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Introduction:

The internet is buzzing these days with discussions around NTF’s. So, what exactly are NFT’s? Are they a fad, or are they here to stay?NFTs stand for non-fungible tokens, which means they are unique items that can’t be replaced, unlike Bitcoin, which is fungible. NFT’s are part of the Ethereum blockchain.To put things into perspective, here are some examples of NFTs that exist today:

• A digital artwork.
• An essay.
• A digital collectible.
• A domain name.
• A ticket that gives you access to an event or a coupon.

 

Notable NFTS

Several NFTs have made headlines for selling for astronomical prices. Here are some examples:

• The first tweet: Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet published in March 2006 was auctioned for charity and was bought for $2.9 million by a Malaysian-based buyer.
• Hashmasks is a living art collectible put together by more than 70 artists worldwide.
• The First 5000 Days: A digital piece of art created by Mike Winkelmann (Beeple).
• Crossroads: NFTCrossroads was created by Beeple as a response to the 2020 presidential election. It was auctioned on Nifty Gateway and got $6.6 million.

 

Brands and NFT’s

If you are a business, you should pay attention to NFT’s as big brands have already started experimenting with them. They include the following:

• Taco Bell: The famous fast-food chain sold 25 digital art tokens on the NFT Rarible marketplace.
• Charmin: The toilet paper company sold toiled paper-themed NFTs, branded as NFTP (non-fungible toilet paper).
• Pizza Hut: Pizza Hut Canada put a pixelated pizza on Rarible for 0.0001 ETH ($0.18). The idea was that it should be affordable, as the cost of a bite of Pizza, Megan Farquhar, Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy, the agency responsible for the campaign, told Decrypt publication.

 

The NFTs’ bubble

So, will the NFTs bubble ever pop?Analysts like David Hoffman, the co-founder of Bankless newsletter, is a staunch believer in NFT’s power.He wrote: “Not all humans are finance geeks, but all humans are culture animals. NFTs are the marketable surface area that Ethereum needs in order to go mainstream.”However, according to data from Nonfungible website, the number of daily sales across all NFT marketplaces has declined from a high of 138,109 on Aug. 30 to 42,372 on Sept. 21These market developments prompted podcast host and Twitter user Dennis Porter to suggest that “the NFT market has died.”He said: “As I’ve been predicting (despite getting intense backlash from everyone, including bitcoiners) the NFT market has died.Average price of NFTs have dropped over 99%. Liquid death has come. Sorry not sorry for calling this market a scam.” 

The dangers of NFT’s

Investing in NFT’s is not risk-free.Cybercriminals can copy an NFT token, and people can end up buying fake NFT tokens. So people should check the authentication of an NFT token before buying them.According to the CEO of L'Atelier BNP Paribas, buying NFT’s is akin to gambling in a casino.“I think it's probably akin at this stage to going into the casino,” said John Egan, CEO of L’Atelier, in an interview with BNN Bloomberg. “You know you're going to spend money, but maybe you're doing it for the enjoyment, for the experience. If you win, you've got lucky.” At Tahaluf, we keep up with the latest technology. Do you want to know more about our digital offerings Talk with one of our experts. Contact us at: businessdevelopment@tahaluf.ae  [post_title] => Everyone is talking about NFTs. What are they, and should we care? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => everyone-is-talking-about-nfts-what-are-they-and-should-we-care [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-11-24 11:34:32 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-11-24 07:34:32 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5670 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5666 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-11-17 18:17:22 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-11-17 14:17:22 [post_content] =>

Introduction:

We have been hearing a lot lately about the metaverse, especially after Facebook's recent announcement that they are investing heavily in it and even changing their company's iconic name to "Meta."It has also been reported that both Microsoft and NVIDIA are working on their own versions of the metaverse.So, what is the metaverse exactly, and why should we pay attention to it?The metaverse is an online world where people interact via digital avatars. It's a combination of virtual reality, augmented reality video where users dwell in a digital universe.The term was coined by author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. In his book, he envisioned avatars who met in realistic 3D buildings and other virtual reality places.The metaverse is expected to blend the offline and online world, which will be much harder to delineate. Many experts believe that "extended reality" (XR) – the combination of augmented, virtual and mixed reality will be happening in a matter of time.In his AI thought book, Murat Durmus said the metaverse is the "ideal playground in which the AI can let off steam. The more humans lose themselves in it, the more the AI will take control. That much is certain." 

How does the future look like?

Futurists envision metaverse' users working, playing, and staying connected with friends through various avenues, ranging from concerts and conferences to virtual trips worldwide.Several brands have already started experimenting with them, like fashion icon Gucci which recently unveiled Gucci Garden. In this immersive multimedia experience, users of the online gaming platform Roblox can explore and purchase goods. 

Should we worry about the metaverse?

While many technologists and industry leaders are already embracing the metaverse, should we take a step back and reflect on its implications?Dr. David Reid, Professor of AI and Spatial Computing at Liverpool Hope University, said that while the metaverse will change our lives the same way the internet did, it also poses "terrifying dangers.""Because if you think about the way it works, the metaverse's ultimate aim is not just virtual reality, or augmented reality, it's mixed reality (MR). It's blending the digital and the real world together. Ultimately this blend may be so good and so pervasive, that the virtual and the real become indistinguishable," Reid said in comments he gave to the media."And the market for that is gigantic. Whoever controls it will basically have control over your entire reality."According to Reid, we need to police the metaverse."We're clearly in the very early stages, but we need to start talking about these problems now before we go down a route we can't reverse away from. It's crucial for the future." 

Be prepared

If you are a business, it might be a good idea to start looking seriously into the metaverse and decide on what kind of innovations you need to streamline for this new digital world.Maybe you can follow the example of Nike and make sure all your ducks are in a row before you find yourself late to the game.It was recently reported that Nike had filed seven trademark applications in preparation for the metaverse. The company also indicated it was planning to sell virtual branded sneakers and apparel.Also, as a business, make sure you familiarize yourself with the metaverse's strong connection with the real-world economy. This may rely on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as the foundation for value creation.According to the World Economic Forum, "If NFTs become a commonly adopted tool for trading such goods, they could help accelerate the use of XR ecosystems as places people go to combine elements of the digital economy with their offline lives."   [post_title] => What's the metaverse, and how do we prepare for its expansion? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => whats-the-metaverse-and-how-do-we-prepare-for-its-expansion [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-11-17 18:18:13 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-11-17 14:18:13 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5666 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5627 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-11-07 15:52:08 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-11-07 11:52:08 [post_content] =>

Introduction

Imagine this scenario: You buy or use a new electronic product or service, but something doesn't work for you or you don't understand the steps.What is the first thing you do? Yes, you would pull out the quick-start guide and see what you need.The question is, have you ever wondered who made this quick guide? Who is responsible for ensuring that critical information is communicated clearly, concisely, and easily understood? This is the task of Technical Writers."So, what does a technical writer...do...exactly?" It’s a question we've heard from friends, family, and strangers many times throughout our writing careers. As far as I can tell, there's no question. It's writing - that's pretty technical. It’s right there in the name, but the details remain fuzzy to most.There is a saying that technical writers are a rare breed. Professional technical writers are consumer advocates, researchers, and testers, who are aware of the consumer's needs, preferences, and behaviours, in a way that many others aren't. Technical writers describe products and services in a way that target audiences can understand. To put it in another way, they translate the technical language of engineers, SMEs, and manufacturers into terms that the target audience can understand. They can chunk a long and complicated procedure into bite-sized and easy-to-understand steps. They help set proper expectations so end-users understand both what a new product can do and, perhaps more importantly, what it cannot do. 

Is It Only About Writing User Guides?

This is, without a doubt, the most serious fallacy of all. As technology advances, technical writing has evolved to encompass all documentation of complex technical processes such as technical reports, executive summaries, briefs, emails, policy, online support articles, training materials, product descriptions, reference guides, and internal documents for coders/API developers.The process and outcomes of technical writing are unique, and the responsibilities of technical writers extend beyond writing. They must comprehend the entire project, from high-level goals to the implementation complexities.In software documentation, technical writers play a huge role. They explain how to use a program or service by writing:

• Documentation that specifies the expectations for the software being developed.
• Architecture documentation defines the high-level architecture of the software system is created.
• Technical documentation for software developers, which might include software code documentation, algorithms, or APIs.
• End-user documentation is user guides or manuals that assist the users of a particular system.
• FAQ’s, Online Help, and Video Tutorials.

  

Technical Writer Career Path

Several questions might go through the mind of a technical writer when considering their career path. Will I still be the same person I am now, or can I develop? Get rid of all vague and unclear questions and start with a clear one. What should I do now, and how do I proceed? Depending on your interests, your career progression may vary.The technical writer's career path is like a "system development life cycle". The journey to becoming a technical writer can be made direct by completing a university education and then applying directly for a technical writing job after graduation. This path, however, is taken by a minority of technical writers.  A Technical Writing Course can pave the way for your static career, no matter what your technical background is. An apprenticeship in technical writing might be your best option for a fast track to a technical writing career. During your apprenticeship, you can apply different techniques and methods on an actual project to learn technical writing from your mentor. Once you have this experience, you can turn it into a paid technical writing position.The ideal situation would be for a person to go directly from technical writing training to working as a technical writer. For many people, that world doesn't exist at all. The difference begins with your level of education. This can also be divided into two main categories, as illustrated in this diagram: 

• Degrees related to technical writing

When employers hire technical writers, they look for applicants with relevant certifications in the field, including communications, information technology, computer engineering, industrial engineering, and technical background.

• Degrees not related to technical writing

Your degree doesn't necessarily have to be related to communications, information technology, computer engineering to become a technical writer. It's common for professional-technical writers to have college/university degrees in non-technical fields such as business management, agriculture, veterinary medicine, law, etc.Another divergence in the path to becoming a technical writer is your work experience, your experience as a technical writer, and your training will open new horizons for you in this field. Technical writing training and a bit of experience can put you on the right track to being a professional technical writer. As a technical writer, you will gain experience in using words and language to effectively communicate with an audience by working on a variety of projects. This is a distinct advantage when seeking a promotion. 

Technical Writers' Occupational Hierarchy

 Upon gaining experience as a Junior Technical Writer, you can advance to the role of Senior Technical Writer, handling a variety of complex projects and working with a team of writers. If you want to be a team leader, you can pursue a career in management and leadership. As you improve your management and leadership skills, you can advance in the hierarchy and become the team leader for technical writers. In addition, because they have a very broad understanding of many types of projects, in addition to having very high skills in data collection, they are more likely to be able to move to other departments, such as business analysis. 

