Top 50 Oracle Retail Merchandising System Interview Questions You Must Prepare 19.Mar.2024

Some retailers require a Routing Location for consolidation of Import Orders.  These are distribution centers which are not cross dock locations and also not stock holding locations.  Items are not received at these routing locations; the locations are only used for consolidation purposes.  From an inventory perspective, a Routing Location is outside the RMS definition of a regular store or warehouse location. Therefore, it will be created as part of the Outside Location functionality.

Inventory is kept and viewed at the component item level.  Pack "inventory" can be viewed when manually requested, but is not held in Retail Merchandising System (RMS).  RMS allows users to view the inventory of Sellable Complex Pack Items through the Sellable Pack Build (packable) screen in the Inventory Menu. 

For RMS version 13.1 or RMS version 13.1.1, Oracle BI Publisher version 10.1.3.4.0 is required.

Whenever cost changes are extracted for an item, accordingly all the cost components dependent on supplier cost get updated (ITEM_EXP_DETAIL).   If RECALC_ORDER_IND is 'Y' for the cost change, then all the orders for the item which are approved and not yet received get updated with the new unit cost and corresponding expenses.  Thus, Estimated Landed Cost (ELC) also gets updated.  If RECALC_ORDER_IND is 'N' for the cost change, then order cost does not get updated.

  • The "Routing Location" field om the Purchase Order screen is editable.  This field is editable for all order types.
  • Even if defaulted, the user has the option to remove the routing location.
  • The value in this field is not mandatory.
  • There is no validation on the location type.
  • Users will be able to add a routing location even if it is not associated at supplier/supplier site level.

Individual items can be associated to tickets through the Request Ticket window in RMS. Multiple items are associated through the help of an item list or a Purchase order through the same window.

The setup must be done manually, as it varies from country to country. 

The basic steps are as follows:

  1. Make an entry into HTS_IMPORT_COUNTRY_SETUP table for the country.  (Back-end entry)
  2. Create a Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) chapter from the HTS Heading Maintenance Window [htshead].
  3. Create Quota Category.
  4. Create required HTS from the Harmonized Tariff Schedule Window [hts].

A typical entry in the HTS_IMPORT_COUNTRY_SETUP would be:

INSERT INTO HTS_IMPORT_COUNTRY_SETUP VALUES ('IN', 'FMXXXX"."XXXX"."XX', 4);

Where columns are Import Country ID, HTS Format Mask, HTS Heading Length.

The system does not allow Supplier update on a saved or  approved PO. You will need to cancel the PO and create  a new PO with the correct Supplier.

The Buyer Pack Cost equals the sum of the cost of the components. Buyer packs are a pack of items that a buyer groups together to simplify the ordering process.

You can setup a dynamic item list and select all items in the class to be included in it and then use the item list to reclassify the class.  You cannot reclassify all the items in a class without using an item list.  After you setup the dynamic item list, there is an option to 'Use' the item list, and it will allow the user to select a reclassification.

TEXPZ (Total Expense Zone) – This component will be used to store the total of the expenses for each Item/Supplier/Zone/Discharge Port combination. It will total all expenses that have an Expense Type of ‘Zone’ within the Item Expenses dialog.  This total will be added together with the Total Expense Country, the Total Duty, and the item’s Unit Cost to come up with the Total Estimated Landed Cost of the Item/Supplier/Country combination

Setting the EDI_SALES_RPT_FREQ in SUPS table to 'W', Sales and stock information will be downloaded weekly, so EDI_DAILY_SALES will not be updated.

Yes. This is based on the fact that the ELC costs are pretty much determined at item setup, but those costs are only updated when receiving happens

The field 'Firm' in the 'Terms and Conditions' indicates that the Purchase order is firm. Firm your purchase order when you want to indicate to Master Scheduling/MRP or your manufacturing application that it should not reschedule this purchase order. The Field 'Firm' in the alternate region 'more' in the  PO shipments indicates that the Purchase order shipment is firm. Firm your purchase order shipment when you want to indicate to Master Scheduling/MRP or your manufacturing application that it should not reschedule this purchase order shipment .

In all reports, there is a .xdo. Those xdo files have a default data source set to "RMS13" out of the box.  Therefore it is required to set up the JDBC connection with a data source name of "RMS13" when using reports out of the box.  The data source name in .xdo file needs to match with the data source name defined for the JDBC connection.

The inventory is checked at the source warehouse, which is a stock-holding location. So in a multi-channel environment it would be a virtual warehouse.

