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Artificial Intelligence In Accounts Payable

Artificial Intelligence In Accounts Payable

Artificial intelligence has hugely impacted accounts payable over recent years. There have been substantial breakthroughs achieved across the finance and procurement processes over the past decade, thanks to AI. There has also been a significant push toward automating manual and tactical processes, particularly in the accounts payable department. The push results in global firms focusing their attention and, as a result, undertaking process improvement projects.

What role does AI play in the process of accounts payable?

Before we can understand how AI impacts the accounting and finance industry, let’s first grasp what AI is and how it may be applied inside the accounts payable department.

Artificial intelligence [AI] is a subfield of computer science. It entails the creation of machines that are capable of thinking and behaving like humans. Therefore, we are talking about software or a program that demonstrates human intelligence.

They can gather information, analyze it, and complete the duties given to them. Examples include speech recognition, the ability to make decisions, the ability to compare facts, and much more. Examples include chatbots such as Siri and other intelligent home appliances that can be controlled by speech.

Here are some of the roles that AI plays in accounts payable processes:

  1. Invoice capturing

There are a variety of formats in which invoices can be received. It is possible to employ AI-powered systems to retrieve data from hard copies, emails, or electronic invoice generators. The data taken is then matched automatically with the appropriate supplier, and a bill is created in the end.

If this is not the case, accountants will be required to manually search for invoices in a number of different locations before uploading them for payment. The OCR [Optical character recognition) serves as the mechanism that makes this possible.

  1. Matching invoices

The particulars of the invoice have to be checked for accuracy before it can be processed for payment. Two-way or three-way matching strategies are utilized to ascertain the correctness of the comparison with the purchase order. Whenever there is a discrepancy between two pieces of information, the AI will promptly detect and transmit it.

  1. Detecting fraud

Fake bills and invoices almost always appear like their authentic counterparts, but their primary purpose is to steal your money. It is possible to apply AI to detect irregularities in bills and forward them for further investigation. During the identification process, it looks for patterns and compares invoices that have already been processed.

  1. Helps with the analysis of data and forecasting

It is able to perform analysis on a massive amount of data and come to meaningful insights. The financial staff may find it easier to create budgets for months to come with this information. Based on your expenditures, it may also make recommendations for cost-effective procedures and strategies that save money.

Ways in which AI in accounts payable systems help reduce manual intervention

  • It eliminates labor-intensive tasks.
  • It automates the extraction of data and auto-populating codes
  • It automates reminders for approval and payments
  • It enhances the accuracy of processing batch invoices
  • It promotes timely payments

How AI-supported solutions can help your business

  1. Improved business efficiency

Efficiency is crucial in any business, regardless of size. In accounts payable, efficiency translates to how faster an invoice is cleared out of the company’s system. You can achieve that through automation. The required level of efficiency can be reached through invoice matching and processing automation.

  1. Increased transparency

Transparency is also another vital aspect of running a successful business. A confidential accounting system is impossible to maintain. Departmental managers and finance teams can monitor payments in real time with the help of inputs provided by a dashboard that is both open and transparent. Due to this, everyone will better understand the company’s regular payments. Tracking improper practices and creating monthly budgets are made easier due to this.

  1. A decrease in fraud risk

While it is possible to detect fraud, real-time fraud detection is needed to rectify it and seal its source. Thankfully, that can be achieved by AI-based accounting systems. They make you aware of any discrepancies, mismatches, and anomalies they find to ensure that nothing is hidden from you.

They use a variety of checkpoints to ensure that no false or duplicate invoices are allowed to pass through. The AI also remembers trends and patterns and detects anything that differs greatly from what is typical.

  1. More informed financial decisions

The information that the financial team requires is provided to them, and it is also in a presentable format. They don’t need to maintain as close of a relationship with the accounting department as they once did because this data is also up to date.

Additionally, AI can draw insights regarding spending and share them with the relevant departments. This is based on the patterns of spending you’ve done in the past. The use of artificial intelligence in accounts payable helps you compare values by comparing large chunks of data that are much older than months.

