Oracle Cloud Project Management – Spring ’23 Update
Oracle is continuously working to improve the features and functionality of its Cloud Apps software. The latest updates were released in early March and offer a range of updates in Billing, Cost, Planning, Resource, Program, and Grant management. This particular Quarterly Release introduces several new or enhanced features to support Professional Services Organizations better.
Project Management
- Planning to Billing by Project Role
- Up till now, Planning and Billing Rates could be assigned at the Person or Job level. Oracle has now introduced the ability to Plan and Bill based on the resource’s role. This model is prevalent in the Professional Services industry and allows users to bill their projects based on project roles and plan their projects without having specific resources assigned. Role-based rates can also be leveraged in Budgeting and Forecasting. This is a significant improvement in overall application functionality.
Billing and Revenue Management
- Bill Transaction and Exception Analysis Using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence
- This enhancement was driven by Oracle’s commitment to improving the application’s offering for Professional Services customers. The ability to leverage OTBI to track the status of Billing Transactions and Exceptions greatly reduces the time to address any billing issues to ensure there are no gaps in customer billing that can impact invoice payment and cash flow.
- Collaborate on Contract Negotiations Using Oracle Content Management
- This feature allows internal AND external stakeholders to participate in the negotiation process in real-time, thus improving transparency in each step of the process.
- Display Content Control in Downloaded Word Document
- Quantity and Rate Displayed on Labor Invoice Lines
- With the delivery of 23B Quantity, Unit of Measure, and Unit Price on labor project contract invoice lines can now be captured. This will allow the listed attributes to be transferred to receivables for the purpose of invoice printing as well as displaying them on the Invoice UI. In addition, these elements will now be available for use in OTBI Reports.
- Upload Contract Documents in Background Mode
Cost Management & Control
- Distributed Payroll Cost Mass Adjustment and Deletion
- Allows Labor Distribution Accountants to remove or adjust large sets of costs using one or more criteria directly from the page where analysis and redistribution occur.
- Labor Schedule Version Date Changes
- This feature supports the ability to change the effective dates of a labor schedule, thus reducing the need to create multiple versions.
Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting
- Financial Project Plan Planning Options Management Using a REST API
- Supports the ability to alter Planning Options if Integrations are being leveraged for the purposes of creating and maintaining Financial Project Plans.
- Attachments for Project Issues
Program Management
- Program Communication Enhancements
- Notification to inform stakeholders about new communication reports. Stakeholders can manage the notifications they want to receive by subscribing.
- Stakeholders and Program Managers can select the file format that best matches their intended purpose for downloading a published communication report.
- Custom layouts designed for communication report templates display downloaded reports based on reporting styles.
- Program Managers gain visibility into action plan progress using the consolidated view of action plans and action items.
Resource Management
- Common Financial Cost and Billing Rates for Resource Requests and Assignments
- Now Resource Requests and Assignments can leverage Rate Schedules to make the process of planning based on Project Resources more efficient.
Grant Management
- Assistance Listing Numbers Terminology for Grant Management
- References to Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, or CFDA, are now Assistance Listing Numbers (ALN) to conform with US Federal Regulations.
- Letter of Credit and Document Number Updates on Active Awards
- Introduces additional flexibility in correcting the billing and reimbursement methods for an in-progress award to comply with sponsor regulations.
As you can see, there are a number of improvements coming to Oracle Cloud PPM with the 23B Quarterly Update. What do these updates mean for your project-centric organization? Reach out to your Project Partners consultant today!
About the Author
Bruce Maghan is Project Partners Senior Oracle Applications Consultant with 14+ years of experience implementing and using the Oracle Projects Suite of applications. Combines this experience with a 13-year Project Controls background in the Power, Marine, and Construction Maintenance industries to possess a full understanding of business processes and the ability to apply technical solutions.
Bruce’s experience includes: Oracle Applications releases 11 & 12, Oracle Fusion/Cloud Project Portfolio Management training, business process design improvements, Functional Lead over all Projects modules, custom SLA rules design, multi-org implementations
