Update 23B

Revision History

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

Date	Module	Feature	Notes
30 AUG 2023	Billing and Revenue Management	Collaborate on Contract Negotiations Using Oracle Content Management	Removed feature from update 23B
31 MAY 2023	Program Management and Reporting	Program Communication Enhancements	Updated document. Revised feature information.
31 MAY 2023	Resource Management	Common Financial Cost and Bill Rates for Resource Requests and Assignments	Updated document. Revised opt-in information.
15 MAR 2023	Bill and Revenue Management	Collaborate on Contract Negotiations Using Oracle Content Management	Updated document. Revised feature information.
03 MAR 2023			Created initial document.

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

Planning to Billing by Project Role

Perform financial planning, budgeting, forecasting and billing by project role. Project managers often plan by project role during the early planning phase of a project as they do not know exactly who will work on the project at that time. Similarly, you may negotiate contracts with clients using project roles and capture the negotiated rates on the contract. A common practice in the professional services industry is to bill based on project role, rather than billing using the named individual or their more internal-facing job name. Planning to Billing by Project Role lets you perform high-level estimation by project role and bill customers as per the negotiated project role rates.

Previously, you could define rates by job. Although this works in many businesses, some industries need a more flexible model that reflects the work being performed rather than basing it on the job assignment in Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM; which typically reflects the person's internal job function. The project role offers this flexibility since it can be matched to the work being performed on a project and lets the same person play different roles across one or more project. You can now define bill rates by project role and leverage these rates for planning (in the Financial Plan) and billing.

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.

You can:

1. Plan by project role.
2. Capture project role along with person on labor cost transactions.
3. Bill labor cost transactions by rates defined by project role. 
4. Report by project role.

Planning to Billing by Project Role

NOTE: Performing actual labor costing using cost rates by project role is currently not supported.

Planning 

Plan, budget, and forecast by project role during the early phases of a project, when the exact people who are going to work on the project are unknown. Add required project roles to the project and directly create work plan or financial plan by project roles and perform high-level planning. In either of these cases, the application derives cost rates for these project role resources from the project role rate schedules associated with the project, and bill rates from the project role overrides setup at the contract level. Further, create project budget and forecast from the financial project plan containing the project role assignments or directly from project resources, thus accurately determining project projections for cost and revenue.

Previously, you could plan by project role only in the work plan with manual maintenance of resource rates or simulate planning by project role in the financial plan by defining jobs that equate to project roles. But now, you can define project roles as per your business needs and use them downstream, right from early planning all the way to billing.

Planning by Project Role

Setup for Planning by Project Role

Costing

You can now capture project role information using any of the available methods in Project Costing when creating a labor transaction.

Capturing a project role on labor cost transactions enables project-role-based plan versus actuals analysis, as well as billing labor transactions using a project-role-based rate (as opposed to a person or job-based rate).

You can select any project role that is active as of the transaction date while explicitly capturing project-role information on a labor cost transaction.

If you have planned for a person with a project role in Project Financial Management or in Project Resources but haven't explicitly entered a project role on the labor transaction, then the project role associated with the charged project and person as of the transaction date will be derived and populated on the cost transaction automatically during the Import Costs process. While the primary use case for capturing project role information on a cost transaction is for labor cost, project role will be derived and populated for any person-related project cost transaction.

Project role derivation is enabled by default. To disable this functionality, set the Project Role Derived for Person-Related Project Cost Transaction administrator profile value to No using the Manage Administrator Profile Values setup and maintenance task.

You can capture project roles on unprocessed cost transactions using any of the following methods:

• Manage Unprocessed Cost Transactions UI

Manage Unprocessed Cost Transactions UI

• File-Based Data Import (FBDI)

You can enter a project role when creating a labor transaction using the Import Project Labor Costs FBDI template. 

• Capture Costs ADFdi Templates

• Unprocessed Project Costs REST API

NOTE: Oracle Fusion Time and Labor does not support the explicit entry of project roles on time cards.

Enhancements in Project Costing for the Planning to Billing by Project Role feature under consideration for future releases include:

• Ability to change the project role on an existing transaction using a REST API.
• Transaction controls by project role.

Is there anything else you want to see in Project Costing to enhance the Planning to Billing by Project Role feature? Please let us know by raising a new Idea or upvoting an existing one on Cloud Customer Connect.

Billing

Contracts in professional services are usually negotiated based on project roles. For example, the Systems Analyst role may be billed at $80/hour, but the Java Developer role may be billed at $100/hour.

In the current solution, you bill your customers for labor costs using rates defined for a person or a job. This solution is enhanced to capture rates by project roles to facilitate capturing rates as negotiated with the customer by project role.

Bill rates can be captured by project role in the Project Task Overrides UI, on the bill plan associated with the contract.

Contract Bill Plan Rate Overrides

For any project/task/contract line on the contract, you can capture rates for any of the following combinations:

• Person - Project Role - Expenditure Type
• Person - Project Role
• Project Role - Expenditure Type
• Project Role

NOTE: Bill rates defined for project roles will take precedence over rates defined for jobs.

For project roles to be reflected on the invoice line, group labor transactions by project role in the invoice format associated with the bill plan.

Manage Invoice Formats UI

Setup for Billing by Project Roles

NOTE: To consider project role rates during invoice generation, cost transactions must have project roles associated with them.

Reporting

Report and analyze project role requirements across projects during the initial planning phase and, as the project matures, track project performance using project roles. Use Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence to report by project roles and the Review Project Performance page to track project performance by project roles. For example, you can quickly build a report or analysis in Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence to see the requirements of a DBA or Architect across multiple projects and proceed with the next steps, such as hiring or staffing requests for these roles.

