Introducing Cloud EPM System Reports in December 2024 release

- You can now generate Cloud EPM System Reports within Reports, specifically for the Cloud EPM business processes and components, such as Task Manager, Supplemental Data, and Enterprise Journals. 

- You can embed Data Tables within Reports to include system data, as required. 

- You can accomplish this by inserting a relational table into a report, connecting to a Cloud EPM business process schema, selecting members, and then generating a system report based on Cloud EPM relational system data. 

- You can also use some of the grid features in tables, such as member selector, prompts and POV, formatting, sorting, drill to content, conditional formatting/suppression, formulas, and grouping. The other Report features available with relational tables are charts, text boxes, books, bursting, and Excel output (reports only).

- In addition to Cloud EPM System Reports, you can also view the detailed descriptions of the Cloud EPM System Report data sources in a newly introduced Cloud EPM System Reporting Schema Reference Guide. This guide provides information about Report Tables, and how to incorporate additional Cloud EPM System Tables within your report. 

For more details, see Cloud EPM System Reporting Schema Reference Guide.

Import Reports Containing Relational Tables in Smart View

-You can now import formatted reports containing relational tables from Narrative Reporting and Reports in Smart View.

- To import a report with relational table, in the Smart View Home panel, navigate to the Reports folder. 

- Then, select the required report and click Import Formatted Report. 

- The report opens and displays the formatted relational tables. 

- You can click Refresh Report in the Smart View ribbon to get the latest data, if required. However, the options of Edit POV, Edit Prompts, and Analyze remain disabled for reports with relational tables and will be made available in a future release.

- Similarly, in Books, you can import a book that contains a report with a relational table in Smart View. However, the option of Edit POV is disabled for such reports.

Oracle EPM SmartView and using Flex Forms

 Use Flex Forms in Smart View (Mac and Browser)

You can now use flex forms in Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser). Earlier, flex forms were available for use only in Oracle Smart View for Office.

Applies to: Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Tax Reporting

Flex forms are a form type that provide flexible row management in Smart View (Mac and Browser). 

Flex forms retain all regular form properties and features, such as running business rules attached to the flex form. 

Additionally, using flex forms, you can rearrange row members and sort or move rows. 

You can also open a flex form in ad hoc mode and use ad hoc analysis to modify the grid layout and submit data.

Business Benefit: Flex forms provide benefits of both forms and ad hoc grids, thus offering users the flexibility of ad hoc grid operations while ensuring the usability, control, and security of forms.

Steps to Enable

To enable flex forms during form definition in the web application, Service Administrators select Enable flex form on rows, Enable flex form on columns, or both options, under Smart View Options in the Layout tab to enable flex form-specific features.

Oracle EPM Dec 2024 update for SmartView !!

 Invalid Members and Comments Retained in Ad Hoc Grids After Refresh

In Smart View ad hoc grids, you can now retain invalid members after refresh when the Service Administrator enables the new Keep Invalid Members/Comments option in the application settings of your business process.

Applies to: Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Tax Reporting

When the Keep Invalid Members/Comments option is enabled, you can detect:

• Unknown or invalid members on a grid
• Text typed outside the grid; for example, your own notes

Additionally, you can set a cell style for comments in Smart View that allows you to quickly and easily spot comment cells, including invalid or unknown members in the grid or pertinent notes you may have made on a sheet outside of the grid.

In the following example, the cell style for Comments is set to a pink background with bolded italic text. Two errors were made when entering member names. 

After refreshing the grid, note the invalid members in cells C2 and A4. Also note that the data entered remains on the grid and the data cells associated with the invalid members have no formatting applied.

Portion of a Smart View Ad Hoc Grid Showing Invalid Members

Users can replace the invalid members with the correct member names by using the Member Selection dialog or by hand-typing the correct member name. Refresh the grid again and note that the row member is placed correctly within the hierarchy and the data remains.

Portion of a Smart View Ad Hoc Grid After Correcting Invalid Members and Refreshing

Business Benefit: This feature allows users to quickly identify invalid members and comments in an ad hoc grid without losing their work during a refresh.

