Oracle is continuously working to improve the features and functionality of its Cloud Apps software. The latest updates were released in early March and offer a range of updates in Billing, Cost, Planning, Resource, Program, and Grant management. Oracle’s 24C Quarterly Release continues to build on the enhancements delivered in 24B by introducing several new or enhanced features to better support its Oracle Cloud PPM customers.

In Project Management Common

Continuing investments in service excellence driven by customer ideas.

Projects REST API Security Enhancements:

This feature allows you to enable selective access to projects in your PaaS solutions.  For example, in any custom integration leveraging the Projects REST API, Project Managers or Administrators will only have access to those they are authorized to manage.

Approvals Work Area with Enhanced User Interface and Adaptive Search for Project Management:

This enhancement leverages the Approvals Work Area with Enhanced User Interface and Adaptive Search feature delivered in 24A. With this enhancement, users can now leverage the search capabilities within the Approvals Work Area to manage the following:

Module	Workflow
Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting	Project Status Change Approval
Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting	Project Financial Plan Version Approval
Cost Management and Control	Project Cost Adjustment Approval
Cost Management and Control	Project Expenditure Batch Approval
Cost Management and Control	Project Labor Schedule Version Approval

Improved Experience for Managing Statuses (Customer Submitted Idea):

Enhancements to the Manage Project Statuses page help Implementors find and manage statuses for business objects such as Projects, Progress, Milestones, and Bill Transactions. Additional business objects will be delivered via the Quarterly Patch process.

In Billing and Revenue Management

Oracle has made significant improvements in this area over the past several Quarterly releases.

Milestone Billing and Revenue Recognition Enhancements:

The following enhancements build on the Milestone Billing and Revenue Recognition solution update delivered in 24B:

• Use the milestone dimension to track and analyze the milestone lifecycle in multiple Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) subject areas
• Use the milestone dimension to track and analyze the milestone lifecycle in multiple Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) subject areas.
• Allow Project Managers and Project Administrators to provide comments to Approvers and track the status of milestones through the status change history window.
• Import contracts and milestones from external applications using Enterprise Contracts File-Based Data Import.
• Use REST APIs to create and maintain milestones in contracts and project plans.

Service Excellence Continuing Investments for Billing and Revenue Management (Customer Submitted Idea):

Deletion of Credit Memos for LOC-enabled Awards (Idea 636283)—Users can now delete a credit memo or credit invoice in draft, approved, or rejected status for LOC-enabled Awards using the Delete Invoices ESS process.  Furthermore, this flexibility reduces the manual work for billing specialists to review and process unwanted credit memos or credit invoices to Receivables and generate a rebill standard invoice.

Cancel Project Contract Invoice REST API:

Crediting actions of canceling invoices can now be performed via a REST API on single and multiple standard project contract invoices.  The cancel invoice crediting action using the REST API is allowed on standard invoices in Release, Transferred, or Accepted status.  In addition, the project contract status must be Active, Expired, or Under-amendment status with versioning.  When the cancel crediting action is performed on an original standard invoice using a REST API, a credit invoice is created, which is the reversal of the original invoice or the reversal of the remaining amount of the original invoice (based on Idea 730325).

Flexible Billing Event Adjustment Processing:

Users now have more control over billing event adjustment processing by allowing the update of event types and billing events. The additional flexibility eliminates the need to define new event types and change corresponding business processes, thus improving operational efficiency.  This flexibility also enables existing events to reflect the corrected bill amounts after a crediting action.

Receivables Transaction Type in the Project Contract:

This functionality allows the Contract Administrator to select the Receivables Transaction types in the list of values on the Billing Tab of the project contract header. Currently, only Transaction Types not associated with a sub-class (such as Prepayments) are supported.  Prepayment support is coming in an upcoming release.

Improvements to Real-Time WIP Reporting:

Improved reporting capability through the addition of new attributes and measures to the bill transactions subject area in OTBI, such as a normalized attribute for unit price. So, corresponding additions to the bill transactions REST API, such as billing status and WIP amount, will improve customer reporting and integration capabilities and support the delivery of the upcoming Redwood-based user experience for managing bill transactions. Specific changes include:

• The Grants Administrator, Grants Accountant, Grants Department Administrator, and Principal Investigator roles now have access to the Project Billing—Bill Transactions Real Time subject area in OTBI, and data access is commensurate with each role. This is in addition to existing access for the Project Managers and Project Billing Specialist roles.

