Project Managers’ Needs
Project Managers need tools to quickly and efficiently plan and execute project work. They typically are used to working with Microsoft® Excel as their primary tool for maintaining every type of project data from WBS and Schedules to budgets, status reports, forecasts, issues, and change orders. They even want to see all their reporting data in spreadsheets, allowing them to perform any analysis they need. Furthermore, especially in Professional Services organizations, they need access to project data “on the go” in a disconnected mode as the project managers frequently travel to client sites.
Oracle Project Management was one of the first generic project management software applications released pre-integrated with the back-office project accounting functions and other ERP applications. It provides a comprehensive workbench for project managers allowing them to manage all their project information from one place. However, as a generic off-the-shelf application, it is burdened with complexity delivered via an HTML-based user interface that requires a significant investment in training to get the project managers comfortable with it. Most organizations cannot afford this investment in time from their project managers as they are already busy with ongoing projects. Furthermore, the HTML-based user interface, by necessity, requires a connection to the office intranet to access project data.
Enabling Project Managers
The Project Partners User Interface Applications (UI-Apps) are built to work seamlessly with Oracle Project Management and provide project managers with a simple MS-Excel-based user interface with built-in industry-specific processes for Engineering and Construction Professional Services organizations. The UI-Apps user interface allows for quick and easy retrieval of project information, the ability to update data either while connected to Oracle or offline, and then a one-click upload to Oracle to provide automatic updates back into Oracle Project Management. For example, project managers would generally log into Oracle from MS Excel whenever connected to the office intranet and download their project information to the UI-Apps worksheets. They then save their worksheets to their local machines.
Project Managers can now go on the road and review and update information in the UI-Apps worksheets at any time. Then, they can upload the updates to Oracle whenever they connect to the office intranet.
UI-Apps Functions
The initial release of UI-Apps covers the following PM functions:
* Build and Maintain Project WBS
– Create, indent, and outdent tasks
* Build and Maintain Project Schedules
– Update task financial and schedule attributes
* Build and Maintain Project Budgets
– Select and assign resources (based on resource format) from the planning resource list
– Automatically determine planned resource costs and revenue using cost, burden, and bill rates from Oracle Projects
– Plan in Project or Project Functional Currencies. UI-Apps automatically converts all rates downloaded to the Worksheets into the selected currency
– Select a spread curve and automatically spread resource costs across PA/GL periods. Update individual periodic amounts and automatically maintain total planned amounts.
– Save work and submit for approval (Baseline for Financial Plans and Publishing for Workplans)
* Capture Project Schedule Progress
– Update Progress – Physical Percent Complete, Estimates to Complete, Task Progress status
* Update Project Financial Forecasts and Schedule Attributes
– Update WBS – New tasks, task dates, and other financial and schedule attributes
– Review and Update Forecast – Review actual-to-date and maintain ETC/EAC amounts
– Save Working – progress, Workplan Updates, and Forecasts
– Submit for Approval – Progress, Workplan changes, and Forecasts.
* Review Project Costs
– Review Cost summary by WBS and Cost Categories
This is accomplished via five MS-Excel worksheets for handling time-phased and lump-sum plans, one sheet each for budgets and forecasts. One additional sheet is provided for reporting project costs by WBS and implementation-defined cost groupings.
Above and beyond the core functionality shown above, each sheet is highly configurable. A large selection of fields and table columns can be displayed or hidden based on requirements. Custom fields can also be displayed/updated, allowing the ability to save and retrieve customer-specific data into Oracle Projects via Oracle-supported DFFs and UDAs. Additionally, each worksheet can be configured with custom colors, fonts, prompt and column heading names, and row/column sizes.
Deploying UI-Apps
The UI-Apps are delivered with pre-built configuration capabilities that allow the implementation team to quickly set up the worksheets to meet their business process and adapt to Oracle’s planning configurations automatically. In addition, the look and feel of the worksheets can be rapidly adjusted to user requirements using built-in table configurations, and standard MS-Excel formatting capabilities and various delivered extension points allow the implementation team to add data elements and custom business validations to the worksheets using readily available PL/SQL skills.
These configuration options enable a rapid implementation cycle for the UI-Apps – 4-6 weeks after receiving the software.
All in all, UI-Apps enable project managers via built-in industry-specific MS Excel worksheets giving them a familiar user interface and helping them manage better and deliver better profits.
