FCCS Updates (September 2017): New Rest API, Copy Snapshot, and More

The September updates for Oracle's Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud Service (FCCS) are here. This blog post outlines several new features, enhancements, fixed defects, and considerations.

The monthly update for FCCS will occur on Friday, September 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.

Integrated Business Process Navigation Flows

Service Administrators can set up connections that enable users to navigate across Oracle EPM Cloud subscriptions to create unified business process flows across multiple subscriptions, which can belong to any combination of EPM subscriptions. The following subscriptions are supported within this feature:

• Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS)
• Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS)
• FCCS
• Oracle Tax Reporting Cloud
• Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud (ARCS)
• Oracle Profitability and Cost Management Cloud
• Oracle Enterprise Performance Reporting Cloud

Considerations

Connections can be created using any of the following services as a source for the connection:

• PBCS
• EPBCS
• FCCS
• Oracle Tax Reporting Cloud

All EPM service subscriptions can be connected from these source connections. Connections can also be created between subscriptions of the same service type. Following connections are supported with this feature:

• Connections where services are in the same domain within the same data center
• Connections across multiple subscriptions when services are in different domains and different data centers if an identity provider is set up for federated SSO

Connection across multiple subscriptions when services are in different domains within the same data center will be supported in a future update.

Customizing the Application Interface with Navigation Flows

Navigation flows give application designers control over how various roles, or groups, interact with the application. The Navigation Flow Designer enables you to customize the application interface. For example, you can change the names of the cards and clusters that display on the Home page and the order in which they are displayed. You can hide cards, create new cards, and group cards into clusters. You can also customize the vertical and horizontal tabs that display on a card.

To work with navigation flows, click Tools, and then click Navigation Flow.

Automatic Application Snapshot Uploads to Facilitate Troubleshooting

While submitting feedback, Service Administrators can consent to submit the last maintenance snapshot of the instance to Oracle to expeditiously troubleshoot the issue and test fixes.

Oracle uses the submitted application snapshot for testing purposes only; no changes will be made to the application or data. If you consent to submit the maintenance snapshot, Oracle automatically encrypts and copies the log files and maintenance snapshot to Oracle Support.

Support for Single Sign-On Using Oracle Identity Cloud Service (IDCS)

You can configure single sign-on (SSO) access to Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud using Oracle Identity Cloud Services (IDCS), which provides a comprehensive cloud-based identity management and security platform that supports a universal set of access controls, permissions, and password security constraints.

Configuring SSO requires you to configure a SAML 2.0 link between Oracle Identity Cloud Service and Oracle EPM Cloud.

Simplified Provisioning Report

This release includes a simplified Provisioning Report that provides a concise view of the roles assigned to each user. In addition to providing the number of provisioned users, the enhanced report presents information on each provisioned user in one row to provide a comprehensive view of all assigned roles.

Enhancements to the Activity Report

To help you understand the processes that may impact the service performance, Oracle has updated the Activity Report, which now contains information on the top 15 user interface requests that took the most time to execute.

New Rest API, Copy Snapshot

You can now use a REST API to copy an application snapshot.

Selecting Identity Domain at Sign In

The sign in process no longer requires you to select an identity domain while accessing the service. To simplify the sign in process, the name of your identity domain is now derived from the URL that you specify.
Note:  This is an Oracle Cloud enhancement, which may already have been rolled out through Oracle Cloud data centers

Removal of Support

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.

Fixed Defects

Considerations

CICTA Redirection Account Settings Not Retained After Upgrade

If you assigned an account as a CICTA Redirection Account, after you upgrade to 17.08, the Redirection account attribute that you selected is missing.

Copying Managed Data

When you run the Copy Data process and select Managed Data as the Data Source, the data may not display correctly.

To work around this issue, enter data for the Data Input member of the Data Source dimension. Copy data by selecting Data Input as the Data Source. Make sure that data is copied successfully, and then copy data by selecting Managed Data as the Data Source.

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 suffix.

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)
  • Deleting a 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.