Summary of EPM Cloud Updates – September 2019

Posted by Jun on August 30, 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 September update, it will apply the latest updates to test environment on Friday, Sep 6th, 2019 and to production environment on Sep 20th, 2019.

In this patch, these are the major updates:

EPM General

1.New Version of EPM Automate

A new version of EPM Automate is available with this update. This version contains these commands importAppSecurity, roleAssignmentReport, setDailyMaintenanceStartTime, setManualDataAccess, and setEncryptionKey.

importAppSecurity: Loads access permissions for users or groups of an application from a CSV file. Importing access permissions overwrites existing assignments only for imported members, data forms, data form folders, task lists, Calculation Manager business rules, and Calculation Manager business rule folders.
roleAssignmentReport: Generates a Role Assignment Report (CSV) and stores it in the default download location from where you can download it to your computer. The report lists the predefined roles and application roles assigned to users. This report matches the CSV version of the Role Assignment Report generated from Access Control.
setDailyMaintenanceStartTime: Sets the UTC time at which the daily maintenance of the environment starts.
setManualDataAccess: Specifies whether Oracle is permitted to manually access the database of an environment in emergency situations when an environment is unresponsive and customer has not yet provided a service request to investigate and make the environment available.
setEncryptionKey: Sets a custom encryption key for database access. Using this command provides a Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) solution for customers to include EPM Cloud in their standard key management rotation.

2.New Feedback Activity Report

Starting with the September update, Oracle EPM Cloud generates an new Activity Report each time a user submits feedback using the Provide Feedback Utility. This report is differentiated by prefixing Feedback to the report name. In addition to the information available in the Activity Report, this report displays information that the user submitted, for example,screenshots and problem description.

3.Activity Report as a JSON File and New Activity Report Sections

To facilitate the analysis of the Activity Report, Oracle EPM Cloud now generates a JSON version of the Activity Report. This report format is generated along with the Activity Report during the daily maintenance process. You can use the listfiles EPM Automate command to locate the JSON formatted Activity Report and the downloadfile command to download it to a local directory. Additionally, the Activity Report has been enhanced with additional metrics including information on manual database access, Essbase design metrics, application size data, Essbase BSO and ASO cube statistics, and dimensions in each cube. This enhancement does not apply to Narrative Reporting, which does not generate the Activity Report.

This report will include: Manual Database Access Information, Application Size, Essbase Design Metrics, Essbase BSO and ASO Cube Statistics, Dimensions in Each Cube

4.Support for Different Identity Domains for Test and Production Environments

By default, the test and production EPM Cloud environments use one common identity domain to facilitate the management of users and role assignments for each environment. You can now relocate EPM Cloud environments to relocate the production environment, test environment, or both to different identity domains. This is a change in how domain relocation was historically handled.

These additional identity domain relocation scenarios are now supported:

Relocation of the production environment, test environment, or both to different identity domains. In this scenario, you manage users and role assignments in two different identity domains.
Locate a pair of environments in one identity domain and another pair in a different identity domain. This option is suitable if you have a four-stage process involving an environment each for development, test, acceptance, and production.

5.New Features in Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser)

A new version of Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser) is available. This version includes the ability to save an ad hoc grid as a form, support for running business rules on save using Submit and Calc, and support for Dynamic Time Series members in Member Selection.

Save an Ad Hoc Grid as a Form
Submit and Calc
Support for Dynamic Time Series Members in Member Selection

6.New Oracle NetSuite Seeded Saved Searches Available in Data Management

Oracle Netsuite has released new seeded saved searches for metadata and data. Customers looking to load data or metadata from the Oracle NetSuite Cloud ERP System now have access to more predefined content to enhance their existing integrations.

7.New REST APIs to Support Bring Your Own Key Solution and to Create Role Assignment Report

Two new REST APIS; Set Encryption Key and Role Assignment Report, are now available. The Set Encryption Key REST API enables you to implement a Bring Your Own Key ( BYOK) solution to include EPM Cloud in your standard key management rotation. This API can be used to set and remove a user-defined encryption key to an Oracle EPM Cloud instance. The Role Assignment Report REST API can be used to generate a Role Assignment Report of service users in the system and write the report to the filename provided. The report can then be downloaded using the Download API.

