FCCS - Housekeeping Tasks

As more and more customers migrate to or license and implement Oracle FCCS, people are asking what they need to do with regard to housekeeping or care and feeding of the application. There are several tasks that should be done to keep FCCS in good shape. Nothing is hard, some can be automated, and those not currently "automatable" will be. These are listed below in no particular order.

1. Validate Metadata - within the metadata manager run the process to validate metadata. Issues occur when metadata settings are not correct and the validation process will tell you what is wrong.
2. Download application snapshots - the application snapshot should be downloaded for backup purposes. This is easy to automate with EPM Automate.
3. Download and truncate the audit logs. As the audit logs grow, they utilize space. Every now and then (the frequency will vary from customer to customer) these logs should be downloaded and then truncated.
4. Clear Empty Blocks - run this business rule to remove empty blocks, as they are using space when they're not needed. Running monthly or weekly is about right.
5. Dense Restructure - this is like defragmenting the application. The statistics will show you whether needed or not. If the value is close to 1, then running is not needed. If something like 0.001024, then definitely needed. Again, checking weekly is about right.

Doing these things should keep FCCS running quickly and smoothly.

HFM - Planning for the upgrade

Everyone should have heard by now, but just in case you haven't. Oracle is planning for the release of HFM (actually, all of the on premise EPM products) version 11.2 in the spring.

As Oracle has stated this will be the last release of HFM that will require a full software installation (to their knowledge, safe harbor statement applies). Other updates after this will be via patch set updates. To do this installation, you cannot (or should not) just update the software on the existing servers. The software will need installing on a clean server, the database copied over and upgraded, interfaces tested, and then consolidation and data verified. A parallel close would be a prudent step.

To plan for this, think about budgeting for the new servers now. Most companies are in the middle of putting together their annual budget for next year, so now is the perfect time to plan this upgrade. Unless some design changes are incorporated at the same time, no consulting help should be needed unless it is to help with the infrastructure setup. If you are on an older version or you're having to do work-arounds to make things work with your current design/setup, then you should think about taking this opportunity to do an "application remodel."

The other option would be to plan a migration to FCCS, Oracle's cloud based consolidation and close solution. In this case you would be budgeting for an operating expense, not a capital expense, and not having to budget for the annual maintenance on the on-premise software. Migrating to FCCS will go much easier with some consulting help, but with the recently released HFM to FCCS migration tool, it goes more smoothly than before.