EPM Cloud Update - Jan 2020 and Upcoming Changes
"EPM Cloud Updates"
"EPM Common"
1." ESSBASE FUNCTIONS SUPPORTED BY CALCULATION MANAGER":
Essbase functions supported by "Calculation Manager in block storage applications" are now included in Calculation Manager Guide and links to all functions is in the Essbase Technical Reference.
2." NEW DOCUMENTATION: ADDITIONAL TROUBLESHOOTING PROCEDURES FOR EPM CLOUD":
For troubleshooting common issues in EPM Cloud are available in "With new sections allowed, start with Oracle EPM Cloud for administrators."
"Financial Consolidation and Close" Service
N/A
"Profitable and Cost Management" Cloud Service
"PCMCS TROUBLESHOOTING CALCULATION ISSUES": To troubleshoot Calculation Issues a new chapter have been included in Administration Guide.
"Account Reconciliation Cloud Service (ARCS)"
N/A
"Enterprise Data Management Cloud Service (EDMCS)"
N/A
"NARRATIVE REPORTING"
N/A
"PLANNING"
N/A
"Tax Reporting"
NEW DATA EXCHANGE CARD FOR DATA INTEGRATIONS: Data Sharing is available now under Applications from the "Information Exchange" card. You may construct a data sharing from the Data Integration tab, or execute an existing integration.
UPCOMING CHANGES
"NEW EPM CLOUD INTERFACE"
A redesigned gui with improved navigation, and introduced theme named Sky Blue, will be accessible in a future update.
In EPM Cloud the following business processes must embrace this implemented theme as their default interface:
Planning
Profitability and Cost Management
Account Reconciliation
Strategic Workforce Planning
Sales Planning
Financial Consolidation and Close
Tax Reporting
The updated interface maintains existing features and enhances the experience with a more modern, responsive look and feel, and design. Upon resizing, the Welcome Panel and the Global Header re-adjust,which means less scrolling. An updated Welcome Panel includes notifications and announcements Home Page contains arrows to utilize you navigate easily between the pages of the Springboard and the dashboard infolet. A larger Navigator Menu has improved usability, many customization themes are added & larger area of work has more maneuvering space and greater visibility. The interface also complies more closely with other Oracle products, like Fusion Applications.
Once the interface is released, all new customers will benefit from the new lighter-colored Sky Blue theme and existing customers will keep their current theme. Using Tools, you can switch themes, and then Appearance.
"PLANNER ROLE TO BE RENAMED AS USER"
Oracle will rename the predefined role of Planner EPM Cloud as User in a forthcoming update. This update will have no functional impact.
Subscriptions issued prior to the May 2016 update used the Planner role, which was retained for continuity in subsequent updates. The Planner role in subscriptions that were activated after May 2016 was already replaced by the User role.
"NOTE: This change will affect Planning, Financial Consolidation and Close, and Tax Reporting only."
"REMOVAL OF INSTANCE NAME FROM PREDEFINED ROLE NAMES"
Now, in the EPM Cloud Environment Access Control screens, the predefined role names prefix the instance name to the INSTANCE NAME ROLE NAME format. These are stored in this format also in the snapshots, making it hard to move snapshots from one instance to another.
To allow security migration through EPM Cloud environments, Oracle is planning to rename the predefined function names displayed within EPM Cloud applications by removing the prefix for the case name. For instance, if the instance name is Plan1, predefined role names are Plan1 Service Administrator, Plan1 Power User, Plan User, and Plan Viewer, the new role names will be Service Administrator, Power User, User, and Viewer.
NOTE: This update won't impact how the role names are displayed in the "MyServices customer portal".
The transition will not affect customers who currently use predefined roles to handle the provisioning and access to resources at application-level. Oracle should make sure that all assignments to task positions and protection assignments for objects are modified automatically after the roles are renamed. This move makes it easy to move objects from EPM Cloud to different environments. This change is implemented to address feedback from the customers. Please contact Oracle Support if you have any concerns regarding this change.
"PREDEFINED ROLE NAMES AS EPM CLOUD KEY WORDS"
Starting with an update soon, Oracle intends to consider the roles below as keywords for EPM Cloud, which should not be used in the name of any custom artifacts you create; for instance, as a group name in Access Control.
Service Administrator
Power User
User
Viewer
Planner
System Administrator
Application Administrator
Library Administrator
Reports Administrator
If you have any classes or objects called using these keywords, Oracle recommends that you rename or delete them; otherwise they will be renamed by Oracle to ensure there is no effect due to this move. A group called Power User, for example, will be renamed Power User1 without changing the current role assignments. If you don't want Oracle to rename these classes automatically, you need to rename them.
"ALL BUSINESS PROCESSES TO SUPPORT AN IDENTICAL SET OF PREDEFINED ROLES"
Oracle is planning to implement the following predefined functions for Narrative Reporting in a coming update. Many business processes in the EPM Cloud already avail these specific predefined roles, which as a result of this change will become the standard set of predefined roles. This update will allow Oracle to resolve client problems related to moving services to EPM Standard Cloud from current environments
"Service Administrator, Power User , User , Viewer"
This change is automatic; current role assignments don't need to be updated. If you have any queries about this change, kindly contact Oracle Support by creating a Service request to get clarified on your concerns.
Current non-conforming Narrative Reporting predefined roles will be deleted; users assigned to those roles, the specific set of predefined roles will be automatically remapped as follows.
Remapping for Narrative Reporting Roles
|
Current Non-Conforming Roles |
Common Remapped Roles |
|
System Administrator |
Service Administrator |
|
Application Administrator |
Power User |
|
Library Administrator |
Power User |
|
Reports Administrator |
Power User |
NOTE: Such change does not impact user function assignments. Users won't be assigned the Viewer role.
"QUERY GOVERNOR ON BSO AND ASO CUBES"
In a future update, Oracle will implement a database governor on Essbase BSO and ASO cubes to protect against excessive server load created involuntarily by running ad hoc queries which take a long time to complete. The new governor must restrict all requests to an execution time of no more than 30 minutes. This governor only affects data recovery, for example, ad hoc queries on Smart View
NOTE: This change of function affects just Planning, Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting, Profitability and Cost Control.
"UPDATE TO THE EXCEPTION RESPONSE IN REST APIS FOR PLANNING AND PLANNING MODULES"
Oracle will delete the internal package and class names from the following fields in a forthcoming release in early 2020, in the exception answer in REST APIs for Planning and Planning modules:
Message
localizedMessage
"REMOVAL OF .XLS FORMAT AS REPORT EXPORT OPTION"
The following export options for the report are currently available: csv, xls, xlsx, pdf, and html.
In a forthcoming release the xls alternative for account reconciliation and tax reporting will be withdrawn. Customers who have generated custom reports should make sure that their reports are exported to one of the residual formats: csv, xlsx, pdf, or html.
"FUTURE NEW CONNECTION TYPE AND ADVANCED OPTIONS FOR EXTERNAL CONNECTIONS FOR TAX REPORTING"
In the upcoming update, the Tax Reporting Service Administrators will be able to use the connections created for external web services, with optional query or header parameters defined. In the Groovy script, these links could be referenced or used to establish a communication link between the Groovy script and external Web resources. Users are advised when to fortify this incipient feature in Tax Reporting.