April 2022 Update

Revision History

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:

Date	Product	Feature	Notes
24 MAY 2022	EPM Common	Cross Application Support for Smart Push in Data Maps	Updated document. Revised Key Resources information.
05 MAY 2022	Account Reconciliation	Importing Transactions with Invalid Account IDs in Transaction Matching	Updated document. Revised Key Resources information.
24 MAR 2022			Created initial document.

Overview

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Feature Summary

Enterprise Performance Management

Monthly Update Schedule

Test Environments: Oracle will apply this monthly update during the first daily maintenance that occurs at or after 22:00 UTC on Friday, April 1, 2022.

Production Environments: Oracle will apply this monthly update during the first daily maintenance that occurs at or after 22:00 UTC on Friday, April 15, 2022.

NOTE: The monthly update will not be applied to any environment for which this monthly update is requested to be skipped using the EPM Automate skipUpdate command or service request to Oracle.

NOTE: Backing up the daily maintenance snapshot and restoring the environment as needed are self-service operations. Oracle strongly recommends that you download the maintenance snapshot every day to a local server.

The Oracle Help Center provides access to updated documentation. The updates will be available in the Help Center on Friday, April 1, 2022.

NOTE: Some of the links to new feature documentation included in this readiness document will not work until after the Oracle Help Center update is complete.

Documentation Updates Available One Week After Readiness Documents

Updated documentation is published on the Oracle Help Center on the first Friday of each month, coinciding with the monthly updates to Test environments. Because there is a one week lag between the publishing of the readiness documents (What's New and New Feature Summary) and Oracle Help Center updates, some links included in the readiness documents will not work until the Oracle Help Center update is complete.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/epm-cloud/index.html

Fixed Issues and Considerations

Software issues addressed each month and considerations will be posted to My Oracle Support.

NOTE: Fixed issues for EPM Cloud Common components (Smart View for Office, EPM Automate, REST API, Migration, Access Control, Data Management/Data Integration, Reports, Financial Reporting, and Calculation Manager) are available in a separate document on the My Oracle Support “Release Highlights” page.

This provides visibility into EPM Cloud release contents.

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We welcome your comments and suggestions to improve the content of the What's New document and the product documentation.

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EPM Common

Updates to the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Operations Guide

The Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Operations Guide has been updated with a detailed checklist for enrolling in the Implementation Success Program for Financial Consolidation and Close. It also contains updated information on outbound IP Addresses of Oracle Cloud data centers to help you troubleshoot issues with the following operations when the target environment has IP allowlist enabled but does not have the outbound IP address of the data center where the source environment is located: cloning environments using the Clone Environment screen and cloneEnvironment EPM Automate command, copying a snapshot from an instance using the copysnapshotfrominstance EPM Automate command and the Copy Application Snapshot REST API, creating or using Navigation Flows, and configuring ERP Integration.

Applies to: Account Reconciliation, Enterprise Data Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Profitability and Cost Management, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: Information in the EPM Cloud Operations Guide helps you troubleshoot issues and report issues and requests to Oracle.

Key Resources

• Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Operations Guide

Updates to the Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud for Administrators Guide

The Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud for Administrators guide has been enhanced with descriptions of Essbase Design Metrics and Essbase Runtime metrics available in the Activity Report. Additionally, a new topic "Managing Notifications from Identity Cloud Service" has been added to help you customize Oracle Identity Cloud Service Notifications.

Applies to: Account Reconciliation, Enterprise Data Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Profitability and Cost Management, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: The Essbase metric descriptions helps you better understand the Essbase runtime and design data presented in the Activity report. Ability to customize Oracle Identity Cloud Service notifications helps you decide which notifications are sent to users, notification language, and the sender, subject, and body of notification emails.

Key Resources

• Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud for Administrators
  • Monitoring EPM Cloud
  • Managing Notifications from Identity Cloud Service

EPM Automate Updates

A new version of EPM Automate is now available. This version introduces these new commands: exportAccessControl, exportARApplicationProperties, exportTaskManagerAccessControl, importARApplicationProperties, listBackups, and restoreBackup. Additionally, this version contains changes to the replay command. Further, this version of EPM Automate has been enhanced to run most commands through Groovy scripts.

Applies to: Account Reconciliation, Enterprise Data Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Profitability and Cost Management, Tax Reporting

exportAccessControl Command

Exports user details report, which contains information on the users who have predefined roles in the environment and lists attributes of each user (such as name and email) as well as information on their access (such as assignment to Groups, Teams, and Organizations), to a CSV or XLS file.

Sample Access Control Report Output

exportARApplicationProperties Command

Exports Account Reconciliation application settings (related to Redwood Experience, theme, email notification, and business process name), background image, and logo image to a JSON file so that you can import them into the same or another environment. This command is useful when you import an application from production to test environments. If your application settings are different in production and test environments, you can export them from the test environment before importing the application from the production environment, and then import the settings in to the test environment to maintain the original settings.

exportTaskManagerAccessControl Command

Exports the user details report for Task Manager, Supplemental Data, and Enterprise Journal user assignments in Financial Consolidation and Close and Tax Reporting. The report contains information on the users who have predefined roles in the environment and lists attributes of each user (such as name and email) as well as their status, teams, predefined roles, workflow roles, organizations, groups, and last login timestamps, to an Excel or CSV file.

