The Feature

Oracle Projects Invoice Review Report Prints a Blank Page

You may encounter this feature if using Oracle Project Billing (10.5.10).

The Feature

You are running the MGT: Invoice Review report for draft project invoices before they get approved, released and interfaced to AR. Even though there are draft invoices, they do not show up on the report.

The Fix

It turns out the problem is caused by the project manager being invalid employee in Human Resources. Not exactly the most intuitive way to find out. Assign a valid employee as new project manager, and re-run the MGT: Invoice Review report.

How To Change the Date Format in Oracle Applications

Here is another tip that Oracle users frequently don’t know about. The default date format in Oracle eBusiness Suite applications is DD-MMM-YYYY (e.g. today would be 27-FEB-06). Nobody likes that. You can ask your System Administrator to change it at the system (site) or responsibility level, or you can change it yourself by following these easy steps:

From the Oracle eBusiness Suite Home Page, click Preferences (upper-right corner).

Change the date format to the format you like.

Click Apply and then Home (the system does not close the Preferences window for you). Next time you open the applications, you will see the date in a new format.

Oracle Project Costing - Know What It Takes to Run Your Projects

Oracle Project Costing is one of the core applications in Oracle Projects suite. It allows you to set up your projects, project work-breakdown structures (WBS) and project budgets, collect project-related expenditures (including timecards, expense reports, supplier invoices, inventory costs, and other miscellaneous transactions), and account for them in your General Ledger. Depending on a project type, costs can be either billable to be billed to clients, or capital (CIP) to become fixed assets, or they can be other indirect (overhead) costs associated with running your business. Oracle Projects gives you tools to process all three types.

Continue reading Oracle Project Costing - Know What It Takes to Run Your Projects…

Welcome Aboard, Contingent Workers!

Open the gates! Roll out the red carpet! Start the music! Contingent workers have arrived in Oracle Applications (Release 10.5.10)! Who are those contingent workers anyway? I define them as individuals working for your business, but not on your payroll.

You are probably thinking what the big deal is, right? Well, it’s big because contractors can now enter time and expenses in Oracle, and we are done with all the ugly workarounds and customizations we had to do in the past! Somehow, it took Oracle several years to provide this functionality, but it’s better late than never. Contingent workers are here, and they look fabulous!

How It Works…

• In Human Resources (must be a fully installed HR), you can define contingent workers as persons with a separate person type ‘Contingent Worker’. You can define their assignments, assignment rates, and attach them to their suppliers - either their agencies or their respective 1099 suppliers.
• In Oracle Time and Labor (OTL), contingent workers can now enter time the same way employees do.
• In Oracle Internet Expenses (iExpenses), contingent workers can now enter expense reports the same way employees can. When expense reports are imported into Payables, they become invoices under suppliers that are assigned to contingent workers in HR.
• Contingent worker time and expenses can now be imported into Projects to be costed and/or billed according to your company’s needs.
• Contingent worker labor costs can be calculated either based on their Purchase Order, or Hourly Rates defined in Projects. Using the Labor Costing Extension, you can calculate their costs based on their assignment rate maintained in HR.
• You can define separate accounting rules for contingent worker costs and revenue, thanks to Person Type being a separate parameter in the AutoAccounting rules.
• You have an option to send, or not to send, contingent worker labor costs to General Ledger.

People keep asking me about the gotchas, hidden bugs and surprises. I can’t believe your expectations are so low! There are none. We found everything described above working as designed. Well, for most part…

