Setting Up Milestones

This chapter provides an overview of milestones and discusses how to:

Set up milestones.
Maintain milestones.
Process milestones.
Review project milestones.

Understanding Milestones

Milestone functionality in PeopleSoft Contracts enables you to associate billing and revenue recognition with reaching a milestone; upon reaching that milestone, Application Engine processing is triggered. You can use both PeopleSoft Contracts milestones and PeopleSoft Project Costing milestones. For PeopleSoft Contracts milestones, you set up generic milestone templates when structuring the PeopleSoft Contracts system. At the individual contract level, you create specific milestones for specific contracts.

This section discusses:

Milestone conditions.
Milestone statuses.
Milestone methods.

Prerequisite

Before setting up milestones for a contract, you must define generic milestone templates as part of the contracts setup. You must also create at least one contract.

Milestone Conditions

A milestone is a significant event in the life of a contract. Achieving a milestone can result in sending a bill or recognizing revenue. The first step in setting up a milestone is defining the events that must be achieved to complete the milestone. In PeopleSoft Contracts, these events consist of milestone conditions. The system supports four types of milestone conditions that you can combine in any way to support simple to complex milestone processing rules:

Milestone	Satisfied by the completion of another milestone. You associate this condition type with another milestone that you have defined in either PeopleSoft Contracts or PeopleSoft Project Costing.
Date	Triggered when the system date reaches the date that you specified for this condition type.
User Initiated	Satisfied by a user manually updating the condition status from Ready to Completed. For example, you could use a user-initiated milestone condition for a service contract when billing cannot occur until a signed work order was received from the customer. The condition is an event that takes place outside of the system.
SQL (Structured Query Language)	Associate the milestone with a SQL statement (WHERE clause) that you wrote. SQL milestones enable you to create custom milestones specific to a business.

Important! SQL milestone conditions are an advanced option. Only persons with extensive knowledge of SQL should create SQL milestone conditions. It is advised that these conditions be reviewed by the manager of the Information Systems department.

You can create milestones consisting of one or more conditions, and you can have any number of the same condition type on a single milestone. You designate that the milestone is met when either one or all of the conditions are achieved. By setting a milestone to be met when any one of its conditions is achieved, you can support business cases in which revenue or billing must be triggered by the earlier of two or more unrelated events.

The terms and conditions of a contract can be such that you may have to satisfy several conditions before billing a customer or booking revenue for a contract line. By using milestones, you can capture all of these conditions within the PeopleSoft Contracts system and set up events so that when these conditions are met, the bills are sent out and the revenue is recognized.

When setting up the PeopleSoft Contracts system, you define generic milestone templates. Each generic milestone template can contain a list of conditions. Use these milestone templates when creating contract-specific milestones, and define the criteria for each condition as it relates to the contract. After you create contract milestones, you can reference them on milestone-based billing and revenue plans. You can also reference the contract milestones on the events on those plans.

Generic milestone templates also contain a milestone classification. As the completion of a milestone can result in generating a bill or booking revenue, enforcing milestone security is important. The system enforces milestone security through the milestone’s classification; an employee must be given access to a milestone classification to be able to perform edits on milestones of that classification.

In PeopleSoft Project Costing, you set up milestones by creating milestone activities. You associate the PeopleSoft Project Costing milestones with revenue recognition and billing events, as well as with PeopleSoft Contracts milestone conditions, just as you would contract milestones. PeopleSoft Project Costing milestones have a different structure and do not use conditions.

Milestone Statuses

A status is associated with PeopleSoft Contracts milestones and with milestone conditions. These two statuses work together to trigger the system when a milestone is available for processing.

This section discusses:

Milestone status types.
Milestone status values.
Auto-readying milestones.
Milestone status example.
Relationship to other statuses.

Milestone Status Types

Milestone status types include:

Milestone Status

You must set the Milestone Status field to Ready before the system can perform any processing against it. After the system processes a Ready milestone and confirms that the required conditions are met, the system changes the milestone status from Ready to Completed and no longer enables changes.

When you enter a milestone, the milestone status is Pending by default.

Note. The system automatically readies the milestone for certain milestone condition types when the milestone is created from a billing/revenue plan template. The system creates milestones with a ready status if the milestones are created from milestone templates that have a condition type of Date,SQL, or User Initiated linked to revenue/billing plan templates.

