IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations

One-Week Lag Between Readiness Documents Live and Help Center Live

Because Oracle readiness documents (What's New and New Feature Summary) are live one week before the monthly update is applied to Test environments, some links to documentation included in the readiness documents will not work until after the Oracle Help Center update is complete when the monthly update is applied to Test environments.

In addition to the applicable Important Actions and Considerations discussed in the EPM Cloud Platform section below, this update includes Important Actions and Considerations specific to:

  • Account Reconciliation
  • Financial Consolidation and Close
  • Profitability and Cost Management
  • Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management
  • Tax Reporting

EPM CLOUD PLATFORM

Removal of Support for Forms 1.0

In an upcoming monthly update (currently targeting the end of the first quarter of CY2025), Oracle is removing support for Forms 1.0.

Forms 1.0 forms will continue to work with no change in behavior; however, there won’t be any bug fixes or enhancements in Forms 1.0.

Bugs logged for Forms 1.0 will only (except when used within Task Manager) be addressed in Forms 2.0 (if the bug can be replicated in Forms 2.0). Task Manager will default to using Forms 1.0 until there is native support for Forms 1.0 in Task Manager.

New applications created after the removal of support for Forms 1.0 will no longer see the Forms 1.0 option in Application Settings.

We advise customers to transition their users to Forms 2.0 within the next few months.

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

Approval Unit Hierarchy Option

When you enable approvals for an Approval Unit Hierarchy, selecting the All - Include if parent is selected option may produce unexpected results.

It is recommended that you do not use this option until this issue is resolved. Selecting the All option works correctly.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, Planning, Tax Reporting

Dialog Drawers Within Tasks, Supplemental Data Forms, and Enterprise Journals Fail to Close in Firefox Browser

When viewing the Task Action, Supplemental Data Form, or Enterprise Journal summary dialog within Firefox, the user can expand and view the side drawers. Double clicking the drawer fails to collapse the drawer control.  The user must close and reopen the dialog to collapse the drawer control.

Workaround: Recommend using Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome browsers until this issue is resolved.

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

User Interface Updates

Oracle continues to adopt the latest technology to enhance and secure the user interface experience. Some updates may potentially affect the GUI automation managed by your company. Oracle recommends that you take these changes into consideration as you manage your GUI automation efforts.

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

Install the Newest Version of EPM Automate

Oracle strongly recommends that you install and use the latest version of EPM Automate. The best practice is to update EPM Automate every month so that you get to take advantage of the latest new features, bug fixes, and stability, security, and reliability improvements.

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

Allow access to static.oracle.com

Customers are reminded to allow access to static.oracle.com. For the Oracle Redwood Experience to work, Customers must allow access to static.oracle.com, which provides image files, JavaScript, and other static content.

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

See About Redwood Experience in Getting Started with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud for Administrators.

Upcoming Changes to the Permission Required to Create Forms, Dashboards, and Library Folders

In an upcoming monthly update (currently targeted for the 24.10 update), Oracle plans to change the permissions required to create forms, dashboards, and sub folders. With this change, users assigned to the Power User predefined role will require write access to the folder in which they create forms, dashboards, or sub folders.

Currently, all users assigned to the Power User predefined role can create forms, dashboards, and sub folders in folders to which they have read access.

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

Fixed Issues in Forms 2.0 and Dashboard 2.0

Many of the gaps and issues that customers have raised for Forms 2.0 and Dashboard 2.0 through Cloud Customer Connect forums have been addressed. We encourage you to use Forms 2.0 and Dashboard 2.0 to ensure that your use cases are being met.

The issues that were addressed are posted to a knowledge article on My Oracle Support. Click here to review. You must have a My Oracle Support login to access the article.

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

Plan to Remove Users Administration and Groups Administration from Audit Reports

Currently, you can get information on Users Administration and Groups Administration from the Audit Reports available in the Identity Console. You can also get this information using EPM Automate and EPM Cloud REST APIs. In an upcoming monthly update, information on Users Administration and Groups Administration will no longer be included in audit reports.

In the Enable Audit dialog box, the Users Administration and Groups Administration options will remain available for some time to allow customers who already have these records to view any existing user and group provisioning records. However, after this change, no new records will be displayed in the Audit Report.

  • Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management: Auditing Overview in Administering and Working with Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management

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

Additional Execution Sequencing Routines for Task Manager Jobs

In a future update, Task Manager Jobs will include additional execution sequencing routines to ensure application and data integrity. When potential conflicting jobs are executed simultaneously, the service will sequence the jobs to ensure application integrity. While the individual job’s execution times will not be impacted, the job’s start time may be delayed due to the optimization sequencing.

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

Change in the Default Format When Exporting to Microsoft Excel

In a future update, the default format for exporting table data to Microsoft Excel from Task Manager, Supplemental Data Manager, and Enterprise Journals will be changed to .XLSX instead of .XLS.

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

Plan to Discontinue Support for Infolets

Oracle plans to stop supporting the creation of infolets later this year. Applications using the Redwood Experience will no longer see the option to create infolets on the listing pages. In applications using non-Redwood themes, the Create button on the Infolets page will be disabled. There will be no future enhancements or support for infolets.

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

Future Deprecation of Native Mode Option for Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior Application Setting

Native Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior mode is currently still available for EPM Cloud.

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

Oracle plans to stop supporting Native mode by 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 to be logged as an enhancement to Standard mode. Enhancements should be logged on the Customer Connect EPM Platform Idea Lab by end of April 2024 for Oracle to review.

Perform the following steps to begin working with Standard mode in your test environment:

  1. In Application Settings, change Smart View Ad Hoc Behavior to Standard.
  2. Open worksheets from Smart View 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 and there is no plan to support them in Standard mode.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Tax Reporting

Job Scheduling Migration in Data Management/Data Integration

With the addition of the new Job Scheduling feature in Data Integration in this update, customers must migrate any existing job schedules from Data Management to the EPM Platform Job Scheduler console. In this update, the scheduling functionality accessed from the user interface in Data Management has been deprecated. To support the migration to the new job scheduler, a new script titled "Migrate Schedules to Platform Jobs Scheduler" is available from System Maintenance Tasks in Data Management.

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

The new scheduling functionality is not available in Profitability and Cost Management and Account Reconciliation.

The EPM Platform Job Scheduler console is not available for Account Reconciliation customers. These customers will need to automate any existing scheduled jobs in Data Management using EPM Automate or rest calls outside of Account Reconciliation.

Data Management Feature Migration to Data Integration

The user interface pages listed in the table below are no longer available in Data Management, but are available in Data Integration. Data Integration is available from the Data Exchange card from the home screen in the Cloud EPM Business Process, and users can access these features in the current Cloud EPM update. Data Management is not going away – we are only moving a few features now that have 100% parity with Data Integration. Profitability and Cost Management customers are not affected by the migration and do not see a change in their Data Management user interface. REST APIs are not impacted by this change.

Data Management Data Integration Data Integration Navigation Path

Source System

Configure Connections

From the Data Integration UI, select the Actions drop down, and then Applications.

In Applications, there is an icon next to the drop down labeled Configure Connections.

Target Application

Applications

From the Data Integration UI, select the Actions drop down, and then Applications.

Period Mapping

Period Mapping

From the Data Integration UI, select the Actions drop down, and then Period Mapping.

Category Mapping

Category Mapping

From the Data Integration UI, select the Actions drop down, and then Category Mapping.

Data Integration is the next generation of the Data Management user interface, enabling users to easily build and manage Cloud EPM integrations. As feature parity between Data Integration and Data Management becomes complete, Data Management features will be turned off, and users will use the new Data Integration user interface instead.

This transition is gradual; future What's New documents will include information about the first set of planned changes as well as updates about additional changes planned for the future.

All Data Integration features discussed in this document are currently generally available in the Cloud EPM business processes.

Integration definitions built with Data Management are also visible in Data Integration, which enables an easy transition. (Data Integration is a new user interface on the Data Management data model and does not require migration of content from Data Management to Data Integration).

Please note that additional new integration features will only be included in Data Integration, and will not be back-ported to Data Management. Critical bug fixes and security fixes will still be made to Data Management until all features are fully migrated. In addition, all features from Data Management will be migrated to Data Integration with the exception of the following:

  • The batch feature will be replaced by the new Pipeline feature. The Pipeline feature was available in the June (23.06) update.
  • The Report Definition feature will not be migrated, only the Report Execution feature. Please note that Account Reconciliation, Financial Consolidation and Close, Planning and Tax Reporting provide a feature to report against the Data Integration relational tables using a custom SQL and a BI Publisher report template via Task Manager.
  • The ability to create new Custom Applications in Data Management will no longer available, and customers should use the “Data Export to File” application type instead. (Existing integrations using a custom application will not be impacted.) See Custom Application in Data Management under EPM Cloud Platform in the Important Actions and Considerations section of this document.

