July 2021 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
13 JUL 2021	IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations		Updated document. Added consideration for Financial Consolidation and Close and Tax Reporting.
24 JUN 2021			Created initial document.

Overview

This document outlines the upcoming Enterprise Performance Management Cloud update.

Feature Summary

Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

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, July 2, 2021.

Production Environments: Oracle will apply this monthly update during the first daily maintenance that occurs at or after 22:00 UTC on Friday, July 16, 2021.

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, July 2, 2021.

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.

Fixed Issues and Considerations

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

This provides visibility into EPM Cloud release contents.

Please Join Oracle Cloud Customer Connect

Please take a moment to join the Cloud Customer Connect forums for EPM Cloud services. Oracle Cloud Customer Connect is a community gathering place for members to interact and collaborate on common goals and objectives. This is where you will find the latest release information, upcoming events, or answers to use-case questions. Joining takes just a few minutes. Join now!

https://cloud.oracle.com/community

NOTE: The Settings and Actions menu now contains a link to Cloud Customer Connect. To access this link, from the Home page, click the down arrow next to the user name (in the upper right-hand corner of the screen), and select Cloud Customer Connect.

Give Us Documentation Feedback

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

Please send us your feedback at EPMdoc_ww@oracle.com. In the body or title of the email, state that you are inquiring or providing feedback, and indicate for which EPM Cloud service and the monthly update cycle.

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Follow EPM Cloud on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

These are great resources for the latest updates and information about EPM Cloud.

EPM Cloud Common

This section contains announcements related to the common EPM Cloud components such as EPM Automate, Migration, Access Control, Data Integration, Calc Manager, and Smart View for Office.

New Topics in EPM Cloud Operations Guide

The EPM Cloud Operations Guide has been enhanced with additional troubleshooting sections for Financial Reporting Reports, Financial Consolidation and Close, and Profitability and Cost Management.

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

Newly added sections include:

• Diagnosing Errors In Financial Reporting Reports
• Diagnosing Performance Issues After Deploying Configurable Calculation (Insertion Point) Rules
• Maintaining an Optimized Calculation System

Business Benefit: These new topics help customers to fix issues and optimize performance.

Key Resources

• Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Operations Guide

Documentation of Differences Between Classic and OCI (Gen 2) EPM Cloud

The Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud for Administrators Guide has been enhanced with a section that lists the major differences between Classic and OCI (Gen 2) EPM Cloud infrastructures.

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

Business Benefit: This topic helps customers understand the differences in the operation of Classic and OCI (Gen 2) EPM Cloud environments.

Key Resources

• Differences Between Classic and OCI EPM Cloud Environments in Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud for Administrators

Documentation of Mapping of Application Roles to Predefined Roles

The Administering Access Control for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud guide has been enhanced with a section that maps the application roles of Planning, Planning Modules, Financial Consolidation and Close, and Tax Reporting to predefined roles.

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

Business Benefit: This topic helps customers understand the application roles that are assigned through predefined roles.

Key Resources

• Predefined Role Mapping for Planning, Planning Modules, Financial Consolidation and Close, And Tax Reporting in Administering Access Control for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

EPM Automate Updates

A new version of EPM Automate is now available. This version introduces the createNRSnapshot, deployEJTemplates, exportEJJournals, and setEJJournalStatus commands. Additionally, the exportAppAudit command has been modified.

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

createNRSnapshot Command

This command creates an on-demand snapshot, named EPRCS_backup.tar.gz, of a Narrative Reporting environment.

deployEJTemplates Command

This command deploys finalized Enterprise Journal templates to open periods in Financial Consolidation and Close. Deploying Enterprise Journal templates creates recurring journals associated with the template for the selected period. It also allows you to create ad hoc journals using the deployed template(s).

exportEJJournals Command

This command exports Enterprise Journals that are ready to be posted from Financial Consolidation and Close to a ZIP file. This file can then be used to import journal data into an ERP System.

setEJJournalStatus Command

This command, in Financial Consolidation and Close, sets the Enterprise Journal posting result from the ERP System. Use this command to update the posting status of Journals that are in Post in Progress status irrespective of their workflow status.

exportAppAudit command

Starting with this update, the exportAppAudit command for Planning, Planing Modules, Financial Consolidation and Close, and Tax Reporting has been modified to export audit data for the last 365 days when you use the nDays=all parameter value.

Business Benefit: The new commands facilitate the remote administration of EPM Cloud environments.

Key Resources

• Working with EPM Automate for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud:
  • Installing EPM Automate
  • createNRSnapshot
  • deployEJTemplates
  • exportEJJournals
  • setEJJournalStatus
  • exportAppAudit

Updates to the Clone Environment Feature

This update removes the constraint that the cloning source and target environments must be on the same EPM Cloud monthly update.

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

Account Reconciliation, Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud, and Narrative Reporting do not support the migration of snapshots from a monthly update to a previous monthly update. All other business processes support the migration of snapshots from a monthly update to the previous and next updates.

Business Benefit: This change makes the Clone Environment feature abide by the migration guidelines established for snapshot migration in EPM Cloud.

Key Resources

• Cloning EPM Cloud Environments in Administering Migration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

New Version of Oracle Smart View for Office

Oracle Smart View for Office version 21.100 is now available.

