This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:
| Date | Product | Feature | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05 MAR 2021 | Created initial document. |
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.
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Common Technology and User Experience
Common Project Management Features
Service Excellence Continuing Investments
In this update, our on-going investment in service excellence includes improvements in performance, messages, usability, and documentation. Refer to the What's New for more information.
Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite provides a digital assistant built on the Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) platform. The digital assistant delivers an intelligent conversational experience for employees to complete key tasks and quickly access information across Fusion Applications. For information about the complete set of current capabilities, see the Oracle Digital Assistant: Oracle Skills documentation.
For ERP, the digital assistant helps finance and operational professionals easily navigate and identify data and business insights that is contextual, relevant, and thoughtful. In update 21B, ERP has digital assistant capabilities for expenses, project time capture, and project management using channels including SMS, Oracle Web, and Microsoft Teams.
Look for enhancements and expansion to additional roles and business processes in future updates.
To learn more, review the update 21B features in the Oracle Financials Cloud and Oracle Project Management Cloud What’s New documents. In addition, see the topic: Getting Started with Oracle Digital Assistant for Cloud Applications for setting up the assistant.
Oracle Digital Assistant for Project Time and Project Management
Report project time, start and complete tasks, and check project progress with the Oracle Digital Assistant using channels including SMS and Microsoft Teams. The digital assistant helps team members and project managers accomplish key tasks using natural language conversation. The Project Time Entry skill enables project team members to record project-based time entries and submit time cards. The Project Management skill enables team members to perform project management activities such as view and update tasks, deliverables, issues, and action items. Project managers can check the project progress and financial status.
REST APIs for Project Management
Approval, Rejection, or Return to Draft Status of Project Contract Invoices Using REST APIs
Approve, reject, or return to draft status project contract invoices using REST APIs. Billing Specialists can update the status of a project contract invoice without having to use invoice approval workflow or invoice user interface pages.
Automatic Reversal of Billing Events Using FBDI and REST APIs
Create automatic reversals of accrual billing events using FBDI and REST APIs. The Import Project Billing Events FBDI and the Create a project billing event REST API will automatically create a second billing event that reverses each accrual billing event, without the user having to pass the reversal billing event through the FBDI or REST API.
Extended Descriptive Flexfields on Billing Events in FBDI and REST APIs
Include additional descriptive flexfields when importing billing events using FBDI or when creating or updating billing events using REST APIs. Billing specialists and revenue accountants can better describe, categorize, account for, and report on billing events using customer-specific data.
Financial Project Plans Deferred Processing Using the REST API
Use deferred mode processing to efficiently perform financial project plan updates for integration use cases using the Financial Project Plan REST API.
Planning Option Descriptive Flexfields for Project Budgets REST API
View, create, and update planning option descriptive flexfields for budget versions using the existing Project Budgets REST API.
Planning Option Descriptive Flexfields for Award Budgets REST API
View, create, and update planning option descriptive flexfields for award budget versions using the Award Budgets REST API.
Project Forecast Version Additional Actions Using a REST API
Refresh current actual amounts, actual amounts using a date range, resource rates, or conversion rates for a forecast version using the Project Forecasts REST API. Specify a percentage to adjust planning amounts.
Task Creation, Modification, and Deletion in Work Plan Templates Using a REST API
Create, update, and delete tasks in a work plan template using the Work Plan Templates REST API. A work plan template is a set of project tasks and resource assignments that's used to create project plans and add tasks to existing project plans. Use this API to keep your work plan templates up to date.
SOAP Services for Project Management
Get Cost and Bill Planning Rates Using a SOAP Service
Get cost rates, bill rates, and amounts for project resources based on planning rates using the Project Pricing SOAP service. Previously, the service provided actual cost rates and amounts and this update extends the service to planning rates for both cost and bill amounts. For example, obtain planned rates to use for calculations with a PaaS solution.
Workflow for Project Management
Attachments in Project Expenditure Batch Approval Workflow
Include attachments in the project expenditure batch approval workflow so that approvers can review these documents while approving or rejecting the workflow.
Configurable Approval Notifications for Project Status Changes
Project status change approval notifications now feature a new look that is easier to read and can be configured as needed. Change the look and feel and the information displayed on the approval notifications to streamline the review process and make sure that the information critical to approval is available. Use the predefined Oracle BI Publisher notification template for project status change approval or configure your own to contain the information that you need. For example, change the company logo or remove certain fields from the notification. The notification template is for both email and in-application notifications.
