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 Marketing, Sales, and Service, Human Capital Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Supply Chain Management, Data Cloud, Enterprise Performance Management, and Industry Solutions.

A quick recap of the EPM applications.

• Planning
• Financial Consolidation and Close
• Profitable and Cost Management
• Account Reconciliation
• Narrative Reporting
• Tax Reporting
• Enterprise Data Management

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 November update, it will apply the latest updates to test environment on Friday, Nov 1st, 2019 and to production environment on Nov 15th, 2019.

In this patch, these are the major updates:

EPM General

1.New User Group Report

The User Group Report is available starting with this update. This new report lists the direct or indirect membership of users assigned to groups in Access Control. Users are deemed to be direct members of a group if they are assigned to the group; users are considered indirect members when they are assigned to a group which is a child of another group. For each user assigned to a group, the report lists information such as the login ID, first and last name, email ID, and the name of groups to which the user is directly or indirectly assigned. The CSV version of the report indicates whether the user is directly or indirectly assigned to a group by using Yes or No.

 

2.New EPM Automate Utility Version

A new version of the EPM Automate Utility is available. This version contains the userGroupReport command, which generates a comma separated value file that lists the groups to which users are assigned in Access Control. The report indicates whether the user assignment to group is direct (as member of a group) or indirect (as member of a group that is a child of a nested group).

 

3.Planning Label in Migration Changed to Core

Starting with this update, Core replaces Planning in the artifact categories listing that is displayed when you access Migration. This change in the display label better reflects the type of artifacts available in this category and does not have any functional impact.

 

4.Group Export and Import Options Removed from Access Control

Oracle has removed the ability to export and import groups from Access Control. As a result of this change, the Export and Import buttons are no longer available in the Manage Groups screen. This change was made because the ability to import and export groups is available through Migration and EPM Automate. You should use Migration for interactive export and import of groups and EPM Automate for automated import and export of groups.

 

5.New Home Page Icon for Switching Navigation Flows at Runtime

There is a new Home page icon for switching navigation flows at runtime.

If you belong to multiple groups or if a navigation flow is assigned to a role, you might have access to more than one navigation flow and you can switch between navigation flows at runtime. To display a list of navigation flows from which you can choose, click the Navigation Flow icon on the global header, and select the navigation flow you want to view.

 

6.Access to Data Integration Extended

EPM Cloud users assigned to Power User and User predefined roles for the Planning business process can now access the Data Integration user interface. Previously, only the users assigned to the Service Administrator predefined role had access to the Data Integration user interface.

 

7.Updates to EPM Cloud Groovy Rules Java API

When using Groovy, you can now exclude members in Smart Push. You can also execute a calc script and return to the Groovy script for further execution. The new API is cube.executeCalcScript().

 

8.Creating a Drill-Down without a Source System Landing Page Using the EPM Integration Agent

You can now drill down to an on-premises source system without a landing page and display the results in a pop-up in Data Management using the EPM Integration Agent.

 

9.New REST API to Generate a User Group Report

You can now use REST APIs to generate a User Group Report on users in the system and write the report to a provided file name. This report lists the direct or indirect membership of users assigned to groups. It can be downloaded using the Download REST API.

 

Planning

1.New User Interface Labels for Enable Features in Projects

On the Projects Enable Features page, the label for Standard Rates from Workforce changed to Integration from Workforce, and the label for Standard Rates from Capital changed to Integration from Capital. These changes were made to more clearly identify the purpose of the options for integration.

 

2.New Database Suppression Option in Form Grid Properties

There is a new form layout option called Use Database Suppression that enables you to apply row suppression at the Essbase level instead of at the Planning level, thus reducing the amount of data handled on the Planning side and eliminating the impact on query thresholds.

 

Financial Consolidation and Close

1.Opening Balance Ownership Change

The Opening Balance Ownership Change (OBOC) system rule adjusts the Proportion and Elimination Opening Balance entries carried forward from the Closing Balance of the prior period when the Consolidation % changes from period-to-period. These adjustments ensure that the total of the opening balances plus related OBOC adjustments contribute to the Closing Balance in the current period reflecting the current period Consolidation %. Prior to this release, all OBOC adjustments were posted to the Elimination Consolidation dimension member. Beginning with this release, adjustments to Proportion Opening Balances will be posted to Proportion and only adjustments to Elimination Opening Balances will be posted to Elimination. The OBOC adjustments are posted to the “FCCS_Mvmts_Acquisitions” movement member when the period-to-period Ownership % increases and to the “FCCS_Mvmts_Disposals” movement member when the period-to-period Ownership % decreases.

 

2.Decimal Precision in Intercompany Eliminations

The cumulative elimination amount of an intercompany transaction cannot exceed the proportionalized amount. The system must therefore ensure that if the net contribution amount of an intercompany account has been reduced to zero, no further eliminations can occur. It is possible that a computerized system cannot and does not record an accumulation to zero accurately. This is due to a “decimal precision” issue common to all computer systems. The test as to whether further intercompany eliminations should be processed must be based on the net contribution being “approximately equal” to zero rather than exactly equal to zero. By default, FCCS applies “decimal precision” of four decimals when applying the test. In this case, any net contribution of less than 0.0001 will be considered as zero and further eliminations will not be applied to the data. In most cases and for most currencies this level of precision should provide sufficient accuracy. However, if unexpected eliminations still occur, a Substitution Variable can be added to the application to modify the decimal precision applied to the test.

 

3.Translation Calculations

Translation processes are applied to the source data during consolidation and translation execution whenever the source and destination POV represent different currencies.  None of the translation processes are applied to the source data set during consolidation and translation execution whenever the source and destination POV represent the same currency. In these cases, data are copied from the source to the destination with no additional processing.

 

4.Performance Substitution Variables

The following Substitution Variables can be enabled to improve performance:

EnableSimpleAggregation

This Substitution Variable improves the way that child entities are aggregated into parent entities. This Substitution Variable should be used in conjunction with the OptimizeYTDCalculation to improve consolidation performance.

OptimizeDBRefresh

This Substitution Variable improves the way that exchange rates are pushed to the consol cube during the database refresh.

OptimizeYTDCalculation

This Substitution Variable avoids redundant and repetitive calculations.  This Substitution Variable should be used in conjunction with EnableSimpleAggregation to improve consolidation performance.

In order to enable the Substitution Variables, set the parameter Cube = Consol, in addition to setting Value = true.

 

Profitable and Cost Management

N/A

 

Account Reconciliation

1.Allow Editing of Transactions in Transaction Matching

If enabled by an Administrator, preparers will now be able to edit one or more transactions when using Transaction Matching. Administrators enable this feature using the Match Type window while preparers will be able to edit multiple transactions from the Unmatched window. A new Edit column will indicate which transactions have been edited and the new audit feature will show an audit trail of the edits.

 

2.Audit History of Transactions and Matching Status in Transaction Matching

An audit trail is provided that shows the changes to transactions from the time they are loaded until the time they are deleted.  The match status is also tracked and shown in the audit history.

 

Narrative Reporting

1.New Notifications are Available in the Report Package

In the current release, you get a status notification for the following tasks:

• A notification is delivered when a data source refresh is completed.
• A notification is delivered when the shared library location is changed.

 

Tax Reporting

N/A

 

Enterprise Data Management

N/A

 

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