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

The following new features are included:

• Flex Form Enhancements
  • Member Selection Support on Flex Forms
  • Preserve POV or User Variable Changes on Refresh

• New VBA Functions: HypSetUserVariable, HypListUserVariables, HypOpenFlexForm

• New Smart View Function, HsGetSharedConnectionURL

• URL Connection Support in Smart View Functions

• New Options for Filtering Business Rules

• Improved Duplicate Alias Handling in Row Drop-down Member Selector

• New Default Behavior for Opening Saved Ad Hoc Grids

• Microsoft Office WebView2 Support

Business Benefit: This version includes new features and fixed defects.

Steps to Enable

Download and install Smart View. See Downloading and Installing Clients in Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud.

Key Resources

• Working with Oracle Smart View for Office
• Developing Applications for Oracle Smart View for Office
• Oracle Smart View for Office Readme

Enhanced Ad Hoc Operations Available in EPM Cloud Standard Mode Applications

When connected to Standard mode applications, several ad hoc operations are now available in Oracle Smart View for Office.

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

In a Standard mode application, the Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior option is set to Standard. Service Administrators set this option in the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud application.

NOTE: This feature works only with Oracle Smart View for Office Release 21.100.

Once connected to a Standard mode application, Smart View users can access these ad hoc features:

• Additional Zoom In Options 
• Multiple-cell Select for Ad Hoc Operations 

Additional Zoom In Options

These additional commands are available from the drop-down menu on the Zoom In button in the provider ad hoc ribbon:

• Sibling Level—Select to retrieve data for the siblings of the selected member or members. For example, in the Vision sample database, a zoom in operation on Jan retrieves Jan, Feb, and Mar.

• Same Level—Select to retrieve data for all members at the same level as the selected member or members. For example, in the Vision sample database, a zoom in on Q1 retrieves Q2, Q3, and Q4.

• Same Generation—Select to retrieve data for all members of the same generation as the selected member or members. For example, in the Vision sample database, a zoom in on Q1 retrieves Q2, Q3, and Q4.

Zoom In on Formula is not yet supported.

Multiple-cell Select for Ad Hoc Operations

You can now select multiple row or column member cells and then perform any of the following actions:

• Zoom In, including any of the zoom options, such as Bottom Level or Same Generation.

• Zoom Out. Zooming out collapses the view according to the Zoom In Level option specified in in the Member Options tab of the Options dialog. See Setting the Default Zoom Level.

• Keep Only and Remove Only. Note that the integrity and validity of the grid must be maintained. If your selections cause an issue with the grid, Smart View display a warning message informing you of the issue, and no change is made to the grid.

Business Benefit: The enhanced ad hoc options in Smart View give users greater flexibility when interacting with their source data in an Excel worksheet.

Key Resources

• In the “Ad Hoc Analysis” chapter in Working with Oracle Smart View for Office:
  • Zooming In and Out
  • Removing Selected Members From the Grid

• What Application and System Settings Can I Specify? in Administering Planning.

Member Selection Support on Flex Forms in Smart View

You can now select row members to add to a flex form using the Member Selection dialog box, available from the provider ribbon; for example, from the Planning ribbon.

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

NOTE: This feature works only with Oracle Smart View for Office Release 21.100.

The new Member Selection option is available only on flex forms, not on simple forms. In flex forms, you can use the Member Selection dialog to add row members to form, similar to adding members to an ad hoc grid members to an ad hoc grid.

The members you can add depend on the underlying form definition for the row dimensions:

• If the Dimension Properties setting, Allow flexible dimension, is selected, users may select members outside those specified in the form definition. For example, suppose a form includes only the Computer Accessories members from the Product dimension. If Allow flexible dimension is selected for the Product dimension, then users may add other members from Product, such as Notebooks or Tablets, to the flex form. These members will be retained upon refresh.

• If specific members are excluded from a dimension in a flex form, then, even though you may be able to select and add them in the Member Selection dialog, they will be removed upon refresh.

Member Selection uses the default alias table for the cube; members are inserted as members. The new Member Selection option is available in the Analysis group on the provider ribbon.

Note that:

• You cannot add column members. You can only add row members.
• You can still add row members by entering member names directly on a flex form.

Business Benefit: Users no longer have to hand-type member names on a flex form, but instead can easily select members using the Member Selection dialog.

Key Resources

• Selecting Members from the Member Selector in Working with Oracle Smart View for Office
• Designing Flex Forms in Administering Planning

Preserve POV or User Variable Changes on Refresh in Smart View Flex Forms

A new member option in Oracle Smart View for Office allows you to retain modified members on a flex form after changing the POV or any user variables and then refreshing. In previous releases, a change to the POV or any user variable removed any modified members on the flex form upon refresh.

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

After selecting the Flex Forms: Preserve Grid on POV and User Variable Changes option, add or delete members to the flex form grid, and click Refresh. Then, change a POV member and click Refresh; or change a user variable and the flex form refreshes automatically. Your modified members are retained. You can now enter and submit data against the modified POV and user variables in any of the members in the flex form, including any newly-added members. Optionally, change the POV or any user variable again and refresh, and then continue entering data against the updated POV and user variables.

NOTE: This feature works only with Oracle Smart View for Office Release 21.100.

