Oracle Time & Labor [OTL] is always knows as a product which is completely different from most of the EBIZ products both in terms of functionality and technicality. To start off, first of all lets try to see OTL more of as a Tool rather a product which will make the understanding process easier for many why this, what that, why only in OTL ... sort of questions.

For those who are still wondering what is OTL, it is the single point of Time Entry solution available in the Oracle E-Business Suite. OTL is a tool which allows you to capture, validate, approve and store the time information. Now this time information is of no use for OTL itself, it needs to be utilized by another application for which it has a meaning. That's where we have the concept of Receiving Application, the one which provides the attributes against which time is captures and then further processed once the time details are tranferred to this Receiving Application. OTL currently has out of box integration with Oracle Human Resources (HR), Oracle Internet Expenses, Oracle Project Resource Management, Oracle Payroll, Oracle Projects, Oracle Enterprise Asset Management and Oracle Procurement. It provides a set of public API's which can be used for developing custom integration with other products. More on this on a future entry ...

Coming to User Interface front of Oracle Time and Labor for Time Entry purpose, there are many different options available:
1. Self Service : Web based HTML form. Pretty flexible and configurable.
2. PUI Forms.
3. Timekeeper : The mass time entry method.
4. Disconnected Time Entry through Spreadsheet.
5. Customs user interfaces can be supported with the help of public API's. This provides the option of OTL integration with a variety of Punch machines and other hardware.

So what would you expect from a product (did i say product or tool !!!) which is so versatile...

Much more details coming on the later entries. A couple of useful links which might come handy on starting with OTL are :

Documentation

Home page
Data Sheet

Whitepaper

  • Timecard Configuration 11.5.10+ : Metalink Note 304340.1
  • Timecard Configuration : Metalink Note 227603.1
Useful Metalinks
  • Oracle OTL HXC TimeStore Deposit API : Metalink Note 223987.1
  • OTL11i.sql : Metalink Note 255982.1
  • Oracle Time and Labor (OTL) Mandatory Patches : Metalink Note:214886.1
  • APIs in Oracle Time & Labor : Metalink Note 216773.1
Punchout Machine
Old prodcuts replaced by OTL
  • Oracle Internet Time also known as OIT and iTime. OIT is desupported as of 31-OCT-2004.

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