This chapter describes how you can use Oracle Projects to track and manage deliverables for projects.
This chapter covers the following topics:
A project deliverable is the output that must be produced to complete a project or task. A deliverable can result from the need to satisfy an external contractual obligation, or the need to fulfill an internally planned activity. Many project-oriented organizations require the concept of deliverables to effectively track the tangible outputs from a project and to provide a mechanism to measure project performance.
Examples of a deliverables are:
a product
a detailed design document
a prototype
In Oracle Project Management, you can create project deliverables, associate them with workplan tasks, and track them. You can also integrate with supply chain management and billing applications to streamline your business process. This chapter describes how to track and manage the deliverables of a project.
You can define deliverables at the project or task level. Each deliverable is identified by its type class. There are three type classes for deliverables: item, document, and other. A project or task can have multiple deliverables.
In some cases, the project deliverables are known in advance of planning the work breakdown structure. You can define deliverables independently. You can define all the deliverables that need to be produced to complete the project. Later, after the work breakdown structure is defined, you can associate deliverables to workplan tasks.
In other cases, the work breakdown structure is deliverable-oriented. You can define a deliverable-oriented work breakdown structure and deliverables together. You can also associate one or more workplan tasks with a deliverable or vice versa.
You can optionally define deliverable actions, which are actions required to complete the deliverable. A deliverable can have multiple deliverable actions.
You perform the following steps to create and process project deliverables:
Define Deliverables: Identify the deliverables of a project and create a list of deliverables.
Define Deliverable Actions: Identify the deliverable actions and define them.
Associate Deliverables with Workplan Tasks: Associate the deliverables with workplan tasks for informational or progress rollup purposes.
Execute deliverable actions
Create Deliverable Attachments: You can create attachments for deliverables. (A document deliverable is distinct from attachments to deliverables.)
Collect and Roll Up Deliverable Progress: You can collect progress for deliverables if progress entry is enabled on the deliverable type. You can optionally roll up deliverable progress to the associated workplan task.
Manage Deliverables Collaboratively: You can manage deliverables from the Team Member Home page. You can drill down to deliverable details and deliverable actions. The cross project deliverables-related sections are available as configurable regions on the Team Member Home page.
You can also track deliverables in the Project Home, Project Overview, Status Report, and Task Overview configurable pages.
Note: On the Task Overview page you can only track deliverables associated with the task.
Integrate with Other Applications: You can integrate deliverables with Oracle supply chain management applications and Oracle Project Billing.
If the physical percent complete derivation method is not deliverable, the progress on a task is collected from its task assignments and child tasks, even if the task has deliverables.
You can access deliverables from the following pages:
Deliverable List page
Update Task Detail page
Team Member Home page
A combination of workplan and deliverable security determines your ability to update deliverables, create or modify task to deliverable associations, update deliverable actions, and view deliverables. The following table shows how security affects your access to deliverables and deliverable actions.
| Action | Page | Required Security Setup |
|---|---|---|
| Update deliverables (except for task to deliverable association) | Deliverable List, Update Task Detail, and Team Member Home | Your project role is associated with the security function Projects: Deliverables: Update. or You are the deliverable owner and your project role is associated with the security function Projects: Deliverables: Update Details. |
| Create or modify task to deliverable associations | Deliverable List and Team Member Home | Your project role is associated with the following two security functions: Projects: Deliverables: Update and Projects: Options: Workplan: Workplan Structure View. |
| Create or modify task to deliverable associations | Task Detail | Your project role is associated with either of the following two security functions: Projects: Deliverables: Update or Projects: Options: Workplan: Workplan Structure. or You are the task manager and your project role is associated with either of the following two security functions: Projects: Options: Workplan: Workplan Structure or Projects: Tasks: Update Task Details. |
| Update deliverable actions | Deliverable List, Update Task Detail, and Team Member Home | You must be the deliverable action owner.
