Resources are the labor, services, materials, equipment, and other items needed to plan, track, complete, and account for project work. In Oracle Projects, you can define and utilize resources to:
Plan work
Staff projects
Estimate budgets and forecasts
Assign tasks, issues, and change requests
Track and report project costs and categorize revenue
Schedule assignments and monitor the project progress
Charge labor and expenses to a project containing employees and contingent workers
This chapter covers the following topics:
Oracle Projects supports various kinds of resources, resource types, planning resources, resource lists, and planning resource lists. Resources can be people, equipment, or anything else that are essential to complete a project successfully.
People resources enable you to plan, manage, and control the work and collaboration required to complete a project. You use them to build your project teams. Oracle Projects supports the following types of people resources:
Employees: persons employed by the deploying enterprise
Contingent workers: persons contracted by the deploying enterprise
External team members: person contacts or employees of a customer or a partner organization
The following table lists some common activities in Oracle Projects and specifies whether the different types of people resources can either perform or be included in each activity:
| Activity | Employee | Contingent Worker | External Team Member |
|---|---|---|---|
| Can be scheduled on a project | Yes | Yes | No |
| Can be assigned to a task | Yes | Yes | No |
| Can be a task manager | Yes | Yes | No |
| Can create, view, and update a workplan | Yes | Yes | No |
| Can be budgeted for as a resource | Yes | Yes | No |
| Can create, assign, and update an action (issue/change request and change order) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Can be an assignee of an action (issue/change request and change order) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Can create, update, view, and publish a status report | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Can view in a resource search | Yes | Yes | No |
| Can track resource availability across enterprise | Yes | No | No |
Oracle Projects obtains information for employees from Oracle Human Resources. The integration with Oracle Human Resources includes:
Business group definition, including the specification of the Project Burdening Hierarchy
Job definitions
Organization, organization hierarchies and organization types and definitions
Entry and inquiry of employees and employee assignments, including date-effective assignments over time and specification of supervisors and billing titles (used in Oracle Projects) on the employee assignments
For more information, see Oracle Projects Implementation Guide
A contingent worker is a non-employee people resource who works for your enterprise, and for whom your enterprise is responsible for their costs and expenses. Similar to employees, Oracle Projects obtains information for contingent workers from Oracle Human Resources.
Oracle Projects enables you to define and utilize contingent workers on projects in the same capacities and manner as employees. You can define requirements and perform searches for contingent worker candidates, and you can directly assign contingent workers to projects and tasks.
Contingent workers can enter timecards via preapproved batches or Oracle Time and Labor. You can optionally set up Oracle Projects to calculate contingent worker labor costs based on the rates defined in the purchase orders you create to procure contingent worker services.
Note: To calculate contingent worker labor costs based on the cost rates prescribed in purchase orders, you must enable the Import Contingent Worker Timecards with Purchase Order Integration implementation option.
To facilitate processing of contingent worker expenses, you can optionally allow contingent workers to enter their expenses directly in Oracle Internet Expenses, or via Microsoft Excel expense entry and preapproved batches in Oracle Projects. You can also require the enterprise responsible for providing contingent worker services to invoice you for these expense costs and process the expense invoices in Oracle Payables.
To distinguish contingent worker labor and expense costs from employee costs, you can define AutoAccounting rules to separately account for contingent worker costs. As with other project costs, you can view the details of contingent worker labor and expense costs via Expenditure Inquiry, Project Status Inquiry, Project Performance Reporting, and in Discoverer workbooks.
An external team member is a contact or employee from a customer or partner organization. The person can have an assigned role on a project - can be a stakeholder or can be an interested party. You cannot track time or cost for external team members.
Fremont Corporation is deploying a project for Business World. John Smith from Business World is helping with some of the integration tasks. Fremont Corporation defines John Smith's project role as a Technical Consultant. John Smith is considered an external team member on this project and Business World tracks his time and cost.
An external team member is considered to be a part of the project team. To add an external team member to a project, you first have to enter the customer or partner organization on the project.
Oracle Projects retrieves external team members from Oracle Trading Community Architecture (TCA). Oracle Trading Community Architecture is a data model that allows you to manage complex information about parties, or customers who belong to your commercial community, including organizations, locations, and the network of hierarchical relationships among them.