Sample Task Manager Access Control Report

importARApplicationProperties Command

Imports application settings (Redwood Experience, theme, email notification, and business process name), logo, and background images available in an export JSON file into an Account Reconciliation environment.

listBackups Command

Lists OCI (Gen 2) environment backup snapshots available in Oracle Object Storage to determine if a specific backup is available so that you can archive it or use it to restore the current environment by yourself. This command does not work in Classic Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud environments.

restoreBackup Command

Copies an available backup snapshot from Oracle Object Storage to the current environment so that it is available for import into the environment or to archive to a local computer. This command works only in OCI (Gen 2) EPM Cloud environments.

Updates to the replay Command

This command has been updated to replay REST API or EPM Automate activities, in addition to Smart View activities, on all environments to enable performance testing under heavy load to verify that user experience is acceptable when the service is under specified load.

Business Benefit: The exportARApplicationProperties and importARApplicationProperties commands help you clone application properties and custom settings related to Redwood Experience, theme, email notification, business process name, background image, and logo from an Account Reconciliation environment to the same or another environment. These commands are useful when you import an application from production to test environments. If your application settings are different in production and test environments, you can export them from the test environment before importing the application from the production environment, and then import the settings in to the test environment to maintain the original settings.

The exportAccessControl (Account Reconciliation) and exportTaskManagerAccessControl (Financial Consolidation and Tax Reporting) commands help you generate Excel or CSV formatted audit reports containing detailed information of users that combine information usually available in many EPM Cloud reports.

The listBackups and restoreBackup commands help you retrieve specific maintenance snapshots of OCI (Gen 2) environments available in Oracle Object Storage to the current environment as a self-service operation to restore it or to archive the snapshot. Self-service restoration of the environment saves you processing time because you no longer have to create a service request to copy an available backup to an OCI (Gen 2) environment.

Changes to the replay command now help you stress test all EPM Cloud environments.

Key Resources

• Working with EPM Automate for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud:
  • Installing EPM Automate
  • exportAccessControl
  • exportARApplicationProperties
  • exportTaskManagerAccessControl
  • importARApplicationProperties
  • listBackups
  • restoreBackup
  • replay
  • Running Commands without Installing EPM Automate

REST APIs to List Backups and Restore a Backup

In OCI (Gen 2) environments, you can now use the List Backup API to list available backup snapshots archived by Oracle in Oracle Object Storage.

If a backup snapshot is available, you can copy it to the current environment using the Restore Backup API. After copying the backup, you can archive it or use it to restore the current environment by yourself.

Applies to: Account Reconciliation, Enterprise Data Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Profitability and Cost Management, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: This provides a self-service method to restore or archive a backup snapshot in OCI environments. You no longer have to create a service request to copy an available backup to an OCI environment.

Key Resources

• Migration REST APIs in REST API for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Role Information

• Service Administrators

Support for Default Same Site Configuration

The Smart View add-in for Google Chrome has been updated to disable SameSiteByDefaultCookies by default. This update resolves the Add-in Error something went wrong and we couldn't start this add-in error displayed when accessing Classic EPM Cloud environments using Smart View launched from newer versions (80 and newer) of the Chrome browser.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Profitability and Cost Management, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: This updates allows the Smart View add-in to work seemlessly with newer versions of Google Chrome.

Updated EPM Books Extension for Smart View

An updated EPM Books extension for Oracle Smart View for Office is now available to download and install. This update includes general improvements and bug fixes.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: Downloading and installing the latest EPM Books extension for Smart View gives you access to the latest features, improvements, and bug fixes.

Key Resources

• Installing the EPM Books Extension in Working with Oracle Smart View for Office

Add Same Comments and URLs to Cell Ranges in Smart View (Mac and Browser)

If you want to add the same comment or attach the same URL to a range of data cells, you can now add them to all selected cells at the same time using the new Apply to all selected cells option. The selected data cells must be contiguous, that is adjacent, to each other.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

To add a comment or URL to a range of data cells:

1. In an ad hoc grid or a form, select the required range of contiguous data cells and then select Cell Actions in the Smart View ribbon.

2. In the Cell Actions dialog box, under the Select a cell list, you can see the list of selected cells. Select any cell from this list, and then perform a task.

• To add a common comment, click Text, enter the comment in the text box, select the Apply to all selected cells check box, and click Post.
• To add a common URL attachment, click Attachment, enter the attachment title and URL, select the Apply to all selected cells check box, and click Post.

The comment and URL attachment are added to all the selected cells. To check this, select another cell from the list and you will be able to see the same comment or URL in the Cell Actions dialog box under Text and Attachment.

Business Benefit: This feature lets you add the same comment and attach the same URL to multiple data cells in a single operation. This saves time and effort in adding comments and attachments in data cells.

Steps to Enable

To enable selection of multiple data cells for adding the same comment or document URL at once, Service Administrators must create and deploy a new manifest file:

1. Create a new manifest file or reuse an existing manifest file.
2. In the Create Manifest File page, ensure that the Cell Actions check box in the Cell Actions group is selected.
3. Make any other selections and modifications in the Create Manifest File page, as you require.
4. Deploy the manifest file to Smart View (Mac and Browser) users.