Planning

1.Updates to the Data Maps Listing

The data maps listing has been updated with new Search, Filter, and Sort options.

2.Reporting Currency Cells are Now Read-Only in Simplified Multicurrency Applications

In simplified multiple currency applications, reporting currency cells are now read-only.

Financial Consolidation and Close

1.Task Manager Schedule Status Displayed on Tasks

In Task Manager, the schedule status is now displayed on the Task Properties tab under the schedule name.

2.Increased Character Limit for Task Manager Messages

When you view Tasks from the Tasks card, the messages within a task can now display up to 3000 characters.

3.New Data Exchange Card for Data Integrations

Data Integration is now available from the “Data Exchange” card under Applications. From the Data Integration page, you can create a data integration, or run an existing integration.

4.New REST APIs for Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close

You can now use REST APIs to retrieve journals and journal details, and perform other journal actions.

You can perform these actions:

Retrieve Journals
Retrieve Journal Details
Submit, Approve, Post, Unpost, and Reject Journals
Update Journal Periods (open or close periods)

5.Support for Additional Functions in Configurable Calculations and On-Demand Rules

Additional Essbase functions are now supported in both Configurable Calculations and in On-Demand rules.

These additional functions are now supported:

@MIN
@ANCEST
@ILANCESTORS
@INTERSECT
@ISIBLINGS
@MERGE
@CREATEBLOCK

Profitable and Cost Management

N/A

Account Reconciliation

1.Automated Handling of One-Sided Adjustments During Auto Match Available

In Transaction Matching, customers can now handle one sided adjustments, such as a Bank Fee or Transfer out of a bank account in an automated way by using a new Auto Match rule called Adjustment Rule.

2.Automated Population of Attribute Values for Adjustments and Support

In Transaction Matching, you will now be able to use the manual match rule to automatically populate attribute values for both adjustments and support during match type configuration. This eliminates user entry of attribute values during manual matching.

3.New Default Date Input Format (mm/dd/yy) in Reconciliation Compliance Transactions

The default date input format for Reconciliation Compliance transactions has changed from Medium date format to the Short date format for Date, Date/Time input fields when creating a new Transaction. For example, for the US (English) date input format, it has changed from mmm dd, yyyy to mm/dd/yy.

Narrative Reporting

1.Working with Books

Books provide the ability to group together one or more Management Reporting reports, Books, and other documents, to generate a single PDF output. You can optionally include a customizable Table of Contents (TOC), using a Word document with a TOC definition inserted, and common margins, page headers and footers.

Reports can be run for multiple member selections. For example, you can run one or more reports for several Departments or Entities. You can insert Sections to loop through multiple reports and member selections. Sections can also be used to group reports at one level for TOC display.

2.Management Report Grid Row Rendering in Report Package Embedded Content

To address an issue with separator rows in a Management Reporting (MR) grid inserted into a doclet rendering as blank rows, starting in the 19.10 release, the grid rendering behavior will be changed.

In the current releases, the design-time specified grid row height is not used when embedding an MR grid in a doclet. Instead the grid preview row height is being used.

In the 19.10 release, the design-time specified grid row height will be used instead. You need to be aware that this may change the display of existing MR grid embedded in report package doclets.

Tax Reporting

1.Configurable TAR Automation Report

Companies that have a different general Ledger account structure than the out-of-the-box Tax Reporting accounts can now configure the TAR.Automation report to:

Add G/L account columns to be consistent with the company`s General Ledger Chart of Accounts
Add Movement member rows to map the data to the columns, and provide a breakdown of the composite details for each Movement total.

2.Tax Automation by Multi-GAAP

The Tax Automation form has been updated to enable you to create Tax Automation rules to support Sources and Targets for the Multi-GAAP dimension. The rules can be created for Global, Domicile and Entity Rules, for both National and Regional processes.

3.Increased Character Limit for Task Manager Messages

When you view Tasks from the Tasks card, the messages within a task can now display up to 3000 characters.

4.Task Manager Schedule Status Displayed on Tasks

In Task Manager, the schedule status is now displayed on the Task Properties tab under the schedule name.

Enterprise Data Management

N/A

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