What's New

Update 23C

Revision History

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:

Overview

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Optional Uptake of New Features (Opt In)

Oracle Cloud Applications delivers new updates every quarter. This means every three months you'll receive new functionality to help you efficiently and effectively manage your business. Some features are delivered Enabled meaning they are immediately available to end users. Other features are delivered Disabled meaning you have to take action to make available. Features delivered Disabled can be activated for end users by stepping through the following instructions using the following privileges:

• Review Applications Offering (ASM_REVIEW_APPLICATIONS_OFFERINGS_PRIV)
• Configure Oracle Fusion Applications Offering (ASM_CONFIGURE_OFFERING_PRIV)

Here’s how you opt in to new features:

1. Click Navigator > My Enterprise > New Features.
2. On the Features Overview page, select your offering to review new features specific to it. Or, you can leave the default selection All Enabled Offerings to review new features for all offerings.
3. On the New Features tab, review the new features and check the opt-in status of the feature in the Enabled column. If a feature has already been enabled, you will see a check mark. Otherwise, you will see an icon to enable the feature.
4. Click the icon in the Enabled column and complete the steps to enable the feature.

In some cases, you might want to opt in to a feature that's not listed in the New Features work area. Here's how to opt in:

1. Click Navigator > My Enterprise > Offerings.
2. On the Offerings page, select your offering, and then click Opt In Features.
3. On the Opt In page, click the Edit Features (pencil) icon for the offering, or for the functional area that includes your feature.
4. On the Edit Features page, complete the steps to enable the feature.

For more information and detailed instructions on opting in to new features for your offering, see Configure Offerings.

Opt In Expiration

Occasionally, features delivered Disabled via Opt In may be enabled automatically in a future update. This is known as an Opt In Expiration. If your cloud service has any Opt In Expirations you will see a related tab in this document. Click on that tab to see when the feature was originally delivered Disabled, and when the Opt In will expire, potentially automatically enabling the feature. You can also click here to see features with Opt In Expirations across all Oracle Cloud Applications.

Feature Summary

Project Management

Project Management Common

Service Excellence Continuing Investments

In this update, improvements are available in the following areas:

PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMON

• File-Based Data Import Excel Templates Using Apple Macs: Use Apple Mac devices with Microsoft Excel to generate files for file-based data import spreadsheets, or FBDI. Previously, only Windows operating systems supported the macro-enabled generation of the files. This is an ongoing investment. For 23C, the following FBDI templates are available to use with Apple Macs:
  • Cost Management and Control
    • Import Asset and Assignments Process
  • Project Management Common
    • Import Project
    • Import Project Rate Schedules and Overrides
    • Import Resource Breakdown Structures
  • Grant Management
    • Import Awards
    • Import Funding Sources
    • Import Grants Personnel
  • Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting
    • Import Project Enterprise Resources
    • Import Project Plan
  • Program Management and Reporting
    • Import Project Key Performance Indicators
  • Resource Management
    • Import Project Resource Assignments
    • Import Project Resource Requests
    • Import Resource Actual Hours
    • Import Resource Pools and Memberships

• Project Source Application References Update Using a REST API: Accommodate source application reference changes after creating a project in Oracle Project Management Cloud, to ensure data integrity. Updates to these key project reference attributes are available using the Projects REST API:
  • Source Application (SourceApplicationCode)
  • Source Reference (SourceProjectReference)

• Updated Browser Tab Titles for Project Financial Management Work Area Pages: The browser tab title now reflects the task name of the Project Financial Management pages, rather than the generic title “Manage Projects”. This makes pages easily identifiable, especially when the user has many browser tabs opened or when using assistive technology. For example, the title for the Review Project Performance page is now "Review Project Performance - Project Financial Management - Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications" rather than "Manage Projects - Project Financial Management - Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications".

BILLING AND REVENUE MANAGEMENT

• Project Billing - Bill Transactions Real Time OTBI Subject Area Enhancement: Descriptive Flexfield information is available for common dimensions, such as Project, Task, and Contract.

• Projects - Billing and Revenue Exceptions Real Time OTBI Subject Area Enhancements: Descriptive Flexfield information is available for common dimensions, such as Project, Task, and Contract. The subject area also includes billing and revenue exceptions raised during the Maintain Bill Transactions process.

• Support of Cancel Invoice Crediting Action for Standard Invoices having Process Configurator Sourced Transactions with the Invoice Configurator Expression based on either Descriptive Flexfields or Inception to Date, or Period to Date Configurator Sources: When the Cancel crediting action is performed for a Standard Invoice, a credit invoice is generated, which is a reversal of the invoice amount of the original invoice. Also, a reversal automatic invoice billing event is created as part of the Cancel crediting action, which refers to the original automatic invoice billing event, as illustrated below.

Credit Invoice for a Canceled Invoice

Reversal Automatic Invoice Billing Event for a Canceled Invoice

The current improvement extends the Cancel crediting option for Percent Complete, Percent Spent, or Fixed Amount use cases based on Project Process Configurator for the Project Invoice business process. The Cancel crediting action already supports the following current run Process Configurator sources for invoicing:

• Calculation Level Invoiced Amount in Contract Currency - Run
• Calculation Level Invoiced Cost Amount in Contract Currency - Run
• Calculation Level Invoiced Labor Cost Amount in Contract Currency - Run
• Calculation Level Invoiced Nonlabor Cost Amount in Contract Currency - Run
• Calculation Level Event Amount in Contract Currency - Run
• Contract Invoice Amount in Contract Currency - Run

COST MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL

• Payroll Cost Expenditure Item Date Derivation: Use the profile option Expenditure Item Date Derivation for Payroll Costs to change the default derivation rule. Optionally, change the default value of Payroll process Start Date to Payroll process End Date. This change derives the expenditure item date based on the latest date of the labor schedule version end date, assignment end date, or the pay period end date instead of the start of those date-bounded objects.