For reference, please see the Data Integration guide available from the documentation library for your specific EPM business process. Select the desired business process, then Books, and then scroll down to the Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud documentation link.

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

See Administering Data Integration for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud for more information.

Removal of Support for Custom Application in Data Management

Since the September (23.09) update, custom target applications can no longer be added in Data Management. (Existing integrations that use a custom target application will not be impacted, and will still run without any changes.) This type of application was used to extract data from the EPM Cloud, and then the data was pushed into a flat file instead of being loaded to an EPM Cloud application. The custom application was superseded by the Data Export to File feature in an earlier update. The Data Export to File feature has enhanced functions and capabilities.

If you still have a custom target application, it is recommended that you use the Upgrade Custom Applications option to migrate your existing custom target application to a data export to file application. For more information, see Upgrade Custom Applications at: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/enterprise-performance-management-common/erpia/upgrade_custom_applications_100x438d5119.html.

The migration converts existing file formats from the custom target application to the file formats used in the data export to file option and retains all the existing setup. When the custom target application has been converted, you can run same integration as before. Data export file applications are available both in Data Management and Data Integration.

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

Calculation Manager Errors and Considerations Enforcement

In a future update, Calculation Manager will enforce the execution of the Errors & Considerations diagnostic tool for any rule being launched, validated, or deployed. This enhancement is scheduled to coincide with the enhancement to the Rules listing page. Administrators will see the Rule Status indicating if there are Errors and/or Considerations in the listing page in addition to the Errors & Considerations tab in Calculation Manager.

Rules will continue to deploy and execute even with Errors or Considerations. In all cases, existing rules that are already deployed will continue to run as-is without any change in behavior. However, Oracle Support will require all Errors to be cleared before reviewing any issues submitted for such rules. Any remaining Considerations will require justification for why they are not cleared before Oracle Support will review any such rules.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Tax Reporting

Change in Behavior for Grids Created from Groovy and REST APIs for ASO Cubes

In a future update, the suppression behavior for grids created via Groovy DataGridDefinitionBuilder and the exportdataslice REST API for ASO cubes will be made consistent with that of the run time data grids created using the Form Designer. Previously, if a grid was built for an ASO cube in Groovy or REST API, then the system used the NON EMPTY MDX clause to suppress missing rows when the suppressMissingBlocks flag was true. Now, when a grid is built for an ASO cube, it will use the NON EMPTY MDX clause when suppressMissingRows is true, and suppressMissingBlocks will be ignored. This means that ASO grids with suppressMissingRows true and suppressMissingBlocks false will now start using MDX. Likewise, ASO grids with suppressMissingRows false and suppressMissingBlocks true will no longer use MDX. Grids where the suppressMissingRows and suppressMissingBlocks flags had the same value will not be impacted. These changes may result in a change in behavior or performance for some ASO grids. If this happens and is undesirable, consider toggling the value of suppressMissingRows from the builder or the JSON payload in case of the REST API.

Applies to: Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Tax Reporting

Oracle Financial Reporting Statement of Direction

Please refer to the announcement on Cloud Customer Connect in the EPM Cloud Platform category: Announcing Updated Guidance on Cloud EPM Financial Reports Deprecation

Please refer to the Statement of Direction for Oracle Financial Reporting:

Oracle Support Document 2910806.1 (EPM Cloud Financial Reporting Statement of Direction)

Please note that the Oracle Financial Reporting tentative deprecation dates have been moved to June 2025.

For more information:

  • On June 8, the most recent Oracle Cloud Customer Connect event, Migrating Your Financial Reporting to Reports, was presented. There is a presentation, an event recording, and an FAQ sheet accessible. In order to view the event recording and documentation, you must log in to Cloud Customer Connect.

ACCOUNT RECONCILIATION

Reconciliation Summary Dialog Drawers Fail to Close When Using Firefox Browser

When viewing the Reconciliation summary dialog within Firefox, the user can expand and view the side drawers. Double clicking the drawer fails to collapse the drawer control. The user must close and reopen the Reconciliation Summary to collapse the drawer control.

Workaround: Recommend using Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome browsers until this issue is resolved.

