The June updates for Oracle's Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud Service (FCCS) are here. This month you can look forward to updates for showing or hiding financial reporting annotations, updates to the connections interface, considerations for using FCCS, and much more.
The monthly update for FCCS will occur on Friday, June 21 during your normal daily maintenance window.
New FCCS Features
New Version of EPM Automate
A new version of EPM Automate is available with this update. This version contains updates to the recreate command, which has been enhanced to change the service type of a current environment to another service type; for example, to change a PBCS environment to an ARCS environment.
Script Available for Maintaining a Snapshot Library
Generally, Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud supports snapshot compatibility for one monthly cycle only; you can migrate maintenance snapshots from the test environment to the production environment and vice versa. However, audit requirements of some customers may necessitate restoring snapshots from multiple years on the latest EPM Cloud environment, and accessing application in a short period of time.
Removal of Support for Transport Layer Security Protocol 1.0 and 1.1
As announced in previous blog posts, Oracle supports only Transport Layer Security protocol version 1.2 (TLS 1.2) to communicate with EPM Cloud. To ensure the highest level of authentication and data encryption security, support for TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 have been removed.
Because most modern operating systems and browsers support TLS 1.2; users of such systems and browsers are not affected by the deprecation of TLS 1.0 and 1.1. EPM Automate and Smart View are also not affected by this change.
You cannot use client operating systems that do not support TLS 1.2 (for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Microsoft Windows 2002) to run operating system-specific commands (for example, code to run cURL tools to transfer data and custom code that integrates with the REST APIs) against EPM Cloud. Additionally, Smart View installed on such systems will also fail to communicate with EPM Cloud. Similarly, you cannot use browsers that do not support TLS 1.2 protocol to access EPM Cloud environments.
Connections Interface Updates
Updates to the Connections interface include grouping all EPM service providers into a single provider called Oracle EPM Cloud.
- On the Select Provider to Create Connection page, all Enterprise Performance Management service providers will be grouped into a single service provider called Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud.
- On the Connection Details page, based on the URL provided, Application Type will be automatically identified and displayed.
- On the Manage Connections page, the name and description will be grouped together under one column called Name, and the application type and provider will be grouped together under one column called Application.
New Oracle EPM Cloud Services
Oracle has introduced two new Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud services: Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Standard Cloud Service and Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Enterprise Cloud Service. Changes introduced with the new services mainly affect new customers only; current customers will continue using their existing, familiar EPM Cloud environments. Going forward, the two new EPM Cloud Services will replace the existing EPM Cloud Service offerings for new purchases. The Business Processes and features available to you depend on the specific EPM Cloud service that you purchase. Users will notice some changes to certain naming and terminology used in documentation, videos and other collateral as we adopt the new Cloud Services (Standard and Enterprise).
Equity Pickup
Equity Pickup is an alternative method of recording the value of investments in subsidiaries, estimating the current value based on the owner’s share of net retained earnings. You can enable Equity Pickup during application creation, or from the Enable Features page. Four new seeded consolidation rules, and new Account (FCCS_EPUSource) and Data Source (FCCS_EPU) members have been added for Equity Pickup.
Updated to Seeded Configurable Consolidation Rules
Several updates have been made for the seeded rules for configurable consolidations.
In the Owner’s Equity (Holding) rule-set, the Owner’s Equity source account has been changed from Owner’s Equity to Total Equity. This change is to facilitate the upcoming enhancement that will allow creation of an application with minimal seeded accounts. There should be no change in consolidated data because the only accounts included in the scope that were not previously included are Minority (Non-controlling) Interest and CTA, neither of which should be populated at a level 0 Holding company.
All accounts within Total Equity are now included in either the Owner’s Equity adjustments (pre-acquisition), or Net Income adjustments (post acquisition) Equity elimination rule-sets, to ensure that all equity accounts are processed either as an equity adjustment or an income adjustment. The rule-sets can be copied and modified if the default set-up does not match client requirements.
In the two Investment rule-sets, the execution condition has been changed to run for Holding (as before), plus Subsidiary and Proportional method entities. This change supports the use of “flat” entity structures in which all Investment in Subsidiaries needs to be eliminated at the first (and only) parent. The existing Intercompany dimension scope condition (#Any ICP that is a descendant of the current parent#) will ensure that the adjustment only runs at a common parent.
For all rule-sets, the POV for the Data Source dimension has been changed from Total Input and Adjusted to Total Data Source. This change is to cater for recursive calculations such as Minority (Non-controlling) Interest on Minority Interest.