Note: If you do not have access to update a deliverable, then you cannot update deliverable actions, even if you are the deliverable action owner and your project role is associated with the security function Projects: Deliverables: Update Actions. |
| View deliverables | Task Detail | Your project role is associated with either of the following two security functions: Projects: Deliverables: View or Projects: Options: Workplan: Workplan Structure View |
For additional information about security functions in Oracle Projects, see Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
This section describes the following steps for creating and managing project deliverables:
Defining deliverables
Assigning project deliverables to workplan tasks: You can assign project deliverables to workplan tasks for progress collection, and to gather information.
Copying project deliverables: You can copy deliverables from the current project or from an external project or project template.
Viewing project deliverables
Managing project deliverable actions: You can associate Shipping, Billing, and Procurement functions to a deliverable action and execute those deliverable actions.
Deleting project deliverables: You can delete a deliverable if certain conditions do not apply.
To define a deliverable, you query the project, select the Workplan tab, then select the Deliverables subtab.
For each deliverable, you enter:
A unique name
Short name
Status
Deliverable type. Each deliverable type is classified as item, document, or other.
Owner
Due Date
Progress Weight. You can specify the progress weight if the deliverable type has progress entry enabled.
Description
You can optionally define deliverable actions as part of a deliverable definition. You can also attach files to a deliverable.
You can associate a deliverable with a task at any level of the workplan hierarchy. The association can be many deliverables to many workplan tasks for either informational or progress rollup purposes.
There are two types of associations of project deliverables to workplan tasks:
Information Collection
You can associate multiple workplan tasks with one or more deliverables for informational purposes.
Progress Rollup
You can associate a deliverable with a task to track progress, so that the Physical Percent Complete for deliverables rolls up to the associated workplan task.
For each task that has Deliverable as the physical percent complete derivation method, you can associate only deliverables that have not already been associated with another deliverables-based task.
You can assign multiple deliverables to deliverable-based tasks. However, these deliverables must not be assigned to other deliverable-based tasks.
If a task has the non-deliverable-based derivation method assigned, you can associate it with any deliverable, even if the deliverable been assigned to another task.
Deliverables are associated with workplan tasks (not task versions). If the working version of a published task is changed with respect to deliverable association, the changes are automatically reflected in the published versions as well.
When you make the following changes to workplan tasks, the changes also affect the associated deliverables:
Task Status: If the status of a deliverable-based task is either Canceled or On-Hold, that status does not apply to the associated deliverables. If progress is not enabled for the deliverables, you can continue to enter progress for these deliverables. The progress will not roll up to the task.
Physical Percent Complete Derivation Method on the Task: If you change the physical percent complete derivation method on a task from Deliverable to Task, you will lose any progress data that has been rolled up to the task from associated deliverables. You may want to review the progress on the associated deliverables before making such a change.
Note: You cannot change the physical percent complete derivation method of a task whose deliverables are associated with other tasks whose physical percent complete derivation method is Deliverable. Only one task in a task hierarchy branch can have the Deliverable physical percent complete derivation method.
Creating and Updating a Workplan: You cannot create a workplan that has more than one deliverable-based task in the same branch of the task hierarchy. You also cannot update a workplan that has more than one deliverable-based task in the same branch of the task hierarchy by using Copy, Move, Indent or Outdent.
Deleting a Task:You cannot delete a task whose physical percent complete derivation method isDeliverable if the associated deliverable has billing, shipping, or procurement transactions or progress records.
There are four scenarios for copying deliverables:
Copy a deliverable that has already been defined for the current project
Copy a deliverable that has been defined for another project or project template (external deliverable). If you copy external deliverables, you must select the source project or project template.
Copy deliverables when you create a project by copying a project or project template. When you create a project from the project template, the list of deliverables from the project template is copied to the new project.
Copy deliverables from the source task when you create a new task
The Deliverables page displays the list of the deliverables for the project. You can drill down to the details of each of the deliverables. From this page, you can copy deliverables from the same project and copy deliverables from an external project or project template. You can select multiple deliverables and make a copy in the deliverables list. The attributes in the copied deliverable can be modified later using the Update Deliverables page. You can copy deliverables from an external source (from another project or a project template) by selecting the Copy External option from the Action shortcut list.