Following example illustrates at a high level the solution offered by this feature: 

1. A sales representative is tracking an active opportunity. A prospect project is created to determine the high-level estimates required to arrive at a quote for the customer.

User Step: Add project roles and effort in the Manage Project Resources page.

The application derives the cost and bill rates for the project role resources and calculates the total cost and bill amounts for the project, giving you high-level project estimates.

Project Resources

Resource	From Date	To Date	Effort	Cost Rate	Bill Rate	Cost Amount	Bill Amount
DBA	1-Jan-2023	31-Mar-2024	100 hours	50	70	5000	7000
Java Developer	1-Apr-2023	31-Dec-2023	200 hours	60	80	12000	16000

2. The project manager performs project role based financial planning to capture the financial details by role.

User Step: Assign project role planning resources to financial tasks and create a financial plan by project role.

Alternatively, you can also perform work planning by project role and update the work plan to the financial plan.

Project Financial Plan

Financial Task	Planning Resource	From Date	To Date	Effort	Cost Rate	Cost Amount
T1	DBA	1-Jan-2023	31-Mar-2023	100 hours	50	5000
T2	Java Developer	1-Jan-2023	31-Dec-2023	200 hours	60	12000

3. The opportunity is won, and the project is approved. Project execution begins, and the project accountant captures actual hours spent on planned tasks.

User Step: The project accountant imports time card entries with project role details.

Project Cost Transactions

Person	Job	Project Role	Date	Hours
Ravi Patel	Application Developer	DBA	2-Jan-2023	8
Angela Lin	Senior Application Developer	DBA	2-Jan-2023	8
Alan James	Application Developer	Java Developer	2-Jan-2023	8

4. Costs incurred in the above step, are billed to the client using rates defined by project role.

User Step: Run the Generate Invoice process, which picks up the unbilled cost transactions, determines the bill rate applicable to the transaction, and generates an invoice for the incurred costs. The invoice lines will be generated by project role.

Invoice Lines

Invoice Line Description	Invoiced Quantity	Bill Rate	Invoice Amount
DBA	16	100	1600
Java Developer	8	120	960

The business benefits of the solution delivered in this feature are:

1. Project Managers can do high-level work and financial planning by project roles, to determine the project projection for cost and revenue by project role.

2. Project Billing Specialists can bill the clients by project roles, if the contracted bill rates with the client are negotiated by the project roles. 

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

• Enable the Maintain a Single Source of Truth for Project Team Members and Labor Resources feature. Use the Manage Project Resources page to define team members and their project roles.

• If the project is associated with a project-specific planning resource breakdown structure, adding resources in the Manage Project Resources page will automatically add the corresponding planning resources to the primary planning resource breakdown structure.

• Planning, budgeting and forecasting by named person, derives the person's role from the Manage Project Resources page and determines the resource rates accordingly. So, it's important to keep the named persons and their respective roles up to date in the Manage Project Resources page.

Key Resources

• Based on Idea 644418 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need the following roles:

• Project Manager (ORA_PJF_PROJECT MANAGER_JOB) to plan by project role.
• Project Accountant (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_ACCOUNTANT_JOB) to capture project costs.
• Project Billing Specialist (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_BILLING_SPECIALIST_JOB) to generate the invoices.
• Project Application Administrator (ORA_PJF_PROJECTS_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB) to setup data.
• Customer Contract Administrator (ORA_OKC_CUSTOMER_CONTRACT_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB) to create and maintain the customer contract. 

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 23B, the following FBDI templates are available to use with Apple Macs:
  • Billing and Revenue Management
    • Import Project Billing Events
  • Cost Management and Control
    • Import Assignment Labor Schedules
    • Import Payroll Costs
    • Import Project Expense Costs
    • Import Project Inventory Costs
    • Import Project Labor Costs
    • Import Project Miscellaneous Costs
    • Import Project Nonlabor Costs
    • Import Project Supplier Costs
    • Import Project and Task Transaction Controls
  • Grant Management
    • Import Keywords
  • Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting
    • Import Financial Project Plans
    • Import Project Budgets
    • Import Project Forecasts
    • Import Project Progress
    • Import Project Tasks
  • Project Asset Management
    • Import Asset and Assignments Process
    • Import Unassigned Asset Lines

BILLING AND REVENUE MANAGEMENT

• Improved Performance of Revenue Generation for High-Volume Contracts: Generate Revenue process now recognizes revenue faster for high-volume contracts. The simplifications consist of excluding nonbillable cost transactions and missing billing controls exceptions, in addition to technical fine-tuning.

• Project Contract Bill Transaction Retrieval Using a REST API: Retrieve bill transactions using the Project Contract Bill Transaction REST API. This REST API provides visibility to the amounts not yet invoiced or recognized for revenue for billable cost transactions and billing events.

GRANT MANAGEMENT

• Improvements to Updating Contract for Award: Enhancements to the contract updates for award include:
  • The Save or Submit button is enabled only when the actual dates are changed and not when supporting information is changed, such as when just the amendment effective date is changed.
  • The Save or Submit button is enabled only when the funding amount or associated project information is changed and not when supporting information is changed, such as when just the amendment effective date is changed.

• Read-only User Award List: Use the details icon at the end of the table toolbar in Manage Awards to view the award details for a read-only user instead of the previous edit icon.

PLANNING, SCHEDULING, AND FORECASTING

• Financial Plan Version Approval Workflow Improvements: Enhancements to the approval workflow for financial plan versions (budgets and forecasts) include:
  • Display consumption amounts when creating a baseline for budgets with budgetary controls. This helps project managers or project administrators to identify over consumption for the modified budget amounts.

• Financial Project Plan Task Assignments Deletion Using File-Based Data Import Enhancement: Delete existing financial project plan task assignments using the Import Financial Project Plans process. This builds on the Financial Project Plan Updates Using File-Based Data Import feature (23A).

