The Effort Reporting process enables you to create, review, revise, and certify employee effort reports for a period of time. The effort report contains the Salary Distribution, Effort Percentage, Cost Share percentage spent and proposed by an employee against a Project, Task, Award, Expenditure Type, Expenditure Organization, or a General Ledger Account, or PTAEO information stored in GL segments in the accounting flexfield. The Effort Reporting process supports institutions subject to US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-21 and A-122.
When submitting a Grants Proposal, employees have to specify the Salary needed, Effort percentage and Cost Share percentage that they will spend working on the proposed activity. Effort reports summarize the labor distributions over a period of time and ensure that employees actually spent the salary and effort that they proposed to spend.
The following Effort Report layouts are predefined:
Effort Report Template for Employee Certification
Effort Report Template for Award Principal Investigator Certification
Effort Report Template for Project Manager Certification
Effort Report Template for Task Manager Certification
To approve the effort reports, users can choose from the following seeded approval types:
Pre-approved - the effort report is pre-approved at the time of creation, and does not require any approvals
Approval by employee only - only the employee approves the effort report
Approval by employee first and then by supervisor - the effort report approval uses the employee and supervisor hierarchy
Approval by supervisor only - the effort report approval uses the supervisor hierarchy
Approval by Award Principal Investigator - the effort report approval uses the Principal Investigator for the Award in Grants Accounting
Approval by Project Manager - the effort report approval uses the Project Manager for the Project in Oracle Projects
Approval by Task Manager - the effort report approval uses the Task Manager for the Task in Oracle Projects
Using the Custom Approval option, you can define your own approval rule using Oracle Approvals Management (AME). See Defining Custom Approval Types for details on how to define a custom approval type.
This section describes the following:
As an administrator, you can enable the Effort Distribution tab in Oracle Self-Service Human Resources (SSHR) so managers and employees in your organization can view their effort distribution.
For details on how to configure views in SSHR, see My Information and My Employee Information, Oracle HRMS Deploy Self-Service Capability Guide
As a manager, you can view effort distribution of your direct reports. As an employee, you can view your own effort distribution information.
As a manager, you can view information such as the name of the employee, the organization name, the assignment number, the latest effort report start and end dates. You can switch views between your list and hierarchy.
Click an employee name to view more details such as the assignment number, the PTAEO, GL, proposed salary, actuals, approver status and approver. Click Approver to send an email to the approver.
As an employee, you can view information about your effort distribution. You can see your name, the organization name, the assignment number, the latest effort report start and end date.
The Effort Reporting process enables users to perform the following tasks:
The sequence of steps in the Effort Reporting process is as follows:
Administrators set up the effort report template
Initiators submit the effort report process, receive the notification with attached consolidated effort reports, verify the consolidated effort reports, and submit for approval.
Approvers approve the effort report
Final recipients get the consolidated approved effort reports to archive and print
An effort report template defines a set of parameters that are used for a specified effort reporting period. The selection criteria is saved as a template to be used at a different time. You can add, delete, or modify templates as needed.
If you use PTAEO information stored in GL Segments, you should have set up the configuration values on the Configuration Values page.
See: Configuring Values for Labor Distribution for more information on how to set up the configuration values.
An effort report template consists of the following:
Template Definition - contains the template name, template description, report type, frequency, start date, unit of measure, period duration, and element set
Selection Criteria - the application uses these criteria to select the employees to create the effort reports
Exclusion Criteria - the application uses these criteria to exclude employees from the effort reports
Report Options - contains the XML Publisher reports layouts, sorting, summarization and workflow options
You can create effort reports using the following inclusion and exclusion criteria: Assignment Set, Assignment Status, Award Type, Awards, Consolidation Set, Individual Employees, General Ledger Accounts, Job, Location, Organization, Payroll, People Group, Position, Project, Project Type, Person Type, Supervisor. Fast Formula is available only in the exclusion criteria. The Effort Report Template does not support assignment sets that contain assignment criteria.
The Report Options contain the following options:
Report Layout- these are XML Publisher RTF templates
Sort order - use this to select the order in which you want the report to display. For example, you can sort the effort report by organizations (alphabetically) in ascending order and then by employees (alphabetically) in ascending order
Choose to display all distributions for the employee - If you select Yes, approvers can view all distributions for the selected employee, however, if you select No, approvers can view only the relevant distributions for which the employee reports to them.
