GLOSSARY (PO)

GLOSSARY

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

accept: An action to indicate that you accept the previous approver's authorization.

acceptance: Supplier acknowledgement of a purchase order that indicates that the supplier agreed to and accepted the terms of the purchase order.

account: See: accounting flexfield

account alias: An easily recognized name or label representing an account charged on miscellaneous transactions. You may view, report, and reserve against an account alias.

Account Generator

A feature that uses Oracle Workflow to provide various Oracle Applications with the ability to construct Accounting Flexfield combinations automatically using custom construction criteria. You define a group of steps that determine how to fill in your Accounting Flexfield segments. You can define additional processes and/or modify the default process(es), depending on the application.

See also: activity (Workflow), function, item type, lookup type, node, process, protection level, result type, transition, Workflow Engine

accounting flexfield: A feature used to define your account coding for accounting distributions. For example, this structure can correspond to your company, budget account, and project account numbers. For simplicity, Inventory and Oracle Manufacturing use the term account to refer to the accounting flexfield.

accounting flexfield limit: The maximum amount you authorize an employee to approve for a particular range of accounting flexfields.

accounting period: The fiscal period a company uses to report financial results, such as a calendar month or fiscal period.

accounts payable accrual account: The account used to accrue payable liabilities when you receive your items. Always used for inventory and outside processing purchases. You can also accrue expenses at the time of receipt. Used by Purchasing and Inventory, the accounts payable account represents your non-invoiced receipts, and is included in your month end accounts payable liability balance. This account balance is cleared when the invoice is matched in Payables.

accrual accounting: Recognition of revenue when you sell goods and recognition of expenses when a supplier provides services or goods. Accrual based accounting matches expenses with associated revenues when you receive the benefit of the good and services rather than when cash is paid or received.

acquisition cost: The cost necessary to obtain inventory and prepare it for its intended use. It includes material costs and various costs associated with procurement and shipping of items, such as duty, freight, drayage, customs charges, storage charges, other supplier's charges, and so on.

activity (Workflow)

An Oracle Workflow unit of work performed during a business process.

See also: activity attribute, function activity

activity attribute: A parameter for an Oracle Workflow function activity that controls how the function activity operates. You define an activity attribute by displaying the activity's Attributes properties page in the Activities window of Oracle Workflow Builder. You assign a value to an activity attribute by displaying the activity node's Attribute Values properties page in the Process window.

alert: A specific condition defined in Oracle Alert that checks your database and performs actions based on the information it finds there.

alert action: In Oracle Quality, an electronic mail message, operating system script, SQL script, or concurrent program request that is invoked when specified action rule conditions are met.

alphanumeric number type: An option for numbering documents, employees, and suppliers where assigned numbers can contain letters as well as numbers.

amount based order: An order you place, receive, and pay based solely on the amount of service you purchase.

approve: An action you take to indicate that you consider the contents of the purchasing document to be correct. If the document passes the submission tests and you have sufficient authority, Purchasing approves the document.

approved: A purchase order or requisition status that indicates a user with appropriate authorization approved the purchase or requisition. Purchasing verifies that the purchase order or requisition is complete during the approval process.

archiving: The process of recording all historical versions of approved purchase orders. Purchasing automatically archives a purchase order when you approve it for the first time. Purchasing subsequently archives your purchase orders during the approval process if you have increased the revision number since the last time you approved the purchase order.

ASC X12: Accredited Standards Committee X12 group. This group is accredited by ANSI and maintains and develops the EDI standards for the United States and Canada.

ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A standard file format used for transmission and storage. ASCII is a seven-bit code with an eighth bit used for parity.

ASL: Approved Suppliers List. A list where you can set up your Approved Suppliers, Sites, and Items.

ASN: (Advanced Shipping Notice)

asset item: Anything you make, purchase, or sell including components, subassemblies, finished products, or supplies which carries a cost and is valued in your asset subinventories.

asset subinventory: Subdivision of an organization, representing either a physical area or a logical grouping of items, such as a storeroom where quantity balances are maintained for all items and values are maintained for asset items.

assigned units: The number of resource units assigned to work at an operation in a routing. For example, if you have 10 units of machine resource available at a department, you can assign up to 10 of these units to an operation in a routing. The more units you assign, the less elapsed time Work in Process schedules for the operation.

assignment set: A group of sourcing rules and/or bills of distribution and a description of the items and/or organizations whose replenishment they control.

attribute: See: activity attribute, item type attribute

authorization check: A set of tests on a purchasing document to determine if the document approver has sufficient authority to perform the approval action.

automatic numbering: A numbering option Purchasing uses to assign numbers to your documents, employees, or suppliers automatically.

automatic sourcing: A Purchasing feature which allows you to specify for predefined items a list of approved suppliers and to associate source documents for these suppliers. When you create a requisition or purchase order line for the item, Purchasing automatically provides appropriate pricing for the specified quantity based on the top-ranked open source document for the supplier with the highest percentage allocation.

B

balancing entity: An organization for which you prepare a balance sheet, represented as a balancing segment value in your accounting flexfield. This is the equivalent of a fund in government organizations. Examples include companies, strategic business units, and divisions.

balancing segment: An Accounting Flexfield segment you define so that Oracle General Ledger automatically balances all journal entries for each value of this segment. For example, if your company segment is a balancing segment, General Ledger ensures that within every journal entry, the total debits to company 01 equal the total credits to company 01.

base unit: The unit of measure to which you convert all units of measure within one class. The base unit is the smallest or most commonly used unit of measure in the class. For example, millimeter is the base unit in the Length class. You define your base unit of measure when you create your unit class.

bill-to address: The customer's billing address. It is also known as invoice-to address.

blanket purchase agreement: A type of purchase order you issue before you request actual delivery of goods or services. You normally create a blanket purchase agreement to document a long-term supplier agreement. A blanket purchase agreement may contain an effective date and an expiration date, a committed amount, or quantity. You use a blanket purchase agreement as a tool for specifying agreed prices and delivery dates for goods and services before ordering them.

blanket purchase order: See: blanket purchase agreement

blanket release: An actual order of goods and services against a blanket purchase agreement. The blanket purchase agreement determines the characteristics and prices of the items. The blanket release specifies actual quantities and dates ordered for the items. You identify a blanket release by the combination of the blanket purchase agreement number and the release number.

blind receiving: A site option that requires your receiving staff to count all items on a receipt line. Blind receiving prevents display of expected receipt quantities in receiving windows.

budget organization: An entity, such as a department, division, or activity responsible for entering and maintaining budget data. You define budget organizations for your agency, then assign appropriate accounting flexfields to each budget organization.

bucket patterns: Bucket patterns can be defined to include daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly buckets. Bucket patterns are used to bucket quantity requirements on Planning or Shipping Schedules.

budgetary account: An account segment value (such as 6110) that is assigned one of the two budgetary account types. You use budgetary accounts to record the movement of funds through the budget process from appropriation to expended appropriation.

business document: A document used for conducting business between two trading partners - a purchase order or invoice, for example.

business group: An organization which represents the consolidated enterprise, a major division, or an operation company. This entity partitions Human Resources information.

buyer: Person responsible for placing item resupply orders with suppliers and negotiating supplier contracts.