Business Benefit: The new member option in Smart View, Flex Forms: Preserve Grid on POV and User Variable Changes, allows you to retain modified members on a flex form after changing the POV or any user variables and then refreshing.

Steps to Enable

To retain modified members on a flex form after a POV or user variable change, you must enable the new Flex Forms: Preserve Grid on POV and User Variable Changes option.

1. In the Smart View ribbon, click Options.
2. On the Member Options tab, select the new option Flex Forms: Preserve Grid on POV and User Variable Changes.

If this option is not selected, any added rows in the flex form will be removed upon a POV or user variable change.

Key Resources

• Working with Oracle Smart View for Office:
  • Flex Forms
  • Member Options

• Designing Flex Forms in Administering Planning

Improved Security for Reports in Account Reconciliation, Task Manager, and Supplemental Data Manager

Security options for granting access to standard and custom reports have been improved.

Applies to: Account Reconciliation, Task Manager and Supplemental Data reports in Financial Consolidation and Close, and Tax Reporting

For standard reports, these are the improvements:

• Added user security filters to standard reports so that only the users who are supposed to see data have that access. Power user security established in Access Control will now be enforced by default.

• Allow an Administrator to grant access to standard reports. Previously standard reports were locked by default. Now Administrators can change the access to allow users to see reports. 

For custom reports, this change was made:

• When creating or editing a report query, users used to have to choose a module up front. This is no longer required.

Business Benefit: Improving security of standard and custom reports ensures that only the designated users in your organization see the proper data.

Key Resources

• Understanding Security in Account Reconciliation in Administering Account Reconciliation

REST API to Generate a Role Assignment Audit Report for OCI (Gen 2) Environments

Users with a Service Administrator role can now use a REST API to generate a Role Assignment Audit Report of users with their pre-defined roles on OCI (Gen 2) Environments. This report shows all the changes made to the predefined role assignments within the provided time frame. This report can be generated for the previous 90 days from the current date. You can download the report using the Download REST API.

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

Business Benefit: This feature allows you to automate reporting on users role assignments.

Key Resources

• Managing Users in REST API for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Role Information

• Service Administrators

REST API to Generate an Invalid Login Report for OCI (Gen 2) Environments

Users who have both a Service Administrator role and an Identity Domain Administrator role can now use a REST API to generate an Invalid Login Report on OCI (Gen 2) environments. This report shows unsuccessful login attempts for users within the provided time frame. This report can be generated for the previous 90 days from the current date. You can download the report using the Download REST API.

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

Business Benefit: This feature allows you to automate reporting on unsuccessful login attempts.

Key Resources

• Managing Users in REST API for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Role Information

• Service Administrators

Enhanced User Reporting by Adding Fields to Manage Users Dialog Under Access Control

The Manage Users dialog under Access Control has been enhanced to provide more information about users on the environment.

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

Here is an example of the new fields that can be used as columns or filters on the Users Lists and appear in the User Details dialog. Field names vary by business process.

• Groups
• Role
• Last Login
• Security Filter
• Profile Roles
• Preparer
• Reviewer
• Application Role
• Organizations

Business Benefit: Since customers need to comply with corporate auditing requirements such as Sarbanes Oxley, this enhancement provides more visibility and transparency into who is using Account Reconciliation, Financial Consolidation and Close, and Tax Reporting and what access they have.

Key Resources

• Understanding Security in Account Reconciliation in Administering Account Reconciliation

Renaming Collection Attributes in Supplemental Data Manager

In Supplemental Data Manager, you can now edit the name of any local collection attribute. Form Templates will need to be redeployed for the new name to be reflected on the Form.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting Cloud Service

Business Benefit: This new capability provides added flexibility to edit local attributes within the data collections.

Key Resources

• Editing Collections in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close

Schedule Day Labels Now Transferred from Template’s Day Labels in Task Manager

In Task Manager, the template day labels are now transferred to the Schedule created from the template. Day Labels are going to be applied to the dates within the Date Mapping and will now be in relative position to day zero date instead of the schedule’s start date.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting Cloud Service

Business Benefit: This new capability helps by showing the day labels within a schedule task calendar view.

Key Resources

• Creating Schedules from Templates in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close
• Viewing Tasks from the Schedule Tasks Page in Working with Financial Consolidation and Close

Budgetary Control Source Budget Type Name Update

In this update, the Source Budget Type drop-down on the Options tab for Budgetary Control (XCC) target applications on the Integration Options and Application Options pages now show the names Hyperion Planning and EPM Financials module.

Applies to: Planning, Planning Modules

Options Tab

Business Benefit:  The source budget type name update was made so that the source budget type names match between the EPM Cloud and Budgetary Control.  Previously, the source budget type names were "EPM Cloud" and "Hyperion."

Key Resources

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

Account Reconciliation

Reconciliation Compliance Transactions Can Now Be Loaded Using Data Management

Previously, Account Reconciliation allowed Reconciliation Compliance transaction import from delimited files using pre-mapped transaction import only. This enhancement allows loading of transactions into reconciliations directly from Data Management.

The types of Reconciliation Compliance transactions are:

• Balance Explanations
• Source System Adjustments
• Sub System Adjustments
• Variance Explanations

Business Benefit: Customers will now be able to automate end-to-end loading of transactions using the Data Management Cloud ERP connector to pull transactions from Cloud ERP to EPM.