• Project Role Visibility in Project Cost Pages: Project accountants can now analyze project cost distributions by project role in the Manage Cost Distributions page. Project managers can now analyze project costs by project role in the table view of the Manage Project Costs page in the Project Management work area.

GRANT MANAGEMENT

• Selecting Sponsor When Creating an Award: When creating an award using Create Award from Template dialog window, select the sponsor and not the sponsor account. Select the sponsor account, also referred to as the bill-to account, later when you update the contract using the Update Contract button in the Review Award page, in the Bill Plan region.

PLANNING, SCHEDULING, AND FORECASTING

• Financial Plan Approval Workflow Resiliency: You can now withdraw financial plan approvals while in any stage of processing, without the intervention of Oracle support.

• Forecasting Improvements for Project Scope Changes: Project manager and project administrators can manage the forecast lines seamlessly even if the estimate to complete is zero for accommodating incremental project scope changes as the project progresses in the life cycle.

• Scheduled Process for Offline Project Scheduling: Schedule project work plans offline using Schedule Work Plan Based on Dependencies and Constraints scheduled process. For example, as large projects are created using the Import Projects File-Based Data Import process or REST APIs, project managers can run this process to schedule projects offline. They can run the process for a single project or a range of projects before starting to manage them using the Manage Project Plan page. This process schedules the work plan from the project start date based on dependencies and constraints.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Billing and Revenue Management

Additional Cost in Project Currency Sources for Project Process Configurators

Use the project process configurator to calculate revenue based on cost amounts converted to the project currency. Project currency sources can help avoid significant effects of currency fluctuations in ledger currency sources, where the ledger currency is more volatile.

The new configurator sources include:

The business benefit of this feature is the ability to calculate a more accurate progress percentage made on a project, using actual and planned amounts in project currency, when project currency is more stable than ledger currency.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

The following example formula could be used to measure the percent spent while calculating project revenue and creating revenue-applicable billing events at the contract line or associated project and task level:

(((Calculation Level Labor Burdened Cost in Project Currency - ITD + Calculation Level Nonlabor Burdened Cost in Project Currency - ITD) / Calculation Level Planned Burdened Cost in Project Currency) * Associated Project Funding Amount in Contract Currency) - Calculation Level Event Amount in Contract Currency - ITD

Consider using filters to include or exclude certain costs or planned amounts from the above formula. The following image illustrates how such a process configurator could be defined, including a filter on the Calculation Level Event Amount in Contract Currency - ITD source that only includes revenue-applicable billing events where the event type is Percent Spent Revenue.

Percent Spent Revenue Configurator

Key Resources

Based on Idea 625915 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

No new access requirements.

Bill Transaction Creation on Cost Import

Creation of bill transactions on cost import enables reporting on unbilled amounts, also known as work in progress, or WIP, without the need to generate draft invoices or recognize revenue. This avoids recognizing revenue on costs more frequently than accounting requires, and also removes the need to iteratively create and recreate draft invoices prematurely. Prior to release 24B this feature is under controlled availability and requires a Service Request to be logged through My Oracle Support. Support will then provide you with a promotion code enabling you to unlock and opt into the feature using Setup and Maintenance. From release 24B onwards, the feature is generally available and can be opted in without needing to log a Service Request or enter a promotion code.

This feature enhances the Bill Transaction and Exception Analysis Using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence feature delivered in 23B. Prior to this feature, the Generate Invoices or Generate Revenue processes needed to be run in order to maintain bill transactions. Bill transactions are what the Project Billing - Bill Transactions Real Time Subject Area in OTBI uses to report unbilled amounts.

Example

Consider a time card which is booked to a contract project, where the associated contract line has a rate-based bill method on the bill plan. The time card is approved and imported to Project Management by the Import Costs process.

Opt-in disabled (current application behavior):

In order to report on unbilled amounts, you must perform additional processing after cost import. The specific processes which need to be scheduled or run are:

• Run the Generate Invoices process, setting the parameter to only create bill transactions but not invoices or,
• Run the Generate Invoices process, opting to create draft invoices or,
• Run the Generate Revenue process.

Opt-in enabled:

You can report on unbilled amounts as soon as costs are imported. No additional processing is needed. The following bullets provide a detailed account of the specific changes in the application:

• The Import Costs process has been enhanced to create draft bill transactions for each eligible project cost.

• After the Import Costs process completes, the application spawns an internal process called Maintain Bill Transactions. Customers are not expected to schedule or routinely monitor the outputs of this process; it is launched as and when needed by the application.

• The Maintain Bill Transactions process is responsible for keeping bill transactions up-to-date, calculating or recalculating bill amounts, performing currency conversions, identifying exceptions etc. Once processed, bill transactions are available for reporting in OTBI.