Support for @CURRMBRRANGE Function in Configurable Calculations
You can now use this Essbase Financial function in Calculation Manager when you create configurable calculations: @CURRMBRRANGE. This function generates a member list that is based on the relative position of the current member being calculated. It can be used with other range functions such as @SUMRANGE and @AVGRANGE.
Oracle Smart View for Mac OS and Browser-based Deployment of Microsoft Excel
Oracle is pleased to announce the availability of Oracle Smart View for Office for MacOS and browser-based deployment of Microsoft Excel. This new Smart View add-in provides for a thin and customizable deployment across the enterprise in support of Oracle EPM Cloud applications.
The following high-level features are included in the initial release:
- Ad hoc analysis operations such as: Zoom, Pivot, Keep/Remove only, as well as Submit, Range Operations, Analyze/Free Form, and Formula Preservation
- Form operations such as: Form Open and Refresh, Submit from Forms, Expand/Collapse, Supporting Details, Mass Allocate, Job Console, Copy Version, Business Rules, and Analyze
- Options and Styles
- Member Selection and POV
- Drill Through
New EPM Cloud URL
Starting with this release, all EPM Cloud Service instance URLs will use epmcloud as the context for accessing environments. Existing users may continue using the current URLs to access EPM Cloud environments or update them with this new application context. For example, if the current URL is https://example-idDomain.pbcs.dom1. oraclecloud.com/HyperionPlanning, you can update it to https://example-idDomain.pbcs.dom1. oraclecloud.com/epmcloud.
TLS 1.2 Support for Outbound EPM Cloud Emails
EPM Cloud has been enhanced to send outbound emails using Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol 1.2. This update enables EPM Cloud to route emails, for example, from Financial Reporting Batches, correctly even if your email server accepts only TLS 1.2 compliant emails.
Purge All Imported Data
Use the new Purge All Imported Data script, available in Data Management, to clear all imported data from your data tables for a selected LOV. Purging data may increase system performance and enables you to start over when loading data. Note that there is no backup or utility to recover any purged data when this option is executed. For this reason, use extreme caution before executing this script.
Data Export to File
The Data Export to File option in Data Management enables you to export data from an EPM application to a data file. You can use the data file to load data into an ERP application or an external system. The new Data Export to File option provides several enhancements over the existing Custom Application option and will provide performance improvement when using the Simple workflow mode option.
Both the Data Export to File option and custom target application options are supported in this release. Eventually, the Data Export to File option will supersede the custom target application option due to its enhanced functions and capabilities.
Starting with this release, you can migrate your existing custom target applications to Data Export to File application using a new Upgrade Custom Application script. The new script is available under the System Maintenance and it can be run for an individual or all scripts
Show or Hide Financial Reporting Annotations
In the simplified user interface, when running a Financial Reporting report in HTML preview, you can now select to either show or hide annotations. This functionality was previously only available when running a report from the Explore Repository.
Upcoming Changes
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 in the August update. 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 will affect customers who use the predefined roles for managing application-level provisioning and access to artifacts; you will need to reassign such assignments using the updated role name after the roles are renamed. This change makes it easy to migrate EPM Cloud artifacts across environments.
Additionally, all predefined role names; Domain Administrator, Service Administrator, Power User, User, and Viewer will be treated as EPM Cloud keywords, which should not be used in the name of any custom artifacts that you create; for example, group name in Access Control. If you have any group with these keywords, rename them before this change comes into effect.
This change is being implemented to address customer feedback. If you have any concerns about this change, please contact Oracle Support.
EPM Cloud's New Look & Feel
In a future update, there will be a revised interface with enhanced navigation and a new theme called Sky Blue.
The following services will adopt this new theme as their default interface:
- Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud
- Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud
- Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud
- Oracle Tax Reporting Cloud
- Oracle Profitability and Cost Management Cloud
- Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud
- Oracle Strategic Workforce Planning Cloud
- Oracle Sales Planning Cloud
The revised interface retains existing functionality and enhances your Home page experience with a more responsive design. The Welcome panel and the global header readjust after resizing, which means less scrolling. Clearer announcements and notification areas are added to the Welcome panel, as are arrows to help you navigate easily between the Home page and your infolets. A bigger Navigator menu has improved usability, more themes for customization are included, and a bigger work area has more space to maneuver and provide better visibility. The interface is more consistent with other Oracle products, such as Fusion Applications.
After the interface is released, all new customers will use the new lighter-colored Sky Blue theme, and existing customers will keep their current theme. You can switch themes using Tools, and then Appearance.
