What is a Multi Org Structure?

If an enterprise or a business wants to implement multiple organizations such as multiple Ledgers (Sets of Books), or Legal Entities, or Business Groups within a single installation of Oracle Applications, then we can summarize that the enterprise is planning to implement a multi org setup.

How About a Close to Real Life Case Study?

Before we dive into this topic, let us draw a multi org structure on a whiteboard. It would help to analyze a real picture, as we pick at the concepts that go into designing a multi org structure.
The above is the organization structure for Office Smart Solutions, which is a major office supplies retailer, headquartered in Naperville, Illinois, USA. The organization operates in three countries – the US, Canada and India.
Office Smart has an organization structure with the following:

• 2 Business Groups – one in the US, which controls the organization structure in North America, and one in India
• 3 Legal Entities – one in the US, one in Canada, and one in India
• 3 Primary Ledgers – one in the US, one in Canada, and one in India
• 3 Operating Units – one in the US, one in Canada, and one in India
• 5 Inventory organizations – two in the US, one in Canada, and two in India
• Subinventories and locators exist beneath the inventory organizations, but they are not relevant for the session on multi org structures.

With this, let us step back and reflect…

The way it was in 11i

In 11i, a user working with a specific responsibility, under a given operating unit, would need to switch responsibilities, if she were to access a sales order that was created from a different operating unit. For this to happen, the user had to be assigned a second responsibility that was linked to the second operating unit.
From an implementation perspective, this implied that each responsibility could be linked to one and only one operating unit. Thus, if a user in Office Smart Canada, needed access to data in Office Smart US, then she would need to be assigned a responsibility that was tied to the US Operating Unit – Office Smart Operations.
Responsibilities were tied to operating units through the profile option MO: Operating Unit.

What R12 brings to the table

Release 12 brought with it, the philosophy of Multi Org Access Control (MOAC).
“Globalization is unstoppable. Regardless of geography, industry or income, companies are globalizing to gain new customers and access new markets. Is this a good thing? Nearly two-thirds of the CEOs we surveyed are positive about the impact that globalization will have on their organizations over the next three years.”

Source: 9th Annual Global CEO Survey – Globalization and Complexity; PwC 2006
With Release 12, Oracle Applications had to ensure that certain aspects of the applications were redesigned to meet the inevitable advance of Globalization.

Organizational changes in R12

The Set of Books evolved into Ledgers and Ledger Sets. The philosophy of Multiple Organization Access Control (MOAC) introduced in R12, ensured that the same user could perform multiple tasks across operating units without changing responsibilities. The use of Security Profiles was extended beyond HR to make MOAC possible.

Organization Access Control in R12

In a multi org environment, securing the data in each organization becomes a key task and concern for management and the implementation team. By creating custom responsibilities, management ensures that employees are given access to only those menus and functions that they need to perform their routine activities. However, an addition layer of security needs to be designed to ensure that using those menus and forms given to them, employees cannot trespass into an organization that they should not have access to.
As mentioned above, in 11i access to organizations was compartmentalized based on operating units. This ensured data security, but at the expense of making it a little cumbersome for the user to switch between organizations that belong to different operating units.
The Multi Org Access Control (MOAC) feature in R12 retains the data security aspect between organizations and users. However, it also brings with it a certain degree of user friendliness in navigating between different operating units.

How does R12 implement this change?

This series is designed to highlight all that it takes to implement a Multi Org Structure in Release 12.