C

cancel: You can cancel a purchase order after approving it. When you cancel a purchase order, you prevent anyone from adding new lines to the purchase order or receiving additional goods. Purchasing still allows billing for goods you received before cancelling the purchase order. Purchasing releases any unfilled requisition lines for reassignment to another purchase order.

candidate: A record Purchasing selects to purge based on the last activity date you specify. Purchasing selects only records that you have not updated since the last activity date. Purchasing does not purge a candidate until you confirm it.

carrier: See: freight carrier

category: Code used to group items with similar characteristics, such as plastics, metals, or glass items.

category set: A feature in Inventory where users may define their own group of categories. Typical category sets include purchasing, materials, costing, and planning.

check funds: To certify whether you have funds available to complete your requisition or purchase order. The difference between the amount you are authorized to spend and the amount of your expenditures plus encumbrances equals your funds available. You can certify funds available at any time when you enter a requisition or a purchase order. You can track funds availability at different authority levels on-line.

close: A purchase order is automatically closed once it is received (if you require a receipt) and is billed for all purchase order shipments. Since you do not require or expect any further activity, Purchasing closes the purchase order. You can also manually close the purchase order early if you do not expect further activity. Adding lines to it or receiving against it, reopens the purchase order. Purchasing does not consider closed purchase orders for accruals.

close for invoicing: A purchase order control that you can assign manually or that Purchasing can assign automatically when the amount invoiced reaches a defined percentage of the order quantity.

close for receiving: A purchase order control you can assign manually or that Purchasing can assign automatically when the amount received reaches a defined percentage of the order quantity.

column headings: Descriptions of the contents of each column in the report.

combination of segment values: A combination of segment values uniquely describes the information stored in a field made up of segments. A different combination of segment values results when you change the value of one or more segments. When you alter the combination of segment values, you alter the description of the information stored in the field.

commitment: A contractual guarantee with a customer for future purchases, usually with deposits or prepayments. You can then create invoices against the commitment to absorb the deposit or prepayment. Receivables automatically records all necessary accounting entries for your commitments. Oracle Order Entry allows you to enter order lines against commitments.
A journal entry you make to record an anticipated expenditure as indicated by approval of a requisition. Also known as pre-commitment, pre-encumbrance or pre-lien.

committed amount: The amount you agree to spend with a supplier.

concurrent manager: Components of your applications concurrent processing facility that monitor and run time-consuming tasks for you without tying up your terminal. Whenever you submit a request, such as running a report, a concurrent manager does the work for you, letting you perform many tasks simultaneously.

concurrent process: A task in the process of completing. Each time you submit a task, you create a new concurrent process. A concurrent process runs simultaneously with other concurrent processes (and other activities on your computer) to help you complete multiple tasks at once with no interruptions to your terminal.

concurrent queue: A list of concurrent requests awaiting completion by a concurrent manager. Each concurrent manager has a queue of requests waiting in line. If your system administrator sets up simultaneous queuing, your request can wait to run in more than one queue.

concurrent request: A request to complete a task for you. You issue a request whenever you submit a task, such as running a report. Once you submit a task, the concurrent manager automatically takes over for you, completing your request without further involvement from you, or interruption to your work. Concurrent managers process your request according to when you submit the request and the priority you assign to your request. If you do not assign a priority to your request, your application prioritizes the request for you.

configuration: A product a customer orders by choosing a base model and a list of options. It can be shipped as individual pieces as a set (kit) or as an assembly (configuration item).

consigned location: The physical location of inventories which resides on the property of buyers and sellers through a consigned agreement with the manufacturer.

context element: A collection element associated with a quality collection transaction. Values for context elements are automatically transferred to Oracle Quality as their parent collection transaction are entered.

context field prompt: A question or prompt to which a user enters a response, called a context field value. When Oracle Applications displays a descriptive flexfield pop-up window, it displays your context field prompt after it displays any global segments you have defined. Each descriptive flexfield can have up to one context prompt.

context field value: A response to your context field prompt. Your response is composed of a series of characters and a description. The response and description together provide a unique value for your context prompt, such as 1500, Journal Batch ID, or 2000, Budget Formula Batch ID. The context field value determines which additional descriptive flexfield segments appear.

context segment value: A response to your context-sensitive segment. The response is composed of a series of characters and a description. The response and description together provide a unique value for your context-sensitive segment, such as Redwood Shores, Oracle Headquarters, or Minneapolis, Merrill Aviation's Hub.

context-sensitive segment: A descriptive flexfield segment that appears in a second pop-up window when you enter a response to your context field prompt. For each context response, you can define multiple context segments, and you control the sequence of the context segments in the second pop-up window. Each context-sensitive segment typically prompts you for one item of information related to your context response.

contract: An agreement between you and a supplier for unspecified goods or services. This agreement may include terms and conditions, committed amount, and an effective and expiration date. You reference contract purchase agreements directly on standard purchase order lines. Purchasing monitors the amount you have spent against contract purchase agreements.

conversion

Converts foreign currency transactions to your functional currency.

See also: foreign currency conversion

conversion formula: The number that, when multiplied by the quantity of one unit of the source base unit, gives you the quantity of one unit of the destination base units in the interclass conversion. The number is also the conversion between units for standard unit conversion or item-specific conversion.

copy: An AutoCreate option that lets a buyer designate a specific requisition line as the source of information that Purchasing copies to the purchase order or RFQ line.

corporate exchange rate: An exchange rate you can optionally use to perform foreign currency conversion. The corporate exchange rate is usually a standard market rate determined by senior financial management for use throughout the organization.

cost element: A classification for the cost of an item. Oracle Manufacturing supports five cost elements: material, material overhead, resource, outside processing, and overhead.

cost variance: The difference between the actual and expected cost. Oracle Manufacturing and Payables supports the following cost variances: invoice price, resource rate, and standard cost variances.

credit memo: A document that partially or fully reverses an original invoice.

current on-hand quantity: Total quantity of the item on-hand before a transaction is processed.