Where Is The Need for Technical Writers?

Technical writing holds a strong foothold in many industries, where it plays a crucial role. It has become increasingly popular in recent years. Technical writing is typically associated with specialized areas of the software that require extensive documentation, such as user manuals, instruction manuals, or reference manuals. Consequently, most technical writing jobs are associated with software companies. However, technical writing is also used in other fields such as Healthcare, Aerospace, Electronics, Finance, and Automotive.Design Your Own Technical Writing Career Path. 

Conclusion

Finally, we realize that this is what technical writers bring to the table. They are not only an important member of your team, but they also add value to your products and services by providing proper documentation, solid proposals, and detailed comments. Additionally, they can switch roles and assist in different departments. It doesn't matter what degree they have; they just need experience and the ability to develop and strengthen their writing skills. There's no right or wrong way to become a technical writer; you will be challenged with some tracks that seem challenging, you'll make mistakes, but you'll be on the right track in the end. Authors: Technical Writing Team

• Anas Abu Khaled
• Shatha Barakat
• Rana Ali Alakhras

[post_title] => Technical Writers: Who We Are? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => technical-writers-who-we-are [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-11-07 19:38:14 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-11-07 15:38:14 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5627 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [3] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5200 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-11-07 11:06:10 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-11-07 07:06:10 [post_content] =>

Introduction

The term Web 3.0 has been thrown out a lot lately. We read about it in tech articles, hear it discussed heavily on podcasts and news segments, so what is it exactly?Before we explain what Web 3.0 is all about, let's dive a bit into the history of the internet and talk about its progression.The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee's initially imagined the internet to be "a collaborative medium, a place where we [could] all meet and read and write," but this is not how the World Wide Web first started. Since its inception, the internet has gone through different phases:

• Web 1.0: It's the early days of the internet where data and information were predominantly static, with minimal users' interaction with the content. There were very few creators during this phase, unlike today's "creator economy."
• Web 2.0: That's when the content became generated mainly by internet users. An example of this is Wikipedia and the various social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. The main issue with Web 2.0 is that both consumers' and creators' data are usually sold to third parties for marketing purposes.
• Web 3.0: In this version of the web, data will be connected in a decentralized way, unlike Web 2.0, where data is mainly stored in centralized storage locations. This is the closest to Berners-Lee's original idea of the internet.

 

The main features of Web 3.0

The future is bright for Web 3.0, which is destined to have many unique and innovative qualities that will safeguard users' privacy and provide more customized search results. Here are some of its main features:

• AI: In Web 3.0, AI and machine learning technology will play a significant role in processing data. This will allow data to be provided to users faster while yielding more relevant results. An example of this is the algorithms used to suggest products, videos, etc. Web 3.0 is destined to be a bit like that but even more advanced and accurate than what's currently being offered.
• Semantic Web. The term "semantic web" can be defined as generating, sharing, and connecting content through search and analysis based on understanding the meaning of words rather than on keywords or numbers.
• 3D Graphics. Three-dimensional designs will be used extensively in websites and services.
• Decentralized data ownership. Privacy concerns have been a big issue of late among internet users. As a result, laws like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into fruition to regulate data privacy breaches. One of the most significant advantages of Web 3.0 is distributed ledgers and storage on the blockchain, which will allow for data decentralization and create a transparent and secure environment.

 

How to make sure your business is ready for Web 3.0

 Powered by AI and blockchain technology Web 3.0, is destined to make it simpler and more convenient to search for anything online while keeping sensitive data secure.Now, how to make sure your business is ready for Web 3.0?

• Invest in AI.
• Invest in IoT devices.
• Keep an open mind toward new technologies like blockchain.
• Be honest and transparent with how user data is being used.
• Educate your clients and stakeholders on blockchain technology and the semantic web.

 At Tahaluf, we provide you with advanced, custom AI solutions. Would you like to set up a business meeting with our team? Contact us at: businessdevelopment@tahaluf.ae [post_title] => What is Web 3.0, and how do businesses prepare for it? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => what-is-web-3-0-and-how-do-businesses-prepare-for-it [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-11-07 19:39:06 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-11-07 15:39:06 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5200 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [4] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5622 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-10-29 13:04:57 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-10-29 09:04:57 [post_content] =>

Can you imagine a world without the Internet?

Try to visualize how our current existence would be without instant access to information and ease of communication. Imagine how time-consuming it would be to look up information on your favorite basketball player or connect with faraway friends.That internet-less world existed before 1991, but everything changed after that when the WWW became publicly available.We owe a lot to the Internet; that’s why on October 29 of every year, the world celebrates Internet Day, an innovation that many consider the most important invention in human history. 

History of Internet Day

The history of that day goes back to October 29, 1969, when Charley Kline, a grad student on the UCLA campus, sent the first internet message to his colleague, Bill Duvall, at Stanford while working on something called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the U.S. Defense Department-funded network that connected four terminals installed at UCLA. The message he sent was one word: “LOGIN.”The use of the Internet has swept the world since then.  As of January 2021, there were 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide - 59.5 percent of the global population.The use of the Internet has expanded to include mobile devices.According to the report The State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2021by GSM Association, more than half the world’s population uses mobile Internet for the first time.“By the end of 2020, 51% of the world’s population – just over 4 billion people – were using mobile internet, an increase of 225 million since the end of 2019,” said the report.Internet traffic is still expected to expand even more. According to UNCTAD Digital Economy Report 2021, global internet protocol traffic in 2022 will exceed all the internet traffic up to 2016.Other key findings in the UNCTAD report include the following:

• The data-driven digital economy is rapidly evolving amidst huge divides in digital readiness.
• Cross-border data flows are a new kind of international economic flow, which leads to a new form of global interdependence.
• Regulating data flows at the international level has become more urgent.

 

How to celebrate Internet Day?

Do you have any plans to celebrate this day?Here are some suggestions:

• Visit the very first website, which is still online.
• Learn more about the history of the Internet.
• Wish your friends and colleagues Internet Day messages by posting your celebrations on social media using the hashtag #InternationalInternetDay or #InternetDay.

As your company celebrates Internet Day, is your business ready for continuous growth in the digital sphere? Are you prepared to embrace the data-driven digital economy?At Tahaluf, we are here to provide you with the latest digital solutions to take your business to the next level. Contact us at: businessdevelopment@tahaluf.ae [post_title] => It’s World Internet Day. Is your business ready to embrace the data-driven digital economy? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => its-world-internet-day-is-your-business-ready-to-embrace-the-data-driven-digital-economy [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-30 13:07:13 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-30 09:07:13 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5622 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [5] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5612 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-10-26 16:28:01 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-10-26 12:28:01 [post_content] => The Internet of Things (IoT) has been hailed as one of the most prominent technological advancements of the past few years. It is currently omnipresent, finding its way in every aspect of our daily lives, from our kitchens to our thermostats and even our keys.The advent of the COVID pandemic has reemphasized the role of IoT in our new normal as many pivoted towards automation and seamless connectivity, especially in sectors like health care, retail and education. 

So, what exactly is the Internet of Things?

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the network of connected devices that collect and share data about the environment around them over a wireless network without human intervention.For example, we can now lock our doors, turn on lights, and water our garden all from our smart devices.Among the most used IoT products are Google’s Home, Amazon’s Alexa, and the home cleaning robot Roomba. According to AI security firm CujoAI, smartwatches are some of the fastest-growing IoT devices in North America.The number of Internet-connected devices that people have is going up.Media Post reported that “There will be four networked devices and connections per person globally by 2021, according to the latest annual visual networking index forecast by Cisco.”In North America, there will be 13 networked devices and connections per person by 2021. 

The security risks of IoT

While IoT provides convenience and access to data necessary to businesses, it’s not risk-freeIn a report in Bloomberg about the effect of IoT on the banking sector, Royal Bank of Canada Chief Executive Officer Dave McKay was quoted as saying that IoT “is going to explode the number of transactions, but it’s an incredibly complex world.”McKay argues that IoT will make cybersecurity more challenging by opening up many more points of vulnerability and creating a larger “perimeter” that banks will have to defend.Here are some of the risks that come with IoT:

• Lack of privacy governance.
• Device theft.
• Data breaches.
• Compliance issues.
• Lack of user knowledge.
• Lack of physical security.
• Access to sensitive data.
• Botnet attacks, like in the case of the 2016  Mirai botnet when 100,000 IoT devices were hijacked.

 

How to secure your business’ IoT devices

Hackers can use several ways to try to compromise your IoT devices. For example, they can try to access your heating and lighting systems to find out if you are home or not, or they can try to get your bank account info through the information you gave to Amazon’s Alexa.Here are some of the steps that you can take to maser sure your IoT devices are secure:

• Change the default passwords when using new devices for the first time.
• Frequently check for firmware and system updates.
• Set up guest Wi-Fi.
• Enable encryption wherever possible.
• Avoid using public Wi-Fi.
• Turn off any device functions that aren’t needed.
• Use a robust encryption method like WPA for Wi-Fi access.

 At Tahaluf, we provide you with advanced, custom cybersecurity and AI solutions.Would you like to set up a business meeting with our team?Contact us at: businessdevelopment@tahaluf.ae [post_title] => As the Internet of Things grows exponentially, is your business secure enough? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => as-the-internet-of-things-grows-exponentially-is-your-business-secure-enough [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-26 17:18:30 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-26 13:18:30 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5612 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [6] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5608 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-10-26 16:20:55 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-10-26 12:20:55 [post_content] => Most of us are aware of the disinformation war. The term "fake news" has been thrown out a lot lately, especially during the 2016 and 2020 United States presidential elections."Fake news" can be defined as the dissemination of online reporting that is completely made up.An economic study from cybersecurity firm CHEQ and the University of Baltimore revealed that fake news costs the global economy nearly 80 billion each year.While synthetic media, which includes deepfake videos and voice cloning, fall within the category of fake news, they have something that makes them stand out. They are fueled by artificial intelligence (AI).In 2019, Amsterdam-based cybersecurity company Deeptrace reported that online deepfake videos doubled, reaching close to 15,000 in under a year. 

Voice cloning

Voice cloning or AI voice deepfakes is the creation of an artificial simulation of a person's voice. This technology is widespread these days. Just Google voice cloning or AI voice synthesis, and you will see results from companies such as Resemble.AI and Respeecher.A documentary about late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain caused controversy when the creators revealed that they had used AI to create audio of Bourdain.Another example of the serious scale of voice cloning is when a company called Sonantic announced it had created an AI voice clone of actor Val Kilmer, whose own voice was damaged in 2014. 