• The Awards folder and subfolders have been added to the Project Billing—Bill Transactions Real Time subject area in OTBI.

The following attributes and measures have been added to the Project Billing—Bill Transactions Real Time subject area in OTBI:

• Unit Price in Transaction Currency
• Unit Price in Invoice Currency
• Unit Price in Contract Currency
• Derived Invoice Amount in Transaction Currency
• Derived Invoice Amount in Invoice Currency
• Derived Invoice Amount in Contract Currency
• Contribution Invoice Amount in Transaction Currency
• Contribution Invoice Amount in Invoice Currency
• Contribution Invoice Amount in Contract Currency

The following attributes and measures have been moved within the Project Billing—Bill Transactions Real Time subject area in OTBI to improve discoverability (existing analyses are not impacted):

• Billing Status moved to Bill Transactions folder 

• Amount to Bill in Transaction Currency moved to Measures – Bill Transaction > Invoice Measures folder  

• Amount to Bill in Invoice Currency moved to Measures – Bill Transaction > Invoice Measures folder 

• Amount to Bill in Contract Currency moved to Measures – Bill Transaction > Invoice Measures folder

• The following attributes and measures have been added to the Bill Transactions REST API:
  • Billing Status Code
  • Billing Status
  • Bill-to Customer
  • Applicable Process Code
  • Unit Price in Contract Currency
  • Unit Price in Invoice Currency
  • Unit Price in Transaction Currency
  • Amount to Bill in Transaction Currency
  • Amount to Bill in Invoice Currency
  • Amount to Bill in Contract Currency

The predefined values for bill transaction statuses have been updated for consistency. You’ll need to update filters in any existing OTBI analyses to uptake the new values:

• ‘Non-billable’ has become ‘Nonbillable.’
• ‘On Hold’ has become ‘On Hold.’
• ‘Action Pending’ has become ‘Action pending.’
• ‘In Progress’ has become ‘In progress.’
• ‘Insufficient Funds’ has become ‘Insufficient funds.’

Improved Contract Approvals Experience with Enhanced UI and Adaptive Search:

Contract approvals can now leverage the Adaptive Search capabilities to tailor your approvals for efficient processing.

In Cost Management & Control

Budgetary Control at the Project Task or Lowest Structure (Customer Submitted Idea):

Spending can now be controlled based on the budget allocated to project tasks, either at the top task or the lowest task of the work breakdown structure. Additionally, spending can be controlled based on the amounts planned for the lowest resource within the project budget.

Service Excellence Continuing Investments for Cost Management and Control:

Payroll Costs Deletion Control: A new privilege, Delete Project Labor Distributions in Error, allows users to control the deletion of payroll costs that have not been successfully distributed to projects. This privilege can be assigned to the appropriate custom roles within an organization.

In Project Assets

Mass Split of Project Asset Lines (Customer Submitted Idea)

The Import Unassigned Asset Lines FBDI workbook can now be leveraged to split project asset lines based on an amount or a percentage.  These newly created project asset lines can be simultaneously assigned to eligible Project Assets.

In Planning, Scheduling and Forecasting

Budget or Forecast Refresh from Source Version (Customer Submitted Idea):

Users can now refresh the working version of Budgets and Forecasts from the source version to reflect changes made in the source version rather than generating a new working version.  Changes captured can be related to resources, amounts, dates, and periodic spread.