Key Resources

• Importing Data Using Data Management in Administering Account Reconciliation
• Loading Reconciliation Compliance Transactions in Administering Data Management for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Enterprise Data Management

Additional Fields for Node Data Type Properties in Expressions

Expressions can access additional information about nodes which are referenced in Node data type properties.

The following fields are now available for Node data type properties in an expression:

• Dimension
• Node Type
• Properties (Node level only)

Relationship properties and Node level properties which are configured to use inheritance or derived default values are not available for selection.

Business Benefit: Business logic can be defined based on the characteristics of a related node via a property association. This information is accessible for derived properties, custom validations, policy filters, subscription filters, and extract filters.

Key Resources

• Data Types for Expression Terms in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Application Templates

Templates provide a way to store application configurations in an offline file for use in other Enterprise Data Management environments. A template contains a single application and related artifacts including dimensions and data chain objects as well common objects such as views, properties, lookup sets, and global connections used by the application. Applications can be exported from a source environment to a template and imported from a template into a target environment. Templates can only be used to create new applications in environments where those applications do not already exist.

Templates can be exported and imported by Service Administrator role users from the Templates page in the user interface. Templates contain metadata only and do not include any data, requests, or transaction history.

Business Benefit: Templates can be used to transfer metadata for individual applications across Enterprise Data Management environments and enable sharing of application definitions to either jump start new implementations or add new applications to existing target environments.

Key Resources

• Working with Templates in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Archive and Reactivate in Dimension Inspector

Dimensions can be archived in the dimension inspector when they are no longer needed by an application. Archiving a dimension places all of its data chain objects (node types, hierarchy sets, node sets, and viewpoints) in an archived state. Once a dimension has been archived, it is hidden in the application inspector and registration wizard.  Archived dimensions cannot be selected for imports or exports. Requests and transaction history are retained for archived dimensions.

Archived dimensions can be reactivated in the dimension inspector in the event they are to be used by an application again.

Business Benefit: Application owners can archive dimensions which were never used or were temporarily needed and have become obsolete.

Key Resources

• Archiving and Unarchiving Dimensions in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Boundancestors and Boundlocations in Expressions

New collections are available for the Node and SourceNode objects in an expression to access related nodes within a bound viewpoint from a partially bound viewpoint.  BoundAncestors returns a list of all ancestor nodes for a node in the bound viewpoint. BoundLocations returns a list of shared node locations for a node in the bound viewpoint.

The following methods and attribute are available for BoundAncestors and BoundLocations:

• Any()
• Count()
• Find()
• Size
• ToFloatList()
• ToIntegerList()
• ToStringList()

Business Benefit: For partially bound viewpoints where a subset of data is being maintained, some business rules need a way to access nodes from a bound viewpoint to ensure data integrity in the context of the entire data set. An example is a custom validation which prevents shared nodes under a common top node in the bound viewpoint but the partially bound viewpoint does not contain all of the nodes under that top node.

Key Resources

• Data Types for Expression Terms in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Convert Timestamps to Dates in Expressions

Timestamp values can be converted to dates in an expression using the ToDate method.  This enables date values to be derived or transformed from timestamp data type properties and allows timestamps to be compared to dates.

Business Benefit: For some business rules, date property values need to be based on or compared to a timestamp property such as Created Date or Last Modified Date.

Key Resources

• Data Types for Expression Terms in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Delete Archived Viewpoints

Archived viewpoints which are no longer used can be deleted from views. An archived viewpoint cannot be deleted if it is bound to a dimension, used by any subscriptions or extracts, or has requests which have not yet completed. Viewpoints that have been deleted are removed from their views, but can still be referenced in requests or transactions that may have used them.

Business Benefit: Users with View Owner permissions need to be able to delete viewpoints that have become obsolete and do not need to be retained for future use.

Key Resources

• Archiving, Unarchiving, and Deleting Viewpoints in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Delete Lookup Sets

Lookup sets which are not used by any application can be deleted by Service Administrators. If a deleted lookup set is referenced in an expression, the expression will become invalid and must be corrected.

Business Benefit: Administrators want to delete lookup sets which are no longer used by any application.

Key Resources

• Working with Lookup Sets in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Edit Name and Description in Property Inspector

The Name and Description base parameters for a property can be edited in the property inspector to modify the original values defined at the time of property creation. Changes to these parameters can only be made by a Service Administrator user and will affect all applications that use the property. Properties in the Core and CoreStats namespaces cannot be renamed. If an overriding label or description was not previously specified for a viewpoint using the property, the new name and description values are displayed for the property in the viewpoint.

Business Benefit: Sometimes the name and description of a property are not well defined when a property is created and need to be changed to better accommodate the needs of the applications and users of the property.

Key Resources

• Editing Property Parameters in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Exclude Implicit Shared Nodes for Extracts

The Exclude Implicit Shared Nodes option for extracts can be used to suppress the output of duplicate hierarchy relationships from the results of an extract operation.  When this option is enabled, only a single instance of a parent/child relationship will be included in the output of an extract process. Other instances of the same relationship which may exist in different locations in a hierarchy will be excluded. This option is only available for extracts using hierarchy viewpoints.