Tips And Considerations

• You cannot edit or delete a common URL attachment for the selected range of data cells at the same time. The Apply to all selected cells check box is disabled while editing or deleting a URL attachment.

• You cannot add a file as an attachment to multiple data cells at the same time. When you click the Attach File icon, the Apply to all selected cells check box is disabled and you can add a file to only one cell at a time.

Key Resources

• Deploying and Administering Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser)
  • Creating and Saving the Manifest File
  • Customizing the Manifest File
  • Deploying the Manifest File to Office 365 Users

• Working with Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser)
  • Adding Cell Comments
  • Adding Attachments

New Suppression Option for Form-Based Ad Hoc Grids

A new Grid Properties option, "Remove Form Suppressions in Ad Hoc," allows Smart View users to perform ad hoc on forms that have row and column suppression options selected in the form definition.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

During form definition, the designer may select row or column suppression options, such as Suppress missing data - Row, Suppress missing data - Columns, or Suppress missing blocks. When these options are selected, a Smart View user can open a form that contains missing data and still see the form layout. But if the Smart View user attempts to open the form as an ad hoc grid, and there is such data missing, no rows or columns may be displayed on the grid and an error is shown. 

By selecting the new Remove Form Suppressions in Ad Hoc option, Smart View users can still perform ad hoc analysis on a form that has suppression options specified. If there is missing data on the form, the base dimension members for the columns or rows are displayed on the ad hoc grid in Smart View. This allows Smart View users to continue ad hoc analysis on the form, even though suppression options were enabled in form design.

Note that the Remove Form Suppressions in Ad Hoc option does not override any suppression options you may have set in the Smart View Options dialog, Data Options tab. If the Remove Form Suppressions in Ad Hoc option is enabled for the form, and you see an error when performing ad hoc analysis on the form, then clear the suppression options in Smart View.

Business Benefit: Enabling the Grid Properties option, "Remove Form Suppressions in Ad Hoc," allows Smart View users to perform ad hoc analysis on the form even when other suppression options are set in the form definition.

Steps to Enable

To enable the Remove Form Suppressions in Ad Hoc option during form definition:

1. In the Layout tab, select Grid Properties.
2. Select any data suppression options you require.
3. Select the Remove Form Suppressions in Ad Hoc option.
4. Click Save.

Now Smart View users will be able to perform ad hoc analysis on the form, even if data is missing and other data suppression options are selected .

Tips And Considerations

The "Remove Form Suppressions in Ad Hoc" option does not override any suppression options you may have set in the Smart View Options dialog, Data Options tab. If the "Remove Form Suppressions in Ad Hoc" option is enabled for the form, and you see an error when performing ad hoc analysis on the form, then clear the suppressions options in Smart View.

Key Resources

• Setting Form Grid Properties in Administering Planning

Form Designer Allows Exclusion of Shared Members

When designing forms, you can now exclude all instances of a member, from both the base hierarchy and from the alternate hierarchies.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

In the Form Designer, when defining members to exclude, a new menu option, Exclude All, is available. Select Exclude All  to exclude all instances of a member, both from the base hierarchy and alternate hierarchies. Selecting this option excludes members by name.

The existing option in the Form Designer has been renamed from Add Exclusion to Exclude. The behavior for Exclude has not changed; selecting this option excludes members by ID.

You can select Remove Exclude or Remove Exclude All to remove an exclusion.

Business Benefit: The ability to exclude members from all hierarchies gives you more flexibility in form design.

Tips And Considerations

• The behavior of existing forms does not change.
• The behavior of excluding members by attribute has not changed; it always excludes all instances of members with that attribute.
• You can select members to exclude by member name or by using functions.

Key Resources

• Defining the Layout in Administering Planning

Cross Application Support for Smart Push in Data Maps

A new Cross Application Smart Push feature enables customers with multiple applications to instantly move data, cell comments, and supporting detail from a cube in a source application to a reporting or other cube in a remote target application

Applies to: Planning, Planning Modules (both as source and target), FreeForm (both as source and target),  Financial Consolidation and Close (target only), Tax Reporting (target only).

Customers select the target remote cube when creating the data map as shown below:

Create Data Map Page

Upon selecting the remote cube, the customer selects the connection and cube available for the current environment. All the available connections in the source application are displayed. The cubes from the remote application are displayed based on the selected connection.

Select Remote Cube Page

Business Benefit:  Prior to this update, you could transfer data across application using Data Management but Smart lists and relational data transfers were not supported.

Tips And Considerations

Transfer of attachments using Smart Push is supported only for data maps within the same environment.

Key Resources

• Using a Cross Application Smart Push in Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Detailed Member-Level Mapping in Data Maps

In addition to defining dimension mappings in Data Maps, you can now define detailed mapping between source and target dimension members in Data Maps. These member-level mappings can be defined as:

• Simple Mappings: One to One mappings between source and target members

• Roll-up Mappings: Multiple members on a source with a target member

• Multi-Dimension Mappings: Multiple dimensions mapping enables customers to map two source dimensions to one target dimension or one source dimension to two target dimensions.

• Substitution Variable Mapping: Select a Substitution Variable so that it is referred and picked-up during the Data Push/Smart Push instead of explicitly mapping a dimension member in the source.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

Note that detail member-level mapping are available when working with exceptions. That is, member-level mappings do not need to be defined when source and target members are the same or do not require any roll-up member mappings or transformations.

