25.04 - New EPM Cloud Feature in Data Integration

 

The April update saw a welcome addition to Data Exchange functionality, we now have the ability to copy both Integrations & Pipelines, below is a quick guide to getting started!

Copying Integrations

To Copy a Data Integration use the ellipse on Integration you wish to copy and from the Menu select Copy

This will open the Copy window,

• The New Integration name will default to the source name Suffixed with “-1”,  However,  you can modify the name as you wish.   
• Create location & Import Format check box:
• If you leave the check box Blank (screenshot a), it will copy exactly as per the source integration,
• If you wish to create a New Location &/or Import format (screenshot b), tick the check boxes, it defaults to the source integration suffixed with “-1”, modify the content as needed, Click Save

You will be returned to the main integration tab as show Below and you can see the Newly copied integration, It will copy all the Dimension Mapping, Member mapping and options etc. from the source integration and you can modify as needed.

Copying Pipelines

As we saw with the integrations you can also copy Pipelines, from the Data Exchange tab use the ellipse on the Pipeline you wish to copy, and from the Menu select Copy

Again like the Integration copy the name defaults the suffix of “-1”, which you can amend as needed, but the New Pipeline code suffix simply adds a “1” as you can see in the below screenshot,  click Save

You will be returned to the main Integration tab, where you can modify the newly created Pipeline as required.

Happy Integration copying!

Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close - Data forms 2.0 – Part 2!

 

Its be just over 6 months since my first blog on Forms 2.0 and I am excited to share the latest updates.

Decommission of Support for Forms 1.0

Support for forms 1.0 will be decommissioned in the June 2025 update.  So it’s time to get planning for the move to 2.0 and its an easy update.

Enabling Forms 2.0

There are no migrations steps, as the Administrator simply update the settings as below;

Navigate to Application > Settings

And from the dropdown menu against Forms Version select Forms 2.0 and Click Save and you are good to go! If you have recently implemented there’s a good chance this will already be set to 2.0

Big News - Formatting styles are no longer limited just to SmartView they now replicate back onto the form in the browser

This is a big step forward and our customers are loving the new look!

How to set up the Formatting in SmartView

The below screenshot is the standard view of a data form in the browser prior to any formatting, pretty bland right!

Allow me to show you how we can enhance this form for a more polished look……..

Step 1 - Log into SmartView

Navigate to the desired data form from the SmartView Panel & double click on it to open the form in SmartView, the below screenshot is the standard view pre-formatting

Step 2 – Apply Custom styles

To begin formatting from the FCCS toolbar ribbon you will see a Formatting section as show above and below, From the “Apply” drop down menu, select Custom Styles

        

And your Data form will remove any formatting and look like this;

This is your chance to unleash your creativity!

Use all the excel formatting, yes even fonts to design your data form with company branding etc., with exception to the numbers as they take on the formatting from the user preferences, for example I have formatted my form as per below;

Step 3 - don’t forget to save your masterpiece

Click Save From the formatting ribbon, to preserve all your creative efforts.

Step 4 – View the form in the browser

Previously this formatting was only visible when opening the form in SmartView, but now it saves back to the form, so if I go back to my browser and open the form this is how it looks! I hope you agree this looks pretty nice and a big improvement, well done Oracle!

Worth noting: If you have formula columns which are blank the formatting doesn’t apply to that column so add some text and it should format nicely!

Please vote for my Idea in Customer connect to add improvements the formatting

An enhancement that would be super helpful would be the ability to save headers or standard formatting for totals etc., so that when you create a new form you could simply tick a box to apply the formatting style.  If you have high volume of forms this would be a big time saver, I have created an idea in Oracle Customer connect, please vote if you think this would be a good additional feature.

https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/844398/data-forms-2-0-standard-headers/p1?new=1

 

Happy formatting - may your forms be flawless!

 

Until next time ………

 

 

25/02 Oracle EPM Cloud update for Financial Consolidation and Close

 

What’s New!

The are Some exciting new featrures in the February update but first a WARNING of a minor inconvenience, if you have a custom appearance using the Custom Light Theme with a white background the Cards & Clusters are not visible, so change up your background image to a dark background and use the Custom Dark theme, I have logged a SR and will keep you posted once resolved.

New Features

Wait for it……

The long awaited ability to input direct into the YTD member in Financial Consolidation and Close is Here!! 

This is fantastic news for all Close customers, rather than having to use 2 columns on a data input form to show YTD_Input  and YTD  you can now simply choose YTD to input and display the YTD value.  Although a simple thing, the impact on our data forms will significantly simplify their maintenance. Previously, forms often appeared cumbersome and required additional Groovy coding to accommodate complex data form requirements. However, with this enhancement, such extra coding will rarely be necessary...music to my ears!