Business Benefit: Some external systems and processes expect only a single instance of each parent/child relationship from a hierarchy. Duplicate relationships can lead to errors or issues and should be avoided.

Key Resources

• Specifying Extract Options in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Expand Allowed Values for Properties on Import

The Expand Allowed Values on Import option can be used to update the Allowed Values parameter for properties being imported. When this option is enabled, values coming from the import source which do not exist in the allowed values list for a property will be added to the list for use by the target application. This option is only available for imports using the Replace or Reset mode.

Business Benefit: The allowed values for properties used by an application need to be updated based on valid values coming from a source application during an import process.

Key Resources

• Managing Import Options in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Expanded Job Results for Import, Export, and Extract APIs

Job results for the Import, Export, and Extract REST APIs include additional information for monitoring and audit purposes.

The following details have been added:

• Start Time
• End Time
• Record Count
• Run By User
• Connection Name
• Source File Name (for imports only)

Business Benefit: External programs which run imports, exports, and extracts using the REST API need more information to  properly orchestrate integration tasks and report the results of integration processes.

Import Subset of Trees from Financials Cloud

When importing segment values and hierarchies from Financials Cloud General Ledger into Enterprise Data Management, the import process will only affect trees which are included in the import file if you are using the Merge or Replace import mode. This allows the import file to only contain a subset of the trees which exist in Enterprise Data Management. Trees that are not in the import file will not be affected by the import operation unless you use the Reset import mode.

Business Benefit: A subset of trees which are new or updated can be imported into Enterprise Data Management without negatively affecting other trees which do not exist in the import file.

Key Resources

• Importing Oracle Financials Cloud General Ledger Dimensions in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Include Descendants in Subscriptions Using Top Node Filters

When a parent node that is located under a different top node is inserted or moved under a node that is specified in a subscription top node filter, the descendants of the parent node are also inserted and moved as part of the subscription request. This ensures that the same descendants exist in under the parent node in the original viewpoint and in the target viewpoint of the subscription.

Business Benefit: Descendants of parent nodes which are inserted or moved under a node included in a top node filter for a subscription need to be synchronized from a source viewpoint to a target viewpoint.

Key Resources

• Filtering by Top Node in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Integer and Float Methods for Node Lists in Expressions

New expression methods are available to return a list of Integer or Float data type values from a node list such as children, siblings, ancestors, and locations. Additional methods are available on these integer/float lists to perform aggregate calculations.

The following methods can be used in an expression:

• ToIntegerList
• ToFloatList
• Average
• Size
• Sum

Business Benefit: Derived properties and custom validations need the ability to calculate total values for numeric properties from a node list.  For example, a custom validation which ensures that the total ownership percentage for a list of child nodes equals 100%.

Key Resources

• Data Types for Expression Terms in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Multiple Approvals Per Group for Serial Policies

Approval policies using the Serial approval method can require multiple approvals from the same user group. When the One Approval Per Group option is disabled for a serial policy, you can define the Approvals Per Group for each policy user group. When requests using the policy reach the Approve stage, the request will require the same number of approvals for each user group as specified in the policy.

Business Benefit: Some implementations need multiple approvers from the same user group to approve before a request proceeds to the next approver.

Key Resources

• Creating and Enabling Approval Policies in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Out of Office Handling for Approval Policies

When approval policy invitees are determined for an In Flight request in the Approve stage, users who have set the Out Of Office user preference are invited to approve, but are not included in the remaining approvers count for the policy. If the number of remaining approvers is less than the total approvals required for a policy, the request is escalated to users, with data manager and owner permissions, to get their approval. Out Of Office approvers will remain invited and when they return they can still take action on the request if the escalated users have not acted on their behalf.

Business Benefit: Approval workflow for a request needs to accommodate users who plan to be unavailable to approve requests for a specific period of time.

Key Resources

• Approval Reminders and Escalations in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Out of Order Record Processing During Request File Load

The request file load process now handles out of order rows where child nodes reference parent nodes which are defined later in the file. The load process sorts the file contents to ensure that parent nodes are added to a viewpoint before child nodes and prevents errors from occurring when loading request items from a file. This eliminates the need to manually reorder the rows in the file in order to successfully load it into a request.

Business Benefit: When creating a request file, sometimes the rows which define parent nodes and child nodes may be added to the file out of order (children before parents).

Key Resources

• Request Load File Format in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Record Count Log Report

The Record Count Log report can be used to identify how nodes from different applications and dimensions contribute to the total record count determined by the system. The report displays the node count for every application, dimension, and node type along with the additional unique records from each node included in the total record count. The Record Count Log report is available to Service Administrator users only.

Business Benefit: Administrators want to know how specific applications and dimensions factor into the amount of data being managed in Enterprise Data Management.

Key Resources

• Record Count Log Report in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Redwood Experience as a Default Theme

The Redwood experience is now the default theme upon creation or recreation of an Enterprise Data Management Cloud service (existing as well as new). Existing active environments are not impacted. You can switch to an alternate non-Redwood experience theme from the Appearance page in the Tools cluster. When performing migration tasks, the chosen theme will be exported to and imported from migration snapshot files.

Business Benefit: The Redwood experience is a standard theme for Oracle cloud applications.