Select Members Page

Business Benefit: You can specify detailed mappings for an Exception when pushing data.

Key Resources

• Using Detailed Member-Level Mapping in Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Export and Import of Data Maps in Excel Format

You can now export and import data maps in Excel format.  Additionally, you can update and map definitions off-line and import them to an application.

Applies to: Planning, Planning Modules, FreeForm, Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting

The export and import options are available from the detail page:

Detail Page in Data Maps

Business Benefit: The new Data Maps features enable you to easily update and manage the mapping of dimensions between a source application database and a reporting database.

Key Resources

In the Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud, see:

• Exporting a Data Map
• Importing a Data Map

Data Export Support for Pull Mode in Dense Sparse Optimization (DSO) Enabled Applications

When Period is set as a Dense dimension in Financial Consolidation and Close, Data Integration now enables customer to use both “pull” or “push” approaches when defining a cross-instance integration. This feature enables customers to select the All Data extract method, which extracts stored values and dynamically calculated values for both the Dense and Spare dimensions.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: Prior to this update, when the Period was set as a Dense dimension, cross-instance integrations in Financial Consolidation and Close needed to use a "push" approach only when defining an integration. Additionally, if you had an existing service to service integration set up to pull data from a remote Financial Consolidation and Close instance, you had to migrate the integration to the Financial Consolidation and Close instance to instead push the data to a remote service instance.

Key Resources

• Defining Data Integration Options in Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

New Task Manager Display Options Within the Worklist

Administrators can now choose the secondary information displayed for their Task Manager tasks within the Worklist.  In addition to the Task Name, administrators can choose to show either the Task’s description (default), Task ID, or Organizational Unit within the Worklist.

Applies To: Financial Consolidation and Close, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: This feature allows administrators to tailor their user’s Worklist to display the task information which is most meaningful for their users.

Key Resources

• Displaying Upcoming Tasks in Worklist and Welcome Panel in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close

Enhanced Alerts

The Alerts functionality is now enhanced with additional Alert Type options and updates to the Alerts listing dialog.

Alert Types have additional options:

• Period and Year Selection (for Task Manager and Supplemental Data Manager): Indicates how Periods and Years are associated with an Alert.  You can select from the following values:
  • Required – The user is required to associate the Alert with a Year or Period.  
  • Visible – The user may associate the Alert with a Year or Period.
  • Hidden – The property is hidden and the Alert will not be associated with a Year or Period.

• Allow Removing Associations:  Indicates whether an existing association can be removed from an Alert.  If you have unselected this option, users will not be able to remove existing associated artifacts from the Alert.

• Associated With (for Account Reconciliation): Provides a new option Transaction Matching to create Alert Types for Transaction Matching.

The Alerts list page has been updated to allow the user to remove the Year and Period filter from the list filter bar.  By default, new users will not see the Year and Period within the filter bar.  Existing users will have the option to remove Year and Period from the filter bar.

Applies To: Account Reconciliation, Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting, Planning, and Planning Modules

Business Benefit: These enhanced capabilities help resolve user roadblocks when working with their Tasks, Forms, and Reconciliations.

Key Resources

• Setting Alert Type Properties in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud
• Viewing Alerts from Alert List in Working with Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud
• Setting Alert Type Properties in Administering Account Reconciliation
• Viewing Alerts from the Alerts List in Reconciling Accounts with Account Reconciliation
• Setting Alert Type Properties in Administering Planning
• Viewing Alerts in Working with Planning

Enhanced Time Zone

The user's Time Zone now appears as an optional read-only field in the Manage User/Task Manager Users dialog for all users. It also appears as a column in the Manage Users/ Task Manager Users export.

Applies To: Account Reconciliation, Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: This feature displays the respective users time zone as set in the User Preferences screen.

Key Resources

• Managing Task Manager Users and Managing Supplemental Data Manager Users in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud
• User Reporting Using Manage Users Dialog in Administering Account Reconciliation

Ability to Combine Match and Current POV Member Selection Functions

Using the Match member selection function in reports and books, you can now include the Current POV selection as part of the Match search string. For example, with alternate hierarchies for a Period dimension, where there are members like JanYTD, FebYTD,… DecYTD,  you can select a month in the CurrentPOV for a Period dimension and have its related “YTD” member selected.  For example, selecting “Jun” and having “JunYTD” returned.

Match member section function

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: This feature provides more flexibility when selecting members where the CurrentPOV needs to be appended with a prefix or suffix to select a related member.

Key Resources

• Designing with Reports for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud:
  • Functions Available Through Member Selection
  • Example: Using the Match function with CurrentPOV

EPM Digital Assistant Available for Planning and Planning Modules

You can now use the EPM Digital Assistant for Planning and Planning Modules. The assistant allows you to use a conversational interface as you complete these tasks in Planning and Planning Modules:

• Work with cubes
• Show and change the POV
• Work with data and accounts
• Update data
• Run business rules

To use the EPM Digital Assistant, you need to have a subscription to Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) as well as one or more of the following Enterprise Performance Management business processes that have digital assistant skills available: Account Reconciliation, Financial Consolidation and Close, Planning, Planning Modules, or Tax Reporting. Oracle Digital Assistant is an independent Oracle product, a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering. You configure the assistants as described in "Implementing the EPM Digital Assistant (Administrators)" in Getting Started with the Digital Assistant for Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management.

