Oracle is continuously working to improve the features and functionality of its Cloud Fusion Apps. 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 builds on the enhancements delivered in 24A by introducing several new or enhanced features to better support Oracle Cloud PPM customers. 

Project Management Common

Service Excellence – Continuing Investments Driven by Customer Ideas 

Cost Management and Control 

Oracle Fusion Payroll Attributes in Labor Distribution Subject Area Updates now include the following: Reprocessed Cost Accounting Attribute for Labor Distribution delivers an additional accounting attribute, Payroll Cost Reprocessed, for project and non-project labor costs to identify costs generated from a redistribution of the original payroll cost to a new or existing labor schedule version.  This attribute can be leveraged to credit the clearing account of the adjustment event for the payroll cost. 

• Payroll Load Request ID 
• Document ID 
• Payroll ID 
• Payroll Name 
• Payroll Period Start Date 
• Payroll Period End Date 
• Payroll Effective Date 
• Payroll Relationship Identifier 
• Payroll Cost Action Type 
• Payroll Cost ID 
• Cost Allocation Key Flex ID 
• Payroll Cost Action ID 
• Payroll Run Action ID 
• Net Zero Adjustment 

Reprocessed Cost Accounting Attribute for Labor Distribution delivers an additional accounting attribute, Payroll Cost Reprocessed, for project and non-project labor costs to identify costs generated from redistributing the original payroll cost to a new or existing labor schedule version.  This attribute can be leveraged to credit the clearing account of the adjustment event for the payroll cost. 

Grant Management  

Opt-in Check for Control Burden for Internal Funding Sources is no longer available at the Project Level.  The Project Type now controls this setting. 

Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting 

Enhancements to Change Order Notification and Implementation have delivered actionable Approval notifications from either email for the Notifications worklist to streamline workflow processing.  Change Order REST APIs now support the automatic implementation of budget adjustments due to an Approved Change Order.  Thus, this functionality is moving closer to what is currently available in EBS. 

Program Management and Reporting

The following enhancements have been delivered: 

• Attach Files directly to Action Plans 
• Renaming Custom Views 

Billing and Revenue Management

Apply EXPIRY and Reminder Setting in Contract Envelopes from DocuSign Account— If DocuSign is your e-signature provider, you now have the option to default the expiry and notification settings in the contract envelopes based on the settings from the DocuSign account.  

Bill and Cost Rate Override Maintenance Using a REST API (Customer Submitted Idea)— This feature allows you to automatically establish/update Bill and Cost Rate Overrides during contract creation or amendment. This API can also be leveraged through tools like the Oracle Visual Builder add-in for Excel to improve back-office efficiency. 

Create Supplier Contacts from Contract (Customer Submitted Idea)— This new functionality eliminates the need for the supplier manager to create supplier contacts. Users can now create new supplier contacts directly from the Parties region of the Contract, thus enhancing the efficiency of the contract authoring process.

Milestone Billing and Revenue Recognition (Customer Submitted Idea)— This new functionality delivers the adoption of the Billing Deliverable from EBS to Cloud PPM.  Milestones can now be defined once and tracked across the entire contract/project lifecycle. Contract Administrators can create milestones and the respective bill amounts in milestone-based fixed-price contracts.  The milestones will automatically appear in the project plan when the contract is approved. 

Project Managers can then manage the milestones within the project plan.  When a milestone is achieved, the project manager submits it for stakeholder approval.  The application automatically enables the associated billing event for invoicing and revenue recognition upon approval.  This will streamline the billing process by eliminating the back-and-forth between billing specialists and project managers when determining if a milestone is ready to bill. 

Work In Progress by Billing Status in OTBI— This enhancement allows users to easily report on unbilled amounts (WIP) for newly updated bill transactions.  In addition, a new Billing Status attribute has been added to provide a clearer picture of where WIP is within the billing lifecycle, both within and across projects. The table below outlines the statuses, meanings, and additional information:

Cost Management and Control

Project Cost Transactions for Persons with Inactive or Suspended HR Assignments (Customer Submitted Idea)—A new feature has been added to the configuration of Project Transaction Sources. Users can now select the option to Allow transactions for inactive or suspended person assignments. This new optional functionality eliminates cost transaction exceptions related to HR Assignment Status. 

Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting

Project, Tasks, and Financial Plan Updates Using File-Based Data Import (Customer Submitted Idea)— The user can now download the following FBDI templates to support updating existing project basic information, tasks, project budgets, award budgets, and project forecasts.  The templates will support performing multiple updates across multiple projects at the same time:

• Project Import Template 
• Project Tasks Import Template 
• Project Budgets Import Template 

Grants Management

Project Search and Balances Reporting Enhancements in Award Overview— The Project Search function has been enhanced to support “quick” reporting, allowing Grant Administrators and Principal Investigators to easily locate Award Projects and view the summary details of either the project balances or budgetary control balances. 

Resource Management

Oracle has made significant improvements in this area over the past several Quarterly releases.

Efficiently Approve Requested Resources on Project Resource Requests (Customer Submitted Idea)— This long-awaited enhancement drastically improves the efficiency of the staffing effort.  Resource Managers can now approve multiple resource requests as a group rather than the previous single approval model that was in effect. 

Resource Replacement on Assignments by Resource Manager (Customer Submitted Idea)— Resource Managers can now select one or more assignments that require a new resource, choose the replacement resource, and confirm the replacement.  With the added ability to replace a resource on one or more projects, resource managers can now adapt to rapidly changing project requirements during the planning and execution phases of the project lifecycle. 

In Conclusion

As you can see, Oracle Cloud PPM is receiving several improvements with the 24B Quarterly Update, most of which came from customers. What do these updates mean for your project-centric organization? Contact your Project Partners consultant today. 

Read the complete Oracle Fusion Cloud Project Management Update 24B release notes here.