Understanding the Proposal Preparation Process
This chapter discusses:
The proposal preparation process.
Project teams.
The Contract Generation process.
Understanding the Proposal Preparation Process
PeopleSoft Proposal Management enables you to develop and administer project proposals to expedite the closure of business opportunities and to reuse proposal versions for future engagements.
This diagram shows the hierarchy of a proposal. Proposals are the highest level of the hierarchy, and can contain multiple versions, which can contain multiple projects that can be associated with multiple activities that are assigned one or more resources:
Proposal Hierarchy
Using PeopleSoft Proposal Management:
A proposal can have multiple versions.
A version can have multiple projects.
A project can have multiple activities.
Each project must have at least one activity.
An Activity can have multiple resources.
To prepare and generate proposal information using PeopleSoft Proposal Management:
Enter general proposal information.
Proposal preparation begins on the Maintain Proposal page, where you enter or select a start and end date, customer, proposal planner, proposal contact, proposal description, and version description. This information does not usually change throughout the process of creating various proposal versions.
Configure the system to calculate labor.
You can use the business calendar that you identified at the project level; however, users decide how to estimate their labor at the proposal level. You can estimate labor by hour, start and end dates, or weeks. (The number of hours in a week is driven by the business holiday calendar.)
If you estimate labor by hours, the total will be Hourly Rate × Hours.
If you estimate labor by start date and end date, the system uses the business calendar to determine the working hours between the dates.
If you estimate labor by weeks, the total will be Hours Per Week × Number of Weeks × Hourly Rate.
On the Time Configuration page, you can configure PeopleSoft Proposal Management to calculate time based on your specific business practices. For example, if you configure PeopleSoft Proposal Management to calculate 10-hour days and you have an hourly rate of 20.00 USD, then the system multiplies the hourly rate by 10 for each estimated day of work. You can also display time information in weeks or use the start and end dates that you entered on the proposal to calculate time estimates.
Enter security and billing information.
Provided that you have enabled security when you set up your business units, you can limit the number of people who are able to view your proposal by selecting specific departments and employees on the Setup Options page. You can also use this page to tell the system what types of rows to create (bill, cost, both, or none) when you generate contract and budget information from the proposal.
You can enter a resource (labor, asset, material, other (subcontract)) estimate for each project and activity that is associated with the proposal. For each project role that is associated with an activity, you can enter the number of people on the project who will be assigned to the role and the estimated number of hours. The system displays the unit cost and bill rates for each resource and then calculates the estimated cost and bill amounts as well as margin percentages for the proposal on the Summary page. On the Cost tab on the Maintain Version Estimate Detail page, you can enter adjustments to the bill rate as a flat amount, a percentage, or a new rate. Time and Expense to Resource are combined.
Add attachments and key words.
To add information that you can't enter on any of the pages included in the proposal preparation process, you can upload files from your computer or server to the Attachments page that is associated with the proposal. For reporting purposes, you can categorize your proposals by key word by selecting a descriptive word or phrase from the Key Words page.
After entering all labor and non-labor information for the particular version of the proposal, you can make adjustments to both the overall labor and the overall non-labor totals on the Maintain Proposal page by entering either a positive or negative percentage.
After you finish creating an initial proposal and version, you can create different versions of the same proposal by adding a row in the Version group box on the Maintain Proposal page. As you enter new labor and non-labor information, the system calculates the totals for the particular version of the proposal and summarizes the information on the Maintain Proposal page. This feature is useful when you want to compare time and expense estimates for different versions of the same proposal. Only one version, however, can be submitted for the Contract Generation process.
After the customer accepts a version of the proposal, you can change the status of the proposal to Committed and then generate data that PeopleSoft Contracts, PeopleSoft Project Costing, and PeopleSoft Billing use to create invoices and track project-related information.
Understanding Project TeamsThis section discusses:
Project Teams.
Project Delete Utility.
Project Teams
PeopleSoft Project Costing uses project teams to identify and manage the resources that are needed to complete an assignment. In PeopleSoft Proposal Management, you can initiate the creation of a project resource team for the selected version of a proposal by selecting the Create Resources Team check box on the Maintain Version Estimate Detail page.
Using the Project Team Summary page in PeopleSoft Project Costing, you can create and modify a project's resource requirements, assign employees directly to a team, and view its current members. You can further define project teams into separate activity teams that can include employees and resource requirements. If you installed Resource Management, then you can also initiate service orders to staff open positions.
If a user selects another proposal version after the project team is created, the system displays a warning message that it will delete any existing project team structures. In this case, the project and the project activity structures are also deleted.