Classic Dimension Editor
With a view to allowing customers more time to familiarize themselves with the Simplified Dimension Editor, Oracle has decided to defer the removal of support for Classic Dimension Editor to a future update in 2019. Oracle will notify you at least two months prior to the removal of the feature.Considerations
Calculation Status
When you change Ownership Data that uses a Consolidation rule and then consolidate, the Calculation Status is not correct for the partner and entity.
Extended Dimension Applications
Do not enable ratios in an Extended Dimension applications.
Copying Data
When copying an entity with a Calculation Status of No Data, the target should also have a Calculation Status of No Data. The Copy Data process is incorrectly setting the Calculation Status to Impacted.
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.
Adding Shared Members in Smart View
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.
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.
Horizontal Scroll on a Non-tabular Form
In Supplemental Data forms, the horizontal scroll does not work on a non-tabular form, which is intended only for use on a single record. Do not use non-tabular layout if the form is meant for more than one record.
Unable to Refresh the Cube
A Cube refresh will not complete if a level 0 currency dimension member has the "Label only" data storage property, but this is not currently detected in the Dimension Editor or Metadata Validator.
Viewing Members on Seeded Forms
If you are using an Extended Dimensionality environment, on seeded forms, use the View members, such as Periodic, QTD and YTD, instead of using functions to ensure the _RULE members are not accidentally added to the forms.
Viewing the FCCS_View_System_Members
If you are using an Extended Dimensionality environment, users other than the Administrator can view the FCCS_VIEW_SYSTEM_MEMBERS and its hierarchy in the data form and Intercompany reports.
Translation Override Rule Redirection
When you create a Translation Override rule, redirection does not work properly when you use a shared Parent account for the Source. The workaround is to specify the primary Parent account.
Simplified Dimension Editor and Metadata Validation
Some of the Simplified Dimension Editor errors (cells outlined in red) are false-positive errors (that is, incorrectly reported as errors). Data Storage errors for the following members should be ignored:
- Data Source --> All children of "FCCS_Source Entities" Entity --> "FCCS_Global Assumptions"
If you are using an Extended Dimensionality upgraded environment, the Simplified Dimension Editor does not show Dynamic Calc as an allowed value for Custom dimension parent member Data Storage. This issue does not occur in a newly-installed Extended Dimensionality environment. You can use the Classic Dimension Editor, Import Metadata, or Smart View to change the Data Storage value.
In addition, the Metadata Validator incorrectly shows validation errors for the following:
- Shared level 0 Scenario dimension members
- Parent members of the Scenario dimension
Entity Member Name/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.
Setting the Data Collection Period
In Supplemental Data, when setting the Data Collection Period (DCP), the Start, End, and Close dates must be inside the valid range.
Errors When Importing Accounts
Sometimes when importing an account, error messages may be generated because there are several accounts that reference an intercompany account in the Plug Account column but that account has yet to be encountered in the account file.
Try to reimport the account.
Working with Metadata
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 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.
Ownership Management Enablement
Enabling the Ownership Management feature entails adding seeded accounts, which causes a restructuring of your application. Depending on the size of your application, the restructuring could take a considerable length of time. This can be expected to take as long as manually refreshing the database after adding accounts. If there are conflicts with aliases of existing members, an error is displayed that the system cannot enable the feature. Resolve the member alias conflict, refresh the database and then enable the feature.
When 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. If you enable the Ownership Management feature, you may not be able to open some existing Financial Reporting reports due to metadata changes for Ownership Management.
Smart View Summary Dialog Display
In Internet Explorer, you may experience issues using the Open Summary dialog in Smart View. Workaround:
- Use the keyboard arrow keys to make your selection, then close and reopen the dialog, or
- Minimize and then reopen the dialog, or
- Use a different browser
Extended Dimensionality Performance Consideration
For an Extended Dimensionality application with Ratios enabled, consolidation performance may be slower. When you create an Extended Dimensionality application, you should not enable the “Include Ratio Calculations” feature.
Extended Dimension Applications and Ratios
Do not enable ratios in an Extended Dimensions application.
Equity Pickup - Different Currencies for a Holding Company and its Immediate Parent
In Ownership Management it is generally assumed that the Holding Company and the immediate parent (which represents the consolidated results of the Holding Company) have the same local currency. You may encounter an issue with the EPU calculations if the Holding Company does not have the same currency as its immediate parent.
Equity Pickup Holding Company Eliminations
Users deploying the new Equity Pickup feature in 19.06 might find some isolated cases of incorrect eliminations in Holding companies.
If a Holding company is a child of a level 1 parent, but is not in the highest generation in the scope of a consolidation, then the Elimination member of the Consolidation dimension might not be cleared before being repopulated by the consolidation process.
