This chapter describes the Utilization feature in Oracle Projects.
This chapter covers the following topics:
Utilization is the process of tracking actual time or scheduled time against the capacity of a resource. You do not have to schedule a resource to track the actual utilization for the resource. As a result, you can track actual utilization for both scheduled and unassigned resources.
The utilization functionality of Oracle Project Costing and Oracle Project Resource Management enables you to generate and report on your resource's actual and scheduled utilization. Using Oracle Project Costing, you can report on your resource's actual resource utilization based on actual hours from timecards. Using Oracle Project Resource Management, you can report on scheduled utilization based on future resource assignments on a project.
Oracle Projects supports the reporting needs of the following three key roles by reporting utilization in three different views:
Organization Manager: Organization managers can view utilization of resources for the entire organization, as well as drill down to the utilization of individual resources.
Resource Manager: Resource managers can view utilization amounts for resources that are directly assigned to them as well as resources reporting to their direct reports via the Resource Supervisor hierarchy.
Individual Resource: Individual resources can monitor their own performance by viewing their personal utilization amounts.
Oracle Projects reports utilization via Oracle Discoverer workbooks, the Resource Details page, and Oracle Daily Business Intelligence for Projects reports. For more information, see: Utilization Reporting.
Note: To use the utilization functionality, you must implement Oracle Daily Business Intelligence for Projects. You must also run the Oracle Daily Business Intelligence for Projects concurrent programs that summarize resource utilization and availability data. For more information on summarizing resource data, and viewing utilization and availability reports based on Oracle Projects transaction data, see the Oracle Daily Business Intelligence Implementation Guide.
To access utilization information by organization and resource manager, you must implement Oracle Discoverer. For more information on implementing Oracle Discoverer, see the Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
You can report utilization for one or more of the following time periods. To view utilization for different time periods, you must enable utilization and availability reporting, and enable the periods on the Project Intelligence Setup page:
Enterprise Period
Enterprise Quarter
Enterprise Week
Enterprise Year
GL Period
GL Quarter
GL Year
PA Period
Utilization categories are groupings of work types for reporting purposes. Work types are summarized into utilization categories and can carry different weighting percentages for resource and organization. The usage of utilization categories is best illustrated through an example. In the following example, a resource has performed warranty work which is not billable. The challenge is how to reflect that in your utilization reporting so that it does not inflate your revenue-generating utilization, but also does not penalize the resource's utilization numbers.
A resource is assigned to complete some rework (warranty) work on an existing project. The enterprise (project organization) will not receive any revenue for the extra work performed. The assignment has been allocated a work type called "Warranty", which automatically classifies the timecard entries entered by the resource.
The project organization should not consider rework as receiving utilization credit. Otherwise, the utilization reports provide a false representation of the total number of hours being effectively utilized by the resources of the organization for revenue generation. Thus, these non-revenue generating resource hours can be excluded from the organization utilization by setting the organization utilization % for "Warranty" work type as 0%.
However, the company does not want the warranty-related work to negatively affect the personal utilization percentage of the resource. So, the weighting for the resource utilization % of the Warranty work type is set at 100%. Doing so, ensures that the resource receives a credit of the performed effort.
The utilization views summarize resource hours into two distinct groups of utilization reporting categories. These category groupings are used to create the following two utilization views:
Resource Utilization View: This view summarizes actual utilization hours by resource utilization categories. The resource utilization percentage is calculated by dividing the weighted resource utilization category hours by the specified utilization method. This view is used in Resource Manager and Resource Personal Utilization reports.
Organization Utilization View: This view summarizes actual hours by organization resource categories. The organization utilization percentage is calculated by dividing the weighted organization utilization category hours by the specified utilization method. This view is used in the Organization Utilization report.
These utilization views provide you with distinct managerial summaries of the work that resources and their organizations have performed or will perform.
Utilization calculations determine how utilization percentages are calculated. You can choose from two methods: capacity or total worked hours. The calculation method you select determines the denominator for the utilization percentage calculation.
Capacity Calculation Method: The Capacity method uses the net capacity hours of the resource as the denominator for the utilization percentage calculation. Net capacity hours is equal to the total capacity hours derived from the calendar of a resource less the total hours worked or scheduled for a work type with the Reduce Capacity flag as enabled.
Actual utilization % uses actual capacity, and scheduled utilization percentage uses scheduled capacity.
Total Worked Hours Calculation Method: The Total Worked Hours method uses the total number of hours recorded by time cards as the denominator for the utilization % calculation.
