SERVICE CONTRACTS

What is service contract?

Oracle Service Contracts provides a complete contract authoring execution solution
to manage warranties, extended warranties, usage, subscription services, as well as
complex service agreements.
A contract in Oracle Service Contracts comprises:
a header
one or more lines
one or more sub lines
Header:
The header is where you enter a brief description and specify the contract duration.
Header consists of:
Parties: Enter information about the customer, including the bill to and ship to
information for the contract.
Pricing/Billing: Assign a price list and various accounting rules for pricing
and\billing contracts.
Renewals: Define the renewal rules applied during manual or automatic renewal
of the contract.
Administration: Define administrative components used to process the
contract, such as the QA checklist, contract groups, and workflow.
Security/Text: Grant contract access by the resource group or user level.
Lines:
Lines list the individual service, usage, and subscription items included in the
contract. A single contract can have multiple lines.
There are three types of lines:
Service lines: Cover a broad category of items that can include activities such as
field service, depot repair, call center, technical support, or any other user-defined
business activities
Usage lines: Charge customers for usage. For example, a photo copier company
might wish to charge for the number of copies made within a period.
Subscription lines: Cover subscriptions for both tangible and intangible items.

What are tangible items?

Tangible items include magazines, collateral, or any other physical item
that can be shipped through Oracle Order Management.
What are intangible items?
Intangible items can be collateral sent via e-mail.
Sub lines

Sub lines specify what the service covers or the counters where the usage is
tracked.
It consists of:
Service lines: Sub lines for service lines specify what the service covers. A
service line can cover a party, a customer, a site, a system, a product, or an item.
Usage lines: Sub lines for usage lines specify the counters where the usage is
tracked.
Subscription lines: Subscription lines do not have sub lines.
Service contract life cycle:
Creating a Contract
Approving Contracts
Extending and Renewing Contracts
Terminating Contracts
Managing the Contract Lifecycle
Creating a Contract
You can create a contract manually. In addition, a contract can be created
automatically through Oracle Order Management or by creating a product that has a
warranty in Oracle Install Base.
Creating a Template from a Contract
A template makes it possible for you to speed up the contract creation process by
filling in frequently used values.
Approving Contracts
This group of topics explains the contract approval process.
Oracle Service Contracts leverages Oracle Workflow to automate the contract
approval process. After you author a contract you must:
Submit the contract for approval.
Secure approval on the contract.
Obtain a signature on the contract.
The Submit for Approval function launches the quality assurance (QA) check. If the
QA check is successful you can continue the approval process, which submits the
contract to the approval workflow.
Extending and renewing contracts:
Contract Extensions:
Oracle Service Contracts allows you to extend the duration of a contract or a
contract line without having to submit the contract to the approval workflow.
A contract must be in a status of Active, Signed, or Expired to be extended.
Contracts in a status of Entered, Canceled, or Terminated are examples of contracts
that cannot be extended.
Contract Renewals
The process of renewing a contract involves making a copy of an existing, active
contract at a point in time. The dates are changed to reflect a period of time similar
to the existing contract; beginning on the first day after the existing contract
expires.
Terminating Contracts

You can terminate a contract, a contract line, or a contract subline. The termination
date must fall between the start and end date of the service or services being
terminated .
Managing the Contract Lifecycle:
You must manage your contracts on an ongoing basis. You may need to change
coverage, durations, versions You can streamline and control administrative
processes, by leveraging functionality that manages updates and changes.
Which tables and views contains the contract lines, billings schedule and invoices of
a service contracts?
Table: OKC_K_HEADERS_B
Product: OKC - Contracts Core
Description: Top level of a contract structure and groups all the lines and terms and
conditions of a contract.
Implementation/DBA Data: OKC.OKC_K_HEADERS_B
Table: OKC_K_ITEMS
Product: OKC - Contracts Core
Description: Contract items
Implementation/DBA Data: OKC.OKC_K_ITEMS
Table: OKC_K_LINES_B
Product: OKC - Contracts Core
Description: Deliverable ITEMS grouped into a logical set usually defined by unitary
price,
delivery or some other classification.
Implementation/DBA Data: OKC.OKC_K_LINES_B
Table: OKS_BILL_SUB_LINES
Product: OKS - Service Contracts
Description: Related to a lower level contract line eg. coverage level or product.
Implementation/DBA Data: OKS.OKS_BILL_SUB_LINES
Table: OKS_BILL_CONT_LINES
Product: OKS - Service Contracts
Description: Records which are sent to AR.
Implementation/DBA Data: OKS.OKS_BILL_CONT_LINES
Table: OKS_BILL_SUB_LINE_DTLS
Product: OKS - Service Contracts
Description: The detail of quantities and monetary amounts either regular or
adjustment.
Implementation/DBA Data: OKS.OKS_BILL_SUB_LINE_DTLS
Table: OKS_BILL_TRANSACTIONS
Product: OKS - Service Contracts
Description: The transaction (invoice, credit etc.) which is eventually received from
AR.