This kind of calculation can’t be done by hand because it’s too complicated. They can be utilized as inputs in the process of cost projections for the future. The higher the amount of data it has access to, the more accurate the insights it generates.

The future of accounts payable for businesses

The introduction of new technologies has affected nearly all of today’s business sectors. Applications created with cutting-edge technology may be found just about anywhere. There is more than just accounts payable. The accounts payable process has already been automated and improved thanks to the application of AI technology.

In many AI applications, AI principles such as machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA) are already used to acquire and analyze real-time data. It possesses the limitless potential to upend the current state of the financial environment.

Data analytics, risk assessment and flagging, compliance management, chatbot support, and many more activities are just some of the responsibilities that are likely to be taken over by AI in the future. AP teams can identify efficient solutions at a lower cost and make auto-classifications when they utilize AI.

Understanding Dynamic Discounting And Its Benefits

Understanding Dynamic Discounting And Its Benefits

Discounts and merchant incentives have been intrinsic parts of the trade ever since the inception of the market. When the world was using the barter system, the system of credit with associated people worked well. However, as the cash economy came into existence, we saw the development of multi-level markets from manufacturers to consumers. Retail marketing saw a rising need for discounts as part of marketing techniques. Soon enough, we were ushered into the industrial revolution, where the idea of the free market was conceived. 

Free markets promote healthy competition by which they are self-regulated, barring a few exceptions. Product pricing plays an important part in a free market economy because it determines the sustenance of a business in fierce competition. It is for this reason that retail discounts soon became very common. Dealers preferred to move out high-volume goods at a low margin over low volume with a high margin. 

To spare a good enough profit margin, the retail businessmen started to build credit with their suppliers to build a long and healthy business relationship with them. When these retailers saw a surge in market demand, they started asking for suitable discounts from the suppliers. This discount would help them maximize profit margin and execute expansion strategies. 

Now, we have discussed the evolution of industries and markets. In terms of traditional business, there is only one thing that changed, and that is the use of e-commerce and technology. The principles of traditional business setup are the same as they were 200 years ago. However, things are changing now. 

The market is dynamic, and it demands the same kind of activity from those calling the shots. As a result of this economic growth, certain business strategies are breaking the shackles of traditionalist ideas. This has impacted the idea of discounting in supply chain management. Static discounts are being replaced by dynamic discounting strategies. 

However, if you are new to the business, chances are you are new to this discounting idea. So, it is important to know what dynamic discounting is, how it works, what the benefits are, etc. This will help you make an informed decision for your organization. In this article, we will discuss everything there is to know about dynamic discounting. 

What is dynamic discounting?

We have already made so much fuss about this revolutionary business model for the suppliers that it is now time to address the elephant in the room. To understand dynamic discounting, we must understand static discounting first. This will help you in developing a contrasting understanding of the subject. 

So, static discounting is a business model where suppliers can be paid for their invoice by the buyers in advance, before the delivery of the good, but at a discounted price. That is to say, under the terms of static discounting in a contract, a supplier is presented with two ideas; 1. Receive the full payment on the invoice on the delivery date as stipulated in the contract, or 2. Receive an advance payment for the goods at a discounted price. 

The suppliers opt for the discounted payment because they need a cash flow so they can pay for the operational cost without bearing too much burden. However, this means a lower profit margin for the suppliers. Therefore, the idea of dynamic discounting was introduced to put the suppliers on equal footing with the buyers. 

Under the terms of static discounting, the time limit and the discount rates are fixed. These terms are usually set by the buyers under the “take it or leave it” principle. Now, dynamic discounting terms offer flexibility to the suppliers regarding duration and discount rate. 

Dynamic discounting works on an “always on” basis, i.e., it allows the suppliers to offer discounts according to their need for cash flow. This will help them determine their needs and requirements in real-time. The “always on” basis also eliminates the duration restriction. So, under the terms of dynamic discounting, a supplier can offer discounted rates at any point of time before the scheduled delivery. 

