Oracle Tutor Desk Manual Index

When you create online Desk Manuals using Publisher all the Process documents are published to a Desk Manual Index. Desk Manual Index acts as a placeholder or a central location from which all the Process documents can be accessed. The Desk Manual Index has hyperlinks for the Roles or Actors defined in the Distribution section and through the hyperlinks the Processes associated with the Roles can be accessed. Users can click a link that is associated with their Role (e.g. Accounts Payable Manager or Stockroom Supervisor) and view all the related Procedures, Reference Documents, Instructions etc. 

The Desk Manual Index displays the documents (Roles)alphabetically and not based on the module. There is a possibility that hyperlinks for the Roles within a specific module can get dispersed if not named properly. For example, you can have Accounts Payable Manager and Invoice Analyst within the AP function. As the Desk Manual Index arranges alphabetically, the links for the Roles get spread out. This makes Navigation within the Desk Manual a difficult task. If the Desk Manual Index holds processes pertaining to multiple Plants, the Navigation becomes much more difficult unless proper naming conventions have been developed for all locations.

What do you do as a Tutor Consultant? Proper care has to be taken while naming the Actors. The rule of thumb is to follow the Oracle Application Responsibilities if they have been defined. The Business Leads define the Responsibilities during the implementation phase. For example, NY-AP Invoices and CA-AP Invocies denotes New York and California locations. While naming an Actor having the same Name as the defined Responsibility, ensures that the Desk Manual Index becomes easy to navigate because of the Plant prefix.

The above method is useful to easily navigate through the several Roles. You can also index based on a module such as Payables, General Ledger etc. This is what you do:

Apart from the system generated Distribution List, manually insert an Actor for Indexing. For example, if you are working on AR processes, manually insert a distribution named ‘Accounts Receivable’ in all the AR process documents (Procedures, Forms, Instructions etc.) This would help index all AR process documents under the heading ‘Accounts Receivable’. Similarly, for other modules insert a generic term such as Purchasing, Human Resources etc. These get displayed in the Desk Manual Index and when you click a link say, Purchasing all the associated Procedures, Forms etc are displayed.