D

default value: Information Oracle Applications automatically enters depending on other information you enter. Also referred to as defaults or a defaulted value.

deliver-to location: A location where you deliver goods previously received from a supplier to individual requestors.

delivery: Internal delivery of items to requestors within your organization.

demand: Projected inventory issue transactions against an item. For Order Management, it is an action you take to communicate current or future product needs to manufacturing.

depot repair: A process used to track items returned by a customer for repair or replacement.

descriptive flexfield: An Oracle Applications feature used to collect information unique to your business. You determine the additional information you need and descriptive flexfield lets you customize your application to your needs without additional programming.

destination base unit: The unit of measure to which you are converting when you define interclass conversions. Your destination base unit is the base unit of a unit class.

destination organization: An inventory organization that receives item shipments from a given organization.

detailed message action: A message representing one exception. Oracle Alert inserts the exception values into the text of the message.

direct receipt: The receipt of an item directly to its final destination (either directly to the person who requested the item or directly to the final inventory location). It differs from a standard receipt in that it is received into a receiving location and delivered in one transaction, rather than received and delivered in two separate transactions.

discrete manufacturing: A manufacturing environment where you build assemblies in discrete jobs or batches. Different from a repetitive production environment where you build assemblies on production or assembly lines at a daily rate.

distribution account: An account where you record material, material overhead, resource, outside processing, and overhead charges incurred by a discrete job or repetitive assembly. In a standard costing system, this is where you record your standard costs.

distribution list: A predefined list of electronic mail IDs that you can use rather than entering individual mail IDs (To, Cc, and Bcc) when defining mail message alert actions in Oracle Quality.

document reference: A message that precisely identifies the document or part of document you want to describe using standard or one-time notes.

drop shipment: A method of fulfilling sales orders by selling products without handling, stocking, or delivering them. The selling company buys a product from a supplier and has the supplier ship the product directly to customers.

due date: The date when scheduled receipts are currently expected to be received into inventory and become available for use.

duplicate: An exception Oracle Alert located for the same action set during a previous alert check. Oracle Alert does not consider a detail action to contain a duplicate exception until Oracle Alert sends the final action level to a specific action set, and then locates the same exception for the same action set again. For example, if on Monday Oracle Alert notifies a buyer that a supplier shipment is overdue, then on Tuesday Oracle Alert finds the shipment is still overdue, you can choose whether Oracle Alert should re-notify the buyer or suppress the message.

dynamic distribution: You can use output variables to represent electronic mail IDs. When you define mail message alert actions in Oracle Quality, the message is sent to all defined mail IDs.

dynamic insertion: Automatically creates new accounting flexfield combinations as you enter them. If you do not use dynamic insertion, you create new accounting flexfield combinations with a separate window.

E

EDI: See: Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

EDIFACT: Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce, and Trade is the current acronym for standards developed within Working Party 4. See also WP4

electronic commerce: Conducting business via an electronic medium. This includes methods of exchanging business information electronically, such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), FAX, email, and eforms.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): Exchanging business documents electronically between trading partners. EDI subscribes to standard formats for conducting these electronic transactions as stated by various standards.

electronic funds transfer: A method of payment in which your bank transfers funds electronically from your bank account into another bank account. In Oracle Payables, funds are transferred from your account into that of a supplier. This information is sent to the bank in a file.

employee supervisor hierarchy: An approval routing structure based on employee/supervisor relationships. See position hierarchy

encumbrance: See: purchase order encumbrance.

encumbrance type: An encumbrance category that allows you to track your expenditures according to your purchase approval process and better control your planned expenditures. You can set up separate encumbrance types for each stage in your purchasing cycle to track your spending at each level. Examples of encumbrance types are commitments (requisition encumbrances) and obligations (purchase order encumbrances).

event alert: An alert that runs when a specific event occurs that you define. For example, you can define an event alert to immediately send a message to the buyer if an item is rejected on inspection.

exception: An occurrence of the specified condition found during an alert check. For example, an alert testing for invoices on hold may find five invoices on hold, or none. Each invoice on hold is an exception.

exception message: A message received indicating a situation that meets your predefined exception set for an item, such as Items that are overcommitted, Items with excess inventory, and Orders to be rescheduled out.

exception reporting: An integrated system of alerts and action sets that focuses attention on time-sensitive or critical information, shortens your reaction time, and provides faster exception distribution. Exception reporting communicates information by either electronic mail messages or paper reports.

expected receipts report: A printed report of all expected receipts for a time period and location you specify.

expense item: Anything you make, purchase, or sell including components, subassemblies, finished products, or supplies and that does not carry a cost. Also known as a non-asset item.

expense subinventory: Subdivision of an organization, representing either a physical area or a logical grouping of items, such as a storeroom where no value exists but the quantities may be tracked.

exchange rate: A rate that represents the amount of one currency you can exchange for another at some point in time. Oracle Applications use the daily, periodic, and historical exchange rates you maintain to perform foreign currency conversion, re-evaluation, and translation.
You can enter and maintain daily exchange rates for Oracle Purchasing to use to perform foreign currency conversion. Oracle Purchasing multiplies the exchange rate times the foreign currency to calculate functional currency.

exchange rate type

A specification of the source of an exchange rate. For example, a user exchange rate or a corporate exchange rate.

See also: corporate exchange rate, spot exchange rate

explode: An AutoCreate option that lets a buyer split a single requisition line for an item into one or more requisition lines for different items. Use this option to expand a requisition line for an item that your company purchases in component parts.

express delivery: An option that lets you deliver the entire quantity of a receipt without entering quantities for each shipment or distribution.

express receipt: A site option that lets you receive an entire purchase order or blanket purchase agreement release with one keystroke.

express requisitions: To create requisitions quickly from predefined requisition templates. You only need to provide an accounting flexfield and quantities to create a requisition for commonly purchased items.

