Introduction

In some of the previous articles we have seen how to create a BIP Report in Oracle Cloud (applicable for any OBIEE environment actually) using various template types be it XPT or RTF. In this article, we will try to create a BIP Report using e-Text Template.

An e-text template is an RTF-based template that is used to generate text output for Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). At runtime, BI Publisher applies this template to an input XML data file to create an output text file that can be transmitted to a bank or other customer. Because the output is intended for electronic communication, the e-text templates must follow very specific format instructions for exact placement of data.

An EFT is an electronic transmission of financial data and payments to banks in a specific fixed-position format flat file (text). EDI is similar to EFT except it is not only limited to the transmission of payment information to banks. It is often used as a method of exchanging business documents, such as purchase orders and invoices, between companies. EDI data is delimiter-based, and also transmitted as a flat file (text).

Files in these formats are transmitted as flat files, rather than printed on paper. The length of a record is often several hundred characters and therefore difficult to layout on standard size paper.

To accommodate the record length, the EFT and EDI templates are designed using tables. Each record is represented by a table. Each row in a table corresponds to a field in a record. The columns of the table specify the position, length, and value of the field.

These formats can also require special handling of the data from the input XML file. This special handling can be on a global level (for example, character replacement and sequencing) or on a record level (for example, sorting). Commands to perform these functions are declared in command rows. Global level commands are declared in setup tables.

At runtime, BI Publisher constructs the output file according to the setup commands and layout specifications in the tables.

Structure of e-Text Template

There are two types of e-Text templates: fixed-position based (EFT templates) and delimiter-based (EDI templates). The templates are composed of a series of tables. The tables define layout and setup commands and data field definitions. The required data description columns for the two types of templates vary, but the commands and functions available are the same. A table can contain just commands, or it can contain commands and data fields.

A very simple EDI would look as below:

Here we could see that we have three command instructions namely:

1. Template is of Delimited Based

2. Output Character Set is iso-8859-1

3. Every New Record will be preceded by ; or in other words each line would end with ;

We could also see that we have defined four data fields (which would be coming from the source data file) and are separated by comma. We may choose to use any other delimiter too.

Worked Example

In order to get started we would need to have a data source. For this, we would need a sample XML file created.

Now we will try to create an e-Text Data Model with the same within the application.

Once we have the Data Set Created we can move to the ‘Data’ tab and check the results

So thus, we have created the Data Model.

Now we will try to create a Report from this Data Model, which means we need to associate this data model and a layout with our report.

The below snapshot shows the Data Model and the layout associated with our Report.

Now when we click on ‘View Report’ we would be able to see the E-Text Output

In Oracle Fusion Financials Integration Training you will learn how to integrate with Fusion Applications to exchange data both inbound and outbound. You will also learn to integrate using real-time or batch mode to exchange information. Different products have different capabilities, but the general strategy for integration remains the same. Oracle Fusion Applications provides:

Flexibility for external systems integration.

Basically it is a gateway between cloud and on-premises. The Agent eliminates common security and complexity issues previously associated with integrating on-premises applications from outside the firewall. With the agent it is possible for example to connect with an on-premises database or ERP application using the existing JCA adapter framework.There are a few steps in installing the agent. First the installer can only be downloaded from your Integration Cloud Service instance. Secondly the installer can only be run on a linux environment. Thirdly some settings can be tuned / changed after installation.

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We can create orchestrated integrations in Oracle Integration Cloud Service that use Oracle BPEL Process Manager capabilities. Oracle BPEL Process Manager enables you to define how a business process that involves web services is executed. BPEL messages invoke remote services and orchestrate process execution. When designing your integration, you can add switch activities in your integration to create multiple routing expressions. You can create ad-hoc mappings on switch branches. You can also add callback activities (to end an integration and respond back to the sender) and end activities (to end an integration without responding back to the sender) in asynchronous integrations.

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Create an integration with a blank trigger and invoke in which to add your own adapters. You can also create a single routing expression and request and response enrichments, as needed. You cannot create multiple routing expressions. If your integration requires this feature, create an orchestrated integration.

Profile management provides a framework for developing and managing talent profiles that meet your industry or organizational requirements. Profiles summarize the qualifications and skills of a person or a workforce structure such as a job or position. Profiles are valuable for tracking workers' skills, competencies, and accomplishments, and for various talent management activities, such as career planning, identifying training needs, performance management, and in the recruitment process for identifying job requirements and suitable applicants.You can configure Oracle Fusion Profile Management to meet your business requirements using these components: the content library, profiles and profile types, content subscribers, educational establishments, instance qualifier sets, and rating models.