So, how do I turn on the new feature?

It’s an enablement feature that’s activated in each individual data form, allowing you full control over when you turn on the new feature and implement at your own pace.

To enable this feature simply edit the form, and navigate to the layout tab, then on the grid properties panel at the bottom you will find the Enable YTD data Input feature tick to turn on and then you can simply use the YTD member to input and view YTD values!

New consolidation setting for Calculated movements

There is a new consolidation setting allowing you to control how your default movement is calculated and giving you control over how the Income accounts calculate the default movement using either Periodic or YTD, this is great news for customers who want to translate their movements YTD!

Check out the admin guide for full details on this feature.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/financial-consolidation-cloud/agfcc/calculate_movements_rule.html

until next time........

2024 Reflections

As the year draws to a close, it’s time to reflect not only lessons learned but remembering our achievements! It’s often too easy to focus on the negatives but as my Mentor (a.k.a Debra Lilley) encourages the importance of fostering growth by reflecting on the positive aspects as we step into 2025! So here are some of my highlights of 2024…

January – I had the pleasure of being on the abstract review committee for Kscope24 Financial Close track! Lead by the insightful Terrance Walker!

February – I was lucky enough to be taken to see “Cirque de Soleil” at the Royal Albert Hall courtesy of the Brovanture theatre appreciation society! One of the many ways Brovanture recognises the teams contributions!

March – Brovantures’ very own ACE conference in Cyprus, a wonderful trip to celebrate our successes!

April – I received my acceptance into the Oracle ACE program, a worldwide advocacy recognition program which rewards and promotes individuals for their personal contributions to the Oracle community. Check out the website for more info or reach out to me, I’m always happy to chat on this subject: https://ace.oracle.com/pls/apex/ace_program/r/oracle-aces/home

May –  I Joined the UKOUG Shine Mentoring program as a mentor and helped turn LinkedIn Purple! A fantastic initiative spearheaded by Leona Chauhan and a heap of wonderful volunteers who helped structure this successful program. 

Blog 

June – Attended the Brovanture annual retreat at Centre parcs, a great time to catch up with all my colleagues from around the globe and the optimal balance of work and recreational activities!

June was a busy month we also attended the UKOUG Community Awards night at Redbull racing MK7, Brovanture came away with 2 awards, EPM Partner of the year Gold award for the 2nd consecutive year!  and my ACE partner in crime Lydia Maksoud won the UKOUG Woman in tech of the year!

July – was another busy month kicked off by the UKOUG Shine Summer Sizzler event at Oracle Reading, a great celebration event for the first mentoring cohort 

First up was a panel session “What I would tell my younger self” hosted by Philippa Clifford-Davies featuring Sundus Butt, Jerry Seager, Joanne Wallbanks and Sudipta Ray

We had some great breakout sessions and also heard from Leona and Jacqueline Ryan – Co-Chair of Oracles Women’s Leadership (OWL) program on collaboration with the Shine program in future events.

We also heard from 2 thought provoking motivational speakers! Ciara Banerji on Energy IQ and Lucile Kamar playing Boundaries Bingo and finally the “Mentors and mentees panel - key learnings from the programme”, hosted by Grace Honeysett, featuring Julie Harris, Cristina Arzuza, Andreea Vasiliu, Thalia Nguyen Phamova and Judit Chantler.

Next up, I had the honour of being selected to speak at Kscope24 in Nashville, ODTUG Kscope is the premier educational conference for Oracle technology users, attracting Oracle experts from all over the globe. with over 250 technical sessions, hands-on training, all-day symposiums, and networking with Oracle experts. This year’s agenda was jam packed with great content from Oracle, Partners, Oracle ACE’s and Customers!

   https://www.odtug.com/kscope24

The conference was held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Centre, another spectacular hotel 

I had the pleasure of travelling with my ACE partner in crime Lydia Maksoud and we just had to check out the music in the Honky Tonk bar!

I attended my first Oracle ACE dinner and was lucky enough to share a table with my fellow UK ACE’s and met Oracle’s famous Connor McDonald and had the biggest piece of chocolate cake I have ever seen! 

I presented “discoverIEs journey or discovery” sadly Katherine Mills couldn’t attend so we recorded her inputs so she was with me virtually!, I also spoke at the WIT luncheon on my experiences with the WIT mentoring program.

It was great to catch up with Brovantures Associate Director Roger Cressey and Rich Wilkie, VP Oracle EPM Product Management along with Many others!

