11g Release 1 (11.1.2)
Part Number E20384-02
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Oracle® Fusion
Applications Project Management Implementation Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1.2) Part Number E20384-02 |
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This chapter contains the following:
Financial and Project Plan Types: Explained
Planning Amounts in Financial Plan Versions: Critical Choices
Summarized Financial Plan Types: Explained
Manage Financial and Project Plan Types: Set General Planning Options
Manage Financial Plan Types: Set Forecasting Options
Manage Project Plan Types: Set Project Plan Options
FAQs for Manage Financial and Project Plan Types
Financial plan types contain default setup information and planning options that you use for creating different types of budgets or forecasts. Similarly, project plan types contain default information used for creating a project plan and capturing progress.
When creating budget or forecast versions for a project, you must select an appropriate financial plan type. Versions inherit planning options from the financial plan type. Depending on access levels, you can change some settings.
You associate one project plan type to a project template and override planning options if required. Projects created using the template inherit the updated planning options. You can revise these options at the project level, or even replace the project plan type.
The following is a description of the basic budget, forecast, or project plan setup options that determine how a plan type is used in the context of a project. Except for third-party scheduling, these options are not editable at the project level.
|
Option |
Location |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Planning amounts |
Financial plan type |
Indicates that the financial plan type supports the creation of versions with the following amounts:
|
|
Approved budget or primary forecast |
Financial plan type |
Determines whether a financial plan type is used for creating approved budget versions or primary forecast versions that are used for plan comparison or project performance reporting. |
|
Default financial plan type |
Financial plan type |
Determines whether the financial plan type is the default selection when you create budget or forecast versions. |
|
Workflows |
Financial plan type |
Enables the use of a workflow for managing budget or forecast status changes. |
|
Third-party scheduling software |
Project plan type |
Indicates whether project planning is performed in Microsoft Project. If third-party scheduling is disabled in the project plan type, you can use the associated project or project template to create a project in Microsoft Project. However, you cannot export the new project or link it to one created in Oracle Fusion Projects. Note The third-party scheduling option does not affect integration with Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management. |
|
Multiple transaction currencies |
Financial and project plan type |
Enables entry of plan amounts in currencies other than the project currency. |
For each financial plan type, you select the planning amounts included in the financial plan versions created using the plan type.
Options include the following:
Cost amounts only
Revenue amounts only
Both cost and revenue amounts
Either cost or revenue amounts
Restriction
You can plan for revenue only if you are licensed to use Oracle Fusion Project Billing.
If you select to plan only for cost or revenue, then all budget or forecast versions created for the financial plan type contain only those amounts.
When you review versions created for cost-only financial plan types, margin values and other comparisons dependent on revenue amounts are not available. Similarly, cost amounts are unavailable during review of versions of revenue-only financial plan types.
You can select to plan for cost and revenue together. In such a case, each budget or forecast version created for the financial plan type contains both cost and revenue amounts.
If you select to plan for cost and revenue separately, then each budget or forecast version created for the financial plan type can contain either cost or revenue amounts. When you review cost versions, select any revenue version created for the same financial plan type as the source for revenue amount for use in plan comparison.
Summarized financial plan types are financial plan types whose previous and current approved versions (for forecasts) or original and current baseline versions (for budgets) are used in summarization of project performance data.
Particular financial plan types are included in summarization by default, while you must manually select others.
Approved forecast and baseline budget versions of the following financial plan types are automatically included in summarization of project performance data:
Approved Revenue Budget
Approved Cost Budget
Primary Revenue Forecast
Primary Cost Forecast
Important
A budget or forecast financial plan type may support both cost and revenue in one version.
Apart from the default financial plan types, you can include up to four others in summarization of project performance data.
Tip
You can include a financial plan type before it is used on a project for creating a version.
You can replace a user-selected financial plan type until project performance data is summarized for reporting. After that, you can only disable the financial plan type to exclude it from further summarization.
You associate sets with financial or project plan types so that project managers can use them to create financial plans (budget or forecast versions) or project plans for projects or project templates. Financial or project plan types are available for selection only when projects or project templates are created for project units linked to selected sets.
The following example illustrates the relationship between financial plan types, sets, and project units. Project plan types share an identical relationship with sets and project units.
An organization has two designated project units for project creation: Project Unit 1 and Project Unit 2. Project Unit 1 is associated with Set 1 and Project Unit 2 is associated with Set 2.
During implementation, two financial plan types were created: Financial Plan Type A and Financial Plan Type B. Financial Plan Type A is associated with Set 1. However, Financial Plan Type B is associated with both Set 1 and Set 2.