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We need to create account hierarchies in order to reflect managerial, legal or geographical relationships between the value set values. The financial balances are pre-aggregated at each parent level in the hierarchy, thus allowing fast and robust account inquiry and drill. An organization operating at multiple levels always need a track on the account balances at each level for various managerial purposes. Say for example a company has multiple sales departments selling IPAD, IPHONE, laptop, etc at various geographic locations. The top level management may not be interested on sales at granular level. They want to track the overall sales which the company has registered. In that case we need account hierarchy.

This video demonstrates How to Manage Account Hierarchy in Fusion Financials Cloud:

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Oracle Essbase Analytics Link for Hyperion Financial Management provides near realtime data synchronization between Oracle Hyperion Financial Management and Oracle Essbase, enabling Essbase users to view live Financial Management data without having to create and manage extraction and load tasks. Analytics Link off-loads the Financial Management application server by managing all reporting requests, freeing resources for financial consolidations..Oracle Hyperion Financial Management is a comprehensive, Web-based application that delivers global financial consolidation, reporting and analysis in a single, highly scalable software solution. Oracle Hyperion Financial Management utilizes today's most advanced technology, yet is built to be owned and maintained by the enterprise's finance team.

This video demonstrates How to Navigate in Oracle Hyperion Financial Management HFM:

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You allow a new user to sign-on to Oracle Applications by defining an application user. An application user has a username and a password. You define an initial password, then the first time the application user signs on, they must enter a new (secret) password.When you define an application user, you assign to the user one or more responsibilities. If you assign only one responsibility, the user, after signing on, immediately enters an application. If you assign two or more responsibilities, the user, after signing on, sees a window listing available responsibilities.All Oracle Applications products are installed with predefined responsibilities. Consult the reference guide for your Oracle Applications product for the names of those predefined responsibilities. Additionally, instances of the major components that help define a responsibility (data groups, request security groups, menus, and functions) are predefined for Oracle Applications.

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Dimensions describe an organization’s data and usually contain groups of related members. Examples of dimensions are Account, Entity, and Period. Financial Management supplies eight system-defined dimensions and enables you to populate up to four custom dimensions that you can apply to accounts. Dimension members are arranged in hierarchies. Upper-level members are called parent members, and a member immediately below a parent member is referred to as the child of a parent member. All members below a parent are referred to as descendants. The bottom level hierarchy members are called base-level-members.

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This course is appropriate for all members of the implementation team and is intended to give students a broad understanding of Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management and its capabilities. Students will be exposed to a high-level view of the systems real-time and high-performance batch architecture. The BRM Functional Overview class will also introduce students to the Revenue Management Lifecycle as students create test accounts and perform basic maintenance tasks using the client tools in support of the lifecycle. By completing this course, students will learn the tools and procedures used to accomplish tasks such as creating and managing customer accounts, billing customer accounts, managing accounts receivables, managing payments, creating and manage pricing objects, and managing the revenue associated with customer accounts. Students will accomplish this through demonstrations and hands-on labs.

Introduction

The world is changing at a fast pace and Oracle ERP Cloud is trying hard to keep up with the pace. New features and enhancements are incorporated in each major release and efforts are made by development team to ensure that the application is simpler, easy to use and mitigates the challenges faced by customers.

While the development, release and timing of the new features and functionality is yet to be announced let-us try to have a sneak peek into what is coming in:

1. Enhanced Add Person Flows

For those who already had an opportunity to work with Oracle HCM Cloud Application ( known as Fusion Application beforehand) they must have noticed that while we used to perform a ‘Hire an Employee’ Transaction there were several train stops with one of them being ‘Employment Information’

Along with capturing assignment related details like Business Units, Job, Grade, Position, Location, Department. In addition, other related fields, the page used to capture the Compensation Related Information too. While this was good from one point as it was one single page where you were able to enter all details, there were suggestions that it became too lengthy a page and people had trouble scrolling the same. To address this concern the Development team has now introduced a new page ‘Compensation and Other Information’. As a result, employment and compensation information is captured in the same transaction and one would not need to scroll down too.