• If the time card is subsequently adjusted within the Project Management application;
  • In "online" mode, for example, a single transaction is adjusted in the Manage Project Costs page. The Maintain Bill Transactions process is launched after the adjustment is complete.
  • In "offline" mode, for example, a mass adjustment is initiated in the Manage Project Costs page. The adjustment is processed via Import Costs, and the Maintain Bill Transactions process is launched after Import Costs has completed.

The business benefits of this feature are:

• A reduced cost of ownership due to fewer processes to schedule and monitor.

• Project teams will always have timely and complete information to make quicker decisions, due to unbilled amounts being calculated as soon as new costs are imported or existing costs are adjusted.

This feature is part of a focused investment to automate and accelerate business flows for the professional services industry. Our goal is to deliver a seamless experience across project and resource planning, cost collection, invoicing, and reporting, strengthening operational controls and optimizing cash flow. Additional capabilities under consideration for upcoming updates include:

• Bill transaction creation on billing event creation
• Analyzing work-in-progress by billing status in OTBI
• Labor billing in multiple units of measure
• Milestone billing
• Prepayment billing
• More flexible grouping onto invoices and lines
• Services for creating and acting on bill transactions

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Project Financial Management  No Longer Optional From: Update 25D

Tips And Considerations

 The following bullets summarize the future direction of this feature and related features, as well as any current limitations:

• Prior to this feature, the Generate Invoices process was responsible for both calculating bill amounts, and creating or recreating invoices. Customer feedback highlighted that in order to report unbilled amounts, users either needed to routinely create/recreate draft invoices (even when invoices were not due), or to recognize rate-based revenue on a high-frequency basis (even if said revenue was not required from an accounting standpoint).

• The strategic direction of the product is to therefore separate the calculation of bill amounts from the assembly of invoices, enabling users to report unbilled amounts in real-time, before invoicing and independent of revenue recognition. This feature will eventually become the standard behavior of the product, meaning;
  • The sole purpose of the Generate Invoices process will be to assemble bill transactions into invoices; it will not recalculate bill amounts or re-derive bill transaction attributes. There should be no ambiguity as to what amount will be added to the invoice when it is created.
  • The ability to create or maintain bill transactions using the Generate Invoices process will eventually become obsolete.

• However, as of this release with this feature opted in, the Generate Invoices process will still reprocess bill transactions in certain circumstances, such as for retroactive contract amendments. This limitation will be addressed in future releases, ensuring that bill transactions always maintain a complete, real-time source of truth for unbilled reporting.

• An upcoming feature will apply the same logic to billing events. That is, bill transactions will be automatically created/maintained for billing events too.

• Note that when this feature is opted in, bill transactions will not automatically be created for existing transactions. Bill transactions will only be created/maintained for newly imported or adjusted project cost transactions.

Key Resources

• This feature enhances the Bill Transaction and Exception Analysis Using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence feature in 23B.

Access Requirements

No new access requirements.

Display Header and Footer on Downloaded Word Document

You can add images, logos, and contract attributes such as the contract number, contract type, party name and so on, to the header or footer of your layout template. Content you've added to the header and footer is displayed when you download the contract to Microsoft Word in DOCX format.

Display Header and Footer on Downloaded Word Document

Here are some examples of content you can add to the header or footer:

• Attributes such as the contract number, contract type, party name
• Descriptive flexfield values
• Logos or images, in PNG or JPEG format
• Tables

This improves the consistency of the contract when viewed across different formats such as RTF, Word, or PDF, and provides contextual information to easily identify to which contract the document relates.

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Enterprise Contracts

Tips And Considerations

This feature aims to improve consistency across the contract formats, so bear in mind that any new content that you choose to add to the header or footer layout to be displayed in the downloaded Word document will also be reflected in the PDF preview since they use the same layout template.

Cost Management and Control

Project Accounting Period Close Warnings Removal

Efficiently manage the close of both accounting and project accounting periods by validating and reporting for errors only as part of the period close process. Improvements made to existing exception reporting tools allows for easy and continuous monitoring of exceptions anytime during or outside the period close.

The Accounting Period Close process for the Project Costing subledger will now validate for and report only errors when you close an accounting period. The Accounting Period Close Exceptions report can be run to check for warnings, errors, or both using a new Report Scope parameter with the default value being Both Errors and Warnings. This new parameter will also be printed in the report output along with the user selected value or process determined value. For example, If user selects the report scope as Warnings Only, validation and reporting will be carried out only for warnings, and the parameter value will be printed in the report output as Warnings Only against the Report Scope parameter. When you close the accounting period, the scope of the report will be Errors Only. This is because the exceptions validation that is carried out as part of report generation will validate for errors only. The Accounting Period Close Exceptions report can also be run for periods in all statuses, including Closed.

Report Scope in Accounting Period Close Exceptions Report

The Project Accounting Period Close process will not generate any exceptions report nor perform any validations for warnings and will set the period to Closed immediately if you choose to close one or more project accounting periods. The Project Accounting Period Close Exceptions report can be run to check for any warnings for periods in any status, including Closed.