Applies to: Account Reconciliation, Financial Consolidation and Close, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: Using the EPM Digital Assistant lets you use a conversational interface as an alternative to working directly within the business process.

Key Resources

• Implementing the EPM Digital Assistant (Administrators) in Getting Started with the Digital Assistant for Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management

• Using the Assistant on the Web in Getting Started with the Digital Assistant for Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management

Role Information

• System Administrator

Account Reconciliation

Support for Alerts in Transaction Matching

The Alerts functionality is extended to include Transaction Matching. You can create an alert type and associate it with a particular Match Type. This alert type can be used when creating alerts on unmatched or supported transactions. Alerts can be created in the Unmatched Transaction dialog or in the Transactions tab under the Matching card.

Business Benefit: This feature enable Preparers to flag a set of unmatched or supported transactions in Transaction Matching and associate them with an alert.

Key Resources

• Creating Alerts to Resolve Road Blocks in Reconciling Accounts with Account Reconciliation

Importing Transactions with Invalid Account IDs in Transaction Matching

A new global setting for Transaction Matching enables Administrators to specify whether the load file can contain transactions with invalid account IDs. The import will fail if your setting indicates that invalid account IDs are not allowed.

Business Benefit: The new setting allows Administrators to control how transactions with invalid account IDs are handled during an import.

Key Resources

• Settings for Transaction Matching in Setting up and Configuring Account Reconciliation

Enterprise Data Management

There are no new features in this update except for the applicable features listed in the EPM Common section.

Financial Consolidation and Close

Dense / Sparse Migration Process Messages

The migration process to convert Period and Movement Dimensions to Dense Dimensions now includes additional messages about confirming the removal of Solve Order Customizations and reviewing Configurable Consolidation rules after conversion.

Business Benefit: The additional messages during the migration process may prevent errors from occurring in rules or the consolidation process.

Key Resources

• Converting Period and Movement Dimensions to Dense Dimensions in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud

Performance Substitution Variables

The OptimizeConcurrency, OptimizePelimCalculation, EnableYearlyConsol, ParallelCustomDimDSO and ParallelCustomDimTranslation substitution variables can be enabled to improve performance.

OptimizeConcurrency = True

This substitution variable improves concurrency of the consolidation process by executing some of the calculations at the very beginning or at the end. The degree of improvement depends on the entity structure of a given customer. Customers with deeper entity hierarchies will benefit the most.

OptimizePelimCalculation= True

This substitution variable improves Partner Eliminations (PElim) performance. If there is a consolidation performance degradation when deploying a user-created “Partner Eliminations Configurable Consolidation Rule” that has an account re-direction, adding this variable can provide significant performance improvement.

EnableYearlyConsol = True

The EnableYearlyConsol substitution variable can be enabled to improve performance for multi-period consolidations in applications that use the Dense/Sparse Optimization option (where Period and Movement are the Dense dimensions).

This substitution variable is applicable if the application meets all of these conditions:

• The application uses the Dense/Sparse Optimization option (Period and Movement are Dense dimensions)
• You have two or more dirty periods, and two or more hierarchy levels
• The dirty entities are identical across periods
• Equity Pickup sequence is not enabled

ParallelCustomDimDSO = True

This substitution variable improves the performance of the consolidation process in applications with Dense/Sparse Optimization, where the Period and Movement dimensions are Dense dimensions. To see performance improvements, you should set this substitution variable to True.

ParallelCustomDimTranslation = True

This substitution variable can improve the performance of the consolidation process in applications with Dense/Sparse Optimization, where the Period and Movement dimensions are Dense dimensions. To see performance improvements, you should set this substitution variable to True. If any degradation is noticed, you should delete this variable.

Business Benefit: These substitution variables help in improving performance.

NOTE: The degree of performance improvement varies widely across different applications as it is purely driven by the application design and data distribution.

FreeForm

There are no new features in this update except for the applicable features listed in the EPM Common section.

New Tutorials

New tutorials are available:

• Creating Multi-Cube FreeForm Applications with an Excel Template - Part 1

  In this tutorial, you learn how to create FreeForm Apps using an Excel template. With FreeForm Apps, you can deploy an application with no dimension requirements. You can create a FreeForm application with BSO and ASO cubes. The open dimensional solution allows you to create a fully custom application with cubes that allow for dimension flexibility needed by your organization. Like a Planning custom or module-based application, you can manage dimensions, members, data, and create artifacts to help you analyze and work on your plans. Using the Excel template, you learn how to define application properties, manage cubes, create dimensions and members, attributes, access permissions, and load data into the FreeForm application.

• Creating Multi-Cube FreeForm Applications with an Excel Template - Part 2

  In this tutorial, your learn how to update FreeForm Apps using an Excel template and verifying changes in the web interface. With FreeForm Apps, you can deploy an application with no dimension requirements. You can create a FreeForm application with BSO and ASO cubes. The open dimensional solution allows you to create a fully custom application with cubes that allow for dimension flexibility needed by your organization. Like a Planning custom or module-based application, you can manage dimensions, members, data, and create artifacts to help you analyze and work on your plans. After creating your FreeForm application using an Excel template, learn how you can use the same template to make modifications to dimensions, members, substitution variables, and security. Then, in the Planning web interface, assign Application Management options, review the application properties and definition, and the data you imported.

