This month's Oracle Cloud EPM Patch introduces enhancements to the overall Oracle EPM platform and specific Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM enhancements that affect Rule Maintenance and validation.
As a reminder, this blog contains only those details we feel are the most relevant for PCM and EPCM, but be sure to check out Oracle's 23.05 Patch Release Notes for more information.
The Most Important Features of the 23.05 (May 2023) Patch:
EPM Common:
OCI Migration: Customer-Managed Migrations No Longer Available:
- Clients can no longer choose the customer-managed migration path from Gen 1 to OCI (Gen 2) cloud infrastructure and will be notified for Oracle-managed migration.
- When client environments are scheduled for migration, they will receive a notification specifying the migration schedule.
Activity Report now Includes Daily Maintenance Duration:
- The daily activity report will now include information on how long the Daily Maintenance took to complete.
- Knowledge of the timing of the Daily Maintenance routines can be necessary for the correct scheduling of automation routines.
Data Management Feature Replacement by Data Integration/Data Exchange (EPCM Only):
- As discussed in previous blogs, Oracle will start to turn off Cloud Data Management in favor of customers using the Data Integration/Data Exchange UI.
- Oracle will provide details of which features will be turned off in the patch updates, so keeping an eye on this is a good idea.
- For clients still on PCM, Oracle has not indicated any desire to make the Data Integration/Data Exchange UI available. As such, the CDM will still need to be utilized and will not be replaced in the foreseeable future.
Enterprise PCM Updates:
Ability to Find and Replace Members That No Longer Exist in A Dimension (EPCM Only):
- The Find Member field in the rule designer Mass Edit tab now allows users to enter a member name that no longer exists in a dimension.
- Once a user identifies a member absent in a dimension, you can replace that member reference with another member selected from the dimension hierarchy. This allows users to fix multiple broken rules referencing an invalid member.
New Default Form for Rule Balancing (EPCM Only):
- A new default form is now available to use when generating the Rule Balancing Report
- This default form can create additional Rule Balancing forms similar to the model view functionality in PCM.
PCM Updates:
There are no updates for PCM in the 23.04 patch!
Regression Testing Requirement:
Per our standing recommendation, clients are advised to perform regression testing on the release of the month patches in their test instances regardless of the updates provided in this blog.
Enterprise PCM Regression Testing Requirement:
For the 23.05 Patch, we suggest you do your average level of regression testing, as none of the provided updates should be a cause of concern. Being aware of the new functionality related to the Find and Replace Members and the default Rule Balancing form will help the application's overall usability but should not affect any existing functionality.
PCM Regression Testing Requirement:
For the 23.05 Patch, we suggest doing your normal level of regression, as there are no critical bug fixes or features for Oracle PCM in this release
The 23.05 Patch is scheduled to be pushed to the Production environments at or after 22:00 UTC on Friday, May 19, 2023, so be sure to be done with any Regression testing soon!
TL;DR
The 23.05 Oracle Cloud EPM Patch introduces enhancements to the platform and specific Oracle Cloud Enterprise PCM enhancements. The most important information to note is the OCI migration process, Daily Maintenance duration information in the daily Activity Report, Data Management feature replacement, the ability to Find and Replace members in Enterprise PCM, and a new default form for Rule Balancing in Enterprise PCM. This release has no critical bug fixes or features for Oracle PCM. The patch will be pushed to Production environments on May 19, 2023.