Workflow Transaction Console for Project Status Change Approval
Using a single console, administrators can now proactively monitor workflow tasks and resolve any exceptions for the Project Status Change Approval workflow. Project application administrators can review workflow exceptions and either resubmit the task after making a correction to the underlying rules or withdraw the task in progress. The Transaction Access Console also provides details for the project status change approval workflow such as approval history and comments.
Award Template Descriptive Flexfields
Specify descriptive flexfield values on award templates and use them while creating an award from an award template. Additionally, review and override the copied descriptive flexfield directly on the award.
Item Billing for Item Contract Lines
Bill customers for items and capture item, quantity, unit price, and amount information on the invoice. Billing specialists can capture item and quantity on billing events and generate invoices for the events with the item and quantity reflected on the invoice lines. The item and item unit price come from the contract line associated with the billing event. The billing specialist enters the item quantity for the event and can adjust the quantity on an item-based billing event after it is processed, resulting in credit memos for the adjusted quantity. REST APIs are available to create, update, and read item-based billing events. Prior to this release, billing specialists could only bill for the amount as item and quantity details were not captured on the billing event.
Grouping of Invoices by Bill-To Site and Bill-To Contact
Generate separate invoices for each different bill-to site and bill-to contact specified on the bill plans for a contract. Receivables clerks can automatically distribute invoices via email to the email addresses of each customer's bill-to contacts without further intervention.
Dynamic Resource Addition on Incurring Actuals
As actual amounts are incurred for a project, resources are added automatically to the planning resource breakdown structure when it allows changes at the project level. This avoids assigning unplanned costs to generic resources and makes it easier to review unplanned costs. Also, the time taken to update the financial project plan is reduced.
Editable Capitalization Options for Project Types
Edit capitalization options for project types even after project administrators create projects using these project types. For example, project application administrators can update the asset line grouping method for a project type using the Manage Project Types setup task at any point in time. This helps to retroactively change the grouping of asset lines based on specific and immediate business needs.
Project-Driven Supply Chain is an end-to-end, integrated solution across the Oracle Supply Chain Management and Project Management Cloud applications. This solution is designed to support various business processes of manufacturing and asset-intensive companies. Use the Project-Driven Supply Chain solution to manage your supply chain processes in the context of projects without creating separate organizations for each project. You can also capture supply chain costs as project expenditures. For additional information about project-driven supply chain see 20A What's New: Project-Driven Supply Chain
Project Sales Orders Fulfillment with Back to Back Supply
Track supply chain related costs for procurement or manufacturing of goods when fulfilling project sales orders using back to back supply.
Multilevel Planning Resource Breakdown Structure Support for Financial and Work Planning
Create detailed financial project plans that include named person and expense resource information and then summarize this information to planning resources at various levels of detail on the financial project plan. Previously, summarization was supported only for one-level planning resource breakdown structures. Now, the financial plan can be summarized to various combinations of planning resources. For example, summarize to expenditure type and named person planning resources. Alternatively, maintain a financial plan at a higher level of details such as jobs or organizations. The summarization logic maps resources in the project plan to planning resources on the financial plan to meet your business needs for both work and financial planning.
Configurable View for Reviewing Project Performance
Configure the Review Project Performance page to view the data you are interested in. For example, filter out the records that have 0 values for your performance measures. Additionally, filter out the records for the summary tasks that display amounts assigned directly to such tasks. Thus project managers and project administrators can appropriately highlight project performance information to perform analyses based on business objectives.
KPIs Usage Across Project Units
Create KPIs that project administrators can attach to their projects irrespective of which project unit they belong to. Project application administrators can define a KPI that can be used across project units rather than duplicating the KPI in each project unit. This helps to achieve a uniform and consistent model to track project health across project units.
Expanded Resource Request and Assignment Schedule Adjustment Options
Resource managers can shift multiple request and assignment schedules by a specified number of calendar days. Project managers can do the same for requests. Requests and assignments that are planned using variable hours allow the ability to request and assign resources to work on non-working days such as weekends. Resource managers and project managers that plan requests and assignments that start or finish on these non-working days can specify the number of calendar days to shift the dates to different dates, including non-working dates.
Option to Exclude Non-Worked Time from Utilization
Choose to exclude non-worked time from resource available hours when reporting projected and actual utilization. The non-worked time includes paid time off and hours from Absence Management. Projected and actual utilization are calculated as assigned project hours/available hours. For example, during a 4 week period, a resource with an 8 hour per day, 5 day per week calendar, has 160 hours available for project work. During this time, the resource has one week of vacation. When determining utilization for that resource during the 4 week period, the available hours for the resource is lowered to 120 hours.