.. What Could Work Better

• WebADI Transaction Import does not distinguish between person types, and hence does not recognize contingent workers. If you are planning on uploading a larger volume of contingent worker expenses into Projects (e.g. data conversions) using the Web ADI upload, it won’t work.
• The Streamline Interface Process (XL option), which interfaces labor costs from Projects to General Ledger, does not work for contingent worker costs, if they are being interfaced alone. It workrs fine if you interface them with employee costs. I understand this is an existing bug fixed in the next release.
• Contingent Worker and Supplier Start Dates Be careful about the start dates! If contingent worker record in HR has an earlier start date than his supplier record in Payables, and if contingent worker incurred expenses during that timeframe, his expense reports will fail, because “Supplier is Not Active”. In addition, there is no supplier start date, so fixing it is a lot of fun. See Contingent Worker and His Supplier Start Dates feature of the week.
• Contingent Worker Assignment Rate Start Date. Here is a little gotcha for you. Make sure you set this date far enough in the past so that you can cost any legacy timecards. Once you define the first assignment rate, you cannot define another before it.

Share your experience with contingent workers with others. Let the rest of us know what worked and what didn’t.

Nobody Knows Oracle Projects, Right?

Not true. But it definitely feels that way when you implement Projects for companies, which are not typical project-centric businesses. There are (I am told) many companies in industries like construction, professional services, telecom, product development and others, as well as government agencies, who choose Oracle Applications instead of Peoplesoft or SAP specifically because of its Projects application. I had an opportunity to work with several clients who not only got Projects, but took advantage of every single bell and whistle available to them. So what is Oracle Projects? Currently it is marketed as Oracle Projects suite, which includes following products:

• Project Costing
• Project Billing
• Project Resource Management
• Project Management
• Project Contracts

Continue reading Nobody Knows Oracle Projects, Right?…

Oracle Internet Expenses Has Grown Up

I recently had an opportunity to implement the new Internet Expenses application (10.5.10). I must say I liked what I saw! Anyone remembers Oracle Personal Time and Expenses (PT&E)? It’s a good thing if you don’t. The Internet Expense has matured into a nice, robust and stable application. The timing has worked in our favor, as we were able to utilize most of the new improvements.

What It Can Do…

Oracle Internet Expenses (iExpenses) is essentially an extension of Oracle Payables. It privides a way for employees and contingent workers to enter their expense reports. Employees and contingent workers become suppliers, and their expense reports become supplier invoices in Payables.

Integrate with Other Oracle Applications

• Oracle Human Resources - for one database of valid employees and contingent workers
• Oracle Payables – for seamless and streamlined expense report payment
• Oracle Projects - for billing to customers or internal tracking of costs
• Oracle Approvals Management - for flexible approval rules
• Oracle Grants Accounting - to charge expenses to awards for funds tracking
• Oracle Time and Labor - for common user interface
• Oracle Daily Business Intelligence - for expense analysis, Top Spenders report, and drill-down to line details

Expense Report Entry

• Enter expense reports using a browser, a wireless web-enabled mobile device, or an offline spreadsheet
• Enter expense reports on behalf of others
• Enter expense reports for contingent workers
• Pre-populate expense reports with credit card transactions
• Itemize charge card or cash line items and assign multiple expense types; Enable automatic Hotel Folio itemization based on card feed
• Allocate reports to many cost centers
• Copy saved and submitted reports
• Withdraw reports after submission
• Require or enable projects and tasks
• Require or enable category specific additional fields
• Include advances and refunds as negative amounts
• Default data based on user preferences, including from prior reports
• Calculate mileage and per diem during expense entry or import of spreadsheet
• View approval and payment status on the home page or using a Web-enabled mobile device
• Automatically capture and manage expense receipts online
• View notes, responses and actions in Approval Notes
• View card transaction history, mark items disputed with card provider

Company Policy

• Define company policy for online enforcement
• Define exchange rate defaulting and tolerance checking
• Require receipt by expense type and amount
• Require justification by expense types and upon policy violation
• Require receipt itemization and provide set of expense types for itemization
• Configure descriptive flexfields or additional fields for expense types
• Enable special messages or calculations on review, confirmation pages