F

FIFO (first-in-first-out) costing method: A cost flow methodused for inventory valuation. Inventory balances and values are updated perpetually after each transaction is sequentially costed. It assumes that the earliest inventory units received or produced are the first units used or shipped. The ending inventory therefore consists of the most recently acquired goods. FIFO cost flow does not have to match the physical flow of inventory.

final close: A purchase order control you can assign to prevent modifications to or actions against completed documents, lines, and shipments by final closing them. Final-closed documents are not accessible in the corresponding entry windows, and you cannot perform the following actions against final-closed entities: receive, transfer, inspect, deliver, correct receipt quantities, invoice, return to supplier, or return to receiving.

firm: A purchase order control. When you firm an order, Master Scheduling/MRP uses the firm date to create a time fence within which it does not suggest new planned purchase orders, cancellations, or reschedule-in actions. It continues to suggest reschedule-out actions for orders within the time fence. If several shipments with different promised or need-by dates reference the same item, Master Scheduling/MRP sets the time fence at the latest of all scheduled dates.

flexfield

A field made up of segments. Each segment has a name you assign and a set of valid values.

See also: descriptive flexfield, key flexfield

flexfield segment: One of the parts of your key flexfield, separated from the other parts by a symbol you choose (such as -, /, or \). Each segment typically represents a cost center, company, item family, or color code.

FOB: See: freight on board.

foreign currency

A currency you define for your ledger for recording and conducting accounting transactions in a currency other than your functional currency. When you enter and pay an invoice in a foreign currency, Oracle Payables automatically converts the foreign currency into your functional currency based on the exchange rate you define.

See also: exchange rate, functional currency

forward: An action you take to send a document to another employee without attempting to approve it yourself.

four-way matching: Purchasing performs four-way matching to verify that purchase order, receipt, inspection and invoice quantities match within tolerance.

freight on board: (FOB) The point or location where the ownership title of goods is transferred from the seller to the buyer.

freeze: You can freeze a purchase order after printing. By freezing a purchase order, you prevent anyone from adding new lines or changing the purchase order. You can continue to receive goods and be billed on already existing purchase order lines. The ability to continue receiving against the purchase order is the difference between freezing and cancelling.

freight carrier: A commercial company used to send item shipments from one address to another.

function: A PL/SQL stored procedure referenced by an Oracle Workflow function activity that can enforce business rules, perform automated tasks within an application, or retrieve application information. The stored procedure accepts standard arguments and returns a completion result. See also

function activity

An automated Oracle Workflow unit of work that is defined by a PL/SQL stored procedure.

See also: function

functional currency: Currency you use to record transactions and maintain your accounting information. The functional currency is generally the currency used to perform most of your company's business transactions. You determine the functional currency for the ledger you use in your organization. Also called base currency.

funds available: The difference between your budget, less encumbrances of all types and actual expenditures.

funds checking: The process of certifying funds available. When you check funds, the transaction amount is compared with your funds available, and you are notified whether funds are available for your transaction. Checking funds does not reserve funds for your transaction.
You can check funds when you enter a requisition, purchase order, or invoice.

funds reservation: The creation of requisition, purchase order, or invoice encumbrance journal entries. Purchasing immediately updates your funds available balances and creates an encumbrance journal entry in which you can post in your general ledger.
This is also the process of reserving funds available. You can reserve funds when you enter actual, budget, or encumbrance journals. When you reserve funds, the amount of your transaction is compared with your funds available and you are notified on-line whether funds are available.

G

general ledger transfer: The process of creating a postable batch for the general ledger from summarized activity for a given period. Using Journal Import in General Ledger, you can create a postable batch in your general ledger. After running Journal Import, you can post your journal using the General Ledger posting process.

I

inspection: A procedure you perform to ensure that items received conform to your quality standards. You can use inspections to prevent payment for goods and services that fail to meet your quality standards.

inter-organization transfer: Transfer of items from one inventory organization to another You can have freight charges and transfer credits associated with inter-organization transfer. You can choose to ship items directly or have them go through intransit inventory.

interclass conversion: The conversion formula you define between base units from the different unit classes.

intercompany invoice: An automatically generated statement that eliminates intercompany profit. This transaction may occur between organizations in the same or different legal entities.

internal requisition: See: internal sales order, purchase requisition.

internal sales order: A request within your company for goods or services. An internal sales order originates from an employee or from another process as a requisition, such as inventory or manufacturing, and becomes an internal sales order when the information is transferred from Purchasing to Order Management. Also known as internal requisition or purchase requisition.

intransit inventory: Items being shipped from one inventory organization to another. While items are intransit you can view and update arrival date, freight charges, and so on.

inventory item: Items you stock in inventory. You control inventory for inventory items by quantity and value. Typically, the inventory item remains an asset until you consume it. You recognize the cost of an inventory item as an expense when you consume it or sell it. You generally value the inventory for an item by multiplying the item standard cost by the quantity on hand.

inventory organization: An organization that tracks inventory transactions and balances, and/or that manufactures or distributes products.

inventory transaction: A record of material movement. The basic information for a transaction includes the item number, the quantity moved, the transaction amount, the accounting flexfields, and the date. See material transaction

invoice: A summarized list of charges, including payment terms, invoice item information, and other information that is sent to a customer by a supplier for payment.

invoice price variance: The difference between the purchase order price for an item and the actual invoice price multiplied by the quantity invoiced. Payables records this variance after matching the invoice to the purchase order. Typically, the price variance is small since the price the supplier charges you for an item should be the one you negotiated on your purchase order.

item: Anything you make, purchase, or sell, including components, subassemblies, finished products, or supplies. Oracle Manufacturing also uses items to represent planning items that you can forecast, standard lines that you can include on invoices, and option classes you can use to group options in model and option class bills.

item attributes: Specific characteristics of an item, such as order cost, item status, revision control, COGS account, etc.

item category: See: category.

item-specific conversion: The conversion formula you define between the primary unit of measure for an item and another unit of measure from the same unit class. If you define a conversion rate for a specific item, Purchasing uses the item-specific conversion rate instead of the standard conversion rate for converting between units for that item.

item type: A term used by Oracle Workflow to refer to a grouping of all items of a particular category that share the same set of item attributes, used as a high level grouping for processes. For example, each Account Generator item type (e.g. FA Account Generator) contains a group of processes for determining how an Accounting Flexfield code combination is created. See also item type attribute.

item type attribute: A feature of a particular Oracle Workflow item type, also known as an item attribute. An item type attribute is defined as a variable whose value can be looked up and set by the application that maintains the item. An item type attribute and its value is available to all activities in a process.