Synthetic media is not going anywhere.

Speaking to CBS' Sixty Minutes, Nina Schick, a technology consultant who wrote the book Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse said that by "five to seven years, we are basically looking at a trajectory where any single creator, so a YouTuber, a TikToker, will be able to create the same level of visual effects that is only accessible to the most well-resourced Hollywood studio today."The threat on businessesUsing synthetic media technology, malicious actors are targeting businesses. The FBI released a report on March 21 stating that actors outside the US are currently incorporating manipulated digital content into disinformation campaigns.The report added that those actors "almost certainly" will be using deepfakes to advance their influence or cyber operations "using synthetic content in spearphishing and social engineering in an evolution of cyber operational tradecraft."The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that the CEO of a UK-based energy firm believed he was on the phone with his boss when he followed the orders to immediately transfer €220,000 to the bank account of a Hungarian supplier.Writing for Forbes Magazine, Oscar  Frazier warned of what he called an evolving threat known as "business identity compromise" (BIC) — similar to business email compromise — saying "it is another area in which synthetic content use is expected to expand."In a BIC attack, actors could use AI technologies to manipulate corporate identities, which would then be used to access internal systems and data. 

How to protect your business from synthetic media

If you are an owner of a business, it's crucial that you prepare yourself and your employees for potential synthetic media attacks are some of the steps that you can take:

• Training and awareness: Educate your employees of the widespread use of deepfakes and how it affects businesses worldwide.
• Invest in AI solutions that detect these threats.
• Implement anti-attack practices to minimize threats, such as disabling site source code to prevent attackers from taking over your site.
• Avoid publishing too much information about employees on your organization's public website.
• Ensure that multifactor authentication is utilized when possible.
• Train your employees to spot synthetic media like deep fake videos.

Technology is a double-edged sword. While AI is being used for malicious purposes, it can also crackdown on fraudsters. Make sure to protect your business and ease your mind by investing in the latest technology tools such as AI.At Tahaluf, we provide you with advanced, custom cybersecurity and AI solutions. Would you like to set up a business meeting with our team?Contact us at: businessdevelopment@tahaluf.ae [post_title] => Don't lose the disinformation war: Protect your business from synthetic media [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => dont-lose-the-disinformation-war-protect-your-business-from-synthetic-media [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-26 17:23:27 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-26 13:23:27 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5608 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [7] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5541 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-10-13 18:14:49 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-10-13 14:14:49 [post_content] =>

Oracle Fusion General Ledger Cloud Service - Version 11.13.18.02.0 and later

 

Accounting Automation: Explained

Accounting automation streamlines and automates end-to-end accounting and transaction processes, including daily rates import, accounting creation, journal import, and journal posting. Data flows through all of the required processing steps without user intervention. Users are notified of exceptions and provided with the information to help resolve them. Additional users can optionally be notified of errors generated during the transaction accounting process. 

Setup and Considerations

To use accounting automation, you can opt into the feature from the Offerings work area. When you opt-in, you're automatically directed to the Manage Accounting Automation page where you can set up the automation. You can also open the Manage Accounting Automation page from the Setup and Maintenance work area using the Manage Accounting Automation task.Note: If you use segment value security, or if you use or plan to use, any form of coexistence solution, such as Oracle Fusion Accounting Hub Reporting Cloud, you should not enable accounting automation.   On the Manage Accounting Automation page you can:

• Enable automation for all ledgers (primary, secondary, and reporting currencies with currency conversion levels of Journal or Subledger).
• Specify when to submit the automation.
• Specify who should receive the email notification for each accounting automation run. The notification provides a summary of the processed data and a detailed listing of all errors.
• Optionally specify who should receive an email notification for errors generated while processing transactions for a specific combination of the ledger (or ledger set) and error category. You can notify more than one user for the same ledger and error category combination. You can also specify a ledger of Any or No Ledger. With this selection, users can be notified of transactions that don't have a ledger associated with them, such as daily rates import, and for scenarios where you want to include all ledgers.

The following table describes each error category. Some additional considerations:

• Accounting automation doesn't process transactions that were created before the automation was enabled unless the accounting date on the transaction is the same as, or later than, the date the automation was enabled.
• Doesn't process incomplete batches for posting.
• If you use Receivables and plan to enable accounting automation, you must schedule the Create Receivables Accounting process to run daily, before the Accounting Automation process scheduled time.

   

Users and Email Notifications

The accounting automation process produces two types of email notifications. One type is for the user specified in the Default User to Notify field on the Manage Accounting Automation page, and the other is for users specified in the Error Notifications section. The email subject for both types of notifications includes the date and time of the accounting automation run.The default user receives a notification after every accounting automation run with information about the processed data and errors. Here's an example of the email subject for the notification: Accounting Automation Results from 1/2/18 8:00 AM for Your Review. The other users receive a notification for their assigned primary ledger (or ledger set) and error category, if errors occur. Here's an example of the email subject for the notification: Accounting Automation on 1/2/18 8:00 AM Resulted in Issues Requiring Your Attention. Notifications can include the following sections:

• Posted Transactions Summary
• Automation Errors Summary
• Pending Approvals Summary
• Automation Errors Details
• Pending Approvals Details

 

Posted Transactions Summary

The Posted Transactions Summary section displays a summary of the posted balances by the ledger. Only the default user receives this summary. If no accounting transactions were successfully posted for any ledger after an accounting automation run, a message displays in place of this section.The following figure shows an example of a posting summary. In this example, a total of 302 USD was posted to the ledger Vision Operations (USA). The following table describes the columns that display in this section. 

Automation Errors Summary

The Automation Errors Summary section displays a summary of the errors by ledger and error category. The default user and users who are assigned to the error category that has errors receive this summary.The following figure shows an example of the errors summary.In this example, the Vision Operations (USA) ledger has 3 transactions totaling 750 USD with currency conversion errors, and 23 transactions totaling 75,990 USD with period status errors. All of the errors were new for the latest accounting automation run, so the error counts of 3 and 23 appear in the New column. The Users Notified column is blank for both error rows, which indicates that no users were set up to receive notifications for the Vision Operations (USA) ledger and the Currency Conversion and Period Status error categories. The following table describes the columns that display in this section. 

Pending Approvals Summary

The Pending Approvals Summary section displays a summary of the journal batches, by aging bucket, that requires approval, are in the process of being approved, or were rejected. The default user and the users who are assigned the Approval error category receive this summary. The following figure shows an example of the Pending Approvals Summary section. In this example, the Vision Operations (USA) ledger has two journal batches totaling 24,000 USD that have been pending approval within the last 4 to 7 days. The following table describes the columns that display in this section. 

Automation Errors Details

The Automation Errors Details section displays the detailed transactions or journals for the errors reported in the Automation Errors Summary section.The following figure shows the transactions with the currency conversion errors reported in the Automation Errors Summary section. In this example, all three errors come from subledger transactions. For subledger transactions, the Transaction column provides the name of the subledger application, which in this example is Payables, and includes detailed information such as the invoice number and amount. The invoice currency is SGD and the error for all three rows indicates that SGD isn't valid for the accounting date specified on each invoice. Possible corrective actions to resolve the issue are listed in the Error column after the errors. The sum of the accounted amounts is 750 USD, which is the amount reported in the Automation Errors Summary section.Note: The information that appears in the Transaction column is related to the type of transaction. For example, for posting errors, the transaction information includes the journal batch name, the period name, and potentially a journal name and line number.  The following table describes the columns that display in this section. 

Pending Approvals Details

The Pending Approvals Details section displays the details for the Pending Approvals Summary section.Note: Accounting automation doesn't submit approval for any type of journal batch. If a journal batch needs approval, it must be submitted for approval manually or through the AutoPost Journals process.The following figure provides an example of two journal batches with pending approvals. The approval for one batch was rejected, and the other batch is in the process of being approved. Mary Johnson initiated the approval for both batches and it's been 7 days since the last approval action for both.  The following table describes the columns that display in this section. 

FAQs for Managing Accounting Automation

How can I provide users access to the log and output files for the accounting automation child processes?Sign in to the Security Console as security manager and perform the following steps:

1. Create a job role for the users who require access.
2. Create a data security policy for the ESS_REQUEST_HISTORY object.

The following figure shows an example of the Policy page for a policy called Accounting Automation Read. The Policy page has these tabs: General Information, Role, Rule, and Action. 

• Assign the new job role to the policy.
• Create a rule and select this value for the condition: ESS requests submitted by the Accounting Automation process.
• To allow users to view the log and output files, select these actions: ESS_REQUEST_READ, ESS_REQUEST_OUTPUTREAD.
• To allow users to cancel the Accounting Automation job, select the ESS_REQUEST_CANCEL action.

 Author: Amr Aboushady, Sr. Oracle Functional Consultant [post_title] => Oracle: Managing Accounting Automation [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => oracle-managing-accounting-automation [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-13 18:14:49 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-13 14:14:49 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5541 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [8] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5482 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-09-05 21:14:36 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-09-05 17:14:36 [post_content] =>

Intro: 

The pandemic has changed a lot for everyone - especially the way we work. With the prevalence of remote work, HR Departments have been met with new rules and regulations.It is vital for companies to be able to keep track of their employees, whether or not he/she decides to go to the office or stay home to work. Having access to this information helps businesses plan and operate accordingly.With that said, here's how you can configure remote working regulations on Oracle EBS Self-Service HR.