Steps to Enable

To enable users to retain invalid members in an ad hoc grid after a refresh:

1. In the web business process, click Application, and then click Settings.

2. In Application Settings, under Smart View Add-on, select the Keep Invalid Members/Comments check box. This check box is disabled by default.

3. Click Save.

Tips And Considerations

• In Smart View, invalid members are considered comments. Use Cell Styles to set a distinct style for comments to quickly note invalid members and comments on an ad hoc sheet.
• In multi-dimension rows and columns, changing the member in the first column in the first row dimension or any of the rows in the first member column of the grid will result in an error. Changes to any other member cells will work as expected.

Oracle EPM - Use Flex Forms in Smart View (Mac and Browser)

You can now use flex forms in Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser). 

Earlier, flex forms were available for use only in Oracle Smart View for Office.

Applies to: Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Tax Reporting

Flex forms are a form type that provide flexible row management in Smart View (Mac and Browser). Flex forms retain all regular form properties and features, such as running business rules attached to the flex form. 

Additionally, using flex forms, you can rearrange row members and sort or move rows. 

You can also open a flex form in ad hoc mode and use ad hoc analysis to modify the grid layout and submit data.

Business Benefit: Flex forms provide benefits of both forms and ad hoc grids, thus offering users the flexibility of ad hoc grid operations while ensuring the usability, control, and security of forms.

Steps to Enable

To enable flex forms during form definition in the web application, Service Administrators select Enable flex form on rows, Enable flex form on columns, or both options, under Smart View Options in the Layout tab to enable flex form-specific features.

Oracle EPM Reports - Run Time Prompts features

 Respond to Prompts While Running Books​

- Book users can now respond to prompts when executing a book.​

- Previously in books, any reports with prompts within the book needed to have the prompt selection defined by the book designer; prompts were not answerable by book users.​

- In this release, book users can now respond to prompts when executing a book, as well as have duplicate prompts combined to a single prompt. 

- Designers can still define prompt selections, if needed, for specific prompts if the selection needs to be hardcoded and not selectable by the book user.​

 

 

Oracle EPM - Display Design-Time Formatting in Forms 2.0​

Display Design-Time Formatting in Forms 2.0​

In Smart View, you can now display formatting defined in the form when working with Forms 2.0.​

In 24.11+, form designers can add formatting rules to forms configured for Forms 2.0. This is often referred to as "design-time formatting."  

In Smart View, using the Apply options in the Formatting group on the provider ribbon, you can display cell styles, native Excel formatting, or the design-time formatting as follows:​

Cell Styles: Applies only cell styles to the form, such as read-only cells, locked cells, supporting detail, attachments, and so on. No custom (format-only) rules are applied. ​

Custom Styles: Applies format-only rules that were defined in the rule builder at design-time and Excel custom formatting that users can add in Smart View. 

No cell styles (such as read-only cells, locked cells, supporting detail, attachments, and so on) are applied.​

Custom and Cell Styles (default): Applies both cell styles (such as read-only cells, locked cells, supporting detail, attachments, and so on) and format rules (including Excel custom formatting added in Smart View) to the form. 

This is the default style option.

Oracle EPM using the Trace Traffic Tool

 

Oracle EPM Trace Traffic Tool

Use the Trace Traffic tool to view network traffic logs easily in real time, capture them, and import them for further diagnostics.

Oracle Smart View for Office's built-in Trace Traffic tool helps users to view and capture network traffic details specific to Smart View in real time, and improves Oracle Support's ability to debug issues.

The Trace Traffic tool is available starting in Smart View release 24.200.

Using the Trace Traffic tool, you can:

• View network traffic logs easily in real time while capturing them, described in Viewing and Capturing Network Traffic Logs
• Import captured network traffic logs for further diagnostics, described in Importing Captured Network Traffic Logs

Viewing and Capturing Network Traffic Logs

You can either start diagnostics before starting the network traffic trace or you can directly start tracing network traffic without starting the diagnostics first. Network traffic logs are also captured when you use the Start Diagnostics option. However, with the Trace Traffic option, you can view the request and response logs in real time in the Network Traffic Trace dialog.

