Overview – Oracle Projects

Oracle Projects is meant primarily for organizations that are project-oriented. Using this
module, it becomes easy to track costs, budget and track the project status.

Oracle Projects consists of the following products:

• Oracle Project Costing

• Oracle Project Billing

• Oracle Project Connect for Microsoft Project

• Oracle Activity Management Gateway

• Oracle Project Analysis Collection Pack

Prior to Oracle Projects Setup, one has to setup the Set of Books in GL, setup
Organization and Organization hierarchy in Oracle HRMS, define employees and job in
HRMS and create customer in Oracle Receivables. However if Oracle Projects is being
installed as a standalone package then one needs to define all above in Oracle Projects
itself. Some other mandatory setups include defining locations, defining implementation
options, defining Project Accounting periods, defining expenditure types and categories,
define revenue categories, etc. Also one has to create a burdening hierarchy in Oracle
HRMS which may vary from the Project or Task Organization hierarchy.

Invariably a Project is broken into a hierarchy of tasks as per Work Breakdown Structure
(WBS, a hierarchy of tasks that rollup into a project) to manage project and task related
information. One can define as many levels of tasks in a hierarchy in Oracle Projects.
However, proper naming conventions need to be followed while naming projects, tasks
and sub-tasks. An organization has to be associated with a project and a Task, which may
be same or different.

One can have three different Project Types for managing the cost of a project: Indirect,
Capital and Contract. An Indirect Project Type is used to track the overhead costs and
labor hours for overhead activities like Admin, Legal, etc. Capital Project Type is
selected to track costs and labor hours related to asset development activities which
ultimately results in an asset for the organization. A Contract Project Type is selected in
case the costs are reimbursed by a client.

Oracle Costing is the used for processing of expenditures for finding out costs which can
be attributed to projects and tasks which can then be posted to GL corresponding to
different account lines. There are two cost amounts associated to each transaction: Raw
and Burdened. The raw cost is the actual cost of the work performed, and the burden cost
is the indirect cost or overhead of work performed, like administrative cost. The Burden
cost is calculated by multiplying Raw Cost with the Burden Multiplier. The burdened
cost is the total cost that is incurred, i.e., the sum of raw cost and burden cost.

Burden Cost = Raw Cost x Burden Multiplier

Burdened Cost = Raw Cost + Burden Cost

More on Oracle Projects, primarily I’ll try and provide inputs on Burdening Cost and
Oracle Project Billing in subsequent days.