This chapter describes how to manage change requests and change orders in Oracle Projects.
This chapter covers the following topics:
A change is an event, action, or condition that affects the scope, value, or duration of a project or task. Change management is the process of creating, managing, resolving, implementing, and communicating changes.
Change management encompasses both change requests and change orders.
Change requests enable you plan for and document potential changes to the scope of a project and facilitate its approval. Using a change request you can estimate changes to a project’s cost or revenue financial plans by entering and tracking potential changes in cost transactions. You can plan for changes in cost transactions based on use of direct project resources or resources obtained from suppliers. The estimated transactions are then summarized as impacts so you can view the potential changes to your project financial plans. Once the impacts are summarized, you can modify them or add additional revenue impacts if your project has a separate revenue budget. For more information on cost and revenue planning lines, see: Planning for Cost and Revenue Impacts section. A change request can also have workplan, staffing, contract, supplier, and other impacts. Impacts enable you to define and quantify the effect of a change to the scope of a project. Once a change Request is approved, you can either include the change request in a change order to implement the impacts or include the impact directly into unapproved versions of the project plan. Including a change request in a change order closes the change request.
Change orders enable you to track and implement the impacts of changes to a project. Like change requests, you can use the change order to plan for project changes by estimating changes in cost transactions and summarize them as budget impacts. A change order can also have workplan, staffing, contract, supplier, and other impacts. You can merge the impacts of multiple change requests into a single change order. Once approved, you can implement the impact of a change order. You can close a change order after all impacts are implemented.
Change requests and change orders are sometimes referred to collectively in Oracle Projects as change documents.
The change management process often requires the collection of input from various people associated with the project, and other interested parties. Oracle Projects provides you with a centralized change management system that enables you to manage this process and communicate change in a consistent and timely manner.
Change management offers many features, such as the ability to:
Use a predefined set of change document types.
Define statuses for change documents according to the needs of your organization.
Associate related issues and documents with a change document.
Enable team members to create and manage change documents.
Search for change documents across projects.
Define the impacts of change requests and change orders.
Include change requests in change orders.
Copy existing issues and change documents to expedite the creation of new change documents.
Export a list of change documents into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to perform further analysis or reporting.
Automatically route change document notifications using Oracle Workflow.
Change the owner of a single change document or multiple change documents at the same time.
Track the ownership and status history of change documents, and view a history of assignments.
Include the financial impact of change documents in project budgets and forecasts.
Create and update cost planning lines with direct costs and supplier costs on a change request or a change order to estimate the functional impact changes in project scope.
View the history of updates to cost planning lines for tracking negotiations with suppliers.
Calculate cost budget impacts from cost planning lines.
View cost budget impacts for a change document.
Calculate revenue budget impacts from cost planning lines.
Manually enter planned changes to revenue budget lines when revenue budgets are separate from cost budgets.
View details of budget impacts from cost planning lines.
Implement the financial impact of change orders in project budgets and forecasts.
Generate a Potential Change Order (PCO) report.
Create new financial tasks and send the task for approval if you do not have task approval authority.
Any task that you create from a change document can only be used in the change document until an authorized user approves it.
Setup is required in order to use change management. For information on implementing change management, see: Issue and Change Management, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
Both project team members and non-team members can participate in the resolution and implementation of a change document. These participants can have different levels of access to the change document and related actions based on both the status of the change document and the type of assigned actions.
The following table lists the possible participants and their level of participation.
| Participant | Description |
|---|---|
| Creator | A change document creator is a project team member who creates the change document and designates the owner. Only the creator and users with proper project security access such as super users, users with project authority for an organization, and project managers have access to a change document while it is in Draft status. |
| Owner | A change document owner is a project team member who has been assigned the responsibility of overseeing the progress, resolution, implementation, and closure of a change document. This person creates and assigns actions to both team members and non-team members, as appropriate. In addition, users who have proper project security access can change the status and ownership of items. The owner of the change document can be changed only while the change document is in either Draft or Working status. |
| Assignee | An assignee is a person who has been assigned an action. The assignee can respond, close, or reassign the action. |
| Approver | An approver reviews and approves a change document. Project managers are the default change document approvers. If the person that submits the change document for approval is the project manager, the change document is automatically approved once it is submitted. |
Note: These participants can also create financial tasks in the change document and generate PCO report.
For more information, see Managing Tasks In a Financial Structure, Oracle Projects Fundamentals.