The business benefits of this feature are:

• Increased efficiency while performing period close and other period end activities
• Exceptions reporting only for errors during period close reduces load on BI servers
• Ability to review errors only, or warnings only, or both errors and warnings for the Accounting Period Close Exceptions report
• Ability to review exceptions for the accounting period and project accounting period for closed periods

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Project Financial Management  No Longer Optional From: Update 24B

Tips And Considerations

• Since both the Accounting Period Close and Project Accounting Period Close processes will no longer validate for warnings related to period closure, it is recommended to first run the Accounting Period Close Exceptions report or the Project Accounting Period Close Exceptions report if you would like to review and correct any exceptions, including warnings, for an accounting or project accounting period before closing the period. Alternatively, you can set the desired period's status to Close Pending first, which will generate an exceptions report, which you can review. The new Report Scope parameter in the Accounting Period Close Exceptions Report will display a value of Warnings Only when generated as part of the close pending period status validations process. This is because the period is pending close and thereby all transactions that need attention before period close are classified as Warnings Only, including those that could potentially become errors and prevent the accounting period from being closed successfully.

• Review the warnings before period close, if any, to ensure that
  • Burden costs are generated in the same accounting period as the associated raw costs.
  • Revenue is recognized in the same accounting period as the costs.

• Run the Accounting Period Close Exceptions report and the Project Accounting Period Close Exceptions report for the desired parameters before checking the period close exceptions in the OTBI subject area 'Project - Period Close Exceptions'.

Key Resources

• Related Help:
  • Accounting for Project Transactions section in the Using Project Costing user guide.

Access Requirements

No new access requirements.

Project Cost Transfer to New Project Role Using a REST Service

Update the project role associated with a project cost using the Project Costs REST API. Perform this adjustment using the custom operation adjustProjectCosts. Retroactively transfer a project cost from one project role to another, remove a project role, or add a project role. View the adjustment details, such as adjustment status, and when and by whom the adjustment was made. Review payload examples for the Project Costs API in the REST API for Oracle Project Portfolio Management Cloud guide.

This feature extends the capabilities introduced in 23B with the Planning to Billing by Project Role feature. Refer to this feature to understand the broader business flow for role-based planning and billing.

Project role attributes are now available for the Transfer adjustment type in the Project Costs REST API. You can use the transfer adjustment for project role alone or with the existing transfer attributes supported prior to this feature: Project, Task, Expenditure Type, Contract, and Funding Source.

For example, to transfer a project cost to another project and change the project role at the same time, the REST API request body would look something like this:

{

"name":"adjustProjectCosts",

"parameters":

[

{"AdjustmentType": "Transfer"},

{"ProjectNumber": "New Project"},

{"TaskNumber": "New Task"},

{"ProjectRoleName": "Functional Lead"},

]

}

To remove the project role value on a project cost transaction, specify an empty value for the project role name attribute as shown in the following example REST API request body:

{

"name":"adjustProjectCosts",

"parameters":

[

{"AdjustmentType": "Transfer"},

{"ProjectRoleName": ""},

]

}

The business benefits of this feature are:

• Project role information on a project cost transaction can be added or corrected using an auditable adjustment process which can be controlled through workflow approvals. 

• System integrators, administrators, or developers can perform project role transfer adjustments in integrated solutions.

• You can also leverage complementary offerings such as the Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel to create user-friendly workbooks to perform project role transfer adjustments.

Steps to Enable

Review the REST service definition in the REST API guides to leverage (available from the Oracle Help Center > your apps service area of interest > APIs & Schema). If you are new to Oracle's REST services you may want to begin with the Quick Start section.

There are no additional steps required to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

• A successful transfer adjustment creates two new project cost transactions: a reversal of the original project cost and a new destination project cost with the attributes specified in the transfer adjustment payload.

• To remove the project role on a project cost, you must use the ProjectRoleName attribute. You cannot use the ProjectRoleId attribute for this use case.

• Removing a project role on a project cost transaction is not possible if project role derivation is enabled and a project role can be derived for the destination project cost. In this scenario, you must first disable project role derivation before performing the transfer adjustment to remove the project role.

Key Resources

• REST API for Oracle Project Management Cloud guide available on the Oracle Help Center.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need the following privilege:

• Transfer Project Expenditure Item (PJC_TRANSFER_PROJECT_EXPENDITURE_ITEM_PRIV)

The privilege listed above is included in the following predefined duty role:

• Project Cost Transaction Processing (ORA_PJC_PROJECT_COST_TRANSACTION_PROCESSING_DUTY)

The duty role listed above is assigned to the following predefined job roles:

• Project Accountant (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_ACCOUNTANT_JOB)
• Grants Accountant (ORA_PJF_GRANTS_ACCOUNTANT_JOB)

If you are using custom roles instead of the predefined job roles above, you must assign the Transfer Project Expenditure Item privilege to your custom roles to use this feature.

Project Cost Split Using a REST API

Split project cost adjustments using the Project Costs REST API. This feature extends capabilities to build comprehensive integrated solutions for managing project costs, such as creating workbooks using the Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel.

The Project Costs REST API custom operation adjustProjectCosts now supports the Split adjustment type.

A successful split adjustment on a project cost results in three new transactions: a reversal of the original project cost and two new destination project costs.

You must specify a quantity for the first desired destination project cost in the body payload of the REST API request. The quantity provided must be less than the original project cost’s quantity, and can’t be zero. The quantity for the second destination project cost is calculated as the original project cost’s quantity less the quantity you specified for the first destination transaction.

You can optionally provide desired values for the Billable Flag, Capitalizable Flag, Bill Hold, and Revenue Hold attributes on the first destination project cost in the request body payload. If you do not include values for these attributes, then these attributes are copied from the original project cost. These attributes for the second destination project cost are always copied from the original project cost.