Oracle Purchasing will not allow unit price update on Inventory line items when the line is received or billed because accounting tractions have already taken place. The difference between the PO price and invoice price will be recorded in the Invoice Price Variance Account which will show up on the Invoice Price Variance report. If you have mistakenly entered the incorrect price on the PO, then you can work around this by cancelling or backing out the invoice and processing a return on the receipt which will allow unit price update.

If the retail of the pack provides a discount, the discount is prorated across the component items at the time of sale and will show as a markdown on the stock ledger. 

If the retail of the pack is greater than the sum of the retail of the components, the overage will be prorated across the component items at the time of sale.

Automatic replenishment causes automatic creations of orders and automatic approvals of those orders. Approvals are handled through the RPLAPPRV batch.   Semi- automatic replenishment causes automatic creations of orders, but orders need to be manually approved.

A sellable pack is a pack item that consists of multiple items that are sold as one item.  These items are generally sold as one unit as a benefit to the consumer, either in convenience or price savings.  The strategy is, therefore, to encourage the customer to purchase more.

RMS has an Inventory Adjustment Reason Code Maintenance Window [rsninvad].  This window allows you to maintain a list of reasons for inventory adjustments.  Reasons are used to indicate why the total stock on hand should be increased or decreased.  For example, you may need to decrease the stock on hand due to shrinkage. 

To navigate to this window:

From the main menu, select Control => Setup => Inventory Adjustment Reason => Edit (or View).   The Inventory Adjustment Reason Code Maintenance window opens, allowing you to Add/Maintain or View inventory adjustment reason codes.

Perform these steps:

  1. Save the color palette in your local machine.
  2. In Forms Builder, open the Form requiring the color change.
  3. Select [Edit] -> [Preferences].
  4. Enable the 'Select Color Mode' on General Tab and click OK.
  5. Open the main campus.
  6. Select [Edit] -> [Import] -> [Color Palette].
  7. Select the color palette which was saved in Step 1 and click OK.
  8. Save the campus and compile the respective form.

Auto generation or auto printing of tickets is the process by which a specified ticket type is automatically printed when the item associated with it through a purchase order gets

  • Approved
  • Received
  • Undergoes a permanent price change

There is no table that stores Total ELC value by summing up all components.

Total expense is displayed on ORDHEAD by summing up individual component expense values.

As this value depends on the country, you should to consult your business team to determine the proper format. 

The phase dates need not necessarily be always within season dates. This is because sometimes you may have items crossing seasons. For instance, sometimes you can have a tritional phase that bridges the two seasons. There are some items which trcend from one season to another and hence are associated to a phase which lies in both seasons.

RMS only uses Season and Phases as attributes or to do things such as create item lists and allows overlaps because they have no critical functionality based on those seasons or phases.

  • Inserts records into the Point Of Sale (POS) download and writes a traction code.
  • Inserts records into TRAN_DATA with an in and out record.
  • The Open To Buy(OTB) is updated to reflect changes.
  • History, such as sales history, is NOT moved.
  • Stock Ledger tractions are created to move the current on-hand inventory from the old merchandise hierarchy to the new merchandise hierarchy.

This is explained in chapter 12 on "Setting up Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher" in "RMS 13.0.1 Back-end Configuration and Operations Guide - Volume 3". 

RMS.env file should have environmental variables set up as in the example below:

ORACLE_RMS_REPORTS_HOST=http://mspps003.us.oracle.com:7777/ 

ORACLE_RMS_REPORTS_SERVER=xmlpserver 

ORACLE_RMS_RWSERVER=xmlpserver/Guest/rms13/

All the files and directories from STAGING_DIR/rms/application/rms13/reports/* need to be copied to Reports/Guest/rms13 folder on BI Publisher. Port 7777 in the example is the HTTP listen port as defined in /Apache/Apache/conf/httpd.conf file for BI Publisher.

Note:- While opening BI publisher reports from RMS application, if it fails with error "FRM-92020:invalid URL" please confirm above settings in .env file.

If a supplier/supplier site is associated to a routing location, the same will be defaulted at the order header as soon as the supplier/supplier site is added.  Validation to check if the order is an import order has been removed (i.e., there is no need to validate whether or not the order is an import order).

  • Reclassification is the process through which an item or item list is moved from one department/class/subclass to another.
  • Reclassification is initiated on-line individually or using an Item List An effective date is specified.
  • Reclassification occurs in the overnight batch Items are reclassified the night before the effective date.

