Oracle SmartView - Enhancements to Active Connections in Smart View for Google Workspace

Enhancements to Active Connections in Smart View for Google Workspace

You can now switch connections for both forms and ad hoc grids between different environments using the Set Active Connections feature.

For example, you update a form or ad hoc grid when connected to an environment or server, and then switch connection to a different environment using the Set Active Connections feature, the changes are carried to the new connection upon refreshing the sheet.

The Active Connections dialog box is also enhanced to display the following details:

While setting an active connection on a form, you can view the application you are connecting to in the new Application field, and change it if required.

While setting an active connection on an ad hoc grid, you can view the application and the cube you are connecting to in the new Application and Cube fields, and change it if required.

While setting an active connection on a blank sheet, you must select the application and cube that you want to connect to from your data source.

Copy Version Action Now Restricted Based on Role in Smart View for Google Workspace

Copy Version action is now restricted based on role. Earlier, this action was available for all users, thus increasing the risk of overwriting or deleting data.

Copy Version action is removed from the Smart View for Google Workspace menu and the Favorites menu. Only users with authorized roles, like Service Administrators, can access the Copy Version action from the Actions menu and the right-click menu in the Smart View Home Panel.

Oracle SmartView - Removal of Support of Native Mode Option for Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior Application Setting

Removal of Support of Native Mode Option for Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior Application Setting

The Native mode option for the Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior application setting is no longer supported in Smart View. 

While customers can continue using Native mode, this mode is no longer supported for escalations and enhancements.

Standard is the ad hoc mode upon which all enhancements in Cloud EPM are being delivered.

Oracle stopped supporting Native mode at the end of year 2024. Customers on Native mode are advised to convert the Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior application setting for their environments to Standard mode and test their use cases.

Any gaps found should be logged as an enhancement to Standard mode. Enhancements should be logged on the Customer Connect EPM Platform Idea Lab as soon as possible for Oracle to review.

Perform the following steps to begin working with Standard mode:

1. In Application Settings, change Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior to Standard.
2. In Smart View, open worksheets created in Native mode and reconnect.
3. Refresh the sheets.

NOTES:

• The expectation for existing Native mode worksheets is that they will work “as is” when the setting is changed to Standard. New ad hoc sheets will only be created in Standard mode using Standard features.

• Smart Forms are not supported in Standard mode. There is no plan to support them in Standard mode.

For additional information, see Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior Option and Saved Ad Hoc Grids in Working with Oracle Smart View for Office.

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

Oracle EPM to replace Slash Symbol(/) in Folder Names !

Oracle EPM plan's to Replace the Slash Symbol (/) in Folder Names with a Space Character

Starting with the September 2025 (25.09) update, if a folder name contains the slash symbol (/), it will be replaced with a space character. 

This is to ensure that the daily backup is created without issues. Currently, if a folder name contains a slash symbol (/), all the artifacts in that folder are not backed up, failing the daily backup.

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

Using Oracle EPM Automate to Import Enterprise Journals

 Import Dimension Members for Supplemental Data Manager and Enterprise Journals Using EPM Automate

You can now import the dimension members for Supplemental Data Manager and Enterprise Journals using EPM Automate. 

The new EPM Automate commands are importSDMDimensionMembers and importEJDimensionMembers.

NOTE: Enterprise Journals applies only to Financial Consolidation and Close.

Applies To: Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting

Business Benefit: This feature streamlines the Supplemental Data Manager and Enterprise Journals processes and helps to significantly reduce the time spent on data maintenance by providing the ability to automate the bulk update of dimension members on your predefined schedule.

Oracle Hyperion 11.2.21 released April 2025 !!

Overview

This Quarterly Release Update is distributed as an OPatch containing OPatches for individual EPM system components. Release 11.2.21 is a cumulative update that includes all updates from Release 11.2.15. This update can be applied on top of Release 11.2.20.

For a list of OPatches for individual EPM system components, see OPatch Dependencies and Details.

Oracle recommends that you read the 11.2.21 Readme Guide before applying the patch to Release 11.2.21.

Release 11.2.21 (Release 11.2, Update 21) includes the following deliverables:

• Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System - 11.2.21.0.000 for Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit)
• Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System - 11.2.21.0.000 for Linux x86-64
• Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System - Client Installers 11.2.21.0.000 for Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit)
• Oracle Data Relationship Management 11.2.21.0.000 for Microsoft Windows (64 bit)

https://docs.oracle.com/en/applications/enterprise-performance-management/11.2/rmapl/index.html

Oracle EPM - Summarizing Insights with Generative AI !!

