Oracle releases the application updates documentation on new features and fixed issues from the Applications Release Readiness site. From there, you will be able to check the update for Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Performance Management.

 

For PBCS, Enterprise Planning Cloud (EPBCS) and FCCS, usually, the latest update will be installed on the first Friday of each month to test environment, and third Friday of each month to production environment. The update will be applied during the normal daily maintenance window.

 

For the December update, it will apply the latest updates to test environment on Friday, December 1st, 2017 and to production environment on Friday, December 15th, 2017.

In this patch, these are the major updates:

 

1. Standard Interface / Workspace Interface Support Removed

As we have mentioned earlier this year, starting with this December update, the Standard Interface, which is also known as the Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Workspace, is no longer supported. Issues reported for the Standard Interface will no longer be addressed. This change affects only Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service customers who activated their subscriptions on or before July 31, 2016.

 

2. Loading Metadata in Data Management

Data Management now supports the loading of metadata from a flat file. This feature allows us to build a metadata load file in any format, from any source, and load the metadata to an EPM Cloud environment. Using this approach, we can set property defaults during the load or mapping process. In this monthly update, only regular, custom, and Smart List dimensions are supported for metadata loads, and the feature is supported for the following services:

• Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud
• Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud
• Oracle Financial Consolidation and Closing Cloud
• Oracle Tax Reporting Cloud

 

3. Five New Custom Functions in Calculation Manager

Five new custom functions have been added to Calculation Manager. Each of these functions correspond to an existing function in that the existing functions return only positive numbers, and the new functions can return either a positive number or a negative number, depending on the calculated result. The new functions are:

 

@CalcMgrDiffDate (@CalcMgrDateDiff )

@CalcMgrYearsDiff (@CalcMgrYearsBetween)

@CalcMgrMonthsDiff (@CalcMgrMonthsBetween)

@CalcMgrDaysDiff (@CalcMgrDaysBetween)

@CalcMgrWeeksDiff (@CalcMgrWeeksBetween)

 

4. A New Design Time Prompt Function in Calculation Manager

@Length is now available in Calculation Manager. @Length returns the length of the text.

 

5. Tree View Set as the Default for Reports and Task Lists

Tree View is now the de fault in reports and task lists instead of the Flat View.

 

6. FCCS Advanced Consolidation

6.1 Manage Ownership

Ownership management consists of managing global consolidation settings and the application of those consolidation settings to each entity hierarchy on a scenario-by-scenario, year-by-year and period-by-period basis. We can add or modify consolidation methods, assign ownership percentages, re-compute ownership data, and also load ownership data from a comma-delimited file.

 

6.2 New Members for Elimination

If Ownership Management is enabled, the system provides new seeded members in the Consolidation and Data Source dimension for elimination.

 

6.3 New System Rules for Consolidation

These hard-coded system rules have been added to support Advanced Consolidations:

• Investment in Subs (Holding method)
• Owner’s Equity (Subsidiary/Proportional methods)
• Owner’s Equity (Holding method)

 

These rulesets provide a basic adjustment/elimination between the investment of a holding company in a subsidiary and the Owner’s Equity of that owned company, whether consolidated by the Subsidiary method (recognizing Minority Interest) or the Proportional method.

 

To use advanced consolidation, we must enable both the Intercompany dimension and Intercompany Elimination Tracking. If these are not both enabled, we will not see advanced consolidation features such as Ownership Management and the new hard-coded consolidation rules. In addition, the Account, Movement, Consolidation and Data Source dimensions have new members.

 

The December update is not a major update for EPM Cloud. I will keep my eyes on the monthly updates, and will share more ideas going forward. See you next time.