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PROJECT ACCOUNTING

Multiple Projects Types

From: Debbie Morrill [SMTP:MorrilDG@obg.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 1999 8:44 AM
Subject: PA: Multiple Projects Types

We are currently on Oracle Projects 10.7SC. Can anyone tell me if Release 11 includes the functionality to define different distribution rules at the task level rather than just the project level. We have need to set up multiple project types within a single project.

Thanks in advance for any assistance. Deb Morrill O'Brien & Gere

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 14:43:59 -0500
From: "Mittal, Rajeev" MittalR@bvsg.com
Subject: RE: Multiple Projects Types

No, even in Release 11 you can only define your distribution rule at the project level. We also have the same requirement were we want to set multiple distribution and invoice formats at the task level.

Rajeev Mittal BVSG ( Black & Veatch Solution Group

Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 00:07:34 +0300
From: "Dina Rotem (h)" dinar@rafael.co.il
Subject: Re: PA: Multiple Projects Types

In Release 11 you can fund at the top task level. You can define invoice format at the top task level. You can set Billing Assignments at top task level, meaning, you can assign billing extensions to automatically create revenue or billing events.

Dina

Project Manufacturing

"Fitzgerald, John" John.Fitzgerald@impacgroup.com
on 04/15/99 09:18:37 AM
cc: (bcc: Doug Fortnam/Whittman-Hart LP)
Subject: Project Mfg.

Can anyone help me with the following?

We are on release 11.02 and have installed project manufacturing and project costing. We are not using project billing. We can pass labor from WIP to projects no problem, as our resources are tied to a project expenditure type for both labor and labor overhead in the WIP module. We are unable to get any raw material issues tied to a work order (which has project and task assigned to it) to flow into projects. Also any PO's we write for materials (which are tied to a project task ) do not flow through to projects. What settings do we need to set in costing, inventory or projects? So far we have set an average cost type in costing. We have set up all the appropriate expenditure types and mapped them to the correct expenditure classes, (we think). We have also set a default material sub-element in costing but are not sure how our materials are tied to this sub-element. (This sub-element is tied to an inventory expenditure type and class). Are there additional links we need to form with our inventory items to this default sub-element? Additionally we then run two processes:project cost transfer and project transaction import, which tell us that no data was found in the logs.

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 11:36:02 -0400
From: dfortnam@whittman-hart.com
Subject: Re: Project Mfg.

You didn't mention whether or not you setup segments 19 & 20 in the stock locator flexfield. These segments should be set for not required and the flexfield set for allow dynamic inserts in order to allow dynamic creation of the project locators. These segments carry the Project/Task references as the material moves through production.

The way it should work is when you issue common material(material without a Project/Task reference) to a WIP job with a Project/Task reference, Oracle Projects moves the cost of the material at the cost in the Common cost group into the appropriate Project/Task. When you buy inventory material with a Project/Task reference, the material is charged to the Project/Task when the receipt into inventory is made and segments 19 & 20 in the Project locator are populated with the Project/Task from the Purchase Order. When this material is issued to a WIP job, no additional costs are transferred to the Project/Task unless a different Project/Task is referenced.

By the way, make sure that you have setup planning groups and cost groups for your projects.

I hope this helps. Doug Fortnam Oracle Implementation Consultant Whittman-Hart/Boston

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 13:03:34 -0400
From: rgoodnow@Kollsman.com
Subject: Re: Project Mfg.

Make sure you have set up the project manufacturing projects in the project parameters form in the project manufacturing responsibility.

Material costs are posted to projects at material delivery. The existence of a purchase order with no deliveries will not cause an entry to projects (other than the item should be visible to Project Status Inquiry as an open commitment). Also, make sure you have launched the cost worker (Inventory => setup = transactions = interface managers

There are also organization setups to enable the org for Project costing.