The status of a change document determines its visibility and whether or not you can update it. Only the change document owner and a user who has proper project security access can change the status of a change document.
You can control the progression of status changes throughout the change document life cycle and view the history of status changes. The statuses that you can assign to a change document are determined by the control item status list that is associated with the change document type. When you create a new change order document, you can only select from the associated control item status list, statuses that have been marked as starting statuses and mapped to a system status of Draft or Working.
Oracle Projects provides a default control item status list that includes a set of predefined system statuses. Your implementation team can define additional status lists and statuses to meet the needs of your organization. For more information, see: Defining Statuses and Status Options, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide, and Control Item Statuses and Status Lists, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
The following table lists the predefined system statuses and describes the business rules associated with each status.
| Status | Description | Next Allowable Statuses |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | A change document in Draft status and its assigned actions are visible only to the person who created the change document and persons who have proper project security access. You can delete change documents that are in Draft status only. | Working |
| Working | The change document is visible to action assignees and team members. You can update a change document while it is in Working status. | Submitted Canceled Closed |
| Submitted | The change document is awaiting approval. You cannot modify a change document with this status. You can only update progress and comments. If you want to make other changes, you must rework the change document. | Approved Rejected Canceled |
| Approved | The approver has approved the change document resolution and the change document impacts can now be implemented. You cannot modify a change document with this status, however, you can update progress and comments. | Closed Canceled |
| Rejected | The approver has rejected the change document. You must rework to make corrections and resubmit it for approval. You must rework the rejected change document to make corrections before resubmitting it, or you can cancel it. Reworking the change document automatically changes the status back to Working. |
Working Canceled |
| Closed | At this point, the change document is considered resolved and no additional work is necessary. You cannot modify a change document with this status. You cannot close a change order until you implement all impacts. | None |
| Canceled | A change document can be canceled if it is no longer a concern and does not require further work. You cannot modify a change document with this status. If you cancel a change order with included change requests, the change requests are automatically reset to Approved status. | None |
A log is created to store the history of status changes. This includes details of the statuses, the person who makes the change, the timestamp, and an optional comment for the change.
When you create a change document, the information you provide assists in its management, resolution, and implementation. This section describes some of the attributes of a change document.
You must select a classification for each change document. This classification provides further categorization of the change document. For example, you have defined classifications of Resource, Knowledge Gap, and Dependencies. You can create a personalized view of all the Resource change documents. The classification enables you to categorize your change documents into meaningful groups for identifying high problem areas.
You can specify a date by which the change document should be resolved and implemented. This attribute is used to calculate the value for Days Until Due, which indicates to team members the urgency of the change document by showing how much time is left to resolve and close a change document.
You can associate the change document to a particular task on either the currently published workplan or financial structure.
If source information is enabled for the change document type, you can specify the originating source of the change document and its related information.
Each change document is assigned a system-generated number that is unique across all projects. In addition, each change document has a number to identify it within the project. Depending on your implementation, this number is either generated automatically or must be entered manually.
The change document numbers must be unique for each change document type within each project. You can have duplicate numbers for the same change document types across different projects. However, you cannot have two change documents with the same change document type with the same number within a project.
For example, if you have change document types of Internal Change Requests, Client Change Requests, and Environment Change Requests, then the numbering of the change documents for each of these types will begin with 1 for each project.
The following table lists example change documents for projects A and B and their respective numbering.
| Project | Change Document Summary | Change Document Type | Change Document Number | System Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Re-imaging of mainframe computer | Client Change Requests | 1 | 1 |
| A | Additional software licenses required | Client Change Requests | 2 | 2 |
| A | Need new development environment | Internal Change Requests | 1 | 3 |
| B | Need documented signoff process | Internal Change Requests | 1 | 4 |
| B | Need budget for another staff consultant | Client Change Requests | 2 | 6 |
Note: This example assumes that the change documents have been created in the order presented.
If automatic numbering is enabled for the change document type, then the number appears when the change document status is changed to Working. By default, Oracle Projects generates change document numbers sequentially. However, you can optionally use the Control Item Document Numbering Extension to define your own numbering logic. See: Control Item Document Numbering Extension, Oracle Projects APIs, Client Extensions, and Open Interfaces Reference.
If manual numbering is enabled for the change document type, then you must enter a unique number for the change document prior to changing the status from Draft to Working.
You can optionally define impacts for a change document to specify and quantify how a project is affected by the change document. A change document can have workplan, staffing, financial, contract, supplier, and other impacts. You can merge the impacts of multiple change requests into a single change order. For more information, see: Defining Change Document Impacts.
You can manually implement the supplier impacts associated with a change order in purchase orders. In addition, Oracle Projects enables you to implement and include the financial impact of change documents in budgets and forecasts. For more information, see: Implementing and Including Financial Impact in Budgets and Forecasts.
The change management process consists of the following stages:
Creating change documents
When you identify a change for a project or task, you can record the change details in Oracle Projects and assign ownership of the resulting change document. The change document owner then creates and assigns actions in an effort to resolve the change document, and defines the change document impacts. Oracle Projects generates workflow notifications when change documents and actions are assigned. You can plan financial changes to a project budget by estimating changes in planned cost transactions. You can also create a change document by copying an existing issue or change document. For more information, see: Creating Change Documents.
Managing change documents
You can view and manage change documents for one or more projects for which you are responsible for resolving. You can create personalized lists to help you determine which change documents need immediate attention. You can change the owner and the status of a change document, and you can view ownership and status history of change documents. Additionally, you can update the progress of change documents and respond to actions to help resolve the change documents in a timely manner. For more information, see: Managing Change Documents.
Resolving change documents
After change document impacts are defined and all actions are closed, the change document owner is required to submit the change document for approval.
After a change request is approved, you can include it in a change order and submit it for approval. After the change order is approved, you can:
implement and include the financial impact in project budgets and forecasts
implement and track the supplier impact in purchase orders
track the implementation details for workplan, contract, staffing, and other impacts
Oracle Projects generates workflow notifications to prompt timely resolution of change documents. You can close a change order after the impacts are implemented. For more information, see Resolving Change Documents. For more information on implementing the financial impact of change orders, see: Including and Viewing Change Documents.
You create a change document to manage the resolution and implementation of changes associated with a particular project or task. Each change document is based on a predefined change request or change order type. The change document type determines who can create a change document of that type and the general behavior of a change document. For example, the change document type specifies how the change documents are numbered and if a resolution is required. Change document types are associated with project types. This association determines the list of change document types available for a given project. For more information on defining change request and change order types, see: Issue and Change Management, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
To create a change document
Navigate to the Change Requests or Change Orders page for a project.
Select the desired change request or change order type.
Enter the change document details and initial action, as appropriate.
Note: If you are not ready for the project team to begin working on the change document and assigned action, then you must change the status to Draft before you save the change document for the first time. You cannot change the status of a working change document back to Draft once it has been saved.
Save the change document.
Define cost and revenue planning lines. For more information on cost and revenue planning for a change document, see: Planning for Cost and Revenue Impacts section.
Define other impacts for the change document.
Define additional actions.
If the change document status was originally set to Draft, change the status to Working when you are ready for the project team members and other action assignees to begin working on their actions and the resolution of the change document.
Each change document has a log tracking the interaction between team members and action assignees. All comments and responses to actions are recorded in this log and can be viewed through the Interaction History page.
You can also create change documents from the Team Home Member page for any project on which you are a team member.
To quickly create a change document, you can copy an existing change request or change order from any project to which you have access. When you copy a change request to a change order, you can copy and include the change request at the same time. You can also create a change document from an existing issue. For information on creating issues, see: Overview of Issue Management.
When copying change documents, Oracle Projects applies the following rules:
When creating a change order by copying an existing change order that has included change requests, Oracle Projects does not copy the included change requests.
When copying a change request or change order from a different project, Oracle Projects copies all impacts except the financial impact.
If a change document being copied contains an impact that is not defined in the target change document type, then the impact is not copied to the target change document.
When you create a change document by copying an existing issue or change document, Oracle Projects automatically sets the change document status to Draft.
To provide additional information for a change document, you can attach documents. These documents can be plain text, URL addresses, or external documents. You can also reference related issues and other change documents to a change document from any project to which you have access. For information on attaching documents, see: Overview of Document Management.
An action is an assigned question or unit of work related to the change document. The action consists of the request and related information, and all responses to the request. Actions enable project team members and other interested parties to collaborate on a change document, and can help in the resolution of the change document. For example, if you want someone to comment on a proposed resolution for the change document, then you can create an action to request a response.
You can create actions for a change document that is in either draft or working status, and assign these actions to any person. However, these actions are visible to the assignees only when the change document is in working status.
You can create two types of actions: Review or Update. A review action allows the assignee to review the change document and enter a response. An update action allows the assignee to update the change document for as long as the action is open. Only the change document owner or project manager can create update actions. However, persons assigned to open review and update actions can create new review actions for other people.
When you define an action, you can specify a due date for the response in the Required by Date field. This date assists the change document owner in managing outstanding actions on the change document. You can also request signoff from the action assignee in order to confirm the action response. The change document owner can submit the change document for approval only after all the actions are closed.
When you create a change request or a change order, you can define impacts to specify the effect that the change document will have on the project. The types of impacts that are available for you to define for a specific change request or change order are based on the impacts that are enabled for the change document type. Impacts can be of the following types:
Workplan
Staffing
Financial
Supplier
Contract
Other
You define workplan, staffing, contract, and other impacts by entering descriptive text. When you define a supplier impact, you can enter descriptive text, as well as an impact amount by purchase order. You can use the supplier impact amount information to manually update purchase orders at any time.
When you define financial impact for a change document, you can either plan for the changes by estimating changes in cost transactions and calculating the revenue budget impact automatically, or simply entering the budget impacts. Enable the Cost and Revenue Planning option by selecting the Budget Update method for a change document type.
If you are using the Cost and Revenue Planning budget update method, you enter changes you expect in cost transactions either from self-performed work, known as Direct Costs, or in subcontracted work, also known as Supplier Costs. For each planned change, you specify details to help you track the change and charge it to the correct budget line. For each change you can enter descriptive text, estimate amounts, detail plan lines, details of negotiations with suppliers, and specify an agreement (for revenue financial impact). Amounts can include quantities, cost amounts, and revenue amounts, as appropriate, based on the planning options defined in the approved budget plan type for a project and the change document type settings. You can view historical values of supplier negotiations. Oracle Projects uses the change document type setup to determine whether you can enter cost impacts only, revenue impacts only, or both cost and revenue impacts. You cannot select a change document type for revenue impacts only if the project revenue budget is not planned together with the cost budget.
If you are using the Edit Budget Lines budget update method, you enter the new budget values you want to implement. Oracle Projects defines default planning options for the financial impact of a change document based on the planning options for the current working version of the approved budget plan type. You can also edit the default planning options of a change document from the pages used to edit the cost and revenue amounts. For more information on defining planning options and creating an approved budget version, see: Using Budgeting and Forecasting.
Before you can enter financial impact amounts for a change document, a current working version must exist for the approved budget plan type for the project. In addition, once a financial impact has been defined for a change document, you must have at least one current working version for the approved budget plan type.
Note: You must select an agreement when you define revenue financial impact for a change order. This insures the revenue impacts are implemented on the appropriate revenue plan.
Whether you plan for financial impacts or enter them manually, you view the cost and revenue impacts summary in the Financial Summary region of the Impacts sub-tab. The summary displays the total change amounts for the change document and the detailed budget line values.
Note: You can override Raw Cost and Burdened Cost amounts in the detailed budget impact section if you want to implement a different budget change amount. Updating the override value on the budget summary detail region does not change the values you entered in the Planning tab or the Edit Budget page.
After you define financial impact for a change document, you can implement and include the financial impact in budgets and forecasts. For information, see: Implementing and Including Financial Impact in Budgets and Forecasts.
The Planning sub tab allows you to plan for financial changes to a project budget by estimating changes in planned cost transactions. These impacts are summarized and displayed as Budget Impacts. The cost planning option improves the accuracy of identifying impacts associated to a project, because you can plan for changes at a transaction level and not only at the budget line level.
The type of information you can plan depends on the options enabled on the control item also known as change type you select when you create your change document.
When you define a control item type, you can determine whether to plan for cost, revenue or both cost and revenue. You also determine whether to plan for only direct cost, that is, work you self-perform or a supplier cost, that is, work you subcontract. After enabling the Budget Update Method of the Control Item Type for Cost & Revenue Planning, you also determine if you want to enable the Control Item for planning direct costs, supplier costs or both. Enable cost planning option before you select the cost types you want to plan. If you enable revenue planning only, then you can use the control item type with projects that have separate revenue budgets.
Note: An approved revenue budget is used to define a revenue planning line.
For more information on how to set up a control item types, see: Control Item Types, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
Navigate to the Change Requests or Change Orders page for a project.
Select a control item type from the Create list and click Go.
Enter the header information for a Change Request or a Change Order and click Apply.
Click the Update icon. The Update Change Request or Change Order page appears.
Select the Planning sub-tab.
Note: The budget update method combination that you have a selected for a control item type enables the Direct Costs, Supplier Costs, or Revenue Planning regions.
Define the direct cost planning line in the Direct Costs region.
Define the supplier cost planning line in the Supplier Costs region.
Note: Enter the transaction dates that effect the budget line dates. Budget line date changes affect the periodic spread of costs or revenue over the project planning periods when budgets or forecasts are updated and baselined.
Define the revenue impacts in the Revenue Planning region if costs and revenue are planned separately.
Click Apply to save the planning lines.
Note: The cost and revenue planning lines enables you to select an expenditure type and a planning resource for changes that are planned on a change document.
After entering details for planned changes in cost and revenue planning lines, you can calculate and summarize the financial impacts to the cost and revenue budgets. You can view these financial impacts in the Impact sub-tab of the change document.
You can drill down into the details of a change document from any list of change requests or change orders. As a project manager, you can manage change documents and actions related to your projects on change document list pages. As a project team member, you can manage the change documents you own and the open actions assigned to you through the Team Member Home page.
You can use change request and change order lists to search for change documents on all projects for which you are a team member. When you search for change documents, you must specify at least one of the following criteria:
Type
Number
Summary
Project Name
Project Number
Owner
System Number
To help you manage your change documents, Oracle Projects provides predefined personalization views for both the Change Request and Change Order lists for a given project. Oracle Projects provides the following views for change requests:
All Open Change Documents: This view includes all change documents in Working, Submitted, Rejected, and Approved statuses.
All Draft and Open Change Documents: This view includes all change documents in Working, Submitted, Rejected, and Approved statuses. Any change requests in Draft status that you created are also displayed in this view.
Overdue Open Change Documents: This view includes all change documents that have a past due required-by date, but have not been closed or canceled.
High Priority Change Documents: This view includes all high priority change documents.
In Trouble Change Documents: This view indicates any change documents that are in trouble.
Oracle Projects provides the following two personalization views for change orders:
All Draft and Open Change Orders: This view includes all change orders in Working, Submitted, Rejected, and Approved statuses. Any change orders in Draft status that you created are also displayed in this view.
Overdue Open Change Orders: This view includes all change orders that have a past due required-by date, but have not been closed or canceled.
You can create additional personalized views based on any of the change document attributes. The following columns are available in each of these views to provide additional information to help you manage change documents:
Days Since Updated: This column indicates the number of days since the change document was updated. The value of this column is updated each time a change document attribute, impact, or action is modified.
Days Until Due: This column indicates the number of days until the change document is due. If the value of this column is negative, the change document is overdue.
From any of these change document lists, you can select to see the progress, status, actions, impacts, and any related issues and change documents. You can also export the change document list to Microsoft Excel for further reporting and analysis. The exported list will expand to include all attributes available in the personalized view.
Whether you plan for financial impacts by entering planning lines in the Planning sub-tab or enter them in the Edit Budget page, you can view a summary of financial impacts in the Financial region of the Impacts tab. This view allows you to view the summary of financial impacts included in the change document. The summarized information of changes to the current budget, and the budget details are displayed in the Budget Impact Summary region of the Impacts sub-tab.
You can view the People Effort, Equipment effort, Raw Cost, Burdened Cost, Revenue, Margin, and Margin% information.
You can also view the changed totals in each category before and after impact of the current change document.
The detailed budget line amount is displayed in the Financial Impact Details region of the Impacts sub-tab. The planned amounts from the planning lines are rolled up based on planning resources selected for each line.
If you are planning for supplier costs, then you can view a history of the updates to each cost planning line. This enables you to track the history of negotiations with suppliers. Each time you save the Planning tab page after updating values on the supplier cost planning lines, a historical record is maintained. You view the update history using the History icon for the supplier cost planning line.
Change document owners can periodically update the progress towards resolving the change document. The progress includes an as of date, progress status, and a textual description of the progress being made on the change document. The progress status is reflected in both of the predefined views for open change documents, and provides the project manager a quick indicator for identifying the change documents that need attention.
Oracle Projects enables you to change the owner and view the complete ownership history of a change document. If you do not have the authority to change the owner, you can only view the ownership history.
You can update the ownership and view ownership history from within the context of a change document and from change document list pages. In addition, Oracle Projects enables you to update the ownership of multiple change documents at the same time from change document list pages. You can update ownership for multiple change documents from within a project change document list and from cross-project lists of change documents.
Oracle Projects sends a workflow notification to the new owner when the change document ownership is changed.
You can view and update the cost planning lines for a change order or a change request in the Update Change Request or the Update Change Order page. You can update the Effective From Date, Effective To Date, Change Reason, Change Description, Quantity and Raw Cost in the Direct Costs region of the Planning sub-tab. To modify other fields, you must remove the cost planning line and create a new one.
You can update the Change Type, Supplier, Effective From Date, Effective To Date, Negotiation Details, Raw Cost, Need By Date, Change Reason, Quote Negotiation Reference, and Supplier Quote Reference Number in the Supplier Costs region of the Planning sub-tab. If the change type is Create New, you can also update the Expenditure Organization. If the change type is Update Existing you can update the PO Number and Line Number.
You can view and update the revenue planning lines for a change order or a change request in the Update Change Request or the Update Change Order page. You can update the Effective From Date, Effective To Date, Quantity, Revenue Override Rate, and Revenue Amount in the Revenue Planning region of the Planning sub-tab.
Note: In the Planning sub-tab, you cannot override revenue amount when you plan the cost and revenue planning lines together. If cost and revenue is planned separately, then you can override the revenue amounts.
Note: You cannot override the Burdened Cost amounts in the Planning sub-tab for a cost planning line.
The change document owner, project manager, or an assignee of an update action can enter the resolution of a change document. If a resolution is required for a change document, you must enter it before you can submit the change document for approval.
All change documents must be approved. Approval of a change document indicates that the approver has reviewed the change document and agrees with the defined impacts and the resolution. The approver for your change documents is the project manager, by default, but your implementation team may have the approver defined differently. If the approver rejects the change document resolution, the status is changed to Rejected and the change document must be reworked in order to be resubmitted it for approval.
A change document with open actions cannot be submitted for approval. In addition, change requests must be included in a change order before they can be closed. Once approved, you can implement the impacts of a change order and close the change order.
You can respond to and close only those actions assigned to you. You can access these actions for working change documents through the Team Member Home page. Only the change document owner or project manager can cancel open actions and must enter a reason for the cancellation.
You can reassign an action to another person. If you reassign an action, a copy of it is created with you identified as the requestor, and the original action is closed. For the reassigned action, you must specify a new Required by Date, but you cannot change the action type and whether or not the action requires signoff.
The following table lists action activities and specifies whether or not the identified persons can perform each activity.
| Activity | Change Document Owner | Project Team Member | Action Assignee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Create a review action | Yes | No | Yes |
| Create an update action | Yes | No | No |
| Add a response to an action | No | No | Yes |
| Change the status | Yes | No | Yes |
| Close an action | No | No | Yes |
| Sign off on an action | No | No | Yes |
| Reassign an action (Review or Update actions) | No | No | Yes |
| Cancel an action | Yes | No | No |
| View an action | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Add a comment to the change document | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Note: Users who have project security access such as super users, users with project authority for an organization, and project managers can perform the same action activities as a change document owner.
A change request is closed after it is approved. Then you can include the change request in a change order to implement the impacts that are associated with the change request.
Note: You can include a change request in a change order or implement it directly.
When you include a change request in a change order, Oracle Projects automatically combines the impacts from the change request with those in the change order to create a single consolidated list of impacts. However, the attributes, documents, related items, and actions of the change request are not copied to the change order. You can include change requests that have only valid impacts for the change order. Therefore, if a change request has a financial impact and you want to include it in a change order, the change order must use a change document type that accepts financial impacts.
You can include multiple change requests in a change order. However, you can include a change request in only one change order and only on the same project.
Note: The Planning sub-tab is in read only mode in the approved change order.
The change document owner can rework a submitted, approved, or rejected change document. When you click on the Rework button, it changes the change document status back to Working so that the change document can be modified.
If you cancel a change document, all open actions and pending workflows are canceled, and the status of the change document is changed to Canceled. If the canceled change document included change requests, the status of those requests revert to Approved.
Note: You cannot cancel a change order after any of its impacts are implemented or closed.
You can only implement impacts that are associated with a change order. You cannot implement impacts that are associated with a change request. To implement impacts associated with a change request, you must first include the change request in a change order. For more information, see: Including Change Requests in Change Orders.
To implement the supplier impact for a change order, you must manually post the impact details in the corresponding purchase order in Oracle Purchasing. The details of workplan, staffing, contract, and other impacts are not integrated with any other application. However, you can use the change order to manually track the implementation of these impacts.
Note: You cannot modify impact details for a change order with a status of Approved. To modify impacts for an approved change order, choose the Rework button to set the status back to Working.
Only the change order owner or a person with the appropriate project security access can implement a change order. After all of the impacts have been implemented, you can close the change order. You cannot rework or cancel a change order after it is closed.
Oracle Projects enables you to implement and include the financial impact of change documents in budgets and forecasts.
Implementing Financial Impact: Implementing financial impact refers to the action of updating the current working version of a budget or forecast plan type with the financial impact amounts specified in a change order.
You can implement financial impact only from within the context of a change order. You can implement the financial impact of a change order in multiple budget or forecast plan types. Conversely, you can implement multiple change orders in a budget or forecast plan type.
When you implement financial impact, Oracle Projects allows you to first select one or more budget or forecast plan types that you want to target. Oracle Projects then updates the current working version of each plan type with the full amount of the financial impact specified in the change order. When you implement revenue financial impact for an approved budget plan type, you can partially implement the revenue impact in an approved revenue budget version.
Note: To partially implement revenue impact for an approved budget plan type, the Enable Partial Implementation of Revenue option must be selected for the plan type. See: Financial Plan Types, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
When you implement financial impact in a budget plan type, you can choose to simultaneously create a baseline version. In the case of a forecast plan type, you can choose to create an approved forecast version.
Including Financial Impact: Including financial impact refers to the action of updating any working version of a budget or forecast plan type with the financial impact amounts specified in either a change request or a change order.
You can include financial impact from within the context of a budget or forecast version. You can include the financial impact of a change request or a change order in multiple budget and forecast versions. Conversely, you can include multiple change requests and change orders in a budget or forecast version.
When you include financial impact in a budget or forecast version, Oracle Projects updates the version with the full amount of the financial impact specified in the change request or change order. The rules for including the financial impact of change requests and change orders are as follows:
You can include the financial impact of a change request in any working budget or forecast version except a budget version for an approved budget plan type.
You can include the financial impact of a change order in any working budget or forecast version.
Your ability to implement or include the financial impact of a change document in a budget or forecast is controlled by the change document status, and whether the financial plan type associated with the budget or forecast version allows you to implement or include financial impact for the change document type and change document status. For more information, see: Control Item Statuses and Status Lists, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide, and Financial Plan Types, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
After the financial impact of a change document is implemented or included in a project budget or forecast, you can view the change document information in the View Included Change Documents page, and in view pages for budgets and forecasts. For more information on implementing and viewing change documents, see: Including and Viewing Change Documents.
You can create financial tasks in a change document, using a reference task from the financial task structure, if you need to track the cost associated with the task. If you have the Projects: Options: Tasks function security these financial tasks will be automatically approved upon creation. If you not have the authority to approve the task, you must submit the task for approval. The PA: Task Approval workflow defines the approval process. The corresponding change order can be approved only after the associated financial tasks are approved.
All persons who are a key member of a project and have the authority to create and update financial tasks can approve the tasks.
The following table lists the predefined system statuses and describes the business rules associated with each status.
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| New | User has created and saved the task, but not submitted for approval. |
| Submitted | User has submitted the task for approval and notification is sent to the approver. |
| Pending | User has submitted the task for approval, but it has an unapproved parent task. The notification for approval of the task will be sent to the approver only after the parent task is approved. |
If you create a task and the Projects: Options: Tasks function security is enabled, then the application automatically approves the task upon creation.
Change management tasks with the status New, Pending, or Submitted can be used only in a change document. The application will not allow you to use these tasks for any other transaction entries in Oracle applications.
Once you have created a change management task, you must submit the task for approval. Only after the task has been submitted for approval you can submit the associated change order for approval. You cannot perform the following actions on a parent task whose child task is unapproved:
Create pre-approved expenditure
Create purchase requisitions
Create purchase order
Create timecards in TOL
Create invoice in Payables
Create expense reports in Payables
Create allocation rules
Mark as intercompany tax receiving task
Mark as burden cost task
Mark as intercompany billing receiver task.
Even if you don’t have the functions security to update a task, you can still create a task using a reference task and submit the task for approval. If you have the Projects: Options: Tasks function security to create a task then the task is automatically approved when you create it.
You can submit a single task for approval, or you can select multiple financial tasks, in status New, and submit them for approval. If you have selected multiple tasks for approval, then the application gives you an option to select a single approver for all the financial tasks, or you can select approver for each individual task. The approver that you select at an individual task level overrides the approver selected for all the financial tasks at the header level.
Once you have submitted a task for approval, the application initiates the PA: Task Approval workflow and changes the status of the task to Submitted. This workflow manages the approval process of the task. But, if you delete a task after it has been submitted of approval then its associated approval notification also closes.
If you submit multiple financial tasks for approval, then the task approval workflow notification is sent for each task.
Note: The Project Manager or any other user who has the authority can approve a task. To approve a task navigate to the Financial Tasks page. You can approve change management tasks that have a status of New, Pending, or Submitted.
If you have submitted a change request that has unapproved financial tasks, for approval, then the PA: Change Request workflow will not send a notification to the approver, until all the financial tasks used in the change document are approved.
For more information, see PA: Task Approval, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
Important: An unapproved child task may lead to failure of the transaction during an import from Oracle Project Manufacturing to Oracle Projects, if a cost is incurred on the parent task. The Oracle Project Manufacturing user should ensure that only an user with the Projects: Options: Tasks function security creates the task using change document, as such tasks do not need approval. Should the user not have the function security to create the task, the task approval workflow should be set to auto approval.
Managers often negotiate changes in a project with the funding sources or customers paying for the project. The changes may be due to damages caused in the normal course of project completion or due to changes requested by the customer. The Potential Change Order (PCO) report lists all these changes as contractor and sub-contractor estimates, which can be a basis for negotiations.
You generate a PCO report after a change document is created but before it is submitted for approval. Changes are typically not implemented on a project until the final approval from the funding customer is obtained. Once the changes are firm, the PCO report is shared with the customer and used for negotiations. The PCO report gives better flexibility to Project Managers to negotiate the changes with funding customers.
Note: You can generate a PCO report only from a change request and only if the change request is enabled for external approver and the change request is enabled for financial plan impact.
You can generate a PCO report in either Draft mode of Final mode. If you select the Draft mode then all parameters, related to numbering of the document, are disabled. When you generate a PCO report, the application assigns a unique identifier to the report. This identifier is defined by what you select as the Document Number Generation method. The Document Number Generation method has the following options:
Standard: The application uses the change request number as prefix, and suffixes it with a unique number in the series for PCO report generation.
For example, the first time a user generates PCO report for the change request #8576, the application assigns #8576-1 to the PCO report. Next time, when the user generates a PCO report for the change document, the application assigns #8576-2 to the PCO report, and so on.
Custom: The application retrieves a number from the PA_PCO_DOC_NUMBER_CLEINT_EXTN client extension and uses it to number the PCO report.
None: The application does not number the PCO report and you have to enter the Override document Number.
After you have provided all the necessary parameters, you can:
Generate and save the PCO report: Application will create the PCO report and store its content. You will not be able to distribute the report from this page. To distribute this report, navigate to the view PCO Report page from the change request header.
Generate and send the PCO report: Application will create the PCO report and you can distribute the report via email, fax or a hard copy.
Cancel: Application stops the PCO generation process and returns to the change request page.
You can distribute the PCO from the following locations:
Generation of PCO report: You can distribute the PCO report immediately after you have created it by clicking Generate and Send.
Change document: You can distribute an already generated PCO report. Navigate to the PCO report by clicking the PCO report number at the change document header and then click Send. You can also directly distribute the PCO report, without viewing it, by clicking Send.
Note: If you have generated the PCO report in Draft mode, then Send is not displayed against the PCO report number.
For the delivery options in XML Publisher, you must set up a configuration file in the <XDO_TOP>/resource directory. For more information on setting up the configuration file, see Configuration File Support, Oracle XML Publisher Administration and Developers Guide.
The information you can include on the PCO report depends on the type of impacts you enter. If you are using the Cost and Revenue Planning method, then include details of the estimated changes in cost transactions. If you are using the Edit Budget Lines method, then use the values you entered as budget impacts.
The reports generated for previous versions of change document can be viewed in the Version history page where a PCO Number link is displayed against the change document version for which report was generated.
You can view the Estimated Revenue information in the PCO report generated for a change request. The estimated revenue is calculated based on the cost and revenue planning amounts if you use the Cost and Revenue Planning method to calculate financial impacts.
Note: You can only view the PCO reports that you have generated for previous versions.