Solution:

Create Value Set as below:Name: XXHR_REMOTE_WORK_VSList Type: List of ValueMaximum Size: 120Validation Type: TableTable Name: fnd_lookup_valuesValue: meaningSize: 120ID: lookup_codeSize: 30Where/order by:where lookup_type = 'XXHR_REMOTE_WORK'and language = userenv('LANG')and enabled_flag = 'Y'Please go to DFF è Extra Person InformationCreate new EIT as below:Code: XXHR_REMOTING_WORKName: Remoting WorkArabic Translation: العمل عن بعدCreate lookup as below:Type: XXHR_REMOTE_WORKMeaning: XXHR_REMOTE_WORKApplication: Human ResourcesCreate the below functions below:Function: XXHR_REMOTE_WORKSUser Function Name: Extra Information Types - Remote Working TabType: SSWA jsp functionWeb HTML:OA.jsp?akRegionCode=HR_CREATE_PROCESS_TOP_SS&akRegionApplicationId=800&OAFunc=XXHR_REMOTE_WORKS&pAMETranType=SSHRMS&pAMEAppId=800&pProcessName=XXHR_EIT_REMOTE_WORK_PRC&pItemType=HRSSA&pCalledFrom=XXHR_REMOTE_WORKS&pPersonID=&pFromMenu=Y&p Add this function (Extra Information Types - Remote Working Tab) to Menu: Global Self Service Functions CustomLast sequence +1 Add this function (Extra Information Types - Remote Working Tab) to Menu you want to show it: XXX Special Requests Sub MenuSequence: 121Prompt: Remote WorkFunction: Extra Information Types - Remote Working TabArabic Translation: العمل عن بعد /***********************************************************************************/Go to Functional Administrator →  PersonalizationDocument Path: /oracle/apps/per/selfservice/extrainfotype/webui/EitUpdatePGFunction: Extra Information Types - Remote Working TabChoose: FlexSegment List:XXHR_REMOTING_WORK|Emp_Num($RO$)|Emp_Name($RO$)|Emp_Nat($RO$)|Emp_Gender($RO$)|Emp_Marital_Status($RO$)|Emp_Grade($RO$)|Emp_Org($RO$)|Emp_Pos($RO$)|Reason|SD|ED| Document Path: /oracle/apps/per/selfservice/extrainfotype/webui/EitPGFunction: Extra Information Types - Remote Working TabChoose: FlexSegment List:XXHR_REMOTING_WORK|Emp_Num($RO$)|Emp_Name($RO$)|Emp_Nat($RO$)|Emp_Gender($RO$)|Emp_Marital_Status($RO$)|Emp_Grade($RO$)|Emp_Org($RO$)|Emp_Pos($RO$)|Reason|SD|ED| Go to Application Developer → MessageDefine new messages as below:Name: XXHR_REMOTING_WORK_01Language: USApplication: Human ResourcesText:<html><b><span style="color:#C11B17">Kindly ,provide the required attachments either medical report or schooling documents for e-learning</span></b></html>Name: XXHR_REMOTING_WORK_01Language: ARApplication: Human ResourcesText:<html><b><span style="color:#C11B17">يرجى التكرم بأرفاق المستندات اللازمة سواء ما يفيد بدراسة الاولاد عن بعد أو التقرير الطبي</span></b></html>Go to Functional Administrator → PersonalizationDocument Path: /oracle/apps/per/selfservice/extrainfotype/webui/EitUpdatePGFunction: Extra Information Types - Remote Working TabClick on complete view, ExpandThen click on Create Item  Item Style: TipID: XXHR_REMOTING_WORK_01Tip Message Name: XXHR_REMOTING_WORK_01   Go to XXX HRMS Manager → Role and create a new one as below:Name: XXX Remote WorkAdd the below persons:Name 1Name 2--------Go to AME and do the following:Create the below approver groups as below:Name: XXX Remote WorkDescription: XXX Remote WorkOrder Number: 10Voting Method: The first responder winsUsage Type: StaticApprover Type: Position Control RolesApprover: XXX Remote Work Create the below rule as following:Name: XXX Remoting Work RuleRule Type: Combination: List CreationCategory: ApproverConditions:TRANSACTION_GROUP_ID is equal to 81WORKFLOW_PROCESS_NAME in (XX_EIT_REMOTEWORK_PRC)Actions:

Conclusion

Oracle EBS is a flexible solution where you can extend and apply new regulations without the need for creating new custom components.  Author: Mohamed Emad Darwesh, Senior Oracle HCM Consultant [post_title] => Oracle: How to configure remote working regulations using Oracle EBS Self Service HR [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => oracle-how-to-configure-remote-working-regulations-using-oracle-ebs-self-service-hr [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-13 18:16:34 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-13 14:16:34 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5482 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [9] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5283 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-07-05 17:08:05 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-07-05 13:08:05 [post_content] =>

Introduction:

The HR Operations department constantly receives requests from employees to furnish letters or certificates on behalf of the organization. Employees may need to submit these official letters such as Employment Certificates, Experience Letters, Embassy Letters, and more to the government or private entities.

While other organizations may prefer creating these letters/certificates manually each time a request is raised by an employee, this approach may not be sustainable for a company with a large employee base. For such instances, a digital solution is a great help.

This blog illustrates how to configure a document type that supports generating letters for various business purposes on Oracle ERP.  The generated letter is available as an attachment and is automatically stored as a PDF file under the same documents of record (DoR).

Case Study

Let’s take an example to comprehend the functionality of Generate Letter based on the Documents of Record (DoR) to make your understanding much clearer.

Suppose that an employee of an organization is applying for a loan, he/she will be required to provide a Salary Certificate. This feature comes in handy to facilitate the generation of such letters for the employees.

Solution Overview

You need to create the document type and additionally specify a BI publisher report path to generate the letter. You need to create a document descriptive flex field context that includes the fields required in the letter. You then associate this context with the document type you created.

Note: This feature is available from Release 20B (Release 20.04)

Solution Steps

ِِA. Report Configuration Step 1: Data Model

• Navigate to Tools > Reports and Analytics > Click Catalog > Folders > Shared Folders > Human Capital Management > Workforce Management > Manage Document Records > Data Models
• Click on the Data Model DocumentReport.dx and click Copy.
• Navigate to your custom folder and click on Paste and Modify the data model name.
• Click on the Edit hyperlink for the copied data model and make the necessary changes. Save the data model.

   

Example:

select emp.*,SUBSTR(

NVL(:DESTINATION_NAME,NVL(:DESTINATION_OTHER,'To Whom May Concern/من يهمه الأمر')),

1,

INSTR(NVL(:DESTINATION_NAME,NVL(:DESTINATION_OTHER,'To Whom May Concern/من يهمه الأمر')),'/') - 1

)

DESTINATION_EN

,SUBSTR(

NVL(:DESTINATION_NAME,NVL(:DESTINATION_OTHER,'To Whom May Concern/من يهمه الأمر')),

INSTR(NVL(:DESTINATION_NAME,NVL(:DESTINATION_OTHER,'To Whom May Concern/من يهمه الأمر')),'/') + 1

)

DESTINATION_AR

from

(SELECT DISTINCT papf.person_number, paaf.person_id, haoul.NAME org_name,  haoul.organization_id,

NVL (hap.NAME, 'Not Defined') POSITION,

NVL (hapae.NAME, 'Not Defined') position_ae,

(SELECT ppn1.first_name || ' '

|| ppn1.last_name

FROM per_person_names_f ppn1

WHERE 1 = 1

AND ppn1.person_id = papf.person_id

AND ppn1.person_id = paaf.person_id

AND TRUNC (SYSDATE) BETWEEN ppn1.effective_start_date

AND ppn1.effective_end_date

AND ppn1.name_type = 'GLOBAL') employee_name,

(SELECT    ppn1.first_name

|| ' '

|| ppn1.last_name

FROM per_person_names_f ppn1

WHERE 1 = 1

AND ppn1.person_id = papf.person_id

AND ppn1.person_id = paaf.person_id

AND TRUNC (SYSDATE) BETWEEN ppn1.effective_start_date

AND ppn1.effective_end_date

AND ppn1.name_type = 'AE') employee_name_ae,

(SELECT ppn1.full_name

FROM per_person_names_f ppn1

WHERE 1 = 1

AND ppn1.person_id = papf.person_id

AND ppn1.person_id = paaf.person_id

AND TRUNC (SYSDATE) BETWEEN ppn1.effective_start_date

AND ppn1.effective_end_date

AND ppn1.name_type = 'GLOBAL') full_name,

(SELECT ppna.full_name

FROM per_person_names_f ppna

WHERE 1 = 1

AND ppna.person_id = papf.person_id

AND ppna.person_id = paaf.person_id

AND TRUNC (SYSDATE) BETWEEN ppna.effective_start_date

AND ppna.effective_end_date

AND ppna.name_type = 'AE') full_name_ae,

(SELECT TO_CHAR (SYSDATE, 'DD/MM/YYYY', 'NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE = AMERICAN' )  FROM DUAL) sysdat,

(select flv.meaning from PER_CITIZENSHIPS PC,fnd_lookup_values flv

where flv.lookup_code=pc.LEGISLATION_CODE

and flv.lookup_type='NATIONALITY'

and PC.person_id=papf.person_id

and flv.language='US'

and pc.CITIZENSHIP_STATUS='A'

and flv.enabled_flag='Y'

) nat ,

(select flv.meaning from PER_CITIZENSHIPS PC,fnd_lookup_values flv

where flv.lookup_code=pc.LEGISLATION_CODE

and flv.lookup_type='NATIONALITY'

and PC.person_id=papf.person_id

and flv.language='AR'

and pc.CITIZENSHIP_STATUS='A'

and flv.enabled_flag='Y'

) nat_ae,

'Query to get sign person ' sign_name,

(select to_char(max(ppos.date_start),'DD/MM/YYYY')

from per_periods_of_service ppos , per_all_assignments_m paam

where ppos.person_id=papf.person_id

and ppos.period_of_service_id=paam.period_of_service_id

AND SYSDATE BETWEEN paam.effective_start_date   AND paam.effective_end_date) Hire,

nvl((select round(cs.salary_amount,2) from CMP_SALARY CS

where cs.person_id=papf.person_id

and trunc(sysdate) between cs.date_from and cs.date_to),0) amt,

papo.PASSPORT_NUMBER pass

FROM per_all_people_f papf,

per_all_assignments_m paaf,

hr_all_organization_units haoul,

(SELECT hapf.NAME, paam.person_id,paam.legal_entity_id

FROM hr_all_positions_f_tl hapf,

per_all_assignments_m paam,

per_all_people_f papf

WHERE 1 = 1

AND hapf.position_id = paam.position_id

AND papf.person_id = paam.person_id

AND hapf.source_lang = 'US'

AND paam.ASSIGNMENT_STATUS_TYPE in ('ACTIVE')

AND SYSDATE BETWEEN hapf.effective_start_date

AND hapf.effective_end_date

AND SYSDATE BETWEEN paam.effective_start_date

AND paam.effective_end_date

AND SYSDATE BETWEEN papf.effective_start_date

AND papf.effective_end_date

AND hapf.LANGUAGE = 'US') hap,

(SELECT hapf.NAME, paam.person_id,paam.legal_entity_id

FROM hr_all_positions_f_tl hapf,

per_all_assignments_m paam,

per_all_people_f papf

WHERE 1 = 1

AND hapf.position_id = paam.position_id

AND papf.person_id = paam.person_id

AND hapf.source_lang = 'AR'

AND paam.ASSIGNMENT_STATUS_TYPE in ('ACTIVE')