Dynamic Discounting vs. Static discounting

We have already discussed the two discounting modules and how they contrast. Now, let’s look at some key differences that we can observe in both these models:

  • The discounting price and the timing clause are fixed in static discounting modules. Whereas dynamic discounting allows for greater flexibility in this regard.
  • In the case of dynamic discounting, suppliers have to get the invoice in accordance with the contractual terms. Once the invoice is approved, dynamic discounting terms can be invoked at any point at the option of the supplier. This is completely different with regard to the static discounting model, where the discount rate and timing are fixed under the contract terms.
  • Suppliers gain equal footing in dynamic discounting, which leads to healthier business relations. Static discounting modules give the buyers an undue advantage in a deal.
  • In the case of static discounting, ad hoc early payment requests have to be entertained by the supplier that may adversely affect the business operations. Dynamic discounting eliminates the chances of ad hoc requests, which improves the effectiveness of the discounting module. 

Why prefer dynamic discounts over static ones

In this part, we will discuss the advantages of a dynamic discounting model and why businesses should opt for this. As discussed earlier, static discounts are preferred in a traditional business setup, which is not ideal in the modern day and age. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the advantages of dynamic discounts over static discounts:

  • Dynamic discount puts the ball in the supplier’s court. Under the terms of dynamic discounting, suppliers can enforce the “take it or leave it” principle.
  • Dynamic discounts provide the opportunity to the suppliers to structure the standard discounting rate in accordance with the market and cost of operations.
  • The static discount model restricts the time limit in which advance payment facilities can be availed, which is not sustainable because the market is volatile.
  • The time limit in case of static discounts can put the suppliers in a tight situation, especially in a scenario where they need the cash flow desperately, but the window to avail of the advance payment option is closed.
  • Ad hoc requests under static discount models are known to disrupt the Accounts Payable process. Your organization may have the requisite cash flow to deliver the  goods or services under the stipulated duration. Still, if an ad hoc request is placed, you will be obliged to receive the advance payment in return for the discounted rates. This issue can be solved efficiently using dynamic discount models. 

What are sliding discounts?

A sliding discount is a type of traditional static discount invented to suit modern needs. However, if you analyze the AP process disruption caused by both these modules, you will see that there is not much difference. A sliding discount module is a system where the supplier is given the opportunity to offer lower discounted rates depending on the duration. 

So, if a supplier receives an advance payment right when the invoice is approved, the discount rate would be higher and vice versa. One may think that this module gives suppliers some advantage in a business relationship, but we must note that this is still a branch of traditional discount principles. Under the terms of sliding discounts, the duration is varied, but the discounting rate is fixed, which doesn’t give much breathing room to the supplier. 

Why prefer dynamic discounts over sliding discounts?

Now that we have understood the technicalities of sliding discounts, let’s look at some of the advantages dynamic discount models have over sliding discounts. This part also aims to list some of the limitations of sliding discounts. Let’s take a look:

  • Sliding discount offers the supplier an opportunity to choose the duration of the time limit. However, the discount rate is still fixed by the buyer. 
  • The fixed discount rate in this model puts the supplier at an advantage because he has to offer the stipulated discount irrespective of the market and affordability.
  • The dynamic discount model, on the other hand, promotes the “always on” marketplace policy. According to this policy, the supplier can initiate the offer for the discounted price and control the timing and rate. 
  • The dynamic discount model is also quite efficient for the business operations of the supplier because it allows the supplier to choose the invoice where he wants accelerated payments. Moreover, the seller can take a call on whether or not he wants accelerated payments on certain invoices. 
  • Unlike sliding discounts, the dynamic discount model creates a system on which suppliers can rely for their business operations. 

Factors considered in the dynamic discount model

In this article, we have already discussed the advantages or benefits of the dynamic discounting model. Moreover, we have also shed some light on the reasons why businesses should depart from traditional business techniques and switch to more dynamic alternatives. Now, in this part, we will talk about some factors considered when structuring a dynamic discount model:

  • The discount rate offered by the supplier under the contract or tender.
  • Evaluation of all the standing offers submitted by the contemporary suppliers.
  • The difference in the timeline in advance payment and the stipulated duration.
  • The cash available at the buyer’s disposal to make the advance payment. We also consider the third-party financial assistance available to the buyer. 