Change to Matched By Attribute Value for Auto Matched Transactions

Currently when transactions Auto Match, the value inserted into the "Matched By" attribute is defaulted to "TM_SYSTEM"; however, in a future update, the attribute will instead display the user name of the user who runs the Auto Match. Due to this change, customers will need to use other attributes of "Rule Type" and "Rule Name" to determine if a transaction was Auto Matched or Manually Matched. There will also be 3 new attributes added for Last Updated By, Last Update On, and Last Action to further assist.

Changes to Profile Segments

Starting with a future update, you will only be able to modify profile segments using the Profile Segments tab. To access this tab: 1. From the Home page, select Application, and then Configuration. 2. Click System Attributes, and then the Profile Segments tab. Profile segments are visible, but read-only in Attributes. To access attributes, select Application, then Configuration, and then Attributes. This includes loading of List attribute values.

1:1 Currency Rates Are No Longer Required

Starting with the June (24.06) update, updates have been made throughout the application to automatically convert between currencies at a 1:1 rate when the currency codes are the same. For example, when the amount in the Entered bucket is USD and needs to be converted to USD in the Functional bucket, a 1:1 rate is automatically assumed, and therefore does not need to be loaded into currency rates. This simplifies configuration for customers with either single or multi-currency requirements.

Change in the Default Format When Exporting to Microsoft Excel

In a future update, the default format for exporting the table data to Microsoft Excel will be changed to .XLSX instead of .XLS.

FINANCIAL CONSOLIDATION AND CLOSE

Supplemental Data Manager and Enterprise Journals Email Notifications

In a future update, Supplemental Data Manager and Enterprise Journals email notifications will be enhanced to allow granular control on the frequency of workflow notification to users. Similar to Task Manager, the administrator can define default notification settings for "Status Change", "Due Date", and "Late" notifications.When introduced, the email notifications settings for Supplemental Data Manager and Enterprise Journals will be consolidated on the Task Manager > System Settings > Email Notifications page. The existing Email Notifications settings within Supplemental Data Manager and Enterprise Journals will no longer appear within their system settings page.

Future Updates to Ownership Management Locking / Unlocking

Currently, there is a single Process Management Approval Unit for all instances of a shared entity. As a result, when data for one instance is Locked in Process Management, all instances are Locked. The same Locking logic will apply to Ownership Management. When data is locked for an Approval Unit POV, Ownership Management settings are also locked for the same Approval Unit POV. As noted above, this link from Process Management Locking / Unlocking to Ownership Management settings can be disabled using a Substitution Variable. Note that this ability to disable the link will be temporary.

When future updates to improve Organization-by-Period functionality are made available, there will be one Process Management Approval Unit for each instance of a shared entity rather than one Approval Unit for all instances. When this is first implemented, the same Locking / Unlocking logic will apply. When the Process Management Approval Unit is locked, then both data and Ownership Management settings will be Locked, but on an instance-by-instance basis for shared entities. At this point, the link between Approval Unit Locking / Unlocking and Ownership Management settings Locking / Unlocking will no longer be able to be disabled. This is to ensure that a change in Ownership settings cannot cause Locked data to be impacted.

A further update will then be implemented to provide a little more flexibility in Locking / Unlocking Ownership Management settings. These settings will be able to be Locked before the Process Management Approval Unit for the same POV is Locked. Ownership Management settings will only be able to be Unlocked if the matching Process Management Approval Unit is unlocked. This will allow users to work on updating data without worrying about ownership settings affecting their results. Again, the link and dependency between Locking / Unlocking data and Ownership Management settings will not be able to be disabled.

Performance Substitution Variables

The OptimizeConcurrency, OptimizePelimCalculation, EnableYearlyConsol, ParallelCustomDimDSO and ParallelCustomDimTranslation substitution variables can be enabled to improve performance.

  • OptimizeConcurrency = True This substitution variable improves concurrency of the consolidation process by executing some of the calculations at the very beginning or at the end. The degree of improvement depends on the entity structure of a given customer. Customers with deeper entity hierarchies will benefit the most.
  • OptimizePelimCalculation = True This substitution variable improves Partner Eliminations (PElim) performance. If there is a consolidation performance degradation when deploying a user-created “Partner Eliminations Configurable Consolidation Rule” that has an account re-direction, adding this variable can provide significant performance improvement.
  • Enable YearlyConsol = Tru

The EnableYearlyConsol substitution variable can be enabled to improve performance for multi-period consolidations in applications that use the Dense/Sparse Optimization option (where Period and Movement are the Dense dimensions).

