a microsoft® excel front end to oracle® e-business

© Project Partners LLC • www.ProjectP.com • Phone: 1.650.712.6200

A MICROSOFT® EXCEL FRONT END TO

ORACLE® E-BUSINESS SUITE PROJECTS APPLICATIONS

KEY BENEFITS Pre-built, configurable Microsoft® Excel workbooks for

Project Managers speed use of Oracle® Applications.

Overview

Project Partners User Interface Applications enable Oracle E-Business Suite

Projects users to utilize Microsoft Excel as a concise and user-friendly

interface for Project Managers. UI-Apps™ workbooks allow Project Managers

and Team Members to perform the following functions:

• Create New Projects

• Build and Maintain Project WBS, Schedules and Budgets

• Manage Clients and Agreements

• Manage Contract, Capital and Indirect Projects

• Manage Transaction Controls

• Capture Project Schedule Progress

• Update Project Financial Forecasts

• Report on Projects

• Enter and Manage Individual and Group Timecards

UI-Apps leverage both standard Excel features and the latest functionality in

the Oracle E-Business Suite Projects Applications such as Financial and Work

Plans, standard Oracle Public APIs, User Defined Attributes (UDAs) and the

attachments capability native to Oracle Applications.

UI-Apps workbooks mirror the business processes in your organization and

your Project Managers will notice these key attributes:

• Users see only the fields that are relevant to the way you do business

• Users can perform multiple tasks in one Excel worksheet – such as

task creation as well as resource entry and budget creation, thereby

eliminating the need to navigate to multiple HTML screens

• Users can work off-line and synch-up with Oracle Projects later

• Users interact with Microsoft Excel, a familiar application, minimizing

the need for training

Work With Oracle Data in Disconnected Mode Users can connect to Oracle using Excel, download data, and then work offline

on the Excel workbook. Later they can reconnect to Oracle and synchronize

the updates made in Excel with the Oracle database.

Pre-Packaged Workbooks With Built In Business Process Flows

UI-Apps’ pre-defined Oracle-integrated workbooks are oriented to Project

Managers who manage contract, capital and indirect projects in many

industries. The built-in, intuitive Project Management processes blend into

your internal practices and the worksheets can be tailored to fit using simple

configuration options in conjunction with the flexible customization framework.

• Improve user productivity by 65% so Project Managers can focus on improving project operations

• Work off-line “on the go” and synch with Oracle when next connected

• Rapid deployment

• Minimal training and immediate user adoption

• Secure but easy access

FEATURES

• Manage WBS, Schedules, Workplans, Progress, Budgets, Forecasts and Capital Assets

• Manage Group and Individual Time Information

• Report on your projects

• Utilize Oracle Projects data in both connected and disconnected mode

• Use prepackaged configurable spreadsheets or configure your own worksheets

• Worksheets can be uploaded to Oracle as an attachment to the project/budget for audit purposes

• Integrated with standard Oracle workflows

• Enforces Oracle security and business rules

• Efficient and accurate task creation, addition of planning resources, entry of workplan, budgets and forecasts


Setup Project

The Setup Project workbook enables users to create new projects and maintain basic information for existing

projects including Key Members, Classifications and Attachments. In addition to the basic information for the

project, this workbook enables you to manage clients, agreements and funding and the project work plan,

including the ability to perform basic scheduling and viewing the project schedule in a Gantt chart view. You can

also use this workbook to define project assets for capital projects and finally to manage the project and task

level transaction controls.

Business process flows for the Setup Project workbooks

Worksheets Included in the Setup Project Workbook

1) New Project Creation. This worksheet allows you to define new projects based on your quick entry templates

or other existing projects, adding such valuable information as project dates, organization, client, currency,

key members, and classifications.

2) Basic Project Information. This worksheet allows you to modify existing project information such as key

members, classifications and also add document attachments to your project.


3) Clients and Agreements. This worksheet allows you to define, add, modify and delete customer/client,

agreement and funding information for your Contract Projects.

