PBCS & EPBCS Updates (March): Rolling Forecasts, Fixed Defects & More

On Friday, Oracle will roll out its March updates for Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) and Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS). This blog post outlines the new and improved functionality that will become available.

(If you want to stay informed of monthly updates for Oracle EPM cloud products, be sure to subscribe to our blog.)

The monthly update for PBCS and EPBCS will occur on Friday, March 17 during your normal daily maintenance window.

New EPM Automate Utility Version

No matter what EPM cloud application you have, in this update you’ll find that a new version of the EPM Automate Utility is available. In this version, the replay command has been enhanced to support the replay of Financial Reporting launch loads on a service instance. This will enable performance testing under heavy load to verify that the user experience is acceptable when the service is under the specified load.

To use the new command, you must install the new version of the utility. The installation instructions are available in the Oracle Help Center: Installing the Utility. The instructions to run commands are also available in the Oracle Help Center: Command Reference.

Activity Report Now Includes Smart View Version Information

The Application Activity Report, which presents information on application usage, was enhanced to include information on versions of Oracle Smart View that are used to access the application. The report lists Smart View versions older than 11.1.2.620 as Unknown Version. This enhancement allows users, specifically Service Administrators, to ensure that they are using the newest version of Smart View that incorporates the new features and bug fixes.

Updated Simplified Interface for Manage Approvals

The Manage Approvals Simplified Interface has been updated to provide more views and is also available to users with the Planner role. To view the Manage Approvals page in the Simplified Interface, click or tap the Navigator icon, and then under Workflow, click or tap Manage Approvals. Click or tap View in the upper right-hand corner of the Manage Approvals page to change your display to Process Status, Level Status, Group Status, or Tree View. You can access any Approvals error reports from the Approvals card on the homepage.

Financial Integration Summary for Balance Sheet and Cash Flows

If you've integrated Financials, Projects, or Capital with Workforce in Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS), you can review a summary of the rolled up data in two new forms. In addition to the existing Financials Integration Summary form, you can now use Balance Sheet Integration Summary and Cash Flow Direct Integration Summary.

Project Analysis for Decision Making and Approval

Under Projects in EPBCS, use the new Project Detailed Analysis form to see a summary of the KPIs for all projects — this way you can evaluate project performance for all projects in one place. Use the new forms Performance Matrix and Financial Performance Measures to analyze your projects and help make go/no go decisions and approval decisions.

Rolling Forecast in Plan Forecast Preparation

With rolling forecasts in EPBCS, you can perform continuous planning so you can plan beyond a one-year horizon. Depending on how you set up the rolling forecast, you can plan continuously at a monthly level for either 12, 18, or 24 months, or at a quarterly level for either 4, 6, or 8 quarters. Forms and dashboards are updated automatically when you add or drop new time periods to reflect the rolling forecast range. This feature is available only for the Financials and Projects business processes in this release.

Translation Information

The translated documentation now covers all features up to December 9, 2016, except for Working with Smart View for EPBCS, which covers features up to October 6, 2016.

Standard Interface (PBCS Workspace)

This change only affects PBCS customers who activated their subscriptions on or before July 31, 2016.

The Simplified Interface, an option available since November 2014, will be established as the standard across the service. As a result, the current Standard Interface (also known as the EPBCS Cloud Workspace) will be discontinued with the December 2017 update.

Starting with the December 2017 update, all service functionality will be available through the Simplified Interface only. To prepare, there are resources available on the Oracle Help Center that your users can read to familiarize themselves with the Simplified Interface:

• Accessing the Service
• Working with Planning for Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud
• Administering Planning for Oracle Planning and Budgeting

Financial Reporting Studio Desktop Client

Financial Reporting Web Studio, available since March 2016, will be the only tool for designing and building reports. As a result, Financial Reporting Studio desktop client support will be fully transitioned to Financial Reporting Web Studio, tentatively starting May 2017. With the May 2017 update, Financial Reporting Studio desktop client will no longer be distributed.

As of the December 2016 update, Financial Reporting Web Studio has achieved parity with most of the functional capabilities available in Financial Reporting Studio desktop client. You will be able to create new reports and modify existing reports using Financial Reporting Web Studio.

Oracle recommends that you transition to using Financial Reporting Web Studio as soon as you can.

Fixed Defects