This month, Oracle will release its July updates for Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) and Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS). This blog post outlines several new features, removal of support, and fixed defects for PBCS and EPBCS.
The monthly update for PBCS and EPBCS will occur on Friday, July 21 during your normal daily maintenance window.
New EPM Automate Utility Version
A new version of the EPM Automate Utility is available in this update. This version includes the clearcube command, which uses the settings specified in a Planning job of type clear cube to delete specific data from input and reporting cubes. You must install this version of the utility to use the updated command.
New Rest API: CLEAR_CUBE
You can now use a REST API to clear specific data within input and reporting cubes. (This does not delete the application definition in the application's relational tables.) See CLEAR_CUBE in the Oracle Cloud REST API for Oracle EPM Cloud guide.
Planning Clear Cube Job Now Clears Relational Data and Essbase Data
The Clear Cube job options have been updated to allow you to clear both Essbase and relational data. Previously, you could only clear Essbase data. To view the updated Clear Cube job options, click Application, then Overview. From the Actions menu, select Clear Cube. On the Clear Cube page, click Create, complete the job name, select the cube, then select from the clear options displayed.
Oracle has also provided two modes for clearing partial data for aggregate storage cubes. Selecting Partial Data (Basic Mode) enables you to use the member selector to specify the regions to be cleared. Selecting Partial Data (Advanced Mode) enables you to clear Essbase data by using an MDX expression in the text box provided.
Updated Provisioning Report
The Provisioning Report has been redesigned to include the number of unique users provisioned with Oracle EPM Services roles. The report now identifies the total number of provisioned users.
Ability to Add Existing Cards, Clusters, Tabs, and Sub Tabs to Navigation Flows
While creating or editing your navigation flows, you can add existing cards, clusters, tabs, and sub tabs. To search for and add existing cards, clusters, tabs, and sub tabs, launch the Navigation Flow Designer (click Tools, and then click Navigation Flow). Create a new navigation flow or open an existing navigation flow to edit it. Click Add Existing Card/Cluster, and navigate to the card or cluster you want to add. Existing tabs and sub tabs can be selected for tabular cards by clicking the Add Existing Tab or Add Existing Sub Tabs option.
New Predictive Planning Client
The Predictive Planning for Smart View client has been updated to be compatible with the latest release of Oracle Smart View for Office.
Predictive Planning Chart Interaction and Other Enhancements
Predictive Planning has been updated to include new features:
- Adjust future values: After running a prediction, you can modify the values for any future data series. Select a data series, and then move the entire line, with the first data point either locked or unlocked, or move a single data point. Changes you make in the chart are reflected in the grid. You can also adjust values by updating them in the grid. Changes you make in the grid are reflected in the chart.
- Zoom: Use Zoom to zoom in to the prediction area to see more detail at one time.
- Maximize: Maximize the prediction area to increase the size of the chart
- Growth curve: You can now add a growth curve to the prediction chart and specify the rate of growth.
- Chart settings: A new Chart Settings dialog box lets you change the appearance of the chart in the prediction area.
Member Name May Contain Comma
In this update, Data Management now supports member names with commas when loading data to EPBCS or PBCS.
Export a Grid Design Financial Reporting Web Studio to Excel
Starting in Release 17.07, you can export a report's grid design information as it appears while viewing the grid in Financial Reporting Web Studio to Excel.
EPBCS Only
Weekly Planning in Financial Business Process
In the Financials business process of EPBCS, weekly planning enables you to plan and forecast at the weekly level. Forms are designed so you can view weekly level plan and forecast data. You can also leverage the rolling forecast range at a weekly granularity and plan continuously at a weekly level for 13, 26, or 52 weeks. When you update the current time period, forms are updated to add or drop time periods to reflect the updated plan, forecast, or rolling forecast range.
New Workforce Dashboard
If you enable the Projects and Workforce business processes, a new analysis dashboard in Workforce called Review Employee Assignments shows you how employees are assigned across projects. On this dashboard, you can also review employee’s utilization on various projects and reassign employees to projects as needed. This feature is available only for the Projects and Workforce business processes enabled after the July monthly update.
Data Import Templates Available from Financial Business Process
For the Financials business process in EPBCS, data import templates are now available for download from within the application. The templates are generated based on the features you’ve enabled. From the Configure page for Financials, go to the Actions menu, select Download Data Load Templates.
Removal of Support
Standard Interface (Planning and Budgeting Cloud Workspace Interface)
This change affects PBCS customers who activated their subscriptions on or before July 31, 2016 only. The Simplified Interface, an option available in the service since November 2014, will be established as the standard across the service. As a result, the current Standard Interface, which is also known as the EPBCS Workspace, will not be supported starting with the December 2017 update to the service (December 1, 2017 for test instances and December 15, 2017 for production instances). After the deployment of the November update to production instances on November 17, 2017, bugs or enhancements for the Standard Interface will not be addressed.
Financial Reporting Studio Desktop Client
Financial Reporting Web Studio, available since March 2016, will become the only environment for designing and building reports.
Oracle is providing additional time for users to transition from Financial Reporting Desktop Studio to Financial Reporting Web Studio. Tentative plans call for functional parity between Financial Reporting Web Studio and Financial Reporting Desktop Studio in late 2017, at which time, support for the desktop Studio will transition to the Web Studio and distribution of the Desktop Studio will cease.
Oracle recommends that you transition to using Financial Reporting Web Studio at the earliest opportunity.
File-based Integration of Data Management with Oracle Fusions Financials Cloud
Oracle Fusion Financial Cloud Budgetary Control and Encumbrance Accounting is now fully integrated with Data Management.
This enhancement brings the integration of Oracle Fusion Financials Cloud with Oracle EPM Cloud on par with the current, out-of-the-box, file-based integration. As a result, the file-based integration will be phased out starting the September update to the service.
If you are using file-based integration between Oracle Fusion Financials Cloud and Oracle EPM Cloud, Oracle recommends that you adopt this new integration as soon as possible.
Ability to Add Members to the Property Dimension in Workforce Business Process
To ensure performance and best practice design for Workforce, Oracle will disable the ability to add members to the Property dimension starting in the August 2017 update to the service. The ability to add members to the Property dimension was an inadvertent feature, which can seriously impact performance. To prepare for this change, you should remove all custom members added to the Property dimension and re-accommodate data and artifacts that leverage these custom members. As of the August 2017 update, custom members in the Property dimension will not be allowed and content upgrades will not be successful. Oracle recommends that you update your Workforce models as soon as possible.
Fixed Defects
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Defect Number |
Description |
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26269170
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In the Workforce business process of Enterprise Planning and budgeting Cloud, the tiered tax types are correctly calculated when an employee’s status (and therefore their salary) is changed.
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26288057
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Financial Reporting Web Studio now allows negative indentation. |
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26260775
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You no longer receive an error on clicking the Statistics tab to check detailed information of plan type.
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26222333
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You no longer receive an error in Financial Reporting Web Studio when adding a second prompt using the same dimension but a different member.
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26176975
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When exporting an Essbase aggregate storage application to Planning, you no longer receive an error.
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26171295
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In the Planning Admin Extension, when working with single-currency applications, the base currency is now displayed for the Entity dimension.
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26150043
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When you use the batch scheduler to schedule a reporting batch to run and export to an external folder, you no longer get an error.
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26120854
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When you delete an application and then load another application, Financial Reporting reports are now displayed correctly in the Reports section of the application.
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26102309
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If the Prompt for POV check box is enabled, when you change the POV member in a report by typing the member name in the POV pop-up (instead of selecting it), the newly-selected member and the report now display correctly.
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26087065
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In Supporting Detail, you are now correctly prevented from adding a child row to a Total row.
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26086369
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In a Chrome browser with the User POV set to "on", PDF and HTML preview now work correctly.
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26001249
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An error no longer occurs when a non-administrator user invokes Member Selection from a worksheet containing shared members, whether invoked from shared members or base members in the grid.
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25999536
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Users are now prompted to select from low-level members in the POV that they have access to.
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25994343
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In rare cases, database refresh produced the error Unexpected EOF encountered during parallel restructuring. This fix prevents such rare database refresh failure errors.
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25985836
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You can now copy and paste an entire report containing a formula from Financial Reporting Web Studio into Excel.
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25968126
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When there is a large number(> 1000) of members in the selector, relaunching member selection for runtime prompts works as expected and an error is no longer displayed.
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25962540
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Secondary hierarchy alias member names are retrieved as expected when the alias member names are the same as the primary hierarchy member names.
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25925436/ 26026155
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Performance improvements were made so that calculations run against Aggregate Storage Cubes now finish as expected.
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25877036
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In a form with a custom attribute assigned to members on the row, attributes that are set to not display on the form now correctly do not display.
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25786671
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After changing the alias table, if an Excel formula references a member name that does not appear in the new alias table, then a user-friendly message is now displayed.
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25766054
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In Workforce, a departed employee’s FTE is now correctly reflected in the Quarterly and YearTotal summary in the Analysis FTE and Headcount form as the last period’s value.
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25716465
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When the Time Zone is set to Japanese (JT), weekly-recurring jobs that are scheduled in the Job Console to run on a different date/time than the server date/time are now correctly launched.
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25691601
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You no longer receive an exception when you apply amount mapping to every row from ASO to BSO applications.
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25568788
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After using Migration to import an application in which Predictive Planning options are set in System Settings, you no longer receive the following error: The historical data source for predictions has not been configured, please contact your administrator.
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25408121
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You are now able to copy members from one cell to another in Financial Reporting Web Studio.
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25124701
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When the Time Zone is set to Japanese (JT), the Job Console now correctly displays job information in the Japanese time zone instead of the UTC time zone (Coordinated Universal Time).
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21486298/ 21501674
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Aggregate storage cubes are no longer listed in the Smart View Panel when either one dimension or no dimensions are enabled in the cube
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Considerations - Gauge Chart Displays Zero Instead of Threshold Values
If you delete any of the Maximum Values, the chart subsequently displays zero for all thresholds. Workaround: When updating the threshold values on a gauge chart type, do not delete the Maximum Value for any of the thresholds.