Transferring Paid Invoice Costs in Oracle Projects

From: Klosterman, Lisa H. [mailto:KlosLH@jea.com]
Sent: Friday, April 16, 1999 7:37 AM
Subject: Transferring Paid Invoice Costs In Oracle Projects

We are currently using Oracle Apps Rel 10.7 (Accounts Payables, Projects and others). Apparently with this release, if in AP you are using the Balancing Automatic Offset Method, you can no longer transfer costs in Projects of Supplier Invoice expenditures if the invoice has already been paid. It is my understanding, from Oracle Support, that Rel 10.6 allowed this functionality, but as an "enhancement" this functionalilty was removed in 10.7 and is not available in 11.0. I have been unable to get an explanation as to why this functionality has been removed. This leads to my questions:

1. Does anyone know why this functionality has been changed?
2. Has anyone come up with a workaround, either on the AP or Projects side, to allow transfers of paid invoice costs in Projects when the Balancing Automatic Offset Method is used in AP?

-- Liza Klosterman PORT Consulting, Inc.

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 10:53:49 -0500
From: "Barker, Dave" DBarker@ENERGY.TWC.com
Subject: RE: Transferring Paid Invoice Costs In Oracle Projects

Lisa,
We had the same experience only worse. A megapatch applied to AP stopped AP from accepting the adjustments from PA..... but PA was still allowing them until we applied a PA megapatch. We had several hundred hung up for quite a while. Oracle support finally found a way to get AP to accept these.

Never got a good reason why except that "adjustments to paid invoices are not allowed if you use auto offset'. We had been doing PA transfers and splits for several months with no apparent problems.

Don't have a good work around other than the obvious one of exporting the items and importing them back as usages which is a pain and you also lose the AP audit trail.

Dave Barker The Williams Cos. Energy Services - Oracle FA Team WS3 - 3West Tulsa, OK 918-764-4810

Oracle Projects Performance

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 11:17:12 -0400
From: "Klosterman, Lisa H." KlosLH@jea.com
Subject: Oracle Projects Performance

One of my co-workers was at the OAUG conference last week and heard some talk that Oracle Projects could not handle large volumes of transactions. Unfortunately she did not stick around to hear anymore details. But, at the same time, I attended a demo of another software product that is suppose to work with Oracle Financials. This software company, who shall remain anonymous, was making a similar claim: Oracle Projects cannot handle large volumes of transactions. When I asked what they mean by that, I got the vague answer of "the system gets really slow over a period of time".

My question: has anyone out there that is using Oracle Projects experienced performance problems? I know that the process "PRC: Update Project Summary Amounts for a Range of Projects" takes a while to run (about 3.5 hours), but other than that we have not experienced any performance problems. We have been in production for 4 months, and have generated approximately 420,000 expenditure items: about 100,000 per month.

-- Liza Klosterman PORT Consulting, Inc

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 12:06:36 -0400
From: Elizabeth Macri emacri@prg.com
Subject: Re: Oracle Projects Performance

We have been running Oracle Projects for a year. We currently have 4 sites across the country running Oracle. The only speed issues we encounter are usually "Oracle Wide" and are not specific to one module. We have set our processes including the Update Project Summary to run in the evening since it does take a few hours. Other than that we have not encountered any major speed issues in relation to Oracle Projects and the number of transactions we process.

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 11:09:00 -0500
From: Pat McBride pmcbride@mdp.com
Subject: Re: Oracle Projects Performance

I have been involved with a number of PA implementations and Yes the application can be slow. As I understand things, Oracle is currently working on an archive process that will reduce the history that you need to keep in the system and speed up processing. Processing speeds can be improved by several methods. I suggest (as does Oracle) that you break down your batches into smaller groups. When you Run PRC: update project summary amounts for a range of projects, break the batch down into 3 or 4 smaller groups. The processes can run concurrently and take much less time to complete.

LOL Pat McBride EDS

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 14:11:43 -0400
From: "Mohrenweiser, Mary A, CFCTR" mmohrenweiser@att.com
Subject: RE: Oracle Projects Performance

We have experimented with different batch sizes for Update Project Summary, and have found that batches of 500 projects each gave us the best overall performance. We also run at night and open up the concurrent manager to allow up to 15 concurrent processes to run simultaneously.