2. Enhanced Manage Direct Reports

‘Add Direct Reports’ allows adding new direct reports and even assigning different type of managers like Line Manager, Regional Manager. One can make change by selecting or deselecting the direct reports in single click. I hope that below snapshots would give a clear idea:

Manage Direct Reports functionality is also included in the human resources specialist processes like

• Hire

• Add Contingent Worker

• Create Work Relationship

• Global Transfer

• Global Temporary Assignment

• Temporary Assignment

• Add Assignment

• Add Work Terms

• End Assignment

• End Work Terms

3. Changes in Customization Level for Specific Person Lookup Types

Different legacy system has different codes for storing some fields. As such, it was a major challenge to get the data into Oracle Cloud ERP as the lookup types were ‘Extensible’. What that meant was while users were allowed to add new values they could not add/edit pre-existing ones. This limitation is removed in Release 12 and you can now customize your own values for the following Lookup Types as they are converted from a customization level of extensible to user:

• CONTACT

• MAR_STATUS

• PER_HIGHEST_EDUCATION_LEVEL

• PER_NATIONAL_IDENTIFIER_TYPE

• PER_ETHNICITY

• PER_VISA_PERMIT_TYPE

4. Availability of New System Level Lookup Types

Predefined Legislative and Statutory Reports use the system level lookup types, which are as follows:

1. ORA_PER_CONTACT

2. ORA_PER_MAR_STATUS

3. ORA_PER_HIGHEST_EDUCATION_LEVE

4. ORA_PER_NATIONAL_IDENTIFIER_TY

5. ORA_PER_ETHNICITY

6. ORA_PER_VISA_PERMIT_TYPE

5. Enhanced Duplicate Person Validation

Until release 11 there was no control given while Duplicate person Validation was performed during new Person Record creation via Worker Service. Starting Release 12 a new option is provided (named as ‘Person Creation Service Duplicate Check’) under Manage Enterprise HCM Information

6. Salary Update Allowed While Performing Change Working Hours Task in Manager Self Service

Part time employees who are paid basis the number of hours they have worked needs to get their salary details updated too whenever there was a change in Working Hours. This task had to be manually performed once the Change Working Hours transaction was completed until Release 11.

Snapshot from Release 12

7. Enhanced Areas of Responsibility

Scope can also be defined based on Job Family and Job Function. ‘Recruiting’ has been added as a new Responsibility. New Scope attributes based on Recruiting Type and Hierarchies have been added.

8. Worker User Accounts Not Created Automatically during Bulk Load

In Release 12, the enterprise HCM options are ignored when you load workers in bulk. To give you greater control, the GeneratedUserAccountFlag and SendCredentialsEmailFlag attributes of the Worker object are now set to N (No) by default. With this enhancement, unwanted user accounts will no longer be created automatically when you load historical data in bulk for workers whose work relationships are terminated.

Inference / Conclusion

All the above are only few of the enhancements / features available in Release 12 (I have concentrated only on Global HR Module ) and how the application behaves when this new features are put to use is still to be seen. However, from an end-user perspective some of the features look promising but the real value they are able to deliver can only be seen when customers start using it and provide a feedback.

When you load a metadata file, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management replaces metadata with new metadata from the load file. Replacement is useful for making minor changes to the metadata, such as adding an account. For example, if your application includes a North America entity, and you load entities from a metadata file, the attributes for the North America entity in the file replace the attributes for the North America entity in the application.the system waits for other tasks such as consolidation, data entry or other load processes to finish before proceeding to load the files. Oracle recommends that you load metadata during periods of light activity across the server cluster instead of, for example, during a long running consolidation. You can check the Running Tasks page to see which consolidations or data loads, for example, are in progress. Loading large metadata files can result in a proxy timeout error. If this error occurs, increase the Web proxy timeout setting. After you load a metadata file to an application, users using the application are notified that the system has changed and that they must log off from the application and log back on.

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Introduction

In this article, we will try to learn how to apply conditional formatting on a specific data-field of an OTBI Analysis. We would make this a little more exciting by adding images and colors also to make the report more eye-catching and attractive.

We would create a very simple OTBI Analysis, which will have details like

1. Legal Employer Name

2. Country

3. Location Name

4. Head Count

5. Full-Time Equivalent

6. Assignment Count

7. Resource Utilization Factor

Note: Resource Utilization Factor is a derived column calculated as Full-Time Equivalent / Head Count

In this example, we would use a conditional formatting feature on Resource Utilization Factor such that:

1. If Resource Utilization Factor is less than 1 ( we would highlight the value on the field in Red Color and Add an image representing some sort of Danger / Error

2. If Resource Utilization Factor is equal to 1 ( we would highlight the value on the field in Blue and Add an image representing Warning)

3. If Resource Utilization Factor is greater than 1 (we would highlight the value on the field in Green and Add an image of a tick-mark.