 Summarizing Insights with Generative AI

Insights now provides the ability to use Generative AI (GenAI) to automatically generate a narrative summary for a single insight or group of insights.

Applies To: Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, FreeForm, Planning, Tax Reporting

Insight summaries can be used in these ways:

• For a single insight, to provide additional context beyond the brief rule-based description in the insight.
• For multiple insights, based on a parent member, generate a summary that evaluates the parent member and all of their children. 
• This summary can help you zero in on the root cause for the insight and makes it easy to share an analysis of a set of insights with colleagues.

For a single insight, GenAI evaluates the existing analysis, metrics, methods, and rule-based summary, and using Large Language Models, generates a meaningful narrative description of the insight:

Steps to Enable

To enable Generative AI to summarize insights:

• From the Home Page, click Application, and then click Settings.
• In the Enable AI section, select Generative AI to enable insight summaries.

Tips And Considerations

• Insight summaries use GenAI. Output from GenAI may not always be factual, accurate, or appropriate. You are responsible for reviewing and using GenAI output at your discretion.  
• The Insights Generative AI summary feature requires an EPM Enterprise Cloud service subscription.
• For the initial release, narratives are generated in English only.
• Summaries are available for all insight types.
• For narrative summaries for multiple insights, the analysis reviews and summarizes only a single insight type at a time.
• Administrators need to re-run existing insights for users to be able to see the AI summary.
• The GenAI feature is available only for OCI environments, and it is not yet available in all OCI regions. To view the regions where it is available, refer to Availability of Generative AI in the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Operations Guide.

NEW Oracle SmartView with inclusion of IPM in the April 2025 updates !!

 New Version of Oracle Smart View for Office

Oracle Smart View for Office version 25.100 is available from My Oracle Support and Oracle Technical Resources (formerly Oracle Technology Network).

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

The following new features are included:

• Use IPM Insights in Smart View
• Set Default POV for Private and Named Connections
• Enhancements in Inserted Reports:
  • Insert Same Report Multiple Times
  • Refresh All Reports at Once
• Constants Added to HypGetOption / HypSetOption VBA Functions
• Smart View Version Check when Installing Extensions

Business Benefit: This Smart View release includes the latest features, improvements, and defect fixes.

Downloading and Installing Clients

You can download components and utilities from the Downloads page, including Oracle Smart View for Office, which is available on the Oracle Technology Network.

o install clients:

1. Sign in to an environment. See Accessing Cloud EPM and Oracle Enterprise Data Management Cloud Environments.
2. On the Home page, access Settings and Actions by clicking your user name at the top right corner of the screen.
3. Click Downloads.
   The Downloads page opens. This page lists only the components applicable to the service that you are currently accessing.
4. Download the component that you want to install:
   For Smart View only:
   1. Click Download from Oracle Technology Network.
      The Oracle Technology Network download page is displayed.
   2. Click Download Latest Version.
   3. Select Accept License Agreement, and then click Download Now.
   4. If prompted to sign in, enter your Oracle Technology Network credentials and click Sign In.
   5. Follow the on-screen instructions and save the Smart View archive to a local folder.
   6. Unzip the Smart View archive to extract SmartView.exe.
   7. Close all Microsoft Office applications.
   For components other than Smart View:
   1. In the Downloads page, click the Download button of the component that you want to install.
   2. Follow the on-screen instructions and save the installer to a local folder.
5. Run the installer (for example, SmartView.exe) as an administrator.

   Note:

   Before installing Smart View or any Smart View extension, close all Microsoft Office applications.

   Some Smart View extensions use the SVEXT extension. Double-click the downloaded file and follow the onscreen prompts to install it.

Oracle Reports - Using the Zoom Summary Type in Reports GenAI

 Using the Zoom Summary Type in Reports GenAI

The AutoTextSummary text function allows you to set three parameters: Auto Text Summary Zoom Type, Auto Text Summary Level/Generation, and Top/Bottom number. 

The "ZOOM" Summary Type for the AutoTextSummary text function contains extra parameters that can be set to improve the GenAI narrative output.

Previously, the use case for describing causality for exceptions detailed the top three contributing children for the specified analytic dimension (typically row members).  

Starting with the March (25.03) update, additional optional AutoTextSummary text function parameters are added to expand on the existing functionality:

• Top/Bottom number: Defines how many contributors are returned.
• Auto Text Summary Zoom Type: Select if RELATIVEGENERATION or LEVEL is used to return the contributors.  
• Auto Text Summary Level/Generation: Defines the RELATIVEGENERATION or LEVEL number that is used to return the contributors.  