Item Validation Organization: The inventory organization that contains your master list of items. You define it in the Financials Options window. See also organization.

J

job: A category of personnel in your organization. Examples of a typical job include Vice President, Buyer, and Manager. See also position.

K

key flexfield: A set of segments. You choose the number of segments you want, the length of each segment, the order of your segments and more. You can then define the list of acceptable values for each segment.

key flexfield segment: One of up to 30 different sections of your key flexfield. You separate segments from each other by a symbol you choose (such as -, / or \.). Each segment can be up to 25 characters long. Each key flexfield segment typically captures one element of your business or operations structure, such as company, division, region, or product for the accounting flexfield and item, version number, or color code for the item flexfield.

key flexfield segment value: A series of characters and a description that provide a unique value for this element, such as 0100, Eastern region, V20, or Version 2.0.

L

LIFO (last-in-first-out) costing method: A cost flow methodused for inventory valuation. Inventory balances and values are updated perpetually after each transaction is sequentially costed. It assumes that the most recent inventory units received or produced are the first units used or shipped. The ending inventory consists of old goods acquired in the earliest purchases or completions.

legal entity: An organization that represents a legal company for which you prepare fiscal or tax reports. You assign tax identifiers and other relevant information to this entity.

license plate number (LPN): LPNs are unique identifiers used to store and transact inventory throughout the supply chain. They store a container's contents, including item, revision, lot and serial numbers, and quantity.

line type: Determines whether a purchasing document line is for goods, services, or any other type that you define. The line type also determines whether the document line is based on price and quantity or on amount.

location: A shorthand name for an address. Location appears in address lists of values to let you select the correct address based on an intuitive name. For example, you may want to give the location name of 'Receiving Dock' to the Ship To business purpose of 100 Main Street.

locator: Physical area within a subinventory where you store material, such as a row, aisle, bin, or shelf.

lockbox: A service commercial banks offer corporate customers to enable them to outsource their accounts receivable payment processing. Lockbox processors set up special postal codes to receive payments, deposit funds and provide electronic account receivable input to corporate customers. A lockbox operation can process millions of transactions a month.

logical organization: A business unit that tracks items for accounting purposes but does not physically exist. See organization.

lookup code: The internal name of a value defined in an Oracle Workflow lookup type. See also lookup type.

lookup type: An Oracle Workflow predefined list of values. Each value in a lookup type has an internal and a display name. See also lookup code.

long notes: A Purchasing feature that lets you provide up to 64K characters per note. You can add long notes to your headers and lines. Purchasing automatically wraps the note while you are typing. You can also format the note by providing extra lines or indenting parts of your message. You can provide as many long notes as you want wherever the long notes capability is available.

lot: A specific batch of an item identified by a number.

M

manual numbering: A numbering option to let someone assign numbers manually to documents, employees, and suppliers.

message: The text or data Oracle Alert sends when it finds an exception while checking an alert.

min-max planning: An inventory planning method used to determine when and how much to order based on a fixed user-entered minimum and maximum inventory levels.

modal window: Certain actions that you perform may cause a modal window to display. A modal window requires you to act on its contents before you can continue, usually by choosing OK or Cancel.

move transaction: A transaction to move assemblies from operation to operation or within an operation on a discrete job or repetitive schedule.

multi-source: An AutoCreate option that lets a buyer distribute the quantity of a single requisition line to several suppliers whenever the buyer wants to purchase the requisition line item from more than one supplier.

multiple sets of books: A General Ledger concept for having separate entities for which chart of accounts, calendar, or functional currency differs.

N

node: An instance of an activity in an Oracle Workflow process diagram as shown in the Process window of Oracle Workflow Builder. See also process.

note name: A name that uniquely identifies a standard or one-time note. You use note names to locate a note you want to use or copy on a document.

numeric number type: An option for numbering documents, employees, and suppliers where assigned numbers contain only numbers.

O

offsetting account: The source or opposite side of an accounting entry.

omit: An AutoCreate option that lets a buyer prevent Purchasing from including certain displayed requisition lines when creating a purchase order or RFQ. If you omit a requisition line, Purchasing returns it to the available pool of requisition lines.

on-hand quantity: The physical quantity of an item existing in inventory.

one-time item: An item you want to order but do not want to maintain in the Items window. You define a one-time item when you create a requisition or purchase order. You can report or query on a one-time item by specifying the corresponding item class.

one-time note: A unique message you can attack to an order, return, order line, or return line to convey important information.

open: An open purchase order exists if the purchase order has any lines that have not been fully invoiced and are not cancelled. If you require receipt for items you order, an open purchase order exists if any lines have not been fully received and fully invoiced and are not cancelled.

open interface: A Manufacturing function that lets you import or export data from other systems through an open interface. An example is a bar code reader device accumulating data you later import into your manufacturing system for further processing.

operating unit: An organization that partitions data for subledger products (AP, AR, PO, OE). It is roughly equivalent to a single pre-Multi-Org installation.

order cycle: A sequence of actions you or Oracle Management perform on an order to complete the order. An order cycle lets you define the activity an order follows from initial entry through closing. Order cycles are assigned to order types.

organization: A business unit such as a plant, warehouse, division, department, and so on.

outside operation: An operation that contains outside resources and possibly internal resources as well.

outside processing: Performing work on a discrete job or repetitive schedule using resources provided by a supplier.

outside processing operation: Any operation that has an outside processing resource. See outside resource

outside processing item: An item you include on a purchase order line to purchase supplier services as part of your assembly build process. This item can be the assembly itself or a non-stocked item which represents the service performed on the assembly.

outside resource: A resource provided by a supplier that you include in your routings, such as supplier sourced labor or services. This includes both PO move and PO receipt resources.

P

parameter: A variable used to restrict information in a report, or determine the form of a report. For example, you may want to limit your report to the current month, or display information by supplier number instead of supplier name.

payment batch: A group of invoices selected for automatic payment processing via Oracle Payables AutoSelect function.

payment terms: The due date and discount date for payment of an invoice. For example, the payment term '2% 10, Net 30' lets a customer take a two percent discount if payment is received within 10 days, with the balance due within 30 days of the invoice date.

pending: A status where a process or transaction is waiting to be completed.

period: See: accounting period.

period expense: An expense you record in the period it occurs. An expense is typically a debit.

periodic alert: An alert that checks your database for the presence of a specific condition according to a schedule you define.

planned purchase order: A type of purchase order you issue before you order actual delivery of goods and services for specific dates and locations. You normally enter a planned purchase order to specify items you want to order and when you want delivery of the items. You later enter a shipment release against the planned purchase order when you actually want to order the items.