Workflow Approvals and Notifications

• Approve expense reports and associated receipts, flag policy violations, and enforce reimbursement policy
• Review details of expenses with supporting receipt documentation on approval notifications
• Optionally require manager and accounts payable approval by exception
• Delegate or transfer approval authority, and handle vacations
• Build flexible approval routing rules and conditions, including line-based and cost center-based approvals
• Notify employees of policy violations, rejection or adjustments
• Notify users of reimbursements and payments to card issuers on their behalf

Charge Card Administration

• Define card usage and transaction submission policies for online enforcement
• Identify employees with outstanding credit card transactions by details or aging
• Automatically notify of unsubmitted card transactions, escalate as needed
• Pay charge card issuer directly on behalf of employees
• Use automatic new account registration
• Map card types for expense type defaulting

… What is New n Release 10.5.10

Expenses Home Page. The Expenses Home Page allows users immediate access to a variety of expense reporting information, workflow notifications, and their corporate credit card account information. It is a nice “portal” where employees can see and manage all expense reports. Employees are alerted to changes and transactions that require their attention and these items are highlighted and linked, so that they can be addressed in a timely and efficient manner. When you click on the Internet Expenses responsibility link, you are taken directly to the Expenses Home page. Because you can access all functions from the Expenses Home page, there is no longer the need to show a list of menu items.

Contingent Workers. It was about time! Non-employees, such as contractors and temporary workers, can now enter expense reports into Oracle Internet Expenses. You set up contingent workers in HR, and associate them with their Vendor record. The service providers who employ them are then paid directly through Accounts Payable. Contingent workers can also be set up to approve reports, enter reports for others, and audit reports.

Expense Allocations. You are now able to manualy override accounting information (for non-project expense lines only!).

Future-Dated Expenses.Expenses process owners can use the setup utility to define whether future-dated expenses should be treated as warnings or errors during expenses entry. This ensures that expenses are not entered into inappropriate accounting periods, which causes reimbursements to be delayed and accounting to be incorrect.

User-Interface Enhancements. Several usability enhancements were made, including browser Back button support and bubble text. In addition to the Internet Expenses Back and Next buttons, you can now use the browser Back button to go back and make changes while entering an expense report, unless the report has been submitted or items were deleted. Bubble text was added for buttons and icons.

Other improvements include:

• Enhanced Approval Rules using Oracle Approvals Management
• Enhanced Approver Entry
• Enhanced Adjustment and Short Pay Processe
• Enhanced Expenses Itemization
• Paperless Audit Rules
• Audit List Rules
• Manager Reporting
• Improved Workflow Notification

… And What It Could Do Better

Improve the Offline Expense Report Upload Importing the Offline Spreadsheet is clunky, prone to errors, unintuitive, and most users stay away from it. How about a WebADI like looking upload, which validates against valid projects, tasks and expense types? Clients also ask for ways to customize the offline spreadsheet so that they could input copany logo, expense policy, etc.

Provide Valid Alternative Approvers Only. The list currently shows everybody in the employee-supervisor hierarchy. Employees can chose Override Approvers, who are not defined as approvers in Payables, and hence, expense report submissions fail. This can be avoided by simply limiting the list of employees in the Override Approver field to valid approved in Payables.

Detail vs. Summary Expense Entry - it would be nice to be able to switch the default expense report layout between summary and detail.

Provide a List of Override Cost Center Values. Users can currently enter only cost centers, but they are unable to choose them from the list.

Expense Report Printing Printing an expense report does not fit to a page! There are a couple of Metalink notes outthere, but no solutions. Please fix this!

Provide customizable views to limit the list of projects, tasks and expenditure types (similar to OTL views).

Improve AME Why provide yet another tool to make the applications work? Why not use Workflow instead? While is is a great idea to provide additional options for expense report approvals, the current AME is far from being the “robust tool forline-based and cost center-based approvals “.

Provide a better solution for CEO Expense Report Approval. The default approval workflow uses the supervisor hierarchy to approve expense reports, i.e. everybody needs a supervisor in order to approver expense reports. Assigning a dummy employee to be CEO’s supervisor is not a good solution.