You can optionally copy the following information:
item details (for item deliverables)
deliverable actions
deliverable attachments
associated tasks (available only when you copy a deliverable from the current project)
The following table shows the attributes of deliverables that are copied when a deliverable is copied:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Name, Short Name, Type, Owner, and Progress Weight | Copied |
| Deliverable Due Date | If the deliverable action has a procurement function, the deliverable is associated with a workplan task, and the Early Start Date for the workplan task is available, then the default value of the deliverable action due date is the task's Early Start Date. If the deliverable action has a shipping function, the deliverable is associated with a workplan task, and the Early Finish Date for the workplan task is available, then the default value of the deliverable action due date is the task's Early Finish Date. For all other cases, the default value of the deliverable action due date is the deliverable due date. |
| Progress Records | Not copied |
| Deliverable Status | Default value is copied from the deliverable type |
The following table shows the attributes of deliverable actions that are copied when deliverables are copied:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Name, Owner, Function, and Description | Copied |
| Deliverable Action Due Date | Adjusted by the number of days between the start date in the project or project template you are copying and the start date that you enter for the new project |
| Completion Date and Completed flag | Not copied |
| Financial Tasks | Not copied |
| Planning, Shipping, Procurement | Copied. The date attributes on the function (such as Expected Shipment Date and PO Need by Date) get their default values from the new action Due Date. |
| Billing attributes | Not copied |
You can modify the copied deliverable attribute and deliverable action attributes. You can change the deliverable type only within the same type class. You cannot change the function for a deliverable action.
When you copy a workplan task, you can copy deliverable associations to the task.
When you copy an external task, the deliverable associations are not copied.
When you create a project, you can optionally copy the deliverables from the source project or template.
You can view deliverables for a project on the Deliverables subtab under the Workplan tab. From this page, you can view deliverable details. You can also delete, copy, create, or update deliverables, and copy external deliverables.
From the Task Details page, you can click on the Deliverables tab to get the list of deliverables associated with the task. From this page, you can also update details of the deliverables, create new deliverables, update deliverables, and associate new deliverables with the workplan task.
Deliverable actions are checklist items that must be completed to complete the deliverable. Deliverable actions can be defined using the shipping, billing, or procurement integration. A project can have multiple deliverables and a deliverable can have multiple deliverable actions.
The deliverable owner or project manager can define the deliverable further by assigning deliverable actions to owners.
You can associate shipping, billing, or procurement functions to deliverable actions. When a deliverable is item based, the Shipping region also includes the manufacturing planning attribute.
This integration enables you to:
Feed material demand into the planning system and generate demand schedules
Note: The demand schedule is not visible from the deliverable. You can view the demand schedule from the Oracle Master Scheduling/MRP and Oracle Supply Chain Planning applications.
Create procurement documents, such as purchase requisitions, for a project. When you initiate a procurement action from the deliverable, a purchase requisition is initiated in Oracle Procurement.
Create shipment requests for deliverables and track shipping and delivery statuses
Generate billing events to generate invoices and recognize revenue
When you define deliverable actions, a default financial task may be displayed in the Shipping, Billing, and Procurement regions. You can override the default financial task. The valid financial tasks for deliverable actions are shown in the following table:
| Structures Setup | Deliverable/Task Associations | Financial Task for Shipping and Procurement Regions | Financial Task for Billing Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fully shared structure | Deliverable associated with one or more workplan tasks | You can select from a list of all the chargeable lowest financial tasks. If a chargeable lowest financial workplan task is the only task associated with the deliverable, then that task is the default financial task. |
You can select from a list of all the top financial tasks. If the associated workplan tasks derive the same financial top task, then that task is the default financial task. |
| Fully shared structure | No task associations | You can select from a list of all the chargeable lowest financial tasks. | You can select from a list of all the top financial tasks. |
| Partly shared structure | Deliverable associated with one or more workplan tasks | You can select from a list of all the chargeable lowest financial tasks. If a chargeable lowest financial workplan task is the only task associated with the deliverable, then that task is the default financial task. |
You can select from a list of all the top financial tasks. If the associated workplan tasks derive the same financial top task, then that task is the default financial task. |
| Partly shared structure | No task associations | You can select from a list of all the chargeable lowest financial tasks. | You can select from a list of all the top financial tasks. |
| Mapped structure | Deliverable associated with one or more workplan tasks | You can select from a list of all the chargeable lowest financial tasks. If the associated workplan tasks are mapped to the same chargeable lowest financial task, then that task is the default financial task. |
You can select from a list of all the top financial tasks. If the associated workplan tasks derive the same financial top task, then that task is the default financial task. |
| Mapped structure | No task associations | You can select from all the chargeable lowest financial tasks. | You can select from all the top financial tasks. |
| Split structure | You can select from all the chargeable lowest financial tasks. | You can select from all the top financial tasks. | |
| Only financial structure enabled | You can select from all the lowest chargeable financial tasks defined for the project. | You can select from all the top financial tasks defined for the project. |
Using Manufacturing Planning integration, you can initiate manufacturing demand for a project item deliverable. For project item deliverables, you initiate manufacturing planning by clicking Initiate Demand to generate a demand schedule
You can also initiate demand for multiple projects and multiple deliverables within a project by running the Initiate Project Deliverable Actions concurrent program .