• Navigation to the Work Item Details from the Manage Project Plan Page: Quickly navigate to the respective work item details page from the Manage Work Items dialog box on the Manage Project Plan page. For example, for negotiation work items on a task, navigate to the corresponding negotiation details page within the Negotiations work area directly from the Manage Work Items dialog box.

• Refresh Rates Enhancement to Retrieve Rates Based on Current Job, Organization, and Role: Refresh rates on a project or planning line to retrieve rates based on the current job, organization, and role for resources used in the planning process. The refresh considers these potential changes and provides rates based on the current information for each resource.

PROJECT ASSET MANAGEMENT

• Project Asset Line Correction Using a REST API: Update the transfer status code for project asset lines from T (transferred) to P (pending) that have been interfaced and have been accidentally deleted from Oracle Assets. This allows these project asset lines to be re-transferred into Oracle Assets.

Steps to Enable

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

Billing and Revenue Management

Bill Transaction and Exception Analysis Using Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence

Create ad-hoc analyses and dashboards on bill transactions and revenue and billing exceptions using new real time subject areas within OTBI. See unbilled cost transactions and billing events in summary and detail. Analyze trends in revenue and billing exceptions to see how successful your action plans are in reducing exceptions.

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

Project Billing - Bill Transactions Real Time Subject Area

What are bill transactions?

Bill transactions are the smallest unit of transactional detail that can appear on a project contract invoice. Bill transactions arise from the provision or delivery of projects, products or services to a customer, to an agreed schedule. Bill transactions are the economic value of the effort expended, progress made, services rendered, or goods delivered against a legally binding agreement between the supplier and customer. Bill transactions are therefore at the intersection of the invoice generation and revenue recognition processes.

Examples of business events that typically lead to the creation of bill transactions include:

• A time card entry being imported against a billable task on a contract project.
• A billing event being raised for a completed project deliverable.
• A billing event being raised for a milestone in the percentage of project completion.

How and when are bill transactions created?

Bill transactions are created prior to invoice generation and revenue recognition, or by either one of these processes, depending on which is executed first. Thereafter, bill transactions maintain an inception-to-date summary of amounts that have been or will be processed by invoice generation and/or revenue recognition processes.

While the Generate Invoices and Generate Revenue processes are responsible for the creation and maintenance of bill transactions today, we're planning to add automation in future releases, where bill transactions are maintained when source transactions (namely project costs and billing events) are created and updated. Note that the Generate Invoices method of creating bill transactions consumes contract funding, which sets the billing status of the source transactions to “Invoiced” (as seen in the Manage Project Costs and Manage Events pages). Future releases will provide improved flexibility in this area.

The following diagram and accompanying bullets summarize how bill transactions relate to other business objects within billing process flows:

Diagram Showing How Bill Transactions Are Related to Source Transactions, Revenue and Invoices

• For a billing event to be eligible to create a bill transaction, it must have a completion date between the start and end dates of an active contract and contract line. 

• For a project cost to be eligible to create a bill transaction it must be marked as billable, and have a transaction date between the start and end dates of an active, linked contract and contract line.

• Depending on the invoice and revenue method on the bill and revenue plans of the contract line, a bill transaction may be eligible for invoice generation, revenue recognition, or both.

• When a bill transaction is successfully processed by invoice generation, an invoice distribution is created. Invoice distributions reflect an "instance" of a bill transaction being billed, and record the amount of a bill transaction included on a particular invoice. In certain scenarios, such as partial billing (where only part of a bill transaction is invoiced due to billing controls), a single bill transaction may result in multiple invoice distributions. Every time a bill transaction is processed, it keeps a record of the summary position.

• In the context of invoicing, bill transactions can be thought of as a schedule of charges that will be made to a customer.

A worked example: Reporting on unbilled transactions using OTBI

Consider the following example, where project managers at Vision (a professional services organization) need to report on unbilled amounts (also known as "work in progress" or "WIP") on their projects. Note that the dashboards shown are an example of what can be built using OTBI, and are not included as part of this feature.

• A contract and associated project are established to deliver consulting services to a new client, Hilman and Associates. The project start date is 01-JAN-2023 but the contractual start date is 01-FEB-2023. Billing will primarily be performed on a time and materials basis (using a rate-based invoice method on the bill plan), but additional performance bonuses will also be charged to the client, as well as charges associated with the delivery of inventory items (laptops).

• Time cards are booked by consultants working on the project, along with expenses and usages of computer equipment. Resulting costs are successfully processed by the Import Costs process. The highlighted transactions are those that are eligible for billing; they have been booked to tasks that are associated with an active contract, and have transaction dates between the contractual start and end date:

Manage Project Costs Page Showing Project Costs Eligible for Billing

• Billing events for performance-related bonuses and item-based charges are created by the project billing specialist. The highlighted events are those that are eligible for billing; they have completion dates between the contractual start and end date:

Manage Events Page Showing Events Eligible for Billing

• As of this release, in order to create bill transactions for eligible source transactions without creating invoices or recognizing revenue, the Generate Invoices process needs to be run or scheduled by an appropriate user. Use the Create Billing Transactions and Create Invoices parameters of the Generate Invoices process as required.

• The Generate Invoices Report shows a summary of the bill transactions created for the eligible source transactions. Note that billing events without a completion date are not included in the Ineligible Events count.