Request Activity Improvements

Request activity includes additional columns for each request displayed.

The following columns have been added:

• Request Type
• Owner (Assignee or Submitter)

The Owner column identifies whether a request has been manually submitted or auto-submitted. An Owner filter is also available to limit displayed requests to those assigned to or submitted by a particular user.

Business Benefit: Users want to easily identify whether a request is an Interactive, Subscription, or Import type request. They also want to distinguish manually submitted requests from those that are auto-submitted and be able to find requests which are assigned or submitted by a particular user.

Key Resources

• Working with Request Activity in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Search Below Selected Node in Viewpoint

When searching for nodes, you can filter your search to only nodes below a selected node in a hierarchy viewpoint. This enables you to limit your search to a specific hierarchy or a particular branch of a hierarchy. The Below Selected Node option can be chosen for individual viewpoints where this type of search is performed.

Business Benefit: Users need a way to only search for nodes in a portion of a hierarchy viewpoint to reduce the number of search results returned.

Key Resources

• Searching for Nodes in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Search for Property in Node Type Inspector

Properties can be searched for in the node type inspector to find a property used by a node type. This allows you to quickly find a particular property or multiple properties with a similar name or description.

Business Benefit: In cases where a node type has many properties, being able to search for a property makes it easy to find the property you are looking for.

Key Resources

• Adding, Removing, and Configuring a Node Type's Properties in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Search Results for Different Parents in Node Selector

When searching for nodes in the node selector, multiple search results will be returned for a node that is under different parents in a hierarchy viewpoint. This allows a specific node instance in a particular location of the hierarchy to be selected from the search results for use by a request action being performed on that node.

Business Benefit: To move a shared node to a different parent in a hierarchy viewpoint, you need the ability to search for and select a specific instance of the node under a particular parent where the node will be moved from.

Key Resources

• Searching for Nodes in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Specify Folder for EPM Cloud Global Connections and Extracts

A default folder can be defined for Oracle EPM Cloud global connections to send extract files to specific directory paths in EPM Cloud environments. Extracts that use the EPM Cloud global connections can use the same default folder or specify their own folder if necessary.

Business Benefit: This enables extracts to send mapping files to a Data Management inbox folder and allows Universal applications which manage dimensions for Profitability and Cost Management applications to send metadata files to the profit inbox.

Key Resources

• Creating Global Connections in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

User Filter for Views Page

Views can be filtered from displaying on the Views page for specific users and groups. This allows view owners to restrict the visibility of particular views to specific users. The Show on Views Page parameter on a view can be set to include all users who have data access, include only specified users, or exclude only specified users.

Business Benefit: View owners want to limit the views that particular users can see to focus their usage on specific views such as maintenance views for data sharing and prevent use of other views such as default views for integration purposes.

Key Resources

• Configuring How a View is Displayed in the Views List in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Withdraw Request Approval During Approve Stage

Approvers can withdraw their approval of an In Flight request while it remains in the Approve stage awaiting approvals by other users, or when the request cannot be committed due to validation issues. This enables an approver to make changes to request items and resolve issues which may occur if the request has been enriched during approval.

Business Benefit: Approvers sometimes need to edit request items which they have already approved to make corrections or address data issues resulting from enrichment by other users.

Key Resources

• Understanding Withdrawing Request Approvals in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Extract Specialty Columns

Specialty columns can be added to extracts to output dynamic values which are specific to a particular run of the extract. Values for the specialty columns are included on each row of the extract file.  

The following extract specialty columns are available:

• Extract Run ID
• Extract Timestamp
• Inverted Level
• Record Number
• User Name

Business Benefit: In some cases, target systems and processes which consume extracted data from Enterprise Data Management require these types of values.

Key Resources

• Selecting Extract Columns in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Financial Consolidation and Close

Introduction of Enterprise Journals

Enterprise Journals is a new module that provides a central place to prepare, approve, and manage journals. Enterprise Journals can directly post to any ERP. Key features include Journal dashboards (overview and compliance), Journal templates that provide the ability to assign roles, workflows and due dates, Journal lists and Line Item data analysis, reports, and an audit trail.

NOTE: In Financial Consolidation and Close, the existing Journals module has been renamed Consolidation Journals.

Business Benefit: Enterprise Journals provides the flexibility to manage and post journals directly to any ERP.

Steps to Enable

Enterprise Journals is an optional module that can be enabled while selecting features during application creation, or enabled for existing applications from the Configuration menu. Select Application, Configuration, Enable Features, and then select Enterprise Journals.

Key Resources

• Managing Enterprise Journals in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud

Ability to Display Currency in Journal Reports

When you select to display the Currency column on a Journal report, the system displays the name of the currency for which the journal is created. For example, if the journal is created against the Entity Currency, it will display as Entity Currency (USD), where USD is the currency of the selected entity. If the journal is created against a Parent Currency, it will display as Parent Currency (EUR), where EUR is the currency of the parent entity.

Business Benefit: When generating a Journal report, you can display the name of the entity’s currency.

Key Resources

• Creating Journal Reports in Working with Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud

Ability to Apply Translation Override Rule to Specific Currency

When you create a Translation Override rule, by default the rule is executed for all configured currencies. You can now select specific Reporting currencies to include or exclude for the rule.