And the finally event on “General Jacksons showboat” was a party not to be missed, Great food, exceptional music and lots and lots of dancing!

August – I presented a repeat of  “discoverIE’s journey of discovery” at the SAOUG webinar

September –  I Re-Certified as an “Oracle Financial Consolidation and Close 2024 implementation Professional”

October – I attended the Oracle EMEA EPM Roadshow 2024 at the Oracle offices in Reading, great to catch up with Oracle Product management and hear the latest updates!

And Tim German approached me with the opportunity to  lead the Kscope25 Abstract review committee for the Financial Close track! some amazing abstracts have been submitted and I'm excited for what is undoubtedly destined to be another remarkable conference!

November –  I Re-Certified as an “Oracle Account Reconciliation 2024 Certified Implementation Professional”

December –  Brovanture had a big presence at UKOUG conference in Birmingham, Andreea Vasiliu & Michel Schoolenaar Oracle product mgmt. presented on the AI Powered Finance with Oracle EPM which was standing room only!.

I had 4 sessions, Kicking off with my ACE partner in crime Lydia Maksoud with “3 EPM processes walk into a bar – and they all integrate with Cloud ERP!, next up was an “Interactive Multi  EPM Product Panel” Hosted by Brovantures Guillaume Slee, with Myself & Lydia plus Michel Schoolenaar  Oracle Director EPM Product Management and our Customer Nick Murray from AVON, I then presented “Elevate your HFM to new heights with EPM Financial Consolidation & Close (FCC)” and my last session was on one of the Shine panel Building Mentorships that last a lifetime hosted by Grace Honeysett.

Lydia and I also attended the UKOUG Oracle ACE Dinner held at the famous Ashas Indian restaurant! clearly a popular choice as there were 50 Oracle ACE's!

The UKOUG did something different at this years conference they had a closing Key note, Bonita Norris the youngest women to climb mount Everest, a remarkable and inspiring story!

Wow that was a busy year! it’s not until you sit down and put pen to paper that you can truly reflect and celebrate your successes!

Wishing you all good health, success & Happiness for 2025!

Until next year………. 

Enabling Forms 2.0 for Oracle Financial consolidation and close (FCC)

 

If you haven’t made the move to Forms 2.0, this blog might be useful before you dive in!

Forms 2.0 was first released in 23.11 and there are lots of great additional features that enhance the user experience as summarised below, however, there are a few considerations to be aware of before making the switch!

Considerations

All fixes and enhancements will only take place in Forms 2.0

If you have formatting applied on your current forms, note forms 2.0 doesn’t have formatting in the browser, however you can apply formatting in SmartView which is saved to the form for future retrieves and is pretty smart! (ha-ha see what I did there 😉) (Form formatting in the browser is in the pipeline, dates to be announced, but unlikely in the next few months) Groovy is an option but can be code heavy…. as my Colleague Mike informed me!, but personally & I hope you will agree the SmartView formatting is pretty cool!!  See a quick example below,

Forms 2.0 - Web View

Forms 2.0 - SmartView Standard View

Forms 2.0 - SmartView Formatted  View

To apply formatting in SmartView, select the FCCS menu then Apply > Custom Styles from the formatting section, then use normal excel formatting, once complete, select Save from the formatting menu

I  Always recommend mitigating any risk by checking out the features in your test environment first, I am sure you will love the improvements!

It’s an application specific setting so if you don’t like it simply reset back to Forms 1.0. or clone production back to test.

And Finally, If you are using Dashboards they will need to be migrated to 2.0

Highlights of enhancements

Faster rendering, cell navigation, scrolling across and down the page,

Improved member selections via dropdowns with ability to start typing the member name speeding up selection, it refreshes instantly as the member is selected, no more clicking the Apply arrow to update the form (Yay).

Line-item detail, (Like HFM) ability to add additional lines to give context to a balance with logic to determine how the value rolls up into the balance of a single account see example below.

New updated Icon Menu: Adjust, Grid spread, Comments, line-item detail, Cell History and Undo   

Plus the ability to add Comments to multiple cells in one go. 

Enabling Forms 2.0

There are no migrations steps, as the Administrator simply update the settings as below;

Navigate to Application > Settings

And from the dropdown menu against Forms Version select Forms 2.0 and Click Save and you are good to go!

Oracle related webcasts and YouTube content on Forms 2.0

https://youtu.be/naDI1TlHyy0?si=FLt-bT-Yvf3z7cBp

https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/events/604915-epm-why-you-should-adopt-the-new-forms-2-0-and-dashboards-2-0