• The project manager's BI administrator has created an "unbilled" dashboard page using the new Project Billing - Bill Transactions Real Time subject area. The analysis enables the project manager to select one of their projects, report the total unbilled amount, and see a listing of all unbilled transactions with the expected bill amount for each. Additional dashboard pages and performance tiles, created using other relevant subject areas, show the project manager other contextually important information. This may include existing invoices that are in progress, completed invoices awaiting payment, costs marked as not billable, billing exceptions that need attention, and a summary of project funding. Should the project manager want to take action on a specific bill transaction, such as to transfer the source project cost to another project, a deep link could be added to the report. The highlighted view selector indicates how the project manager could switch table views from summary to labor or nonlabor details:

A Sample Dashboard Showing Unbilled Bill Transactions

• At the end of the month, an invoice is drafted for the project. The project manager revisits their dashboard and can see the relevant transactions have been cleared from the unbilled report. The highlighted billing in progress performance tile shows the total amount associated with draft invoices. When those invoices are approved and booked to accounts receivable, the billed tile would update accordingly:

Projects - Billing and Revenue Exceptions Real Time Subject Area

The Projects – Billing and Revenue Exceptions Real Time subject area provides the exception details and related dimensions to analyze, review and resolve issues raised in the invoice generation, revenue generation, transfer invoice to Oracle Fusion Receivables and update invoice from Oracle Fusion Receivables processes.

As an example, use this subject area to build a dashboard in OTBI which shows the total number of billing and revenue exceptions, exception counts by message type and the number of exceptions raised in each application process. Add prompts to your dashboard, such as contract business unit, contract name, and project name, to filter exceptions data.

From the summary overview information, you can drill down to view the exception messages of a certain type or those raised within a specific process.

Create detailed reports displaying the attributes relevant for analyzing and resolving a particular exception. For example, selecting the "transaction doesn't have an active labor bill rate" exception displays a report which lists all of the labor transactions rejected by the invoicing process due to a missing bill rate. Details of the labor transactions include person name, job, project role and transaction date in addition to the charged project and task.

Example Billing and Revenue Exceptions Dashboard

The business benefits for the two subject areas delivered in this feature are:

• Project managers and project billing specialists can easily and continuously report on unbilled amounts (also known as "work in progress" or "WIP") across their projects, without needing to wait for revenue to be recognized or invoices to be drafted. This will alleviate time pressures at billing and/or accounting period end.

• Project billing specialists and project accountants no longer need to prematurely and iteratively regenerate draft invoices or recognize revenue in order to enable unbilled reporting.

• Project managers, project billing specialists, project accountants and grants accountants can easily report all billing and revenue exceptions across projects and business units.

• Project managers no longer need to navigate to different work areas to view exceptions for their projects based on the process in which the exceptions were raised.

Steps to Enable

Leverage new subject area(s) by adding to existing reports or using in new reports. For details about creating and editing reports, see the Creating and Administering Analytics and Reports book (available from the Oracle Help Center > your apps service area of interest > Books > Administration).

No steps are required to enable the new subject areas.

Tips And Considerations

Using the Project Billing - Bill Transactions Real Time subject area:

• For detailed reporting on transactions that have already been billed you should consider using the existing Project Billing - Invoices Real Time subject area, which provides invoice and invoice line attributes, as well as detail down to the invoice line distribution level.

• This subject area is focused on upcoming invoice and revenue processing. To report on project cost amounts you should use the existing Project Costing - Actual Costs Real Time subject area, which provides information down to the cost distribution level.

• Item-based reporting using this subject area is currently only available for item-based billing events, and not bill transactions originating from item-based project costs.

• Separate attributes are currently available for reporting unit of measure and unit price (also known as bill rate) for bill transactions originating from project costs and billing events.

• As of this release, the "billed" measures in this subject area indicate that a draft invoice has been created. They do not indicate whether said invoice has been accepted in receivables and/or sent to the client.

• Historic rate-based bill transactions, which pre-date the item-based billing feature, will not show a quantity.

Using the Projects – Billing and Revenue Exceptions Real Time subject area:

• The Contract and Contract Line information included in this subject area are from the current active contract version.  Because Enterprise Contracts allows purging of a historical contract version, it may be possible that a billing or revenue exception was raised and recorded as a bill transaction exception against an older version of the contract which no longer exists in the application. Rerunning the revenue or invoice generation processes will delete existing bill transaction exceptions if they are no longer relevant for the current contract version. If the exceptions persist in the context of the current contract version, then the contract version linkages on the exceptions are updated to the current contract version.

Is there anything else you want to see in these subject areas? Please let us know by raising an Idea or upvoting an existing one on Cloud Customer Connect.

Key Resources

• Related Help:
  • For details about creating and editing reports, see the Creating and Administering Analytics and Reports book (available from the Oracle Help Center > your apps service area of interest > Books > Administration).
  • For details about bill transactions and their role in the billing process, see the Project Contract Billing > Billing Transactions topic in the Using Project Revenue and Billing guide (available from the Oracle Help Center > your apps service area of interest > Books > User).

• Based on Ideas 555182 and 516990 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

Project Billing - Bill Transactions Real Time Subject Area

• To use this subject area, you need one of these job or duty roles:

  • Role Name and Code:
    • Project Manager (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_MANAGER_JOB)
    • Project Billing Specialist (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_BILLING_SPECIALIST_JOB)
    • Project Contract Bill Transaction Analysis Duty (FBI_PROJECT_CONTRACT_BILL_TRANSACTION_ANALYSIS_DUTY)

• Data in this subject area is secured by the following policies:
  • Project Managers can view bill transactions for the projects to which they have access.
  • Project Billing Specialists can view bill transactions for the contract business units to which they have access.