PO: See: purchase order

PO move resource: An outside resource that is automatically charged upon receipt of a purchase order. PO move resources also automatically initiate shop floor move transactions upon receipt.

PO receipt resource: An outside resource that is automatically charged upon receipt of a purchase order.

position: A specific function within a job category. Examples of typical positions associated with the Vice President job include: Vice President of Manufacturing, Vice President of Engineering, and Vice President of Sales. See job.

position hierarchy: A structure of positions used to define management line reporting and control access to employee information.

pre-approved: A document that has been approved by someone with final approval authority, but then forwarded to yet another approver for additional approval; or a document that has been authorized for approval but for which funds have not yet been reserved (if your organization uses encumbrance). A document with a status of Pre-Approved does not show up as supply until its status changes to Approved.

price break line: Supplier pricing information for an item or purchasing category on a quotation. The price you enter on a price break line depends on the quantity you order from your supplier. Usually, suppliers provide you with price break line structures to indicate the price you would pay for an item depending on the quantity you order. Generally, the more you order, the less expensive your unit price. Also, depending on the quantity you order, a supplier may provide you with different purchase conditions, such as advantageous payment or freight terms when you buy in large quantities.

process: A set of Oracle Workflow activities that need to be performed to accomplish a business goal. See also Account Generator, process activity, process definition.

process activity: An Oracle Workflow process modelled as an activity so that it can be referenced by other processes; also known as a subprocess. See also .

processing status: The processing state of a row (record) in an open interface table. Common statuses include, but are not restricted to, Pending, Running, and Error.

profile option: A set of changeable options that affect the way your applications run. In general, profile options can be set at one or more of the following levels: site, application, responsibility, and user.

project: A unit of work broken down into one or more tasks, for which you specify revenue and billing methods, invoice formats, a managing organization, and project manager and bill rates schedules. You can charge costs to a project, as well as generate and maintain revenue, invoice, unbilled receivable and unearned revenue information for a project.

Project Manufacturing: A type of manufacturing environment where production requirements are driven by large projects. You can plan, schedule, process, and cost against a specific project or a group of projects. If Oracle Project Manufacturing is installed and the Project References Enabled and Project Control Level parameters are set in the Organization Parameters window in Oracle Inventory, you can assign project and, if required, task references to sales orders, planned orders, jobs, requisitions, purchase orders, and other entities within Oracle Manufacturing. If the Project Cost Collection Enabled parameter is also set, you can collect and transfer manufacturing cost to Oracle Projects.

project purchase order: A purchase order with a project and task reference.

project requisition: A requisition with a project and task reference.

promise date: The date on which your supplier agrees to ship the products to you, or the date that you will receive the products.

proprietary accounty: An account segment value (such as 3500) that is assigned one of the five proprietary account types.

protection level: In Oracle Workflow, a numeric value ranging from 0 to 1000 that represents who the data is protected from for modification. When workflow data is defined, it can either be set to customizable (1000), meaning anyone can modify it, or it can be assigned a protection level that is equal to the access level of the user defining the data. In the latter case, only users operating at an access level equal to or lower than the data's protection level can modify the data. See also Account Generator.

purchase order: A type of purchase order you issue when you request delivery of goods or services for specific dates and locations. You can order multiple items for each planned or standard purchase order. Each purchase order line can have multiple shipments and you can distribute each shipment across multiple accounts. See standard purchase order and planned purchase order.

purchase order encumbrance: A transaction representing a legally binding purchase. Purchasing subtracts purchase order encumbrances from funds available when you approve a purchase order. If you cancel a purchase order, Purchasing creates appropriate reversing entries in your general ledger. Purchase order encumbrance is also known as obligation, encumbrance, or lien.

purchase order receipt: See: receipt.

purchase order revision: A number that distinguishes printed purchase order versions. Purchasing automatically sets the revision to 0 when you initially create a purchase order. Each purchase order you print displays the current revision number.

purchase order shipment: A schedule for each purchase order line composed of the quantity you want to ship to each location. You can also provide delivery dates for each shipment line. You can create an unlimited number of shipments for each purchase order line. You receive goods and services against each shipment line.

purchase price variance: The variance that you record at the time you receive an item in inventory or supplier services into work in process. This variance is the difference between the standard unit cost for the item or service and the purchase unit price multiplied by the quantity received. You record purchase price variances in a purchase price variance account for your organization. Since standard cost is a planned cost, you may incur variances between the standard cost and the purchase order price.

purchase requisition: An internal request for goods or services. A requisition can originate from an employee or from another process, such as inventory or manufacturing. Each requisition can include many lines, generally with a distinct item on each requisition line. Each requisition line includes at least a description of the item, the unit of measure, the quantity needed, the price per item, and the Accounting Flexfield you are charging for the item. See also internal sales order.

purchased item: An item that you buy and receive. If an item is also an inventory item, you may also be able to stock it. See also inventory item.

purchasing documents: Any document you use in the purchasing life cycle, including requisitions, RFQs, quotations, purchase orders, and purchase agreements.

purchasing open interface: A Purchasing function that lets you import price/sales catalog information from your suppliers. It receives the catalog data electronically, verifies and processes the data, and imports the data directly into Purchasing as blanket purchase agreements or quotations.

purge: A technique for deleting data in Oracle Manufacturing that you no longer need to run your business.

purge category: A Purchasing feature you use to purge a particular group of records from the database. Purchasing lets you choose from the following separate categories: Simple Requisitions, Simple Purchase Orders, Suppliers, Simple Invoices (only if you installed Payables), and Matched Invoices and POs (only if you installed Payables). The last category is the most comprehensive category you can choose. You should purge all appropriate documents before purging your supplier information, because Purchasing does not purge suppliers that you referenced on existing documents.

purge status: A Purchasing method of reporting the progress of a purge you initiate. The Status field lets you take an action on your purge process (Initiate, Confirm, Abort), or reports on the current status of the purge (Printed, Deleting, Completed-Aborted, Completed-Purged).

