Oracle Project Financial Control Agents 在 Release 26C 推出預覽功能

Introduction

In Oracle Fusion Cloud Project Financial Management, financial inquiries are an essential part of day-to-day project accounting.

Project accountants regularly review expenditure transactions, investigate cost processing exceptions, monitor contract billing, and identify project costs awaiting capitalization.

Although Oracle Fusion provides dedicated pages for these activities, investigating a financial issue may require users to move between different functional areas to obtain the complete picture.

With Release 26C, Oracle has introduced Project Financial Control Agents, offering a conversational approach to accessing project financial information.

Rather than relying entirely on traditional application navigation, users can interact with the agents through predefined prompts or natural-language questions.

What makes this feature particularly relevant is its focus on existing project financial activities. The agents are designed to assist with inquiries and investigations that project accountants and billing specialists already perform.

Let's look at the capabilities introduced in this release and their significance from an Oracle Project Financial Management perspective.

Understanding the Project Financial Control Agents

Project Financial Control Agents provide guided access to financial information across Project Costing, Project Billing, and Project Assets.

The current preview includes four capabilities:

The distinction between these capabilities is important because each addresses a different stage of project financial processing.

Together, they provide a broader conversational inquiry experience across project financial operations.

A Note on Release Availability

Oracle has introduced the current functionality as a preview in Release 26C.

The preview experience is expected to be replaced with an agentic app-based experience, currently targeted for Release 27A.

This distinction is important when evaluating the feature, as the capabilities and user experience may continue to evolve.

1. Cost Exception Assistance: Improving Visibility into Unprocessed Costs

Cost processing is one of the fundamental activities in Oracle Fusion Project Costing.

Expenditure transactions can originate from multiple sources and pass through different processing stages before becoming available for project financial reporting.

When transactions encounter processing exceptions, project accountants need to identify the affected records and investigate the underlying issues.

Cost Exception Assistance introduces a conversational way to begin this investigation.

The capability is designed to help users identify and address exceptions related to project costs.

From a functional standpoint, this is relevant because investigating unprocessed costs is often a prerequisite for completing cost reconciliation and period-end activities.

Instead of beginning every investigation with manual transaction searches, users can use the agent to access relevant exception information within its supported scope.

The underlying transaction review and corrective processing remain important.

Key observation: The value of Cost Exception Assistance lies in making cost exception information easier to locate and investigate, rather than replacing the existing project cost processing controls.

2. Financial Inquiry: Bringing Project Cost and Asset Information Together

Financial Inquiry extends the conversational experience beyond cost exceptions.

The capability supports access to information across five areas:

• Project costs
• Unprocessed costs
• Project assets
• Asset assignments
• Asset lines

These areas are closely connected within Oracle Fusion Project Financial Management.

Project costs provide visibility into expenditure recorded against projects, while project asset information supports the review of costs associated with capitalization activities.

Asset assignments and asset lines provide additional detail within the project asset lifecycle.

Traditionally, investigating these areas may involve navigating different pages depending on the information required.

Financial Inquiry provides a common conversational starting point.

For project accountants, this can make it easier to explore financial information across Project Costing and Project Assets without beginning each inquiry from a separate application page.

However, the financial significance of the returned information still depends on the underlying transaction data and project configuration.

Key observation: Financial Inquiry brings together several related inquiry areas, making it potentially useful for project accountants responsible for both cost accounting and project asset activities.

3. Contract Bill Transactions Assistance: Connecting Financial Inquiry with Billing Operations

Contract Bill Transactions Assistance focuses on another important area of Project Financial Management: Project Billing.

Billing specialists frequently need to review transactions associated with projects and contracts, identify their current status, and determine whether additional action is required.

Oracle has introduced the ability to find and review bill transactions using criteria such as:

An important aspect of this capability is the direct navigation to the Bill Transactions page.

This creates a useful connection between conversational inquiry and the existing Oracle Fusion Project Billing application.

Users can begin by identifying the relevant bill transactions through the agent and then continue their investigation on the Bill Transactions page.

From a functional perspective, this is an important distinction.

Financial inquiry becomes more useful when users can move from the information returned to the application page where further review or action is required.

Key observation: Contract Bill Transactions Assistance is not limited to retrieving billing information. Its direct navigation capability helps connect the inquiry experience with the existing billing workflow.

4. Project Capitalization Assistance: Supporting Capitalization Reviews

Project capitalization requires careful monitoring of eligible project costs and their progression through the project asset lifecycle.

For organizations managing capital projects, identifying costs pending capitalization is an important financial review activity.

Project Capitalization Assistance is designed to help users identify these costs and receive guidance on resolving them.

This provides another way for project accountants to investigate outstanding capitalization activities.

The capability is particularly relevant because capitalization involves more than identifying project expenditure. Accountants must also consider the applicable project asset information and the status of the underlying transactions.

The agent can assist with identifying costs requiring attention, while the established capitalization processes and accounting controls continue to apply.

Key observation: Project Capitalization Assistance can improve visibility into outstanding capitalization activities, but the agent's guidance should be considered alongside the underlying project asset and accounting information.

5. A Different Approach to Project Financial Inquiries

One of the notable changes introduced with Project Financial Control Agents is how users can begin a financial inquiry.

Oracle provides two approaches.

Predefined Prompts

The agents include predefined prompts covering common project financial activities, including project costs, unbilled amounts, invoice statuses, and pending capitalization activities.

These prompts provide a convenient starting point for users who want to investigate information without constructing a question from scratch.

