May 2020 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	Feature	Notes
23 APR 2020		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, May 1, 2020.

Production Environments: Oracle will apply this monthly update during the first daily maintenance that occurs at or after 22:00 UTC on Friday, May 15, 2020.

The Oracle Help Center provides access to updated documentation. The updates will be available in the Help Center on Friday, May 1, 2020. 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.

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.

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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For the latest updates and information about EPM Cloud, follow us on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn at Hyperion EPM Info.

Defects Fixed and Considerations

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

EPM Cloud Common

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

New Topics in EPM Cloud Operations Guide

The EPM Cloud Operations Guide has been enhanced with additional topics.

New topics include:

• Best practices for designing business rules
• How to avoid functional errors in business rules
• Managing Content Upgrade Issues
• Handling Issues with Cross-Environment Connections
• Troubleshooting ERP Integration Functional issues
• Requesting Merge Back of Environments
• Requesting Oracle to Apply Monthly Update to Production Environments Prior to the Third Friday

Key Resources

• Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Operations Guide

New Role Assignment Report Format

The Role Assignment Report has been modified to include additional information such as the user login, first name, last name, email address, pre-defined and application roles of EPM Cloud users, and how these roles are granted. Previously, the Role Assignment Report listed user logins, roles, and how the roles were granted only.

The New Format of the Role Assignment Report

NOTE: Role Assignment Report is not available in Narrative Reporting environments.

Key Resources

• Generating the Role Assignment Report For Your Environment in Administering Access Control for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

EPM Automate Updates

A new version of EPM Automate is available. This version includes changes to the Role Assignment Report generated using the roleAssignmentReport command. It also includes a new optional parameter to the replay command to encrypt all passwords included in the replay file. The replay command works only with Planning, Financial Consolidation and Close, and Tax Reporting business processes.

Key Resources

• Working with EPM Automate for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud
  • Installing the Utility
  • Command Reference

Pre-defined Role Names as EPM Keywords

Starting with this update, Oracle will treat pre-defined role names as EPM Cloud key words, which cannot be used in the name of any artifacts that you create; for example, as a group name in Access Control.

Pre-defined role names include the following:

• Service Administrator
• Power User
• User
• Viewer
• Planner
• System Administrator
• Application Administrator
• Library Administrator
• Reports Administrator

An error will be displayed if you attempt to use these key words to name artifacts.

If you have any existing artifacts that use these keywords, Oracle will rename them to ensure that there is no impact because of this change. For example, a group named Power User will automatically be renamed as Power User1.

Key Resources

• Modifying Groups in Administering Access Control for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Address for Outgoing Emails

Starting with this update, emails originating from EPM Cloud applications will use no.reply@oraclecloud.com instead of oraclecloudadmin_ww@oracle.com as the from address.

Emails from other Oracle Cloud sources, for example, New Account email sent from the Identity Domain, will continue to use the current From email addresses, for example, oraclecloudadmin_ww@oracle.com.

REST API to Manage Permission for Manual Access to Database

You can now use a REST API to manage permission for manual access to database by Oracle. This gives you the ability to allow or disallow Oracle personnel to manually access your database in emergency situations when an environment is unresponsive and you have not yet created a service request to investigate the issue.

Key Resources

• Migration REST APIs in REST API for Enterprise Performance Management

Role Information

• Service Administrator

New Excel Server Settings in Financial Reporting

The following Excel server settings are now available to use in Financial Reporting reports:

• Export to Excel Ignoring Page Breaks
• Export to Excel in One Sheet
• Export Multiple Grids to Excel in Multiple Sheets

Key Resources

• Managing Server Settings in Designing with Financial Reporting Web Studio for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Manage User Point of View

New functionality has been added to Financial Reporting Web Studio that allows administrators to create, view, update or delete the user point of view for one or more users.

Key Resources

• Managing the User Point of View in Designing with Financial Reporting Web Studio for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Ability to Filter Excluded Members from Segment Drop-Down Member Selector

During form definition, Service Administrators can exclude hierarchy members from display in the form grid. Now, Service Administrators can choose to display or filter out the excluded members in the row dimension segment drop-down member selectors on a form. To filter out the excluded members, Service Administrators set the new application configuration option, Filter Out Excluded Members in Segment Drop-down, to Yes (the default). To display the excluded members and allow users to select them from the segment drop-down member selector, set this option to No.

When this option is set to No, users are able to select excluded members from the segment drop-down member selector.

The members displayed in the segment drop-down depend on the user's access permissions to the members. If the user does not have access to a particular member, then they will not see it in the segment drop-down member selector, regardless of how this option is set.

The selection made in Filter Out Excluded Members in Segment Drop-down applies to forms in Planning, Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting. In Smart View, this setting applies when working with forms connected to those providers in Smart View.