Projects - Billing and Revenue Exceptions Real Time Subject Area

• To use this subject area, you need one of these job or duty roles:

  • Role Name and Code:
    • Project Manager (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_MANAGER_JOB)
    • Project Billing Specialist (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_BILLING_SPECIALIST_JOB)
    • Project Accountant (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_ACCOUNTANT_JOB)
    • Grants Accountant (ORA_PJF_GRANTS_ACCOUNTANT_JOB)
    • Project Billing Revenue Exceptions Transaction Analysis Duty (FBI_PROJECT_BILL_REV_EXCEPTIONS_TRANSACTION_ANALYSIS_DUTY)

• Data in this subject area is secured by the following policies:
  • Project Managers can view all exceptions for the projects to which they have access.
  • Project Billing Specialists can view exceptions encountered in the invoice generation, transfer invoice to Oracle Fusion Receivables, and update invoice from Oracle Fusion Receivables processes for the contract business units to which they have access.
  • Project Accountants can view exceptions encountered in the revenue generation process for the contract business units to which they have access.
  • Grants Accountants can view all exceptions for the contract business units to which they have access.

Common to Both Subject Areas

Project Manager access for both new subject areas in this feature require the user to be assigned as a project resource on the project, as opposed to using Team Members, and the project role for the person's resource assignment must be mapped to the Project Manager enterprise role, as shown in the following example:

Manage Project Roles Page in Setup and Maintenance, Showing Two Project Roles Both Mapped to the Project Manager Enterprise (job) Role

Display Content Control in Downloaded Word Document

If you're using structured terms, you can choose to display content control boxes in Microsoft Word when the contract is downloaded.

When the contract is downloaded to Microsoft Word, you'll be able to see content control boxes when you click on each clause, clause title, or section title.

Content Control in Downloaded Contract

Hit the End key on your keyboard to exit the content control box and add a new section or clause. You can manually add new content using Word styles to mark new sections and clauses. Internal application users can also use the Oracle Contracts add-in.

Displaying content control boxes around existing sections and clauses make it easier to see where to add new content to the downloaded contract. This helps you quickly locate and view what changes were made to the contract when uploaded to the application.

Steps to Enable

Check the option Display content control in downloaded contract in the terms template to see content control boxes in Microsoft Word when any contract using that template is downloaded.

Edit Terms Template

Tips And Considerations

If you've chosen to display content control boxes, they'll only be displayed around existing content downloaded from the application. They won't be displayed around any new sections or clauses you've added.

Quantity and Rate Displayed on Labor Invoice Lines

Capture quantity, unit of measure, and unit price on labor project contract invoice lines. The main benefit of this feature is to transfer the attributes to receivables, so users can print them on the receivables invoice, display them on the invoice UI, and include them in OTBI reports.

Define and utilize a Labor Invoice Format that includes the new grouping attribute 'Unit Price in Invoice Currency – Prorated' to ensure that the quantity, unit of measure, and unit price in invoice currency are populated on the labor invoice line, as illustrated below.

Invoice Details for a Project Contract Invoice

The quantity, unit of measure, and unit price in invoice currency are synchronized with the Receivables invoice.

View Invoice in Receivables

When an adjustment is performed on the billed labor cost transactions, the resulting credit memo will have the quantity, unit of measure, and unit price in invoice currency populated. These attributes are synchronized with the Receivables credit memo as well.

Concessions or Write-offs will not have a quantity or unit price, and the unit of measure on the credit invoice line is derived from the original invoice line. The resulting Receivables credit memo's quantity will be 1 or -1, and the unit price will equal the line amount.

A canceled invoice will result in a credit invoice created with a quantity, unit of measure, and unit price in invoice currency populated, reversing the original invoice. All attributes are synchronized with the Receivables credit memo.

For an inventory-based contract line, the inventory item from the contract line is also synchronized with the Receivables invoice.

The key benefit of this feature is that it replaces custom solution approaches to extract the quantity and unit price from the invoice line description to display and print on the Receivables invoices. It also replaces the need to modify the data in the Receivables interface table to achieve this business requirement.

Steps to Enable

• The project application administrator needs to define a labor invoice format with the new grouping attribute 'Unit Price in Invoice Currency – Prorated', as illustrated below.

Defining the Invoice Format

• The new grouping attribute 'Unit Price in Invoice Currency – Prorated' is available for the below-mentioned grouping options on the Manage Invoice Formats page.
  • All
  • Contract Line Project/Task, Person
  • Contract Line Project/Task, Job
  • Contract Line Project/Task, Work Site, Person
  • Contract Line Project/Task, Work Site, Job
  • Contract Line, All
  • Contract Line, Contract Line Project/Task, Person
  • Contract Line, Contract Line Project/Task, Job
  • Contract Line, Contract Line Project/Task, Work Site, Person
  • Contract Line, Contract Line Project/Task, Work Site, Job
  • Contract Line, Work Site, Person
  • Contract Line, Work Site, Job
  • Contract Line, Person
  • Contract Line, Job
  • Person
  • Job
  • Work Site, Person
  • Work Site, Job

• The project application administrator needs to define a unit of measure value, defined in Inventory, in the below-mentioned seeded profile if the unit of measure on the labor invoice lines is not from Inventory.

Setup Task: Specify Unit of Measure for Invoice Lines Sent to Oracle Fusion Receivables - ORA_PJB_AR_INVOICE_LABOR_UOM_HOURS.

          

Defining the Unit of Measure

Tips And Considerations

• Standard or credit invoices for a project contract having the Net Credit option enabled will not have the quantity, unit of measure, and unit price populated on the labor invoice line.

• A labor invoice line created using manual Invoicing will not have the quantity, unit of measure, and unit price populated.

• Invoice lines based on Nonlabor cost transactions and amount-based billing events will not have the quantity, unit of measure, and unit price populated.

• Invoiced quantity and unit price in invoice currency is not populated on labor invoice distributions for rate-based invoice method classification with labor schedule type as cost reimbursable or burden or transfer price.  Moreover, invoiced quantity and unit price in invoice currency is not populated on the labor invoice distributions when the invoiced amount is derived based on labor markup percentage or multiplier.

