Using EPM Reporting Books with Smart View - Part 2

The previous blog post described the new Smart View extension to bring Oracle EPM Cloud books into Microsoft Excel using Smart View and walked through the installation steps. Please refer to that post before proceeding with the below.

This post will walk through how to use the extension to work with books. This new capability works with FCC, Planning/EPBCS, Tax Reporting, and Narrative Reporting. Note the books must be new Reporting books and not the old Financial Reporting books. Just another reason to migrate from FR. 

Connect to the application using the Smart View panel and click on the application ID. At the bottom of the screen a new item called Launch EPM Books Home will appear. If this does not show, click More>> and see if it is listed there. If not, then go back to the previous blog post and check the extension installation.

Once opened the extension will list the available books. The lower half of the screen is the job console. This section will be used after running a book.

Clicking the info bubble to the left of a book will show a few facts about the book.

Click the Run icon to the left of a book to run it. Running the book will show as a job at the bottom panel. Click Refresh as needed until the processing is complete. There are also tool buttons to remove a single job or all jobs from the display.

When the processing is completed, click the download icon in the Status column to download. Click Yes if prompted to open the workbook.

The table of contents will be shown on the first tab. The reports will show on subsequent tabs. The table of contents lists the reports with clickable links to the right (not shown below) to each tab.

Going to the other tabs will show the different pages. In my early testing the rows and columns of the report grid are parsed correctly into cells. The report header (not shown below) comes in as a graphic instead of text into cells. The reports in the books I have do not have footers so would have to assume footers would be treated as a graphic as well.

At this point there is a new "Books" ribbon showing. There are three options: Refresh, Edit POV, and Inspect.

Refresh is self-explanatory. The Inspect option shows the same information as above along with the POV used for the book.

As shown above the book ran for Dec FY19 Periodic. This was my active POV in FCCS (when I ran the report book last through the website it was for Dec FY19 Periodic). The middle option on the ribbon, Edit POV, suggests that the POV can be changed. After clicking it, for each dimension dropdown, there is an option to select. 

When I tried clicking Select..., I got a message that "Member selection not supported." According to the documentation, editing the POV should work. Also, if the user has enabled previewing the report POV in User Preferences on the website, then the POV prompts should appear when initially running the book. The software did correctly identify the dimensions in the POV. The books I'm using have Default as the only member selection in the book POV and are not limiting the members that the user can select. So that may have something to do with it. As I'm working with an early version, I'll assume that this will get cleaned up.

Here is the link to the product documentation.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/enterprise-performance-management-common/svuuc/books.html

In conclusion, all of us can finally rejoice that report books can be brought into Microsoft Excel. Again, it requires migrating from Financial Reporting to Reporting and the quick installation of a Smart View extension. Looking forward to using this at clients.

Using EPM Reporting Books with Smart View - Part 1

One of the Oracle EPM product features that has been requested for decades - yes, decades - is to bring a report book into Microsoft Excel. With the April 2022 update this can FINALLY be done. Granted, the report book has to be the new Reporting book and not the old Financial Reporting book. But think of it as one more reason to migrate from Financial Reporting to Reporting.

This new feature works for FCC, Planning, Tax Reporting, and Narrative Reporting.

Using the feature requires enabling a new Smart View extension that is being released with the April 2022 update. This blog post will cover how to install the extension. A future blog post will cover how to use it.

To install the extension, go into Microsoft Excel and go to the Smart View ribbon. Click Options and then go to the Extensions panel.

The screen above shows EPM Books already listed but your screen will not. Click the blue "Check for Updates, New Installs, and Uninstalls" link at the bottom. When prompted, select the appropriate environment. Here, I'm using a FCC test environment.

Once the update is done, an item for EPM Books will be shown. Click Install on the right to install the extension. Note that administrator level access to the computer should not be needed for this. 

Once the installation is done, quit Microsoft Excel (the installation process will remind you) and restart. Now, use the Smart View panel to connect to the application. Once the application ID is clicked upon, a new link will show for launching EPM Books. Click More>> if the link does not show.

The next blog post will go through how to use the Smart View extension to bring books into Microsoft Excel.