The purpose of requirements is to provide a representation of the people class resources that are needed to complete the project.
For example, you have a project to install a product at a customer site. This project may require two DBAs and two Implementation Consultants skilled in the product to be installed. Without knowing the specific individuals that will fill these required roles, you can identify information such as what level of experience is necessary, where the work will be carried out, and approximately how long each position is required. You define this information for each requirement which simplifies the process of identifying potential resources to fill these roles.
A requirement is an unfilled work position on a project. It is an open team role without an assigned planning resource.
Requirements also differ from assignments in that they have additional attributes such as job levels. These additional attributes provide the detail necessary to identify potential candidates to fill the role during resource searches.
If you use Oracle Project Resource Management, you can also define competencies and advertisement rules for new requirements. For more information, see Staffing Project Requirements.
The requirement lifecycle begins with the creation of an open requirement on a project. The project requirement has three system schedule statuses, it can be filled, canceled, or open. A project requirement status begins as open and can either be filled through a resource search or directly assigning a resource to fill the requirement.
Adding requirements requires the input of basic information such as the role, time period, location, staffing priority, and job level range. Most of this information is defaulted from the selected project. The team role, job level range, and competencies are defaulted from the selected role.
You can change any of these defaults when adding the requirement, except for the competencies, candidate score information, and financial rate overrides. You can modify these fields through the Requirement Details page after you have added the requirement. The competencies of a requirement are used to search for potential resources to fill the requirement based on matching skills.
Note: You must use Oracle Project Resource Management to be able to enter and track competencies and candidate score information. For more information, see Staffing Project Requirements and Candidate Management.
If you need multiple requirements with the same description and criteria, you can enter the number of requirements in the Number of Copies field. For example, if you need 3 DBAs, enter the basic information for the requirement, and then, enter 3 in the Number of Copies field. When you save the requirement, 3 entries for DBA appear under Added Requirements. In order to avoid later confusion, we advise you to make requirement copies unique by changing their names and other attributes.
Note: If you use Oracle Project Management, the system will try to match an existing planning resource to your project requirement. If your project uses a decentralized planning resource list, the system can also generate a new planning resource to fit the requirement. For more information, see Integrating Work Planning with the Project Team.
After you save a requirement, you can enter or modify detailed information such as the schedule, competencies and forecast information from the Requirement Details page.
If you use Oracle Project Resource Management, you can also use the Requirement Details page to define staffing owners, staffing priorities, competencies, candidates, and advertisements for requirements. For more information, see Staffing Project Requirements.
Basic requirement information includes the team role, dates, and staffing priority as well as other general data. You can also enter the Resource Loan Agreement detail, such as if an extension of the team role is possible, who owns the expenses of the resource, and the expense limit. This information is primarily used in cases where a resource is borrowed from a different organization than the project organization.
Note: If you use Oracle Project Management and you change the team role for a project requirement, the system propagates the change to all related task assignments. You cannot change the team role if it is associated with any task assignments that have had actual cost or quantity actuals entered against them. For more information about task assignments, see Integrating Work Planning with the Project Team.
Schedule details include the start and end dates, the schedule status, planning resource, and work pattern. Click the Update Scheduled People button to update the following details of one or more requirements simultaneously:
Team Role
Start Date
End Date
Calendar
Staffing Owner
Work Type
Additional Staffing Information
Description
% of Calendar
City
Country
State/Region
If the Calendar or the % of Calendar is changed, then the start and end dates must be within the originally specified team role assignment dates.
The work pattern for the original team role assignment will be retained for the remaining period while a new work pattern is calculated for the changed duration.
When you create a project requirement or a project assignment, the start and end dates of the requirement or assignment will be validated against the project transaction start and end dates. This is determined by the profile option, PA: Require Assignment and Project Date Validation. If this profile option is set to Yes, then the project requirement or assignment start and end dates must be within the project transaction date range. If the profile option is set to Warning, then you will be allowed to specify the dates outside the project transaction date range, with a warning. For more information, see PA: Require Assignment and Project Date Validation.
The hours information is used to generate forecast totals for cost, revenue, and margin for this team role. This information is also used for calculating resource utilization. For details on the forecast calculations, see Generating Forecasts.
You can enter competency attributes for a project requirement if you use Oracle Project Resource Management. Competencies make it easier to identify potential candidates to fill the requirement during resource searches. For more information, see Staffing Project Requirements.
You can define advertisement rules to determine how a project requirement is advertised throughout your organization if you use Oracle Project Resource Management. For more information, see Staffing Project Requirements.
If you use Oracle Project Resource Management, you can enter, rank, and track the status of potential candidates for project requirements. For more information, see Staffing Project Requirements.
To fill a requirement, you can:
Directly identify a known resource.
Search the resource repository to find a suitable resource, if you use Oracle Project Resource Management. See Resource Search for more information.
When you fill a project requirement, the system creates a project assignment based on that requirement. The assignment identifies the period of time a specific resource will fill a specific role. If the person assigning the resource to the requirement has authority over the resource, the assignment is considered a confirmed assignment. Otherwise, the assignment must go through an approval process, either manual or workflow-enabled depending upon your implementation. These assignments are provisional until confirmed.
In addition, if you use Oracle Project Management and have a generic task-level planning resource assignment that is linked to a project requirement, that generic planning resource is replaced by whichever specific planning resource you use to fill the project requirement. For example, say you have a task with a generic "DBA" planning resource assignment, and that this resource assignment is linked to a specific project requirement. You decide to fill the project requirement with Mary Smith, a specific person. When you do this, the system replaces the generic "DBA" planning resource on the task with Mary Smith. For more information about task assignments and project requirements, see Integrating Work Planning with the Project Team.