Choose to compute the effort report based on person or assignment levels. If you select Person, then the effort report summarizes the total effort for the person. If you select Assignment, then the effort report summarizes the total effort for the assignment. Irrespective of whether you choose Person or Assignment, the sum total is 100 percent.
Enable manual entry for effort and cost share percentages - if you enable this, users can enter Actual Over Written Effort Percentage and Cost Share Percentage
Select effort summarization criteria - if you select this, the report displays a summary of the distributions for the group of employees based on Assignment or PTAEO details. The following example explains the importance of summarization criteria:
| Employee | Assignment | Charging Instructions | %Effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Doe | Assignment 1 | Project1, Task1, Award1, Expenditure Type1, Expenditure Organization1 | 50% |
| John Doe | Assignment 1 | Project1, Task1, Award1, Expenditure Type2, Expenditure Organization1 | 50% |
| John Doe | Assignment 2 | Project2, Task2, Award2, Expenditure Type2, Expenditure Organization2 | 100% |
Please note that in the above example, the first two lines have the same Project, Task, Award and Expenditure Organization.
Lets also assume that John Doe is on a monthly payroll and gets a salary of $1000.00 for Assignment1 and $1000.00 for Assignment2 in the month of January.
| Employee | Assignment | Charging Account | %Effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Doe | Assignment1 | Project1, Task1, Award1, Expenditure Type1, Expenditure Organization1 | 25% |
| John Doe | Assignment1 | Project1, Task1, Award1, Expenditure Type2, Expenditure Organization1 | 25% |
| John Doe | Assignment2 | Project2, Task2, Award2, Expenditure Type2, Expenditure Organization2 | 50% |
| Employee | Assignment | Charging Account | %Effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Doe | Assignment1 | Project1, Task1, Award1, Expenditure Organization1 | 50% |
| John Doe | Assignment2 | Project2, Task2, Award2, Expenditure Organization2 | 50% |
Choose to view a preview of the effort report - this ensures that you as the Initiator, receive the report in PDF format before it is sent to any of the approvers or final recipients
Specify the number of days after which to send automatic reminders to the approver, if you choose one
Select a predefined approval type or define a custom approval type using Oracle Approvals Management. You can choose pre-approved approval type if you don't want workflow approval.
Select the final recipients of the effort report - these are the recipients who receive the consolidated approved effort reports for archiving and printing after all the approvers have approved the effort reports.
Allowable Tolerance for Supersedence - you can define the tolerance type of amount or percentage
Persons to notify if the Effort Report is superseded - you can select one or more of the following persons: Initiator, All Approvers, Final Recipient, Employee.
You can override the predefined groups that appear in the effort report PDF and define your own groups to display effort report activities. By default, the effort report PDF displays efforts under the following groups:
GL activities
Non-sponsored activities
Sponsored activities
You can use a user hook to override predefined groups and to define your own to appear in the effort report PDF. See: Technical Essay on Labor Distribution Configuration (My Oracle Support Document 302304.1)
You can create effort reports by running the PSP: Create Effort Reports (Multi-Threaded) process either from the Search Template page or from the Submit Requests window. The process has the following parameters:
Select a Template Name from the list.
Select a Start Date. By default, the start date day is the day after the end date for the last effort report submitted for the same template. For the very first process run of the template, the start date field is blank. For example: if the end date in the previous process run for the selected template was 31-DEC-2004, the start date will default to 01-JAN-2005.
Select an End Date. By default, the end date is computed based on the start date and the effort period frequency in the effort report template you select. For example: if the start date is 01-JAN-2005 and the frequency in the selected template is Calendar Monthly, the end date will default to 31-JAN-2005.
Select the First Sort By criteria. By default, this is the sorting option in the effort report template you select.
Select the First Order By criteria. By default, this is the ordering option in the effort report template you select.
Select the Second Sort By criteria. By default, this is the sorting option in the effort report template you select.
Select the Second Order By criteria. By default, this is the ordering option in the effort report template you select.
Select the Third Sort By criteria. By default, this is the sorting option in the effort report template you select.
Select the Third Order By criteria. By default, this is the ordering option in the effort report template you select.
Select the Fourth Sort By criteria. By default, this is the sorting option in the effort report template you select.
Select the Fourth Order By criteria. By default, this is the ordering option in the effort report template you select.
You can create effort reports for employees only once per effort report period.
