The Experts in Oracle Projects SM

1. The Experts in Oracle ProjectsSM Making Workplans Work for You Tips and Pitfalls (to avoid) Presented by Neeraj Garg Vice President, Consulting Services

2. About Project Partners, LLC • Founded in 1997 by former chief architect of Oracle Projects • Former Oracle developers, consultants, support technicians and marketing personnel • ~225 successful customers • Expert services • Products to extend Oracle’s solutions

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5. Oracle Project ManagementWorkplans What are these? Tips on Implementing and Using Pitfalls to avoid

6. Workplans – What are these? • Project Schedule • Used to plan timeline and track progress • Can be separate from Financial WBS • Typically used: • As the project schedule for tracking progress • For integration to Staffing plan – Resource Management • As an initial estimating tool • No in-built scheduling algorithms

7. Workplans – What are these? • Components of Workplans • Schedule activities with Rollup WBS • Full Set of Dates – Planned, Estimated, Actual, Early Start/Finish, Late Start finish • Critical and milestone activity classifications • Dependencies and Constraints • Deliverables (project/task level) • Resource assignments • People, Equipment, Material, Financial Element

8. Structures - Financial v/s Workplan WBS For Schedule Tracking – To automatically get actuals into Workplans • Fully shared • Partially shared • Non-shared, mapped • Non-shared

9. Workplan Versioning • Why Version? • Allows PM to make changes without impacting team • Earned Value Analysis – need Baseline Version • Track historical versions to review how plan changed • Enables workflow to get change approvals and send notifications • Issues • Unable to modify baseline version for adding new tasks – always includes any plan changes to date • Builds up tremendous volume with historical versions as any change needs a new version • Making Changes after Progress collected is cumbersome • Apply progress to working version, make changes, reschedule and then publish.

10. Resources in Workplans • New Planning Resource Model • Centralized Resource Lists • Limit Resources used in Planning • Actuals mapping uses existing resources only • Resources readily available for assignment to tasks • Need to keep centralized list updated – difficult to maintain • Decentralized Resource Lists • No Centralized maintenance needed • Actuals mapping will create new resources if not mappable • PMs to add resources to their project prior to assigning to tasks – may be time consuming • Can be mitigated by pre-defining common resources

11. Resources in Workplans • An assigned resource record has all possible resource attributes like Org, Job, Type, Category, etc. • Selecting Formats to include in Resource Lists if Workplans used for Schedule Tracking • Need actuals to map into Workplan Resources for progress entry • 2 Key attributes to be cognizant of • Expenditure Organization – defaults to project/task org if not specified on the resource • Expenditure Type – defaults from Resource Class setup and used in burdened cost computation for planned resources except in the case of Named People and Non-Labor Res for which the assigned resource organization is used • These attributes are both used to derive burden multipliers used in calculating burdened cost for planned resources

12. Resources in Workplans • Resource Formats – Expenditure Organization • If Expenditure Organization of Actuals are expected to be different from the project organization – select formats with organization in the combination • Example: Org-Job, Org-Role, etc. • Forces PMs to think about which organization will provide generic resources– Jobs, Roles, Supplier Inv, etc. – to the project • Exceptions obviously are for Named People and NL-Resource • For these the organization defaults from assigned org • With Organization Attribute properly stamped on planned resources, actuals will map correctly to these resources to give you progress against plan

13. Resources in Workplans • Resource Formats – Expenditure Types • Now Exp. Types primarily drive Burdening on Planned Resources. • If you don’t care to plan by expenditure type for Labor resources, then don’t assign a default expenditure type to the Resource Classes • Now if your formats don’t include Expenditure Types • You can use Expenditure Categories instead to plan at a higher level grouping. • Burdens will not be calculated • If you care about Burdens • Use a different rate schedule for costs with fully burdened rates as planning rates on the workplan – No Raw Cost • Using planning rates disables use of project/task bill rate overrides

14. Workplans – Staffing Plan Integration • Two-Way integration delivered • Top Down – Define your requirements/Assignments in PJR and these resources are automatically available to assign to tasks on Workplans • Bottom Up – Assign resources to your workplan tasks and then accumulate resource effort and duration across tasks to automatically create Requirements/ Assignments in PJR. Requirements staffed in PJR are automatically updated into the workplan • This integration works very well for the first time • From subsequent updates to effort / duration made in Workplans, only Duration is pushed back to PJR – Effort is NOT