For example, suppose you have a billable project cost with a quantity of 8. You want to split this transaction into two new project costs with quantities of 5 and 3, and at the same time mark the first destination transaction as non-billable.The REST API request body would look like the following:

{

"name":"adjustProjectCosts",

"parameters":

[

{"AdjustmentType": "Split"},

{"Quantity": 5},

{"BillableFlag": false}

]

}

And the results of the successful split adjustment would be:

In the above example, if you require the second destination project cost to also be non-billable, then you could perform a subsequent non-billable reclassification adjustment on that transaction after the split adjustment is complete.

These are the business benefits of this feature:

• System integrators, administrators, or developers can perform project cost split adjustments in integrated solutions.

• You can also leverage complementary offerings such as the Oracle Visual Builder Add-in for Excel to create user-friendly workbooks to perform project cost split adjustments.

Steps to Enable

Review the REST service definition in the REST API guides to leverage (available from the Oracle Help Center > your apps service area of interest > APIs & Schema). If you are new to Oracle's REST services you may want to begin with the Quick Start section.

There are no additional steps required to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

• When performing a project cost split adjustment using the UI, a project accountant can specify one of three options for the Bill Hold flag – No, Once, or Indefinite. In this REST API, the HoldInvoiceFlag parameter is defined as boolean (true or false). Therefore, only two values are supported. If a true value is provided, then the destination transaction is created with an Indefinite Bill Hold. If a false value is provided, then the transaction is created with a Bill Hold value of No. It is not possible to mark a destination transaction with a one-time bill hold using this REST API.

• The BillableFlag, CapitalizableFlag, HoldRevenueFlag, and HoldInvoiceFlag parameters are all boolean (true or false). If you provide any value other than true or false for these parameters, then the value is treated as false. For example, if you specify "BillableFlag":"Yes" in the request body payload, the actual outcome will be that the billable flag on the project cost is set to No, because the BillableFlag parameter value provided in this example ("Yes") is evaluated as false.

Key Resources

• Based on Idea 577984 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

• Related Help
  • REST API for Oracle Project Management Cloud guide available on the Oracle Help Center.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need the following privilege:

• Split Project Expenditure Item (PJC_SPLIT_PROJECT_EXPENDITURE_ITEM_PRIV)

The privilege listed above is included in the following predefined duty role:

• Project Cost Transaction Processing (ORA_PJC_PROJECT_COST_TRANSACTION_PROCESSING_DUTY)

The duty role listed above is assigned to the following predefined job roles:

• Project Accountant (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_ACCOUNTANT_JOB)
• Grants Accountant (ORA_PJF_GRANTS_ACCOUNTANT_JOB)

If you are using custom roles instead of the predefined job roles above, you must assign the Split Project Expenditure Item privilege to you custom roles to use this feature.

Grant Management

Burden Indicator Toggling for Internal Funding Source on Award

Enable or disable burdening for internal funding sources, even if the award is budgeted or has transactions. This flexibility allows for quickly correcting data entry errors, thus ensuring new costs are reported accurately. Adjust previous costs manually for accurate reporting.

Use the Enable Burdening indicator, shown below, to enable or disable burdening for internal funding sources when editing an award.

Control Burdening for Internal Funding Sources - Manage Award Projects page

For existing budget or transactions:

• If you enable burdening, you may need to manually recalculate existing budget lines, costs, or other project-related transactions.

• If you disable burdening, any existing burden cost must be manually reversed.

You can manually reverse burden costs using a new miscellaneous cost transaction or a cost imported from a third party source.

The business benefit of this feature is an increased flexibility model to control burdening for the internal funding sources. 

Steps to Enable

This feature is dependent on the 19B feature Control Burdening for Internal Funding Sources being enabled.

Tips And Considerations

• You can't perform Recalculate Burden Cost adjustment on costs when the burden indicator is changed from being enabled to disabled.

• For a project enabled to generate burden costs on the same line, you can perform the Recalculate Raw Cost adjustment type, which will automatically reverse the previous burden cost too. 

• For a project enabled to generate burden costs on separate lines, you must reverse the previously generated burden costs manually. 

• Additionally, if you recalculate burden costs in the Manage Burden Schedules page after disabling the burden indicator, the View Burden Costs page displays a burden cost even though no burden cost is generated going forward. Also, the output report of the Generate Burden Costs process shows the burden cost even though no burden cost is actually generated. These will be addressed in a subsequent release.

Key Resources

• Based on Idea 614584 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

No new access requirements.

Consistent Treatment of Amount for Award Funding and Budgeting

Display and store the award funding amount and budget amount for sponsored projects according to the precision defined for the award currency. Use the half-up rounding rule consistently for both the award funding amount and budget amount.

Rounding rules determine how decimal values are rounded when you enter decimal values  that are greater than the currency's standard precision. We follow the Half Up or Nearest rounding rule to store and display values in all pages that are associated with the award management business flow. For example, you enter a funding amount of 2.905 in USD. The standard precision defined for USD in the application is 2 decimal places. Since there is a difference in the decimal precision you entered and the defined standard precision, 3 and 2 decimal places respectively, the application follows the half up rounding rule and rounds the value you entered to the currency's standard precision as 2.91.

All amounts for awards, and project budgets associated to sponsored projects, including amounts in currencies different from the project currency, will now be stored rounded to the standard precision defined for that currency, using the half up rounding rule. This includes amounts entered through the application pages, FBDI, REST, and SOAP services.