Steps to Enable

A Service Administrator performs these steps from the EPM Cloud web interface to filter out excluded members from the segment drop-down member selector list on row dimensions in forms:

1. From the Navigator, under Application, click Settings.
2. Set the Filter Out Excluded Members in Segment Drop-down option to No, and then click Save. The default is Yes, meaning that excluded members would be filtered out of the row dimension segment drop-down member selector.

This setting applies to any row dimension segment drop-down member selectors you have specified during form definition.

Tips And Considerations

Suppression option selections do not affect the display of members in the segment drop-down member selector. For example, if a row containing no data is suppressed in the form, and is an excluded member, but the Filter Out Excluded Members in Segment Drop-down option is set to No, then that member can be selected and worked with in the form.

Key Resources

• What Application and System Settings Can I Specify? in Administering Planning
• Using the Member Selector in Administering Planning
• Using the Drop-down Member Selector on Row Dimensions in Forms in Working with Oracle Smart View for Office

Run Integration Enhancements in Data Integration

On the General page, the Run Integration icon has been moved to the right of the integration action sub-menu.

When you execute an Integration, you can now overwrite the Source Filters on the Run Execution window. This feature enable users to easily add or modify filters used to query the data from the data sources.. The changes to the Source Filters are not saved and used only for that execution only. The Options and Filters pages can still be selected using the Data Integration workflow bar or integration actions sub-menu.

The Run Integration Execution pop-up now shows the process flow of the four main integration operations: Import, Validate, Export, and Check Data.  These icons provide visual feedback on the status of each submitted process.

Key Resources

• Running an Integration in Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

New EPM Integration Agent SQL Query Conditions

In this update to the EPM Integration Agent, the SQL Query definition now supports the IN, BETWEEN, NOT IN, and LIKE conditions in the Where clause. When conditions have been specified, users can select the parameters on the Target Application Filters page. Previously, the SQL Query definition supported only the = (equal) condition.

Role Information

• Creating an SQL Query in the Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Initializing Oracle NetSuite Applications

After initializing an Oracle Netsuite data source, the characters:  \t, \n, \r & / are replaced by spaces and trimmed automatically in the Oracle Netsuite application name. This feature prevents errors when migrating artifacts.

Key Resources

• Creating an Oracle NetSuite Data Source in Administering Data Management for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Eight New ASO Functions in Calculation Manager

Eight new ASO functions are now available in Calculation Manager:

• @FIRSTSIBLING returns the first child of the input member's parent.
• @LAGGEN using the order of members existing in a database outline, returns a member that is n steps behind a given member, along the same generation.
• @LAGLEV using the order of members existing in a database outline, returns a member that is n steps behind a given member, along the same level.
• @LASTSIBLING  returns the last child of the input member's parent.
• @LEADGEN using the order of members existing in a database outline, returns a member that is n steps past a given member, along the same generation.
• @LEADLEV using the order of members existing in a database outline, returns a member that is n steps past a given member, along the same level.
• @NEXTLEVMBR using the order of members existing in a database outline, returns the next member along the same level.
• @PREVLEVMBR using the order of members existing in a database outline, returns the previous member along the same level.

Key Resources

• Creating a Point of View Component in Designing with Calculation Manager for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Account Reconciliation

New Data Exchange Card Added for Data Integrations

A new “Data Exchange” card is available under Applications that allows you to access the EPM Integration Agent functionality. Using the EPM Integration Agent, you can extract data from your on-premises data sources and then load the data directly to the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud. The Data Integrations functionality under Data Exchange is a new user interface for Data Management tasks and additional functionality towards full legacy user interface functionality is being phased in over several releases.

Key Resources

• Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud
• EPM Integration Agent in Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud.

Aggregating Transaction Matching Data Using Data Management

There is now an option available in Data Management to allow aggregation of Transaction Matching transactions that enables you to roll up transactions to a summary (higher) level of detail. For example, using this aggregation option, you can load transactions at a detail credit card swipe level and roll them up to a summary total per location per day total for matching.

NOTE: To use this feature, a new Target must be created.

Key Resources

• Aggregating Transaction Matching Data in Administering Data Management for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud.

CSV (Formatted) Output Type Available for Reports

You can now generate a predefined or custom report in CSV (Formatted) output format that supports template based CSV file generation. Note that the CSV (Formatted) format takes additional time to generate the report to honor template formatting when compared to the CSV format. Therefore, you can select CSV format to generate the data quickly or CSV (Formatted) format to generate formatted template based data.

Key Resources

• Generating the Report in Administering Account Reconciliation

New Length Function to Calculate Length of a String

A new LENGTH function is available to calculate the length of a string. This function takes a text value as a parameter and returns an integer, which is the number of characters in the text. When using this new function to calculate the length of the string, you can join the LENGTH result with another function such as SUBSTRING to retrieve the last four characters of the field.

