Guidelines for Working with Native Excel Formatting and Forms in EPM Cloud

Data source types: Planning, Planning Modules, Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Tax Reporting

• When designing a grid, care should be taken to avoid conflicts between custom Excel formatting and Oracle Smart View for Office cell styles.

• For some ad hoc analysis operations, not all Excel formatting may be preserved. You may need to reapply formatting after performing certain operations.

• When a saved ad hoc grid is opened, Smart View tries to preserve the formatting that was saved on the Planning server. For further ad hoc operations, existing formatting options apply; for example, Use Excel formatting or cell styles.

• To preserve custom Excel formatting on ad hoc operations, select the Use Excel Formatting and the Move formatting on operations options on the Formatting page of the Options dialog box.

• Formatting can affect performance, especially during ad hoc operations when the Move formatting on operations option is enabled.

• Saving formatting is not recommended on large forms (for example, forms of 20,000 or more cells).

• There are differences between grids rendered in Smart View and those rendered in the browser in the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud business process. When a saved grid is rendered in EPM Cloud, some formatting may not appear exactly as it does in Smart View. The business process will attempt to approximate the Smart View formatting.

• The administrator may have defined certain formatting on a form. End users can overwrite this formatting and save it on the form. It can then be merged with the administrator's formatting based on the option selected for this form by the administrator in the EPM Cloud business process. Refer to the EPM Cloud documentation for more information.

• Save formatting functionality is not supported on composite forms.

• Ad hoc analysis started from a saved grid will inherit the formatting options saved as part of the grid.

  To use Smart View Cell Styles or the Use Excel Formatting option for an ad hoc grid generated from a saved grid, complete the following steps:

  1. Open the saved grid as a form.

  2. In the Planning ribbon, Formatting group, select Apply, and then None.

  3. Click Save to save the form back to the EPM Cloud business process.

  4. Now use the saved form to perform ad hoc analysis.

• When user variables or substitution variables are on the POV (not on rows or columns), formatting is retained after changing the formatting of any user or substitution variable and refreshing the form.

• Excel formatting and custom styles are intended for use with static grids. Changes to the grid from the following operations can result in invalid formatting:

  • POV

  • Suppression options

  • Merged cells

  • Enabling or clearing the Repeat Member Labels options

  • Adding members to the form definition

  • Using user variables or substitution variables on rows or columns, and then changing any user or substitution variable.

    After saving the formatting, the form will only retain the formatting from the latest row and column combination.

Supported Native Excel Formatting summarizes the native Excel formatting supported by forms in Smart View, and whether the formatting is supported when the form is viewed in the web application.