Introduction
This tutorial introduces you to Planning in the Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Cloud Service.
Background
Planning is a budgeting and forecasting solution that integrates financial and operational planning processes and improves forecast accuracy.
The Planning application is a related set of dimensions and dimension members used to meet a set of planning needs.
Each Planning application has its own accounts, entities, scenarios, and other data elements.
Planning administration tasks include:
- Creating, deleting, and managing a Planning application
- Creating forms, task lists, and menus
- Managing currency conversions and exchange rates
- Identifying the review and approval process, requirements, and participants, and managing the budgeting process
Cloud EPM Business Processes
Connected Planning
Oracle Cloud EPM helps align planning across the enterprise. Respond to change faster—and more effectively—by developing agile forecasts for all lines of business. Create long-range forecasts for unpredictable business dynamics using sophisticated, built-in scenario modeling. Gain insight into dimensions of cost and profitability to determine where to invest limited resources. FreeForm business process due to its flexible dimension structure is amenable to any business planning and reporting process that needs to be connected.
- Planning
- FreeForm
- Profitability and Cost Management is a business process with two application types:
- Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management
- Profitability and Cost Management
Connected Financial Close
Oracle Cloud EPM enables organizations to adapt quickly to changing business and compliance requirements while reducing risk, improving controls, and delivering faster, more accurate insights to all stakeholders—anytime, anywhere.
- Account Reconciliation
- Financial Consolidation and Close
- Tax Reporting
Reporting
With Narrative Reporting, businesses of all sizes can streamline reporting processes and combine data plus narrative in a secure, collaborative environment to deliver faster and more accurate insights for all stakeholders—even on the go. FreeForm business process allows businesses to create a unified reporting solution across multiple internal and external sources using the robust capabilities within Narrative Reporting and leverage visualization, analysis and reporting capabilities within Cloud EPM Platform.
- Narrative Reporting
- FreeForm
Cloud Enterprise Data Management
Cloud Enterprise Data Management provides a single platform to flexibly manage enterprise data while maintaining data integrity and enterprise application alignment. With improved data management, you can drive agile business transformation. Cloud Enterprise Data Management is a Cloud service, and has no restrictions on hosted employee and record metrics.
The Enterprise Data Management business process is part of the EPM Enterprise subscription, and provides enough records for a capability preview only.
- Cloud Enterprise Data Management
Cloud EPM Subscriptions
Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management provides end-to-end business processes to meet the requirements of most organizations and ensures a connected and agile experience across multiple business processes. The business processes and features available to you depend on the specific Cloud EPM subscription that you purchased.
- The EPM Standard Subscription is a powerful, configurable suite of business processes. It is designed primarily for small and mid-sized businesses.
- The EPM Enterprise Subscription comprises the full suite of Cloud EPM business processes supporting a comprehensive array of activities. It includes all functionalities of the EPM Standard subscription.
The following table outlines the key features available with Cloud EPM subscriptions.
Note:
- AI and GenAI features are available exclusively with EPM Enterprise subscriptions.
- Intelligent Performance Management (IPM) features are available exclusively with EPM Enterprise subscriptions.
Exception: AutoPredict is also available with Planning in EPM Standard subscription.
- Some features available with both EPM Standard and EPM Enterprise subscriptions are not listed in this table. For a comprehensive overview of features related to each business process, refer to the Administrator guides.
| EPM Standard Subscription | EPM Enterprise Subscription |
|---|---|
Planning
|
Planning
All EPM Standard subscription features plus:
|
| Account Reconciliation (with Reconciliation Compliance) | Account Reconciliation
All EPM Standard subscription features plus Transaction Matching |
Financial Consolidation and Close
|
Financial Consolidation and Close
All EPM Standard subscription features plus:
|
Narrative Reporting
|
Narrative Reporting
All EPM Standard subscription features plus:
|
| FreeForm | |
| Enterprise Data Management (with limits on hosted employee and hosted record metrics) | |
| Profitability and Cost Management
Application Types:
|
|
Tax Reporting
|
Options for Creating a Planning Application
Planning Application types: You can create a Custom, FreeForm, Planning Modules, Sales Planning, Strategic Workforce Planning, or Predictive Cash Forecasting application to meet your business needs.
- Custom: Supports most planning and budgeting requirements through complex business logic, such as business rules and allocations. Select this option if your requirements would necessitate a high degree of application customization.
Additionally, when you create an application of type Custom, you have the option to enable Strategic Modeling for use with your application. You do this by selecting the Strategic Modeling option on the Create Applications: Details screen.
You can enable Strategic Modeling for use with your custom applications even if you do not enable it when creating the application.