Q

quantity accepted: The number of items you accept after inspection.

quantity-based order: An order you place, receive, and pay based on the quantity, unit of measure, and price of the goods or services that you purchase.

quantity received tolerance: The percentage by which you allow quantity received to exceed quantity ordered.

quantity rejected: The number of items you reject after inspection.

quotation: A statement of the price, terms, and conditions of sale a supplier offers you for an item or items. A quotation usually includes a detailed description (specifications) of goods or services the supplier offers. Suppliers consider quotations as an offer to sell when given in response to an inquiry. A quotation may be verbal or written. You often get verbal quotations for minor purchases by telephone. You usually send a request for quotation if you want a written quotation from a supplier. Written quotations often have an effective date and an expiration date.

quotation type: A QuickCode you define to categorize your quotation information. Purchasing provides you with the following set of predefined quotation types: Catalog, Verbal, Telephone, or From RFQ. You can define other quotation types that better fit your business.

R

receipt: A shipment from one supplier that can include many items ordered on many purchase orders.

receipt line: An individual receipt transaction that identifies receipt of an item against a purchase order shipment.

receipt routing: A method of simplifying transaction entry by specifying routing steps for receipts.

receipt traveler: An internal routing ticket you place on received goods to show their final destination.

receiving open interface: A set of interface tables in Purchasing that lets you import information from outside of Purchasing, from Oracle or non-Oracle applications. Some examples of information imported into the receiving open interface are Advance Shipment Notices (ASNs). The receiving open interface validates the information before importing it into the Purchasing application.

receiving organization: For drop-ship orders, the purchasing organization that records receipt of a drop-shipped item.

reject: For Oracle Automotive, Oracle Service and Oracle Work in Process, reject is an intraoperation step in an operation where you can record assemblies that require rework or need to be scrapped. For Oracle Purchasing and Oracle Quality, reject is an option you use to indicate that you do not want to approve a document. Purchasing returns the document to its owner for modification and resubmission if appropriate.

reject over quantity tolerance: An option you use to disallow receipts that exceed the tolerance level.

release: An actual order of goods and services you issue against a blanket purchase agreement. The blanket purchase agreement determines the characteristics and the prices of the items. The release specifies the actual quantities and dates ordered for the items. You identify a release by the combination of blanket purchase agreement number and release number.

reorder point planning: An inventory planning method used to determine when and how much to order based on customer service level, safety stock, carrying cost, order setup cost, lead time and average demand.

report: An organized display of Oracle Applications information. A report can be viewed on-line or sent to a printer. The content of information in a report can range from a summary to a complete listing of values.

report headings: General information about the contents of the report.

report options: Options for sorting, formatting, selecting, and summarizing the information in the report. This section describes the options available for each report.

requisition template: A feature that lets you define a list of commonly purchased items from which a requestor can create a requisition. You can define the list of items by referencing an existing purchase order. Requestors use the requisition template to create simple, pre-sourced requisitions.

request for quotation (RFQ): A document you use to solicit supplier quotations for goods or services you need. You usually send a request for quotation to many suppliers to ensure that you get the best price and terms possible. Depending on the way you do business, you can use two general types of RFQs: specific and generic.

requisition: See: purchase requisition and internal sales order.

requisition approval: The act of approving the purchases of the items on a requisition. A requisition must receive the required approvals before a buyer can create purchase orders from this requisition. The approvals can come from any employee, but a requisition is fully approved only when an employee who has enough authority approves it. If you require encumbrance or budgetary control for requisitions, a requisition is fully approved only when an employee with sufficient approval authority approves and reserves funds for the requisition.

requisition encumbrance: A transaction representing an intent to purchase goods and services as indicated by the reservation of funds for a requisition. Purchasing subtracts requisition encumbrances from funds available when you reserve funds for a requisition. If you cancel a requisition, Purchasing creates appropriate reversing entries in your general ledger.

requisition pool: Requisition lines that are approved, not cancelled, and not yet on a purchase order.

reserve: An action you take in Purchasing to reserve funds for a purchasing document or an action in Order Entry to allocate products for a sales order. If the document passes the submission tests and if you have sufficient authority, Purchasing reserves funds for the document.

Reserve for Encumbrance account: The account you use to record your encumbrance liability. You define a Reserve for Encumbrance account when you define your ledger. When you create encumbrances automatically in Purchasing or Payables, General Ledger automatically creates a balancing entry to your Reserve for Encumbrance account when you post your encumbrance journal entries. And General Ledger overwrites the balancing segment for your Reserve for Encumbrance account, so you automatically create the reserve for encumbrance journal entry to the correct company.

responsibility: Determines the data, forms, menus, reports, and concurrent programs you can access in Oracle Applications. It is linked directly to a data group. Several users can share the same responsibility, and a single user can have multiple responsibilities.

result code

In Oracle Workflow, the internal name of a result value, as defined by the result type.

See also: result type, result value.

result type: In Oracle Workflow, the name of the lookup type that contains an activity's possible result values.

result value

In Oracle Workflow, the value returned by a completed activity, such as Approved.

See also: result code, result type.

return: In Purchasing, an AutoCreate option that lets a buyer return a requisition line and all other unpurchased requisition lines on the same requisition to the requisition preparer. In Order Entry, it is the opposite of a sales order. It involves receipt of goods previously sold to a customer, credit to a customer, and possibly replacement with an identical or similar product.

return material authorization (RMA): Permission for a customer to return items.

return to supplier: A transaction that allows you to return to the supplier items from a fully or partially received purchase order and receive credit for them.

revision: A particular version of an item, bill of material, or routing.

revision quantity control: A condition placed on an item that ensures that you always identify an item by its number and its revision. Certain items require tighter controls than other. For instance, you may want to control the quantities you have in inventory for an item by revision. For another item, you may just want to know the quantities you have on hand across all revisions. You keep track of inventory quantities by revision when an item is under revision quantity control. You keep track of inventory quantities by item when an item is not under revision quantity control.

RFQ
See also: request for quotation.

RMA
See also: Return Material Authorization.