The following table describes the calculation of the utilization percentages for each utilization view using the two calculation methods.
| Utilization View | Numerator (A) | Denominator (B) | Utilization Percentage (A/B *100) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resource | Sum of all hours weighted by resource utilization category percentages | Net capacity hours or total worked hours | Resource View Percentage |
| Organization | Sum of all hours weighted by organization utilization category percentages | Net capacity hours or total worked hours | Organization View Percentage |
Utilization reports enable you to view resource utilization totals at various organization levels.
You can use the utilization reporting functionality of Oracle Project Costing to view totals of your resource utilization for the following organization roles:
Organization Manager
This role enables you to view utilization by selected time period, resource manager, job level, utilization categories, and work types for resources assigned to your organization. You can view utilization for the entire organization, each suborganization, and individual resources assigned to the organization.
Resource Manager
As resource manager, you can view utilization for all resource hours for the selected time period, job level, utilization categories, and work types of all the resources currently assigned to you, regardless of organization assignment.
Individual Resource
This role enables you to view your utilization for all reported and assigned hours for a selected time period. You can also view your expected future utilization.
You can view utilization totals for one or more time periods. For more information, see: Utilization Time Periods.
You can view utilization totals and trends in the following Oracle Discoverer workbooks:
Utilization by Organization Workbook
This report displays resource utilization for an organization and its suborganizations..
Utilization by Resource Managers Workbook
This report displays resource utilization for resources of a resource manager.
Utilization by Resources Workbook
This report displays utilization for a resource for all organizations to which the resource is assigned.
As the organization manager, you can view utilization totals, utilization trends, and resource availability in Oracle Daily Business Intelligence for Projects reports. For more information on viewing resource management reports across projects in an organization, see the Oracle Daily Business Intelligence User Guide.
An individual resource can use the Utilization tab on the Resource Details page to view the following personal utilization details:
Current utilization information
Trend information for the coming year and the prior year
Expected utilization, based on actual, to-date, and future scheduled information
This utilization page displays individual utilization totals. You can view all totals for a specified period, in addition to QTD and YTD totals. You can also drill down to view the totals by utilization category. The calculations for the totals on this page are defined below.
This section describes how Oracle Projects calculates actual utilization totals.
Actual Capacity Hours: The total resource capacity hours (from calendar) minus any assignment hours with a reduced capacity work type, such as unassigned time. The utilization total is calculated based on the Resource Utilization Category Weighting %.
The resource utilization calculation method ( total worked hours or capacity) is defined by the profile option PA: Resource Utilization Calculation Method. The period type is specified in the profile option PA: Resource Utilization Period Type.
The reduced capacity hours are summarized from timecards having a work type with the Reduce Capacity flag enabled.
Actual Worked Hours: The sum of worked hours for the resource obtained from actual timecards. The actual worked hours displayed are normal unweighted hours.
Actual Utilization%: The weighted hours for the resource expressed as a percentage of actual capacity or actual worked (depending upon the value of the profile option PA: Resource Utilization Calculation Method).
This section explains how Oracle Projects calculates scheduled utilization totals.
Scheduled Capacity Hours: The total calendar hours minus assignment hours with a work type that has the Reduce Capacity flag enabled.
Scheduled Confirmed Hours: The scheduled assignment hours in confirmed status. The scheduled confirmed hours are normal unweighted hours.
Scheduled Utilization%: The Confirmed Weighted Hours for the resource as a percentage of Actual Capacity or Actual Worked (depending upon your profile option).
Scheduled Provisional Hours: The sum total of scheduled hours for the resource. It is calculated by summing all scheduled hours for the resource which have provisional status. The scheduled provisional hours are normal unweighted hours.
Organization managers track resource utilization and utilization issues across their organization. Resource managers track resource utilization for resources they manage though they may belong to different organizations. As a result, utilization totals that a resource manager and an organization manager view can be different. The following reasons can account for the discrepancies between utilization totals for a resource manager and an organization manager:
A resource can be assigned to a new resource manager.
A resource can be assigned to a new organization.
A resource and the resource manager responsible for the resource can be assigned to different organizations.
In these cases, an organization manager can use the Resource Details: Utilization page to reconcile utilization details reported for a resource using the drill down capabilities of the Utilization by Organization workbook. Similarly, a resource manager can use the Resource Details Utilization page to compare utilization information reported for a resource in the Utilization by Resource Managers workbook. To reconcile utilization totals, managers must select the same default profile values for the Resource Details Utilization page as they use for the Period Type and Utilization Calculation Method/Show Percentage By parameters in the workbooks.