Note. If a user edits the project team structures in PeopleSoft Project Costing after the system creates the project team, the system does not write data back to the Maintain Version Estimate Detail page in PeopleSoft Proposal Management. If you run the Pre-Spending or Contract Generation process, it is not possible to change versions and delete existing projects. This is important as you don't want to orphan projects and activities with transactional activity. You cannot use a project in a pending status for transactional activity, so it is okay to delete these project teams.
See Also
Staffing Project and Activity Teams
Project Delete Utility
To delete unused project team structures, PeopleSoft Project Costing uses an application engine program called the Project Delete Utility. If project and project team structures are set up for the selected version of a proposal, and a user selects another version of the proposal, the system deletes all of the PeopleSoft Project Costing structures under the prior proposal version. The system initiates the deletion of the project structures (including the project team structures) by calling the Project Delete Utility from the PeopleCode.
To make the Project Delete Utility operable, you need to set up the project delete options on the Delete Utility Tables page during the setup of your PeopleSoft Project Costing business units. This is a PeopleSoft Project Costing requirement. The Delete Utility Tables page essentially stores all of the projects tables that you want deleted when you run the Project Delete Utility.
See Also
Defining Parameters for the Delete Utility
Understanding the Generate Process
This section discusses:
Pre-spending.
The Generate process.
Contract general information.
Contract lines.
PeopleSoft Billing plans.
Revenue recognition plans.
Projects and activities.
Rate templates.
Budget generation.
Pre-Spending
Sometimes you need to enable spending before a proposal is formally approved. When you initiate the Pre-Spending process from the Maintain Proposal page, the system creates the selected projects (in a pending status) and the associated activities in PeopleSoft Project Costing. It does not create a contract or bring forward the budget at this time. The process does store the contract ID and project ID with the proposal to reserve them until you are ready to initiate the Generate process.
When you run the Generate process, the system creates the contract, brings forward the budgets, and includes projects and activities that you added since you ran the Pre-Spending process. After you run the Generate process in PeopleSoft Proposal Management for a proposal, you cannot run it again.
The Generate Process
When the proposal status changes to Committed, you can run the Generate process to create the contract and project structures. After you run the Generate process, the system automatically updates the Generate status of the proposal to Generated on the Maintain Proposal page in PeopleSoft Proposal Management and creates the following based on information from the proposal and on the default values for the contracts business unit:
Contract general information.
Contract lines.
PeopleSoft Billing plans.
Revenue recognition plans.
Projects and activities.
Resource lines (asset, material, labor, and other).
Rate sets.
After the system creates the contract and the contract lines, you cannot run the Contract Generation process again for the proposal. The system stores the contract and project IDs that you created in PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing with the proposal in the appropriate tables.
Contract General Information
Defining a contract header is the first step in setting up a new contract. The Generate process in PeopleSoft Proposal Management fills in the appropriate fields based on the defaults that you set up for the contracts business unit and on information contained in the proposal.
Contract fields are available for editing until you activate the contract. Then all fields, except for the Contract Status field, become display-only. Any changes to the Contract Entry components must be made through amendment processing.
Before activating a contract, look at the fields on the page to verify that it is the correct contract. Change the contract status to Active. A processing status of Active indicates that all data for the contract is entered into the system, and that the contract has passed system data validation. A contract must have a status of Active for any contract element to be available for processing. Contracts with an Active status have these attributes:
Data fields are available for entry only through amendment processing.
Downstream processing is enabled for the contract.
The system has confirmed entry of the required fields and has validated contract data.
The contract is included in prompt pages.
Contract amendment control is active for the contract.
See Also
Defining General Contract Information
Contract Lines
A contract line corresponds to an individual product or service. The Generate process in PeopleSoft Proposal Management fills in the appropriate fields based on the defaults that you set up for the contracts business unit and on information contained in the proposal.
A contract line corresponds to an individual product or service. For PeopleSoft Proposal Management contracts, a product is a service that you define on the Product Definition page. The system uses the information from the Contract General page and the product to create a set of default values for the contract line. You can override much of this default information at the line level and add additional details. For service-related contract lines, you can associate the contract line with additional projects and rates.
See Also
Billing Plans
Billing plans store information about when billing occurs, how bills should appear, and what notes should relate to the bill. Data from PeopleSoft Contracts drives the creation of bill lines for fixed-price contract lines. For rate-based contract lines, data from both PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing drives the creation of bill lines. In both cases, PeopleSoft Contracts creates the bill lines for the Billing Interface tables (PS_INTFC_BI, PS_INTFC_BI2, PS_INTFC_NOTE, PS_INTFC_BI_AEDS, and PS_INTFC_BI_HDR).