In such a case, project managers working on projects for Project Unit 1 can use only Financial Plan Type A to create financial plan versions. Project managers working on projects for Project Unit 2 can use both Financial Plan Type A and Financial Plan Type B.
The following diagram further illustrates the relationship between financial plan types, sets, and projects. Project plan types share the same relationship with sets.
When specifying rate settings for financial or project plan types, you select to use either actual or planning rates for calculating cost or revenue for planning resources. Actual rates are those that are used for calculating actual amounts for expenditure items. If you use planning rates, then you can select rate schedules created specifically for planning purposes.
Some of the reasons for using planning rates are as follows:
Project planning extends into the future, beyond dates for which actual rates are available. Using planning rates enables you to plan for future periods by making assumptions about potential rate increases or decreases.
Planning is at a more summary level than when using actual rates. For example, use job-based rate schedules to plan, but actually track labor costs using cost rates defined at the employee level.
The following is a description of the points to consider when selecting actual or planning rate schedules for calculating raw costs, burdened costs, and revenue.
When using actual rates for project plan types and financial plan types that support cost amounts, you select cost rate schedules at the resource class level. Similarly, for financial plan types that support revenue amounts, you select bill rate schedules at the resource class level. If the application is unable to determine cost or bill rates for a planning resource, then it uses the resource class rates schedules you specify here.
When using planning rates, you select rate schedules at the resource, job, and resource class levels. The following table summarizes the precedence order for determining cost or bill rates for a planning resource when deriving raw costs or revenue for rate-based planning resources.
|
Rate Source |
Precedence |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Override rate |
1 |
Rate manually entered by users in the budget, forecast, or project plan |
|
Labor or nonlabor rate schedules |
2 |
Rate schedules selected for labor or nonlabor resources |
|
Job rate schedules |
3 |
Applicable only for labor resources |
|
Resource class rate schedules |
4 |
Used when rates are not available at the resource level. Specifying a resource class rate schedule is optional. |
Optionally specify a burden schedule when specifying planning rate schedules. Oracle Fusion Projects uses this burden schedule to calculate the burdened cost for all planning resources (including those that are not rate-based).
If an expenditure type is not associated with the planning resource, then Oracle Fusion Projects uses the expenditure type defined for the associated resource class to determine the burden multiplier, and ultimately, the burdened cost.
Forecast approval options determine the approval process for forecast versions created for a particular financial plan type. Approval options determine whether you can do the following:
Use workflow and notifications for approvals
Automatically approve forecast versions
Automatically submit forecasts for approval when creating baseline budgets
Select this option if you want to use Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) workflows and notifications for forecast approvals. Workflows enable you to define a chain of approvers for moving forecasts from the working to the approved status.
If you do not use workflow for forecast approvals, you can select to approve forecast versions directly (without first submitting them to an approver). The automatically approve forecasts option applies even if you are not entitled to approve forecasts. So, use it to enable automatic approval for certain financial plan types primary forecast while controlling the forecast approval entitlement for others.
For example, disable this option for primary forecast financial plan types to ensure that only entitled users approve corresponding versions. On the other hand, enable this option for other financial plan types that do not require explicit approval, for example, those whose versions are used for what-if analysis.
Important
The automatic approval option applies only when manually approving forecasts. To approve forecasts versions that are generated automatically when publishing progress, you must be entitled to approve forecasts.
Automatic submission for approval applies only to primary forecasts. If you select this option, the current working primary forecast version is submitted for approval when you create a baseline for an approved budget version for a project.
Important
If you select to automatically approve forecasts, the newly created working version of the primary forecast is directly approved.
The option to automatically submit forecasts for approval does not apply when manually creating forecasts.
Task and task assignment date options are selected when specifying project planning options. Task and assignment date settings interact to determine how planned and transaction dates are set for tasks and how dates are set for task assignments.
You can select to roll planned dates for lowest-level subtasks up the task hierarchy. In this case, planned dates for summary tasks, top tasks, and the project are not editable. Edit planned dates for lowest-level tasks as required. Updated dates roll up the hierarchy to ensure that planned dates at the summary and project level are equal to the earliest start date and the latest end date of lower-level tasks.
Conversely, if you select not to roll up planned dates, lowest-level subtask dates are editable but must be within the planned date range for summary tasks and the project. You can also edit project or summary task dates as required.
If you select to synchronize transaction dates with planned dates, then task transaction dates are not editable. Transaction dates always match task planned dates, plus or minus the number of days specified as a date adjustment buffer.