Using Shipping integration, you can create shipment requests for all deliverables. You can also enter data for the shipping action and track shipping and delivery statuses. When a deliverable is ready to be shipped, you can initiate shipping by marking the deliverable action as Ready to Ship.
To send a shipping request to the Shipping application, you choose Initiate Shipping. You can initiate shipping action for only one deliverable at a time. You must save the action before you can initiate demand and shipping.
After you initiate shipping, you perform the shipping transactions and deliveries in Oracle Shipping Execution. The project manager, task manager, or deliverable owner can view the shipping detail information, such as shipping status, delivery number, tracking number, and quantity.
Note: When you create the shipping transactions in Oracle Shipping Execution, you must use Project Contracts as the source and the project number as the order number. .
You do not need to implement Oracle Project Contracts (OKE) to integrate project deliverables with Manufacturing Planning and Shipping.
Using Billing event integration, you can process billing when the relevant deliverable actions have been completed. For example, you can bill the customer after you have completed a milestone document. An advantage of billing integration is that you can track the unbilled revenue before the milestone document has been completed.
You can create a billing action only if the project belongs to the Contract project type class. When you create an action with a billing function a billing event is created. When you complete the Billing Action, the completion date of the action is the Billing Event Date. Until the billing event is processed, the billing information can be changed only from the deliverable action. The changes are automatically reflected in the Billing Event window.
After the billing event is processed by either the revenue generation or invoice generation program, the results are shown in a table in the Billing region. After the billing event is fully processed, you cannot update the Billing information for the deliverable action. When the billing event is partly processed or the invoice is canceled, you can update the billing event details from the Billing Events window. The changes are reflected in the Billing region of the corresponding deliverable action.
Using procurement integration, you can create procurement documents, such as purchase requisitions, for a project. You can enter procurement-related attributes for the deliverable action.
The procurement can be item-based or amount-based.
The procurement can go to inventory, or can be directly charged against the project as an expense. For item-based procurement, the destination type can be Inventory or Expense. Typically, you use item-based procurement with Inventory destination to track a high-cost item for which you want to track the cost, or a long lead item, which takes long time to order and receive for a project. For amount-based procurement, the destination type is Expense. You can use amount-based procurement to track the costs of any non-inventory item, such as consulting time, against your project.
When the procurement information is complete, you can declare the action as Ready to Procure. To initiate a procurement action for a deliverable, choose Initiate Procurement. You can also initiate procurement of all ready-to-procure deliverable actions by running the Initiate Project Deliverable Actions concurrent program.
You can define only one procurement action for each deliverable. You can initiate procurement for a deliverable action only once. After the procurement action is successfully initiated, you cannot change the procurement action information and you cannot re-initiate the procurement action.
After the procurement action is initiated, your purchasing department personnel need to run the Requisition Import concurrent program in Oracle Purchasing to import the requisition to Oracle Purchasing. Your purchasing and receiving department can further create the purchase order and receipt. As a project manager, task manager, or deliverable owner you can track the requisition, purchase order, and receiving information from the deliverable.
Note: When you run the Requisition Import concurrent program, be sure that you select OKE as the Source. However, you do not need to implement Oracle Project Contracts (OKE) to use integration with Procurement.