Key Resources

• Creating Attributes in Setting Up and Configuring Account Reconciliation

Disabling the Amortization/Accretion Feature for Adjustments

A Service Administrator can now disable the amortization/accretion feature for Balance Explained or Adjustments using a checkbox in the Transaction Detail of a Format.This applies to Account Analysis and Balance Comparison formats only.

Key Resources

• Creating Formats in Setting Up and Configuring Account Reconciliation. 

Item Count Added to Lists

An item count has been added to the following lists in Account Reconciliation:  Profile List, Reconciliation List, Transactions List, Reconciliation Balances List, Detail Balances List, and Matching List. This enables you to see at a glance how many items are contained in that list.

Enterprise Data Management

Collaborate with Users on Requests in Submit Stage

To facilitate multiple users participating on a request, the request assignee can ask additional users to collaborate on Draft and Pushed Back requests in the Submit stage. Collaborators can be added or removed from a request. Collaborators are notified of requests in which they were asked to collaborate.

Users can access collaboration requests from the Activity list on the Home page and request activity. The Collaborated item in the My Activity filter can be used to find requests in which the user is a collaborator.

Collaborators can add, edit, and delete request items in the request as well as add comments and attachments to the request. Request actions performed by collaborators are restricted to viewpoints which the collaborator and the assignee both have Submit access to. After collaborators have participated, the assignee can submit the request to be approved and committed.

A new Workflow tab in the request inspector includes both collaborator and approval details. This tab replaces the former Approvals tab. The History tab also includes actions performed by collaborators.

Key Resources

• Collaborating on a Request in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Concurrent Editing of Requests

When multiple users are collaborating on the same request, those users may be working on the request at the same time. Concurrent editing allows users to work simultaneously on the request while ensuring data integrity and alerting users of changes made by others.

Concurrent edits include changes made to request items, comments, and attachments. Concurrent updates are applied to the request in the order in which they happened and are recorded in request history. If there’s a conflicting change being made, the user is notified, and the change will not be applied.

Users who have the request open are alerted of concurrent updates made by other users and can refresh the request to view those modifications. Changes to viewpoints, request items, comments, and attachments are visually indicated.

Key Resources

• Concurrent Editing of a Request in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Configure Binding Keys for Import and Export

Customers using the Custom application type need more options for how data is imported and exported including the inclusion and exclusion of certain fields, outputting constant values, and the order of columns.

Binding keys identify the fields of data associated with a particular dimension binding. Binding keys are configurable to allow for customization of how data is imported into and exported from bound viewpoints. Binding keys are displayed and edited in the Binding Inspector.

The Direction can be set for each binding key to control whether it’s imported and/or exported. Binding keys can be reordered to enable data fields to be imported or exported in a specific order. Constant binding keys can be added to dimension bindings of Custom application to output constant values in export columns.

Some binding key configurations are only available for certain application types.

Key Resources

• Editing Binding Keys in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Custom Branding, Appearance Options, and New Default Theme

Appearance options are available to customize the look and feel of the Enterprise Data Management Cloud user interface. Service administrators can upload their own logo image and background image as well as choose a theme. These custom settings are applied to the user interface for all users.

A new Sky Blue theme is used as the default theme for the new Enterprise Data Management environments. For upgraded environments, the Dark Blue theme remains the default theme.

Key Resources

• Customizing Your Users' Display in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Data Type Parameter Overrides for Name and Description Properties

Data type parameters for the core Name and Description properties can be edited at the application or node type level to override the original values set during application registration. This is helpful to customers who need to ensure that these data values conform to their business rules.

The following parameters can be modified in the property inspector for the Name and Description properties:

• Case
• Invalid Characters
• Min and Max Length

Changes to these parameters will affect system validations associated with the core Name and Description properties.

Key Resources

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

Default and Alternate Assignees for Subscriptions

Subscriptions can be configured with default and alternate assignees to allow subscription requests for target viewpoints to be assigned to multiple users. The default assignee is a single user who has subscription requests normally assigned to them. Alternate assignees are users or groups who can be assigned requests when there is no default assignee for a subscription, or the user is out of office.

Subscription requests are assigned to alternate assignees in the order that they are listed in the group, provided they are valid for assignment, with each subscription request getting assigned to a different user.

Key Resources

• Assigning Subscription Requests in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Inspect Property Definition from Property Pane

A property can be inspected directly from the property pane for a selected node in a viewpoint. A link is available in the Property Details popup window to inspect the property. This allows the property inspector to be easily accessed in order to verify and make changes to property parameters.

Key Resources

• Inspecting Properties in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Process Deletes and Reordering Options for Merge Import

Additional options are available for the Merge import mode, giving the user the ability to process deletes and reordering of nodes which may happen in an import source. These actions do not happen during a normal merge import process but are sometimes necessary for Enterprise Data Management to match the import source.

