Oracle continually works to enhance the features and functionality of its Cloud Applications. Oracle released the latest updates (25B) in early March, offering a range of updates in Billing, Cost, Planning, Resource, Program, and Grant management. This particular Quarterly Release builds on the enhancements delivered in 25A by introducing several new or enhanced features to better support Oracle Cloud PPM customers.

Oracle Fusion Cloud Project Management

Update 25B

In Billing and Revenue Management

Oracle has significantly improved this area over several Quarterly releases.

Creation of Non-Labor Project Contract Invoice Lines by Person (Customer-Submitted Idea): This new feature enables non-labor invoices to be grouped by Person. This feature now enables clients to present invoices with usage, expense reports, and more in a format that simplifies and streamlines their review of non-labor project contract invoice lines.

Redwood User Experience for Managing Unbilled Transactions Customer-Submitted Idea): With the continuing improvements being delivered via the Quarterly Release Patches, Oracle is also delivering a next-generation user experience via its Redwood framework. Bill Transaction management has significantly improved the management of bill transactions by enabling users to manage unbilled transactions continuously. The new Redwood experience offers dynamic search capabilities across a spreadsheet-like data grid. Users can also act on bill transactions to change their status, all from the same form, based on delivered Role Security.

View Contract Owners in Contract Search Results (Customer-Submitted Idea): Users can now view contract owners in the Search Results area from the Contract landing page. Both versions of the UI now display the Owner field, which users can resize, relocate, or hide as desired. When a contract has multiple owners, the system displays all of them when users hover over the Owner field, allowing users to view all contract owners without needing to drill into the contract.

Classify Contract Key Terms: Contract Key Terms can now be categorized according to your custom business rules. The classification provides users with a quick overview of critical key terms, enabling them to identify items that require attention. Risk assessment is aided by highlighting potential issues, drawing attention to standard clauses, and distinguishing between favorable and unfavorable terms in the contract. Rules must be defined in Groovy to support leveraging the classifications.  Classifying key terms enables stakeholders to swiftly analyze the contract’s critical elements, enabling informed decision-making.

Extract Key Terms from Contract Documents Using Generative AI: Over the past year, Oracle has committed significantly to delivering Generative AI as part of its standard offering for its cloud suite of applications. Oracle continually improves the Generative AI capabilities within Cloud ERP through the Quarterly Patches. With 25B users, they can now leverage Generative AI to extract Key Terms from contract documents much easier, faster, and more accurately. Key Terms such as payment terms, renewal date, jurisdiction, penalty for early termination, etc., can be easily retrieved via Generative AI to help improve the organization’s ability to make informed decisions.

In Cost Management and Control

Payroll Cost Distribution to Projects Using Time Cards (Customer-Submitted Idea): To further enhance the capability to interface payroll costs with Project Costing, Oracle has now introduced the ability to distribute payroll costs based on Time Card distributions. This payroll cost distribution method provides the most accurate costing of labor effort on a project, allowing for efficient cost control and enhanced financial analysis. The solution will require teams to make configuration changes in Labor Distribution, Payroll, Projects, and potentially OTL. Therefore, you must design and execute a thorough proof of concept to ensure the functionality performs in a way that supports your business needs.

In Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting

Project Notes in Project-Related OTBI Subject Areas (Customer-Submitted Idea): With 25B, users can now view notes in the project-related subject areas for reporting. Currently, users can view the notes recorded during the project lifecycle, including project, project plan, project progress, and project invoices, in the corresponding subject areas.  Future releases will also deliver reporting on notes recorded in the Budget and Forecast areas.

Financial Project Progress Reporting for Resources in OTBI (Customer-Submitted Idea): The Project Control – Progress Real Time OTBI subject now delivers the capability to view the progress of project resources. Progress can be viewed both within individual projects and across multiple projects. Thus, businesses will be provided with accurate progress updates based on the actual work completed by each resource in the financial project plan. Concrete work completion data at the resource level provides the capability of having predictable project timelines, which can be communicated to stakeholders more accurately.

Project Proposal Generation: Comprehensive Project Proposals can be created by leveraging Oracle AI during project planning.  Proposals can cover project objectives, scope, timeline, budget estimates, and staffing plans. Proposal managers can easily edit and finalize the proposal, saving time and improving efficiency. Users can efficiently create proposals from the Project Management work area using the action panel under Manage Project Proposals. The primary benefits of this new feature are as follows:

• Significantly reduces proposal creation time, minimizing manual errors and improving efficiency.
• Quickly generate tailored project proposals that align with specific client requirements by updating the automatically generated proposal.
• Allows project stakeholders to make informed decisions faster, helping secure the necessary funding and resources without delays.
• Enables organizations to respond rapidly to advanced sales opportunities, increasing their chances of winning projects by presenting well-defined plans to clients.

Change Order Automation for Financial Project Plan Amount Adjustments: Detailed impact assessments for financial project plans can now be performed and leveraged to automatically update the plan when a change is approved. Users conduct Financial Project Plan impact assessments in the Project Plan Impact area by adding the appropriate Task & Resource combinations and impact amounts in the Add Impact dialog box. After approving the change order and moving it to the implementation stage, users can select the “Implement and Mark Complete” option to automatically push the impacts to the Financial Project Plan.

Project Change Order Summary Generation: Organizations can now create comprehensive summaries of project change orders with a single click. The summary highlights the impact of the change order on the project financials, helps align stakeholders with project updates, and eases approvals. This AI-generated summary can be easily edited and finalized, saving the project manager valuable time.

In Grants Management  

Prepayment Transaction Type When Submitting Awards: The prepayment transaction type can be specified when submitting the contract from an award. This new transaction type is then used for prepayment request invoices generated for the award and set to receivables. In the case of cancelled prepayment invoices resulting in credit memos, the credit memo type associated with the prepayment type is sent to Receivables. The benefit of this feature is improved flexibility and control over how project contract prepayment invoices are handled by Receivables, through the ability to assign user-defined prepayment transaction types to awards.

Sponsored Project Cost Distribution Using Available Award Funding (Customer Submitted Idea): Grants-based organizations can now automatically determine the distribution set to apply to a sponsored project cost based on available funds. Sponsored projects with award funding patterns offer new options to leverage budgetary control settings for distributing costs.  Thus, reducing the need for project cost transfers and increasing the utilization of available funds ensures that contract obligations are met.

In Resource Management

Variable Weekly Resource Schedules for Project Resource Assignments: In its ongoing efforts to continually improve the functionality of Project Resource Management, Oracle has introduced the ability to create Variable Weekly Schedules for Resource Requests. Now, project managers and resource managers can apply a variable weekly schedule for a given resource directly to an existing resource assignment, eliminating the need for a formal resource request, and allocate team members based on real-time project demands.

Additionally, resource managers can adjust multiple resource assignment schedule hours or switch between variable weekly hours and other scheduling methods to reflect the latest schedule demands. The replacement of resources for variable weekly hour assignments to address availability and workload balance is also supported. These new features provide the following benefits:

• Reduced Administrative Overhead – Directly assigning resources to variable weekly assignments eliminates the need for formal resource requests and streamlines the assignment process.
• Increased Agility – Efficient adjustments to assignment schedules enable quick response to changing demands.
• Improved Project Efficiency – Aligns resource planning with project schedules, minimizing downtime and delays.
• Faster Response to Availability Changes – Quickly replacing resources avoids disruptions and keeps projects on track.

In Conclusion

The upcoming 25B Quarterly Update for Oracle Cloud PPM introduces a range of exciting enhancements, largely inspired by valuable customer feedback. These updates hold significant implications for organizations that operate with a project-centric focus. How will these improvements streamline your processes and drive project success? Don’t hesitate to reach out to your Project Partners consultant today to explore the full potential of these updates for your business.