Conclusion

The market today is evolving at a great pace. Many obsolete business practices have been put to rest, especially with the advent of technology. Therefore, it is high time that we adapt to the market’s needs. The dynamic discounting model balances the buyer’s and supplier’s rights and creates a hassle-free business transaction. 

Understanding The Significance Of Vendor Management Systems

Understanding The Significance Of Vendor Management Systems

If you’ve ever been in the business of managing vendors, I’m sure you’d agree that there’s no such thing as having too many tools at your disposal. In fact, the more resources you have at your disposal, the better off you’ll be when it comes to streamlining processes and improving efficiency. That said, vendor management systems (VMS) are essential for any organization looking to become more efficient with its supply chain operations.

VMSs are designed to help organizations manage their supply chains by providing real-time information about the status of their vendors and suppliers. VMSs can also be used to improve processes, increase transparency and accountability, reduce costs, improve efficiency, and facilitate compliance with industry regulations.

In this article, we’ll explore some of the benefits of implementing a VMS into your business model so let’s dive right in.

Improved risk management in your supply chain

A Vendor Management System (VMS) can help you manage the risk in your organization, supply chain, and business. Risk management is an important part of any business because it helps to minimize losses and improve profitability.

The main reason companies implement a VMS is to reduce their exposure to risk by finding out about new suppliers before they are contracted for a project or job. In addition, using this system makes it easier for organizations to manage their existing vendors effectively to have better control over the quality of their products or services.

Good vendor management software will enable you to track all aspects of vendor performance, such as managing contracts, payments, payment disputes, increasing security levels, monitoring compliance requirements, etc.

Reduced vendor-related risks

It’s not uncommon for a company to have hundreds of vendors. The sheer number of vendors can make it difficult to manage them all. In addition, you need to be aware of many risks associated with vendor management and manage appropriately.

A good VMS can help reduce these risks by providing:

  • A single point of entry for the vendor relationship lifecycle
  • Automated approval workflows that assess risk and help prevent fraud, theft, loss, and abuse
  • Enhanced controls through robust data collection

A VMS can help you assess risk and ensure that your vendors are compliant with industry regulations. They also make it easier to track vendors, manage invoices, and keep all vendor information in one place. The best part is that they do it all while helping you keep your business running smoothly.

Single unified system

The vendor management system (VMS) is a single, unified system that manages all your vendors and their information. This means you can access data on your suppliers in one place, giving you complete visibility over the entire process.

A VMS allows you to collect more data than just supplier pricing and inventory levels, such as:

  • Your company’s buying history with each supplier
  • Product specifications, certifications, and quality control procedures
  • Delivery tracking numbers for each shipment

You’ll receive notifications when shipments are out for delivery so you can plan accordingly. This will help improve planning and ensure timely deliveries.

This type of centralization is vital to controlling costs, reducing errors, and maximizing efficiency. Without a VMS, you’ll have difficulty keeping track of all the information you need to effectively manage your vendors.

This means one system can manage all your vendors, giving you complete control over the entire process. This is especially helpful for industries like retail, with many different suppliers to keep track of.

Real-time data and analytics

Real-time information is critical, especially in business operations. A vendor management system (VMS) will give you a full picture of how your suppliers are performing, allowing you to make decisions based on the most up-to-date information.

You can also use these systems to improve your processes. If a vendor is experiencing delays or not meeting quality standards, you can take action before your clients are affected. You may even discover new ways of working to increase efficiency across the board.

A vendor management system gives you the information you need to manage your vendors in real-time. The data is available at a glance, allowing you to decide how best to improve processes and customer satisfaction levels. With real-time information on how they’re doing, you’ll know exactly which supplier is causing the issue—and take steps to fix it.

The real-time information provided by a vendor management system can help you:

  • Make decisions based on the most up-to-date information about your suppliers’ performance.
  • Find ways to improve your processes and increase efficiency.
  • Take action before clients are affected by delays or quality issues.

