The March updates for Oracle's Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud Service (FCCS) have arrived. There are no new features in this update, however, several upcoming changes were announced, including the EPM Cloud's New Look and the removal of XLS report export option.
The monthly update for FCCS will occur on Friday, March 15 during your normal daily maintenance window.
Upcoming Changes
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.
Removal of Support for Transport Layer Security Protocol 1.0 and 1.1
Starting with the May 2019 update (Release 19.05) to EPM Services, Oracle will support 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, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 will no longer be supported after your environments are updated on May 3, 2019.
NOTE: Support for TLS versions 1.0 and 1.1 will be removed for both your Test and Production environments on May 3, 2019.
Because most modern operating systems and browsers support TLS 1.2; users of such systems and browsers will not be affected by the deprecation of TLS 1.0 and 1.1. EPM Automate and Smart View are also not affected by this change.
After the 19.05 update on May 3, 2015, 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.
Ability to Create New Composite Forms
Oracle will remove the ability to create new composite forms (forms that comprise multiple simple forms) starting with the March 2019 update to the service (March 01, 2019 for test environments and March 15, 2019 for production environments). After the March update, all existing composite forms can still be edited and used. Removal of the ability to create composite forms impacts only the creation of new composite forms in the service.
All customers are advised to use dashboards in place of composite forms. No more enhancements will be made to the composite forms functionality.
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.
Changes to the Default Setting for Exporting Smart List Textual Data
Starting with the June update to the service (release 19.06), the default value of Export Planning Smart List textual data during daily maintenance for incremental data import application setting will be changed to No.
The current default value of this setting (Yes) impacts the performance of the daily maintenance process by also exporting text data associated with Smart Lists. The exporting of text data during daily maintenance is required only if you plan to use the daily maintenance snapshot to perform incremental or selective data imports. Because this is not a common customer scenario, Oracle will not, by default, include Smart List text data in the maintenance snapshot. This change ensures improved performance of the daily maintenance process.
NOTE: The snapshot that is created with the Export Planning Smart List textual data during daily maintenance for incremental data import option set to No is a fully contained snapshot that includes all metadata and data required to recreate your application.
If you have a requirement to include Smart List data in the maintenance snapshot for incremental data imports, you must change value of Export Planning Smart List textual data during daily maintenance for incremental data import application setting to Yes.
Removal of XLS Report Export Option
Currently, the following report export options are available: xls, xlsx, pdf and html. In a future release, the option for xls will be removed. Customers who have built custom reports must ensure that their reports will export as desired to one of the remaining formats: xlsx, pdf and html. This change applies to non-consolidation reports only
Considerations
Adding Shared Members in Smart View
When using Smart View, after adding a Shared Member, Refresh and Submit may not work correctly.
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.When you change Ownership Data that uses a Consolidation rule and then consolidate, the Calculation Status is not correct for the partner and entity.
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.
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 (i.e. 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 a Hybrid 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 Hybrid 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 shared level 0 Scenario dimension members.
- The Metadata Validator incorrectly shows validation errors for parent members of the Scenario dimension.
- The Metadata Validator warning message for the Data Source dimension’s system members incorrectly refers to “Never Shared” instead of “Never Share”.
Consolidation Operator for Children of Dimension Name Members
All immediate children of the dimension name member must be set with an aggregation option of Ignore or Never.
Seeded dimension members should already have the Consolidation Operator set as Ignore. Use the top dimension member rather than the dimension name in forms and reports.
Consolidation Operator for Children of "Label Only" Members
Children under a Parent member that has the "Label Only" data storage property must have the aggregation operator set to Ignore.
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.
Entity Member Name/Aliases wit 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
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.
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 dialog; or Minimize and then reopen the dialog; or Use a different browser.
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.
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.
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.
Setting the Data Storage Property
The Metadata Validator may not recognize if a level 0 data source dimension member is incorrectly set to "Never share" as the value for the default data storage and Consol data storage property. No validation message is displayed. The Data Storage property for both the default and Consol data storage property should Shared, Store, Dynamic Calc for a Level 0 Datasource member.
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.
Do Not Change Member Formulas for Any Seeded Member
Do not change member formulas for any seeded member because it may cause consolidation to fail.
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.
Exporting Data Collection Period Using Migration
In Supplemental Data, when SDM Data is exported through Migration by selecting a particular Data Collection Period (DCP), then all DCPs are incorrectly added to the listing file. Even though all DCPs are displayed on the snapshot selection, only the data for the selected DCP will be exported.
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.