4) Work Breakdown Structure (Workplan). Project Partners User Interface Applications enable you to manage

the following Workplan and financial plan structures

• Fully Shared

• Partially Shared

• Split

• Split Mapped

5) Project Assets Definition and Asset Assignment. Asset information can be defined and assigned within the

context of a capital project. UI-Apps allow you to create an asset and provide basic information about that

asset, You can also delete assets or modify existing assets. Once you have defined your assets, you can

assign the asset to your project or task.

6) Transaction Controls – Definition and Maintenance. The Transaction Controls worksheet can be used to

define and maintain transaction controls for your projects.


Plan and Execute Projects

The business process flows for the Plan Projects and Execute Projects workbooks are as follows.

Plan Project

UI-Apps provide two options for planning your projects.

• Time Phased Planning. The Time Phased Budget and Forecast worksheets allow you to create, update and

manage project budgets and forecasts with plan amounts spread periodically across the planned duration of

your project.

• Lump Sum Planning. The Lump Sum Budget and Forecast worksheets allow you to create, update and

manage project budgets and forecasts with estimate at completion (EAC) amounts. These worksheets give

you the option to use burdened costs and bill rates from Oracle or just use the raw cost rates from Oracle

and apply default (overrideable) multipliers to determine your burdened costs and a margin percent (applied

to the burdened cost) to determine planned revenue amounts.


Worksheets Included in the Plan Project Workbook

1) Resource Cost Summary. The Resource Summary worksheet displays project inception-to-date costs broken down

by tasks and expenditure categories, rolled up by WBS.

The functionality of the following four worksheets is described below.

2) Lump Sum Budget.

3) Lump Sum Forecast

4) Time Phased Budget.

5) Time Phased Forecast.

The Budget and Forecast worksheets allow Project Managers to quickly plan their project using a familiar

Microsoft Excel based interface:

• Create, indent and outdent tasks

• Update task financial and schedule attributes

• Select and assign resources (based on resource format) from planning resource list

• Automatically determine planned resource costs and revenue using cost, burden and bill rates from

Oracle® Projects Applications

• Enable Lump Sum and Engineering and Construction-specific functionality that allows for planning total

cost using raw cost and “Break-Even Multipliers” and revenue amounts using a specified “Margin

Percent”

• Enable Time Phased and Professional Services-specific planning process using burdened cost rates and

bill rates from Oracle for planning cost and revenue.

• Plan in Project or Project Functional Currencies. The Project Partners User Interface Applications

automatically convert all rates downloaded to the worksheets into the selected currency.

• Select a spread curve and automatically spread resource costs across PA/GL periods. Update individual

periodic amounts and automatically maintain total planned amounts.

• Save a working plan version, and/or submit for approval (Baseline for Financial Plans and Publishing for

Workplans)


Execute Project

The Execute Project workbook provides a Gantt view of their workplan (schedule) and enables you to update

progress information including forecast dates and percent complete. Additionally, users can display invoices on

their projects, update the invoice description and comment lines, and optionally approve the invoice.

Worksheets Included in the Execute Project Workbook

1) Task Progress Entry. The Progress Worksheet enables users to collect and review workplan progress

information. You can also review your progress information using the Gantt chart provided with this

worksheet.

2) Invoice Review. The Invoice Review worksheet provides a focused user interface for project managers to

manage their project invoices. Through the use of a shared license with Project Partners Invoicing, Invoice

Review allows you to review and update draft project invoices online, add final project notes, comments or

invoice line descriptions specific to your project needs, generate and review project invoices in their finalized

format, and approve project invoices within the worksheet.