MARY MOHRENWEISER (908) 542-6251 mmohrenweiser@att.com

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 11:42:42 -0700
From: "Binh Pham" Binh.Pham@jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Re: Oracle Projects Performance

Some of Oracle Projects concurrent programs are slow. However, Oracle usually have performance patches that included with the MegaPatches. You must keep your patch level current with PA. Also, there are some tuning parameters that you can provide to PA through Profile options, which you should obtain them from Oracle Supports. Also, one more thing -- very important -- is that you must reorganize your database at least once a month, and that really makes a big difference in terms of performance. For online performance, I have not encountered many serious problem with PA.

I hope this helps.

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 08:50:17 -0600
From: "Rahman, Milan" milan_rahman@nrel.gov
Cc: "'KlosLH@jea.com'" KlosLH@jea.com
Subject: RE: Oracle Projects Performance

I have written a Concurrent PL/SQL Program that can dynamically determine ranges and submit PAXACMPT once for the appropriate range. The range is determined by the "number of processes" you want to invoke or the "number (of projects) in each process". This allows you to dynamically parallelize the 'PRC: Update Project Summary Amounts for a Range of Projects' (PAXACMPT). I also have done similar process for the 'PRC: Refresh Project Summary Amounts' (PAXACRPT). Both of these programs must be registered as Concurrent Programs and assigned to the appropriate responsibility. The code and associated notes are posted at:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/9828
Alok and Shalini Chadda's Oracle Applications Page.
Please test these out on a test system as no warranty is either implied or understood. Also, please let me know if you have any suggestions or problems.

Thanks. Milan Rahman Apps DBA Softec Solutions, Inc. Currently assigned to : National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 11:12:45 -0400
From: "Klosterman, Lisa H." KlosLH@jea.com
Subject: RE: Oracle Projects Performance

"Great Minds Think Alike!"

I have used the approach you described in a number of situations within Projects and other modules. So, it is easy to duplicate this for 'PRC: Update Project Summary'.

>From the responses I have been getting it sounds like this is the primary process that has severe performance problems (although 'PRC: Refresh Project Summary' and 'PRC: Interface vendor invoice adjustments to AP' were also mentioned). I will add that I got a response from someone at Oracle and they indicated that Oracle Development is close to having a resolution to the problem.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my question!

-- Liza Klosterman PORT Consulting, Inc.

From: Evan Baergen ebaergen@gt.ca
Date: Wednesday, April 28, 1999 10:47 AM
Subject: RE: Oracle Projects Performance

Binh,
Excuse my technical ignorance, but what do you mean by "reorganize your database".

L. Evan Baergen Group Telecom - "The Power of Information"

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 16:04:44 -0700
From: "Binh Pham" Binh.Pham@jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Re: Oracle Projects Performance

Reorganize the database means unload and reload the data in the tables or tablespaces so that they are re-arranged for optimal access. At my client site, JPL, we use a product called TSREORG from Platinum Technology to do this and the performance after these reorganizations are very noticeable. We do the reorganization for GL, PA, FA, OE, HR. PA is the one that requires very frequent reorg and is growing fastest. We have about 5 gigs of data growth every month.

I hope this answer your question.

Allocations in 10.7 SC

Hi folks:

We are running on 10.7 SC and we know that there is no feature exists for Allocations in this release. We want to know what others are doing for projects allocations (in 10.7). Does anyone done any customizations or work around to achieve this?

Any comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks Krishna

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 14:29:05 -0700
From: "Donna M. Armstrong" donnabsc@gte.net
Subject: Re: Projects: Allocations in 10.7 SC

Hi Krishna,
I've written a number of custom Project Cost Allocation processes on Projects Releases 10.7 and earlier. I also reviewed Oracle's design for Rel 11i to make sure my clients would be able to use the standard functionality going forward. FYI - The 11i Allocation functionality is very rich!!! Many different methods are included and there are also client extensions available if your company does things differently.