To view and capture network traffic logs in real time:

1. On the Smart View ribbon, under Diagnostics, click Trace Traffic.

   Note:

   The Diagnostics group actions appear on the Smart View ribbon when you enable the Show Diagnostics Group on Smart View Ribbon option in the Options dialog, Advanced tab.

2. In the Network Traffic Trace dialog, select the Smart View Traffic option from the Capture list, and click Start Capturing.

   You can view the network traffic details comprising the request and response logs getting captured in a chronological order.

   • To see the request and response timestamps for each log entry, select the Show Times check box
   • To clear all the request and responses that you can view in the current session in the Network Traffic Trace dialog, click Clear. Note that only the view is cleared. The network traffic log files are not deleted from the Diagnostics folder.

   Note:

   • Once clicked, the Start Capturing button toggles to Stop Capturing .
   • You can always start tracing traffic without starting the diagnostics first. When you click Start Capturing in the Network Traffic Trace dialog, the Start Diagnostics menu automatically toggles to Stop Diagnostics indicating that the diagnostics are being captured along with traffic details.
3. Once you have captured the actions you want to trace, then click Stop Capturing and click Close to close the Network Traffic Trace dialog.

   The network traffic logs are stored in the Diagnostics folder in this default location:

   C:\Users\[computeruserfolder]\AppData\Roaming\Oracle\SmartView\Diagnostics

Oracle Hyperion 11.2.19 release Oct 24 2024 Update

 Oracle Hyperion 11.2.19 includes the following new features

• Essbase 21c (version 21.6) is now certified and supported.
• Microsoft Active Directory 2022 is now certified and supported.
• Support for Non-SYSDBA Users for Essbase Configuration.
• Java 8 Update 421.
• WebLogic Patch Set Update 12.2.1.4.240710.
• Application Data Framework (ADF) Bundle Patch 12.2.1.4.240605.
• Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 19c Bundle Patch 12.2.1.4.240619.
• There are no Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) Patches in Release 11.2.19.
• Starting with Release 11.2.17, dependency on Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 has been removed and Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System will not be installing Visual C++ 2010. 
• However if it is already installed, it won’t be uninstalled. Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System will function with or without Visual C++ 2010. 
• If you want Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 to be removed from your machine, see Removing Visual C++ 2010 for more details.

Oracle EPM Planning Audit Feature and Reporting !

Oracle EPM Audit feature provides a huge amount of information that can help Administrators troubleshoot a variety of issues.

The number of tasks available to audit has steadily increased over the last few years. As of today, there are 18 items available to audit.

The most useful features so far that I have found are Data, Dimension Administration, and Launch Business Rules. Analyzing these has helped me to troubleshoot issues with data, who ran a rule and when, or if the metadata has been altered. 

But by having all enabled, I can review many other types of changes that have occurred. 

And all of it is exportable to an Excel file. Plus, it might be the easiest thing to configure in Planning.

To get started, auditing needs to be enabled. 

Go to Navigator > Tools > Audit.

Click on Enable Auditing and select all the available items in the list, then click Save and Close.

Once auditing has been enabled for a few days, you will be able to see all the information.

From the Audit Filter page, you can review or select various tasks for your reports.

Select a date range for the information. You cannot select a range greater than 180 days from here, but you can select up to 365 days by using EPM Automate.

The page will display the first 200 records. Click Export to export to an Excel file.

EPM Automate Support of Task Manager Commands

EPM Automate Support of Task Manager Commands

EPM Automate now supports the following Task Manager-related commands:

• deployTaskManagerTemplate
• exportTaskManagerAccessControl
• runTaskManagerReport
• setDemoDates

deployTaskManagerTemplate: This command deploys tasks from a Task Manager template into a task schedule ensuring consistent execution of repetitive business processes.

exportTaskManagerAccessControl: This command exports the details of users assigned to work within Task Manager to an Excel or CSV file.

runTaskManagerReport: This command generates reports that display data from Task Manager.

setDemoDates: This command helps you update the dates associated with tasks in Oracle internal demo data such as start date and end date of tasks, and ancillary dates including those of history, individual workflow due dates, and start date (actual).

Business Benefit: These commands enable the remote administration of Task Manager-related operations in Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management environments.