The Process Deletes option controls which nodes are deleted during a merge import. The Process Reordering option controls whether nodes are reordered under parents during a merge import.

Key Resources

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

Remove and Delete Trigger Actions for Custom Validations

Custom validations can be configured with Remove and Delete as trigger actions to enable the validations to run for request items which include those actions. This allows specific custom validations to run only for nodes which are removed or deleted from a viewpoint in a request. This is helpful when you want to prevent nodes from being removed or deleted, or to prevent invalid data resulting from a removed or deleted node.

Key Resources

• Working with Custom Validations in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Request Item Validations for Derived Properties

Derived property values are now validated for request items in a request to prevent invalid values resulting from changes made in a request. System, application-specific, and custom validations are run for derived properties of nodes in viewpoints where request actions were performed. Derived properties can be validated for any type of request including interactive, subscription, and import requests.

Derived properties are validated in the following situations:

• Validate all request items in a request
• Validate a selected request item
• Submit a request
• Approve a request

Key Resources

• Validating Requests in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Resizable Property Pane

The property pane for a selected node in a viewpoint can be resized using a drag and drop splitter located between the grid/tree and property pane for the viewpoint. This enables properties with long labels or values to be more easily viewed in the property pane.

The property pane can be adjusted to a different size for each viewpoint in a view. The resized state is retained until the view is closed.

Key Resources

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

User Mentions in Request Comments

Users can be mentioned in request and request item level comments providing a way for collaborators to ask questions or make other users aware of what they did to a request. When @ is entered into a comment, a list of request users is available to select from. After the comment is saved, mentioned users are notified of the comment so they can review it and take immediate action on the request.

Key Resources

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

User Preferences for Profile Image, Language, and Out of Office

Users can configure their own preferences for profile image, language, and out of office. The Profile Image is displayed for the user on pages where an avatar is used. The Language preference controls the language for labels and messages displayed in the user interface for the user. The Out of Office preference signifies the user is unavailable and requests should not be assigned to them. User preferences are accessible for a logged in user from the Settings and Action menu.

Key Resources

• Setting Your Preferences in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Validations Disabled for Predefined Members in EPM Cloud Dimensions

For Planning or Financial Consolidation and Close viewpoints, many application-specific validations have been disabled for nodes imported as predefined members (Enterprise Predefined Member = True).

When predefined members are exported from Planning or Financial Consolidation and Close applications, they do not include values for several properties because these values cannot be modified. When the predefined members with the missing values are imported into Enterprise Data Management, application-specific validations enabled for those properties would incorrectly identify them as issues to be resolved. Since the validations are no longer run for predefined members, these missing values no longer result in validation failures.

Only the following validations remain in effect for predefined members in applications of those types:

• Alias Uniqueness
• Predefined Member Edit
• Predefined Member Property

Key Resources

• Planning Validations in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud
• Financial Consolidation and Close Validations in Administering and Working with Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud

Financial Consolidation and Close

New Video

Creating Configurable Consolidation Rules with Partner Eliminations

Learn how to create configurable consolidation rules with partner eliminations. You learn how to enable rule sets and rules for partner eliminations, and redirect data to partner entities.

Supplemental Data Manager Enhancements

Supplemental Data Manager has been enhanced with several new features, including configurable collection intervals, form-related changes, deployment enhancements, and dashboard capabilities.

• New Collection Intervals allow you to customize your data collections tailoring the POV to your specific collection needs.
• Data sets have been renamed to Collections and have been enhanced to allow Sub-Collections which allow finer detail data collections.
• New Collection option to ensure data collection security which will prevent the sharing of data entered on different collection forms.
• Forms have been enhanced to include header data and multiple detailed line item data entry areas on a single section.
• The redeployment process has been optimized to minimize the impact to any ongoing collection process preserving the current workflow and data entered on existing forms.
• Migration Supports New Supplemental Data Manager Artifacts. Starting with this update, Migration will import and export new Supplemental Data Manager artifacts related to the enhanced collection feature set. You may receive the The artifact xxx is not supported in the current release message when importing 20.05 backup snapshots that contain Supplemental Data Manager artifacts into EPM Cloud environments at prior update levels that do not yet support the new artifacts. This may occur in the two week period after the Test environments are updated to 20.05 which supports the new artifacts and the Production environments are at 20.04 update level where these artifacts are not supported.  When this occurs, the new artifacts are disregarded in the import process; other artifacts are imported successfully.

Key Resources

• Managing Supplemental Data in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close
• Working with Supplemental Data in Working with Financial Consolidation and Close

New EPM Automate Version

A new version of EPM Automate is available. This version includes the copyOwnershipData, exportOwnershipData, importOwnershipData, recomputeOwnershipData, and importSupplementalCollectionData commands.