Reduced costs

In a digital world, there is no better way to reduce costs than by automating the process. The vendor management system can automate all the processes, reducing human errors and making it easier for you to manage your vendors.

You need not spend hours conducting meetings with your vendors, issuing them invoices, and waiting for their payments. With the help of vendor management software, you can easily automate these processes and save precious time while streamlining operations in your business.

This software solution is one of the best ways to reduce costs. It helps you in managing all your vendors effectively. You can easily set up a system where you learn about new vendors and automatically send them invoices whenever they are due.

Customer satisfaction

Satisfied customers are key to the success of any business. And unfortunately, it’s difficult to keep your customers happy when dealing with multiple vendors. One late delivery could cause a chain reaction that results in a dissatisfied customer or two.

Luckily, vendor management systems help create positive customer relationships by keeping track of all your purchases and creating an online dashboard that shows you which vendors are meeting their deadlines and delivering products on time—so you can focus on other parts of your company.

When you’re in the business of customer satisfaction, having a full view of your supply chain is essential. These systems provide just that by making it easy to track down any missing information and contact vendors if there are any issues with the delivery dates or product quality.

Data protection and privacy

You should also be aware that data protection and privacy are top priorities for all organizations. With vendor management systems, you can monitor the data of your employees, contractors, and customers. This ensures that none of them share sensitive information with anyone who isn’t authorized to have it.

Also, if there’s any doubt about whether or not someone should have access to certain records, it’s easy enough to check the system to confirm this person needs those records before they can be released.

It’s also possible to prevent unauthorized data sharing through a vendor management system. You can do this by setting up an access control list (ACL) for the system, which will restrict who gets what information from whom on a per-user basis. This makes it harder for employees or contractors to accidentally share sensitive data with someone else who shouldn’t have it.

Increased compliance and regulatory oversight

Since VMS is integrated with your ERP or MES software, you can use it to ensure that your organization complies with industry regulations. The system will be able to monitor each step of the production process and record key data along the way. This provides a clear audit trail for regulators if any problems arise later.

VMS also helps ensure that your organization complies with internal policies and procedures by having automated rules put into place based on those policies. These rules can be easily altered if needed as well, which means that if there is a change in policy, you won’t have to worry about updating all of your existing rules for every single product because they’ll already be taken care of by default.

Finally, VMS helps ensure that you’re staying current with external regulations, too: things like quality control testing requirements or safety standards must be adhered to before products get shipped out into their markets. However, these requirements vary depending on where they’re headed.

Improved vendor relationships

A vendor management system (VMS) is used to manage the relationships between your company and its vendors. This includes a wide range of tasks, including:

  • Providing data on quality, safety, and service records
  • Ensuring that vendors have met all required standards and regulations
  • Measuring compliance with policies

By incorporating these aspects into your VMS, you can help improve the performance of your vendors. In turn, this will lead to more efficient operations for both parties involved.

Including all of these tasks into a single tool helps vendors manage their business more effectively. By making this information easier to access, they can better find ways to improve their services and streamline the process of providing goods or services.

In addition to improving vendor relationships, vendors also benefit from accessing the data in an easy-to-use format.

Improvement in vendor sourcing and selection process

You can easily improve the process of vendor sourcing and selection by using a VMS. A VMS is software that will provide you with all the information related to vendors, such as their ratings, feedback, contracts they have signed in the past, and so on.

With an effective vendor management system (VMS) in place, you can improve your vendor sourcing and selection process by:

  • Having direct access to all the information regarding vendors at any given time;
  • Having an easy-to-use interface that allows you to filter out relevant information according to your criteria;

A VMS also helps in the management of vendors and their contracts. With a VMS helping you to manage vendors, you can:

  • Have a real-time overview of all the contracts signed by both parties
  • Easily track down which vendors are available at any given time and make the necessary arrangements to ensure that your projects get completed with minimal disruptions
  • Have an effective way of tracking vendor performance, thus increasing their productivity and reducing costs incurred due to late deliveries or poor quality work.