NOTE: The Reports GenAI feature is a decision support tool. End users make any final decision regarding the interpretation of the information it provides. AI should be treated as a decision-support tool only. Always review AI-generated content and verify its accuracy before using or relying on it.

Business Benefit: The Zoom Summary Type is being utilized in Reports Generative AI (GenAI), enabling efficient data collection and analysis.

Oracle Support for Time Period Spreading and Grid Spreading in Flex Forms

 New Oracle Support for Time Period Spreading and Grid Spreading in Flex Forms

Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser) now supports the spreading of data for periods and grid spreading in flex forms. This ability was earlier restricted to regular forms only.

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

To perform period spreading, select the Spreading Enabled check box in the Data tab in Smart View Options and then enter the new value you need to spread across time periods as per the defined spreading rules.

To perform grid spreading, you can enter a value or percentage to increase or decrease an existing value or enter a new spread value. 

The value is spread to the related cells as per the selected spread pattern.

Business Benefit: Users now have the same capability of spreading data in flex forms, just the way they use spreading in regular forms.

Tips And Considerations

Spreading is supported only in cases where the Period dimension is not a flex-enabled. 

If the Period dimension is in a column, then flex should not be enabled on columns. Similarly, if the Period dimension is in a row, then flex should not be enabled on rows.

Spreading Data for Time Periods

In a form, the spreading rules for time periods are set in the web application as part of the dimension property settings.

When you work with a form in Smart View, and depending on how the form was set up by the administrator, data values can be spread, or distributed, in several ways:

• Spread the value of a summary time period to its base time periods or to the first parent or first child of the parent time period
• Spread values among children and parents proportionally, based on existing distribution
• Spread values based on the weekly distribution of a quarter, which could be 4-4-5, 5-4-4, 4-5-4, or None (as set up by the budget administrator)
• Temporarily lock the values of certain cells while spreading data over time periods (see Spreading Data with Cell Locking)
• Spread values for different time periods using a different spreading rule for each separate time period on the same row or column dimension. For example, FY2018 can have formula fill, and FY2019 can have flow.

Oracle EPM and New Visible Cards Limit on the Home Page Increased to 20

Oracle team has increased the number of top-level items (cards and clusters) from 16 visible items on the Home page to 20.

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

Previously, we allowed no more than 16 visible cards on the Home page. Because we've restructured the Home page to see individual cards for Reports, Financial Reports, and Documents, we're increasing the visible cards limit to 20.

Business Benefit: Increasing the visible card limit on the Home page provides an optimal user experience.

New Cards on the Home Page for Financial Reports

The Reports card tabs (Reports, Financial Reports, and Documents) now display as individual cards on the Home page.

Previously, the Reports card consisted of three tabs: Reports, Financial Reports, and Documents. 

After restructuring, you see individual cards for Reports, Financial Reports, and Documents on the Home page.

Oracle EPM and Big Pipeline Changes !

Oracle has made some exciting changes in the Feb 2025 update for the pipeline functionality.  

- For those of us with large pipelines that become very small and difficult to manage in the graphical interface, we finally have a table view below:

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

- Another change is the removal of the auto-save functionality.  This is a massive update for those of us who really hate autosave.  

- It should be noted that you now have to click Save when you actually want your changes to be saved.  

- Another nice new feature with the addition of the runPipeline command for EPM Automate.  Anyone running a hybrid setup with pipelines baked into on-premise orchestration will love this, as the only method available to do this previously required the REST API.

Oracle EPM and ability to Drill into an Ad Hoc Grid from a Dashboard 2.0 Chart

Ability to Drill into an Ad Hoc Grid from a Dashboard 2.0 Chart​

- You can now create an ad hoc grid directly from a chart within Dashboard 2.0.​

- You can create an ad hoc grid by right-clicking a chart element; for example, right-clicking on a bar within a Bar chart, and then clicking Analyze to open ad hoc in a dynamic tab. The Analyze option opens ad hoc for the intersection represented by the chart element.​

- To drill into an ad hoc grid from a chart in a Dashboard 2.0 dashboard:​

1. Open a dashboard in Dashboard 2.0.​

2. Right-click a chart element, and then select Analyze to view the chart intersection in ad hoc.​

Note the following:​

- Analyze only works for chart elements built on a form.​

- Analyze is supported for all Dashboard 2.0 chart types except for Geomaps.​

- For charts built on a form with a formula row or column, clicking Analyze will not perform any action after right-clicking the chart element that corresponds to the formula row/column (like a bar in a Bar chart).​

- Analyze is not supported for Quick Analysis charts.