The Generate process in PeopleSoft Proposal Management fills in the appropriate fields on the Billing Plan General page in PeopleSoft Contracts based on the default values that you set up for the PeopleSoft Proposal Management business unit and associated bill and bill detail templates on the products assigned to activities.
When you change the contract status to Active, the system automatically changes the status of the billing plan to Ready. At this point, you can initiate the Contracts Billing Engine process to select the billing plan for processing. To transfer bill lines to PeopleSoft Billing, you must run the Contracts/Billing Interface process (CA_BI_INTFC).
Note. The system creates billing plans only if a billing plan template is assigned to the product ID used on the contract line.
See Also
Establishing Product Definitions
Revenue Recognition Plans
Revenue recognition plans lists events that define when revenue is recognized for each contract line that is linked to that revenue recognition plan. You associate events with either percentages or amounts. The percentage or amount reflects how much of the contract line's negotiated amount is recognized upon a certain date, milestone, or user-initiated action.
The Generate process in PeopleSoft Proposal Management fills in the appropriate fields on the Rev Rec Plan (revenue recognition plan) page in PeopleSoft Contracts based on the defaults that you set up for the PeopleSoft Contracts business unit and on information contained in the proposal. When you change the contract status to Active, the system automatically changes the status of the revenue recognition plan to Ready.
Data from PeopleSoft Contracts drives the creation of accounting entries for fixed-amount contract lines. For rate-based contract lines, data from PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing drives the creation of accounting entries. In both cases, PeopleSoft Contracts creates accounting entries to send to PeopleSoft General Ledger and creates the bill lines that the system sends to PeopleSoft Billing.
PeopleSoft Contracts generates the revenue entries, crediting revenue and debiting unbilled accounts receivable (AR), and then sends these entries to PeopleSoft General Ledger. PeopleSoft Billing generates the offsetting entries, crediting unbilled AR and debiting PeopleSoft Receivables.
Note. The system creates revenue recognition plans only if a revenue plan template is assigned to the product ID used on the contract line.
See Also
Establishing Product Definitions
Projects and Activities
The Generate process creates projects and activities in PeopleSoft Project Costing based on information that is contained in the proposal. If the system cannot create the required structures, then the Generate process cannot be completed.
To verify that the project and activities exist, navigate to the Related Projects page from the Details tab on the Lines page in PeopleSoft Contracts. You can also navigate to the Project General page through the PeopleSoft Project Costing navigational structure.
After you create projects and activities through the Generate process, you can maintain project information, perform project analysis, track procurement costs, create budgets, track expenses, gather resource costs, price resources, process allocations, and generate operational reports.
See Also
Creating and Maintaining Projects
Creating and Maintaining Activities
Rate SetsYou charge customers a rate for the services that you provide plus the related costs. By establishing rate sets and rate plans in PeopleSoft Project Costing, you can efficiently manage pricing across multiple project activities using a limited number of rate plans. Rate sets and rate plans in PeopleSoft Project Costing are dynamic and subject to change in rate structure over time.
When you sell a service to a customer, you establish rates for that service. The service can be provided at your standard billing rates, which may be subject to change over time, or you might provide services at rates that are fixed for the duration of the contract obligation.
For details about using the rate plan and defining rate sets for rate-based contract lines, refer to the PeopleSoft Contracts PeopleBook.
See Also
Understanding the Relationship Between PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing
Pages Used to Define Rate Set Categories, Rate Sets, and Rate Plans
Integrating with PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Billing
Budget Generation
When you run the Generate process, the system creates in PeopleSoft Program Management's ARL the project team and activity resource team information along with bill and cost rates. Resource lines with markup or markdown appear in the ARL as custom rate type lines.
The Generate process then creates revenue and cost budget plans. In doing this, the Generate process calls the Get Plan Application Engine process (PGM_SPREAD) to spread the budget detail based on the defined calendar and any markup or markdown amounts appear as single rows per resource line on the Budget Detail page. For example, if there two bill rows and a 10 percent markup, the system creates one line for each resource row as follows:
|
Line Number |
Row Type |
Results |
|
Line 1 |
Resource row |
11,600 USD |
|
Line 2 |
10% markup of resource row 1 |
1,160 USD |
|
Line 3 |
Resource row |
40, 000 USD |
|
Line 4 |
10% markup of resource row 2 |
4,000 USD |
For more information on the Get Plan process, refer to PeopleSoft Project Costing's budgeting process.
See Also
Budgeting Project Costs and Revenue