Business Benefit: Tutorials provide instructions with sequenced videos and documentation to help you learn a topic.

Narrative Reporting

New Video

Connections streamline the creation and maintenance of Reports data sources and provide a single area of credentials maintenance for multiple cubes in an application. Learn how to configure connections and access reporting artifacts in Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud platform instances on the same domain via remote libraries.

Business Benefit: Videos provide 3-5 minute overviews and step-by step instructions to perform tasks and achieve an outcome.

Key Resources

Working with Connections and Remote Libraries

Updated Narrative Reporting Extension for Smart View

An updated Narrative Reporting extension for Oracle Smart View for Office is now available to download and install. This update includes general improvements and bug fixes.

Business Benefit: Downloading and installing the latest Narrative Reporting extension for Smart View gives you access to the latest features, improvements, and bug fixes.

Key Resources

• Installing the Narrative Reporting Extension in Working with Oracle Smart View for Office

Updates to Narrative Reporting Sample Content

Narrative Reporting provides samples to help you learn how to use Report Packages, Reports, Books, and Bursting Definitions.

The Narrative Reporting samples contains the following updates:

• Newer Year dimension member numbering in the sample application

• Updates and facelift for Reports and Report Packages

• Additional sample reports with Notes

• Sample folder will be organized with subfolders for each artifact type (For example Reports, Report Packages, and so on.)

• All sample content will be automatically deployed and imported when a user performs a Get Sample Content action from the Downloads menu. ZIP files will no longer be downloaded, requiring manual import.

NOTE:

• A service administrator must install Samples before you can access the sample content.

• If you are on an old Enterprise Performance Reporting Cloud Service (EPRCS) SKU (pre-June 2019) and have deployed a Custom Application, the sample application will not be deployed. In this case, the Reports and Report Package reference doclets will not be refreshable, since the sample application will not exist.

• Sample content for deprecated functionality will no longer be included, such as the Disclosure Management samples or the sample application load files (pre-June 2019 SKU).

• If you have existing content in the Samples folder with the same name and folder location as the updated artifacts, it will be overwritten. Other artifacts, whose names do not conflict with the new sample content, will be retained.

Business Benefit: Provides an upgraded look and feel to the Narrative Reporting sample content and highlights new features not included in the previous samples.

Key Resources

• Installing Samples in Administering Narrative Reporting
• Reviewing the Sample Report Packages in Creating and Managing Report Packages for Narrative Reporting
• Reviewing the Sample Reports in Designing with Reports for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud 
• Reviewing the Sample Books in Designing with Reports for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud
• Reviewing the Sample Bursting Definition Files in Designing with Reports for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Planning

New Tutorials

New tutorials are available:

• Integrating Capital Data with Financials

This tutorial shows you how to integrate data between Capital and Financials. Asset data in Capital is summarized by asset class for each entity. You map Capital asset classes to accounts in Financials. You can map multiple asset classes to the same account in Financials, in which case the values are aggregated. For example, you could map both the Furniture and Fixtures asset class and the Office Equipment asset class to the Office Furniture and Equipment account in Financials. When data changes for new, existing, or leased assets in Capital, you can push the updated data to Financials.

• Integrating Projects Data with Financials

  This tutorial shows you how to integrate data between Projects and Financials. When you configure Projects, you map Projects accounts to Financials accounts. You can map multiple Projects accounts to the same account in Financials. You can create global mappings that apply to all entities, or entity-specific mappings. After you enter and calculate Projects data, you can run the Rollup Projects business rule to push the summarized data to Financials.

• Integrating Workforce Data with Financials

  This tutorial shows you how to map Workforce accounts to accounts in Financials and push Workforce data to Financials. If you are using the provided chart of accounts in Financials, both the Salary and Merit account in Workforce are mapped automatically to the Salaries account in Financials.  For other compensation data, when you configure Workforce compensation items using the Benefits and Taxes wizard, you map each item to an account in Financials. You then use the Compensation Data data map to push the data to Financials.

• Integrating Projects Data with Capital

  This tutorial shows you how to integrate Projects data with Capital. When you create a capitalizable project in Projects, you can map both driver-based and directly-entered project expenses either partially or in full to expense accounts and asset classes in Capital, and push the data to Capital. You can allocate a project expense across multiple accounts and asset classes. You can also calculate depreciation.

• Integrating Projects Data with Workforce

  This tutorial shows you how to integrate data between Projects and Workforce. You learn what you need to set up in both Projects and Workforce in order to push project data to Workforce.

• Lease Asset Planning with IFRS16

  This tutorial shows you how to plan for Capital lease assets with IFRS16 Standard support enabled, as well as import existing leased assets. Several use cases are included.

• Mapping Planning Data Across Applications - Part 1

  Learn how to create connections between Oracle Cloud EPM instances and define data maps used to copy data between Oracle EPM Cloud instances. Integration across applications starts with configuring EPM Connections and creating a connection to the Oracle EPM Cloud instance you want to copy data to. Then, with Smart Push, you can create data maps that copy data between Oracle EPM Planning Cloud instances for Planning, and from Planning to Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting, or Profitability and Cost Management.