Basically, I use a "Pool" or source project (or groups of projects) to collect the cost to be allocated. Then a user defined definition or custom table that stores the projects that make up the allocation "base" (projects to receive the allocation). Then the process allocates the available amount over the base and creates transactions in the transaction interface table. Note that the transactions created should total $0, as the pool should receive a credit amount to offset the amount allocated. Allocations NEVER create $$$, they just move $$$ between projects. The only case where this is not true is when you're allocating cost from GL to Projects and you set up AutoAccounting so that the GL account will receive the credit as the offset.

Hope this info helps, Donna

Creating AP invoice in Projects

From: Vincent Low [SMTP:low_cw@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 1999 2:46 AM
Subject: Oracle Projects in 11.0.2 - creating inv in AP

Hi,
Has anyone successfully implemented Oracle Projects on R 11.0.2 on Windows NT 4.0 ?

Specifically, we are hitting an error when we tried to create an AP invoice that is related to a project (which is setup in Oracle Projects).

We are getting an error like :

"Error Stage :30
ORA-6502 - PL/SQL numeric error in wf_acc_inv_generate ..... "

We have applied specific patches wrt to Projects interface with AR. Does anyone know if there are any specific patches wrt to Projects interface with FA or AP ???

Thanx vl

Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 08:22:42 -0500
From: "Hendrix, Deborah A." HendrixDA@bvsg.com
Subject: RE: Oracle Projects in 11.0.2 - creating inv in AP

We are live in production today on R11.0.2 and don't have any problems with AP and Projects, but we are on a Unix box. It looks to me like you are getting an error from Account Generator (i.e., Workflow) when it is trying to translate your project info to a GL account. I am not an Account Generator expert at this point, as we were able to use the upgrade script to convert our Flexbuilder rules to Account Generator, but I would start looking at your rules and if they are complex, simplify them to see if you can ever get it to work.

Debbie Hendrix BV Solutions Group, A Black & Veatch Company hendrixda@bvsg.com

Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 16:19:56 -0500
From: Badri Herur bherur@ix.netcom.com
Subject: RE: RE: Oracle Projects in 11.0.2 - creating inv in AP

Hi Vince,
Debbie is right. I completed a Projects 11.02 implementation on NT. The problem you are facing lies in the fact that the Supplier Invoice Account Generator Process that Oracle Ships, does not calculate a project related account #. You need to customize the workflow process to generate the process. If you use Purchasing, you will notice that using a project # on the PO / requisition does not generate a similar error message, this is b'coz, in the PO/Requisition processes are setup to end as a success, even if the process does not generate an account.

Hint: You will be wasting your time calling Oracle after you start your modification of the Supplier Invoice Account Generator process.

If you need any help let me know.

Badri

Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 17:03:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jason Chan jchan14@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: RE: Oracle Projects in 11.0.2 - creating inv in AP

Just a couple more hints:

- Do not waste your time on the Flexbuilder upgrade function. In most likelihood, the upgrade would not work properly. At my company, we spent several weeks trying to upgrade flexbuilder and ended up having to build our own custom Account Generators anyway.

- There is a useful white paper on Metalink on Account Generator for Project Supplier Invoices. It gives a good example to help you get started on your custom AG.

Jason Chan

Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 20:40:43 -0500
From: "Gandla, Ravi" RGandla@usa.capgemini.com
Subject: RE: Oracle Projects in 11.0.2 - creating inv in AP

Hi,
You would need to customize the PO_WF_PO_CHARGE_ACC package to identify the project related supplier invoices. You would also need to customize the PAAPINVW.wft (Project Supplier Invoices Account Generator Item Type) workflow file to derive the right AFF for the project related invoices in AP.

Let me know if you need more information.

Cheers Ravi

Creating PO in Projects

--- Vincent Low low_cw@yahoo.com wrote:

Hi all,
Thanx for the responses. They were very helpful and we have managed to create a simple project-related invoice in AP.

Now, we want to try to customise the PO Charge Account workflow (or is it a package ?) to be able to create a project-related PO...