Conclusion

Vendor Management Systems are a great way to ensure you get what you need from your vendors. They can help increase efficiency and improve communication between your company and its suppliers by providing quick access to information about orders, shipments, and invoices. With so many benefits available, it’s no wonder many businesses use these systems. 

The Best Digital Transformation Practices In 2023

The Best Digital Transformation Practices In 2023

The term ‘digital transformation’ is pretty much common in business. The phrase “digital transformation” (DT) refers to a comprehensive framework and the corresponding plan created to combine employee effort, business processes, and technology to achieve better efficiencies and improve customer satisfaction. The fundamental procedures required to improve the technology-enabled blueprint for managing a specific business operation for maximum benefit are summarized in digital transformation best practices.

Digital transformation offers many benefits to businesses, including improved productivity, increased agility, increased ROI, more business growth opportunities, etc. However, it’s worth mentioning that businesses can only enjoy these benefits if they implement the best digital transformation practices.

In this article, we discuss the best digital transformation practices in 2023. So, without wasting much time, let’s delve into them.

  1. Identify the business problem

Production improvement, customer satisfaction, sustainability, etc.—call for applying various technologies and tactics. In this context, businesses must remember that technology is merely a tool for conducting business and that adopting technology solely for the sake of having fancy technology will result in a loss of resources. Digital transformation ought to benefit the company. Companies can identify a clear aim and KPIs they intend to attain through digitalization by understanding the business challenge, which aids in defining a plan.

  1. Put the customer’s needs first

Discover who your consumers are, what they want, and how they want to interact with your company using data gathered across the entire organization. Provide a detailed picture of the trends, preferences, and problems experienced by customers. The likelihood of a successful digital transformation will increase if you have a deep grasp of the demands and challenges of your customers. You can provide greater value by making it simpler for clients to do business with you and address their issues.

  1. Have digital-savvy leaders.

Throughout a digital transformation, there are changes at all levels, particularly regarding skills and competencies. About 70% of businesses report that the top teams in their companies change due to the transformation, especially when new leaders with experience in digital technologies join the management team.

The success of a transformation can be largely attributed to the addition of such a leader. It is also important to take on transformation-specific responsibilities, such as individual initiative leaders and program management or transformation office executives who devote their entire time to the change endeavor. Leadership dedication is also another major factor in success. A transformation’s success is more likely when important personnel—both senior organizational leaders and those in roles specifically related to the transformation—are more involved than in prior change initiatives.

  1. Unify data and information.

Workflow is constantly hampered by information silos, which constantly cause conflict. Customers will have more access to their orders if your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is upgraded or optimized to create a single source of information. Customers will then find it simpler to run their own businesses and customer connections. Also, it will lay the groundwork for enhancing your staff’s capacity to address inquiries from or problems with clients.

  1. Involve Employees

Workers frequently have more knowledge about information gaps, broken processes, and workflow obstacles. For the best return on investment, they can offer advice on deploying new technology or optimizing currently used ones. Increase the knowledge and skills of your staff members by training them beforehand.

Employee adoption of new procedures and technology increases when involved in planning and implementation. The installation will go more smoothly if more personnel are involved throughout the process.

  1. Measure your achievements

Decide on how to accurately track and identify the value that the digital transformation will produce. Key performance indicators (KPIs) should be described and used to gauge your progress. It might be better operations, improved client experiences, higher employee productivity, and better goods and services. Regularly gather and evaluate relevant data throughout the whole organization to improve operations. To determine the ROI of the digital transformation, it is crucial to use the appropriate KPIs

  1. Establish a structure of corporate governance

To improve their chances of success, businesses must promote their cultural values through an effective corporate governance structure. In a good governance system, there ought to be:

The CIO office assembles the required teams, fosters communication among them, and tracks each stage of the digital transformation by choosing pertinent KPIs.

Leaders in the line of business are in charge of carrying out the CIO’s specified tasks within the allocated budget. Focuses on achieving KPIs and functional goals.

The council for digital transformation facilitates communication between the CIO and line-of-business executives. Setting the budget and distributing the funds among the company leaders’ lines of operation would be the council’s most crucial duty.