These new commands are in addition to the changes described in the EPM Automate Updates in the EPM Cloud Common section.

• copyOwnershipData Command

Copies the Financial Consolidation and Close ownership data from the last period of a year to the first period of the next year.

• exportOwnershipData Command

Exports ownership data from a Financial Consolidation and Close entity to a comma-delimited CSV file.

• importOwnershipData Command

Imports ownership data from a CSV file available in the environment into a Financial Consolidation and Close period. Before running this command,

• recomputeOwnershipData Command

Recomputes Financial Consolidation and Close ownership data.

• importSupplementalCollectionData Command

Imports supplemental collection data from a file into the application.

Key Resources

• Working with EPM Automate for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud
  • Installing the Utility
  • Command Reference

Performance Substitution Variables

The EnableSimpleAggregation, OptimizeDBRefresh, OptimizeYTDCalculation, and OptimizeConcurrency substitution variables can be enabled to improve performance:

• EnableSimpleAggregation

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

• OptimizeDBRefresh

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

• OptimizeYTDCalculation

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

• OptimizeConcurrency

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.

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

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

Task Manager - Ability to View Instructions in Task List Views

You can now easily see if a task includes instructions within the Schedule Task and Template Task lists. Users can add a new Instructions column to their list view and see the textual instructions for the task.

Key Resources

• Specifying Template Instructions in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close

Modifying Seeded Accounts - Account Type and Consol Operator

Service Administrators can now make property changes to seeded members of the Account dimension to customize them as needed. You can change the Account Type and the Consolidation Operator (for the Consol cube only). Ensure that you run Metadata Validation after making the changes to confirm that the changes are valid.

To export and import the changes for the seeded member, you must use the Module Customization Migration artifact (LCM). Exporting and then Importing CSV files will not retain your attribute changes for seeded members.

Key Resources

• Defining Accounts in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close

Running On-Demand Rules in a Fix

By default, On-Demand Rules are run in FIXPARALLEL. The FIXPRALLEL will include members from the six Run Time Prompts (RTP): Scenario, Year, Period, Entity, Consolidation, and Currency. If you need to run same ODR in a FIX, you can define a substitution variable.

You can add a substitution variable by name <RuleName>_FP. For example, if rule name is ODR – Calculate Sales, you should name the variable as ODR_CALCULATE_SALES_FP. Note that the hyphen in rule name is replaced with underscore in variable name and there are no spaces in the variable name.

Key Resources

• Best Practices for On-Demand Rules in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close

Item Count Added to Lists

An item count has been added to the following Task Manager lists: Schedule Tasks, Alerts, and Template Tasks. This enables you to see at a glance how many items are contained in that list.

New Length Function to Calculate Length of a String

A new LENGTH function is now available to calculate the length of a string in Calculation Attributes in Task Manager and Supplemental Data Manager. This function takes a text value as a parameter and returns an integer, which is the number of characters in the text.

Key Resources

• Adding Data Set Attributes in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close

CSV (Formatted) Output Type Available for Reports

You can now generate a predefined or custom report in CSV (Formatted) output format that supports template based CSV file generation. Note that the CSV (Formatted) format takes additional time to generate the report to honor template formatting when compared to the CSV format. Therefore, you can select CSV format to generate the data quickly or CSV (Formatted) format to generate formatted template based data.

Key Resources

• Generating the Report in Administering Financial Consolidation and Close

Narrative Reporting

New Video

Management Reporting Books in Narrative Reporting

Need to compile all types of reports for more streamlined and convenient reporting? See how to create a single PDF compilation of management reports, books, reports and other documents for more organized reporting.

Updated Narrative Reporting Extension for Disclosure Management

An updated Narrative Reporting Extension for Oracle Disclosure Management is now available. This update includes general improvements and bug fixes. Download and install the latest Narrative Reporting extension for Disclosure Management to get these changes.

Key Resources

• Installing Disclosure Management Client in Working with Disclosure Management for Narrative Reporting

Extending the Document Entity Information Network for SEC

In Disclosure Management, you can now add the missing elements to the Document Entity Information (DEI) Element to the Taxonomy Template DEI Sheet, which are supported to match the SEC validation requirements.

Key Resources

• Extending the Document Entity Information Network in Working with Disclosure Management for Narrative Reporting

Planning

New Tutorials

The following tutorials are available on the Help Center.

Strategic / Scenario Modeling

• Analyzing Account Calculations with Strategic Modeling
• Setting Goals with Strategic Modeling
• Setting Up Forecast Methods with Strategic Modeling
• Creating Scenarios with Strategic Modeling
• Consolidating Models with Strategic Modeling
• Managing Subaccounts with Strategic Modeling
• Managing Time Periods in Strategic Modeling
• Setting Up Funding Options in Strategic Modeling

Financial Planning

• Configuring Financials to Bring In Your Own Chart of Accounts in Planning
• Leveraging Best Practice Planning in Financials using your COA
• Performing Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Planning for Oracle Enterprise Planning
• Performing Income Statement Planning in Oracle Enterprise Planning

New Video

Planning with Flex Forms in EPM Cloud Planning

See how to set up and work with flex forms in Planning. With flex forms, you can rearrange row dimension members, insert valid row members or aliases that were specified in the original form definition, and sort or move rows while preserving form properties and features.