Business Benefit: You now have the flexibility to select specific Reporting Currencies to apply for Override Translation Rules.

Key Resources

• Working with Override Translation Rules in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud

Narrative Reporting

Disclosure Management customers should refer to an important Statement of Direction update.

Oracle Support Document 2762013.1 (Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Narrative Reporting - Disclosure Management Statement of Direction) can be found at:

https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=2762013.1

Migrating Note Templates, Notes, and Note Formats

You can now migrate Note Templates, Notes, and Note Formats from one environment to another via the Notes Manager. You perform an export of Notes artifacts to one or more ZIP files, then perform an import of the Notes artifacts in another environment.

Business Benefit: You can migrate Notes artifacts and content between environments.

Key Resources

• Working with Notes Manager in Designing with Reports for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud
• Migrating Notes Artifacts from One Environment to Another in Designing with Reports for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Updated Narrative Reporting Extension for Smart View

The Narrative Reporting 21.07 extension for Oracle Smart View for Office is 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 improvements and bug fixes.

Key Resources

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

Save Office Documents to EPM Cloud in Narrative Reporting in Smart View

In Oracle Smart View for Office, you now have the ability to save Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files), to the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Library.

Users often share Office documents by emailing them, or saving them to an internal location. Storing files in the EPM Cloud Library gives users a new option for saving files in a central location and facilitates sharing documents with other users.

Business Benefit: Storing files in the EPM Cloud Library gives users an option for saving files in a central location and facilitates sharing documents with other users.

Key Resources

• Saving Office Documents to EPM Cloud in Narrative Reporting in Smart View in the Working with Oracle Smart View for Office

Planning

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

New Videos

Several new tutorial videos are available.

Integrating Workforce Data with Financials in Planning

Learn how to integrate data between modules. In Financials, you can see a rollup of Workforce employee details and integrate Workforce expenses (such as salary, benefits, and so on) into Financials reporting.

Entering Planning Data in Financials in Planning

Learn best practices for entering plan data in Financials. You enter driver-based expenses and review calculated expenses based on driver information. You review expense driver trends and variances between years, periods, and scenarios, and you review how to directly enter expenses.

Entering Planning Data in Projects

See how to enter Planning data in Projects. You create an internal project and enter project assumptions for labor and direct expenses.  You see how to include financial and non-financial benefits as well as qualitative benefits for your projects. You review contract projects and capital projects. For capital projects, you see how to allocate costs to assets.

Entering Planning Data in Capital

Learn how to enter plan data in Capital to manage the planning for the long-term impact of capital investments on financial plans. You define assumptions used to calculate depreciation, amortization, insurance, and other expenses. You then enter new asset information by asset class and project. For existing assets, you manage retirements, transfers and improvements. You analyze the impact of capital asset purchases on your financial statements.

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

Profitability and Cost Management

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

Tax Reporting

Support for Amount and Rate Override for Tax Accounts

Starting in this update, you will now be able to override FX translated amounts using an FX translation rate for Tax Accounts to be used globally for a given Scenario, Year, Period and Entity. Additionally, you will now be able to override FX translated amounts using an amount or rate override for Book and Tax Accounts by Scenario, Year, Period, Entity, Movement, Jurisdiction and Multi-GAAP.

NOTE: This feature requires a migration. You must manually run the migration no later than the upgrade for 21.10 test release. As part of migration all the FX override rates (that is, NIBT override, WAR, and others) that are contained within the Tax Reporting application are also migrated. Any data integrations including import/export from Smartview / Flat file or Data management requires manual update to the mapping.

There are six new forms and three forms that are being deprecated.

The new forms are available under the Tax Administration: FX Rates folder that allow the user to enter the appropriate FX rate or amount override.

The new forms are:

• FX Rates - Global Account Rate Override: Foreign Exchange Rate per Account(s)
• FX Rates - Tax Override: Foreign Exchange Rate/Amount Override for Tax Account(s)
• FX Rates - Book Override: Foreign Exchange Rate/Amount Override for Book Account(s)
• FX Rates - NIBT Override: NIBT Foreign Exchange Override Rates
• FX Rates - NIBT Override – WAR: NIBT Foreign Exchange Override Rates - Calculated Weighted Average
• FX Rates - Expense Override – WAR: Foreign Exchange Rates Calculated Weighted Average

The Deprecated forms are:

• NIBT FX Rates Override: FX Rates - NIBT Override
• NIBT FX Rates Override - WAR: FX Rates - NIBT Override – WAR
• Weighted Average Rates Override: FX Rates - Expense Override – WAR

Business Benefit: The new capability will enable you to tie out Tax Reporting amounts in translated currency with the corresponding financial statements.

Key Resources

• Working with Amount and Rate Override for Tax Accounts in Working with Tax Reporting

Enhanced Copy Data

The Copy Data capability has been enhanced in several ways, including more granular copy options, support for substitution variables, the ability to opt out of copying configuration data, and options to save, schedule, and audit Copy Data jobs.