So let’s get started then.

Creating OTBI Analysis

As a first step, we would need to login into application with appropriate login credentials and navigate to the ‘Reports and Analytics’ region as shown below:

Once you click on this, you would reach the following page:

 A Mouse Click on the icon (Open Book) as shown above would take you to the following screen:

Next, we should create a new analysis by choosing the ‘Analysis’ option under the New menu.

This would open up a list of Subject Area wherefrom we need to choose the one we are interested in

For this example we would choose ‘Workforce Management – Worker Assignment Real Time’ Subject Area

Next, we need to choose the Data-Fields from the subject area.

And, this is how the Application Screen should appear as below:

Conditional Formatting

We would apply conditional formatting on ‘Resource Utilization Factor’

When we move to the conditional format tab

And now the results section

Which is in perfect sync with our setup.

This is how we can use conditional formatting feature and make use of colors and images to make the reports more attractive, eye-catchy and most important of all self-explanatory.

Hope this is useful.

You assign timecard layouts to your workers using the Timecard Layout preference. The layout determines the fields that they can enter, how the fields are arranged on the page, and the instruction text that they see. You can define as many layout styles as you require. For each layout style, you need several specific layouts:
-Timecard Layout, for time entry
-Review and Confirmation Layout, for reviewing entries before submission and confirming the entries after submission.
-For employees with the OTL Rules Evaluation preference set to Yes, the Review and Confirmation layout can display the details of overtime, double time, and so on, calculated by applying the OTLR rules from time management structures and policies.
-Confirmation Layout, which displays entries after submission
-As a supervisor, you can directly access the time sheet dashboard for post timecard submission details. You can check the online status of submitted timecards; track the percentage or number of employees who have and have not submitted timecards. You can view timecard details in a report format, and a chart displaying the distribution of data from the dashboard. You can also drill down to an employee's timecard.

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Member lists enable you to specify a subset of members within a dimension, and can reduce the time spent browsing the hierarchy of members. For example, if Italy, France, and UK are used frequently in the point of view for the Entity dimension, you can create a member list named European Region that includes the frequently used members. You can then select a European member from this list instead of browsing through the entire hierarchy of the Entity dimension.System-defined member lists are generated after an application is created and metadata is loaded. These member lists group members according to common properties, such as all children of a specified parent, or all base members of a specified dimension.

This video demonstrates How to Manage Member Lists in Oracle HFM (Hyperion Financial Management):

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Apart from major architectural differences, OBIEE 11g has several new features that were not available in 10g.
Some of the key features include:
Supports creating hierarchy objects in Subject Area
Export to xml or export to tab delimited/ and power point
11g lets variable have multiple values
11g RPD cannot be without a password
11g supports ragged hierarchies
Column selector in 11g can be defined on multiple columns, compared to just one column in 10g.

This video demonstrates the difference between OBIEE 11g and 10g in Oracle:

Apart from major architectural differences, OBIEE 11g has several new features that were not available in 10g.
Some of the key features include:
Supports creating hierarchy objects in Subject Area
Export to xml or export to tab delimited/ and power point
11g lets variable have multiple values
11g RPD cannot be without a password
11g supports ragged hierarchies
Column selector in 11g can be defined on multiple columns, compared to just one column in 10g.

This video demonstrates the difference between OBIEE 11g and 10g in Oracle:

You create rules for Financial Management in a unique script, which is based on the Microsoft VBScript language. Rules are constructed through the combination of functions, objects, and other arguments to generate the desired scripting syntax. Within each routine, you use two types of functions to write rules:
•Financial Management functions that define calculations
•VBScript functions that are used to write conditional statements

Process Control allows an HFM user to review, promote, submit, approve, and reject financial data. Process units organize data, which is defined by the combination of Scenario, Year, Period, and Entity. The review cycle in Process Management allows the data to move through a series of process states.The promotion of the data can be done within FDM, after the submission of the data through the four fish process. Within HFM, there is a Process Control module from which the status of the process units can be viewed or managed. There are filters, which allow for the viewing of entities at the various stages. Reports can be generated, as well, in FR (Financial Reporting Studio) where you can display the Process Level of each of the entities that you have listed in the report.

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