Allow Cross-Charge between multiple business units for project-related expense reports by engaging Account Generator, even if the initial combination of employee’s default company and override cost center is invalid.

Manage Attachements. Provide a better way for iExpenses Administrators to manage (view, save, print) expense report attachements.

Provide a way to change project-related information for submitted expense reports before they get imported to Payables.

Provide Direct Deposit Intergration with 3rd Party Vendors. Not as much iExpenses feature, but a requirement for better integration with Oracle Payroll, or other Payroll providers like ADP and PeopleSoft. Companies need to be able to reimburse expense reports via direct deposit without replicating bank and bank account information in Oracle Payables. Most employees now have their paychecks deposited directly, and expense reports should be paid the same way.

Additional Information

Check following resources for additional information about Oracle Internet Expenses:

• Oracle Internet Expenses Datasheet (a .pdf file) available at Oracle Applications Home page. Below I provide excerpts from the datasheet.
• Oracle Internet Expenses Implementation and Administration Guide

Share your experience with Oracle Internet Expenses. What is your favorite feature?

Find this and similar articles in iExpenses.

How To Set Your Default Printer in Oracle Applications

Did you know you can set your default printer in Oracle eBusiness Suite Applications? Follow these easy steps to change your viewer:

Navigate to Edit > Preferences

Query up profile option ‘Printer’.In User Value field, enter the name of the printer you frequently use.

Save changes.

Next time you print reports, the printer name will be already populated.

How To Change the Report Viewer

Did you know you can change the way Oracle eBusiness Suite Applications display report outputs? This may sound trivial to all of you who know how to do it, but most users are constantly surprised when they find out about it. Follow these easy steps to change your viewer:

Navigate to Edit > Preferences.

Query up the profile option ‘Viewer: Text’. In User Value field, enter Browser.

Save changes. Next time you navigate to the Requests window and click on Output, you will see the report as HTML web-page, instead of clunky Oracle Viewer.

Recompiling Burden Schedule Recalculates Existing Costs

You may experience this feature if you are using Project Burdening in Oracle Projects 11.5.10.

The Feature

If you updated and recompiled your burden rates in the provisional burden schedule version, or defined a new version with a retroactive start date, the system will automatically update existing transactions (typically timecards) to be re-costed. This might have a major impact on your project costing and reporting since the PA Date and GL Date for re-costed transactions will change to the current period from the period when the transactions were originally calculated.

The Workaround

While this is a great feature if used as intended, watch out if you are not familiar with it. If you do not intend to recalculate the existing burden costs with new burden rates, set the start date of the new burden schedule version to the beginning of the current period to avoid unintentional retroactive recalculation of the existing burden costs.

Best Oracle Fusion “Halftime” Commentary Yet

I have posted several references to the “Oracle Fusion - Half Way There” press conference news reports and articles before, but the I Pity The Fool commentary by Newmerix’s CTO Neil Robertson is the best one yet. Neil Robertson has provided an excellent, exhaustive (honestly, who has time to write a 5,379 word analysis?) educational, and entertaining essay about Oracle Fusion by pretending to be writing a press conference report. If you have anything to do with Oracle Applications, this one is a must reading!

Here is my favorite part:

…John Wookey: “We looked at the all the applications we had [PeopleSoft, EBS, JDE, and Siebel] and took the best requirements from each. We’re rewriting applications based on these requirements.”

Basically they realized they had four of everything and decided to rebuild a fifth from scratch. At first blush, this seems to make a ton of sense. Many have claimed that Oracle bought Siebel because of their recent prowess in industry specific process and features. Why shouldn’t they take that proprietary IP and work it into Fusion? But hang on, take a deeper look. Think through the reality of what this means to a customer trying to move to Fusion. Most likely, a lot but not all of your current application’s features will be present. Well, what do you do if your business process depends heavily on something that Oracle decided didn’t make the cut? You have two choices – change your business process (and retrain your staff on how to use it) or, guess what, customize the Fusion application! We’re totally back to square one again.