AND SYSDATE BETWEEN hapf.effective_start_date

AND hapf.effective_end_date

AND SYSDATE BETWEEN paam.effective_start_date

AND paam.effective_end_date

AND SYSDATE BETWEEN papf.effective_start_date

AND papf.effective_end_date

AND hapf.LANGUAGE = 'AR') hapae,

(SELECT max(issue_Date),PASSPORT_NUMBER,papf.person_id FROM PER_PASSPORTS PP,per_all_people_f papf

WHERE PAPF.PERSON_ID=PP.PERSON_ID

AND TRUNC(SYSDATE) BETWEEN papf.effective_start_date  AND papf.effective_end_date

group by passport_number,papf.person_id

)PApo

WHERE 1 = 1

AND paaf.legal_entity_id = haoul.organization_id

--          AND hap.legal_entity_id = haoul.organization_id

--          AND hapae.legal_entity_id = haoul.organization_id

AND TRUNC (SYSDATE) BETWEEN paaf.effective_start_date

AND paaf.effective_end_date

AND TRUNC (SYSDATE) BETWEEN papf.effective_start_date

AND papf.effective_end_date

AND papf.person_id = paaf.person_id

AND paaf.person_id = hap.person_id(+)

AND paaf.person_id = hapae.person_id(+)

AND papf.person_id = papo.person_id(+)

and paaF.PRIMARY_FLAG='Y'

and paaF.EFFECTIVE_LATEST_CHANGE='Y'

and exists (select 1

from PER_LEGAL_EMPLOYERS pe

where  status='A'

and organization_id=paaf.legal_entity_id)

AND papf.person_id = :PERSONID

)emp

order by lpad(PERSON_NUMBER,10,'0')

 

Step 2: Create RTF Template

• Extracting sample XML file that will be used to create RTF
  1. To get the Transaction ID, submit a transaction after configuring all the required flex field attributes Navigate >> Transaction Console >>Search for the Manage Document Records process with the status In Progress.

 

2. Click on transaction name and copy Transaction ID which will be the parameter for the data model and report.

 

3. Click on Edit for the data model which is copied to your custom folder.

4. Click on View Data, enter the Transaction ID noted above.

5. Click on Export to save the output sample XML.

  

2.  Create latter RTF template

Use BI Publisher word tool to build RTF template and load sample XML

  

Step 3: Create Report

1. Navigate to Tools > Reports and Analytics > New > Report.
2. Click on Cancel on the Create Report pop-up and click OK.
3. Click on the Search icon next to Data Model and select the data model edited in the first step.

  

4.  In the Upload or Generate Layout section, click Upload. Enter the layout name, select the template file, Select Type “RTF Template”, Select Locale “English”. Click Upload.

  

5. Save the report.

6. Click View Report to review if the layout is correct.

7. Make a note of the report path, as that needs to be configured as part of the document type configuration.

 

Step 4: Report Security

After the report is configured, click on More > Permissions. Add or modify the required access so make sure that end users can access the report.

  

B.  Document Type Configuration

Step 1: Create Document type and Descriptive Flex Field

Please refer to the below blog URL to create DOR

https://www.tahaluf.ae/blog/document-of-record-dor-in-oracle-erp-cloud/

Step 2: Attach Report Path Document type

1. In the Setup and Maintenance work area, go to the Document Types task.
2. On the Document Types page, click search, click on Document Type Name.
3. In the Report Path, specify the Custom report path.

  

4. Click Submit.

C.   End User Interface

Login as a worker who needs to request a letter to apply for a visa for business travel. Navigate to Me > Document Records > Add. Select the Salary Certificate document type.

 

2. The worker enters the document record details and clicks View Document. Doing so will get the associated BIP template, merge the data entered by the worker and display the draft letter.

 

3. After the worker reviews the draft letter, they submit the document record for approval.

  4. When the document record is approved, the final letter is generated. This final version in PDF format is stored in the worker's document records for this document type.    Author:  Ahmad Wahban, Oracle senior HR consultant   [post_title] => Oracle ERP Cloud: Generating Letters from the Documents of Record (DOR) [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => oracle-erp-cloud-generating-letters-from-the-documents-of-record-dor [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-13 18:17:58 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-13 14:17:58 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5283 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [10] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5282 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-07-05 17:06:48 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-07-05 13:06:48 [post_content] =>

Introduction:

Revenue contingencies are terms and conditions in a sales contract or order that prevent revenue from being immediately recognized, based on strict revenue recognition requirements mandated by International Accounting Standards. Typical contingencies that can delay revenue recognition are fiscal funding clauses (for government contracts), cancellation clauses, customer acceptance clauses, customer creditworthiness, nonstandard payment terms, and nonstandard refund policies.

Using event-based revenue management, Receivables can automatically evaluate your invoices to determine whether to immediately recognize revenue or temporarily defer revenue to an unearned revenue account. Revenue is subsequently recognized depending on certain events, such as customer acceptance or receipt of payment.

This topic will talk about recognizing revenue based on the receipt of payment.

Setup Steps

1. Define the Transaction Type (will use it as a condition in contingency assignment)

• Navigate to the Manage Transaction Type >> Press on Add (+) to create a new transaction type.
• Insert all mandatory information and insert the unearned revenue account combination.
• Save and close.

  2.  Define an Auto Accounting Rule

• Navigate to the Manage Auto Accounting >> Select Business unit >> Press on Add (+) to create an accounting rule for Unearned Revenue.

  

3.  Define a Revenue contingency:

• Navigate to the Revenue Contingencies page >> Press on Add (+) to create a new contingency.
• Enter the basic details about the contingency in the General Information region, such as Name, Effective dates, and Description.
• In the Contingency Removal Event region, select the event that will remove the contingency from the invoice which is payment in our case.
• Save and close.

 4. Assigning Contingency

You can define defaulting rules for automatic contingency assignments.

Search for task ‘Manage Revenue Contingency Assignment Rules’ Press on Add (+) to create an assignment

• In the General Information region, enter basic details about the assignment, such as name, and description.
• In the contingency, name select the contingency created in the previous step
• Press on Add parameter ‘in our case we add parameter = ‘Transaction Type’.
• Press on Submit.

 

Create Scenario

1.  Create AR Invoice

• Create a normal AR invoice and it must use the same transaction type which was used in the revenue contingency step.
• Insert header and line information and press the save button.
• Press the Complete Button.

  2.  Check distribution

The system will automatically hit the unearned revenue instead of revenue (Check Account class).

 

3.  Create a receipt and apply it to the invoice

 4.  Check the Invoice distribution after the receipt application

The system will automatically close the unearned revenue and open the revenue (Check the Account Class).

  Author: Mina Adel, Senior Oracle Financial Consultant [post_title] => Oracle ERP Cloud: Defining Revenue Contingencies [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => oracle-erp-cloud-defining-revenue-contingencies [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-13 18:18:26 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-13 14:18:26 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5282 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [11] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5278 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-07-05 17:05:34 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-07-05 13:05:34 [post_content] =>

Introduction:

As machine learning engineers and researchers, the most important thing we care about while developing any application or product is the data. Data is the heart and soul of any machine learning application. With the abundance of big data nowadays, a lot of machine learning applications are now possible. Basically, machine learning models are built and taught using data. Teaching a machine learning model a certain task can be done using one or more of the three main types - Supervised Learning, Unsupervised Learning, and Reinforcement Learning.

Supervised Learning:

Supervised learning is all about having an amount of labelled data as inputs and expected outputs corresponding to these inputs. The goal is to build a model that learns the mapping between the inputs to the outputs, from which it should be able to learn the underlying relations in the data, and then be able to predict the outputs of unlabelled data. This kind of learning is very reliable for industrial usages, but its drawback is the need for labelled data, which might not be available in all applications, and manually labelling dozens of examples might be costly.

Unsupervised Learning:

Unsupervised learning is used in case we have unlabelled data. The algorithms based on unsupervised data aim to find the underlying relations and patterns among the unlabelled data, these relations can be then used to cluster or classify the unlabelled data.

Reinforcement Learning:

Simply put, reinforcement learning is used in case we neither have input data nor output data. A model is built to learn a specific task by trial and error from dozens of iterations in an environment relevant to the environment it will be deployed at.    

Challenge:

In most industries, we often tend to use Supervised Learning. However, the main challenge is that in some specific applications, data can be scarce. Whenever we encounter this challenge, we used to head to one of two approaches - Data Augmentation to mess up and alter the data in order to increase its amount or to label more data. But in some applications, these two approaches still might not help us.

Imagine a task where we need to build a classification with only one or two samples per class, and each sample is super difficult to find. For example, classifying or detecting ancient Egyptian characters, or a very rare disease from an X-ray or a CT scan. This would call for innovative approaches such as Few-Shot Learning (FSL) which is driven perfectly by some main factors such as the scarcity of data, reducing data collection and computational costs, and rare-case learnings.

Few-Shot Learning:

Few-shot learning (FSL) is a sub-area of machine learning, where the N in “N-Shot Learning” equals a few numbers of examples, usually less than five, which all cover new data that we only have a minimal number of labelled samples. FSL is still a new area in research, but today it is usable in some computer vision tasks.FSL is used in applications where data isn’t available enough, or annotating new data will be very costly, for example;

• Computer Vision
  • Character Recognition
  • Image Classification
  • Object Recognition
  • Object Tracking
  • Motion Prediction
  • Action Localization

 

• Natural Language Processing
  • Machine Translation
  • Sentence Completion
  • User Intent Classification
  • Sentiment Analysis
  • Multi-label Text Classification

 

• Robotics
  • Planning
  • Navigation

 

• Medical
  • Drug Discovery
  • X-Ray Diagnosis, and Classification

 N-Shot Learning Variations:

• Few-Shot Learning (FSL)
• One-Shot Learning (OSL)
• Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL)

 

Zero-Shot Learning:

This is the most interesting type of FSL, where the model covers totally unseen classes without any labelled training examples. It seems somehow fictional, but it is real. Imagine that you have a model that is capable of describing the input precisely, its appearance, properties, functionality, and more, then it won’t be a problem distinguishing different inputs. This area is actually now functional and it has applications that it is used in, for example, face recognition, where a model is capable of describing faces precisely, then it can be used to recognize dozens of humans that it has never seen before

 

One-Shot Learning and Few-Shot Learning:

Similarly, OSL is where you only have one labelled example, and FSL is where you have about two to five training examples.

Problem Definition:

The N-way-K-Shot-classification problem, where our data consists of training examples, and query examples.

Training Examples (Support Set), consists of N class labels, and K labelled images for each class, where K is usually less than 10. So, we have only N * K labelled samples.

Query Examples are the examples that we want to classify among the N classes.

