Contingent Worker Functionality and Setup Steps For Release 12 (and 11.5.

10 Family Pack M)
By Robert D. Anderson, CPA and Frank Roberts, PMP
Oracle introduced the concept of Contingent Worker to the Oracle Project Suite with the release of Family
Pack M in May 2005. Contingent Labor is defined by Oracle as:
an on-demand workforce, including contract workers, agency staffing, independent contractors and
people who work directly for an enterprise on an on-call basis.
This new functionality accessed features that had been incorporated into 11.5.10 for Purchasing and
Human Resources, allowing the following actions to take place in the Oracle Applications:

Define contingent workers in Oracle

Assign contingent workers to tasks in Project Management

Process labor costs of contingent workers in Project Costing

Link and validate timecards against Purchase Orders

Process contingent worker expenses in the same manner as employees

This new capability to handle contingent workers was possible due to changes across several Oracle
Application modules:
New Purchase Order Line Types were added to allow the following capability:

Specify individual named contractor start and end dates

Define fixed price or rate based agreements with the contractor

Specify price differentials on rate based agreements for items like overtime, weekend, holiday,
travel and standby time

Automatically generate purchase order receipts from timecards entered and approved through
OTL

New HR person type allowed the following capability:

Track contingent worker assignment history, similar to any regular employee

o

Periods of service

Breaks in assignments

Positions

Supervisors

Track worker and supplier relationships

Addition of the Supplier tab in the assignment record allowed the purchase order,
purchase order line number, supplier name, supplier site and dates to be
associated with the worker history

New OTL layouts for contingent workers supported the following capability:

Association of time entry to purchase agreements

Automation of timecard approval routings

Generation of purchase order receipts from approved timecards

o

Run the concurrent request Retrieve Time from OTL with parameters to optionally
select individual suppliers and dates

New iExpenses functionality supported the following capability:

Entry of expense reports on behalf of contingent workers

Automated approval routings

Payments to contingent worker suppliers

o

Contingent workers are associated with a supplier in Accounts Payable

Import of the iExpense information creates an automatic AP Invoice for the supplier to
pay for the incurred expense with the description including the identification of the
contingent worker

Within Oracle Projects, there are no differences between regular employees and contingent workers for
all the normal functions. Both are:

Assigned to projects and tasks

Own tasks and deliverables

Enter progress and record issues

Any other normal project activity, limited only by the security functions defined

With the update of Oracle Applications and the Release 12 functionality, Oracle has modified some of the
11.5.10 capability and expanded capability.

In R12.1.1 Oracle added a new flag to identify a contingency worker clearing project. When the
clearing project is used on a purchase order, the contingency worker can charge to any approved

project when using OTL. This enhances the ability to accommodate workers who are hired to
work on multiple projects over the life of their engagement.

In R12.1.2 Oracle added several new subcontractor management functions related to control of
payments, tracking contract requirements, such as insurance certificates or other items that
expire and need renewal over time.

As you can see from the breadth of impact contingent workers have on the applications, setup
requirements can be difficult and require a broad range of knowledge to do so successfully.
Contingent Worker related features in Oracle E-Business Suite Applications, shown in a Release 12
screen below, include additional line types in Purchasing for fixed price or rate based workers.

Purchasing Line Types

Plus the addition of a tab to record the worker details, including name, start date and end date.

New Tab

Oracle Human Resources includes new person types for contingent workers and assignment status for
active contingent workers, along with links to the supplier and the PO.

Contingent Worker Assignment

One significant change from 11.5.10 to Release 12 that impacts contingent workers is the elimination of
pre-approved batches for expense reports. This means expense reports will need to be entered through
iExpense. The AP Invoice Workbench functionality is NOT enabled for contingent workers due to the
expense being paid to the supplier and not the individual.
Oracle E-Business Suite Projects applications treat contingent workers just like regular employees,
allowing for scheduling, costing, reporting, and billing. However, to ease reporting requirements it may be
helpful to place contingent workers in a separate organization or assign them to a resource breakdown
structure, which can make use of the person type assigned in HR.
For additional details on setting up contingent worker functionality in Release 11.5.10 M, please reference
this white paper on our website:
http://www.projectp.com/resources/pdfs/Contingent_Workers_Time_Entry.pdf