S

serial number: A number assigned to each unit of an item and used to track the item.

ledger: A financial reporting entity that partitions General Ledger information and uses a particular chart of accounts, functional currency, and accounting calendar. This concept is the same whether or not the Multi-organization support feature is implemented.

ship-to address: A location where items are to be shipped.

ship via: See: freight carrier

shipment release: An actual order of goods and services against a planned purchase order. The planned purchase order determines the characteristics of the items on the order. The planned purchase order also has the expected quantities, prices, and ship-to locations, and delivery dates for the items on the order. You identify a shipment release by the combination of the planned purchase order number and the release number. Each planned purchase order line can have multiple shipments and you can distribute the quantity of each shipment across multiple accounts.

shipment relief: The process of relieving the master demand schedule when a sales order ships. This decrements the demand schedule to represent an actual statement of demand.

short notes: A Purchasing feature that lets you provide up to 240 characters on your documents. Typically, these notes are for your supplier, approver, buyer, or receiver.

source base unit: The unit of measure from which you are converting when you define your interclass conversions. You define the destination base unit in terms of the source base unit. Your source base unit is the base unit of a unit class.

sourcing: The action of identifying a purchasing source or supplier for goods or services. To identify the best sources for your purchases, you can create RFQs that you send to your suppliers, enter quotations from your supplier, and evaluate these quotations for each item you purchase.

sourcing rule: Specifies how to replenish items in an organization, such as purchased items in plants. You can also use sourcing rules to override sourcing that is specified in the bill of distribution assigned to an item.

sourcing rule assignment: See: assignment hierarchy

SQL validation statement: A statement written in SQL to customize action details.

standard note: A long note you define and can later reference on as many documents as you want.

standard purchase order: A type of purchase order you issue when you order delivery of goods or services for specific dates and locations for your company. Each standard purchase order line can have multiple shipments and you can distribute the quantity of each shipment across multiple accounts. See purchase order.

standard receipt: A receipt routing in which shipments are received into a receiving location and then delivered in a separate transaction. Standard receipts can be inspected or transferred before delivery.

standard unit conversion: The conversion formula you define between different units from the same unit class. You define your own standard conversion.

status check: A set of tests Purchasing performs on a purchasing document to ensure it is in a valid state before performing an approval action.

submission check: A set of tests on a purchasing document to ensure it is ready to be submitted for approval processing.

submit: To send a document to another employee without attempting to approve or reserve funds for it yourself.

substitute receipt: An option that lets you receive predefined acceptable substitutes for any item.

supply chain planning: The development and maintenance of multi-organizational distribution and manufacturing plans across a global supply chain.

summary message action: A message representing one or more exceptions. The message may include introductory and closing paragraphs separated by the exceptions listed in a columnar report format.

supplier: Provider of goods or services.

supplier product number: The number your supplier assigns to an item. You and your supplier can have different item naming conventions. You can identify the item with one number (Item) while your supplier identifies this item using another number (Supplier Product Number). Using and referencing supplier product numbers helps you speed up your purchasing cycle. By referencing a number your supplier knows, you can help your suppliers understand your purchase orders and RFQs better.

supplier purchasing hold: A hold condition you place on a supplier to prevent new purchasing activity on the supplier. You cannot approve purchase orders for suppliers you placed on hold.

supplier quotation list: A list of suppliers who can provide goods or services you need. You often define a supplier quotation list for an item or class of items. You can use a supplier quotation list to generate multiple copies of a RFQ automatically and to manage supplier responses.

supplier sourced component: A component item on a bill of material supplied to work in process directly by a supplier.

supply: A quantity of materials available for use. Supply is replenished in response to demand or anticipated demand.

supply agreement blanket purchase order: A type of purchase order you issue before you request actual delivery of goods or services. You normally create a blanket purchase agreement to document a long-term supplier agreement. A blanket purchase agreement may contain an effective date and an expiration date, a committed amount, or quantity. You use a blanket purchase agreement as a tool for specifying agreed prices and delivery dates for goods and services before actually ordering them. Blanket agreement in Oracle Purchasing with the Supply Agreement flag set on the Blanket Agreement header. Only Supply Agreement Releases are picked up by Supplier Scheduling.

T

task

A subdivision of project work. Each project can have a set of top level tasks and a hierarchy of subtasks below each top level task.

See also: work breakdown structure.

tax codes: Codes to which you assign sales tax or value-added tax rates.

three-way matching: Purchasing performs three-way matching to verify the purchase order, receipt, and invoice information match within tolerance.

total quantity accepted: The total number of accepted items for the receipt line.

total requisition limit: The maximum amount you authorize an employee to approve for a specific requisition.

trading partner: Any company that sends and receives documents via EDI.

transaction interface: An open interface table through which you can import transactions. See open interface.

transition

In Oracle Workflow, the relationship that defines the completion of one activity and the activation of another activity within a process. In a process diagram, the arrow drawn between two activities represents a transition.

See also: activity, Workflow Engine.

two-level master scheduling: A technique that facilitates the forecast explosion of product groupings into related master production schedules. The top-level MPS is usually defined for a product line, family or end product while the second-level is defined for key options and components.

two-way matching: Purchasing performs two-way matching to verify that purchase order and invoice information match within tolerance.

U

UN number: An identifier for a hazardous material. Each Identification number has a description. Identification numbers are not unique. For instance, the same UN Number may correspond to 2 closely related but different types of materials.

unit of measure: The unit that the quantity of an item is expressed.

unit of measure class: A group of units of measure and their corresponding base unit of measure. The standard unit classes are Length, Weight, Volume, Area, Time, and Pack.

unit of measure conversions: Numerical factors that enable you to perform transactions in units other than the primary unit of the item being transacted.

unordered receipt: A site option that lets you receive an unordered item. You can later batch an unordered item to an existing purchase order, or add it to a new purchase order.

UOM: See: unit of measure.

V

value added: See: outside processing.

value basis: An attribute you associate with a line type to indicate whether you order items for this line type by quantity or amount.

variance: An accounting term used to express the difference between an expected cost and an actual cost. A variance can be favorable or unfavorable. Variances are usually written directly to the income statement as a period expense.

vendor: See: supplier.

W

waybill: A document containing a list of goods and shipping instructions relative to a shipment.

Workflow Engine

The Oracle Workflow component that implements a workflow process definition. The Workflow Engine manages the state of all activities, automatically executes functions, maintains a history of completed activities, and detects error conditions and starts error processes. The Workflow Engine is implemented in server PL/SQL and activated when a call to an engine API is made.

See also: Account Generator, activity, function, item type.

X

X12: ANSI standard for inter-industry electronic interchange of business transactions.