15. Workplans – Progress Management • Tips on Handling Progress • Need to define Progress Cycle (Daily/Weekly/Monthly) • Daily is not recommended as actuals (especially timecards) are not entered and submitted daily. • Actuals come into Workplan from Summarization Tables • Keep in mind the Timecard Submission Deadlines and then factor in time for Txn Import, Cost Distribution and Summarization • Latest Actuals should be available to the PM to get accurate progress • Actuals are brought into Workplans using the GL date of the transactions and not the EI Date • Hence if not using EPP – all monthly txns will come in at the end of the month only • EI for today 4/13 will come into workplans with an as of date of 4/30 – assuming calendar months for GL Periods

16. Workplans – MS-Project Integration • Standard Delivered Functionality for the Desktop edition of MS-Project • Most stable Release is RUP4 + patch for 6315190 • Resources to be assigned to tasks in MSP must be downloaded from Oracle – DO NOT CREATE NEW RESOURCES IN MSP • Use the Oracle Delivered views available from the “Oracle Projects” menu to do your work in MSP – this will ensure that you do not unknowingly override a column used by Oracle • When Downloading from Oracle into MSP, always select the option to download task numbers to ensure that you can assign your own task numbers to any new tasks that you create in MSP

17. Workplans – MS-Project Integration • When Integrating to Shared Structured • Integration runs through Workplans • Enable Time-Phased Plans to get Time-Phased data from MSP • Tasks Deleted in MSP are deleted from Workplans on Publishing (If Versioning enabled) • Only Qty is sent from MSP for Resource Assignments. Cost is calculated in Oracle • Downloading Progress brings Actuals to MSP • % Complete Downloaded to Oracle % Complete Field (Number3) in MSP

18. Workplans – MS-Project Integration • When Integrating to Split Structured • Choice of Integration to Workplans / Financial • Financial: Only Financial Attributes Uploaded. Schedule Dates from MSP go to Transaction Dates • Financial: Only Tasks Uploaded to Oracle. Assignments can be uploaded as Budget. • Financial: Actual Data can be downloaded to MSP using the Receive from Oracle Projects -> Actuals • Financial: % Complete is uploaded to Financial % Complete tables in Oracle • Workplans: Use “Calculate Costs using MSP” option to upload costs from MSP to Oracle • When creating projects from MSP, download Resource List from Template. When uploading template selected must have same resource list

19. Workplans – MS-Project Integration • LOVs in MS-Project • For the following fields to get LOVs in MS-P, place your cursor on the field and then go to Oracle Projects -> Receive from Oracle Projects > List of Values • Service Type • Task manager • Priority • Progress Status • Item • UOM • Task Type • Task Status • Work Type • Fields in red show the code instead of user description

20. Workplans – MS-Project Integration • Actuals and Progress in MS-Project • Summarization must be run to pull actuals into Workplans and therefore to download to MSP • Use the Progress Views to maintain progress in MSP • Update % Complete in the MSP % Complete field. You can copy values from Oracle % Complete to MSP fields using Oracle Projects > Tools > Copy Oracle Progress Fields to MSP • Do NOT use the reverse flow: Copy from MSP to Oracle • When uploading back to Oracle, Oracle automatically copies MSP fields into Oracle fields • Change MSP Status Date to one of the five available dates in the Task As of Date LOV before uploading • The following progress fields should be appropriately updated before uploading: • % Complete, Actual Start/Finish, Task Status, Progress Status

21. Workplans – MS-Project Integration • Actuals and Progress in MS-Project • Actual effort increases Planned Effort in MSP if Actual > Plan • Actual effort from Oracle is updated to Actual Work for each task assignment • MSP Standard functionality is • Remaining Work = (Planned) Work – Actual Work • If Actual Work > Work, Then Work = Actual Work, Remaining Work = 0 • If Actual Effort downloaded from Oracle > Planned effort for a resource in MSP, it automatically increases the Planned Effort (Work) field

22. Workplans – Use for Estimating • Workplans are ideal for Estimating Project Work • Different Templates can provide for Different Estimating methodologies • Use Standardized WBS from Template • Easily expand WBS (with resources and costs) by copying a branch from any other project/template using Copy External feature • Standardized Resources using Resource Lists • Standardized Costing applied using planning or actual rates • Multiple working versions to quickly perform What-if Analysis • Automatic integration to Financial Plans to get Proposed Pricing – Estimate Revenue budget

23. Workplans - Summary • Solid functionality • Ideal for Estimating • Good for Schedule Tracking and providing visibility to all Team and Key Members • Use the Tips • Avoid the Pitfalls

24. Project Partners Happenings at OAUG08 • Visit us at • Oracle Projects Center of Excellence • Leverage the Power of Billing Extensions • Monday 4/14, 2:15 PM; Room# 303 • Presentation Quality Reports from Oracle Project Management • Wednesday 4/16, 11:00 AM; Room# 405

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