Welcome back to the Olympus Consulting monthly(ish) Oracle Cloud EPM update highlights series! This month, there are a few new Spooktacular features and a variety of smaller updates and enhancements.
October updates will be applied to TEST environments during the first daily maintenance on Friday, October 7th, and to PROD environments during the first daily maintenance on Friday, October 21st.
Highlighted Updates Effective in the October 2022 update:
- Smart View has a new EPM Books extension that helps you import books into Excel 365 and work on them. Oracle also stated that they are releasing a new Smart View version (22.200) soon that will only fix defects – there will be no new features since the release in July 2022 (22.100). They haven’t stated a release date for this new version, so keep an eye out.
- Groovy: When creating data grid definitions using Groovy, you can now use the new FlexibleDataGridDefinitionBuilder to apply exclusions to the member selections. Also, in Smart View, you can now run Groovy rules from the right-click menu in forms in the context of selected cells. When running Groovy business rules from the right-click context menu in a form, the selected cells are available in the Groovy rule using isSelected() method on the grid cells.
- Four new log custom functions are now available to help debug any issues encountered when executing rules in Calculation Manager.
- @CalcMgrLogMessageTrace: Adds custom messages to the Log Messages tab after launching a rule in Calculation Manager.
- @CalcMgrIsValidMember: Returns “true” if the input in Member Name is a valid member.
- @CalcMgrIsValidSLMember: Returns “true” if the member associated with the numerical Smart List value is a valid member.
- @CalcMgrSLMember: Returns the member associated with the numerical Smart List value. This should save everyone about 4 function calls!
- For Account Reconciliation, the Reconciliation Comments report now displays comments for all reconciliations within a specified period. When there are multiple comments, a separate row is used to display the details for each comment. Additionally, Transactions Matching search functionality has been enhanced to make it easier to search for all transactions, including adjustments. Users can also filter and search for transactions across multiple data sources and/or adjustments within a match type.
Financial Consolidation and Close (in addition to the three new videos Oracle released, highlighted below):
- The configuration task to fix dimension properties has been enhanced to support additional dimensions. You can now use this configuration utility to fix issues in the Account, Data Source, Currency, Entity, Intercompany, Movement, Scenario, and Multi-GAAP dimensions.
- The Simplified Dimension Editor now includes a column in Dimension Properties for a description of the dimension member formula. You can also use the Simplified Dimension Editor to modify the Data Type for the Movement and Custom dimensions. In addition, it displays a warning during Metadata Validation if any non-Dynamic Calc member is set with the Two Pass calculation dimension property.
- The Consolidation Process translated tab includes a new option named “Translate Opening Balance Adjustment with Prior Rate”, where you can select to use the Average or Ending rate. This option is only available if the TranslateOBOCAcqDispAtPriorER substitution variable is set to True.
- Finally, a new automated integration process named “Monitor Enterprise Journals” has been added in Task Manager. This integration helps monitor the completion status of Enterprise Journals within a Year/Period or filtered list.
Profitability and Cost Management Updates:
- The Administering and Working with Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management Guide now includes information and examples about how system dimensions are used in rules. The documentation includes an overview of the PCM_Rule and PCM_Balance system dimensions, information on the PCM_Balance dimension members, and a PCM_Balance example.
- You can now access Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management data sources from Oracle Smart View.
- The Calculation Control page now includes a filter option that allows you to filter the points of view displayed by a specific Year, Period, Scenario, and Version.
- Two new optional Rule Set Range Parameters have been added to the “Generate Program Documentation Report – Run as Job” REST API.
- More Flexibility When Migrating Applications: When migrating an application from Profitability and Cost Management to Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, POV dimensions in the source application can now be mapped to standard Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management business dimensions, or they can be migrated as regular business dimensions without providing any mapping.
Helpful New Videos for FCCS and Connected Planning:
- For Financial Close and Consolidation, Oracle has released three new videos that give 3 to 5 minute overviews and step-by-step instructions.