There are two main approaches used when solving FSL problems;

1.     Data-level Approach (DLA)
2.     Parameter-level Approach (PLA)

Data-level Approach:

 This approach is simple and straightforward. It is used when we don’t have enough data to build a model and avoid over and underfitting. Many FSL problems are solved by adding more information from a large base dataset. The main feature in the base-dataset is that it doesn’t include the classes we have in the support set for the few-shot task. For example, if we’re trying to classify a certain type of dog, the base-dataset can have images of many other dogs. Also, more data can be generated either by data augmentation or generative adversarial networks (GANs).

  

Parameter-level Approach:

From the parameter-level aspect, the model is pretty prone to overfitting since we’re dealing with high-dimensional spaces with a limited number of training data. Usually, this can be solved by regularization and suitable loss functions.

 Moreover, the model performance can be enhanced by directing it to the extensive parameter space. We train our model to find the best route in the parameter space to give optimal results, which is called Meta-Learning.

Meta-Learning:

In Meta-Learning, we have a set of tasks we want to learn, called Training Tasks. The experience learned from the training tasks will be further used to solve the problem of the few-shot learning task. The training tasks are learned from the base dataset. The meta-training processes consist of a number of finite episodes, each episode we choose N classes and K support-set images per class from the base-dataset, as well as Q query images from the query set of the base-dataset. This way, we build a task similar to our few-shot learning task. The parameters of the model are trained to maximize the accuracy of the Q images from the query set. While the meta-testing process is measuring the accuracy of the model on our test few-shot learning task  

Metric-Learning:

 The Meta-Learning technique is basically learning a distance function among the data rather than learning the mapping of the data itself. For example; modern face recognition algorithms are mostly based on metric learning, as the models learn to maximize the distance functions between faces in different types of spaces.

   

Gradient-Based Meta-Learning:

This approach is based on building two models, a meta-learner and a base-learner. The meta-learning learns across episodes, while the base-learner is initialized and trained each episode by the meta-learner.

The technique is simply applying the following sequence; choose a meta-learner model, start an episode, initialize the base-learner model, train the base-learner using the support-set, the algorithm used to train the base-learner is defined by the meta-learner, the base-learner predicts the query set, meta-learner parameters are trained on the loss resulting from the classification error, and so on based on the choice of the meta-learner.

 

Conclusion:

Now, Few-shot learning-enabled AI is feasible in some applications that seemed impossible a couple of years ago. Presently we can build models capable of recognizing hundreds of millions of people, using 1 image per person, classifying vehicles’ make and model just after their release using minimal data, and updating our models online with any new classes. It is also now possible to diagnose, classify, and detect rare anomalies in medical imagery which helped improved healthcare worldwide. In a nutshell, Few-shot learning is a crucial step in building systems that are as skillful as our human minds are by using minimal observations to learn new tasks.

 Author: Mohamed Tareq Dawoud, Computer Vision Engineer [post_title] => Data Scarcity in Artificial Intelligence and How to Mitigate Them [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => data-scarcity-in-artificial-intelligence-and-how-to-mitigate-them [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-08-30 16:17:40 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-08-30 12:17:40 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5278 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [12] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5275 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-06-09 20:49:46 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-06-09 16:49:46 [post_content] =>

How to setup Document of Record (DOR) for Salary Certificates

The following case shows how to use the Document of Record (DOR) functionality on Oracle ERP Cloud by implementing the salary certificate request which is usually requested manually from the HR department. Applying the standard Document of Record functionally will reduce the manual work and expedite the process.

The following information represents the HR requirements to issue a salary certificate:

 To implement the above requirement, we need to follow the following: 

1.      Create Document Category

Setup Information

• Document categories (for example, absence) provide a way to group these documents into meaningful categories at a higher level. Document subcategories (for example, general or medical) provide further grouping of documents. Use the DOCUMENT_CATEGORY lookup type to define new document categories and subcategories. Define document categories as values for the DOCUMENT_CATEGORY lookup type and document subcategories as extended lookup values for the selected category.

 

• To create a category search for the task, Manage Common Lookups and then search for the lookup type DOCUMENT_CATEGORY. Under section DOCUMENT_CATEGORY: Lookup Codes you will see several categories delivered by oracle. You can make use of them or create your own category. For our business requirement, we will create a new category called Reimbursement. For the same click on the + (new) icon and enter details as follows.

 Lookup Code: CERTIFICATEEnabled: YesMeaning: CertificatesDescription: Certificates 

•  Once you entered all these details, click the Save and Close button.

 

2.      Create Document Subcategories

Setup Information

• Now as per the requirements, we will create two subcategories. To create subcategories, search for the task Manage Extended Lookup Codes. You will be on the Extended Lookup Codes On this screen search for entry Document Category under section Lookup Types. Now scroll below and under the section Document Category: Manage Extended Lookup Codes click on + Add icon, to create subcategories.

 

• Now add all your subcategories one by one and click on save.

  

• Once you enter all these details, click Save.

   

3.      Create Document Types

                       Setup Information

• To create Document Types, search for the task Document Types. In the Search Results section, click on the + Create button and enter the details for each section as given below.

 Document Type Information

• Name: Salary Certificate
• Country: United Arab Emirates
• Category: Certificate
• Subcategory: Salary Certificate
• Status: Active
• Minimum Attachments: 1 employee has to attach at least one document, but we will keep it 0 no documents required
• Approval Required: Yes
• Allow Multiple Occurrences: Yes. This allows the employee to submit multiple requests.
• Publish Required: No. If you require any document to be available only between selected time, choose Yes. But since we want workers to submit reimburse anytime it is set to No.
• Enable Document Delivery Preference: No

 Document Record Preferences

• Restrict Create: No
• Restrict Update: Yes, we do need the employee to update the approved request so select Yes.
• Restrict Delete: Yes, we do need the employee to update the approved request so select Yes.

 Attributes 

Name	Relevant	Required
Document Name	Yes	Yes
Document Number	No	No
From Date	No	No
To Date	No	No
Issuing Country	No	No
Issuing Location	No	No
Issuing Authority	No	No
Issued On	No	No
Issuing Comments	No	No

 

• Now add all your subcategories one by one (Salary Certificate) and click on save.

  

• After you enter all the details, click on the Submit You will receive a confirmation message. Click on the OK button and you will be taken back to the Documents Type page. Once you save the record, you will not be able to change the attributes highlighted in red.

 

• You can create another document. You do not need to enter all the details from scratch. You have the option to copy/duplicate existing documents. Let’s see how it works.

 

• When you are on the Documents Type page, search for the document we just created -Salary Certificate Letter.

 

• You will see the document in the search result section. While that document name is selected, click on the Duplicate button. This will take you to Create Document Type page. On this screen, you can update/change the details as per the requirement.

 

• For another certificate, if required etc. salary transfer certificate, every detail would be the same expecting the following attributes, so change these values and save the record.

 

• Type: Certificate

 

• Subcategory: Create a new one called (Salary Transfer Certificate)

   

4.      Create Contexts Sensitive Segments

General Information

As per the requirement, we also need to create the following context-sensitive fields for the Salary Certificate letter request.

 To get it done, search for the task Document Records Descriptive Flexfields and open it.  You will be on Document Records Descriptive Flexfields page. On this screen, click on the Edit button.   

On this screen, click the Manage Contexts button which takes you to the Manage Contexts page. On this screen click on the + Create button under the Search Results section, this will take you to Create Context. Your screen will look like this.

  

How to get the context code for Document of Record?

Now to have our segments populated based on the document type we select; we need to know the Context  Code of our document type. There are two ways to get the Context Code.

 

Get context code from the back end

The context code of a document type is stored in the table HR_DOCUMENT_TYPES_B So you can run the query below to get the context code of any document type.

select system_document_type,

document_type_id,

category_code,

sub_category_code,

legislation_code,

creation_date

from hr_document_types_b

 order by creation_date  desc Context codes are in uppercase and prefixed with the country code. If you see the extract above, our context codes for, (Salary certificate) are listed below.How these codes are generated is explained in the second method.

• GLB_SAAED_SALARY_CERTIFICATE

 

Now we have got the context code, let’s enter the details as follows:

• Display Name: GLB_SALARY_CERTIFICATE
• Context Code: GLB_SALARY_CERTIFICATE
• API Name: Accept Default
• Enabled: Yes

 Once you click on the Save button, menus under the section Context-Sensitive Segments will become active. Now click on the + Create button under the Context Sensitive Segments section. One by one, enter all your segments here. Once done, click on the Save and Close button. You will be taken back to the Manage Contexts page. Just follow the steps above to create segments for the Transfer letter.  Click on Save and Close again and you will be on Document Records Descriptive Flexfields page. Click on the Save and Close button and again, and you will be on the screen below.  Click on the  Deploy Flexfield button and let the process complete. 

5.      How employees can use Document of Record

To check the DOR that we created,

• Navigate to Me » Personal Information » Document Record

 

• You will be taken to the Document Records page. Click on the + Add button to add a document.

 

• Then search for the document name (Salary Certificate)

  

• After you select the Salary Certificate request, the document will open like the below screen and will automatically select the Context Value that we have created and you will see the segment.

  

• Based on the input, it will go for approval, if you keep the DOR without approval it will reflect on the employee DOR profile directly.

  Author: Ahmed Mosad, Senior Oracle HCM Consultant [post_title] => Oracle: Document of Record (DOR) in Oracle ERP Cloud [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => oracle-document-of-record-dor-in-oracle-erp-cloud-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-13 18:19:00 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-13 14:19:00 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5275 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [13] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5259 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-06-09 20:34:49 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-06-09 16:34:49 [post_content] =>

Is it the end of CNNs? What is Multi-Layer Perceptron?

For many years, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have been the cornerstone of any computer vision architecture. Image Analysis requires feature extraction and the key component that is responsible for that task is CNN. For example, given an image, the convolution layer detects features such as two eyes, long ears, four legs, a short tail, and so on. The CNN is responsible for numerous applications in computer vision such as Face Recognition - knowing the identity of the person in the image, Object Detection - determining the location of an object, and Video Analysis- classifying the behavior of an individual.

Despite the importance of CNN and its applications, the rise of Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP-Mixer) has opened the door to new architectures that show competitive performance without the need for CNN layers which makes us wonder about the future of CNNs in deep learning and computer vision applications.

In this article, we will give a quick brief about the newly released MLP-mix architecture and try to figure out if it threatens the position of CNNs in the field of computer vision. Especially when we know that the new proposed “MLP-Mixer” achieves very close results to the SOTA models trained on tons of data with almost 3x the speed without using any convolutions or any self-attention layers.

