Oracle Enterprise Data Management 24.03 Release - EDMCS

 Highlights of the Oracle Enterprise Data Management 24.03 Release

Oracle has developed a cadence with the monthly releases of Oracle Enterprise Data Management (EDM). About once a quarter, in the monthly release will be a “Feature drop”, containing numerous enhancements. 

Typically, these land in March, June, September, and December of the calendar year.

Property Configuration Audit

• From the Audit screen, select the Audit Type of Properties, then select one or All properties and a preset or custom date range. As with the other Audit Types, you can download the results to a formatted Excel file.
• You can audit System Events, including a category called “Metadata”. 
• Metadata, means technical metadata involving EDM artifacts like data chain objects, lookup sets, and viewpoints. You can see the Create and Delete actions that have occurred on any metadata object. file.

Blockout Period Enhancements

There are two important enhancements to note.

• Recurring Blockout
• You can now establish recurring blockout periods! Select the Period for blockout (month end, quarter end, year end, fiscal quarter end, or fiscal year end). Then specify the number of days before and after the period to establish your date range. 
• Now you have established your blockout periods in advance and don’t have to remember to come back each month and update them!

Notes

• The number of days is calendar days, not work days.
• You can specify a negative number to start the blockout prior to the start of the period.
• Blockout periods can now be set at a dimension level, with the same options available as the Application Blockout, including Recurring blockout types.

Here is a pic to demonstrate:

Oracle Hyperion Patches and Grace Period information for End Date

 Follow Matrix highlights the Grace Period End Date for Hyperion On-premise releases:

Product  Release	Release Update	Supported Platform(s)	Version Release Date	Grace Period End Date	Comments
11.2	11.2.17.0.000	Windows, Linux	April 2024	TBD
	11.2.16.0.000	Windows, Linux	January 2024	January 2025
	11.2.15.0.000	Windows, Linux	November 2023	October 2024
	11.2.14.0.000	Windows, Linux	July 2023	August 2024
	11.2.13.0.000	Windows, Linux	April 2023	April 2024
	11.2.12.0.000	Windows, Linux	January 2023	January 2024
	11.2.11.0.000	Windows, Linux	October 2022	October 2023
	11.2.10.0.000	Windows, Linux	July 2022	July 2023
	11.2.9.0.000	Windows, Linux	April 2022	April 2023
	11.2.8.0.000	Windows, Linux	February 2022	January 2023
	11.2.7.0.000	Windows, Linux	October 2021	November 2022

How to Administer EPM Financial Consolidation and Close FCCS Jobs ?

 Scheduling Jobs in FCCS

You can schedule when to run jobs (now or at a future time) and how often (once, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly).

To schedule jobs:

1. On the Home page, click Application.
2. Click Jobs.
3. Click Schedule Jobs.
4. On the Schedule Job page, General tab, select the type of job:

   • Rules—Launches a business rule. The Business Rules page lists the business rules that were created for the application.

   • Import Data—Performs a data import operation that was saved as a job.

   • Import Metadata—Performs a metadata import operation that was saved as a job.

   • Export Data—Performs a data export operation that was saved as a job.

   • Export Metadata—Performs a metadata export operation that was saved as a job.

   • Refresh Database—Refreshes the application database.

   • Invalid Intersection Reports—Runs a report that shows where data exists at invalid intersections.

   • Restructure Cube—From Cube, select the cube to restructure. Performs a full restructure of a Block Storage cube (BSO) to eliminate or reduce fragmentation. This will also remove empty blocks. It is not applicable for an Aggregate Storage cube (ASO). 

   • Import Journal—Performs a journal import operation.

   • Import Journal Template—Performs a journal template import operation.

   • Export Journal—Performs a journal export operation.

   • Export Journal Template—Performs a journal template export operation.

   • Run Intercompany Report—Runs an Intercompany Report.

   • Run Consolidation Trail Report—Runs a Consolidation Trail Report.

   • Administration Mode—Changes the login level for an application. If you select Administrators, all non-administrative users will be logged off from the application after job execution. To restore access to an application for all users, select All users.