• Unit price in invoice currency on the labor invoice line is prorated based on the invoice amount in invoice currency divided by the quantity.

• If the unit of measure on the labor invoice lines is from Inventory, then the ORA_PJB_AR_INVOICE_LABOR_UOM_HOURS profile option setup is optional.

Key Resources

• Based on Idea 638823 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need the below-mentioned role.

• Job Role Name and Code:
  • Project Billing Specialist (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_BILLING_SPECIALIST_JOB)
  • Project Application Administrator (ORA_PJF_PROJECTS_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB)

Upload Your Contract Document in the Background

You can upload your contract document from the Contract Terms page or Oracle Contracts Word add-in using an automated scheduled background process. You can continue to perform limited actions from the Contract Terms page or work on other contracts while the upload is in progress. You can override this option if you want to upload your document in real time.

Upload in Background

While the upload is in progress, the process status is displayed as a banner.

Upload Status Banner in Contract

You are notified by email when the contract document is uploaded and you can also view the notification in the application.

This is useful when uploading large documents that may take additional time.

Steps to Enable

Use the Allow background upload check box in the Edit Terms Template page

Allow Background Upload in Terms Template

Cost Management and Control

Distributed Payroll Cost Mass Adjustment and Deletion

Delete or adjust distributed payroll costs in large sets based on multiple parameter options. This feature enables Labor Distribution Accountants to remove or adjust large sets of costs using one or more criteria directly from the page where analysis and redistribution occurs.

This action is available on the Mange Labor Costs page.

Action on Manage Labor Costs Page

Once you choose a set of parameters and decide to continue, the application lists out the changes it will make as a result of your choices.

Continue Feedback

This feedback message lets you download the set of payroll costs that will be impacted so that you can review them before you continue. This is helpful when the set of payroll costs being changed is large, and if you want to keep these records for future reference.

The business benefit of this feature is a reduction in the amount of time required to search for specific payroll costs or groups of costs. Another business benefit of this feature is that you can be confident that your changes are effective and correct because you are provided the option to review them before continuing.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

• Related Help:
  • See Using Project Costing - Labor Distribution.

• Based on Idea 659940 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need the following privileges:

• Manage Project Labor Distributions (PJC_MANAGE_PROJECT_LABOR_DISTRIBUTIONS_PRIV)

Labor Schedule Version Date Changes

Change the dates of a labor schedule, reducing the need to duplicate existing versions. Expenditure item dates of distributed costs must continue to be between the start and end dates defined.

This functionality allows you to use the Inactive status to change the start and end date of a version. By setting an Active version to Inactive, this ensures that while the changes are being made, payroll costs will not continue to distribute. 

Edit a Version

If there are costs that are outside the updated start or end date, you will receive an informative error message to let you know that the changes cannot be made.

Version Date Cost Controls

The business benefit of this feature is reducing the time it takes to modify existing labor schedule versions and removing the need to create new versions for every change.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

• Related Help: Labor Distribution chapter in the Using Project Costing guide.
• Based on Idea 613353 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, the following roles are required:

• Labor Distribution Administrator (ORA_PJF_LABOR_DISTRIBUTION_ADMINISTRATOR_DISCRETIONARY)

Grant Management

Assistance Listing Numbers Terminology for Grant Management

References to Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, or CFDA, are now Assistance Listing Numbers, or ALN, throughout the application to conform with US federal government standards.

Assistance Listing Numbers in Edit Award Details

Updated Terminology Within Help Content

The business benefit of this feature is the ability to correctly adhere with updated US federal government naming standards. 

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

• The Awards API will still use the term CFDA and will be updated to include the ALN terminology in a future release.

Key Resources

• Based on Idea 631660 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need one of these roles:

• Grants Administrator (ORA_PJF_GRANTS_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB)
• Grants Department Administrator (ORA_PJF_GRANTS_DEPARTMENT_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB)
• Principal Investigator (ORA_PJF_PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR_JOB)

Letter of Credit and Document Number Updates on Active Awards

Update letter of credit details by amending active awards to accurately represent and track the method of reimbursement.

The letter of credit details is located in the bill plan associated to the contract line. Amend the contract, if active, to change the letter of credit details even if invoice or revenue is generated for the award.

Changing the letter of credit details could result in billing adjustments. Either automatic billing adjustments will be performed if the amendment is retroactive or manual billing adjustments need to be performed.

Contract Bill Plan Letter of Credit Details

Changing the bill-to account number affects the letter of credit details, since the letter of credit details is derived from the account number assigned to the sponsor. If the bill-to account number is not specifically assigned to the sponsor, then the letter of credit details, if available, is retrieved from the primary sponsor account.

The following validations are relaxed to warning when the bill plan contains the letter of credit details:

• The same bill plan can be used across multiple contract lines.
• The same document number can be used across multiple contract lines, but has to be unique across multiple contracts.
• The bill plan should have a different bill set number for a different document number.

You can now view the bill-to account information for a sponsor of the award in the Edit Award Details and Award Review pages.

Billing Details for Award

The business benefit of this feature is additional flexibility in correcting the billing and reimbursement methods for an in-progress award to comply with sponsor regulation.

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

• Updating a sponsor's letter of credit details will carry forward to only new awards created after the sponsor update. Any existing award should be updated manually if the letter of credits needs to be changed.

• To create a credit memo for invoices that are released/transferred or accepted, either place the cost transaction on invoice hold or set it to nonbillable. The Recalculate Invoice action for a cost transaction will also create a credit memo if the contract has been amended to change the amount to be billed. For example, when you make a change to a bill rate override or a change to the invoice method classification.

• A change to the cost burden rate when separate line burdening is used doesn't auto-create credit memos.

• Invoice and revenue ineligibility exceptions are raised when the award is a letter of credit award, but the sponsor account was updated as not a letter of credit.