New Option in Financials to Make Past Periods Read Only

When you enable weekly planning in Financials, you can now specify an option to make past weekly periods read only in the Forecast scenario. If you’ve already enabled weekly planning in Financials, you can incrementally select this option.

On the Forecast tab of Planning and Forecast Preparation, select Past Periods Read Only. When you select this option, past periods at the weekly level are read-only for the Forecast scenario. For example, if Current Year is FY21, Current Month is Mar and Current Week is Week10, if you select Past Periods Read Only, Weeks 1-10 for FY21 are not editable.

This checkbox is displayed only on the Forecast tab when weekly planning in Financials is enabled.

Planning and Forecast Preparation in Financials

Steps to Enable

When weekly planning is enabled for Financials:

1. From the Home page, click Application, and then click Configure.
2. From the Configure list, select Financials.
3. Click Planning and Forecast Preparation.
4. Click the Forecast tab, and then select Past Periods Read Only.
5. Click Save.

Key Resources

• Planning and Forecast Preparation in Administering Planning Modules

New Chart Type Setting in Dashboards - Plot Missing Values as Zero

There is now a dashboard chart type setting for select chart types, called Plot Missing Values as Zero, that allows you to disable plotting missing or suppressed data as zeros.

By default, missing or suppressed data is plotted in charts as zeros. You can now disable this option by clearing the new Plot Missing Values as Zero option in the chart's settings. To disable this setting for charts, in the Dashboard Designer, edit or create one of the following chart types, and then click Settings for that chart:

• Area
• Bubble
• Combination
• Line
• Radar
• Scatter

When Plot Missing Values as Zero is cleared, the missing or suppressed data is ignored and is no longer plotted for those chart types.

Key Resources

• Designing Dashboards in Administering Planning

New Examples for Running Rulesets with Parameters Using REST APIs

You now have access to additional examples that illustrate how to run rulesets with parameters using REST APIs. Adding parameters gives you greater flexibility, and the examples help you quickly get productive when running this job.

Key Resources

• Ruleset in REST API for Enterprise Performance Management

Role Information

• Service Administrator

New Capabilities for Creating Groovy Business Rules

When working with Groovy business rules, you can take advantage of new features to execute ASO allocation scripts and custom calculation scripts against a cube. You can also use new utility APIs in EpmScript. This gives your business rules more power and flexibility.

With Groovy business rules for ASO cubes, you can now execute:

• The specified ASO allocation:     void executeAsoAllocation(AllocationParameters allocationParameters)
• The specified ASO custom calculation:     void executeAsoCustomCalculation(CustomCalcParameters calcParameters)

You can also use new utility APIs that were added to EpmScript:

• Return a string value with each of the specified items flattened, evaluated, and converted to MDX delimited identifiers and separated by a comma: java.lang.String mdxParams(java.lang.Object... items)
• Return the specified text with double quotation removed: java.lang.String stripQuotes(java.lang.String text)

Steps to Enable

Follow the steps to create a Groovy business rule in Creating a Groovy Business Rule in Designing with Calculation Manager for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud. For a step-by-step tutorial on creating Groovy business rules, see Introduction to Groovy Business Rules and the other Groovy tutorials. For the technical specification of the new features, see the EPM Cloud Groovy Rules Java API Reference.

Key Resources

• Learning Groovy in EPM Cloud video
• Creating a Groovy Business Rule in Designing with Calculation Manager for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud
• Introduction to Groovy Business Rules
• Groovy Tutorials
• EPM Cloud Groovy Rules Java API Reference

Role Information

• Calculation Manager Business Rule Designer

Profitability and Cost Management

There are no new Profitability and Cost Management specific features in this update.

Tax Reporting

Supplemental Data Manager Enhancements

Supplemental Data Manager has been enhanced with several new features, including configurable collection intervals, form-related changes, deployment enhancements, and dashboard capabilities.

• New Collection Intervals allow you to customize your data collections tailoring the POV to your specific collection needs.

• Data sets have been renamed to Collections and have been enhanced to allow Sub-Collections which allow finer detail data collections.

• New Collection option to ensure data collection security which will prevent the sharing of data entered on different collection forms.

• Forms have been enhanced to include header data and multiple detailed line item data entry areas on a single section.

• The redeployment process has been optimized to minimize the impact to any ongoing collection process preserving the current workflow and data entered on existing forms.