Project File-Based Data Import (FBDI) Enhancements:

Option to Cascade Project Date Changes to Project Plan Using FBDI. Additional Update Attributes – building upon improvements delivered in 24B include:

• Outline Display Level
• Planning Project
• Project Currency
• Project Currency Conversion Rate Type
• Project Currency Conversion Date Type Code
• Project Currency Conversion Date
• Allow Capitalized Interest
• Capitalized Interest Rate Schedule
• Capitalized Interest Stop Date
• Asset Cost Allocation Method Code
• Capital Event Processing Method Code
• Allow Charges from All Provider Business Units
• Process Cross-Charge Transactions for Labor
• Labor Transfer Price Schedule
• Labor Transfer Price Fixed Date
• Process Cross-Charge Transactions for Nonlabor
• Nonlabor Transfer Price Schedule
• Nonlabor Transfer Price Fixed Date
• Project Classifications
• Project Classification Codes
• Project Classification Code Percentage

Source Quantity and Amount Columns on the Edit Forecast and Budget Version Pages:

Project Budgeting and Forecasting can be expedited by adding columns for source quantity and amounts available in the enhanced user interface while editing the details of budgets and forecasts.  Moreover, this will provide users with a quick side-by-side comparison of planned resources against the source, highlighting any deviations as adjustments are made to the planned quantity or amounts while reducing the need to navigate different pages.

Service Excellence Continuing Investments for Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting:

• Automatic Inclusion of Project Costs and Revenue on Copied Forecast Version: Users can bring the actual costs into the forecast version without an additional step to refresh costs on a forecast version when the same has been created using a creation method as a copy.  Additionally, users can confirm the target planning options are rendered and used in the forecast version creation during the creation by copy method.
• Enhancement to Change Orders Reporting
  • Building on the enhancements delivered in 24 A, the following measures have been added to OTBI for Change Order Reporting:
    • Quantity
    • Raw Cost
    • Burdened Cost
    • Revenue
    • Raw Cost in Project Currency
    • Burdened Cost in Project Currency
    • Revenue in Project Currency
    • Raw Cost in Project Ledger Currency
    • Burdened Cost in Project Ledger Currency
    • Revenue in Project Ledger Currency
  • Additional measures have been added to the Change Management Measures folder:
    • Number of Change Orders with Impacts
    • Number of Change Orders with Impact Details
    • Number of Change Orders with either Impacts or Impact Details
  • Deferred Mode for Cascading Project Date Changes to Project Plan: This is another improvement based on customer feedback.  This option allows users with large projects to avoid performance issues by deferred mode, allowing them to continue working on the project while cascading takes place in the background.
  • Microsoft Project 2021 Integration Certification with Project Management

In Program Management and Reporting

• Descriptive FlexFields are now available for Program Management (Customer Idea)
• Service Excellence Continuing Investments for Program Management and Reporting
  • Project Drill-Down while Analyzing Programs: Users can now conduct deeper dives into individual project performance with a streamlined drill-down capability.  Likewise, Program managers can now directly navigate to the Review Project Performance page from the Analysis page within Program Management – based on Idea 658507.
  • Gain Deeper Insights with New Program Financial Measures for Billing:
    • Amount to Bill
    • Unpaid Invoice Amount

In Resource Management

Rate and Person Type Filters for Evaluating Matching Resources (Customer Submitted Idea):

Staffing Managers can now filter and select resources based on target rates or person types.

Service Excellence Continuing Investments for Resource Management:

Consistent Search Experience for Manage Resource Schedules—Staffing Managers can perform seamless searches within Manage Resource Schedules, mirroring the familiar search functionality of Manage Resources.

Performance Improvements for Project Resource Assignment Creation and Adjustment—Long-duration project resource assignments can now be managed efficiently, using options that ensure assignment duration follows best practices. Furthermore, this dramatically improves performance when creating and adjusting assignments via the following profile options:

• Threshold Value for Maximum Number of Years for Resource Assignment Duration
• Threshold Value for Maximum Number of Years to Maintain Past Assignment Daily Hours Data
• Threshold Value for Maximum Number of Years to Maintain Future Assignment Daily Hours Data
• Populate Project Resource Assignment Daily Hours (Sched Process)—This is a new process for building assignment data based on the above profile options. Processes can be scheduled twice a month to maintain the detailed schedule data progressively.

---

As you can see, a number of improvements are coming to Oracle Cloud PPM with the 24C Quarterly Update, most of which came from customers. What do these updates mean for your project-centric organization? Reach out to your Project Partners consultant today: contact us.