This substitution variable is applicable if the application meets all of these conditions:

  • The application uses the Dense/Sparse Optimization option (Period and Movement are Dense dimensions)
  • You have two or more dirty periods, and two or more hierarchy levels
  • The dirty entities are identical across periods
  • Equity Pickup sequence is not enabled
  • ParallelCustomDimDSO = True

This substitution variable improves the performance of the consolidation process in applications with Dense/Sparse Optimization, where the Period and Movement dimensions are Dense dimensions. To see performance improvements, you should set this substitution variable to True.

  • ParallelCustomDimTranslation = True

This substitution variable can improve the performance of the consolidation process in applications with Dense/Sparse Optimization, where the Period and Movement dimensions are Dense dimensions. To see performance improvements, you should set this substitution variables to True. If any degradation is noticed, set the variable to False or delete it.

NOTE: The degree of performance improvement varies widely across different applications as it is purely driven by the application design and data distribution.

PROFITABILITY AND COST MANAGEMENT

Oracle Profitability and Cost Management Application Type Statement of Direction

The Oracle Profitability and Cost Management Application Type Statement of Direction provides an overview of the strategic plans and future direction of Oracle Profitability and Cost Management Cloud Service and Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Enterprise Cloud Service Profitability and Cost Management Business Process. Included is information about the change in Development focus to the newer Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management Application Type available exclusively with Enterprise Performance Management Enterprise Cloud Service.

Oracle Support Document 2955235.1 (Oracle Profitability and Cost Management Application Type Statement of Direction)

ENTERPRISE PROFITABILITY AND COST MANAGEMENT

Issues with Member Selection When Connecting to the Models or Designer Screen Using Connections From Another Pod

When connected to the Models screen or the Designer screen using Connections from another pod, you may experience an unexpected error message while selecting members, or the Member Selector dialog may not always open as expected.  To work around this issue, access these screens directly from within Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management.

Preferences Related to Calculation Performance

There are three calculation performance related preferences in Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management that can be used to alter calculation performance characteristics and behavior in certain special cases. Each preference can be set or changed by creating a substitution variable. When creating the substitution variable, be sure to create it for “All Cubes”.

NOTE: The default values shown in the table do not require the creation of a substitution variable.

Variable Name

Default Value

Description / When to Use

Behavior

EPCM_CALC_NET_ENABLE

 No

“NET” is for “nonempty tuple”. Allocation rules on sparse cubes may perform better by setting this preference to “Yes”. Not all Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management applications will see a performance benefit from enabling this preference.

Note: This affects Allocation Rules only, Custom Calculation rules are not impacted by this setting.

No (default): All applicable cells in rule ranges are considered during the calculation.

Yes: Cells with no values are ignored/skipped during the calculations.

EPCM_CALC_USE_SCRATCH_CELLS

 Yes

An enhancement in the calculation algorithm generally improves performance for certain types of Allocation rules. In rare cases, Allocation rules can be out of balance due to this enhancement. If you detect out-of-balance rules, use this variable to disable the enhancement as a temporary workaround. If you detect out-of-balance rules, use this variable to disable the enhancement, and report the issue to Oracle Support.

Yes (default): The calculation performance enhancement is enabled, which may offer better calculation performance.

No: The calculation performance enhancement is disabled.

EPCM_ENABLE_JAPI_CONNECTION_POOL

 Yes

This variable is for an enhancement that improves the management of Essbase connections during calculation. The enhancement generally improves stability and may improve performance during high-concurrency calculations. It is now enabled by default; you can use this variable to disable it if directed to do so by Oracle Support.

No (default): The Essbase connections enhancement is enabled.

Yes: The Essbase connections enhancement is not enabled.

TAX REPORTING

Supplemental Data Manager Email Notifications

In a future update, Supplemental Data Manager email notifications will be enhanced to allow more granular control on the frequency of workflow notification to users. Similar to Task Manager, the administrator can define default notification settings for "Status Change", "Due Date", and "Late" notifications.When introduced, the email notifications settings for Supplemental Data Manager will be consolidated on the Task Manager > System Settings > Email Notifications page. The existing Email Notifications settings within Supplemental Data Manager will no longer appear within their system settings page.