- Overview: Approvals in Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close: This video provides an overview of the Approvals process in Financial Consolidation and Close. Approvals provide process controls to determine when users can add or modify data for an entity, and a multiple-level review and approval process that follows your company’s organization structure.
- Setting Up Approval Unit Hierarchies in Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close: Learn how to set up approval unit hierarchies in Financial Consolidation and Close. You learn how to add entities to approval unit hierarchies, select an approvals template, and assign owners and reviewers to entities.
- Setting Up Extended Approval Flows in Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close: Learn how to setup an extended approval flow in in Financial Consolidation and Close. You learn how enable extended approval flows in approval unit hierarchies, create approval groups and assign them to hierarchies, set up phase dependencies, and assign owners and reviewers to phases.
- Oracle has also release three new videos in their new series on Connected Planning, also each 3 to 5 minutes with step-by-step instructions. These videos present the overall connected planning solution and how planning solutions can be connected through cross pod smart push and navigation flows to provide a seamless experience for planners across different departments.
Workforce Updates:
This month, Oracle made several updates to Workforce so we thought they deserved their own section.
- There is a new Split-Funded FTE option in Workforce that allows an FTE to be split-funded across multiple sparse dimensions such as cost center, entity, project, and so on. An administrator enables Split-Funded FTE in Enable Features.
- Workforce also had several enhancements related to new hires:
- You can now perform merit-based planning for new hires, using Merit Based Planning with Default Merit rates, or using Merit Based Assumptions.
- Hiring Requisitions use Start Date and End Date instead of Start Year, Start Month and End Year, End Month.
- Several forms have been enhanced to show additional information such as Comments, Start Date and End Date, and Total Compensation.
- You can now change the start date of a new hire.
- A new Process New Hires mass update form enables you to quickly add new hires or change new hire reqs (for example, changing the start date or changing the end date) for multiple new hires at once.
- Some rules have been modified to support new hires.
- You can use Data Integration to load large numbers of new hires all at once.
- Workforce now includes enhancements to existing Mass Update forms:
- You can now make updates at the quarterly or yearly level for the years set with quarterly and yearly periodicity. Previously you could make updates only at the monthly level.
- Mass Update forms now include Hiring Requisitions. You can select a value for the user variable EmployeeParent to show either hiring requisitions, existing employees, or both.
- Mass Update forms now use Start Date and End Date instead of Start Year, Start Month and End Year, End Month.
- You can now change the Start Date and End Date for employees (new hires and existing employees) on the Mass Update forms. When you save the form, compensation is calculated for the modified rows.
- The Total Compensation column is displayed on Mass Update forms.
- The Headcount Assumption column is displayed on Mass Update forms.
- Additionally, a new Mass Update form, Process New Hires, is now available that enables you to quickly add new hires or change new hire requisitions (for example, changing the start date or end date) for multiple new hires at once.
- New User Variables: All users must set values for two new user variables: EmployeeParent and Period. EmployeeParent helps make forms more manageable by letting you include or exclude the employees to display on the forms based on the Employee Parent member you select, such as new hires or existing employees. Period allows Comments for New Hires to be displayed as well as Total Compensation for all Employees on the Mass Update forms.
- The option to enable Strategic Workforce Planning in Workforce is no longer available. Previously you could enable Strategic Workforce Planning as an option for Headcount Planning.
- The Total FTE account hierarchy and the descendants of Total Headcount have now been enabled in the Workforce Reporting (OEP_REP) cube. Previously, the Total FTE account hierarchy did not exist in the Workforce Reporting cube and Total Headcount was a Level 0 member without any of the detailed descendant account information. Now the full details of Total FTE and Total Headcount will be moved to the Workforce Reporting cube when you execute the Headcount and FTE Data for Reporting data map.
- Bulk Loading Workforce New Hire Data in Data Integration: In this update you can use Data Integration to integrate new hire bulk data to Workforce. You can load bulk new hires data or change new hire requisition data for multiple new hires at once.
For more details on any of these topics please take a look at the documentation here: Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management October 2022 What’s New