You can enter employees and contingent workers who have not yet begun their employment or contract. The future-dated people start their employment later than the system date.
You can use future-dated people in the following areas:
| Functional Area | Uses and Restrictions |
|---|---|
| Project Setup | You can define future-dated people as team members, and you can define their related setup information including rate overrides and transaction controls. However, the start dates of such definitions must be on or after the person's start date. |
| Costing and Billing | You can enter actual project transactions for future-dated people only after they become active. In a future-dated expenditure batch, you can enter people who will be active as of the transaction dates. |
| Agreements | You can assign a future-dated person as an agreement administrator. |
| Utilization | You can view scheduled resource and organization utilization for a future-dated person for the periods in which they will be active. |
| Authority and Access | You can assign responsibilities or grant organization authority to a future-dated person only after their start date. |
| Staffing | You can assign future-dated people as scheduled members on a project, add them as candidates and also search for future-dated people, only after their start date. |
In Oracle Project Resource Management, a future-dated person is assigned the default calendar of the organization assignment. This calendar provides the basis of their schedule, capacity, and availability. You cannot change the calendar for a person until the person becomes active. As a result, future-dated people are not visible in the Calendar Assign Resources window until their respective start dates are current.
Related Topics
Import Contingent Worker Timecards with Purchase Order Integration, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide
Oracle Trading Community Architecture User Guide
In addition to people resources, you can use other types of resources to complete a project. The following table lists the types of resources that Oracle Projects supports, their descriptions, and where they are defined:
| Resource Type | Description | Defined in |
|---|---|---|
| Named Person | An employee or contingent worker performing services for an organization, such as John Smith. | Oracle Human Resources |
| Job | A set of duties to which an employee may be assigned. Every named person is assigned a job, for example, Principal Consultant. | Oracle Human Resources |
| Organization | Divisions, groups, cost centers or other organizational units within a company. | Oracle Human Resources |
| Expenditure Type | An implementation-defined classification of cost that you assign to each expenditure item. | Oracle Projects |
| Expenditure Category | An implementation-defined grouping of expenditure types by type of cost. | Oracle Projects |
| Revenue Category | An implementation-defined grouping of expenditure types by type of revenue. | Oracle Projects |
| Event Type | An implementation-defined classification of events that determines the revenue and invoice effect of an event. | Oracle Projects |
| Supplier | A business or individual that provides goods or services or both in return for payment. | Oracle Payables |
Related Topics
Resource lists are groupings of resources. You attach resource lists to projects to effectively budget project cost and revenue, to track resource usage, and to view cross-project reporting. Oracle Projects summarizes actual costs and commitments for resources, and rolls up the amounts for a project based on the attached resource list.
Oracle Projects requires that every project have at least one resource list assignment; this is to ensure that you can view actuals information in the Project Status windows and project status reports if no budget or forecast was created for the project.
For more flexibility and granularity, you can use planning resources.
When you create a baseline for a budget for the project, Oracle Projects automatically assigns the resource list used for the budget to the project, so that you can easily report actuals against budgets using the resources that you used for budgeting and forecasting.
You can assign additional resource lists by which you want to view summarized actuals in the Project Status Inquiry form or in your own custom reports. When you define additional resource list assignments, you must enter the following values:
Resource List: You can select any active resource list
Use: Oracle Projects tracks if the resource list is used for a given budget type or for status reporting. You can only select Status Reporting when you enter a new resource list assignment.
Drilldown Default: You use this check box to specify the default resource list to use when you drill down to view the resource status in the Project Status window. If necessary, you can change the resource list that you use for reviewing resource status in the Project Status Inquiry form; the change is effective only for the current session.
To assign a resource list to a project:
Navigate to the Projects form.
Find the project to which you want to assign the resource list.
In the Project window, select the Resource List Assignment option.
In the Resource List Assignments window, enter the resource list and specify if it is the drilldown default for Project Status Inquiry.
Save your work.
Related Topics
Resource Lists, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide
You use planning resource lists to plan the cost and effort of a project. You can define the resource needs at a high level, such as indicating that you need an organization or supplier involved in the project. You can also define your resource needs in a more granular form such as specifying a particular team role, a particular person, or even a specific financial element. You define planning resources in the context of a planning resource list.