• Migration Supports New Supplemental Data Manager Artifacts. Starting with this update, Migration will import and export new Supplemental Data Manager artifacts related to the enhanced collection feature set. You may receive the The artifact xxx is not supported in the current release message when importing 20.05 backup snapshots that contain Supplemental Data Manager artifacts into EPM Cloud environments at prior update levels that do not yet support the new artifacts. This may occur in the two week period after the Test environments are updated to 20.05 which supports the new artifacts and the Production environments are at 20.04 update level where these artifacts are not supported.  When this occurs, the new artifacts are disregarded in the import process; other artifacts are imported successfully.

Key Resources

• Managing Supplemental Data in Administering Tax Reporting
• Working with Supplemental Data in Working with Tax Reporting

Task Manager - Ability to View Instructions in Task List Views

You can now easily see if a task includes instructions within the Schedule Task and Template Task lists.  Users can add a new Instructions column to their list view and see the textual instructions for the task.

Key Resources

• Specifying Template Instructions in Administering Tax Reporting

Ownership Consolidation Methods

The Ownership percentage ranges for the system Consolidation methods have been changed.  The ownership ranges and system methods are:

• 0% - Not Consolidated
• > 0% to <=50% - Proportional
• > 50% to <=100% - Subsidiary

Key Resources

• Ownership Consolidation Methods in Administering Tax Reporting

New Length Function to Calculate Length of a String

A new LENGTH function is now available to calculate the length of a string in Calculation Attributes in Task Manager and Supplemental Data Manager. This function takes a text value as a parameter and returns an integer, which is the number of characters in the text.

Key Resources

• Adding Data Set Attributes in Administering Tax Reporting

CSV (Formatted) Output Type Available for Reports

You can now generate a predefined or custom report in CSV (Formatted) output format that supports template based CSV file generation. Note that the CSV (Formatted) format takes additional time to generate the report to honor template formatting when compared to the CSV format. Therefore, you can select CSV format to generate the data quickly or CSV (Formatted) format to generate formatted template based data.

Key Resources

• Generating the Report in Administering Tax Reporting

Item Count Added to Lists

An item count has been added to the following Task Manager lists: Schedule Tasks, Alerts, and Template Tasks. This enables you to see at a glance how many items are contained in that list.

New EPM Automate Version

A new version of EPM Automate is available. This version includes the importSupplementalCollectionData command.

This new command is in addition to the changes described in the EPM Automate Updates in the EPM Cloud Common section.

• importSupplementalCollectionData Command

Imports supplemental collection data from a file into the application.

Key Resources

• Working with EPM Automate for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud
  • Installing the Utility
  • Command Reference

Upcoming Changes

NEW SETTING TO ENABLE INCREMENTAL IMPORT OF DATA USING MIGRATION FOR LEGACY PBCS and EPBCS APPLICATIONS

In an upcoming update, Oracle will create a new application setting for Legacy PBCS and EPBCS applications to enable incremental import of data using Migration.  The default setting will be set to disable incremental import of data using Migration. As a result, you cannot use the daily maintenance snapshot or any extract created using Migration for incremental import of data if this new setting remains in the default configuration; you must import a full snapshot to load data using Migration as a full Clone where the target environment does not have an existing application.

PBCS and EPBCS Service Administrators will be able to change this setting with warnings prompting that doing so may lead to data corruption if subsequent incremental import of data using Migration are not done properly.  Examples of potential data corruption include, but are not limited to, incremental data migration from a different source other than the target application where underlying Smart List values may be different.

EPM Enterprise Cloud Service and EPM Standard Cloud Service subscriptions already do not allow incremental import of data using Migration.  This new setting will not be added to these subscriptions, so there is no change in behavior for these subscriptions.

NOTE:  Existing PBCS and EPBCS subscriptions who have already upgraded to the newer version of Essbase will not be impacted by this upcoming change in line with EPM Enterprise Cloud Service and EPM Standard Cloud Service subscriptions.

This change is being implemented to address customer feedback.  If you have any concerns about this change, please contact Oracle Support.

INTERNET EXPLORER BROWSER SUPPORT

For Internet Explorer browser users, Microsoft recommends using the new Microsoft Edge as your default browser. With this guidance in mind, the 20.08 update will be the last release to support Internet Explorer. EPM Cloud will no longer support Internet Explorer starting with the 20.09 update. If you have any questions regarding de-support, please create a Service Request. For additional guidance on Internet Explorer Lifecycle, please reach out to Microsoft.