Unrounded Funding Amount Entered in the Edit Funding Window

The Funding Amount Rounded to the Entered Currency's Standard Precision of 2

The business benefits of this feature are:

• Consistency in storage and display of award funding and budget amounts for sponsored projects.

• Decimal discrepancies between award funding and budget amounts resulting in error at the time of setting a budget to baseline will no longer occur.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

• Any existing unrounded amounts will continue to be stored unrounded unless they are edited. Any edits to existing amounts that are unrounded or have decimals that are greater than the currency's standard precision will be stored rounded to the currency's defined standard precision.

• When editing amounts in the budgets page associated to a sponsored project, the rounding will happen when you save your work.

Entered Unrounded Amounts Will Be Rounded on Save or Save and Close

• If you use the OTBI work area for analysis or reporting, we suggest you use the ROUND() function and the SUM aggregation rule for a column if you want the line amounts and totals of the column to show the sum of the rounded amounts. While using the round function, define the decimal places as the standard precision defined for the concerned currency being reported. For example, ROUND(attributename, 2). This ensures that any unrounded amounts are rounded to the concerned currency's defined standard precision.

• For the Award Budgets REST API, we recommend that you do a refresh using the GET operation subsequent to a POST or PATCH operation involving a change to budget amounts that have decimal amounts greater than the currency's standard precision.

Key Resources

• Related Help:
  • Award Management section of the Using Grants Management user guide.
  • Currencies under Financial Structures of the Implementing Enterprise Structures and General Ledger user guide.

Access Requirements

No new access requirements.

Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting

Common Resource Rates for Task Assignments Across Work and Financial Planning

Manage project plans using the common source of truth for resource rates. This allows project managers to estimate the cost and bill amounts of the projects and tasks with improved accuracy. For example, as project managers plan tasks, the application derives the cost and bill rates using the task start and finish dates instead of the general rates derived at the project level. As a result, the rates are more precise, thus helping in determining project projections for cost and revenue accurately.

In financially-enabled projects, as project managers create detailed work plans using the Manage Project Plan page, they can view the latest resource rates derived from the rate schedules or project overrides. When reviewing which resources to assign to tasks, the presence of cost and bill rate information at the point of assignment provides key planning information.

In addition, project managers can also use Refresh Rates action on the Manage Project Plan page to get the latest rates for the existing task assignments in the project. For example, obtain the latest rates for resources who received a promotion or job change.

Viewing Resource Rates While Assigning Resources

Viewing Resource Rates from Task Details

Refresh Rates on the Manage Project Plan Page

This benefits the business by standardizing rate derivation across work and financial planning thus helping project managers to estimate the project cost and revenue with improved accuracy across various task assignments.

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Project Execution Management  No Longer Optional From: Update 24A

Tips And Considerations

• Task-level rate derivation on the project work plan is applicable only to financially-enabled projects. For nonfinancial projects, you define a default rate for the project resource, and this rate is used for both project and task planning.

• Bill rates for the project resources are derived only if the project is associated with a single contract and rate definitions are specified at the contract level.

• Refresh rates from the Manage Project Resources page only updates the resource rates at the project level. To refresh rates for task assignments, use the Refresh Rates action on the Manage Project Plan page.

Key Resources

• Related Help:
  • Considerations for Selecting Rate Schedules for Project and Financial Planning in Implementing Project Financial Management and Grants Management user guide.

• Based on Idea 546219 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

No new access requirements.

Resource Replacement Across Multiple Financial Plan Lines

Project managers and project administrators can replace resources on budgets, award budgets, or forecasts to keep their financial plans up to-date. For example, originally a project role was used to create a high-level plan and the same can be replaced by a specific named person. Previously, replacement was line-by-plan line, but now project managers and administrators can replace across plan lines with a single action. Optionally, a partial replacement from a specific period and later is also possible.

Edit Budget - Replace Resources

When you select a replacement resource, it replaces the previous resource on the selected tasks. This is similar to the capability that's available on the Manage Financial Project Plan page where you can replace resources whenever a resource becomes unavailable and can't complete the work.

The ability to make mass changes helps with improved planning accuracy, as you can efficiently reflect project changes on your budgets and forecasts with minimal effort.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

• For a none time phased project budget or forecast, you can't perform a partial replacement and the replacement period value needs to be selected as the resource planning start date. 

• You can replace resources that are in the same resource class, for example, replace a project role with a named person or replace a named person with another named person.

• Rates for replacement resources are retrieved based on the current job, organization, and role. Planned amounts are computed and rolled up at all levels on completion of replacement action.

Key Resources

• Based on Idea 619918 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

No new access requirements.

Task Date Rollup to Project Dates Across Work and Financial Planning

Automatically roll up task dates to project dates across work and financial planning based on the task settings, thus eliminating the manual maintenance of the project dates separately. For example, plan task dates outside of the project dates and select the Update Financial Project Plan and Progress action to update the financial plan. If the Automatically roll up task planned dates task setting is enabled in the project plan type settings, then project dates automatically align with task dates based on the work planning.

The business benefit of this feature is project managers can reschedule the work plan to reflect scope changes and project slippage while accommodating task dates that are forced outside the project-level dates. The new work plan schedule will now drive both the financial plan task dates and the project-level dates without needing to first manually update the financial project dates. This streamlines the planning process, saves time, and reduces errors.