 

MLP for Computer Vision Applications

Last month, the Google AI team published a paper entitled "MLP-Mixer: An all-MLP Architecture for Vision" (code is available on GitHub) where they proposed a new computer vision architecture that depends only on multi-layer perceptrons. According to the team, "In this paper, we show that while convolutions and attention are both sufficient for good performance, neither of them are necessary. We present MLP-Mixer, an architecture based exclusively on multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs)" 

Moreover, and interestingly, the new model achieves similar results compared to the state-of-the-art models trained on large datasets with almost 3x speed. “When trained on large datasets, MLP-Mixer attains competitive scores on image classification benchmarks, with pre-training and inference cost comparable to state-of-the-art models,” claimed Google AI.

The following table shows the inference throughput of the MLP-mixer compared to SOTA models. The MLP-mixer clearly outperformed many models achieving 105 images/sec/core, while a model such as vision transformer is at 32 images/sec/core only.

  The interesting thing is that MLP is the basic unit of deep neural network which makes the architecture of the MLP-mixer model really simple.   

How does MLP-mixer work?

While in CNNs, the image is passed to the network and the processing is performed on the pixels of the images, the MLP-mixer follows the patches approach. The image is divided into patches and then passed as an input to the network. The mixer of the model contains two types of layers. The first one mixes the channels of the image, while the other one performs a mix between patches to ensure communication between spatial features of the image.

 

Figure 1- Source: MLP-Mixer on arxiv

  

What makes MLP-mixer attract the attention

The previous image illustrates the architecture of the mixer layers. It contains two fully connected layers, GELU nonlinearity, skip-connections, layer norm, and linear classifier. That shows the simplicity of the model which depends essentially on matrix multiplication, while Convolution is more complex than the plain matrix multiplication in MLPs as it requires an additional cost reduction to matrix multiplication or specialized implementation. Furthermore, the MLP-mixer takes the same size of the input at each layer which eliminates the need of scaling down the image such as in CNN.

Conclusion

It is just the beginning and as the Google AI team says, "…we hope that our results spark further research, beyond the realms of established models based on convolutions and self-attention". So, we expect to see more research focused on this point resulting in more improved and advanced architectures to solve computer vision problems such as image classification and object detection which may create a new stream that pulls the trigger on CNNs.

  Author: Moaaz Abdelrahman ElMarakby, Computer Vision Engineer [post_title] => Multi-layer perceptron is all you need … Is it the end of CNNs? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => multi-layer-perceptron-is-all-you-need-is-it-the-end-of-cnns [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-08-30 17:00:04 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-08-30 13:00:04 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5259 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [14] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5093 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-05-06 15:11:28 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-05-06 11:11:28 [post_content] =>

Waterfall + Agile: Waterfallgile

 Have you heard about this management approach? Have you ever considered this approach to run and manage your daily work? There is no such thing as "The Best" or the "Most Comprehensive" approach to follow, but all project management approaches are fine to implement as long as it serves the project desires and success.Dealing with day-to-day activities as a business analyst or project manager needs a well-designed project management approach. And as we know, most methods that are used nowadays and have the appropriate maturity is the Waterfall management approach or the Agile method. 

Waterfall VS Agile

It's all about how to manage the client's expectations and how to achieve the project's desires, so in any project, the success points or milestones need to be identified from the very beginning.The Agile approach is adopted to identify the project milestones, implemented through something called sprint planning. This way, it will give the client and the project controller the ability to predict. So maybe at this point, we could use a "milestone" word to refer to sprint, but in most cases, the sprint plan won't be able to achieve something tangible, or in another term, something the client sees.

"The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them — preferably in unexpected and helpful ways"

So again, it's all about client expectations and how to achieve the set milestones.The Waterfall management approach also cares about the client's expectations and could be more useful to fulfill the project's desires, and also could be a good approach to enhance the project's profitability by identifying full package milestones including specific deliverables on a specific date. In this case, both parties won't need to revisit the plan and keep going forward to finish the full project release.Maybe implementing the Waterfall method will give the stakeholders what they need from the beginning (project kick-off), to achieve the full delivery with full covered desires, so in this case, the project plan will be built on predefined milestones along with a specific full delivery date. But there are a lot of assumptions that need to be considered if we're willing to follow this approach, such as the full requirements of a predefined project which would impact the cost if major changes happened during the development. And the most important thing is how to achieve full delivery without client involvement, and also how to run the project with full requirements from the beginning?The Waterfall approach is like a domino effect.  It needs one event to knock on, affecting the whole project, but it needs more if obstacles start appearing. Agile is a process by which a team can manage a project by breaking it up into several stages and involving constant collaboration with stakeholders and continuous improvement and iteration at every stage.The methodology begins with clients describing how the end product will be used and what problem it will solve. The client in this approach needs to be well-educated and know about the most efficient way to get the final results.Eventually, as I said earlier, it's all about the client's expectation and the project profitability that allows us to decide which approach will get the most benefit.There are a lot of aspects that need to be considered to know which approach to follow as shown in the table below:Considering all the mentioned aspects, it still depends on what I need to accomplish and what the client needs to see. Say I have a demanding client that needs to be highly engaged, it's better to implement the Agile method. But what if the client demands exceed my expectations? Do I need to implement a requirement document and get it signed-off to minimize the changes requests? Or maybe implement a high-level project charter?Now, is there a way that you can use these two development methodologies to work on a single project? Is there anything called Waterfallgile? Do we use it unawarely? Could it be considered as a hyper management approach? Waterfallgile is an approach that could be the best of both methods. The reason the two methodologies can work harmoniously is that Agile is more of a mindset and approach than a methodology, so it’s possible to use the Agile philosophy with the more rigid Waterfall methodology.   Author: Saif Al Najjar, Business Analyst Team Lead [post_title] => Waterfallgile [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => waterfallgile [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-08-30 16:20:47 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-08-30 12:20:47 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5093 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [15] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5085 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-04-22 11:02:40 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-04-22 07:02:40 [post_content] =>

Introduction:

Lies spread faster than truth, fake news and misleading headlines can fool millions of watchers and readers, and the ability to alter reality has taken a leap forward with the prevalence of “deepfake” technology.Deepfake technology doesn’t only have the ability to produce fake news but it is also used in financial fraud, hoaxes, and pornography. 

What is a Deepfake?

The term Deepfake melds two words: deep and fake. It combines the concept of deep learning which is a subfield of artificial intelligence with creating content that isn’t real.Deepfakes are generated images, videos, and sounds created by Deep learning algorithms for real people doing things they never did or said and it’s hard to detect by the average user.It gained more attention after a lot of users used it for making pornography for celebrities and fake videos for politicians saying and doing things they never did or said which is a real threat.Below is a deepfake image of Jim Carrey instead of Jack Nicholson in the movie ‘The Shining’.

How does Deep Fake work?

The technique first extracts information about the anonymous subject’s facial expressions by finding the positions of their eyes, ears, shoulders and nose.It then uses deep learning methods – the most powerful of which is GANs (Generative Adversarial neural networks).GANs are relatively recent concepts in AI which aim to synthesize artificial images that are indistinguishable from authentic ones.GANs consist of two separate artificial neural networks contesting with each other in a game, one of the networks working as a generator and the other one as a discriminator.

• The Generator is like a money forger that wants to fool the police detective to successfully use his forged money.
• Simultaneously, the Discriminator is the police detective who wants to detect the forged money and allow people with real money to safely spend it without punishment.
• With time, both players get better and better in doing their job until the generator becomes smart enough to fool the discriminator in 50% of the cases which is the goal of GANs to establish equilibrium between the errors of the two networks so that the generator is capable of creating very realistic fake images.

 The whole system will be trained on millions of face images to create an entirely new face with the same expression. Then the new face is blended into the original photo, retaining the same background.  

How to detect the deep fakes?

Poorly made deepfake videos and images may be easy to identify, but higher-quality deepfakes can be tough and difficult to detect.Below are some characteristics we can use to detect deepfakes:

• Unnatural body shape, hair, or skin color.
• A lack of blinking.
• Unnatural eye movement.
• Bad lip-syncing.
• A mismatch between the size of eyes and ears.
• Unnatural positioning between the head and body during the video.

 Even with these characteristics, the continuous advances in technology created more trained and advanced deepfakes that are very hard to detect and that’s why a lot of researches and initiatives have been made to use AI algorithms to detect and attack the deepfakes which are also generated by AI.Hence, It’s like using AI against AI.One of these initiatives have been done to detect the deepfakes like DFDC (Deepfake Detection challenge) that was kicked off by major companies like Facebook to help innovation in deepfake detection technologies and to achieve faster solutions by sharing work and motivating the researchers to create creative solutions, the highest average precision achieved in this competition was 82.56% on a public dataset shared with 124k videos. The whole challenge also featured 8 different algorithms to detect facial modifications.Also, one of the most recent and interesting researches has been made by scientists from the University at Buffalo to detect deepfakes by detecting the reflection of light in the eyes.The concept is that, if you captured a photo for a real face with a source of light, the reflection on both eyeballs will be similar because they are seeing the same thing in the scene, which successfully attacks GANs. In this case, while generating these deepfakes, it failed to imitate this reflection behavior on both eyeballs, and by analyzing the corneas, a score generated for each eyeball which used as a similarity metric that indicates the deepfakes with the smaller scores 

Images of real human eyes 

Images of Fake synthesized human eyes 

 The system is effective with 94% accuracy in deepfakes detection. Despite that, it has some limitations regarding the ] need for a light reflection source for both eyeballs and it’s proven effective only in portrait images.Overall, the researchers plan to investigate these issues to improve the effectiveness of their method.Read more about the research here.

Some precautions you can take against a Deepfake

One of the precautions you can take is to limit your public presence on social media and apply more privacy restrictions to prevent scammers from stealing your images and voice.Applying more powerful verification procedures in your work and validating well the people you are talking to through digital communications.Don’t believe anything you see or hear for the first time on social media or even the news, always validate first.In the end, more education and awareness of the technology to the average users will help society more than anything else to face these new challenges – as detectors get better and smarter, so will the deepfake technology. Author:  Mina Tharwat, Computer Vision Engineer [post_title] => AI: Detectors and Precautions against Deepfakes Attacks [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => ai-detectors-and-precautions-against-deepfakes-attacks [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-08-30 16:27:56 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-08-30 12:27:56 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5085 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [16] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5084 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-04-22 11:00:48 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-04-22 07:00:48 [post_content] => Companies usually log expenses that need to be recognized on different periods, say for example an insurance policy that spans for a whole year.According to accounting principles, “Expense to be recognized as and when services are rendered”, which implies the following in our insurance example:

1. The expense of insurance should not be recognized as a whole for the period the invoice is recorded.
2. Insurance service is going to be recognized for the coming year.