A notification is sent to the initiator if the process completes successfully with the consolidated employee effort reports PDF attached to the notification. The initiator can preview the effort report and submit for approval. If the process encounters errors, then the consolidated employee effort reports PDF is not attached and the notification displays a Retry button. The initiator can fix the errors and click Retry button to restart the process. For example, initiators receive notifications, if the effort report has been superseded due to new transactions and can recreate the effort report.
Lets assume the following employees exist in the Oracle HRMS database:
| Employee Name | Primary Assignment Organization | Employment Type Segment in People Group Key Flexfield |
|---|---|---|
| John Stuart | Department of Engineering | Full Time |
| Michael Lawson | Department of Chemistry | Part Time |
| Beth Swenson | Department of Mathematics | Full Time |
| Lou Andersen | Department of Engineering | Part Time |
| Mary Johnson | Department of Engineering | Full Time |
Now, assume the following inclusion criteria are defined in Effort Report template:
| Organization | People Group Segment |
|---|---|
| Department of Engineering, Department of Mathematics | Full Time |
Now, assume the following exclusion criteria are defined in the same Effort Report template:
| Employee Name |
|---|
| Mary Johnson |
Now, lets see how the processing works:
| Inclusion Criteria | Selected Employees After Applying Inclusion Criteria | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Organization | John Stuart Beth Swanson Lou Andersen Mary Johnson |
Employees who belong to the organization Department of Engineering or Department of Mathematics are selected for processing |
| People Group | John Stuart Beth Swanson Mary Johnson |
From the list above, employees who belong to the Full Time people group are retained |
Now, the application applies the selection criteria sequentially.
| Exclusion Criteria | Selected Employees After Applying Exclusion Criteria | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Mary Johnson | John Stuart Beth Swanson |
Mary Johnson is removed from the inclusion list in Table 6 as per the exclusion criteria defined in the Effort Report Template |
The Effort Report is created for two employees - John Stuart and Beth Swenson. In summary, Inclusion Criteria is an AND operation. This means that the effort report selects employees common to all inclusion criteria. Exclusion Criteria is a MINUS operation, hence the effort report applies these criteria sequentially.
After the Create Effort Report process completes successfully, the initiator receives a notification which contains the attached effort report PDF. The initiator can review the effort report. If the effort reports are not accurate or missing from some employees, initiators can purge the effort report run by clicking Purge on the notification.
After the Create Effort Report process completes, a notification is sent to the initiator. If the process encounters errors, then the application does not generate the effort report and initiators can view the errors from the notification or from the concurrent process log. The Create Effort Report process can fail in the following scenarios:
Workflow approver for the employee effort report was not found
Unexpected Database error occurred like not enough available space
The Create Effort Report process also spawns a Generate Effort Report PDF process to generate the Effort Report PDF. The Generate Effort Report PDF can fail due to unexpected database errors like not enough space available.
The initiator receives a notification in case of errors and the notification displays a Retry button. Initiators can fix the problem and click Retry, which restarts the process from the point where it failed.
The notification also displays a Purge button and initiators can decide to purge the run, submit a fresh Create Effort Report process after they fix the errors.
Warnings could occur for the following scenarios:
Effort Report already exists for the period
No employees were selected based on the criteria in the template
In case of warnings, the effort report PDF is generated for the applicable employees (those for whom the processing did not encounter errors or warnings) and sent to the initiator. The warnings are also sent as an FYI to the initiator.
When you create and submit the effort report for approval, approvers for the effort report receive a workflow notification. The application embeds the effort report output in the workflow notification in a PDF format, so you can easily review and approve or reject the effort report. If you approve the effort report, and the approval definition in Oracle Approvals Management requires no further approvals, the effort report process is complete, and the application does not send an effort report workflow notification. However, if the approver rejects the effort report, the application sends a workflow notification to the effort report initiator and all previous approvers, who need to correct, recreate and resubmit the effort report for approval.
You can override certain values and add comments to an effort report that you receive for approval using the Enter Additional Effort Report Information page. The values that you can enter are:
Effort Percentage
Cost Share Percentage
Comments
The Additional Effort Report Information contains the Header section and the Details section. The information that appears in these sections depends on the report layout that you select when you create the effort report template.
| If you select ... | Then ... |
|---|---|
| Employee Certification report layout | The Header section displays the employees whose effort report details you must approve. You select an employee in the Header section to display that employee's effort report details in the Details section. |
Any of the following report layouts:
|
The Header section displays the details of the Principal Investigator, or Project Manager or Task Manager. The Details section displays the effort report details of the employees to approve. |
You can also enter additional information using descriptive flexfields in the Header and Details section. However, you must set up the DFFs so that you can enter additional information.
