The January updates for Oracle's Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) and Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS) are here. This blog post outlines several new features for both applications, enhancements, removal of support, and fixed defects.
The monthly update for PBCS and EPBCS will occur on Friday, January 19 during your normal daily maintenance window.
Updates for PBCS & EPBCS
Relocate EPM Cloud Environments From One Identity Domain to Another
Oracle Cloud Account Administrators can now move an environment from its current identity domain to another. Unifying multiple EPM Cloud environments under one identity domain helps simplify user management and SSO configuration. It also supports seamless cross-environment navigation.
Oracle Cloud Account Administrators may relocate an environment from its current identity domain to another if the target identity domain is provisioned to the same customer account and is in the same data center.
In addition to requesting the relocation of instances from My Services, additional service environment specific tasks must be completed.
Note: You can relocate an environment only if it was provisioned after May 1, 2016. Environments that were provisioned prior to this date cannot be unified to use one identity domain.
New Scheduled Job Types that Improve Cube Performance
You can now schedule jobs that improve cube performance. These jobs include:
- Restructuring a block storage cube
- Compacting the outline file of an aggregate storage cube
- Merging incremental data slices of an aggregate storage cube
Standard Interface (PBCS Workspace) Support Removed
As notified through earlier Cloud Readiness documents, starting with this update, the Standard Interface, which is also known as the Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Workspace, is no longer supported. Issues reported for the Standard Interface will no longer be addressed. This change affects only Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service customers who activated their subscriptions on or before July 31, 2016. All these customers are expected to have a transition plan for their users to use the Simplified Interface.
To learn more about changes to your user experience when you switch to the simplified interface, watch the webinar replay.
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
With the February 2018 (18.02) update, the Dimensions link in the Navigator will link to the Simplified Dimension Editor. Effective February 2018 (February 2, 2018 for test and February 16, 2018 for production environments), the Simplified Dimension Editor will be the only interface available to edit and manage dimensions.
Financial Reporting Studio Desktop Client
Oracle is committed to providing a simple and intuitive user experience. To achieve this, 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. Please send questions and concerns to Oracle using the Provide Feedback option in the service.
Fixed Defects
|
Defect Number |
Description |
|
27258924 |
In the Strategic Modeling Smart View extension, you no longer receive an error message when you use special characters (such as a bracket) when you rename Related Accounts using Find/Replace. |
|
27240449 |
In the Strategic Modeling Smart View extension, you can now change an account from a User Defined Account (UDA) to one calculated by a formula without introducing errors in the data cell. |
|
27239122 |
In Strategic Modeling on the web, Audit Trail now works from within a report in a model that has a custom dimension. |
|
27236797 |
Batch scheduler emails now work as designed. |
|
27234933/ 27234818/ 27147785/ 27130581 |
In Strategic Modeling on the Web, child members can now be in more than one hierarchy and have the model retain unique model characteristics in each hierarchy, such as consolidation method. |
|
27234898/ 27234841/ 27206887/ 27206871/ 27161377/ 27146845 |
In the Strategic Modeling Smart View extension, you can now delete dimensions and related accounts without introducing errors in the model. |
|
27234858/27154345 |
In the Strategic Modeling Smart View extension, when you insert a new sheet in a freestyle report, you no longer receive error messages, and multiple tabs are no longer created in Microsoft Excel. |
|
27225099 |
In the Strategic Modeling Smart View extension, you no longer receive an error message when deleting ranges in freestyle reports. |
|
27188722 |
In the Projects business process in Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud, aliases for the Scenario dimension members for all locales are now imported during configuration. |
|
27168630 |
Backups using Migration are now completing expeditiously. |
|
27153353 |
In the Strategic Modeling Smart View extension, when a sub account’s ID is changed, associated formulas and forecast methods are correctly updated. |
| 27152908 | An error no longer occurs when reading an import expression for a data or amount column. |
| 27104233 | A Java error no longer occurs after changing the page selection in composite forms. |
| 27037160 |
In the Strategic Modeling Smart View extension, input values now display properly for accounts when you use a decimal point as the thousands separator and a comma as the decimal point. |
| 27035959 | When editing an existing data form, substitution variables are now correctly removed when you delete selected substitution variables. |
| 27033760 | The width of the line separators is now uniform in Planning forms. |
| 27026977 | Source filters associated with data load rules are now saved correctly. |
| 27022920 | Planning reports that contain prompts no longer show non-existent members. |
| 27009032 | A data load no longer fails when an import mapping encounters UTF8 Byte Order Mark (BOM) characters. |
| 26990508 | The Member Edit dialog box now remains open if you click in an area outside it. |
| 26988009 |
You are now able to use the right-click option to open forms after setting the Remember selected page members preference to No. |
| 26985098 |
In the Strategic Modeling Smart View extension, members are no longer duplicated when drilling down or refreshing data for parent members. |
| 26982965 |
In free-form mode, Smart View can now retrieve dynamic time series members that are shared members without using qualified names. |
| 26969009 |
When creating a Map Reporting Application for Smart Push, exporting data now behaves as expected. |
| 26805759 |
In Planning forms displayed in Oracle Smart View for Office, Member Selection now correctly lists dimensions even if the dimension alias contains a space. |
| 26796660 |
You can now use functions in user variable attribute dimensions. |
| 26772486 |
In the Simplified Interface, Preview User POV in the Select a Member dialog box no longer displays all accounts in the application. |
| 26734550 |
You can now apply a background color to a label by selecting the Same Color as Previous option from the color palette. |
| 26669502 |
Dynamic members with formulas in aggregate storage cubes now compute correctly. |
| 26638118 |
In the Enterprise workforce planning process, user can now run the rules Process Loaded Data, Synchronize Defaults and Synchronize Component Definition for multiple entities at a time by selecting the parent entity under Total Entity. |
| 26539247/ 26386077 |
In Data Management, the drill through to source feature is now working as designed in both the application and Smart View interfaces. |
| 26047899 |
The correct date is now shown when a report is exported from Financial Reporting Web Studio to Excel. |
| 26288785 |
You can now copy data to shared members using Copy Data. |
Considerations
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.
To learn more about the simplified interface vs. workspace, watch the webinar replay...
