Summary of EPM Cloud Updates – August 2019

Posted by Jun on July 26, 2019

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, Internet of Things Apps, Enterprise Performance Management, Adaptive Intelligent Apps, Industry Solutions, and Data.

A quick recap of the EPM applications.

For the above EPM cloud solutions, typically, 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 August update, it will apply the latest updates to test environment on Friday, Aug 2nd, 2019 and to production environment on Aug 16th, 2019.

In this patch, these are the major updates:

Planning

1.New Version of EPM Automate

A new version of EPM Automate is available with this update. This version contains updates to the recreate command, which has been enhanced with the removeAll optional parameter. This parameter, when set to true, removes all user created snapshots as well as the content of the inbox (uploaded files) and outbox (files generated by using the Export capabilities of Migration).

2.New ASO Functions in Calculation Manager

Four new ASO functions; @ILSIBLINGS, @IRSIBLINGS, @LSIBLINGS, and @RSIBLINGS, are now available in Calculation Manager.

@ILSIBLINGS returns the specified member and its left siblings.
@IRSIBLINGS returns the specified member and its right siblings.
@LSIBLINGS returns the left siblings of the specified member.
@RSIBLINGS returns the right siblings of the specified member.

3.New Server Setting in Financial Reporting Web Studio

A new server setting in Financial Reporting Web Studio, Related Content URL Launch Mode, defines the type of request made for related content URLs. The default launch method is HTTP post. In scenarios where related content URLs do not support a post request, change the server setting to HTTP get.

4.Custom Application Types Support Simplified Multicurrency

In EPM Enterprise Cloud Service, if you create a Custom application type with the option to support more than one currency, the application is created using Simplified Multicurrency.

5.New Troubleshooting Information

With a view to assisting customers troubleshoot issues related to application performance, a new chapter titled “Troubleshooting Application-Specific Issues” has been added to Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud for Administrators. The initial installment of this document covers information on optimizing slow business rules identified in the Activity Report.

Financial Consolidation and Close

1.Ability to Create Rate Accounts for Translation Overrides

In addition to the seeded system rate accounts (Average and Ending), you can create additional rate accounts to be used as part of configurable Translation Override rules. From “Manage Translation Override Rules”, you can create, edit, or remove user-defined rate accounts.

2.Scenario Override Option for Opening Balance

You can now specify a different Scenario from which to source the Closing Balance data in the first period of each year. The default behavior is to carry forward the Closing Balance from the same Scenario as the Opening Balance to which the data is being written.

3.Simplified Seeded Balance Sheet and Movements Option

When you create an application, you can select a new “Basic” Balance Sheet option. The Basic option provides simplified hierarchies of the minimum required set of Account and Movement dimension members and a minimum set of seeded forms. The existing Traditional and Net Asset Approach hierarchies are still also available.

4.Event Monitoring Integrations for Oracle Fusion General Ledger

Task Manager now provides out-of-the-box Event Monitoring tasks for Oracle Fusion General Ledger. These events can be monitored:

Accounting Period Closed
Accounting Period Opened
Accounting Period Re-opened
Journal Batch Approved
Journal Batch Posting Completed

5.Task Manager Limits on Object Instances

In Task Manager, maximum limits have been added on the number of templates, schedules, attributes, tasks per template, and tasks per schedule, to improve application performance. The system enforces the maximum limits when these objects are created.

In addition, the system also enforces the maximum number of these objects during the Migration import process.

Profitable and Cost Management

1.New Models Cluster in Profitability and Cost Management

A new Models cluster in Profitability and Cost Management offers an enhanced user interface for creating, managing, and calculating rules in models. The Models cluster includes Designer, Execution Control, and Job Library screens.

Account Reconciliation

1.Reviewers and Viewers Now Allowed to View Unmatched and Suggested Match Tabs in Transaction Matching

Reviewers and viewers can now view the Unmatched transactions in Transaction Matching as well as the Suggested Matches in a “read only” mode. This allows reviewers and viewers to view the details of transactions that are marked as Supported and see the comments and documents attached by a Preparer without making changes.

2.Period Start, End, and Close Dates Added To List of Attributes for a Calculated Attribute

You can now select Period Start, Period End or Period Close dates when creating a calculated date attribute. For example, if you wanted to compare the Closed Date on an Adjustment transaction to the Period End Date, that can now be done.

Narrative Reporting

1.Conditional Text in Management Reporting

Conditional Text utilizes the Conditional Formatting framework to generate dynamic text based on predefined conditions and a combination of static text and text functions, which return member labels and data values to complete the resulting text. The Conditional Text results can be displayed in a text box, row, column or cell utilizing a new text function.

2.Disclosure Management Supports SEC Reporting Taxonomy (SRT)

SEC supports all these based taxonomies: UGT 2018, UGT 2019, IFRS 2016, IFRS 2017, IFRS 2018, IFRS 2019, SRT 2018, and SRT 2019. All of these base taxonomies are supported in Disclosure Management. In Taxonomy Manager, you can perform these tasks: Import Taxonomy, Register a New Taxonomy, and Verify Taxonomy Properties User Flow.

3.New Narrative Reporting 19.08 Extension for Smart View

The Narrative Reporting 19.08 Extension for Oracle Smart View for Office is available. This update includes an improved Embed Contents dialog, along with general performance improvements and bug fixes.

4.Changes to Provisioning Terminology in Access Control

With a view to standardizing the terminology around assigning roles to users at the identity domain, application, and artifact levels, EPM Cloud has changed such labels in the user interface to “Assign”. Because of this change, the labels of Provision Roles tab and Provisioning Reports tab in Access Control have been renamed to Assign Roles and Role Assignment Report respectively. Similar changes have been made to the access control screens displayed in business processes and EPM Connections.

Tax Reporting

N/A

Enterprise Data Management

1.REST API FOR BROWSING AND SEARCHING NODES

REST API endpoints are available to browse and search nodes in viewpoints.

The following operations can be performed:

Get viewpoints in a view
Get nodes in a viewpoint
Get a node in a viewpoint
Search for nodes in a viewpoint

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