Natural-Language Questions

Users can also enter their own questions to explore supported project financial information.

Where a request requires clarification, the agents can help refine the inquiry.

This is an important part of the conversational experience.

The user can begin with a business question rather than having to identify the appropriate Oracle Fusion page before starting the investigation.

Steps to enable and configure

1. Sign in as a configured user.
2. On the application home page, click ERP Agents.
3. Click Project Financial Control Agents.
4. Select a predefined prompt, or enter a natural-language question.

Before accessing Project Financial Control Agents in Oracle Fusion Cloud, the required security roles and privileges must be configured.

Oracle provides two access options depending on whether the user already has the Project Accountant or Project Manager job role.

Option A: Users with Project Accountant or Project Manager Roles

For users who already have the Project Accountant or Project Manager job role, enable Permission Groups for the applicable role if they are not already enabled.

The following roles are relevant to this configuration:

Important: Users who already have the Project Accountant job role require only the additional Project Financial Control Agents role.

Option B: Users Without Project Accountant or Project Manager Roles

For users who do not have either of these standard job roles, a custom job role can be configured.

Follow these steps:

1. Create a custom job role in Oracle Fusion Security Console.
2. Enable Permission Groups for the custom role.
3. Navigate to the Roles and Privileges tab.
4. Add the Project Financial Control Agents role.

Required Duty Roles for Custom Roles

The Project Accountant and Project Manager job roles already include duty roles needed for the supported agent capabilities.

When creating a custom role, the following duty roles can be used as a reference:

These duty roles provide access to underlying Project Costing, Project Assets, and Project Billing functionality used by the agents.

Function Security Policies and Privileges

The following privileges are also listed in Oracle's access requirements and should be reviewed when configuring the custom role.

Note: The Manage Award Service privilege is required to view award and funding source configuration details.

Accessing the Agents After Security Configuration

Once the required roles and privileges have been configured, users can access the functionality through:

Oracle Fusion Home Page → ERP Agents → Project Financial Control Agents

From the landing page, users can select a predefined prompt or enter a natural-language question to investigate supported project financial information.

Security Considerations

For existing Project Accountant users, assigning the additional Project Financial Control Agents role provides a simpler approach than creating a separate custom job role.

For users without the standard Project Accountant or Project Manager roles, the custom role approach provides more flexibility. However, the duty roles and privileges should be reviewed carefully to ensure users receive only the access required for their responsibilities.

The final security configuration should be validated in a test environment before being implemented in production.

Project Financial Control Agents Landing Page

Required role details:

Project Agent Landing Page

Project Financial Control Agent

6. Accessing Project Financial Control Agents

Before accessing the feature, the required security configuration must be completed according to Oracle's documented access requirements.

Once the user has the appropriate access, the navigation is:

Oracle Fusion Home Page → ERP Agents → Project Financial Control Agents

Users can then select a predefined prompt or enter a natural-language question.

The agent assists with the inquiry within its supported functional scope.

The security requirements should be reviewed carefully before enabling access for project accounting and billing teams.

7. What This Means for Oracle Project Financial Management

From a functional consulting perspective, I see three areas where Project Financial Control Agents could make a meaningful difference.

Reducing Navigation Effort

Project financial investigations often involve information maintained across different application pages.

Conversational inquiries provide another way to locate relevant financial information without requiring users to begin from a specific navigation path.

Supporting Financial Exception Reviews

Unprocessed project costs, billing transactions, and pending capitalization activities are all areas that require regular monitoring.

The agents can help users begin investigating these activities and identify the relevant information more efficiently.

Connecting Inquiries with Existing Processes

The direct navigation capability available for Contract Bill Transactions Assistance is particularly relevant.

It demonstrates how conversational inquiry can complement existing Oracle Fusion application pages rather than operating as a separate financial processing mechanism.

This distinction will be important as Oracle continues developing agentic capabilities across ERP.

8. Considerations for Functional Consultants

While evaluating Project Financial Control Agents, there are several points worth understanding.

Security and access: Users must be configured with the appropriate access before interacting with the agents.

Functional scope: The current preview supports defined inquiry capabilities. It should not be assumed that every Project Financial Management activity can be performed conversationally.

Financial controls: The agents assist with retrieving information and investigating transactions. Existing accounting validations, transaction processing requirements, and financial controls remain relevant.

Data interpretation: The information returned should be reviewed in the context of the underlying project configuration and financial transactions.

9. Key Takeaways

Project Financial Control Agents introduce a conversational approach to several established activities within Oracle Fusion Cloud Project Financial Management.

The current preview focuses on cost exception investigation, financial inquiries, contract bill transactions, and project capitalization.

Predefined prompts and natural-language questions provide users with an alternative way to access project financial information.

The ability to navigate directly to the Bill Transactions page also demonstrates how agent-assisted inquiries can work alongside existing Oracle Fusion processes.

While the functionality is still evolving, it provides an early view of how conversational AI may become part of regular project financial operations.

Final Thoughts

What stands out to me about Project Financial Control Agents is that Oracle has focused on areas where project accountants regularly spend time investigating financial transactions.

Cost exceptions, project asset inquiries, billing transaction reviews, and pending capitalization activities are not new business requirements. They are already part of standard Project Financial Management operations.

The change is in how users can access and investigate the information.

Instead of starting every inquiry with application navigation, users can begin with a business question and use the agent to locate relevant financial details.

The current preview is an interesting development, particularly for organizations using Project Costing, Project Billing, and Project Assets together.