  1. Have a systematic strategy for transformation

Most individuals, especially employees, resist change. There is no doubt about that. Trying to digitize too many things simultaneously may result in failure or delays. A better approach is to change one process at a time. Develop digital projects gradually and encourage staff to accept change. Instead of pressuring them to adopt change, provide them with the tools to do so. Business transformation requires meticulous attention to detail, so pause frequently and evaluate your progress.

  1. Enhance customer operations.

If you go through a digital transformation, customers may find it simpler to do business with you. Your customers may find it simpler to address their business difficulties by using the same technologies and procedures that support your change. Higher levels of customer loyalty will result from services like anything-as-a-service (XaaS), digital twins, augmented reality, agile design, linked products, performance optimization, and others that lower customer prices and/or provide more flexibility, more assurance, and faster turnaround.

New extended support for Template Directives in Oracle APEX

New extended support for Template Directives in Oracle APEX

In Oracle APEX 22.2 new support for Template Directives is now available for both Classic and Interactive Reports. 

Template Directives enable the ability to apply client-side directives to control the formatting of your data returned from SQL.  

In the past, when creating an interactive report, developers had no options when it came to formatting special columns, such as multiple values returned for each SQL query line.  Now with new Template directives, you can place the formatting in the APEX tool, leaving your SQL queries clean from client-side formatting.

How about an example?

Let’s say a developer needs to display data in an interactive report that contains a column with multiple values. 

In the past, developers could only display the data as it was presented in the SQL statement, unless they introduced client-facing code, like HTML items like bulleted lists, or tables, etc, within the SQL query.

Now with APEX 22.2, developers can place any client-facing formatting code outside the SQL statement, making the statement much cleaner to read and maintain.

Lets display data from this table:  EBA_DEMO_APPR_APPROVERS.

As you can see the raw data in the JOB_CODES field has a colon-separated list of job codes for each user.

To display data in this table in a report, we have created an APEX Interactive report using the table as the Source.

When displayed without formatting the Job Codes field is shown as it is returned in the SQL statement in an interactive report:

Now, after adding a template directive in the Column Formatting section of the IR, within the HTML Expression field for JOB_CODES, a bulleted list can be displayed

HTML Expression code:

<ul class="tags">{loop ":" JOB_CODES/}

  <li class="tag-item">&APEX$ITEM.</li>

{endloop/}</ul>

After adding the template directive to the column, the following formatted data can now be displayed

So there you have it.  APEX developers no longer need to include client-side formatting logic within SQL queries in interactive reports.  

Better yet, the same new Template Directive functionality is now available for Classic reports in APEX 22.2.

What is Oracle APEX?

Oracle APEX is a powerful and widely used low-code development tool that is popular among developers and businesses alike because of its ease of use, robust functionality, and scalability, ability to integrate with other Oracle products, and large community support.

Choose oAppsNet as your Oracle APEX partner

Reach out to oAppsNet today to see how we can help you maximize your investment with Oracle.  

Why us?

Oracle expertise: oAppsNet has extensive expertise in Oracle technologies, including Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Cloud Applications, and Oracle APEX, among others. This means that they can provide valuable insights and advice on how to best leverage these technologies to meet your business needs.

Customization capabilities: oAppsNet has a strong track record of customizing Oracle solutions to meet unique business requirements. They can help you design, build, and implement custom solutions that fit your needs.

Implementation and support services: oAppsNet provides end-to-end implementation and support services for Oracle technologies, including project management, testing, training, and ongoing support. This means you can rely on them to guide you through the entire process, from start to finish.

Collaborative approach: oAppsNet takes a collaborative approach to work with clients, working closely with them to understand their business needs and requirements. This allows them to provide tailored solutions that are aligned with your business goals.

Proven track record: oAppsNet has a proven track record of delivering successful Oracle implementations and solutions to clients across various industries. This means you can trust them to deliver high-quality results that meet your expectations.

When looking for a partner with deep Oracle expertise, customization capabilities, implementation and support services, a collaborative approach, and a proven track record, oAppsNet may be a good choice for your Oracle needs.