APIS BLACKLISTED FROM THE EPM CLOUD GROOVY RULES JAVA API REFERENCE

In an upcoming update in mid-2020, the following APIs are being blacklisted from the EPM Cloud Groovy Rules Java API Reference:

• TimeZone.setDefault(TimeZone zone)
• Locale.setDefault(Locale.Category category, Locale newLocale)
• Locale.setDefault(Locale newLocale)
• EPM Cloud Groovy Rules Java API Reference

EPM Cloud Groovy Rules Java API Reference

CALCULATION MANAGER DE-SUPPORT FOR FLASH

In an upcoming update, Oracle will disable Flash by default in Calculation Manager. You will still, temporarily, be able to enable Flash, if desired.

By the end of 2020, Oracle will disable Flash in Calculation Manager, and options to enable it will be removed. This change is in response to Adobe’s decision to stop updating and distributing Flash at the end of 2020. See https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/.

REMOVAL OF INSTANCE NAME FROM PREDEFINED ROLE NAMES

Currently, the predefined role names displayed in the Access Control screens of EPM Cloud environments prefix the instance name to the role name in INSTANCE_NAME ROLE_NAME format. They are also stored in this format in the snapshots, making it difficult to migrate snapshots from one instance to another.

To facilitate the migration of security across EPM Cloud environments, Oracle plans to rename predefined role names displayed within EPM Cloud applications by removing the instance name prefix. For example, if the instance name is Planning1, predefined role names are Planning1 Service Administrator, Planning1 Power User, Planning1 User, and Planning1 Viewer, the new role names will be Service Administrator, Power User, User, and Viewer.

NOTE: This change does not affect how the role names are displayed in the MyServices customer portal.

This change won't impact customers who currently use predefined roles for managing application-level provisioning and access to artifacts. Oracle will ensure that all application role assignments and artifact security assignments are automatically updated after the roles are renamed. This change makes it easy to migrate EPM Cloud artifacts across environments.

This change is being implemented to address customer feedback. If you have any concerns about this change, please contact Oracle Support.

PLANNER ROLE TO BE RENAMED AS USER

In an upcoming update, Oracle will rename the Planner EPM Cloud predefined role as User. This change will have no functional effect.

Subscriptions that were provisioned prior to the May 2016 update used the Planner role, which has been maintained in subsequent updates to provide continuity. In subscriptions that were activated after May 2016, the Planner role was already replaced by the User role.

NOTE: This change will affect Planning, Financial Consolidation and Close, and Tax Reporting only.

NARRATIVE REPORTING LEGACY (ENTERPRISE PERFORMANCE REPORTING CLOUD) ENVIRONMENTS TO SUPPORT STANDARD EPM CLOUD PREDEFINED ROLES

Oracle will, in an upcoming update, change the non-conforming Narrative Reporting predefined roles in existing environments to the following predefined roles.

• Service Administrator
• Power User
• User
• Viewer

Current role assignments in legacy environment will be remapped automatically as follows to the common set of predefined roles.

Current Non-Conforming Roles	Common Remapped Roles
System Administrator	Service Administrator
Application Administrator	Power User
Library Administrator	Power User
Reports Administrator	Power User

REMOVAL OF .XLS FORMAT AS REPORT EXPORT OPTION

Currently, the following report export options are available: csv, csv (formatted), xls, xlsx, pdf and html.

In an upcoming update, the option for xls will be removed for Account Reconciliation and Tax Reporting. Customers who have built custom reports must ensure that their reports will export as desired to one of the remaining formats: csv, csv (formatted), xlsx, pdf, or html.

CHANGE IN SET START TIME FOR ACCOUNT RECONCILIATION SYSTEM MAINTENANCE

In an upcoming update, Account Reconciliation will be deprecating the feature that allows you to set the start time for Account Reconciliation system maintenance. Instead, it will always run immediately after the Daily Maintenance Window completes.  Note that you will still be able to schedule the start time for the Daily Maintenance Window.

FUTURE NEW CONNECTION TYPE AND ADVANCED OPTIONS FOR EXTERNAL CONNECTIONS FOR TAX REPORTING

In a future update, Service Administrators for Tax Reporting will be able to use connections created for external Web services, specifying optional query or header parameters. These connections could be referenced or used in a Groovy script to create a communications link between the Groovy script and the external Web resource. Users will be advised when this new feature is to be supported in Tax Reporting.

EPM MOBILE APP STATEMENT OF DIRECTION

EPM Mobile App is a downloadable application for the phone that is purpose built to perform approval actions for iOS and Android based phone devices. It was purpose built to help users perform Approval and Workflow activities. It is currently only supported for Oracle EPM Cloud for the Planning business process.

The terminal release of EPM Mobile App is September 2020.  EPM Mobile App will not be available for download in the Apple and iOS App Stores effective October 2020. Oracle’s strategic direction is to have customers use the Approval and workflow capabilities using the mobile browser interface on mobile devices.

Oracle will continue to support Oracle EPM Mobile App in its current supported versions until September 2020.  Oracle recommends that users using Oracle EPM Mobile App prepare to instead use the approval functionality using supported mobile browser in tablet devices.