However, depending on the milestone condition type, additional user level inputs may be required for these milestones to be processed by the system (CA_MS_PRCS), even if they are created with a ready status. You must assign a completion date for Date milestone condition types and you must manually select the Mark Complete button for User Initiated milestone condition types.

Milestone Condition Status

The Milestone Condition Status field is set by the system, except for user-initiated conditions. The system uses true or false criteria to set this condition. The criteria varies by condition type.

When you create a milestone condition, its status is Ready by default.

Milestone Status Values

Milestone status values include:

Pending	Milestones are ignored by the Milestone Processing Application Engine (CA_MS_PRCS). You can add or delete milestone conditions for milestones with a status of Pending only.
Ready	Milestones are processed by the Milestone Processing Application Engine. When you change the milestone status to Ready, and click the Save button, edit checking validates that you have correctly entered all fields for both the milestone and its conditions. If one of the milestone’s conditions is another milestone, then you must also enter all relevant fields for the referenced milestone. After you set the milestone status to Ready, the system does not enable further edits to the milestone or any of the milestone conditions. If you need to make any changes, you must change the milestone status back to Pending. Note. If you created the milestone from a billing/revenue plan template, the system automatically sets the milestone status to ready if the milestone was associated with a milestone condition type of Date, SQL, or User Initiated and all required fields are complete.
Completed	The Milestone Processing Application Engine updates the milestone status to Completed after its conditions are met. After the system marks a milestone as Completed, the system does not enable further adds, changes, or deletions. A Completed milestone cannot have its status changed back to Pending.
Cancelled	Cancel a milestone before it’s complete by manually setting the Milestone Status field to Cancelled. If you have manually set a milestone to Cancelled, the system does not enable further adds, changes, or deletions. A Cancelled milestone cannot have its status changed back to Pending.

This diagram shows the milestone status and milestone condition status, and the relationships between the two:

The relationships between milestone status and milestone condition status

Auto-readying Milestones

When creating a milestone from a billing/revenue plan template, the system may automatically ready the milestone depending on the milestone condition type. This enables you to process the milestones that are created from billing/revenue plan templates without having to change the milestone status from pending to ready after activating the contract.

The system creates milestones with a ready status if the milestones are created from milestone templates that have a condition type of Date,SQL, or User Initiated linked to revenue/billing plan templates. The system creates milestones with a pending status if the milestone templates have a condition type of Milestone.

Even if milestones are created with a ready status, additional user-level inputs may be required in order for the milestones to be processed by the system (CA_MS_PRCS):

For milestones with a Date milestone condition type, you must assign a completion date after creating the milestone in order for the system to process the milestone.
For User Initiated milestones, you must select the Mark Complete button on the Milestones Conditions page to set the condition to a status of completed in order for the system to process the milestone.
For SQL milestones, the system picks up the milestone for processing based on the SQL that was predefined on the template. You can override the SQL on the Milestone Condition page before processing the milestone. No additional user inputs are required prior to processing.

Note. The auto-readying of milestone applies to PeopleSoft Contracts-based milestones only. This feature does not apply to Project-based milestones since they cannot be linked to revenue/billing plan templates.

Milestone Status Example

Suppose that you enter a milestone with three milestone conditions and set the milestone to Ready status. You then realize that you need to change some of the milestone conditions. To change the milestone conditions:

Change the milestone status back to Pending.
Delete any conditions that you do not need.

The condition status is irrelevant in this case. However, you should note that if you delete a Completed condition and then redefine the same condition, the system displays the new condition with a default status of Ready.
Modify the conditions that you want to change.
Change the milestone status back to Ready.

Note. When you change a condition, the system automatically resets that condition’s status.

Relationship to Other Statuses

The only relationship between the milestone status and the other PeopleSoft Contracts statuses relates to revenue plan events and billing plan events. You can reference milestones to enable actions when the system sets a milestone status to Completed. Therefore, when you change the milestone status to Cancelled, the system performs edit checking to ensure that the milestone is not referenced on a revenue plan or a billing plan event. Additionally, edit checking ensures that the milestone is not referenced by another milestone’s condition. If the milestone is referenced somewhere else, you cannot change its status to Cancelled.

Note. If a PeopleSoft Project Costing milestone that is referenced by a contract is cancelled (inactivated) in PeopleSoft Project Costing, the user who is cancelling the milestone receives a warning that the milestone is referenced in a contract.

Milestone Methods

A billing or revenue recognition event can be triggered in multiple ways. Sometimes, one way of triggering an event has advantages over another way. For example, when creating an event on a milestone billing plan or milestone revenue plan, you can use event type to designate that the event be triggered by either a Date or Milestone. If the date is a key date triggering both billing and revenue recognition, you can set up one milestone and reference it on both the billing plan and the revenue plan. This enables you to more efficiently manage these events: if the key date changes, you only need to update the date in one location.

Additionally, milestones enable you to solve more complex scenarios. For example, a contract may stipulate that you can either bill a customer 90 days after a product ships or upon completion of an installation, whichever comes first. For this scenario, you can define a milestone with two conditions: one condition of type Date and one condition of either type Milestone or User Initiated. Then you can specify that the milestone is complete once any of its milestone conditions are complete.

Common Elements Used in This Chapter

# of Req’d Conditions (number of required conditions)	Displays the number of conditions that must be met for the system to mark this milestone complete. Values are: One: Any of the milestone’s conditions have been met. All: All of the milestone’s conditions have been met.
Activity Status	Select for the milestone to which you will link. You must select an activity ID before you can select an activity status. It is possible that this activity ID might contain multiple instances of this activity status. Milestone processing keys off of the first instance of this status. This field is available if you have a milestone condition type of Milestone and a milestone source of Projects. Warning! It is possible that an activity may pass through the designated activity status. During the course of a day, a project administrator may assign the activity ID the status that you selected to trigger the milestone, and then later that day assign the activity ID a different status. PeopleSoft Contracts considers the milestone met when the triggering status is saved, even if it is changed later.
Business Unit	Displays the PeopleSoft Contracts business unit.
Contract Classification	Select a contract classification when creating a new contract. This value cannot be changed on the contract. Values include: Standard, Internal, Government, and Federal Reimbursable Agreement.
Days Lag	Displays the number of days that the system should delay marking a condition complete after the milestone to which you are linking is complete. This field is available for milestones with a Milestone condition type. Days lag might be helpful if you do not know when a key event will take place, but you do know that you need to enable processing for a specific number of days after the event occurs. Also, use the Days Lag field when you have a known date that needs to drive the processing of multiple transactions, but one or more of these transactions must be triggered at a known number of days after the key date occurs.
Milestone Condition Status or Condition Status	Indicates if a milestone condition was met. When you create a milestone condition, Ready appears by default as the condition status. Once the milestone condition is satisfied, the system updates the milestone condition status to Completed. For user initiated conditions, you manually set the Condition Status field to Completed when the condition is met on the Update Milestone page. Note. The milestone condition status works in conjunction with the # of Req’d Conditions field on the Milestone page. If you selected a value of One for the # of Req’d Conditions field, after the milestone condition status of at least one milestone condition is set to Completed, the system sets the milestone status to Completed. If you select a value of All for the # of Req’d Conditions field, then the milestone condition status for all milestone conditions must be Completed before the system sets the milestone status to Completed.
Milestone Condition Type or Type	Displays the milestone condition type. Values include: Date, Milestone, User Initiated, and SQL.
Milestone Nbr (milestone number)	Displays a milestone number. Each time that a milestone template is added to a contract, the system assigns the milestone template a unique number. This enables you to create multiple contract milestones based on the same milestone template. This number has no bearing on the order in which the system processes milestones.
PC Business Unit (PeopleSoft Project Costing business unit)	Displays the PeopleSoft Project Costing business unit for the milestone to which you are linking. Necessary if you have a milestone condition type of Milestone and a milestone source of Projects.
Project or Activity ID	Displays the project ID or activity ID for the milestone to which you are linking. You must select a PeopleSoft Project Costing business unit before you can select a project ID or activity ID. Necessary if you have a milestone condition type of Milestone and a milestone source of Projects. Note. Only activities designated in PeopleSoft Project Costing as milestone activities appear in the prompt list.

Setting Up Milestones

This section discusses how to:

Define milestone classifications.
Set up generic milestone templates.
Set up generic milestone condition templates.
Set up contract milestones and establish contract-specific conditions.
Reference milestones.

Pages Used to Set Up Milestones

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Milestone Classification	CA_MS_CLASS_PNL	Set Up Financials/Supply Chain, Product Related, Contracts, General Options, Milestone Classification	Define milestone security by creating milestone classifications. A milestone classification is a set of permission lists. When you associate a milestone classification with a generic milestone, the ability to manage that milestone is limited to users who belong to one of the primary permission lists specified for the milestone classification.
Milestone Template	CA_MS_DEFN_PNL	Set Up Financials/Supply Chain, Product Related, Contracts, Templates, Milestone Templates, Milestone Template	Set up generic milestone templates. When you set up a contract, you can add contract-specific data to these generic milestone templates.
Milestone Conditions Template	CA_MS_COND_DEFN	Set Up Financials/Supply Chain, Product Related, Contracts, Templates, Milestone Templates, Milestone Conditions Template	Define the conditions used by the application processor to determine if a milestone is ready for processing. You can establish multiple conditions for a single milestone. Condition types can be either system-triggered events or manual events.
Milestone	CA_MS_ENTRY	Customer Contracts, Create and Amend, Create Milestones, Milestone	Associate previously defined, generic milestone templates with a contract. Review the milestone conditions that were established for the generic milestone template on which you based the contract-specific milestone. Edit existing conditions and define new contract-specific milestone conditions. Changes do not affect the generic milestone template.
Add Milestones	CA_MS_ENTRY_ADD_MS	Click the Add Milestone button on the Milestone page.	Select a milestone template.
Billing Plan - Events	CA_BP_EVENTS	Customer Contracts, Schedule and Process Billing, Define Billing Plan, Events	Link the contract-specific milestones that you defined to the billing plans.
Revenue Plan	CA_ACCTPLAN	Customer Contracts, Schedule and Process Revenue, Define Revenue Plan	Link the contract-specific milestones that you defined to the revenue plans.

Defining Milestone Classifications

Access the Milestone Classification page.

See Defining Milestone Classifications.

Setting Up Generic Milestone Templates

Access the Milestone Template page.

See Defining Milestones.

Setting Up Generic Milestone Conditions Templates

Access the Milestone Conditions Template page.

See Defining Milestone Condition Templates.

Setting Up Contract Milestones and Establishing Contract-Specific Conditions

Access the Milestone page.

If milestones are already associated with the contract, when you access this page, the milestone tree and Milestones group box appear. If milestones are not associated with the contract, these items do not appear on the page. The Milestone page consists of several different functional areas, including:

Toolbar buttons.
Milestone tree and visual indicators.
Milestones group box.
Milestone Conditions group box.

Toolbar Buttons

Use these buttons to create, delete, and refresh milestones and milestone conditions:

	Click the Add Milestone button to add a milestone template to the contract. The milestone template populates the Milestone page with predetermined values and milestone conditions for the contract. You can change the values, conditions, and the milestone template itself.
	Click the Add Condition button to add a milestone condition to the selected milestone. You must have an existing milestone to add a milestone condition.
	Click the Delete button to delete the selected milestone or milestone condition.
	Click the Refresh button to refresh the Milestone page. If you have changed any milestone templates, refreshing the page updates the names of milestone and milestone conditions in the milestone tree.

Milestone Tree and Visual Indicators

Use the milestone tree to understand the structure of the milestones attached to the contract. In the tree, milestones appear at the highest level. Any attached milestone conditions are indented under each milestone. The Milestones or Milestone Conditions group box that appears on the page corresponds with the selected milestone or milestone condition in the tree.

	Appears next to milestone or milestone conditions that are in Pending status.
	Appears next to milestone or milestone conditions that are in Ready status.
	Appears next to milestone or milestone conditions that are in Completed status.
	Appears next to milestone or milestone conditions that are in Cancelled status.

Note. An asterisk next to a milestone condition indicates that the milestone condition type is User Initiated. You must manually update the status of User Initiated milestones to Completed.

Milestones Group Box

Use the Milestones group box to change the milestone template, enter milestone completion dates, and so forth:

Milestone Template

Displays the milestone template name. Change the milestone template by clicking the Milestone Definition button.

Click the Milestone Definition button to select a different milestone template. If you did not specify a type for the contract, the list of values contains all existing milestones. If you specified a contract type, then the list is limited to the milestones specified in CA_MS_DEFN_CT. If a milestone has no contract types, then it is applicable for all types by default.

After selecting a new milestone template, click the Refresh button to update the milestone tree with the new milestone associated milestone conditions.

Description

Accept the default description or enter a contract-specific description. This enables you to easily take a generic milestone description (such as Product Delivery) and make it specific (such as AR Product Delivery).

Note. It is recommended that when you use the same milestone template more than once on a contract, you give each instance of the milestone a unique description. This aids you when you are referencing specific milestones for billing and revenue recognition, where you must pick the milestone from a list.

Milestone Status

Select a milestone status. Values are:

Pending: Milestones are not processed by the Milestone Processing Application Engine.

Ready: Milestones are eligible for processing by the Milestone Processing Application Engine.

Completed: The Milestone Processing Application Engine updates the milestone status to Completed after its conditions are met.

Cancelled: Cancel a milestone by manually setting the milestone status to cancelled.

Estimated Completion Date

Displays the estimated completion date, which is a system-calculated value based on the milestone conditions. The system uses the selection in the # of Reqd Conditions field to determine the estimated completion date. If the selection is Any, then the system chooses the earliest estimated completion date assigned to a milestone condition. If the selection is All, then the system chooses the last estimated completion date assigned to a milestone condition. The system takes into account any value in the Days Lag field.

Completion Date

The Milestone Process Application Engine (CA_MS_PRCS) updates this field with the milestone completion date. This field is display-only.

Note. This field is populated by the Milestone Process when it updates the status of the milestone to complete.

Milestone Conditions Group Box

The fields that appear in this group box depend on the milestone condition type:

Description

Condition description of the milestone template. Accept the default description or enter a contract-specific description.

Type

Select a milestone condition type of Date, Milestone, SQL, or User Initiated.

Completion Date

For Date milestone condition types, enter the completion date. The milestone condition is complete when the system date reaches the completion date.

For User Initiated milestone condition types, the completion date is an optional field. The milestone condition is complete when you click the Mark Complete button. If you do not specify a completion date prior to selecting the Mark Complete button, when you select Mark Complete,the system records the completion date as the current date.

Estimated Completion Date

(Optional) Enter an estimated completion date. This date has no effect on milestone processing. The field is available for milestones with User Initiated and SQL milestone condition types.

Mark Complete

Click to manually set the status of a User Initiated milestone condition type to Completed. This field is available only for User Initiated milestone condition types.

Note. When you click the Mark Complete button, the system changes the Milestone Condition Status to Completed and the value in the Completion Date field is set to any date specified by you prior to clicking the Mark Complete button. If you did not specify a completion date prior to selecting the Mark Complete button, the system records the current date.

Milestone Source

Select the milestone source for milestones with a condition type of Milestone. Values include:

Contracts: Milestone condition is associated with a milestone that you defined in PeopleSoft Contracts. When selecting Contracts, you must complete the Prerequisite Milestone and Days Lag fields.

Projects: Milestone condition is associated with a milestone that you defined in PeopleSoft Project Costing. When you select Projects, you must complete the Days Lag, PC Business Unit, Project ID, Activity ID, and Activity Status fields.

Prerequisite Milestone

Displays the milestone template and milestone sequence (milestone number) to which you are linking this condition. The list of values contains all milestones that are attached to this contract.

This field is available for milestones with a Milestone condition type and a milestone source of Contracts.

Note. The milestone number, also known as the sequence number, does not affect the order in which milestones or milestone conditions are processed. It’s a unique number assigned by the system to enable you to use the same milestone template more than once on a contract.

SQL Statement

If you selected a milestone condition type of SQL, then you must enter a SQL statement. Enter the SQL statement representing the condition that the system should test. Precede the SQL statement by WHERE, and ensure that it makes sense with the surrounding SQL.

Referencing the Milestones

Access the Billing Plan - Events page or the Revenue Plan page.

See Creating Billing Events.

See Defining Revenue Plans.

Maintaining Milestones

This section discusses how to:

Maintain milestones.
Update milestones.

Pages Used to Maintain Milestones

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Update Milestone Condition Status	CA_MS_MANAGE_COND	Customer Contracts, Update Contract Progress, Update Milestone Cond. Status	Manage and maintain user-initiated milestone conditions. The Milestone Application Engine processes the other milestone condition types (Date, Milestone, and SQL). You can manage only those milestones for which you have security access based on the milestone’s classification.
Update Milestone	CA_MS_MNG_CND_SEC	Click the Conditions link on the Update Milestones Condition Status page.	Review and update the milestone conditions established for the user-initiated milestones.

Maintaining Milestones

Access the Update Milestone Condition Status page.

Filter search results by entering specific values in the fields on this page. You must at least enter the PeopleSoft Contracts business unit. If you enter only a PeopleSoft Contracts business unit, the search returns all milestone templates for all Ready status milestones within that PeopleSoft Contracts business unit.

Milestone Template	Enter a milestone template. When you search on a specific milestone template, the search returns all milestone sequence numbers sharing that milestone template.
Estimated Completion Date From and To	Enter a from date and a to date to search for milestones based on the value that you entered for the milestone’s estimated completion date.
Reset Search	Click to clear any values that you entered in the search fields.
Search	Click to search for milestones matching the search criteria that you entered in the search fields. Note. The search works in conjunction with milestone security. The results of the search include only those milestones that you have the security to manage.

Milestones

The milestones matching the search criteria appear.

Estimated Completion Date	Displays the estimated completion date, which is a system-calculated value based on the milestone conditions. The system uses the selection in the # of Reqd Conditions field to determine the estimated completion date. If the selection is Any, then the system chooses the earliest estimated completion date assigned to a milestone condition. If the selection is All, then the system chooses the last estimated completion date assigned to a milestone condition. The system also takes into account any value in the Days Lag field.
Conditions	Click to access the Update Milestone page, where you can review the conditions for a milestone. You can manually update the condition status of user-initiated milestones from this page.
System Completed Date	Displays the date upon which the milestone status was set to complete.

Updating Milestones

Access the Update Milestone page.

Milestone Conditions

Milestone Condition Status	Select the milestone condition status. Values are: Ready or Completed.
Est Comp (estimated completion date)	If an estimated completion date was entered for this milestone condition, the estimated completion date appears. This date has no effect upon milestone processing. Estimated completion dates are available for milestones with User Initiated and SQL milestone condition types.
Completion Date	Enter a completion date for the User Initiated milestone condition. After you change the milestone condition to complete, this field displays the actual completion date. If you do not specify a date, the system records the current date as the completion date
Milestone Source	Displays the milestone source associated with this condition. Values include: Contracts: The milestone condition is associated with a milestone that you defined in PeopleSoft Contracts. Projects: The milestone condition is associated with a milestone that you defined in PeopleSoft Project Costing.
Prerequisite Milestone	Displays a unique number assigned by the system to enable you to use the same milestone template more than once on a contract. The prerequisite milestone does not affect the order in which the system processes milestones or milestone conditions.

Processing Milestones

The Milestone Processing Application Engine process (CA_MS_PRCS) updates milestone condition statuses for Milestone, Date, and SQL type milestones. For User-Initiated conditions, you manually update the condition status on the Update Milestones Condition Status page.

Milestone Processing Summary

Milestones and conditions both have status fields. When you run the Milestone Processing Application Engine, the system performs checks on both of these statuses. The system first checks the milestone condition status for all conditions associated with a Ready milestone. If a Ready condition has been met, the system sets the milestone condition status from Ready to Completed. The system then checks the milestone status. The system checks if the milestone requires one or all of its conditions to be met. If a milestone’s required conditions have been satisfied, the system sets the milestone status to Completed. Billing and revenue recognition events associated with Completed milestones can then be processed by the PeopleSoft Contracts billing and revenue recognition application engines.

Note. If you have a user-initiated milestone condition, after setting its status to Completed, you must run the Milestone Processing Application Engine process so that the system sets the milestone status to Completed.

It is recommended that you run the Milestone Processing Application Engine process before running the billing application engine or revenue recognition application engine processes. This ensures that any milestones that have been met as of the time that you run the billing or revenue recognition processes are set to the correct status.

For example, suppose that you have a milestone billing plan with a milestone event for which the milestone source is CA and the milestone ID is MS001. The billing plan event status is Ready. Because the billing plan event status is Ready, each time that the billing plan is processed, assuming it’s not on hold, the system checks the milestone status in the Milestone table. If you have run the Process Milestones Application Engine and the system has updated the milestone status to Completed, then the billing for that billing plan event can occur.

The Milestone Processing Application Engine does not automatically trigger the Billing or Revenue Recognition Application Engines. You can create a job that runs these processes after the Milestone process.

Application Engine Flow

When running the Milestone Processing Application Engine, the system creates rows in the table PS_CA_MS_TAO. This table contains all contracts for the criteria that you specified with a contract status of Active and a milestone status of Ready. This table is used as a basis for what is processed. The Milestone Application Engine then performs these steps:

Processes all milestone conditions (CA_MS_COND) where type = Date.
Processes all milestone conditions (CA_MS_COND) where type = SQL.
Processes all milestone conditions (CA_MS_COND) where type = Milestone and source = PC.
Processes all milestones (CA_MILESTONE) based upon the required number of conditions:
1. ONE condition
2. ALL conditions
Processes all milestone conditions (CA_MS_COND) where type = Milestone and source = CA.
Repeats steps 4 and 5.

Page Used to Process Milestones

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Process Milestones	RUN_CA_MSTONE	Customer Contracts, Update Contract Progress, Process Milestones	Update milestone condition statuses from Ready to Completed for Milestone, Date, and SQL type conditions meeting the parameter criteria that you specify. This process also updates milestone statuses based on their conditions.

Processing Milestones

Access the Process Milestones page.

Enter values in any of the fields on this page to filter the milestones that you want the system to process. Filter by PeopleSoft Contracts business unit, contract type, contract classification, sold to customer, or contract number. If you leave all fields blank, the process picks up all available milestone activity in PeopleSoft Contracts.

Reviewing Project Milestones

This section discusses how to:

Review project milestones.
Review details of project milestones attached to contract billing or revenue plans.

Pages Used to Review Project Milestones

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Project Milestones	CA_PROJ_MLS	Project Costing, Project Definitions, Project Milestones	Search and view project milestones with an activity status of Milestone meeting selected search criteria. From this page you can navigate to details of contracts tied to the project milestone.
Impacted Contracts Details	CA_PROJ_MLS_IMP	Click Yes on the Project Milestones page.	View details of project milestones attached to contract billing plans, revenue plans, and contract milestones. From this page you can navigate to details of the associated billing plan, revenue plan, or milestone condition.

Reviewing Project Milestones

Access the Project Milestones page.

To filter search results, enter values in the fields in the Search Criteria group box. If you leave all fields blank, the search returns all project milestones within the system.

Search Criteria

Show Contract Impact Only

Select to return search results for project milestones attached to contract billing plans, revenue, plans, or contract milestones only.

Milestones

Activity	Click to access the Activity Details page, where you can review details of the activity associated with this milestone.
Status as of Effective Date	Displays the status of the activity (milestone) as of the effective date. Values include: Active or Inactive.
Contract Impact	Indicates whether this milestone is associated with any contract lines. Values include: Yes or No. When the project milestone is referenced in any contracts billing plan, revenue plan, or contract milestone, Yes appears in this field. Click the Yes link to access the Impacted Contract Details page.

Reviewing Details of Project Milestones Attached to Contract Billing or Revenue Plans

Access the Impacted Contracts Details page.

The system limits the list of project milestones that appear on this page to those that are attached to contracts billing plans, revenue plans, or contracts milestones and are in Pending status. Completed and Cancelled milestones do not appear on this page.

Pending milestones relate to billing events, revenue events, and milestone conditions as follows:

Billing events: Includes billing events that are Pending, Ready, and Recycled.
Revenue events: Includes revenue events that are Pending and Ready.
Milestone conditions: Includes milestone conditions that are Ready only if the milestone status is Pending or Ready.

