Project Partners Blog

There is no cookie-cutter definition of an engineering-construction (E&C) company other than they are all project-oriented businesses who perform construction-related work for a client (often referred to as the owner – the entity paying for the work and for whom the work is performed). There are those who perform design-only work (engineering), construction-only work, or design-build work (a combination of both).

Engineering companies are essentially professional services organizations who specialize in providing engineering-design solutions to clients – often in specialized fields.

Construction companies can generally be classified as either (a) contractors who perform all or most of the work themselves, or (b) subcontractors, who perform specialized work such as electrical, mechanical, or masonry tasks. General contractors (GCs) are contractors who perform many different types of work (even engineering services), often manage overall aspects of large (sometimes global) projects – referred to as construction-management (CM), and usually have access to large bonding resources.

Special cases are owner-CM, or owner-performed work. In the former, an owner (such as a large natural resources company, a government entity, or a specialty retailer) may act as a GC who subcontracts most or all of the work on a project to others, but manages the overall work themselves (CM). In the latter case, owners may have the people and equipment resources to actually perform some of the work rather than contracting it to others.

This article is a discussion of solutions for general contractors who use Oracle Project Management and Project Partners User Interface Applications in the execution of design-build projects. Future papers will focus on the other members of the E&C family. Read the rest of this entry »

As a project manager not only responsible for managing my project, but also asked by senior management to create a budget at the start of an engagement, and then to submit weekly forecasts showing my anticipated revenue stream, how can I possibly find the time to get this accomplished using Oracle Project Management?

 We implemented Oracle Project Management because it has the robust functionality we need, but the truth is I need to quickly update my numbers and get back to managing my project. It takes me over 20 screens to make weekly updates to my project forecast, and I have to be in the office to do that. In fact, I am in and out of the office, with barely little or no time spent connected to the network.  Most of my time is spent on an airplane or at the client site managing my project. How can I accomplish this quickly and easily without the monthly frustration?

Project Partners UI-Apps was implemented to address this need. UI-Apps provide a simple user interface in a familiar tool (MS-Excel) that allows Project Managers (PMs) to review and maintain project plans at their convenience. It is built to work seamlessly with Oracle Project Management and provide PMs with a simple solution with built-in industry specific processes for Professional Services Organizations. Additionally, only those Oracle Project Management functions relevant to our company are included on our UI-Apps worksheets.

PMs log into Oracle (from MS-Excel) whenever connected to the office intranet, download project information to the UI-Apps worksheets, and save these worksheets to their local machine. They can now go on the road and review and update information into the UI-Apps worksheets at any time – and whenever they next connect to the office intranet, they simply upload the updates back to Oracle.
Additionally, the most recent actual costs can be viewed, (as entered and summarized in Oracle), compared with the current budget, and the weekly forecast can be updated to reflect the situation as it now stands. UI-Apps provide both lump-sum and time-phased planning capabilities, so our PM workbooks contain a lump-sum budget worksheet, and a time-phased forecast worksheet. A convenient summary report allows PM’s to review actual costs as well as planned amounts for rows of tasks by expenditure categories displayed in columns.

In each of the worksheets, PM’s can change dates of tasks and resources, add new tasks, indent, outdent them, or otherwise modify the WBS, add or change resources assigned to tasks, and since UI-Apps has downloaded the appropriate burdened cost rates, and bill rates for these resources, PM’s can make good use of their travel time, and have a complete up-to-date forecast ready to upload when they return to their home-base destination. Even for multiple month engagements, entering time-phased Estimate-to-Complete amounts is easy because of flexible methods for displaying a project’s periods, and a unique spread-method feature which allows entry of total amounts – and the worksheet automatically spreads it over the displayed periods. Certain periods can be modified as needed – with the total being updated accordingly.
 

UI-Apps gives our PM’s the option to update workplans simultaneously while updating their financial plans. In certain cases, for complex engagements, we choose to track workplan progress and with UI-Apps, updating percent complete and entering progress status is easy to do in the same worksheet as we update our forecasts. With one click, the week’s plan is uploaded and submitted into our corporate workflow for approval.

As the IT team implements more UI-Apps functions, or rolls out the latest UI-Apps release, we don’t have to worry about being out of synch with the current code, or missing an update notification because each time we connect to the Oracle instance, UI-Apps checks for the latest workbooks and prompts for download of the latest version if out of synch.
 

There is no doubt that senior management now has a firmer grasp on the profitability of our portfolio of engagements with up-to-date forecasts from UI-Apps.

Executing multiple projects for one customer is common practice for many project-based organizations. But what happens when the time comes to invoice your customer for work performed? Native Oracle Projects allows you to generate only one invoice per project. So, multiple projects lead to multiple invoices. For many organizations, this involves hundreds, maybe thousands of invoices being processed each month. Invoicing for such complex situations is extremely daunting, expensive and time consuming. Each invoice needs to be generated, approved, issued, mailed, processed, reconciled and audited. Not only is this a time and money waster for you but your customer is on the receiving end of this accounting nightmare.

Native Oracle Project Billing does a good job of calculating and generating your draft invoices but many companies need the power to consolidate invoices at a higher level than a project. Seeing this requirement over and over, Project Partners developed a solution to streamline the often complex project invoicing process. It is called Project Partners Consolidated Invoicing. Consolidated Invoicing is included in the Project Partners Invoicing product offering designed to simplify the various customer billing mandates facing project organizations today.