The Multiperiod accounting feature in Oracle Payables Cloud was developed to serve this purpose, it enables the users to record payables invoice that generates monthly entries to recognize the expenses over the specified term.Below is the information required to record the multiperiod accounting:

1. Expense recognition start date
2. Expense recognition end date
3. Accrual account (pre-paid expense account)

Assuming that a user recorded a multiperiod accounting invoice of 120,000 AED for the employees’ health insurance, and the start date for the insurance policy 1/2/2021 while the end date is 31/1/2022, after posting the invoice the following entry will be recorded:Dr. Insurance Deferred Expenses 120,000 AEDCr. Liability 120,000 AEDAs part of the month closing procedures, the user will run the “create multiperiod accounting” process to generate the recognized expense entry for the current month, the entry will look like the following:Dr. Insurance Expenses 10,000 AEDCr. Insurance Deferred Expenses 10,000 AEDThe user should the process mentioned as part of the month closing procedures until the expense is fully recognized and the expense recognition end date is reached.Below is a full walkthrough of how to log the multiperiod accounting invoices on the Oracle payables cloud. 1.Record the invoice and fill in the start date, end date, and accrual account. 2. Post the invoice and notice that the invoice entry is posted to the deferred expense account. 3. Run the “multiperiod accounting” process.  4. Check the entry generated after the process has been completed. Author: Mohammad Abdulfattah Hussein, Oracle Finance Consultant [post_title] => Oracle Cloud Application: How to amortize deferred expenses using Multi Period Accounting [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => oracle-cloud-application-how-to-amortize-deferred-expenses-using-multi-period-accounting [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-13 18:19:43 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-13 14:19:43 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5084 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [17] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5080 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-04-22 10:58:42 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-04-22 06:58:42 [post_content] =>

Introduction

 

The supply chain is a global network used to deliver products and services from raw materials to end customers through an engineered flow of information, physical distribution, and cash “as per APICS/ASCM definition".

 

The Basic Supply chain has a minimum of three entities producer/service provider, supplier, and customer. Information between these three entities flows in both directions upstream and downstream. Most of the organizations that deal with suppliers that provide services use the concept of service procurement or complex purchase order to manage milestones, work confirmation, payment plan, recoupment, and retentions. 

 

Retainage is a practice of withholding funds from payment until the contractor completes an agreed-upon portion of the work or fulfills contractual obligations. The practice of retentions has its origins in the British Railway Mania of the 1840s, Retentions are widely used in the British construction industry; featuring in the majority of all contracts awarded. It is a sum of money that is withheld as security against poor quality products (defects) or works left incomplete.

 

Most ERP consultants, Implementors, Presales and Sales who interacted with Oracle E-Business suite ERP then shifted to Oracle Cloud ERP noticed that there is no complex purchase order feature exist till update 20D, we also noticed that most of our customers who migrated or are planning to migrate from on-premise to oracle cloud ERP found this point an obstacle. 

 

Therefore, some customers, especially those who use service procurement as a core in their business decided not to shift to Oracle Cloud until this feature existed or they decided to develop a full custom solution on PaaS to cover this part. Recently, Oracle released a new update 21A which has one of the complex work procurement features namely, the “Retainage”. 

 

In the 21A update, the Complex Work Procurement solution is comprised of 3 features as below: 

 

• Create Purchase Orders with Retainage Terms (Oracle Procurement Cloud)
• Negotiate Retainage for Services (Oracle Procurement Cloud)
• Creation and Management of Supplier Invoices with Retainage (Oracle Financials Cloud)

 

Value Proposition

From a business point of view, the use of retentions is intended to encourage efficiency and productivity. The contractor has a financial incentive to achieve completion as early as possible (to release the first moiety payment) and to minimize defects in the works (to achieve the second payment).

 

From a system point of view, Complex Work Procurement is an end-to-end integrated solution across Oracle Procurement Cloud, Oracle Financials Cloud, and Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud applications. This solution is designed to model the procurement of complex contracts in industries such as construction, consulting, and professional services. Complex work contracts tend to have high dollar values and long lead times and are governed by complex payment terms.

 

You can use Complex Work Procurement to manage various aspects of the acquisition processes involved in procuring complex work.

 

How to Enable the Retainage

1. Login to Oracle Cloud instance which has the update 21A.

    

2. You need to have a role that contains the “Manage Purchasing Document Style “privilege such as the Procurement Application Administrator Role.

  

3. From the Navigator choose “Setup and Maintenance”.

   

4. Search for the “Manage Document Styles “task.

  

5. Create a new document style or update an existing user-defined document style then save and close.

Note you can’t update seeded document styles: Standard style, Consignment style, Configure-to-Order style, and Outside Processing style.   

6. Now you can navigate to the home page → Procurement → Purchase Orders → Tasks → Create Order.

  

7. Choose the new purchase order style which has the retainage option enable and press create.

   

8. Fill the purchase order header details then navigate to the line level and add new line → Fill Line details → then you have to show the retainage columns from the view section as below:

  

9. Navigate to the right side till you find the Retainage Rate (%) and Maximum Retainage Amount, Fill in the required percentage and maximum amount.

Note: You can change the Retainage Rate on the schedule level.  

10. Submit the purchase order for approval, then after approval search for the purchase order and open the view lifecycle option as below:

 

11. Now you can see the total retainage amount and the total retainage release on that purchase order.

 

12. You can do the same but search by schedule level so you can see the retainage and retainage release per schedule as below:

  To Be Continued …. Demonstrating the sourcing and invoice retainage features 

Notes:

• You can Enter the Maximum Retainage Amount and Retainage Rate on FBDI Purchase Order Import Template.
•  You can Analyze retainage-enabled purchase orders using the OTBI Purchasing Real-time subject area.

 

References:

• https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/tutorials/tutorial/cloud/r13/wn/proc/releases/21A/21A-procurement-wn.htm#F15900
• https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/procurement/21a/oapro/purchasing-configuration.html#OAPRO4334991
•  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retainage#History_and_purpose
• https://www.ascm.org/

  Author: Ahmed Eldemerdash, Oracle Supply Chain Consultant [post_title] => Oracle: Complex Work Procurement now on cloud Application 21A (11.13.21.01.0) [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => oracle-complex-work-procurement-now-on-cloud-application-21a-11-13-21-01-0 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-10-13 18:20:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-10-13 14:20:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5080 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 18 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5670 [post_author] => 6 [post_date] => 2021-11-23 17:59:57 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-11-23 13:59:57 [post_content] =>

Introduction:

The internet is buzzing these days with discussions around NTF’s. So, what exactly are NFT’s? Are they a fad, or are they here to stay?NFTs stand for non-fungible tokens, which means they are unique items that can’t be replaced, unlike Bitcoin, which is fungible. NFT’s are part of the Ethereum blockchain.To put things into perspective, here are some examples of NFTs that exist today:

• A digital artwork.
• An essay.
• A digital collectible.
• A domain name.
• A ticket that gives you access to an event or a coupon.

 

Notable NFTS

Several NFTs have made headlines for selling for astronomical prices. Here are some examples:

• The first tweet: Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet published in March 2006 was auctioned for charity and was bought for $2.9 million by a Malaysian-based buyer.
• Hashmasks is a living art collectible put together by more than 70 artists worldwide.
• The First 5000 Days: A digital piece of art created by Mike Winkelmann (Beeple).
• Crossroads: NFTCrossroads was created by Beeple as a response to the 2020 presidential election. It was auctioned on Nifty Gateway and got $6.6 million.

 

Brands and NFT’s

If you are a business, you should pay attention to NFT’s as big brands have already started experimenting with them. They include the following:

• Taco Bell: The famous fast-food chain sold 25 digital art tokens on the NFT Rarible marketplace.
• Charmin: The toilet paper company sold toiled paper-themed NFTs, branded as NFTP (non-fungible toilet paper).
• Pizza Hut: Pizza Hut Canada put a pixelated pizza on Rarible for 0.0001 ETH ($0.18). The idea was that it should be affordable, as the cost of a bite of Pizza, Megan Farquhar, Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy, the agency responsible for the campaign, told Decrypt publication.

 

The NFTs’ bubble

So, will the NFTs bubble ever pop?Analysts like David Hoffman, the co-founder of Bankless newsletter, is a staunch believer in NFT’s power.He wrote: “Not all humans are finance geeks, but all humans are culture animals. NFTs are the marketable surface area that Ethereum needs in order to go mainstream.”However, according to data from Nonfungible website, the number of daily sales across all NFT marketplaces has declined from a high of 138,109 on Aug. 30 to 42,372 on Sept. 21These market developments prompted podcast host and Twitter user Dennis Porter to suggest that “the NFT market has died.”He said: “As I’ve been predicting (despite getting intense backlash from everyone, including bitcoiners) the NFT market has died.Average price of NFTs have dropped over 99%. Liquid death has come. Sorry not sorry for calling this market a scam.” 

The dangers of NFT’s

Investing in NFT’s is not risk-free.Cybercriminals can copy an NFT token, and people can end up buying fake NFT tokens. So people should check the authentication of an NFT token before buying them.According to the CEO of L'Atelier BNP Paribas, buying NFT’s is akin to gambling in a casino.“I think it's probably akin at this stage to going into the casino,” said John Egan, CEO of L’Atelier, in an interview with BNN Bloomberg. “You know you're going to spend money, but maybe you're doing it for the enjoyment, for the experience. If you win, you've got lucky.” At Tahaluf, we keep up with the latest technology. Do you want to know more about our digital offerings Talk with one of our experts. Contact us at: businessdevelopment@tahaluf.ae  [post_title] => Everyone is talking about NFTs. What are they, and should we care? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => everyone-is-talking-about-nfts-what-are-they-and-should-we-care [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-11-24 11:34:32 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-11-24 07:34:32 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.tahaluf.ae/?post_type=blog&p=5670 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => blog [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 18 [max_num_pages] => 0 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => 1 [is_privacy_policy] => [is_404] => [is_embed] => [is_paged] => [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => [is_robots] => [is_favicon] => [is_posts_page] => [is_post_type_archive] => [query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => 025e5e23109a4624207f6d94c5b5fb75 [query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] => [thumbnails_cached] => [stopwords:WP_Query:private] => [compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => query_vars_hash [1] => query_vars_changed ) [compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => init_query_flags [1] => parse_tax_query ))Everyone is talking about NFTs. What are they, and should we care? - 2021-11-23 17:59:57 - publish

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