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.
