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.

 

A quick recap of the EPM applications.

• Planning and Budgeting Cloud
• Enterprise Planning Cloud
• Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud
• Profitable and Cost Management Cloud
• Account Reconciliation Cloud
• Enterprise Performance Reporting Cloud
• Enterprise Data Management Cloud

 

For PBCS, Enterprise Planning Cloud (EPBCS), FCCS, PCMCS, ARCS, EPRCS and EDMCS, 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 September update, it will apply the latest updates to test environment on Friday, December 7th, 2018 and to production environment on December 21st, 2018.

In this patch, these are the major updates:

 

Enterprise Planning Cloud

1.Ability to Execute Jobs from Groovy Rules

You can now execute jobs of type rules, rulesets, and templates synchronously from a Groovy rule.

 

2.Hssetvalue Accepts Additional Data Types

The HsSetValue function can now be used to set values from cells with Smart List, text, or date formats.

 

3.System Maintenance Task Options Enhancements

The Maintain FDMEE Data Tables option has been renamed to Maintain Data Tables by Application.

 

The new Maintain Data Table by Location option allows you to delete data for a specific location by period or category. You can still delete all locations for a target application by using the Maintain Data Tables by Application option.

 

A new Maintain Setup Data option has been added so that you can view and delete an orphan row or invalid data that cannot be accessed or deleted from the user interface. This data may include an orphan row from an import format, location, or data load rule. It can also include a duplicate row, or a Cloud user id or password defined for a local target application.

 

4.Data Management Dimension and Attribute Column Enhancements

Dimension and attribute columns can now accept a maximum of 300 characters. Formerly, the dimension column accepted a maximum of 80 characters, attribute columns 1-7 accepted a maximum of 70 characters, and attribute columns 8-14 accepted a maximum of 20 characters.

 

In addition, you can now import values into a maximum of 40 attribute columns. Formerly, you could only import a maximum of 14 attribute columns.

 

5.Smart View Support for Dashboards

You can now open Oracle EPM Cloud dashboards in Oracle Smart View for Office.

 

Dashboards give you an overview to key information and let you change and save data. When you open a dashboard in Smart View, a new Excel workbook is launched with each dashboard object displayed in a separate worksheet. Chart objects are displayed in grid format. Only grid and chart objects are supported; other dashboard objects are ignored.

 

6.Create Custom Depreciation And Amortization Methods

In the Capital business process, you can now define custom depreciation and amortization methods. Capital now provides a Smart List entry called Custom. You can define a business rule to calculate depreciation or amortization as needed for your business, and then associate the new business rule with the Custom Smart List entry.

 

Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud

1.Consolidation Report Enhancements

The Consolidation Report has been enhanced with several new features:

• Ability to save the report definition and run it at any time. When you create a report, you can run the report immediately, or save it as a job and schedule it for a later date. The Job status and logs are available from the Jobs console.
• New report options include an option to display zero lines, and whether to display the Member name, Alias, or both the Name and Alias of the dimension member.
• Ability to display all the eliminations per Data Source and support for custom rules (for example, the configurable calculation rule defined in FCCS_50).

 

2.Supplemental Data Manager Governors

In Supplemental Data, you can set governors on form template sections and attributes, and selectable columns in the Data Analysis dashboard, to improve application performance. The system provides default settings, which you can decrease or increase up to the maximum value. It enforces the maximum limits when these objects are created.

 

Profitable and Cost Management Cloud

N/A

 

Account Reconciliation Cloud

1.Integration Improvements Between Reconciliation Compliance And Transaction Matching

In this release update (18.12), Transaction Matching is more integrated with Reconciliation Compliance making it easier to use both modules with similar set up and configuration. Customers using Transaction Matching can also now benefit from available features in Reconciliation Compliance such as a more robust Reconciliation List view with ability to select columns and use filtering, use of bulk upload, and use of teams functionality.

Highlights of the changes are:

• Transaction Matching will now use the concept of Formats and Profiles in order to create reconciliations as is done in Reconciliation Compliance.
  • Formats can be any of these three new methods:
    • Balance Comparison with Transaction Matching;
    • Account Analysis with Transaction Matching; or
    • Transaction Matching Only.
• Balances can now be loaded the same way as period-end Reconciliation Compliance balances. Note that Transaction Matching transactions will be loaded the same way as previously.
• Transactions Matching reconciliations will be converted to Profiles and linked to Match Types instead of creating or editing reconciliations separately in Transaction Matching.
• Transaction Matching will now use Period end dates for the period end balancing that appears on the Balance Summary dialog. Therefore, there is no longer a need to configure Transaction Matching calendars separately.

 

2.Parallel Review and Approval Enables Multiple Preparers or Reviewers to Act on A Reconciliation

Sometimes you may need to have levels of preparation or review for a reconciliation. An example is if members of an approval team might all need to approve a reconciliation but the order in which they approve does not matter. Now you can assign the profile workflow to all members of a team by using the “Require Action By” field to select “All Preparers” or “All Reviewers”.

 

Enterprise Performance Reporting Cloud

1.Adding A Grid Title Property In Management Reports

In Management Reporting, specify a grid title to include at the top of the grid output, which can include text functions, and span across column headers. The grid title can also have formatting applied. You can also add multiple lines to the grid title by using Alt+Enter keys (Option+Enter on the Mac).

 

2.Using Shared Folder Library Location for Migration Of Linked Management Reporting Reports

This feature “Shared Folder” location will provide users an easier migration process for Report Package (RP) which include Doclets with linked Management Reporting (MR) Reports. Report Package Owners can quickly update all of the Management Report doclets’ links simply by changing the Shared Folder location, rather than manually updating the links in the Doclets to the relevant Reports.

 

3.Displaying the Total Page Numbers in the Pdf Format of The Report Package

 

In a PDF-based Report Package, you can now format your header or footer with the current page number along with the total number of pages. You need to insert a text function &[Page] of &[Pages] in the Header and Footer section that displays current page number and the total number of pages in the PDF format of report package.

 

4.Supporting Complex Tuples in Disclosure Management

Using the Disclosure Management Mapping Tool, you can define or create a tuple group and store it in the mapping repository. The main advantage of a complex tuple is that the user can organize and select choices as well as set the maximum occurrences within the tuple. Not all regulators permit the use of complex tuples.

Beyond complex tuples, for certain tuples there may be only choices or maximum occurrences required or the taxonomy might just call for a simple tuple structure.

 

Enterprise Data Management Cloud

1.Property Inheritance for Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud and Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud

Some properties used in Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud and Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud applications are enabled with inheritance by default. Positional inheritance allows property values to be inherited based on their position in a hierarchy (ancestor list). The following properties are automatically enabled with inheritance:

• PLN.AccountType
• PLN.Aggregation
• PLN.BaseCurrency
• PLN.DataType
• PLN.ExchangeRateType
• PLN.PlanType
• PLN.SkipValue
• PLN.SourcePlanType
• PLN.TimeBalance

 

These are the December updates for EPM Cloud. I will keep my eyes on the monthly updates and will share more ideas going forward. See you next time.