The Sellable Pack cannot be ordered or trferred unless the pack is set up as both valuable and orderable. 

In RMS the ticketing functionality allows the retailer to specify the type of information the ticket should contain as regards the product.

For U&A all items that have been extracted and are not counted will default to zero and be considered counted.

The Order Header Maintenance has been amended with a new field called "Routing Location" from RMS 13.1.x onwards.   This will serve as the "Ship To" location for consolidation purposes.

  1. When determining the individual ROW of stores, it does not matter which replenishment method the stores themselves are using, as long as they have forecasts. 
  2. The attributes of the WH are used to determine the ROW for each store. 
  3. This will allow the WH to use one replenishment method to stock the WH (during the supplier cycle) and the stores to use a different replenishment method for WH to store ordering (during the store cycle).

Loc=0 record in PRICE_HIST gives the initial base retail for the item. This is for reporting or audit purposes only.

Yes, it is specific to application user.

At a high level, the impact will be in the sense that inventory will not be accurate until the authorization is processed.  In addition, RMS cannot start the amount part of the stock count.

  • The main impact is with regard to late-posting tractions. Ideally this should just mean sales, as other tractions flow from SIM to RMS in real time. Late-posting sales would update the snapshot if they are entered prior to authorizing the count. 
  • Inventory/stock ledger overlay will not occur until after authorization. 
  • Between the count and the date of authorization, the average cost of the item may change, which may impact the cost of inventory. 

You can place a Purchase order 'On hold' only at the header level. This approves the purchase order while preventing printing, receiving, invoicing, and future approval until you remove the hold. You can 'Freeze' only at the header and release level. You freeze a Purchase order when you want to prevent any future modifications to the Purchase order. When you freeze a Purchase order, you can still receive and pay for goods you already ordered. If you use a Requisition template or AutoSource to source requisition lines from a Purchase order line, Purchasing does not automatically update the corresponding sourcing information when you freeze a purchase order with which you source requisition lines. If you freeze a purchase order, you have to update the corresponding information in the Requisition Templates or the AutoSource Rules window.

When an item is deleted from itemmaster screen, the item_master.status for that item will still be what it was previously. If Active, item_master.status will still be 'A'. However, it will have a record in DAILY_PURGE. Whatever items those are in DAILY_PURGE will have status in the itemmaster screen as 'Delete Pending'. We do not have a form/process/functionality within RMS to remove the item from *Delete Pending*. Item will be deleted from the tables during dlyprg.pc batch run. But it will have to go through some validations before it can be deleted. Those that failed validation will not be purged and an entry will be inserted into DAILY_PURGE_ERROR_LOG. If you do not want to delete the item, you can remove the corresponding record from DAILY_PURGE and DAILY_PURGE_ERROR_LOG tables.

By doing the below steps, you will assign an amount to the buyer which he can not approve an order that exceeds this amount.

Login to RMS 

Navigate: Control > Setup > User Role Privileges

Set the required amount in the 'User Role Privileges' screen.

The pack can contain different items and/or multiples of the same item. Component items can come from different departments. Also, component items can come from multiple suppliers/origin countries.

No, prior to RMS Release 13.1.x, HTS was configured for one country.  From RMS Release 13.1.x onwards, HTS has been generalized for use by any country.

The Purchase Orders form always defaults a PO type of 'Standard Purchase Order'. Although the default value cannot be changed, the user can change the type once the form opens.

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) provides a method for retailers and suppliers to trmit business documents. EDI trlation programs convert outgoing and incoming files to the appropriate flat file or EDI format. 

RMS EDI programs either create an output file if the data is being trmitted to the supplier or accept an input file initiated by the supplier. In all cases, the file is trlated by the customer's EDI trlation software application. 

Concession Items are items that are not owned by the retailer but are captured for future use.  The supplier rents a space from the retailer, and the retailer never owns the items.

When all lines for a given header are closed, Purchasing automatically closes the document.

Taxable indicator (taxable_ind) is sent to the Point Of Service (ORPOS) system, this is not applicable for warehouses. Because ITEM LOCK table is maintained for both store and warehouse locations, at warehouses RMS assigns a default value which will not be used for anything.

A ticket type broadly defining the characteristics of a ticket according to the nature of information it contains, and the nature of the item it is meant to get affixed on.

The default values for Default Ship to and Bill  on the PO header are defined in the Supplier Purchasing region of the Financial options form.

Setup/organizations/Financial options->   Supplier-Purchasing alternate region

Define the Ship to and Bill to fields