• Mapping Planning Data Across Applications - Part 2

  Learn how to associate the data map you created with a form, and how to run the data map to copy data across applications. With Smart Push, you can create data maps that copy data between Oracle EPM Planning Cloud instances for Planning, and from Planning to Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting, or Profitability and Cost Management. After configuring EPM Connections and creating your data map, you modify a form, configure it to use Smart Push, and select when to run the data map. After saving the updated form, you open that form, enter data, run Smart Push, and verify that the data copied to the target.

Business Benefit: Tutorials provide instructions with sequenced videos and documentation to help you learn a topic.

New "EPM Task Manager" Orchestration Feature

During application creation you now have a new task orchestration option called EPM Task Manager.

Task Manager helps you define, execute, and report on the interdependent activities of a business process. When implemented, you'll see two task flow type options during application creation: "Task List" and "EPM Task Manager." EPM Task Manager is the default option for new applications.

Current Task List based applications will not be impacted by this new option. There will be no migration from existing Task Lists to Task Manager. Customers who wish to continue using the current Task Lists should choose the Task List option during application creation.

Business Benefit: Task Manager provides centralized monitoring of all tasks and provides a visible, automated, repeatable system of record for running a business process.

Key Resources

• Administering Task Manager in Administering Planning
• Planning with Tasks in Working with Planning

Task Manager Extension for Smart View Now Supported for Planning and Planning Modules

The Task Manager extension is now supported for Planning and Planning Modules business processes.

The Task Manager extension for Smart View allows the management of Task Manager data to be performed from within the Excel interface. Task Manager helps you define, execute, and report on the interdependent activities of a business process.

Previously, the Task Manager extension was supported only in Financial Consolidation and Close and Tax Reporting.

Install the Task Manager extension for Smart View in either of two ways:

• From the Downloads page of your business process, download the SVEXT file to a temporary folder and double-click it

• Use the "Check for Updates, New Installs, and Uninstalls" feature in the Smart View Options dialog, Extensions tab to automatically detect and install the Planning Admin Extension

Once installed, launch Smart View and connect to your business process using this private connection syntax:

https://serviceURL/HyperionPlanning/cm/svp

Then perform your assigned Task Manager tasks in Smart View. 

Business Benefit: The Task Manager extension in Smart View allows you to work with tasks in a familiar Excel interface.

Key Resources

• Working with Oracle Smart View for Office:
  • Creating Private Connections
  • Extensions, including Initially Checking for Available Extensions and Installing Extensions

• Administering Tasks with EPM Task Manager in Administering Planning

• Using Tasks with Task Manager in Working with Planning

Profitability and Cost Management

There are no new features in this update except for the applicable features listed in the EPM Common section.

Tax Reporting

There are no new features in this update except for the applicable features listed in the EPM Common section.

IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations

One-Week Lag Between Readiness Documents Live and Help Center Live

Because Oracle readiness documents (What's New and New Feature Summary) are live one week before the monthly update is applied to Test environments, some links to documentation included in the readiness documents will not work until after the Oracle Help Center update is complete when the monthly update is applied to Test environments.

EPM COMMON

Loaner Program for Cloud Infrastructure Generation 2 Testing and OCI Migration Assistance Early Adopter Program

Oracle EPM Cloud is now live on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Gen 2 environments. If you are interested in testing your application performance on an OCI environment, open a service request following the process at https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/enterprise-performance-management-common/tsepm/op_procs_loaner_envs.html and request for a loaner environment in an OCI data center for a duration of 30 days with the business justification as “Want to test application performance in an OCI Gen 2 data center”.

After you have performed the testing, submit Provide Feedback from the loaner environment. Create a service request using the normal support process, if you have any issues or feedback for the OCI environment. For more information, see What is a Gen 2 Cloud?

Additionally, Oracle has instituted a program to assist a limited number of early adopters on Oracle Cloud Classic to migrate to OCI. For more information, see Oracle Cloud Classic to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Migration Assistance Program for Early Adopters.

Applies to: Account Reconciliation, Enterprise Data Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Planning Modules, Profitability and Cost Management, Tax Reporting

Alerts Cannot be Migrated to Prior Version

Due to a major upgrade in Alert functionality, any service that has defined Alert Types will not be able to migrate them or the Alerts that are based on them from the 22.04 update to an earlier update. This normally happens if artifacts are moved from Test to Production during the two week period when Test is upgraded to the 22.04 update while Production is still on the 22.03 update. All other objects in the migration are not affected.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

Task Manager Email Notification Settings

Starting in this update, the service is changing the handling of Task Manager’s Email Notification settings during a migration. The target service’s Task Manager Email Notification settings have been updated with the settings from the source service. If a customer wants to retain the target service’s Task Manager Notification settings, they can generate an LCM export with the notification settings from the target service, perform the source migration, then import the LCM file with the notification settings.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

See LCM Export and LCM Import in REST API for Oracle Performance Management Cloud.

Date Format when Using the EPM Digital Assistant

When using the EPM Digital Assistant, note that the Date format is not taken from User Preferences, and the assistant does not ask which format to use for the date. The assistant attempts to detect the date format based on the user locale set in the browser and other common formats.

