February 2nd, 2010 by Barry Crawley
Oracle released a patch (7388541) recently that “backported” YTD measures (in performance reporting) back from R12 to R11.5.10.2. In fact the patch does not backport functionality from R12. What it does is put in new measures in the project list only. Slightly irritating are the following facts:
- The patch does not backport the YTD measures that exist under the reporting tab
- The new measures that the patch introduces in R11.5.10.2, under the project list, do not currently exist under the project list in R12. As far as I can understand this is an ‘oversight’ by Oracle in R12, and will be resolved soon.
Anyway, all that aside, below is a link to a PDF file with 5 sections that compares what is available in R11.5.10.2 without the patch, with the patch, and in R12 (as at time of writing).
Performance Reporting Measures comparison
Sections are:
- Project List Table
- PJI - Task Summary
- PJI - Resource Summary
- PJI Calculated Measures
- PJI Stored Measures
Anecdotally I have heard of other problems with this patch. I am interested to hear about anybody’s experiences with this patch.
Tags: 7388541, Performance Reporting, R11.5.10.2, R12, YTD, YTD Measures
Posted in Functional | No Comments »
January 18th, 2010 by Darren
Farr
Introduction
This article covers one of the new features in Release 12.1.1: Contingent Worker timesheets with Multiple Purchase Orders.
A Contingent Worker is a non-Employee people resource who works for the enterprise, and for whom the enterprise is responsible for their costs and expenses. A worker record and user are created and tied to the Purchase Order so that the worker can enter a timesheet through Oracle Time and Labor (OTL). The timecard is imported into Oracle Projects and the labor costs can be viewed on the Project. The timecard is also imported into Oracle Purchasing with the import process creating an automatic receipt and an invoice in Oracle Purchasing and Payables respectively.
Contingent Worker records can be created in core HR or through Manager Self-Service responsibilities (Contingent Worker Placements).
Prior to R12.1.1 in OTL, a Contingent Worker could report time against only one Purchase Order number, as associated to the worker’s assignment. The Contingent Worker assignment was defined in the Core HR, wherein supplier name, Purchase Order number, and Purchase Order line were associated. These details were then retrieved in OTL, to enable the Contingent Worker to report time for the above-mentioned combination only.
With the R12.1.1 enhancement, a Contingent Worker can report time for multiple Purchase Orders. Users can associate multiple Purchase Orders to a Contingent Worker assignment. You can navigate to this from the Supplier tab of the Assignment page of Core HR. This enhancement enables an OTL timesheet to retrieve multiple Purchase Orders in the Purchase Order list of values. Now this LOV populates all associated Purchase Orders of the Contingent Worker and enables the worker to report time against multiple Purchase Orders.
There may be occasions where a Contingent Worker is procured but the Project(s) they are going to work on may not yet be agreed. In this case R12.1.1 introduces new functionality in Oracle Projects to help meet this requirement.
This new feature enables you to create Projects as Contingent Worker clearing Projects and associate these Projects with Purchase Orders. Once the Purchase Order is added to the Contingent Worker HR Assignment record they can charge time to any “Live” Project including the Contingent Worker (CWK) Clearing Project. Users should use transaction controls to ensure that Contingent Worker’s can only charge time to Projects they actually work on.
A new check box, Contingent Worker Enabled, has been added in the Project Type window. When you define this type of Project, it will be categorized as Contingent Worker Enabled in Oracle Time and Labor and Procurement.
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Tags: Contingent Worker, Multiple Projects, Oracle Projects, R12.1.1
Posted in E-Business Suite, Functional | No Comments »
December 22nd, 2009 by Barry Goodsell
Last week Oracle announced E-Business Suite Release 12.1.2, also known as “12.1 RUP 2″, or Patch 7303033. This release update pack (RUP) combines error corrections, statutory/regulatory updates, and functionality enhancements into a consolidated, suite-wide patch set. This release is a maintenance pack and can only be installed on top of an existing EBS 12.1 environment.
The following sections describe the new features to R12.1.2 that are of particluar interest to Projected Consulting’s clients and partners. Note that there are no new features specific to Project Costing and Project Billing.
Oracle Project Foundation
Enhanced Project List Page
The Project List page is often the main hub that users interact with when accessing Oracle Projects. In an effort to make this page more informative and streamline access to common functions, several enhancements have been added to the Project List page.
Main Project List Region
The following enhancements apply to the main region of the project list page:
- To improve efficiencies and usability, the Action button available in the Project Home Page is now also available in the project list. Users are no longer required to drill down before they can execute an action against a selected project.
- To provide easier access to commonly used reporting values, Quarter to Date and Year to Date values are now available as attributes displayed in the list.
Worklist and Notifications Region
A new Worklist and Notification region is available on the Project List page. The new region displays worklist items and notifications assigned to the user across all projects for which the user has an active role. Productivity is increased as users are no longer required to drill down into individual projects to retrieve notifications and review items that need attention.
Report Views Region
A new Report Views region allows users to quickly access commonly used reports and queries. Users first create and save the reports using the Alternative Search page. All saved reports are then available for reuse and can be retrieved directly from the project list page. This feature not only provides quicker access to data but also saves time by allowing users to save queries rather than redefining them each time they need to view the results.
Bookmarks Region
A new Bookmark region allows users to streamline retrieval of project-related items they commonly need to access. Once users select an item to bookmark, the item appears in the bookmark list until the user removes it. The list of bookmarks is specific to each user based on the items they choose to bookmark. The bookmark region is not available on all pages.
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Tags: Oracle Projects, Project Management, R12, R12.1.2, Release12
Posted in E-Business Suite, Functional | 2 Comments »
December 1st, 2009 by Barry Crawley
The Oracle Projects suite of applications has always suffered from a reporting problem, or at least many user organisations have, for a long time, had a perception that this is the case. The reason for this can be summarised into a couple of salient points:
- There have always been widely diverse reporting requirements for Projects reporting, not only between user organisations, but also between different users groups within these organisations.
- Oracle has never quite come up with a ‘one size fits all’ solution to reporting in Projects. In fact the reporting capabilities in Projects have never really measured up to the rich functionality offered by these applications.
So taking a step back and thinking for a minute one can conclude that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution. To report from the Projects applications you need to consider various options and be prepared to use multiple solutions, even within one organisation, dependent on requirements. There are a numerous options / combinations for consideration, and the selection of the most appropriate ones can be a bit of a minefield, even for the specialist. I do not, in this article, seek to migrate through this minefield, but to let people know that there is something new out there that needs to be considered. That is the R12.1.1 Projects Reporting Pack.
What is it?
It is a feature that enables you to monitor project performance without accessing the applications i.e. it sends reports to via email to recipients who are key members on a project(s). A number of reporting templates are supplied that can be added to a ‘reporting pack’ which is then run through the standard concurrent manager and distributes the reports accordingly.
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Tags: Performance Reporting, Project Management, Projects Reporting, R12, R12.1.1, Release12
Posted in E-Business Suite, Functional | No Comments »
November 30th, 2009 by Barry Goodsell
Introduction
As I mentioned in my previous blog article, the User Interface in Fusion Applications has been completely re-designed after extensive research in Oracle’s Usability Labs. During my recent week at TVP attending the Pre-GA Validation Workshops, we were able to visit Oracle’s only UK-based Usability Lab. One thing that particularly fascinated me was the very high tech equipment used to monitor eye movement around a screen. This helps the Analyst to determine whether a page design is easy to use, whether information is simple to find and whether there are any aspects to the page that are distracting. It’s comforting to know that Oracle have spent thousands of hours testing Fusion Apps in this way to ensure that we get the best experience and are therefore more productive.
The UI Shell
So, how has all this research manifested itself in the application? Well, the “UI Shell” is what the design people are calling the general layout of the Fusion Apps screen. The UI Shell splits the screens into four areas:
Global Area
The Global Area is a narrow strip across the full width of the top of the screen. This is effectively the title and menu bar for the application. As well as being able to access the navigation menu, you can also access the tagging functionality, federated search, preferences, personalisations and, most importantly, help. One major change from E-Business Suite is that we do not have “Respsonsibilties” any more - we have “Roles”, which are much more job-oriented. Also, we no longer have to “swap hats” to perform a different task - from the Navigator you can see all Work Areas that you have access to as a result of the Roles that you have.
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Tags: Fusion, Fusion Applications, UI, User Experience, User Interface, UX
Posted in Fusion, Fusion Applications | No Comments »
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