Any sample .wft or related comments,thoughts, whitepapers etc will be greatly appreciated!!

Once again .. THANX !! vl

Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 16:09:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jason Chan jchan14@yahoo.com

I think this is also a white paper on how to customize the PO AG for Projects on Metalink's PO section.

In addition, you want to custom the Item Type called "PO Account Generator" (POWFPOAG)instead of the "PO Charge Account Generator". Any work done in "PO Charge Account Generator" would be wasted as it is not being called by the Apps.

Jason Chan i2 Technologies

Inordinate delay in Generate Draft Revenue

Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 09:25:37 PDT
From: "rama gopal" ramagopalan_s@hotmail.com
Subject: Oracle Projects - Generate Draft Revenue

Generate Draft Revenue(GDR) process is taking around 12 hours. This is well above permissible time limit of our company.

We have around 100,000 projects. We are on 10 SC, prod 16.1 We run GDR only at month end. We tried to ran GDR in batches (around 1000 in each batch), we did not have significant improvement in performance.

Our company follows event based revenue only( not expenditure items). Oracle

standard process is trying to create draft revenue based on events and also based on expenditure items. Before running GDR, we have set revenue_distributed_flag to 'Y' on pa_expenditure_items table. I have looked at the trace file and log files generated by GDR process. I have looked at indexes, and are OK. Standard process spends nearly 40% of time in trying to create draft revenue based on expenditure items. Is there any way to flag GDR to create draft revenue based on events only ? If there is no way to reduce processing time through setting/small batches etc, we are planning to develop custom program.

Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 07:57:44 -0700
From: "Haseeb, Mohamed" Mohamed.Haseeb@Jacobs.com
Subject: RE: Oracle Projects - Generate Draft Revenue

We had similar problems inspite of the fact that we only have about 20,000 projects. We have both expenditure items as well as events which generates revenue.

When you look at the Log, it normally gives you a fair idea where it is waiting. As you had mentioned it does wait on the cursor in which it reads expenditure items - though there may not be any which are billable. It also may take a long time on the Autoaccounting. This is what we did

1. We captured the cursor which takes a long time to process - and created some custom index - to make it faster.
2. We revisited the auto accounting rule and and changed certain profiles and it started running faster. The profile which made a big change was the one which specifies where to use the index for autoaccounting - we changed it from Legal entity to account.

Now it runs within and hour or two.

Also check if you have any custom extensions - which will also take a while to process. If you still have any questions, feel free to write to me.

Regards.. Haseeb

Invoices in Other Currencies

From: Gandla, Ravi [SMTP:RGandla@usa.capgemini.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 1999 7:47 AM
Subject: PA: Invoices in Other Currencies

Hi All,
As Oracle Projects does not support multiple currencies to record the expenditure items and when the PA invoices are interfaced to AR there are interfaced in the functional currency (ex. USD). We have a requirement where we would like to Invoice the customers in their local currency, which means a customer in France would be billed in French Franc.

Has anybody come across this situation and if so could you suggest any workarounds/solutions for this requirement.

Thank you, Ravi

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 10:35:08 -0500 (EST)
From: "Hendrix, Deborah A." HendrixDA@bv.com
Subject: RE: Invoices in Other Currencies

You could search the archives on this one to get the details as it has come up in the past. The manual solution is to incomplete the invoice in AR after it has been transferred from PA, change the currency, and recomplete it. We did this for about 1 year until we had time to implement an automated solution. The automated solution consists of the following:

1) A descriptive flexfield in PA to define the Billing Currency. We chose to do this at the project level, although it could be argued to be at the agreement or maybe even the task level depending on how you are doing things.

2) A trigger on each of the following tables to do the currency conversion: ra_interface_lines_all and ra_interface_distributions_all table.

The currency conversion only needs to be done on invoices, as PA already handles credit memos just fine. It's a pretty simple customization and has been working fine for us.

Debbie Hendrix BV Solutions Group, A Black & Veatch Company