The I.T. Side

From a recently released Oracle document on what’s new.

Oracle is planning on releasing an upgrade release of PBCS in August, version 15.08. There are many new features that are coming. In this release we see Oracle’s dedication to adding new features into the cloud and bettering the data integration capabilities.  All of these enhancements are with the new simplified interface.  As a matter of fact, the standard interface will be completely removed in the November release.

The following lists the major new changes:

General Changes

Client side Changes

• You must install a new Financial Reporting Studio (11.1.2.4.400).
• You must install a new version of smartview (11.1.2.45.500)
• There is a new version of the EPM automate utility. This version supports password encryption and file uploads to data management folders.

Support Changes

• Support for Internet Explorer 11 in Standard Mode
• Removal of support for IE 9
• Removal of the need for XUL manager in Firefox.

Navigation and Access

• New keyboard shortcuts for navigation, data entry, and formatting. For example, you can enter 5k to mean 5000
• The User Audit Report, available from Application Management, contains information on the users who have signed into a service instance over a period of time.
• You will be able to access the PBCS instance using the EPM mobile app.

Download the Mobile app here:

• Google Play Store
• Apple Store

Recommended Browsers

Major New Planning Features

Saving data automatically

Administrators can set up a simple form so that planners’ data is automatically saved (autosave) when they move out of a cell in the simplified interface,  When this is enabled, no message or prompt is displayed to tell the user it was saved, however they can undo the action with CTRL-Z

Client Side Calculations

By pushing calculation to the client, users will now get faster performance when they Scroll, enter data, and tab between cells

You can also undo entries in forms

When you add calculated fields to adhoc forms in Smartview, and save them as smart forms, you can open and use these forms in PBCS web.

Smart Push

Users can push comments, attachments, and supporting detail to multiple applications so data can be transferred to different reporting plan types for further analysis

Planners can synchronize data updates (both numeric and non-numeric data) between their plan types when they save the data in forms.  To use Smart Push to push data from one plan type to another, planners must configure it on a simple or composite form on the new Smart Push tab

Sandboxing

I announced that Planning sanboxing was coming  back in October, and now it will be a reality…

By creating a sandbox, a user can keep their work private as they develop their plans. They can test alternate business scenarios and outcomes without it being visible by others until they are ready.  When all is done, users can back out changes easily or publish to the application if they are satisfied.

From what I am reading, you must select Enable Sandboxing when you create a planning application in order for this feature to be enabled.  At this time, I do not know if you will be able to enable sandboxing on an already existing application. More to come on that…

Valid Intersections

You can use valid Intersection rules to limit data entry in forms to only certain dimension member combinations.  After valid intersections are defined, cells containing invalid data are read-only.   This will increase data entry speed, eases maintenance, improves data quality.

Printing Supporting Detail

You can print forms to PDF what include supporting detail.  Just select the option when printing:

Smart Forms

You can now add Excel formulas to ad hoc grids in Smart View and save them to Planning in Smart Forms. Once saved, you can open and use Smart Form in either Smart View or Planning. Any rows, columns, and business calculations you added are present in the form.

Predictive Planning supports new Planning and Smart View features

• Predictive Planning can now be used with Planning ad hoc grids, reports, Oracle Smart View for Office Smart Queries, saved ad hoc grids, and sandboxes.
• Quick Predict—Quick Predict enables you to run and paste predictions with a few mouse clicks or keystrokes.
• Prediction Chart Enhancements—Prediction chart enhancements enable you to directly manipulate predicted data series. You can adjust predictions without retyping predicted values.
• New forecasting techniques improve forecast accuracy, particularly at long lead times: Damped Trend Smoothing Nonseasonal, Damped Trend Additive Seasonal, and Damped Trend Multiplicative Seasonal.

 Data Management / Integration Updates

• Data Loading—In addition to file-based data loads, you can load Fusion General Ledger and Commitment Control files from the Fusion Financials Cloud Service to Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud.
• Synchronization—Push data between Planning applications and Essbase ASO cubes without creating a new file and loading it again.
• Write back—In the Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service you can write back budget data from a file-based source system or a Fusions file from the Fusion Financials Cloud Service to a flat file. You can also write back Planning data back to the Fusion General Ledger.
• import Format Builder — You can map source fields graphically to target dimension members instead of typing the starting position and the field length when loading file based data.
• POV Locking — Administrators can use a POV locking feature to prevent data from being loaded to a selected POV by locking all locations related to a target application for a given period and category.

Calculation Manager Updates

• New Design-Time Prompt Functions for Templates
• Find and replace text in the variable designer
•  Enhancements to the aggregation system templates makes it easier to design business rules for aggregations.
• Script editor enhancements such as word wrap, go-to-line, auto-sugestions in dialog boxes.
• A new filter view that can let you define filter criteria to limit the display of objects for better usability
• The ability to analyze any graphical or calc script to see execution time, block count, number of potential and counted blocks, and scope of the Fix statement.
• Customize columbs that display and the order in which they display.
• Compare the script of a saved business rule to a changed business rule side-by-side in a window
• Launch the log viewer in Rule Designer when viewing or executing a business rule.
• Run calculation scripts in parallel to speed up calculation.

~ by Eric Helmer on July 31, 2015.

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