linear_scale How To

Manage a Soft Commitment for People in CMS

Use of commitments to project salary payments by person for a range of months, and to edit or delete a soft commitment by person in CMS.

This is only for individuals who do not have employee records in Sequoia (e.g. a projected new hire). If the person is already an employee then there is a different How To addressing adjustments to hard commitments called Modified Hard Commitments. Learn more in the How To Forecast in CMS.

Create Recurring Soft Commitment

Defining a Recurring Soft Commitment allows you to project repeating salary payments over a specified period of time. Recurring Soft Commitments are cleared as forecasted dates arrive. They do not recur beyond the end date you specify. Burdening (Fringe/IDC/Infrastructure) associated with the commitment is automatically calculated by CMS.

  1. Go to Oracle Financials
  2. Select Login
  3. Enter SUNet ID and password, if prompted

  1. Select SU CMS USER

  1. Select the People tab
  2. Enter account (PTA) search criteria from the Manage People screen
  3. Select Go – Execute Your Search It is not required to search but results can provide background information about existing commitments for reference. The next step requires entering PTA(s) independent of any search done.  

  1. Select Add Soft Commitment
  2. Select the Recurring radio button from the Add a Soft Commitment screen
  3. Add soft commitment details
    1. Enter a Description (maximum 50 characters) 
    2. Enter additional information in the Notes box, if desired
    3. Select a month and year from the Start Period and Stop Period drop-down lists to define first and last occurrence of the recurring expense
    4. Enter the forecasted recurring commitment amount in the Monthly Amt field

  1. Select Add Line to open a PTAE distribution line
  2. Add account and expenditure type details
    1. Enter a valid Project, Task, Award and Exp Type for the projected expense
    2. Enter the percentage of the expense that you want forecasted against the PTA in the Dist % field
    3. Enter Notes (optional)
    4. If charging less than 100% of the expense to one PTA, add additional lines to distribute the full amount
  3. Select Save
What Happens Next?
  • Review the soft commitment from the Account Overview screen and view uncommitted account balances with or without CMS soft commitments.
  • Faculty and staff will have the option of viewing soft commitment data in the Faculty Financial Inquiry Tool (FFIT) the day after the soft commitment is entered in CMS.

Edit or Delete a Soft Commitment

Gather the account information and edits needed.

  1. Go to Oracle Financials
  2. Select Login
  3. Enter SUNet ID and password, if prompted

  1. Select SU CMS USER

  1. Select the People tab
  2. Enter search criteria in the Manage People screen Search criteria can be by name of person, HR Org, or attributes of the PTA(s) paying them
  3. Select Go – Execute Your Search

  1. Find the Soft Commitment in search results The Assignment number column differentiates hard commitments from forecasted soft commitments by showing the former as position numbers and the later starting with “CMS” followed with six digits
  2. Select Assignment No./Student ID link to access the Edit Soft Commitment screen

  1. Edit the soft commitment fields:

    • Description
    • Notes
    • Start Period
    • End Period (for recurring soft commitments)
    • Monthly Amount
    • PTAE Distribution lines


    Or, select Delete Commitment (located top right) to delete the entire soft commitment

  2. Select Save
What Happens Next?
Last Updated: Jul 24, 2026
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