By Ravi Shankar, PgMP, PMP, PMI-RMP and PMI-SP

The functionalities relating to Contingent Workers (CWK) have been enhanced in Oracle E-Business Suite Applications R 12.1 and above. Before this release, there were limitations in effectively using CWK across multiple projects if their PO does not reference these individual projects in its Distribution. Further, multiple concurrent associations of different Purchase Orders (with different rates, if applicable) and projects referenced in its Distribution were not supported.

With the enhancement in R 12.1, CWK’s primary HR assignment can be associated with multiple concurrent POs. This association is done through a new URL related to the HR assignment through a function call and not in the Form. Further, a new Flag called “Contingent Worker Enabled” is introduced in the Project type. For each Operating Unit, a project could be created using this type and referencing that project in the PO Distribution of the CWK. This ensures that when the CWK selects the PO associated with his HR assignment, OTL will allow the selection of any chargeable project. Also, CWK can charge the applicable project(s) referenced in its Distribution by selecting any other associated PO. This way, standard rates for all projects through a specific PO and unique rates for particular projects through a specific PO could be used, and OTL validation is facilitated.

While these functionalities are standard in R 12.1, they don’t quite work this way. For example, multiple POs can be associated. However, selecting and validating the PO and the projects in OTL still has issues.

Oracle Development released a patch, 12411973, to fix the issues, and it still doesn’t work.

Many customers very eagerly await these features. So stay tuned to hear the update on this.