-
FreeForm: Supports a FreeForm application and does not require Currency, Entity, Scenario, and Version dimensions and their member hierarchies. FreeForm applications can be created using an Essbase outline file (OTL) from an on-premises deployment to import dimensions and members. The outline file name can have a maximum of eight characters because the file name is used to name the cube of the FreeForm application.
-
Modules: Sets up the cubes required for Capital, Financials, Projects, Workforce and Strategic Modeling. Choose this option to create an application that supports best practices and industry standard functionality.
- Financials: The Financials solution provides integrated driver-based planning for income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow. The out-of-box tools, such as KPIs, drivers, and accounts help you prepare reports faster. You can also use Financials to perform expense and revenue planning.
- Workforce: The Workforce solution enables headcount and compensation planning to link financial plans with the workforce plan. You can budget for future headcount and related personnel expenses such as salary, benefits, and taxes.
- Projects: The Projects solution bridges the gap between project planning systems and the financial planning process. It helps you assess the impact organizational projects and initiatives have on overall resources to ensure they align with short and long term financial targets.
- Capital: The Capital solution helps you plan for the long-term impact of capital assets on financial plans to manage, prioritize, and plan for capital expenses.
- Strategic Modeling: The Strategic Modeling solution combines a set of rich financial forecasting and modeling features with built in on-the-fly scenario analysis and modeling capabilities for long-term strategic planning.
- Sales Planning: Sales Planning provides an extensible framework for planning and managing sales performance.
Using Sales Planning enables you to automate critical processes by eliminating spreadsheets in key sales operations processes and improves collaboration for planning, modeling and reporting of sales quotas, attainment, and sales forecasts.
- Strategic Workforce Planning: Strategic Workforce Planning translates long-term corporate strategy into execution plans by ensuring that the strategy is supported by the right workforce: the right skill sets and headcount at the right time.
You look at long-term demand for resources by exploring scenarios that impact those demands. You also look at what’s going to happen with your current workforce, for example, through retirement or natural attrition. Evaluating demand against supply helps you understand what gaps there may be, whether positive or negative, so that you can proactively plan for needed resources. You can anticipate the headcount and skills needed to support your business strategy.
- Cash Forecasting: Predictive Cash Forecasting enables companies to make better use of their cash with data-driven continuous cash forecasting.
Predictive Cash Forecasting is a Planning application type designed to help treasurers and cash managers perform short-term tactical (rolling ~10 days) or mid-term operational (~3-6 months /~12-26 weeks) 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.
Clients and Tools
Clients for Planning, Planning Modules, and FreeForm:
- EPM Automate: EPM Automate allows Service Administrators to access environments over a command window to automate business activities such as exporting an application and downloading the exported application to desktop.
- Smart View provides a common Microsoft Office interface designed specifically for Cloud EPM: Smart View for Office, Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser), and Smart View for Google Workspace Smart View Extensions:
- Planning Extensions: Planning Extensions include the Planning Admin Extension, which allows application administration activities, such as dimension management, to be performed from within the Excel interface; and Planning application templates, which facilitate application administration activities, such as dimension management, from within the Excel interface.
- Smart View Add-On for Administrator: Allows application administration activities, such as dimension management, to be performed from within the Excel interface. Also referred to as the Planning Admin Extension.
- Task Manager Extension: Enables users to update their tasks from within the Excel interface.
- Predictive Planning: This extension to Smart View works with valid forms to predict performance based on historical data.
- Strategic Modeling (for Planning Modules only): Strategic Modeling is an extension to Smart View that enables users to interact with Strategic Modeling, one of the Planning Modules.
Overview: Creating a Planning Business Process
You develop your operational financial plan with Planning. You set up the Planning business process to include the appropriate structure for your organization's needs. Each Planning business process has a specific framework with the following structure:
- Application name — Specify the name of the business process.
- Calendar structure — Specify your organization’s calendar, such as the first month and first year for your fiscal year.
- Currency — Identify whether multiple currencies are needed and define the default currency.
- Number and names of cubes — Select and name plan types to hold combinations of metadata, forms, and business rules.
After the framework is created, dimensions and members (metadata) are added and assigned to cubes. Security is assigned so that users and groups can access Planning. Access can be further defined to secure metadata, forms, task lists, and business rules.
Note:
Learn more about Planning business process creation in the Creating the Planning Business Process tutorial.Related Links
More Learning Resources
Explore other labs on docs.oracle.com/learn or access more free learning content on the Oracle Learning YouTube channel. Additionally, visit Oracle University to view training resources available.
For product documentation, visit Oracle Help Center.