Previously, the Automatically roll up task planned dates setting was automatically deselected whenever the Update Financial Project Plan and Progress process was run. This enhancement retains the setting on the Financial Project Plan, letting you choose whether financial plan dates are automatically updated even when project dates will also be impacted. When the Update Financial Project Plan and Progress process is run and the work plan schedule is outside the project-level dates:

• When Automatically roll up task planned dates is selected for the project, both the financial plan dates and project dates are updated.

• When Automatically roll up task planned dates is deselected for the project, the application rejects the update and both the financial plan dates and project dates are unchanged.

NOTE: Any changes to the schedule that keep work plan dates within the project dates will continue to update dates on the financial project plan as the test against project dates will pass.

For example, a Project Manager creates a project with dates between 1/2/23 and 8/17/23. Now the project manager updates the financial task Review and Approve Change Request finish date to 8/22/23, a later date than the Project finish date, and runs the Update Financial Project Plan and Progress action.

Task Dates for Financial Task Review and Approve Change Request Are Updated on the Manage Project Plan Page

p

Task Dates Are Updated As Per the Project Plan in Manage Financial Project Plan Page

Project Dates Are Rolled Up Using Task Dates in Manage Financial Project Settings Page

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

Update Automatically roll up task planned dates against the Project Plan Type for the project. Navigation: Manage Financial Project Settings > Planning > Edit: Project Plan Type > Task Settings

Enabling this option will provide greater control over changes to project dates.

Key Resources

• Based on Idea 608757 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

No new access requirements.

Program Management and Reporting

Graphical Program Headlines with Project Performance Trends and Insights

Gain performance insight for projects in programs through a graphical display of measures and trends. Evaluate metrics such as margin, revenue, earned value, and cost across different projects. Track action plan status and overdue action items on Program Headlines using the detailed list and graphical comparison by status.

Explore your program's performance in this new version of Program Headlines, organized into tabs. Set your preferred measure for each tab to show its current and period-over-period program performance, and highlight the top contributing projects in the tab's primary graph. Quickly identify if projects are at risk by setting your preferred measure to a variance. The primary graph sorts and displays projects with the most significant variance. Additional graphs provide performance comparisons for the projects included in the primary graph; giving you more context to determine if mitigation is needed.

New Version of Program Headlines

Continuing the investment in program communications to keep stakeholders informed, you now have the option to select the report-through period as the current period or the last period. For example, you can review the report data for April during the first few days of May when your monthly communication report is set with a reporting period value of Last and the first due date is May 5th. When ready, you can manually publish the report by the due date, or it will automatically publish on May 5th if your report is defined to automatically publish on the report due date. For more about program communications, see the feature “Program Management Communication” in What's New for update 22D and the feature “Program Management Enhancements for Reporting and Stakeholder Communication” in What's New for update 23A.

Communication Reporting Period

Watch a demo.

Business Benefits

• The graphical display is organized by area of focus.

• Flexibility to set the measure for each area of focus based on your preference.

• Graphs now include project details, with the primary graph ordered by worst-performing to highlight projects with the most significant issues. Supporting graphs chart additional measures for those same projects, offering further performance comparisons.

• Gain visibility into action plans with a graphical representation of their status and age.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Tips And Considerations

• This feature replaces the previous Program Headlines page that was based on a foldout pattern. For 1 release, you have the option to opt out and revert to the previous page. In update 23D, this new page is mandatory, as the previous version will no longer be available.

• Program Headlines include active programs that the program manager owns or is assigned to as a contributor. Program managers can view a specific program and its project performance, or select “My Programs” to get summarized totals and program comparisons across their programs.

• This new version of Program Headlines is organized into tabs: Margin, Revenue, Earned Value, Cost, Effort, and Action Plans. 

• While the order of the tabs can't be changed, program managers use the Edit Preferences action on the Program Headlines page to change the primary measure for the tab or select the value “None” to hide it.

• To reduce the list of measures for program managers, administrators can disable unwanted measures using the Manage Performance Measures task in the Project Financial Management offering. They can modify the measure names using the same task.

• Graphs display after performance is collected for the program. To display the initial performance after creating a program and ad hoc requests to refresh the data, program managers submit the Update Program Performance Data process using Scheduled Processes in Tools. Otherwise, program performance is automatically collected any time the program's projects are updated by the Update Project Performance Data process.

• The graphs are interactive. Click the series in the graph legend to hide and redisplay the series. Click a specific bar to navigate to the detailed program analysis page for that program and project.

Key Resources

• Related Help:
  • Feature “Program Management Communication” in the What's New for update 22D.
  • Feature “Program Management Enhancements for Reporting and Stakeholder Communication” in the What's New for update 23A.
  • Feature “Action Plans and Issues” in the What's New for Update 23A.
  • Program Manager in the Security Reference for PPM guide.
  • “Project Programs” chapter in the Using Project Performance Reporting guide.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need the following privilege:

• Manage Project Program (PJS_MANAGE_PROJECT_PROGRAM)

The privilege listed above is included in the following predefined job role:

• Program Manager (ORA_PJF_PROGRAM_MANAGER)

If you use custom roles instead of the predefined job role above, you must assign the Manage Project Program privilege to your custom roles to use this feature.

Resource Management

Visual Resource Planning and Scheduling

Create new assignments and events and adjust assignment schedules using the interactive resource Gantt chart. Review and manage multiple resource schedules across projects. Drag and drop scheduled assignments and events to extend, shorten or reschedule.