Manage Project Time

The Time Management workbook consists of three worksheets providing individuals or group timekeepers the

ability to create and submit project related individual and/or group timecards quickly and easily. Time entry fields

include projects, tasks, expenditure types, hours, daily comments, and descriptive flexfields for any time period

configuration. Users can define favorite projects, tasks and expenditures to expedite the time entry process for

those projects they charge to most often. Additionally, users can save existing timecards as templates to further

expedite the time entry process for future time periods. Each worksheet displays a listing of historical timecards

is provided for reference purposes including tracking of the time sheet approval status and for post-approval

corrections. UI-Apps Time Management utilizes the business setups and time entry rules you have defined in

Oracle Time and Labor and provides users with a simple, efficient interface to enter time.

Worksheets Included in the Time Management Workbooks are:

1) Individual Time Entry - allows employees to enter, maintain and submit their individual timecard to Oracle

Time and Labor for approval

2) Group Time Entry – allows you to enter, maintain and submit a timecard for a group of predefined individuals

and submit to Oracle Time and Labor for approval

3) Favorites - allows users to define a favorites list for project, task and expenditure type values to be used

during the time entry process.


Project Manager Reporting

Project Manager Reporting consists of two workbooks, one each for reporting project financial and schedule

performance, for contract projects which are billed to customers, as well as indirect or capital project types.

Users can download information for up to twenty projects at a time and scroll through their projects in Microsoft

Excel without going back to Oracle for more information. Drill downs from the project level to the task level and

on-demand drills to the transaction level are built into the workbooks.

Worksheets Included in the Project Manager Reporting Workbooks

1) Project List – displays list of projects queried from Oracle along with basic information and selected project

metrics

4) Project Summary – displays a comprehensive financial and schedule summary for the project including key

metrics with stoplight indicators.

5) Task Details – displays a comprehensive financial summary for the project financial breakdown structure

including information on budgets, forecasts and actual, including earned value information.


A complete Gantt view of the project schedule or Workplan, along with original and current baseline and

forecast dates along with % complete information is displayed on the Schedule worksheet.

6) Schedule – Displays the workplan WBS, key dates, and a selection of Gantt charts for the project schedule

7) Cost Detail – drill down from an amount on the worksheet and see each expenditure item that comprises that

amount

8) Revenue Detail (Contract Workbook only) – For contract projects, drill down from an amount and see the

event(s) or revenue item(s) that comprise that amount

9) Commitment Detail – drill down from a commitment amount and see the purchase order items that comprise

that amount


10) Charts – Displays various graphs such as actual to budget and earned value information per your

organization’s requirements.

Deploying Project Partners User Interface Applications

Project Partners User Interface Applications are delivered with the pre-built workbooks described above, and can

be deployed out-of-the-box in as little as one week. The look and feel of the worksheets can be rapidly adjusted

to user requirements using built-in table configurations and standard Microsoft Excel formatting capabilities.

Additionally, several delivered extension points allow the implementation team to add data elements and custom

business validations to the worksheets using easily available PL/SQL skills. All UI-Apps worksheets are

compatible with Oracle Project Management; however Oracle Project Management is not required with the

exception of the Task Progress and WBS Maintenance worksheets, provided Oracle Projects’ budgets have

been upgraded to the Family Pack M financial plan model..

Hardware, Software and Database Requirements

Supported Platforms: Unix, Linux and Windows 2000 or higher servers

Supported Databases: Oracle 9i through 11G

Supported Software Releases

• Oracle E-Business Suite Projects Applications Releases 11.5.10 (Family Pack M) RUP3 through R12.2

• The server-side components of the Project Partners UI can be deployed on the same web server used by Oracle

applications. It uses the same Apache/JVM.

• The Excel client supports Microsoft Excel 2003 Professional through Excel 2013 Professional.

Learn How Project Partners User Interface Applications Can Benefit Your Organization Visit our website to learn more and see a demonstration of Project Partners User Interface Applications: www.projectp.com/products

Microsoft and Excel are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Oracle, Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Project Management, Oracle Project Resource Management, Oracle Project Costing, and Oracle Project Billing are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Oracle Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Project Partners is a trademark of Project Partners LLC.

a microsoft® excel front end to oracle® e-business

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