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Release 12.1.1 – Multiple Projects for Contingent Worker

Introduction

This article covers one of the new features in Release 12.1.1: Contingent Worker timesheets with Multiple Purchase Orders.

A Contingent Worker is a non-Employee people resource who works for the enterprise, and for whom the enterprise is responsible for their costs and expenses. A worker record and user are created and tied to the Purchase Order so that the worker can enter a timesheet through Oracle Time and Labor (OTL). The timecard is imported into Oracle Projects and the labor costs can be viewed on the Project. The timecard is also imported into Oracle Purchasing with the import process creating an automatic receipt and an invoice in Oracle Purchasing and Payables respectively.

Contingent Worker records can be created in core HR or through Manager Self-Service responsibilities (Contingent Worker Placements).

Prior to R12.1.1 in OTL, a Contingent Worker could report time against only one Purchase Order number, as associated to the worker’s assignment. The Contingent Worker assignment was defined in the Core HR, wherein supplier name, Purchase Order number, and Purchase Order line were associated. These details were then retrieved in OTL, to enable the Contingent Worker to report time for the above-mentioned combination only.

With the R12.1.1 enhancement, a Contingent Worker can report time for multiple Purchase Orders. Users can associate multiple Purchase Orders to a Contingent Worker assignment. You can navigate to this from the Supplier tab of the Assignment page of Core HR. This enhancement enables an OTL timesheet to retrieve multiple Purchase Orders in the Purchase Order list of values. Now this LOV populates all associated Purchase Orders of the Contingent Worker and enables the worker to report time against multiple Purchase Orders.

There may be occasions where a Contingent Worker is procured but the Project(s) they are going to work on may not yet be agreed. In this case R12.1.1 introduces new functionality in Oracle Projects to help meet this requirement.

This new feature enables you to create Projects as Contingent Worker clearing Projects and associate these Projects with Purchase Orders. Once the Purchase Order is added to the Contingent Worker HR Assignment record they can charge time to any “Live” Project including the Contingent Worker (CWK) Clearing Project. Users should use transaction controls to ensure that Contingent Worker’s can only charge time to Projects they actually work on.

A new check box, Contingent Worker Enabled, has been added in the Project Type window. When you define this type of Project, it will be categorised as Contingent Worker Enabled in Oracle Time and Labor and Procurement.

The Commitment for the Contingent Worker in this case, is included against the Contingent Worker Clearing Project and is written down by every approved timecard. This Commitment view is available in Project Status Inquiry. It is advisable that users consider having only one Contingent Worker Project per business unit (area / resource centre) and that relevant reports include the Contingent Worker Project to provide accurate actual and committed costs.

The business process and auto-accounting rules would need to be defined to provide the offset accounting entries created through the Purchasing/Payables process.

Screenshots

Use the new Supplier tab to enter Purchase Order details for this assignment. If you need to charge multiple PO’s for your Contingent Worker, you can create multiple assignments using effective dates or use the new HTML screen to add multiple Purchase Orders to a single assignment.

Select (B) Others> Purchase Order Information if you need to add additional Purchase Orders to a single assignment:

Configuring the Contingent Worker Functionality

HR Setup Steps

It should be noted that this screen is only available when the following HR pre-requisite setup’s are defined using HR Vision Enterprises responsibility.

OP Setup Steps

Using the Contingent Worker Functionality

The Contingent Worker prepares and submits a Multi Purchase Order Timecard.

NB: if you enter future dated time, only time recorded for the current day or previous days will be interfaced when a user runs the ‘Retrieve Time from OTL’ process within the Purchasing application. Where as Oracle Projects accepts future dated time when the ‘PRC: Transaction Import’ process is run.

Also be aware that if you mistakenly dated your Requisition with a future start date, your PO will not appear in the OTL LOV’s until that date.

Creating the following timecard based on the PO’s attached to my HR Assignment record above, you can see that for Purchase Order 3494 I can only record time against the Project and Task associated with that Purchase Order i.e. Project Number A101, Task 1.1.

For Purchase Order 3495, associated with the Contingent Worker Project, you will notice that I can charge time to the Contingent Worker Project and any other “Live” Project and Tasks.

Once this timecard is approved and imported into Oracle Projects, my time will be costed against each Project and Task included on the timecard, based on the rates on the associated PO.

On import to purchasing a receipt for the timecard is automatically created along with the Accounts Payable invoice.

Contractor Management in Oracle Purchasing

R12.1.1 introduces new views within iProcurement to help manage Contractor Purchase Order Billed Amounts and Purchase Order Remaining Balances, which are very useful for reconciliation purposes.

To see these screens in a Vision environment use responsibility iProcurement, Vision Enterprises and N> iProcurement Home Page> (T) Contractors

I am interested to hear from users on the current limited functionality and what people’s opinions and experiences are of this new functionality.

18 Jan, 2010 by Darren Farr

E-Business Suite