If you defined distribution adjustments or brought in new payroll transactions for employees who had their effort reports already created, they are considered superseded, and you need to recreate the effort report. However, you can also specify the tolerance type and value for which the effort report is not superseded. The Summarize and Transfer Payroll Distribution process, Summarize and Transfer Distribution Adjustments process supersedes the employee effort report if there are new employee transactions for already approved effort reports and the tolerance limit is exceeded. The persons to be notified when superseding employee effort report are defined in the template. You can send superseding notifications to the Initiator, All Approvers, Final Recipient, and the Employee.
Consider that employee John Doe has following Effort Distributions in the Effort Report for January.
| Charging Account | Amount (USD) | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| General Ledger Account-1 | 40 | 40 |
| Project1, Task1, Award1, Expenditure Type1, Expenditure Organization1 | 60 | 60 |
At this point, a Pre-Generated Distribution lines batch for this employee is imported into Labor distribution. Assume that the following is the Effort distribution after cumulating the pre-gen transactions:
| Charging Account | Amount (USD) | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| General Ledger Account-1 | 41 | 41 |
| Project1, Task1, Award1, Expenditure Type1, Expenditure Organization1 | 59 | 59 |
Now, let us consider how different Supersedence Tolerance setups in Effort Report template will have an effect on superseding John Doe's effort report:
| Scenario | Supersedence Tolerance Setup | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | No Tolerance Setup | Effort Report Superseded |
| 2 | Tolerance Amount = $0.50 | Effort Report Superseded |
| 3 | Tolerance Amount = $1.50 | Effort Report is not superseded |
| 4 | Tolerance Percent = 1% | Effort Report is not superseded |
| 5 | Tolerance Percent = 0.9% | Effort Report Superseded |
The rollback effort report process accepts a Request_ID as an input and rolls back the previously created Effort Report. The Request_ID corresponds to the concurrent process Request_ID for the Create Effort Reports Process run. The parameter list of values for this input parameter displays the template_name, start_date, end_date along with the request_id to facilitate selection. You can resubmit the Create Effort Reports process to recreate Effort Reports, after running the Rollback Effort Reports process.
You can run the Rollback Effort Reports process only when notification is pending with the Initiator. The Rollback Effort Report Process also closes the open notification.
You can import the following additional information from a third party system using Effort Reporting user hooks. The Effort Report displays the following three fields:
Proposed Salary
Proposed Effort Report Percentage
Committed Cost Share
You can populate attribute1 through attribute10 and value1 through value10 columns in the psp_eff_report_details table through the same user hook.
You can import external pay details in the effort report. For example, you can import pay details for income that employees receive working outside the organization and that their regular payroll does not include. In addition, the application enables you to import additional information through the optional ATTRIBUTE1 to ATTRIBUTE15 columns.
See: Technical Essay on Labor Distribution Configuration (My Oracle Support Document 302304.1)
Complete the following steps to define a custom approval type in the Effort Report Template:
Define a new lookup code for the PSP_CUSTOM_APROVAL_TYPE Lookup Type.
Select the Custom Approval Type option, and select the lookup code from the list.
The Oracle Approvals Manager receives the lookup code from the the APPROVAL_TYPE attribute.
See: Implementing Oracle Approvals Management (Metalink Note #227391.1) for information on how to set up rules in Oracle Approvals Manager..
After the initiator creates the effort report, administrators can run the effort report monitor to view the status of the effort reports and print the effort reports.
To run the effort report monitor, do the following:
Search for effort reports based on search criteria such as Effort Report Period, Template Name, Concurrent Process ID, or Employee.
Click Go.
The Effort Report Monitor page displays the following details:
Effort Report Status - this includes Approval Pending, Approved, Pre-Approved, Rejected, and Superseded
Employee Count - this displays the number of employees associated with the status of the effort report. Click on this to view details of the status. The details displayed differ based on the status type you choose.
Percentages - this displays the percentage of employees associated with the status of the effort report.
You can also view a pie-chart that displays the percentages of the status.
Click Consolidated Effort Report to view details of all effort reports for the effort report period you selected. You can view information such as Template Name, Request ID, Effort Report Type, and the Effort Report. Click Template Name to view the template details. Click Effort Report to view the effort report pdf.