A planning resource can represent any of the following:
A single identified resource such as a named person (Amy Marlin), or a specific piece of equipment or non-labor resource such as a laptop
A combination of an identified resource with specific attributes (Amy Marlin of Consulting East)
A combination of resource-related attributes such as a team role in a specific organization (Architect - US East Coast Region or DBA - Chicago HQ) or a specific expense of a financial category (Airfare - Employee Expenses)
In regard to the types of resources described in the topic Resource Types, you can only use certain resource types in the context of a planning resource list. The following table shows these resource types, their descriptions, and where they are defined:
| Resource Type | Description | Defined in |
|---|---|---|
| Person Type | Distinguishes employees and contingent workers. For example, the project requires 100 hours of people effort and you have resources only for 80 hours. You can plan 80 hours of employee time and 20 hours of contingent worker time on the project. | Oracle Human Resources |
| Team Role | A placeholder for the actual resource that will be assigned to a requirement. | Oracle Projects |
| Projects Non-Labor Resources | An implementation-defined asset or pool of assets. For example, you can define a non-labor resource with a name such as PC to represent multiple personal computers your business owns. | Oracle Projects |
| Inventory Item | An item that can be purchased or produced, and for which you can budget and track the costs associated with the consumption of the item. | Oracle Inventory |
| Item Category | A collection of similar inventory items used to track the aggregate consumption of material. | Oracle Inventory |
| BOM Labor | Labor resources defined in the Bill of Materials (BOM) module of Oracle Manufacturing associated with a job such as a welder. | Oracle Manufacturing |
| BOM Equipment | Equipment defined in the Bill of Materials (BOM) module of Oracle Manufacturing such as a lathe. | Oracle Manufacturing |
| Resource Class | A classification of resources into people, equipment, material items, and financial elements. | Oracle Projects |
A planning resource list is a combination of planning resource formats and planning resources. The following table shows examples of planning resource lists:
| Planning Resource Format | Planning Resources |
|---|---|
| Named Person - Financial Category - Organization | James Robinson - Direct Labor Cost - Vision Health System |
| Job - Organization | Consultant - Atlanta Manufacturing |
| Person Type | Contingent Worker |
| Team Role | Account Manager |
Your implementation team can define the following types of planning resource lists:
Project-Specific: A planning resource list for which you can add or delete planning resources for a given project. Planning resource formats for project-specific planning resource lists are maintained centrally, but the planning resources are project-specific.
Centrally Controlled: A planning resource list that you cannot modify within a project. This type of planning resource list is maintained for the enterprise and used by the projects in the enterprise to plan work and budget cost.
You can create a financial plan by copying a workplan, or another financial plan, or actual transactions on the project. You can match actual amounts to planning resources in the following ways:
Matching Source Planning Resources To Target Planning Resources
When you create a financial plan or a budget by copying a workplan or another financial plan, the system assigns each planning transaction in the source to a planning resource in the planning resource list used by the target workplan or the financial plan. Planning resource precedence rules govern how the target resource is determined.
You use the source transaction attributes to determine the matching planning resource.
Matching Actuals To Planning Resources
Similarly, when transactions are charged to a project, the system assigns each actual transaction to a planning resource in the planning resource list used by the target workplan or the financial plan, based on the planning resource precedence rules.
If the system does not find a matching planned resource, then Oracle Projects creates an unplanned transaction for the planning resource that most closely matches the actual transaction, based on the planning resource precedence rules.
Planning resource precedence rules are used to match planning transactions or actuals to the target planning resource list. The following table shows the precedence hierarchy used to find a matching resource format in the target planning resource list:
Note: A lower precedence number denotes higher precedence. For example, Resource Element/Incurred By Resource has the highest precedence.
| Resource Format Elements | Precedence |
|---|---|
| Resource Element / Incurred by Resource | 1 |
| Team Role | 2 |
| Financial Category | 3 |
| Organization | 4 |
| Supplier | 5 |
The following table shows the hierarchy used to find a matching resource type in the target planning resource list after the resource format is determined:
| Resource Type | Precedence |
|---|---|
| Named Person | 1 |
| BOM Labor | 2 |
| Projects Non-Labor | 3 |
| BOM Equipment | 4 |
| Inventory Item | 5 |
| Job | 6 |
| Item Category | 7 |
| Person Type | 8 |
| Resource Class | 9 |
The following table shows an example of a planning resource list that contains two planning resources:
| Planning Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Planning Resource A | Named Person - Financial Category - Organization (Amy Marlin - Professional - Consulting East) |
| Planning Resource B | Job - Organization (Principal Consultant - Consulting East) |
When Amy Marlin, a principal consultant in the Consulting East organization, enters timecards (with expenditure type as Professional), the costs are associated with planning resource A because the attributes are shared, and Named Attribute has a higher precedence than Job.
Actual amounts are matched to planning resources using the following rules:
For Centrally Controlled Planning Resource Lists
The resource class for the source transaction is determined.
The matching resource format with the lowest precedence number in the target planning resource list for the resource class is determined.
The planning resource within the format with the lowest precedence number is determined. If a planning resource does not exist for the given format, then step 2 is repeated with the next precedence number.
For Project-Specific Planning Resource Lists
The resource class for the source transaction is determined.
The matching resource format with the lowest precedence number in the target planning resource list for the resource class is determined.
If the planning resource does not exist, then a new planning resource is created.
You assign a planning resource list to either a workplan or a financial plan, or both. You can assign any planning resource list to a financial plan. However, to assign a planning resource list to a workplan, you must select the Enabled for Workplan check box on the planning resource list page.
To assign a planning resource list to a workplan or financial plan, peform the following steps:
Select the project with which you would like to associate the planning resource list and navigate to the Workplan or Financial Setup page.
Select Plan Settings to view the planning resource lists.
Select and apply any planning resource list from the Setup section for a workplan.
If you are using a project-specific planning resource list for your workplan or financial plan, you can add or delete planning resources within a project. However, the changes you make are exclusive to the project and do not affect the planning resource list defined at the implementation level.
When you add a planning resource, you select both a resource class and a planning resource format. The resource class is a high-level categorization of resources. The planning resource format determines the level of granularity with which you want to plan for resources in your projects. The following table shows the resource classes:
| Resource Class | Description |
|---|---|
| People | People resources represent named persons or any grouping of named persons by attributes such as job, organization, or role, whose time (effort) capacity is consumed to complete the project work. Example: Amy Marlin |
| Equipment | An equipment resource is a non-person resource such as machine, equipment, or facilities whose time capacity is consumed to complete project work. Example: Laptop |
| Material Items | Material items differ from equipment resources in that the resource itself, rather than the resource capacity, is consumed to complete project work. Material Items are physically tracked as inventory, sub-assembly, WIP, purchasable items or finished goods in the Oracle E-Business Suite. Example: WIP |
| Financial Elements | Financial elements are resources that have a financial value in the project. Usually the physical identification of the resource is either unimportant or meaningless compared to tracking its financial value. In general, financial elements are aggregate resources classified in a way that achieves accounting and financial management objectives. Examples: Expenses and Supplier Costs |
The resource class determines the available selection of predefined planning resource formats. A planning resource format is a combination of the attributes shown in the following table:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Resource | One of any enterprise objects such as people, equipment, facilities, materials used to complete and track a project |
| Financial category | A financial category represents the type or category of costs. A financial category contains the following resource types:
|
| Organization | Any level of an organization such as divisions, groups, cost centers, or other organizational units within a company |
| Supplier | A business or individual that provides goods and or services for payment |
| Team role | A requirement for a particular project |
| Incurred by resource | An incurred by resource represents the resource that is incurring an expense amount. This element allows users to distinguish between a named persons time being consumed, and tracking expenses for that same named person. |
If a planning resource list is enabled for a workplan, you can use the following only once in a planning resource format in the planning resource list:
Named Person
BOM Labor
BOM Equipment
Projects Non-Labor Resources
Inventory Item
Related Topics
Defining a Planning Resource List, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide
Resource breakdown structures provide another method for viewing planned and actual cost and revenue for a project by resource, resource type, and other resource groupings. The resource breakdown structure consists of one or more hierarchies of resource elements. An element is a resource type, such as job or organization, or a combination of a resource type and a specified resource, such as the job of Principal Consultant or a person named Amy Marlin.
In regard to the types of resources described in the topic Resource Types, you can also use another resource type called Role exclusively in a resource breakdown structure. A role is an actual, assigned resource, such as a developer or a project manager.
The following table demonstrates an example of a resource breakdown structure:
| Outline Number | Resource Type | Resource |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Organization | Consulting - East |
| 1.1 | Job | Principal Consultant |
| 1.2 | Named Person | Amy Marlin |
| 2 | Expenditure Type | Computers |
| 2.1 | Project Non-Labor Resource | Network |
| 2.2 | Project Non-Labor Resource | Server |
You use the resource breakdown structure to view actual and planned amounts for both effort and cost against financial plans and workplans. The resource breakdown structure defines how the financial and work information is aggregated and reported for a project.
For example, you can track the cost impact of every resource that has been assigned to a project task and use the resource breakdown structure to view the breakdown of these costs. Oracle Projects associates the costs of the resources used for tasks with levels in the resource breakdown structure as they are entered. The process for determining the correct association is managed by predefined precedence rules.
Oracle Projects uses predefined precedence rules to determine how to associate amounts with resources in the resource breakdown structure. The following table identifies the precedence levels associated with each resource type for each resource class:
| No. | Resource Type | People Resource Class | Equipment Resource Class | Material Items Resource Class | Financial Elements Resource Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Named Person | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | BOM Labor | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | Projects Non-Labor Resource | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | BOM Equipment | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 5 | Item | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 6 | Job | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| 7 | Role | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
| 8 | Item Category | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| 9 | Expenditure Type | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| 10 | Event Type | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| 11 | Expenditure Category | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 |
| 12 | Revenue Category | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| 13 | Organization | 13 | 13 | 15 | 15 |
| 14 | Person Type | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
| 15 | Supplier | 15 | 15 | 13 | 13 |
| 16 | Resource Class | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| 17 | User Defined Resource | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
Note: You can enter free text for a user-defined resource.
Oracle Projects uses the following rules to associate amounts with resources:
Select the deepest level in the resource breakdown structure to which a transaction can map.
If there is only one level to which the transaction maps, then the amounts are mapped to this level.
If the transaction maps to more than one level, then Oracle Projects selects the element with the highest rolled-up precedence value. The precedence value is calculated by summing the precedence values for all resource types in the branch of the hierarchy
If there is same precedence at a level, then Oracle Projects uses the precedence of the next level up.
For branches that roll up to identical precedence values:
Select the branch with the higher precedence value at the lowest level (see Example 2 below).
If one branch is using the User Defined resource type, then give the other branch higher precedence.
The following table shows an example resource breakdown structure.
| Outline Number | Resource Type | Resource |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Organization | Consulting - East |
| 1.1 | Job | Principal Consultant |
| 1.2 | Named Person | Amy Marlin |
You can track labor expenses for Amy Marlin based on the predefined precedence rules. In the above structure, the labor expenses will be associated with level 1.2 - Named Person - Amy Marlin.
In a resource breakdown structure hierarchy, if the precedence rolls up to the same number at any specific level, then the amounts are associated to the resource having the highest precedence value.
In the table below, the precedence level rolls up to 20 for both level 1 and level 2. For a timecard, the costs are mapped to the level 1.1 - Job because in the People resource class, the resource type Job has higher precedence (6) than the resource type of Expenditure Type (9).
| Outline Number | Resource Type | Resource | Precedence Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Person Type | Employee | 14 |
| 1.1 | Job | Principal Consultant | 6 |
| 2 | Expenditure Category | Expenses | 11 |
| 2.1 | Expenditure Type | Travel | 9 |
You can associate a resource breakdown structure with the workplan and financial plan of a project. You can use either the same resource breakdown structure or apply different structures. The structure applied to the workplan will provide a breakdown of cost and effort for the task assignments. The structure applied to the financial plan provides a different view of the project data based on budget and costs. You can also add additional resource breakdown structures to a project to provide alternate views of project data in the Reporting tab.
Note: If you copy a project to create a new project, the resource breakdown structure associations are also copied.
To attach a resource breakdown structure to a workplan or a financial plan:
Select the project to which you want to associate the resource breakdown structure.
Use one of the following navigation paths to associate the resource breakdown structure with the workplan, financial plan, or overall project:
Workplan > Setup > Plan Settings
Financial > Setup > Plan Settings
Project > Setup > Resource Breakdown Structures
Select and apply a resource breakdown structure.
Related Topics
Resource Breakdown Structure, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide
Project Performance Reporting, Oracle Project Management User Guide