Oracle EPM Planning Oct 23.10 Patch ~ Key Takeaways!
Oracle EPM Planning - October Release: Latest & Greatest
Right on time, Oracle sent out the notes for the October 2023 release. It’s a minor release in the Planning space. The prior couple of releases added Events to enhance Auto-Predict, continued evolution of Data Pipelines, and the inclusion of Sales Planning and Strategic Workforce Planning into the platform. October’s release has some minor enhancements around Workforce configuration.
#1feature I’m excited for that’s coming in the next few months: Forms 2.0 – really excited about a revamp of the forms engine. I’m hopeful Forms 2.0 will let us create even more immersive “finance applications.”
Here’s what got announced in the October release:
1. New how-to Video to use Events - Oracle has released a new video that introduces you to how to use Events in Planning. The video shows you how to create event types, assign events to scenarios, and run predictions with events. You can also see how events affect the predicted data and how you can compare different scenarios with and without events. The video is available here.
2. Additional Earnings, Benefits, and Taxes lines available in Workforce - Another enhancement that I found useful is the increase in the number of members that you can have for Additional Earnings, Benefits, and Taxes in Workforce. You can now have a maximum of 30 members in any combination across these three components. You can toggle the mix of how you want to deploy the 30 members across Earnings, Benefits, and Taxes. This gives you more flexibility in creating the accounts you need for your compensation planning. For example, if you have different types of bonuses, allowances, or deductions for your employees or jobs, you can now accommodate them more easily.
3. New Workforce Form to Identify Invalid Data When Mapping Accounts for Integration Between Workforce and Financials - If you are using Workforce and Financials together, you might be interested in this new form that helps you identify and fix any errors in your account mappings. The form is called Identify Invalid Financials Mapping, and it is available in the Validate tab of the Compensation Planning page. The form shows you any missing or invalid mappings for the components that are required for integration between Workforce and Financials. For example, if you have not mapped a salary account or a benefit account correctly, the form will display an error message. You can then correct the mappings by running the Synchronize Definition rule at the Employee level. This form can help you avoid any issues when you run the data maps to push data from Workforce to Financials. It can also save you time and effort by identifying any errors before they cause problems in your integration process.
4. Workforce Rules and Templates Updated to Include Descriptions and Comments - The last feature that I want to mention is not a functional one, but rather a documentation one. Oracle has updated the Workforce rules and templates to include descriptions and comments that explain their purpose and structure. You can review these descriptions and comments in the Rules card or in Calculation Manager. This is a great improvement for those who want to understand how the rules and templates work and how they can modify them if needed. The descriptions and comments can also help you troubleshoot any issues or errors that might occur when running the rules or using the templates.
Wrapping up October!
Thanks for Reading! As always, this article is just a summary of the release notes for the Planning section! For other products and across the EPM platform, please review the release notes. If you have any questions or feedback, please contact me.