Consolidated Invoicing is a simple solution that does not involve changes to your current Oracle Projects setup or configurations. This solution simply extends the standard invoicing functionality of Oracle Project Billing and Oracle Receivables, therefore requiring no additional training for your users. By utilizing the same invoice processes and review screens currently in use by your project managers and accountants today, such as Invoice Review, Generate Draft Invoices, Interface to Receivables, Autoinvoice import etc., Consolidated Invoicing allows you to consolidate multiple project invoices into one single invoice. You can issue one monthly invoice to a customer at a summary level, with back-up details that break the charges down by project. Your options for consolidation include invoicing across multiple projects, programs, agreements, contracts, or customer “bill to” levels.

With Consolidated Invoicing, project invoicing can be simplified and your project managers and accountants can refocus on activities that add real value to your organization. In addition, your customers receive one invoice from which to pay and the reconciliation of your customer accounts becomes almost seamless. Customers that have implemented this solution have seen time savings of up to 100 hours per invoicing cycle which translates to a cost savings of up to 80%. A solution any project based organization with many projects should consider. Make your project invoicing easier using Project Partners Consolidated Invoicing.

Stay tuned for future blogs on Credit Memo Consolidation and Invoice Formatting and Printing – two additional offerings included in Project Partners Invoicing designed to make project billing easy!

Invoice Consolidation Overview:

Project Managers’ Needs

Project Managers need tools to quickly and easily plan and execute project work.  They typically are used to working with Microsoft® Excel as their primary tool for maintaining every type of project data from WBS and Schedules to budgets, status reports, forecasts, issues and change orders. They even want to see all their reporting data in spreadsheets which in turn allow them to perform any type of analysis they need.  Furthermore, and especially in Professional Services organizations, they need access to project data “on the go” in a disconnected mode as the project managers are frequently travelling to client sites.

Oracle Project Management was one of the first generic project management software applications that was released pre-integrated with the back-office project accounting functions along with other ERP applications. It provides a comprehensive workbench for project managers allowing them to manage all their project information from one place. Being a generic off-the-shelf application, it, however, is burdened with complexity delivered via an HTML-based user interface that requires a significant investment in training to get the project managers comfortable with it. Most organizations cannot afford this investment in time from their project managers as they are already busy with ongoing projects. Furthermore, the HTML-based user interface, by necessity, requires a connection to the office intranet in order to access project data.

Enabling Project Managers

The Project Partners User Interface Applications (UI-Apps) are built to work seamlessly with Oracle Project Management and provide project managers with a simple MS-Excel based user interface with built-in industry specific processes for Engineering and Construction and Professional Services organizations.  The UI-Apps user interface allows for quick and easy retrieval of project information, the ability to update data either while connected to Oracle, or offline, and then a one click upload to Oracle to provide automatic updates back into Oracle Project Management.  Project managers generally would log into Oracle from MS-Excel whenever they’re connected to the office intranet, and download their project information to the UI-Apps worksheets.  They then save their worksheets to their local machines.

Project Managers can now go on the road and review and update information into the UI-Apps worksheets at anytime and, whenever they next connect to the office intranet, they can simply upload the updates back to Oracle. 

UI-Apps Functions

The initial release of UI-Apps covers the following PM functions:

* Build and Maintain Project WBS

   – Create, indent and outdent tasks

* Build and Maintain Project Schedules

   – Update task financial and schedule attributes

* Build and Maintain Project Budgets

   – Select and assign resources (based on resource format) from planning resource list

   – Automatically determine planned resource costs and revenue using cost, burden and bill rates from Oracle Projects

   – Plan in Project or Project Functional Currencies. UI-Apps automatically converts all rates downloaded to the Worksheets into the selected currency

   – Select a spread curve and automatically spread resource costs across PA/GL periods. Update individual periodic amounts and automatically maintain total planned amounts.

   – Save working and submit for approval (Baseline for Financial Plans and Publishing for Workplans)

* Capture Project Schedule Progress

   – Update Progress – Physical Percent Complete, Estimates to Complete, Task Progress status

* Update Project Financial Forecasts and Schedule Attributes

   – Update WBS – New tasks, task dates, other financial and schedule attributes

   – Review and Update Forecast – Review actual-to-date and maintain ETC/EAC amounts

   – Save Working – progress, Workplan Updates and Forecasts

   – Submit for Approval – Progress, Workplan changes and Forecasts.

* Review Project Costs

   – Review Cost summary by WBS and Cost Categories

This is accomplished via five MS-Excel worksheets that are delivered for handling time-phased and lump-sum plans, one sheet each for budgets and forecasts. One additional sheet is provided for reporting project costs by WBS and implementation defined cost groupings. 

Above and beyond the core functionality shown above, each of the sheets is also highly configurable.  A large selection of fields and table columns can be displayed or hidden based upon requirements.  Custom fields can also be displayed/updated providing the ability to save and retrieve customer-specific data back into Oracle Projects via Oracle-supported DFFs and/or UDAs.  Additionally, each worksheet can be configured with custom colors, fonts, prompt and column heading names and row/column sizes.

Deploying UI-Apps

The UI-Apps are delivered with pre-built configuration capabilities that allow the implementation team to quickly setup the worksheets to meet their business process and the worksheets adapt to the planning configurations from Oracle automatically. The look and feel of the worksheets can be rapidly adjusted to user requirements using built-in table configurations and standard MS-Excel formatting capabilities and various delivered extension points allow the implementation team to add data elements and custom business validations to the worksheets using easily available PL/SQL skills.

These various configuration options enable a rapid implementation cycle for the UI-Apps – 4-6 weeks after receiving the software.

All in all, UI-Apps enables project managers via built-in industry specific MS-Excel worksheets giving them a familiar user interface and enabling allowing them to manage better and deliver better profits.