   • Execute Bursting Definition—Runs a saved bursting definition for Reports. You can run a single report or book for more than one member of a single dimension for one data source, and publish a PDF output for each member. See the "About Bursting" section in Designing with Reports for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud.

   • Import Invalid Intersections—Performs an Invalid Intersection import operation.

   • Export Invalid Intersections—Performs an Invalid Intersection export operation.

   • Integration Pipeline—Runs a Pipeline definition. This job supports running a Pipeline based on the parameters and variables that were defined for the Pipeline in the Data Integration user interface; for example, Start Period and Import Mode.

     Select when to run the job:

5. • Run Now

   • Schedule starting from, and then select the date, time, and time zone.

     Note:

     To prevent automatic backup from failing due to certain jobs running during daily maintenance, EPM Cloud disallows certain jobs from starting while the daily maintenance process is running. If the system prevents a job from starting, the reason will be stated in the Job Details. If you've enabled email notifications for the Job Console, you'll receive an email notification when a job does not start. If you have a job that is scheduled to start during the daily maintenance process, it is recommended that you reschedule your job to start outside of the daily maintenance window.
6. Enter a Name for the job; for example, MyWeeklyCubeRefresh.

   In the job listing in the Jobs console, the name that you enter displays along with a system-generated job name; for example, MyWeeklyCubeRefresh: Refresh Database.

7. For Recurrence pattern, select how often to run the job:

   • Run Once

   • Daily

   • Weekly

   • Monthly

   • Yearly

8. Optional: To enter an end date, click the End Date checkbox, and then select the date and time.
9. Click Next to continue.
10. The Job Details page lists the operations that were saved as a job. Select a job, and click Next.
11. From the Review page, review your selections.

    • To continue, click Finish.

    • To make changes, click Previous.

    • To cancel the job, click Cancel.

Oracle EPM EPBCS update for New PLANNING APPLICATION TYPE

EPM SPOTLIGHT: PREDICTIVE CASH FORECASTING - NEW PLANNING APPLICATION TYPE

• Predictive Cash Forecasting is a Planning application type designed to help treasurers and cash managers perform short-term tactical or mid-term operational cash forecasting. 
• It allows for daily, weekly, or monthly rolling forecasts that can be generated for operational, financial, and investing cash flow line items. 
• It is built using a direct cash flow method and enables decision-making and actions for cash optimization across multiple legal entities within the business. 
• Additionally, it provides an overview of the organization's overall cash position at each level of the legal hierarchy.

With Predictive Cash Forecasting, you can:

1. Optimize cash by finding problems and opportunities earlier with increased automation and more frequent cash forecast updates.
2. Take action faster by aligning stakeholders and unifying scenario planning with corrective actions.
3. Enable operational improvements through deeper insights into order-to-cash and procure-to-pay.

Predictive Cash Forecasting provides pre-built, best practice out-of-box content including a dimensional model, line items, forecast methods, forms, dashboards, rules, and role-based navigation flows.

Predictive Cash Forecasting provides line items along with the ability to add any additional line items you require. 

Cash line items drive the various cash inflows, cash outflows, and the balances for a cash forecast. 

Line items are organized under the structure of Operating Cash Flows, Investing Cash Flows, and Financing Cash Flows.

Cash Managers use the Summary dashboard to review daily cashflows, operating and non operating cashflow, and daily or periodic cash position by entity, along with KPIs:

Predictive Cash Forecasting allows for daily, weekly, or monthly rolling forecasts. 

STEPS TO ENABLE

To enable Predictive Cash Forecasting:

1. Create a new Planning application of type Cash Forecasting.
2. At the end of the Application Creation wizard, click Configure. Or, from the Home page, click Application and then click Configure.
3. Click Enable Features.
4. Select the features you want to enable, and then click Enable. When you click Enable, the Predictive Cash Forecasting artifacts are populated, including dimensions, forms, line items, rules, navigation flows, and so on.
5. Sign out and sign back in to start using Predictive Cash Forecasting.