Impacted Contracts

Impact Area	Displays which area of the contract is impacted by the project milestones. Values include: Billing, Revenue, or Milestone.
Identifier	Displays the actual billing plan number, revenue plan number, or milestone ID where the project milestone and activity is referenced. Click the link in this field to access the associated billing plan, revenue plan, or milestone.
Impact Detail	Displays the associated event number milestone condition number in the billing plan, revenue plan, or contract milestone.
Target Activity Status	Displays the status of the project milestone specified for the billing or revenue event or for the contract milestone condition.

Milestone Template	Displays the milestone template name. Change the milestone template by clicking the Milestone Definition button.
	Click the Milestone Definition button to select a different milestone template. If you did not specify a type for the contract, the list of values contains all existing milestones. If you specified a contract type, then the list is limited to the milestones specified in CA_MS_DEFN_CT. If a milestone has no contract types, then it is applicable for all types by default. After selecting a new milestone template, click the Refresh button to update the milestone tree with the new milestone associated milestone conditions.
Description	Accept the default description or enter a contract-specific description. This enables you to easily take a generic milestone description (such as Product Delivery) and make it specific (such as AR Product Delivery). Note. It is recommended that when you use the same milestone template more than once on a contract, you give each instance of the milestone a unique description. This aids you when you are referencing specific milestones for billing and revenue recognition, where you must pick the milestone from a list.
Milestone Status	Select a milestone status. Values are: Pending: Milestones are not processed by the Milestone Processing Application Engine. Ready: Milestones are eligible for processing by the Milestone Processing Application Engine. Completed: The Milestone Processing Application Engine updates the milestone status to Completed after its conditions are met. Cancelled: Cancel a milestone by manually setting the milestone status to cancelled.
Estimated Completion Date	Displays the estimated completion date, which is a system-calculated value based on the milestone conditions. The system uses the selection in the # of Reqd Conditions field to determine the estimated completion date. If the selection is Any, then the system chooses the earliest estimated completion date assigned to a milestone condition. If the selection is All, then the system chooses the last estimated completion date assigned to a milestone condition. The system takes into account any value in the Days Lag field.
Completion Date	The Milestone Process Application Engine (CA_MS_PRCS) updates this field with the milestone completion date. This field is display-only. Note. This field is populated by the Milestone Process when it updates the status of the milestone to complete.

Description	Condition description of the milestone template. Accept the default description or enter a contract-specific description.
Type	Select a milestone condition type of Date, Milestone, SQL, or User Initiated.
Completion Date	For Date milestone condition types, enter the completion date. The milestone condition is complete when the system date reaches the completion date. For User Initiated milestone condition types, the completion date is an optional field. The milestone condition is complete when you click the Mark Complete button. If you do not specify a completion date prior to selecting the Mark Complete button, when you select Mark Complete,the system records the completion date as the current date.
Estimated Completion Date	(Optional) Enter an estimated completion date. This date has no effect on milestone processing. The field is available for milestones with User Initiated and SQL milestone condition types.
Mark Complete	Click to manually set the status of a User Initiated milestone condition type to Completed. This field is available only for User Initiated milestone condition types. Note. When you click the Mark Complete button, the system changes the Milestone Condition Status to Completed and the value in the Completion Date field is set to any date specified by you prior to clicking the Mark Complete button. If you did not specify a completion date prior to selecting the Mark Complete button, the system records the current date.
Milestone Source	Select the milestone source for milestones with a condition type of Milestone. Values include: Contracts: Milestone condition is associated with a milestone that you defined in PeopleSoft Contracts. When selecting Contracts, you must complete the Prerequisite Milestone and Days Lag fields. Projects: Milestone condition is associated with a milestone that you defined in PeopleSoft Project Costing. When you select Projects, you must complete the Days Lag, PC Business Unit, Project ID, Activity ID, and Activity Status fields.
Prerequisite Milestone	Displays the milestone template and milestone sequence (milestone number) to which you are linking this condition. The list of values contains all milestones that are attached to this contract. This field is available for milestones with a Milestone condition type and a milestone source of Contracts. Note. The milestone number, also known as the sequence number, does not affect the order in which milestones or milestone conditions are processed. It’s a unique number assigned by the system to enable you to use the same milestone template more than once on a contract.
SQL Statement	If you selected a milestone condition type of SQL, then you must enter a SQL statement. Enter the SQL statement representing the condition that the system should test. Precede the SQL statement by WHERE, and ensure that it makes sense with the surrounding SQL.