Key Resources

• Related Help:

  • Best Practices for Editing Invoice Transactions in Project Contract Billing of the Using Project Revenue and Billing user guide.

• Based on Idea 546339 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

To amend the contract, you need one of the following roles:

• Grants Administrator (ORA_PJF_GRANTS_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB)
• Grants Department Administrator (ORA_PJF_GRANTS_DEPARTMENT_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB)
• Principal Investigator (ORA_PJF_PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR_JOB)

Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting

Financial Project Plan Planning Options Management Using a REST API

Manage planning options for financial project plans using the Financial Project Plan REST API. Override the default planning options defined from the project plan type while creating an financial project plan. This override facility better aligns to the user experience available to users in the user interface.

The business benefit is that system integrators, administrators, or developers can override the planning options while creating a project or viewing and managing the planning options for existing projects.

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.

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

Key Resources

• REST API for Oracle Fusion Cloud Project Management guide available on the Oracle Help Center.
• Based on Idea 609670 from Idea Labs on Oracle Customer Connect

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need one of these privileges and roles:

• Privilege Name and Code:
  • Manage Project Financial Plans Service (PJO_MANAGE_PROJECT_FINANCIAL_PLANS_SERVICE_PRIV)

• Job Role Name and Code:
  • Project Integration Specialist (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_INTEGRATION_SPECIALIST_JOB)
  • Project Application Administrator (ORA_PJF_PROJECTS_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB)
  • Project Administrator (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB)
  • Project Manager (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_MANAGER_JOB)

Attachments for Project Issues

Attach, store, and associate attachments to project issues for tracking additional documents and bringing issues to closure with required references. Link documents such as files, URLs, or plain text to document the causes and resolutions for project issues.

Attachments can be associated both to projects and to individual tasks as well.

For example, a research and development firm is working on a project and there has been a scope change because of a need for a detailed review analysis for a project. The scope change not only incorporates rework but also manpower limitation for the project. The analysis division raises an issue to inform their higher management and requests for labor resource allocation to ensure the analysis is done correctly and on time.

Create a new attachment to the issue to reflect the initial and revised scope changes.

Create Attachments for Issue

Add two file type attachments to the issue to reflect the initial and revised scope changes. Also, add a text type attachment to explain the resource constraint caused by the scope change.

Additional Attachments for Issue

The business benefits of associating attachments is to boost collaboration and efficiency and the detailed abilities include:

• Improved Collaboration: The ability to attach, store and associate relevant documents and notes to corresponding issues will help alleviation of the issue effective. With all relevant information at one place, team members can easily access and share information and refer when necessary.

• Increased Productivity: By having all relevant documents and information associated with project issues in one place, team members can save time and effort searching for information across multiple sources. This feature can help reduce the amount of time spent on issue resolution, increasing productivity and efficiency across everywhere.

• Improvised Issue Tracking: With the ability to link documents such as files, URLs or plain text to project issues, the feature enables better tracking of the causes and resolutions for project issues. This will help team members to identify patterns and recurring issues, which can be addressed more effectively in the future.

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

• To update an existing attachment, click the Manage Attachments icon (or 'x more' link) and make the necessary updates. Selecting the attachment link will initiate a file download or open a URL in a new browser window. Note that when there are multiple attachments, hover of the 'x more' link and then select the attachment that you are interested in.

• Utilize the Batch Action capability of the Issues REST API to add multiple attachments at a time.

• When adding attachments to Issues using the REST API, provide a DatatypeCode of 'FILE', 'TEXT', or 'WEB_PAGE' to ensure the attachment is created successfully.'

Key Resources

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

• Based on Idea 576644 from the Project Management Idea Labs on Oracle Cloud Customer Connect.

Access Requirements

To be able to use the feature, you need to have these roles and privileges:

• Project Manager (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_MANAGER_JOB)
• Team Collaborator (ORA_PJF_TEAM_COLLABORATOR_ABSTRACT

Program Management and Reporting

Program Communication Enhancements

Program managers regularly publish program communications to share the health of the program and encourage stakeholder collaboration. Receive email and application notifications when new program communication reports are published and available in the Communications user interface for your review. Subscribe or unsubscribe to manage which reports you'd like to receive notifications for.

Subscribe to Notifications 

Stakeholders and program managers can download published reports for viewing, printing, and forwarding. When downloading, select a file format that best matches how the file will be used. Options include formats for viewing in Excel, PowerPoint, and XML. Program managers assign a custom layout to the report template to provide report content in the download that has the desired look for the intended audience.

Additionally, program managers can edit report and template properties including the names, descriptions, and report frequency. 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.

Continuing the investment in action plans to facilitate program communication and success, a single table on the user interface now includes both action plans and their action items together. This approach provides easier visibility into action item status and overall action plan progress. Action plans are used to track various situations when managing programs. They play an essential role in effectively communicating expected resolutions and program activities, along with a set of actions needed to achieve them. For more about action plans, see the feature “Program Action Plans and Issues” in What's New for Update 23A.

Action Plans with Action Items

The following REST APIs are available for program communications and action plans.

• Project Program Communications: Manage templates, reports, and report recipients. Manage comments for a report.
• Project Issues: Manage action plans and the action items assigned to the plan.

Business Benefits

• Notifications inform stakeholders about new communication reports. Stakeholders 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 your reporting styles.

• Program managers gain visibility into action plan progress using the consolidated view of action plans and action items.

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

Program managers can also subscribe to receive notifications when reports are published. For example, subscribe to reports where you are a contributor, reports that publish automatically, and public program reports.

Project application administrators use Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher to create custom layouts and styling for downloaded communication reports. 