Oracle Release Updates ARCS - Account Reconciliation - April 2024

EFFICIENT MANAGEMENT AND RUNNING OF ACCOUNT RECONCILIATION JOBS

- Account Reconciliation identifies user jobs that could conflict with other jobs and provides execution sequencing routines that prevent conflicting jobs from running simultaneously. When users run a job that could conflict with an ongoing job, this job is added to a queue and is run after the ongoing job completes. 

- The Job Details dialog includes information about the parameters used to run the job. In case of a conflict, the dialog includes the name of the job that is conflicting with the current user job.

- The user who submits a job receives an email notification if the job is delayed, ends in an error, or is deferred.

- The Job Summary panel provides summary statistics for the jobs run. Details for each type of job include the total time taken, the average time taken, and the number of times this type of job was run. 

- You can use filters to specify the time period for which jobs are displayed.

- Business Benefit: This feature helps manage jobs efficiently and ensures application and data integrity. Email notifications about the status of user jobs provides enhanced user experience.

NEW REPORT FOR COSMETIC CHANGES IN TRANSACTION MATCHING

- For Transaction Matching profiles that are integrated with Reconciliation Compliance, the Cosmetic Changes Report displays all cosmetic changes for a reconciliation during a specified Period. 

- Cosmetic changes are operational changes made after a reconciliation is submitted and they do not result in the reconciliation being reopened.

- Business Benefit: This feature enhances usability by providing a single report containing all cosmetic changes made to a particular reconciliation. Auditors can also easily view and track changes made to a reconciliation from the time it was submitted until date.

NEW COLUMNS WHILE LOADING TRANSACTIONS FROM CAMT.053 FORMAT BANK STATEMENTS

- Additional columns have been added when using Data Integration to load transactions from camt.053 format bank statements.

- Business Benefit: This feature provides improved flexibility and usability when using camt.053 format bank files for loading transactions.

Oracle EPM - ALLOWING NON-ADMINISTRATORS TO EXECUTE JOBS IN THE PIPELINE

24.04 - Data Integration Pipeline in EPM Cloud - April update

- Non-administrators can now execute an individual Pipeline job type using proxy administrator user credentials. Optionally, non-administrator users can also view Pipelines in read-only mode (cannot edit or create a pipeline) depending on the user group access granted to them in Location Security.

- To create a proxy server user credential, an administrator with a service administrator role (can grant user roles), specifies a proxy admin username on the Create Pipeline page.  

- If the proxy user name is different than the service administrator's username, then the system prompts the user to enter a password.

- If the user executing a job is a non-administrator and no proxy admin user credentials are specified, the system executes all jobs as non-administrator users. 

- In this case, the Pipeline can only include jobs that do not require a service administrator to execute them, for example an integration job. 

- If jobs require an service administrative to execute them and a non-administrator without a proxy administrator user credentials attempts to execute them, then the Pipeline process fails.

- Location Security is an additional framework in which service administrators can secure access to the Pipeline. When Location Security is enabled, Data Integration evaluates the user groups by location to which a user has been assigned.

Below is an image of the Pipeline parameters:

Oracle EPM Cloud - Improved REDWOOD experience in EPM Cloud

- Newly created or re-created EPM Cloud services, business processes, and applications now use Redwood Experience as the default theme. 

- The Redwood Experience offers a default Oracle theme and these two additional appearance options: 

1 - Custom Light and Custom Dark. 

The appearance of all EPM Cloud environments that currently use the Redwood Experience will automatically be shifted to either the default Oracle theme or the Custom Dark theme based on currently deployed background appearance of these environments.  

Redwood Experience not only provides an attractive look and feel, but it also includes the following new features:

1. Adhoc on Web
2. Calc on the Fly
3. Dashboard 2.0
4. Dynamic tabs
5. Forms 2.0
6. Horizontal tabs at the bottom of the page
7. IPM Insight

Oracle recommends that you switch to the Redwood Experience at the earliest.

In a later update planned for the second quarter of 2024, Oracle will automatically convert non-Redwood theme environments to the Redwood Experience.