Tip
Specify a positive buffer value to indicate the number of days before the planned start date and the number of days after the planned finish date that a transaction can be charged to a task. Conversely, specify a negative buffer value to indicate the number of days after the planned start date and the number of days before the planned finish date that a transaction can be charged to a task. In other words, when specifying a negative buffer, transaction dates are within the range of the planned dates.
If you select not to synchronize transaction dates with planned dates, then transaction dates are blank by default and can be edited as required. Transaction dates entered at the summary-task level are used as the default transaction dates for tasks at lower levels. Transaction dates specified for subtasks must be within the transaction dates for the summary task. If none of the summary tasks in the hierarchy have transaction dates, then the new transaction date must be within the project date range.
You can modify the date synchronization option until you charge transactions to a task. Implications of changing between options are as follows:
Deselected to selected: Existing transaction dates are replaced with dates calculated based on task planned dates plus or minus the date adjustment buffer.
Selected to deselected: Existing transaction dates can be edited. New tasks have blank transaction dates that are editable. Existing transaction dates outside the project dates are cleared.
If you select to base task assignment dates on task planned dates, task assignments span the entire task duration. Task assignment dates are not editable.
Note
You can override this option for individual task assignments.
Use cascade options to determine whether your changes to project dates cascade to tasks.
You can select one of the following options:
Do not cascade date changes: Both start and finish dates are editable. However, you must ensure the following:
The project start date is not later than the earliest task date.
The project finish date is not earlier than the latest task date.
Cascade change to the start date: You can edit only the project start date.
Cascade change to the finish date: You can edit only the project finish date.
Restriction
If you have selected to roll up planned dates for tasks or are using an external application for scheduling, then you cannot modify the project start or finish dates.
If you have selected to synchronize transaction dates with planned dates, then transaction dates are updated automatically when date changes cascade to tasks.
Note
If transactions are already charged to a task, then you must ensure that your new summary dates are before or after the transaction date (depending on whether you are cascading start or finish dates.)
If you have selected to synchronize task assignment dates with task dates, then your changes to project dates will cascade to assignments automatically. Otherwise, you must ensure that all task assignment dates are within the range of the new task dates.
Once you associate a project plan type with a project or project template, or create budget or forecast versions using a financial plan type, you cannot edit certain financial or project plan setup options. These options include the primary forecast and approved budget designations, use of workflow, and the use of multiple transaction currencies.
Also, changes made to a financial plan type apply only to new financial plan versions. Similarly, there is no impact on existing project associations when you modify a project plan type.
For generating a budget when setting a baseline project plan, you can select any active budget financial plan type otherwise available for budget creation. However, some financial plan types (including the default financial plan type selected in the budget generation options of the project plan type) are unavailable for selection in the following circumstances:
If your project plan contains costs in multiple planning currencies, then only financial plan types that support planning in multiple transaction currencies are available.
If you have already selected an approved cost or revenue budget financial plan type for creating a budget version, then no other approved budget financial plan types are available.
Yes.
Budget financial plan types can be designated as approved cost budgets, approved revenue budgets, or both. Versions of such financial plan types are used for plan comparison when you review budgets or forecasts. Approved budget versions are also used by default when reporting on project performance.
For each project, you can use only one financial plan type that is designated as an approved cost budget or an approved revenue budget. Either select separate financial plan types (one approved cost budget and one approved revenue budget) or a single financial plan type with both designations.
Forecast financial plan types can be designated as primary cost forecasts, primary revenue forecasts, or both. Versions of such financial plan types are used for plan comparison when you review budgets or forecasts. Primary forecast versions are also used by default when reporting on project performance.
For each project, you can use only one financial plan type that is designated as a primary cost forecast or a primary revenue forecast. Either select separate financial plan types (one primary cost forecast and one primary revenue forecast) or a single financial plan type with both designations.
Using Microsoft Project for scheduling limits your ability to modify project and task dates in Oracle Fusion Projects. Start and finish dates for the project and existing tasks cannot be modified. You can enter start and finish dates for new tasks. However, these dates must be within the planned dates for the summary task. You can modify transaction dates. However, these must be within both the task planned dates and transaction dates for the summary task or project.
Key planned information for tasks and task assignments, including dates, costs, quantity, effort, and rates, that you can save from current project plan values. Setting a baseline for a project plan does not create a new plan version. Rather, current plan information is saved in baseline columns of the current project plan.
You must set a baseline for your project plan before capturing progress. Baseline amounts determine earned value for lowest-level tasks, which in turn is used to roll up physical percent complete to summary tasks.
Baseline data cannot be deleted, and does not change until it is overwritten when you next set a baseline for the project plan.
Tip
By generating a budget version when you set a baseline for your project plan, you can maintain an historical record of past baseline data.
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