The Copy Data feature  is now enhanced to do the following:

• Enable you to copy data at a granular level by filtering members for example by:
  • Account
  • Multi-GAAP
  • Movement
  • Intercompany
  • Jurisdiction
  • Data Source
• Support the use of substitution variable
• Provide an option (via Exclude Configuration Data checkbox) to select or deselect if you want to copy only input data and do not want to copy the configuration data
• Enable you to save, schedule, and audit Copy Data jobs

Business Benefit: The new capability will enable you to copy data at a granular level and will also allow you to schedule it.

Key Resources

• Copying Data in Administering Tax Reporting

Country-by-Country (CbCR) Filing Forms Include OECD Version 2.0

Tax reporting now complies with the Country- by-Country requirements from the OECD version 2.0. It now includes updated information for Constituent Entity and Reporting Entity information.

Business Benefit: With this new capability the reports in Oracle Enterprise Performance Reporting Cloud (EPRCS) will generate the reports in accordance to the OECD version 2.

Key Resources

• Preparing the Constituent Entity Information in Working with Tax Reporting
• Preparing the Reporting Entity Information in Working with Tax Reporting

IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations

EPM CLOUD COMMON

Restrictions to Copy Version Functionality

Based on feedback from several customers due to its inherent data corruption risks, we plan to restrict the ‘Copy Version’ functionality in EPM Cloud platform (Planning, Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting) to be exposed only to administrators. Starting in September 2021, ‘Copy Version’ functionality will not be available to Power Users and Users.

Redwood Experience as Default Theme

Within the next few months, the Redwood experience will be the default theme upon creation or recreation of an EPM Cloud service, or upon creation or recreation of a business process/application for all instances (existing as well as new). Existing active services/business processes/applications will not be impacted. All migrations (i.e., LCM import/reimports of existing cloud applications) will honor the theme from the source/import file. You will be able to switch to an alternate non-Redwood experience theme from the Appearance page in the Tools cluster.

NOTE: The Redwood experience is already the default theme for Enterprise Data Management.

Support for Composite Forms in EPM Cloud

As of the May update (21.05), Oracle EPM Cloud no longer officially supports composite forms. As has been announced for several months, customers are required to use EPM Cloud dashboards instead. Customers can continue to use their composite forms without support.

Upcoming Security Changes for Predefined Reports

In a future update, Power User security will be enforced on:

• All predefined Reconciliation Manager and Transaction Matching reports in Account Reconciliation
• All predefined Task Manager reports in Financial Consolidation and Close and Tax Reporting

Loaner Program for Cloud Infrastructure Generation 2 Testing

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 Gen 2 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 Gen 2 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 Gen 2 environment.

For more information, see What is a Gen 2 Cloud?

SMART VIEW

Upcoming Change to Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior Setting

Starting with the August update (21.08), all new applications and all recreated applications will use Standard as the Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior option.

For existing applications and migrated applications, Native will remain as the default Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior option, with Standard being an option. Existing and migrated applications will not experience any change in behavior. Currently selected ad hoc behavior will be persisted.

Please note that Native mode in Smart View ad hoc behavior will eventually be phased out (timeline is yet to be determined). We recommend that all customers plan on switching their applications to Standard mode ad hoc behavior soon.

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.

PLANNING MODULES

Strategic Modeling Terminology Change

In a future update, the Consolidation feature in Strategic Modeling will be renamed Scenario Rollup.

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 EPMCTRL Transfer Utility

In a future update, the EPMCTRL Transfer Utility will be removed. Customers should use EPM Automate, which includes all the commands currently available in the EPMCTRL Transfer Utility, going forward. For more information, see Backing Up and Restoring an Environment in Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud for Administrators.

ACCOUNT RECONCILIATION

Added Flexibility for Security Assignments

In a future update, more flexible granular security assignments across all roles will be available. For example, if you want to assign certain tasks like creating reports, you will be able to assign that ability to them. As part of this project Power User access to Data Loads will be updated so that the Service Administrator will have to assign this ability to the Power User rather than the Power User receiving it by default.

ENTERPRISE DATA MANAGEMENT

Null Values in Expressions – Change in Behavior

Starting in 21.07, null values are handled differently for certain expression methods. The following changes were made:

• Methods on literal null strings are evaluated using a null value instead of a blank string.
• StartsWith(null) and EndsWith(null) will return False instead of True.
• Substring on a null string will return a null value instead of a blank string.
• When comparing strings using LessThan or GreaterThan, nulls are considered the minimum possible value.
• When null values are used in predicates for NodeList and StringList methods such as Any, Count, and Find, those methods will return False instead of True.

These changes may affect the results of existing expressions for derived properties, property transformations, custom validations, subscription filters, policy filters, and extract filters. Verify whether this change in behavior has any impact in your environment.

FINANCIAL CONSOLIDATION AND CLOSE

Supplemental Data Manager

In the 21.07 release, the “Currencies” listing page has been moved from the “Currency” tab and is now included within the “Dimensions” tab, along with the other dimensions that are defined within the consolidation application. Any pre-existing local dimension called “Currency” will be renamed to “Currency (local)” during the upgrade process.

TAX REPORTING

Supplemental Data Manager

In the 21.07 release, the “Currencies” listing page has been moved from the “Currency” tab and is now included within the “Dimensions” tab, along with the other dimensions that are defined within the Tax application.  Any pre-existing local dimension called “Currency” will be renamed to “Currency (local)” during the upgrade process.