You cannot change the status of a deliverable to Completed if any of the following is true:
The deliverable action has an associated shipping function that has not been initiated.
The deliverable action has an associated procurement function that has not been initiated.
The deliverable action has an associated billing function and the corresponding billing event has not been processed by either the revenue distribution concurrent program or the invoice generation concurrent program.
Important: When you change the status of a deliverable to Completed, you cannot add, delete, or modify either of the following:
deliverable actions
item region
Note: If the deliverable type class of a deliverable is Document, you can change the status of the deliverable to Completed only if a document is attached in the Document Deliverables section. Similarly, if the deliverable type class of a deliverable is Item, you can change the status of the deliverable to Completed only if an item is assigned to the deliverable.
You cannot change the status of a deliverable action to Completed if:
The deliverable action has an associated shipping function that has not been initiated
The deliverable action has an associated procurement function that has not been initiated
The type class of the deliverable is Item and the deliverable action has a billing function and either the item region is not defined or the item entered is not billable
Note: You can not deselect the Completed check box for a completed deliverable action if the deliverable action has an associated billing function and the event has been processed by either the revenue distribution or invoice generation concurrent program.
You can delete a deliverable as long as none of the following conditions exist:
Progress records exist.
A Shipping action has been initiated or has Ready to Ship selected.
A Billing action has been processed
A Procurement action has been initiated or has Ready to Procure selected.
When you delete a deliverable with associated task assignments, the associations to the task assignments are also deleted.
Related Topics
Defining a Deliverable Status, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide
Project Deliverable Programs, Oracle Projects Fundamentals
Creating Projects, Oracle Projects Fundamentals
Defining a Deliverable Type, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide
Oracle Shipping Execution User's Guide
Accruing Revenue for a Project, Oracle Project Billing User Guide
Invoicing a Project, Oracle Project Billing User Guide
As a project manager or task manager, you can track deliverable progress and deliverable progress history for the project or task. Deliverable progress includes
physical percent complete
progress status
deliverable status
progress overview
as of date
all the actions to be completed for the deliverable
attachments
You use the Update Deliverable page to view deliverable progress history.
Deliverable progress can be entered and submitted centrally by the project manager or collaboratively by team members. You use the Update Deliverable page to enter and submit deliverable progress.
As a team member, you can enter and submit progress for all the deliverables you own from the Team Member Home page. You can drill down to each deliverable to view detailed information, including deliverable actions.
As a task manager, you can enter and submit the physical percent complete for all the deliverables for a task. The physical percent complete is rolled up to the task.
While you can associate a deliverable with many workplan tasks, you can only roll up physical percent complete from one or more deliverables to a single workplan task. You can associate a deliverable with a deliverable-based task and associate the same deliverable with a non-deliverable-based task such as an effort-based task. In such a case, progress rolls up to the deliverable-based task.
You can complete deliverable actions as a part of the deliverable progress entry. When you check the Complete check box, the system date is automatically entered as the Completion Date (you can override this date). If the deliverable has shipping or procurement actions, you must initiate these actions to complete the deliverable action.
If deliverable progress entry is disabled for the deliverable type, you enter the deliverable status and complete the deliverable actions on the Update Deliverable page.
Physical percent complete for deliverables can be rolled up from one or many deliverables to the associated workplan task.
While you can associate a deliverable with many workplan tasks, you can only roll up physical percent complete from one or more deliverables to a single workplan task. You can associate a deliverable with a deliverable-based task and associate the same deliverable with a non-deliverable-based task such as an effort-based task. In such a case, progress rolls up to the deliverable-based task
The physical percent complete derivation method for the associated workplan task determines the progress collection source for this task. If the derivation method is Deliverable, then the physical percent complete is collected from the deliverables associated with the task. Deliverable weight is used to calculate the weighting against the workplan task when the physical percent complete is rolled up to the task.
Note: Progress rollup does not occur if the deliverable is associated with a task that has a physical percent complete derivation method other than Deliverable. In such a case, the physical percent complete for the task comes from resource assignments or subtasks, even if the task is associated with deliverables.
Related Topics
Collecting and Managing Progress