Everyone always asks us how we do what we do, and why, in over 20 years of Oracle E-Business Suite implementations, no one else has ever created software to automate the process of changing the underlying configurations or consolidating or separating data. View the original Blog post: http://www.eprentise.com/blog/data-quality/our-secret-sauce/ Website: www.eprentise.com Twitter: @eprentise Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Eprentise/posts Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eprentise Ensure your data is Complete, Consistent, and Correct by using eprentise software to transform your Oracle® E-Business Suite.

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Our Secret Sauce
an eprentise white paper

2. Our Secret Sauce
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© 2014 eprentise, LLC. All rights reserved.
eprentise® is a registered trademark of eprentise, LLC.
FlexField Express and FlexField are registered trademarks of Sage Implementations, LLC.
Oracle, Oracle Applications, and E-Business Suite are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation.
All other company or product names are used for identification only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Author: Helene Abrams
Published: April 15, 2010
www.eprentise.com

3. Our Secret Sauce
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Everyone always asks us how we do what we do, and why, in over 20 years of Oracle® E-Business Suite
implementations, no one else has ever created software to automate the process of changing the
underlying configurations or consolidating or separating data. eprentise software is built on a proprietary
process called Metadata Analysis that is really the engine that drives the changes in an Oracle E-Business
Suite. eprentise Metadata Analysis uses patterns and rules-based technology to discover everything about
a particular database.
A good analogy for Metadata Analysis is an
architecture diagram for an already-built house
(see That Old House). The architecture diagram
includes all the wires and the pipes in addition to
all the other internals of the house, like where
every stud is located, whether the wallboard is
aligned, the mechanicals including the type and
efficiency of the heating unit, and the age of each
appliance and how it is used.
This architecture diagram knows the capacity of
each wire or object in the house, knows what it is
connected to, knows the order of operations if
something needs to be changed, and fully
understands the impact of that change. Metadata
Analysis discovers and documents all database
objects (e.g., tables and columns, primary and
unique keys, rows and objects, foreign keys, other
constraints, triggers) and application objects. It
understands the data and has a built-in
knowledge repository of how every piece of data
is used, and how that data supports each business
process. When it finds information (in the format of rules) about an instance, it confirms the information
by checking every row of data to see if the information is consistent within the database, then validates
the information against the eprentise Knowledge Repository. In addition, the eprentise Knowledge
Repository houses information from each version of Oracle E-Business Suite gleaned from a variety of
methods. (Only about 30% of what we find is documented in the DBA or FND tables or in the Oracle
Technical Reference Manuals).
After all the rules about the metadata are confirmed and validated, Metadata Analysis populates the
eprentise Knowledge Repository with information specifically about the database, its schemas, constraints,
and other database objects. It also compares configuration details between a source and a target. The
source and targets can be different database instances, or different operating units, or really anything in
the EBS. eprentise software uses the rules that it finds during the Metadata Analysis process to
dynamically generate code to perform four functions: copy, filter, change, and merge.
Again, back to the house analogy. Once you have all the building materials available, and if you can get a
good schematic of the house, you can remodel it with the right tools. You can move walls, add on to the
existing structure, or even start over again on the same foundation. Within Oracle E-Business Suite,
Metadata Analysis gives us the schematic, your data and business processes are the building materials,

4. Our Secret Sauce
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and we have the software tools to remodel EBS any way that you want, whether it is merging data
together, splitting it apart, changing it, or moving data to realign it with the changes in your business.
Curious?
For more information, please call eprentise at 1.888.943.5363 or visit www.eprentise.com.
About eprentise
eprentise provides transformation software products that allow growing companies to make their Oracle® E-Business
Suite (EBS) systems agile enough to support changing business requirements, avoid a reimplementation and lower the
total cost of ownership of enterprise resource planning (ERP). While enabling real-time access to complete, consistent
and correct data across the enterprise, eprentise software is able to consolidate multiple production instances, change
existing configurations such as charts of accounts and calendars, and merge, split or move sets of books, operating
units, legal entities, business groups and inventory organizations.