The May updates for Oracle's Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) and Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS) have arrived! This blog post outlines several new features, including a new Smart View system setting, planning task types added to the simplified interface, and more.
The monthly update for PBCS and EPBCS will occur on Friday, June 15 during your normal daily maintenance window.
Updates for PBCS and EPBCS
New Version of Oracle Smart View for Office
Oracle Smart View for Office 11.1.2.5.800 will be available by mid-June. This version includes new features such as:
- Move Formatting behavior enhancement to notify you of performance impact
- Improved resolution on high-definition devices, such as Microsoft Surface Pro tablets
- New Health Check, where you can view information about your system, and configure Smart View options and Windows Registry settings geared toward improving performance and reducing flickerin
This release also fixes a number of defects.
The Smart View 11.1.2.5.800 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 June 2018 update features and to access the new functionalities.
Updates to Snapshot Retention Policy
The daily maintenance process has been enhanced to prevent large accumulation of snapshots (over 150 GB) in EPM Cloud environments. By default, the snapshots that you create through the export process or upload to an environment are stored for a period not exceeding 60 days after which they are automatically removed. Starting with this update, the daily maintenance process will automatically remove snapshots prior to sixty days, oldest first, to prevent the total size of all snapshots from exceeding 150 GB, which may adversely impact your environment.
The daily maintenance snapshot, irrespective of its size, is always retained in EPM Cloud environments.
Planning Task Types Added to the Simplified Interface
You can now select additional task types when adding tasks to task lists in the Planning Simplified Interface. These task types include:
- Refresh Application
- Import and Export
- Copy Version
- Job Console
- Dimension Editor
Note: The Security Management, Process Management, and Form Management task types cannot be added to a task list or edited in the Simplified Interface. These task types are accessible only in desktop mode of the application.
More Intuitive POV Bar in Dashboards
The Go arrow in the POV for dashboards (which commits changes made on the page) displays only if the user has made changes. Changes to the page display in yellow.
Execute Business Rule as Part of the Data Management Load Process
After loading data into a Planning application, you can now use Data Management to run business rules that perform calculation, aggregation or copy data to another Plan type if business rules are registered in the target application. Business rules can be Calculation script or Groovy script.
Forms Listing as a Hierarchy in Navigation Flows Artifact Library
Forms listed within the artifact library in Navigation Flows are now displayed in a hierarchical manner.
New Smart View System Setting: Suppress Application Management Options
Some application management settings in Smart View are located near some commonly-used Smart View end user commands and may be mistakenly selected by administrators. A new system setting in Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud and in Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud allows service administrators to configure the display of those application management options in Smart View, reducing the chance of an administrator selecting them in error.
The new system setting, Suppress Application Management Options in Smart View, is set to “No” by default. This means that these application management options—Update Application and Delete Application—are displayed in Smart View to administrators. Setting this option to “Yes” hides these application management commands. Anytime this setting is changed, administrators must refresh their Smart View connection to see the effect of the change.
To locate this new setting, click the Navigator, then select System Settings and Defaults. The Suppress Application Management Options in Smart View setting is on the System Settings tab under Advanced Settings.
Specify a Maximum Email Attachment Size when Scheduling Batches
In Financial Reporting, you can now specify a Maximum Email Attachment Size so that you can email more books using the Batch Scheduler.
Remove Time Stamp from File Name when Bursting Batch Reports
In Financial Reporting, you now have the option to remove the time stamp from the zip file names created by batch job outputs to external directory. This change does not apply to normal batch output in Financial Reporting.
ARCS Cloud Clusters and Cards as Navigation Flows Targets
EPM Cloud source subscriptions can now customize navigation flows to access ARCS clusters and cards (note that ARCS is only a target service when connecting subscriptions). Clusters and cards can now be directly selected from ARCS using the Add Existing Card/Cluster option.
Upcoming Changes
New Data Exchange Card in EPM Cloud
To facilitate easier access to Data Management features, starting with the 18.07 update, EPM Cloud will feature a new Data Exchange card in the Application Cluster. This card will launch a page from which you can access these Data Management features:
- Data Maps: Launches the existing Data Maps user interface so that users can manage maps between a source application and a reporting application. No functional changes will result from the Data Maps reassignment to the Data Exchange card.
- Data Integration: Launches the Integrations tab of the Simplified Interface. The Integrations tab consolidates all import/export tasks under a single tab. Formerly in the Standard Interface, integration tasks were accessed from the Data Management tab.
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. Current plan is to remove access to the Classic Dimension Editor starting with the 18.10 (October 2018) update to the service.
Composite Form Creation Capability
To allow customers more time to adapt and move from composite forms to dashboards, Oracle has decided to defer the removal of the ability to create new composite forms (forms that comprise multiple simple forms) to a future release update (January 2019 - 19.01). Oracle had previously announced that this feature will be removed in the June (18.06) update.
All customers are advised to use dashboards in place of composite forms. There will be no more enhancements to the composite forms functionality.
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 2018, at which time, support for the Desktop Studio will transition to the Web Studio and distribution of the Desktop Studio will cease. This transition is tentatively planned for the 18.09 update (September 07, 2018 for test and September 21, 2018 for production environments).
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.
Considerations
Reports in the Strategic Modeling Smart View Extension on 32-Bit Systems Lose Formatting
If you run the Strategic Modeling Smart View extension on some 32-bit systems, reports lose formatting and all reports open regardless of your selection.
Workaround: Grant full access rights to EPM_ORACLE_HOME\products\hsf\Client\temp.
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