Applies to: Account Reconciliation, Financial Consolidation and Close, Planning, Planning Modules,Tax Reporting

Removing Dimensions Before Rebasing a Financial Consolidation and Close or Tax Reporting EPM Digital Assistant Skill

If you want to rebase your Financial Consolidation and Close or Tax Reporting skill to use the 21.11 update of EPM Digital Assistant, note that you must first remove some dimensions before rebasing.

• Financial Consolidation and Close dimensions to be removed before rebasing: Scenario, Years, Period, Entity, Account, Currency, View, Consolidation, Data Source, Multi-GAAP, Intercompany and Movement

• Tax Reporting skill dimensions to be removed before rebasing: Cube, Scenario, Years, Period, Entity, Account, Currency, View, Consolidation, Data Source, Multi-GAAP, Intercompany, Movement and Jurisdiction

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting

See Removing a Consolidation and Close or Tax Reporting Custom Dimension from an Extended Skill in Getting Started with the Digital Assistant for Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management.

Performing Calculations Without Having to Submit Your Changes (Calc on the Fly)

In a future update, Financial Consolidation and Close and Tax Reporting will support calc on the fly. While the Application Settings option Enable User Formulas in Ad Hoc is available in this update, the feature is not yet supported for these products.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting

SMART VIEW

Smart View Add-on Installation for Task Manager and Supplemental Data Manager

In a future update, the installation of Smart View add-ons for Task Manager and Supplemental Data Manager will change. At that time, users of the Smart View add-ons will need to uninstall and re-install their add-ons to take advantage of the latest features and fixes.

Upcoming Change to Planning Admin Extension Installation

In a future update, the installation process and file format will change for the Planning Admin Extension for Oracle Smart View for Office (also referred to as the Smart View Add-on for Administrator). This will not impact current and future usage of Admin Extensions that are already installed.

Currently, an MSI file is downloaded from the Downloads page of the supported business process. The new process will utilize an SVEXT file and allow users to take advantage of the extension update feature in the Smart View Options dialog, Extensions tab.

To use the new SVEXT file format when it becomes available, you are required to first uninstall the Planning Admin Extension using Windows Programs and Features. Then, you can install the new Planning Admin Extension SVEXT file in either of these ways:

• Download the SVEXT file to a temporary folder and double-click it.

• Use the "Check for Updates, New Installs, and Uninstalls" feature in the Smart View Options dialog, Extensions tab to automatically detect and install the Planning Admin Extension

Look for this change in the file format and the installation of the Planning Admin Extension in a future EPM Cloud update.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Planning Modules, Tax Reporting

PLANNING MODULES

Removal of Strategic Workforce Planning from EPM Cloud Workforce Planning

In a future update, the Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) enablement option will be removed for all EPM Cloud Planning Modules (Standard and Enterprise) and Enterprise Planning applications that have not already enabled this feature in the Workforce Module. Customers who have already enabled this feature will see no change in their existing applications with this feature already enabled. No new applications will support this feature after this change.

Strategic Workforce Planning functionality is provided in the Strategic Workforce Planning Cloud Service (SWPCS) product, which contains robust SWP functionality that is not available in the existing EPM Cloud Planning Workforce module feature. SWPCS is an Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) product built on EPM technology. For more information about SWPCS, please refer to the Strategic Workforce Planning information on www.oracle.com.

If you have any concerns about this change, please contact Oracle Support.

NARRATIVE REPORTING

Removal of File Transfer Utility (EPMCTRL)

Starting in the May 2022 update (22.05), the File Transfer Utility will be removed. Customers should use EPM Automate, which includes all the commands currently available in the File Transfer Utility (EPMCTRL), going forward. If you have any concerns about this change, please contact Oracle Support.

For more information, see Oracle Support Document 2835672.1 (Oracle Narrative Reporting File Transfer Utility Statement of Direction) can be found at: https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=2835672.1

NOTE: The commands for deprecated features, such as the Narrative Reporting Application and Disclosure Management, will not be supported in EPM Automate.

FINANCIAL CONSOLIDATION AND CLOSE

Phased Approvals

If you decide to enable Phased Approvals in your application, take note of the following considerations:

• You will need to manually modify your Data Status forms to replace the dimension member "FCCS_Status_ApprovalStatus" with the new member "FCCS_Status_ConsolidatedApprovalStatus".

• If you try to export the application from the 22.03 update and import it to the 22.02 update, you must update your Data Status form by changing the dimension member FCCS_Status_ConsolidatedApprovalStatus back to FCCS_Status_ApprovalStatus.

• Additionally, you will encounter errors during the import because new artifacts related to Phased Approvals are not supported in release 22.02.

Resetting Customized Changes After an Update

If you have made changes to the seeded Account hierarchy, those changes will be reset. If you have moved seeded members, the move action is retained, but any re-ordering you have done will be reset, and a restructuring will happen when the ordering is reset. The restructuring could take time, so plan accordingly. You may have to manually re-order seeded members again after the update.

TAX REPORTING

Purging of Audit Information

Starting in the 22.07 update, Audit Data records older than 365 days will automatically be purged during the Automatic Maintenance Window, or if the system restarts, and will no longer be stored or accessible. To prepare for this change, you may want to take a backup of the historical audit data. To do this, select one of the following options:

1. Export: Select the Export option on the Actions menu from the Audit card by selecting the appropriate filters.
2. EPM Automate command: Use the exportAppAudit command. See exportAppAudit in Working with EPM Automate for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud.