FCCS Updates (Dec 2017): Consolidation Features and Custom Functions

The December updates for Oracle's Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud Service (FCCS) are here. This blog post outlines an array of new features, fixed defects, considerations, and more.

The monthly update for FCCS will occur on Friday, December 15 during your normal daily maintenance window.

NOTE: You can migrate maintenance snapshots from the current version of the service instance to the preceding version or to the next version. For example, snapshots from 17.08 can be imported into 17.07 and 17.09 service instances. Migration between the same versions is always supported.

New FCCS Features

Advanced Consolidation Features

This update includes Advanced Consolidation features, including: 

Manage Ownership

Ownership management consists of managing global consolidation settings and the application of those consolidation settings to each entity hierarchy on a scenario-byscenario, year-by-year and period-by-period basis. You can add or modify consolidation methods, assign ownership percentages, recompute ownership data, and also load ownership data from a comma-delimited file. See “Managing Ownership” in Administering Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud.

NOTE: Before you enable Ownership Management for an existing application, you must review the migration considerations to avoid potential conflicts with new seeded members. 

New Members for Elimination

If Ownership Management is enabled, the system provides new seeded members in the Consolidation and Data Source dimension for elimination. See “Enabling Ownership Management in Applications” in Administering Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud.

New System Rules for Consolidation

These hard-coded system rules have been added to support Advanced Consolidations:

• Investment in Subs (Holding method)
• Owner’s Equity (Subsidiary/Proportional methods)
• Owner’s Equity (Holding method)

These rule-sets provide a basic adjustment/elimination between the investment of a holding company in a subsidiary and the Owner’s Equity of that owned company, whether consolidated by the Subsidiary method (recognizing Minority Interest) or the Proportional method.

To use advanced consolidation, you must enable both the Intercompany dimension and Intercompany Elimination Tracking. If these are not both enabled, you will not see advanced consolidation features such as Ownership Management and the new hard-coded consolidation rules.

In addition, the Account, Movement, Consolidation and Data Source dimensions have new members.

If the Ownership Management feature is enabled, you will need to reconsolidate all existing data in your application in order to re-populate the Proportion member in the Consolidation dimension.

Calculation for Opening Balance for Retained Earnings Prior

The calculation for Opening Balance for the Retained Earnings Prior account has been updated. Opening Balance for Retained Earnings Prior is the Closing Balance of Total Retained Earnings from the end of the Prior Year for the first period of the year, for the YTD member of each period of the year, and for the QTD member for the first quarter. For all other view and periods in the year, the Opening Balance is pulled from the Closing balance of Retained Earnings Prior of the previous period for periodic and quarter for QTD.

Loading Metadata in Data Management

Data Management now supports the loading of metadata from a flat file. This feature allows customers to build a metadata load file in any format, from any source, and load the metadata to an EPM Cloud environment. Using this approach, users can set property defaults during the load or mapping process. In this monthly update, only regular, custom, and Smart List dimensions are supported for metadata loads, and the feature is supported for the following services only:

• FCCS
• Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud (PBCS)
• Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud (EPBCS)
• Oracle Tax Reporting Cloud
  
  

New Custom Functions in Calculation Manager

Five new custom functions have been added to Calculation Manager. Each of these functions correspond to an existing function in that the existing functions return only positive numbers, and the new functions can return either a positive number or a negative number depending on the calculated result. The new functions (and the existing function to which they correspond) are as follows:

New Design-time Prompt Functions in Calculation Manager

A new @Length design-time prompt is now available in Calculation Manager. @Length returns the length of the text.

Excel Smart View Support for Supplemental Data Sets

You can now work with the Supplemental Data Set dashboard in Smart View. After you create a connection in Smart View, you can view and filter supplemental data in data sets. To work with Smart View, you must download the Smart View Extension for Close and Supplemental Data Management.

New Smart View for Office Version

Smart View for Office 11.1.2.5.720 will be available by early December. This version includes new features like...

• Support using a connection string with HypUIConnect, instead of a friendly name. Friendly names are still supported
• Enhanced extension update workflow, allowing you to select a server or service from which to check for updated extension downloads
• Cascading from multiple dimensions in a single operation • Ability to run business rules templates
• Support for additional data types with HsGetValue: Smart Lists, text, and date
• Option to suppress display of the floating toolbar on forms
• Option to automatically resize column width and row height on cells in forms and ad hoc grids

There are also a number of defects fixed in this release. 

The Smart View 11.1.2.5.720 Readme, available on the Help Center at the time of release, contains a complete list of features and defects addressed in this version. You must install this version to ensure compatibility with the December 2017 update features and to access the new functionalities. 

New Guides for Getting Started with Oracle EPM Cloud

Information for getting started with EPM cloud services are now available for Service Admins and end users. The new guides include:

• Getting Started with Oracle EPM Cloud for Admins
• Getting Started with Oracle EPM Cloud for Users

The admin guides contains information for tasks that admins need to perform for EPM Cloud products. This guide is now the primary source for completing tasks like managing users and roles, setting up single sign-on, backing up, restoring environments, etc. The new guide replaces the following guides:

• Using Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud
• Getting Started with Oracle Financial Consolidation and Cloud Cloud
• Getting Started with Account Reconciliation Cloud for Administrators
• Getting Started with Oracle Profitability and Cost Management Cloud for Administrators
• Getting Started with Oracle Tax Reporting Cloud
• Getting Started for Administrators for Oracle Enterprise Performance Reporting Cloud

The new guide for end users introduces them to the Oracle EPM Cloud, giving them enough information to use the cloud-based tool. Getting Started with Oracle EPM Cloud for Users replaces the following guides:

• Getting Started with Account Reconciliation Cloud for Users
• Getting Started with Oracle Profitability and Cost Management Cloud for Users
• Getting Started for Users for Oracle Enterprise Performance Reporting Cloud
  
  

Removal of Support

Classic Dimension Editor

Effective the February 2018 (18.02) update, the Dimensions link in the Navigator will link to the Simplified Dimension Editor. Consequently, the Classic Dimension Editor will not be supported starting with the February 2018 update to the service (February 2, 2018 for test and February 16, 2018 for production instances).

File-based Integration of Data Management with Oracle Fusion 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 is being 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.

Fixed Defects

Considerations

Adding Base Members from Dimension Editor

If you add a base member from the Dimension Editor and select the Never Share Data Storage property, the system applies the Dynamic Calc property and the member is read-only.

To work around this issue, load the metadata through a metadata load, or add the member from Smart View with the Never Share property. In these cases, the storage setting will remain unchanged and you can enter data to the member.

Smart View

SUMMARY DIALOG DISPLAY

In Internet Explorer, you may experience issues using the Open Summary dialog in Smart View. To work around this issue:

• Use the keyboard arrow keys to make your selection, then close and reopen the Summary dialog; or
• Minimize and then reopen the Summary dialog; or
• Use a different browser

USING FIREFOX ESR 52.4.2 WITH SMART VIEW

Future releases of Mozilla Firefox will be phasing out support for XUL-based add-ons such as Smart View. Starting in mid-November 2017, only add-ons and extensions built with new web extension technology will work in Firefox. Therefore, Smart View 11.1.2.5.710 only supports Firefox versions up to ESR 52.4.1. If you want to continue using Firefox with Smart View 11.1.2.5.710, do not upgrade your Firefox browser.

If your Firefox browser is set to automatically install updates, Oracle recommends changing the setting to “Check for updates, but let me choose whether to install them.” See the Firefox help for instructions on changing this setting.

Copying and Clearing Data

If you try to clear a shared entity, the base entity and all shared entities do not get cleared. To work around this issue, clear the primary entity in order to clear all shared entities.

If you copy or clear data, a blank dialog may appear if any members do not have an alias. To work around this issue, add an alias to any member without one.

Change in Calculation of CTA for Net Income/Retained Earning Current Accounts

In the August, 2017 update (17.08), the seeded Net Income hierarchy included a new member named “Retained Earnings Current – Opening Balance – FX-CTA” as a sibling of Net Income. Opening Balance calculation was done for the new member, which was automatically added during the upgrade process. Due to this change, if you have not yet done so, you must reconsolidate your historical data by running the Consolidation process.

Comprehensive Income CTA Accounts

If you assigned an account as a CICTA Redirection Account, after you upgrade, the Redirection account attribute that you selected may be missing.

If you configure a Comprehensive Income CTA account (CICTA) to capture CTA adjustments, the CICTA values are not correctly translated to reporting currencies other than the Entity and Parent Currency.

Self Service Upgrade

It is strongly recommended that you do not use the Upgrade Application Content settings in this update. Although a new Upgrade screen is available in Daily Maintenance, this feature is not fully functional.

FCCS Amount Override and Rate Override Accounts

If your application does not have any historical accounts defined, there will be no shared members under the seeded FCCS_Amount Override and FCCS_Rate_Override Accounts, which results in errors when refreshing the database.

A workaround is to add placeholder accounts. Under FCCS_Balance Sheet add FCCS_AmountOverride_Placeholder_Account and/or add FCCS_RateOverride_Placeholder_Account. Assign the exchange rate of Historical Amount Override for FCCS_AmountOverride Placeholder Account and Historical Rate Override for FCCS_RateOverride Placeholder Account.

Editing Dates in a Data Collection Period

In a Data Collection Period in Supplemental Data, editing Start, End, and Close Dates may result in an error that the date is outside the valid range.

Entity Member Names/Aliases with ICP Property

When you create an Entity with the ICP property enabled, the maximum length of the member name is 76 characters instead of 80, to allow for the ICP prefix.

Working with Metadata

Be aware of the following considerations:

• You should not make metadata changes that result in the following:
  • Changing a base member to which a journal has been posted into a parent member (other than in the Entity dimension in which journals are valid at a parent entity)
    If there are journals or Supplemental Data posted to those members, these changes can cause problems when accessing Journals or importing existing journals.
• When you use ad hoc grids in Smart View with Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud, do not add a root Period member on the grid. Make sure the root Period member is removed by either clicking Remove Only or selecting periods that are in the application and selecting Keep Only. If a Period member is left on the grid, then any changes to data that you make will fail to properly set the impact status of the Entities.