes, which in turn enhances

the utilization of technology.

Order constraining constrains Bulk Plan from optimizing

Too many agents and workflow causes processing overheads

Introduce customers to Support communities provided by Oracle such as FAQ, OTM Wiki,

Oracle Metalink

Enlighten

Educate

Equip

Educate clients about OTM’s functionality and their potential benefits through demo’s

Incorporate End user inputs to recommend changes to process owners and leads

Arrange repetitive training sessions with end users

Train Super users on functionality such as :

Understanding Bulk Plan dialogists

Creating custom logs

Understanding top 10 reasons for specific planning results

Loading data (Locations, regions, rates) using CSV templates

Equip the client with the right tools and train them to use the same e,g CSV template to

load rates.

User guides and UPK’s prove the most effective tools to do 1st level trouble shooting

Explain the power of Business Monitor and Event based alerts and notification for

proactive issue resolution.

12

Accelerators Shorten Issue Life Cycle

OTM Accelerators facilitate faster resolution within the support process.

.

.

XML Template

Rate Loading Templates: Use mode based rate templates, with built in formulae

OTM Monitoring tools

1. EMAN

2. Robotics

3. Wire Shark

Automated testing tools (with

Open Source code)

1. SOAP UI

2. Selenium

3. TestNG

13

OTM Support Best Practices

• Identify Process owners for each business process and module

• Identify, Involve, and train support teams effectively ahead of time for a smooth transition

post go live.

• Create and Maintain documentation:

BR.010 Design Documents

MD.050 Functional Specifications

MD.070 Technical Specifications

User Productivity Kit in View it and Try it mode or User Manual

• OTM specific documents, with regards to criticality of issues, resolution and scenarios to

reduce the turnaround time:

Common Reasons for Inbound/Outbound interface failures and Resolution Guide

Common Bulk Plan outcomes and possible resolutions

Rate Inquiry with Kewill and Carrier Connect

How to Upload files to, and extract files from OTM

• Enlighten, Educate and Equip the customer as an ongoing activity

• Periodic Health-checks of Live environments & methods of performing them

• Automated corrective actions (Interface errors)

Appendix

15

Scenario 1

Add content

16

Scenario 2

Add content

17

Scenario 3

Add content

18

Scenario 4

Set OTM to send an email when inbound integration fails?

1. Set the properties in glog.properties on each server to include the following:

glog.integration.servlet.TransmissionStageError.senderrorEmail = true

glog.integration.servlet.TransmissionStageError.erroremailFrom = glogAdvisor@glog.com

glog.integration.servlet.TransmissionStageError.erroremailSubject =Transmission XML Stage Error

glog.integration.servlet.TransmissionStageError.errorEmailTo = customer_email_id

glog.integration.servlet.TransmissionStageError.includeTransmissionText = true

2. Restart server and try to upload an xml that fails to load through Integration web service

OTM (Oracle Transportation Management) master data are interfaced from upstream systems. How do I address sequential

interface errors or auto processing of multiple transmissions with ERROR status?

19

The Training and Knowledge Repository that works

Based on Deloitte’s experience with OTM support projects, here are a few key considerations to ensure success.

Common Challenges Best Practice

Confusing documentation (Design,

Configuration, scenario mapping) not related

to Day-in-the-Life processes

Good documentation, that regularly maintained,

reduces the need to re-invent the wheel and re-train,

especially in cases of recurring issues

Lack of simple User manuals or UPK’s “How to documents” can be of great help to users and

support teams likewise to understand process and

solution

Lack of understanding of OTM functionality

that is not in scope of the solutions

Train the trainers- Well-trained end-users(planners,

rate loaders) can reduce the creation of requests for

basic functions and processes

1st time client users are unaware of the

external user communities and knowledge

repositories

Enlighten and educate