Oracle FCC: Which Metadata Editor is Best for Catching Errors?

Those who have worked with Oracle EPM for several years know there is usually more than one way to do things (although we consultants sometimes think that "our" way of doing something is the correct way!). With Oracle FCC and Planning there are at least five different ways of editing metadata (entities, accounts, etc.). These options have varying levels of edit checks available, at least for FCC. This post will talk about the five with a particular focus on edit checks. There is no one "right" way here, but there are "better" and "not as good" options. 

Option 1 - "simplified" or "new" metadata editor

This option is built into the software and is accessed by selecting Navigator icon > Overview (from Application menu section) > Dimensions > select dimension. This option presents the metadata in a grid format where parents can be expanded/collapsed, columns moved around, valid choices presented as dropdowns, etc. Attributes can be copied and pasted across multiple members which is helpful.

There are pros and cons related to edit checks. If you try entering an alias with more than 80 characters, you are allowed to do so but you can't save [thanks to Jake Turrell for the info]. Kinda good (can't save) but kinda bad (allowed to type the extra characters). But where this editor shines with FCC are the visual attribute edits. Here, Average is not a valid exchange rate type for FCC and the software is adding the red border to indicate that. This change was made in the old editor (option 2) and in the new editor, Average isn't even a choice. But it still shows the field as something that needs to be corrected.

Disclosure: this is my default choice out of the options presented but will use another option below when needed, so keep reading.

Option 2 - "classic" or "old" metadata editor

The classic/old Essbase metadata editor is accessed by selecting Navigator icon > Dimensions (from Create and Manage menu section) > select dimension. This option was the original metadata editor in FCC and has been available for several years after Oracle said they were going to remove it (when the "new" one came out). I think there are larger priorities and if people are used to using this editor with earlier versions or with Essbase or with Planning then why not. 

The metadata is presented as a hierarchy but each member must be edited individually: no copying/pasting to multiple cells like in option 1.

However, as far as editing goes, it does lack some features. It will correctly not allow an alias to be entered that's greater than 80 characters [again, thanks to Jake]. But it will allow for invalid attribute choices to be selected. They may be valid for Essbase and/or Planning, but not everything is valid for FCC. Here, the Average option is not valid for FCC but can be selected and saved and there is no notification that this will be a problem.

Option 3 - Oracle Smart View

Smart View can also be used to edit metadata directly in Excel. This option does have some ease of use: built in extract/submit buttons, cut/copy/paste, Excel features like AutoFilter and use of functions to build metadata components, etc. But it lacks the edit checks as shown above.

I do use this one frequently when doing initial metadata building. It's commonplace to begin a project where someone gives me an Excel file with the chart of accounts, legal entity hierarchy, etc. 

Option 4 - Export to text file, make changes, upload

This option is probably the simplest in theory, but the hardest to make work successfully. Export the metadata to a text or CSV file, manually make the changes, and load back in. With this option there are no edit checks and lots of room to create errors (like leave out a comma [delimiter]) but technically it does work.

Option 5 - Oracle Enterprise Data Management

Why worry about edit checks if you can eliminate the errors altogether? Enterprise Data Management is a part of the Oracle Cloud EPM suite that adds governance, rules, workflow, and other features around metadata management. Each target application can have the edit checks around what's valid and not valid set up. This is usually an additional cost (unless you already have Enterprise licensing for Oracle Cloud EPM and can work with less than 5,000 members) and does involve a project to implement but there are a lot of benefits that none of the other options can match.

These are five of the common ways to work with FCC metadata. All of these are valid approaches although the manual editing with the text file is probably the least likely to be used. If administrators are still working with option 2 (the old editor) then some serious consideration should be given to switch to option 1 (the new editor). The grid format allows editing multiple members at the same time and the visual attribute edits (the red borders) are two features that the old editor simply can't match.

FCC Release 23.03 - Metadata Validation for Movement Members

In the 23.03 release of FCC there is a new metadata validation that requires that all members under FCCS_ClosingBalance have a consolidation operator of Addition. On the surface this makes sense; however, it will cause major issues with cash flow.

It is common for cash flow to require various types of manual adjustments and calculations that are not part of the closing balance calculation. But, if a movement member is not under FCCS_ClosingBalance, then the data does not consolidate.

So what I and many others have done is to put these members somewhere under FCCS_ClosingBalance with a consolidation operator of Ignore. That way the data consolidates and does not impact the closing balance.

With the 23.03 release, when a metadata validation is run, this happens:

I filed an SR for the company I'm currently working with for this issue. Unless Oracle removes the restriction that members must be under FCCS_ClosingBalance to consolidate, I expect that this validation will get pulled back.

FCCS - Metadata out of sync

It's really rare that this happens, but it happened to me so I wanted to share it with everyone in case someone else runs into it and you'll know what's going on. First, check out this screenshot from the data status grid.

The first two rows are level zero / base level members. For this post ignore row two. The third row is the parent. The fourth row is the parent's parent (in this case it is FCCS_Total Geography). Note that the first row shows a data status of impacted, the third row shows no data, and the fourth row shows OK. With the first row being impacted, the third and fourth rows should be impacted as well, but they're not. If the fourth row is OK, then the first and third rows should be OK too, but they're not.

Talked with someone at Oracle and it turns out this happens if the metadata in Essbase gets out of sync with the metadata in the relational database. Again, really rare. There isn't anything that an administrator can do to correct this: force consolidate, refresh database, reset service, etc. do not address this (I tried). The only options are to (a) get Oracle involved or (b) rebuild the app.

Fortunately, it sounds like this problem will be addressed soon (I make no guarantees on the if and when). In the meantime, should you see this situation, now you'll know.