Implementation/DBA Data: OKS.OKS_BILL_TRANSACTIONS

Table: OKS_BILL_TXN_LINES
Product: OKS - Service Contracts
Description: Holds the actual transaction amount and tax returned from AR.
Implementation/DBA Data: OKS.OKS_BILL_TXN_LINES

Table: OKS_STREAM_LEVELS_B
Product: OKS - Service Contracts
Description: Service Contracts Billing Stream Levels
Implementation/DBA Data: OKS.OKS_STREAM_LEVELS_B
APIS IN SERVICE CONTRACTS:
OKS_CONTRACTS_PUB.Create_Contract_Header:
This API is used to create contract header information. The API is called using
P_K_Header_Rec,
P_Header_Contacts_Tbl, P_Header_Sales_Crd_Tbl and P_Header_Articles_Tbl.
These contracts can be brought in as ENTERED, which would mean the process
owners would have to submit the contract for approval using Contracts Approval
Workflow.
OKS_CONTRACTS_PUB.Create_Service_Line
This API is used to create Contract Service Line for each contract header. The API is
called using P_K_Line_Rec, P_Contact_Tbl and P_Line_Sales_Crd_Tbl.
OKS_CONTRACTS_PUB.Create_Covered_Line
This API is used to create Covered Lines for each service line you create. Before you
call this API you are required to set values for P_K_Covered_Rec and
P_Price_Attribs_In.
Standard APIs in SC Module
OKC_CONTRACT_PUB (headers, lines, sub-lines) This is used for creating
Headers etc.
OKC_RULE_PUB (rule groups, rules)
OKC_CONTRACT_ITEM_PUB (items)
OKC_CONTRACT_PARTY_PUB (customers, contacts)
OKC_CONTRACT_GROUP_PUB (groupings)
OKS_SALES_CREDIT_PUB (sales credits)
OKS_CONTRACTS_PUB (billing schedule)
Core Tables
OKC.OKC_K_HEADERS_B
OKC_K_HEADERS_TL
OKC.OKC_K_LINES_B
OKC.OKC_K_LINES_TL
OKC.OKC_RULE_GROUPS_B
OKC.OKC_K_RULES_B

OKC.OKC_K_ITEMS
OKC.OKC_K_GRPINGS
OKC.OKC_K_PARTY_ROLES_B
OKC.OKC_K_HISTORY_B
OKC.OKC_K_PROCESSES
OKS.OKS_K_SALES_CREDITS
OKS.OKS_LEVEL_ELEMENTS
To create billing schedules through the API:
OKS_CONTRACTS_PUB.CREATE_BILL_SCHEDULE.
This API creates billing schedules for both sub line and service line. It creates
billing streams and individual billing lines.
For updating billing schedules, we can use:
OKS_BILL_SCH.CREATE_BILL_SCH_RULES.
This API also creates billing schedules for both sub line and service line
The only difference between the two APIs is that the second API always deletes
already existing billing schedules if present and then creates fresh ones. When
schedule is already created and if you call OKS_BILL_SCH.CREATE_BILL_SCH_RULES
for updating then what would happen is it would create additional billing streams
and one would get to see two billing streams instead of a single one.
Billing Schedules :
A billing schedule determines when the customer is billed for the services they
receive.
For contracts with service lines you can bill the customer either at the line level or
the
subline level, but for contracts with usage lines you can bill only at line level.
For service lines, this means that you can bill at the level of the service that is sold
to the
customer (called the Top Level in the application) or individually at the level of each
of
the items that is covered by that service (Covered Level), be it an individual item, a
system, a covered location, an account, or party.
INSTALL BASE
Install Base is a product to track an Item from Cradle to grave.
Lets say you want to track a component hard drive in a computer, you can do so
once you have the item set up in Inventory as trackable.
Oracle Install Base is an item instance life cycle tracking application that facilitates
enterprise-wide life cycle item management and tracking capability.
Oracle Install Base tracks an instance from the time that it is received in inventory,
in work in process, in projects, at customer sites, and throughout the return and
repair process.
It records a history of changes to tracked items and supports the creation and
maintenance of Oracle Install Base configurations.
Oracle Install Base is a centralized repository of information for an item instance
and its tracking details including location, status, ownership, party, account and

contact relationships, configuration data, and the change history of customer items
or corporate assets. The application includes drill-down capability to obtain details
of inventory, work in process, and order management transactions affecting an
item's tracking attributes.
Oracle Install Base provides links to detailed information from contracts, service
requests, repair orders initiated for an item instance, and counters associated with
the item instance.
FEATURES OF ORACLE INSTALLED BASE
Oracle Installed Base is an item instance life cycle tracking application that
facilitates enterprise-wide life cycle item management and tracking capability
Basic Tracking
You specify which items you want to track in the Master Item list in Oracle Inventory.
Subsequently, when a particular real-world instance of the item is created, an item
instance record is created in Oracle Installed Base. Any significant changes to the
item instance will also be recorded in Oracle Installed Base.
Item Instance Movement Tracking
Oracle Installed Base can track an item instance from the time that it is received in
inventory, in work in process, in projects, at customer sites, and throughout the
return and repair process
Tangible Items
Item instances can be used to track tangible items, that is, physical, real-world
objects, that can be assembled and shipped, such as computers, engines, machine
parts, and soon.
Intangible Items
Item instances can be used to track intangible items such as software, services,
licenses, and agreements. For example, a telephone number can have different
services such as call waiting and conference call. These can all be defined and
tracked as components of the telephone service.
Serialized Items
When a trackable item is defined in Oracle Inventory as serialized, each item
instance derived from that item requires a unique serial number and individual
tracking. The item instance will always have a quantity of 1.
Non-Serialized Items
When a trackable item is defined in Oracle Inventory as non-serialized, it is typically
for smaller objects whose real-world instances do not require individual tracking. For
example, a screw could be defined as a non-serialized, trackable item; an order for
100screws would result, after order shipping, in the creation of one item instance,
with quantity 100.
See also Serialization and Levels of Tracking