• Navigate to the catalog by selecting the Browse Catalog button in Reports and Analytics. The “Program Communication Report” default report and “Program Communication Report Data Model” data model are in the Projects, Project Performance Reporting shared folder.

• Save custom layouts in the Custom, Projects catalog folder. Start by copying the default report to edit, or create it from scratch using the layout editor or uploading an RTF, PDF, Excel, XSL, or eText template file.

• Consider how the downloaded communication report will be used by program managers and stakeholders. Program managers can assign one custom report to a communication template. A layout design may work in many file formats, or work best for a specific output, such as PowerPoint or Excel. Name reports so program managers can easily identify the layout design.

• Provide the complete folder path, including the file name and .xdo extension, to program managers. For example, /Custom/Projects/LandscapeExecutiveCommunication.xdo

Create Custom Layouts Using Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher

Similarly, project application administrators use Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher to tailor the content, layout, and style of the notifications. The “Program Communication Notification Report” report and “Program Communication Notification Report Data Model” data model are in the Project Performance Reporting folder in the Projects, Workflow Notifications shared folder.

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.
  • “Project Programs” chapter in the Using Project Performance Reporting guide.
  • “Reports” in the “Analyses, Reports, and Dashboards Modification” chapter in the Creating and Administering Analytics and Reports for Project Management guide.
  • Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher, Design Reports on Oracle Help Center.
  • REST API for Oracle Project Portfolio Management Cloud guide.
  • Program Manager, Project Executive, and Project Application Administrator in the Security Reference for PPM guide.
  • Securing ERP guide.

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need these roles:

• Privilege Name and Code:
  • Manage Project Program (PJS_MANAGE_PROJECT_PROGRAM)
  • View Project Program (PJS_VIEW_PROJECT_PROGRAM)

• Job Role Name and Code:
  • Program Manager (ORA_PJF_PROGRAM_MANAGER)
  • Project Executive (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_EXECUTIVE)
  • Project Application Administrator (ORA_PROJECT_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR)

Resource Management

Common Financial Cost and Bill Rates for Resource Requests and Assignments

Request, search, assign, and maintain project resources using the common source of truth for resource and project role rates for financially-enabled projects. This allows project managers to estimate the cost of project labor resources with improved accuracy earlier in the planning phase, since resource requests can use cost rates from rate schedules associated with the project and bill rates from the contract-level project/task overrides in the bill plan.

This builds on the Common Rates for Project Labor Resources Across Financial and Work Planning feature that was introduced in 23A; common rates are now extended to the search/match/assign process, further reducing the need to maintain rates for your project enterprise resources.

View the Cost and Bill Rates for Resource and Project Role

This feature benefits businesses by standardizing rate derivation across all phases of the project, thus helping project managers to estimate project cost and revenue with improved accuracy.  In addition, this offers the resource manager  to have visibility into more accurate rates during the resource matching and assignment process.

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

IMPORTANT NOTE:

To enable this feature, enable the parent feature, Common Rates for Project Labor Resources Across Financial and Work Planning, in the Project Execution functional area.

Tips And Considerations

• This feature is applicable to financially-enabled projects only. In non-financial projects and resource requests without projects, resource rates are always defaulted from the rates defined in Manage Project Enterprise Resources page.

• Cost rates are derived for project roles only if project role based rate schedules are defined and associated with the project plan.

• The application only derives bill rates for project resources when the project has a single contract, and the bill plan has rates defined at the contract level.

• Any manual updates to resource rates for reserved and confirmed assignment won't be considered when managing financial aspects of the project, such as financial plans, budgets, and forecasts. If the project manager selects the Refresh Rates action on the Manage Project Resources page, it will replace the manual updates with the default standard rates from the rate schedules or overrides from the project settings.

Key Resources

• Related Help:
  • Considerations for Selecting Rate Schedules for Project and Financial Planning in Implementing Project Financial Management and Grants Management user guide.
  • Planning to Billing by Project Role feature delivered in 23B.

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

Access Requirements

To use this feature, you need one of these roles:

• Project Manager (ORA_PJF_PROJECT_MANAGER_JOB)
• Resource Manager (ORA_PJF_RESOURCE_MANAGER_JOB)
• Project Application Administrator (ORA_PJF_PROJECTS_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB)

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.

Product	Removed Feature	Target Removal	Replacement Feature	Replaced In	Additional Information
Project Management	PPM Mobile application (Android and iOS) Enter Time on Mobile Manage Tasks on iPhones Manage Tasks on Android Phones	23B	Oracle Digital Assistant for Project Time and Project Management	21B	The mobile application will continue to work during the transition, but we do not plan any further enhancements. We will enhance the digital assistant skills for project time and project management in upcoming releases.
Project Management	NOTE: 23B prevents new use for customers not currently using EPS. Existing use of EPS is not impacted. Enterprise Project Structures (EPS)	23B	Program Management	22B	We recommend moving to program management for reporting needs. Program Management (22B) Program Management Communication (22D) Program Action Plans and Issues (23A) For related security requirements to access projects that currently leverage the EPS, consider the following two security enhancements: Expanded Project Access Configuration for the Project Management Work Area (21D) Expanded View Project Plan Access for Non-Team Members (22A)
Project Management	NOTE: This is not a removed feature, but a security enhancement that requires your attention. Access to the Project Management Work Area transitions from being strictly based only on user’s roles on the project, to a more flexible and configurable model to meet broader business requirements. The replacement feature delivers this change and will no longer be optional from the release mentioned in the Target Removal column.	23D	Expanded Project Access Configuration for the Project Management Work Area	21D	For the predefined roles, the default behavior after the change is the same as the current behavior and no additional action is required. However, if you have set up custom roles, review them and make necessary changes after enabling this feature. This is an opportunity to revisit security requirements and optionally provide access without direct assignments. Related Help: Project Management Work Area Security

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.