This feature is part of a focused investment to automate and accelerate business flows for the professional services industry. Our goal is to deliver a seamless experience across project and resource planning, cost collection, invoicing, and reporting, strengthening operational controls and optimizing cash flow. Watch for additional capabilities in upcoming updates.

Resource managers see a full picture of resource assignments and events and can adjust them to immediately see the impact in the resources' schedules. By presenting resource project assignments and events in a Gantt chart, resource managers have a clear view of what resources are working on, when and for how long. In addition, resource managers easily pinpoint gaps where a resource is not assigned to project work. This allows the resource manager to focus attention on filling those gaps to maximize resource utilization. Resource managers also see and track resource assignment nominations to identify potential upcoming assignments. When assignments need adjustment, drag the assignment to a new date. Alternatively drag either end of the assignment bar to the new desired start or finish date.

For example, there is an urgent need to assign a technical consultant for a week. The resource manager can view all their technical consultants' schedules in the Gantt chart to see if any have availability for that time. The resource manager sees that there is one resource who scheduled an internal self-led training event during that time. The resource manager knows this training can be rescheduled for any time. The resource manager drags the training to another open week the person is available and creates the new project assignment in its place, directly in the Gantt chart.

Resource Schedule Gantt

Create New Assignment in Resource Schedule Gantt

Watch a demo.

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Project Execution Management  No Longer Optional From: Update 24A

Tips And Considerations

Considerations for visual planning and scheduling:

• To access the new Gantt chart, choose Manage Resource Schedules from the right side panel drawer menu in the Project Resources workarea.

• The Manage Resource Schedules page opens as a read-only page. Select the Edit Resource Schedules action button to access the Gantt for editing.

• Assignments in Nominated or Pending Adjustment status are not editable.

• To save and submit assignment schedule changes for approval, select the Save and Submit action.

• To save and immediately approve assignment schedule changes, select the Save and Approve action.

• Undo is available to revert an unintended and unsaved change.

• When adjusting assignments, any errors or warnings will appear in a single page. From there, the resource manager has the option to continue with the adjustment of any assignment that caused a warning. Any assignment adjustment that cause errors will not be adjusted.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need the following privilege:

• Approve Project Resource Assignment to Project (PJR_APPROVE_PROJECT_RESOURCE_ASSIGNMENT_TO_PROJECT_PRIV)

The privilege listed above is assigned to the following predefined job role:

• Resource Manager (ORA_PJF_RESOURCE_MANAGER_JOB)

If you are using custom roles instead of the predefined job roles above, you must assign the Approve Project Resource Assignment to Project privilege to your custom roles to use this feature.

Resource Assignment Scheduling Rules

Configure resource assignment scheduling rules based on business requirements. Project application administrators can select options to prevent resources from being assigned above their capacity and ensure that assignment and request dates are within the project date range.

This feature benefits resource managers by giving them greater control over resource schedules to ensure resources are not assigned to project work above their capacity. This enables greater control over resource costs and ensures resources are not overworked.

In addition, by limiting resource assignments and request dates to be within the project dates, resource managers and project managers have greater control over assignment schedules so that they remain within the boundaries of the project schedule. 

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Project Execution Management  No Longer Optional From: Update 24A

Options are available in Manage Project Resource Management Implementation Options to indicate if assignment and request dates must be within the project dates. There are also options to limit overbooking on project assignments.

Resource Management Implementation Options

Tips And Considerations

1. When opting into this feature, the default value for “Allow Project Request and Assignment Dates Outside Project Dates” will be Yes.

• Existing requests and assignments that are outside project dates can remain this way if desired.

2. When opting into this feature, “Project Assignment Overbooking Options” replaces “Allow Overbooking for Billable Assignments” in Manage Resource Management Implementation Options.  The following explains the implementation option values after opting into the feature:

3. Non-project events can still be created when a resource has project assignments even when overbooking of project assignments is not allowed. 

Key Resources

• Based on Ideas 613877 and 629534 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

• Related Help: 
  • Project Resource Management Implementation Options topic in Implementing Project Execution Management user guide.

Access Requirements

No new access requirements.

IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations

From time to time, Oracle replaces existing Cloud service features with new features or removes existing features. When a feature is replaced, the older version may be removed immediately or at a future time. As a best practice, you should use the newer version of a replaced feature as soon as the newer version is available.

Remember to review all upcoming opt in changes in the Opt In Expiration section.

KNOWN ISSUES / MAINTENANCE PACK SPREADSHEETS

Oracle publishes a Known Issues document for every Update to make customers are aware of potential problems they could run into, and the document provides workarounds if they are available.

Oracle also publishes Maintenance Pack and Statutory Maintenance Pack documentation of bugs that are fixed in the monthly or statutory patching.

To review these documents, you must have access to My Oracle Support:

Oracle Fusion Cloud Project Management Known Issues and Maintenance Packs (Doc ID 1545504.1)

DEPRECATION OF OLDER DIGITAL ASSISTANT SKILL VERSIONS

The Digital Assistant and its skills continuously receive updates as they get smarter and provide enhanced conversational experiences. Check for updated versions every release in the Skill Store. Versions stop working when the underlying platform version becomes inactive, at the longest 2 years after release.

We recommend that you stay up to date and use the most current skills.