Calling Data Management Rule from Calculation Manager rule using Groovy!

This was always a special request from multiple customers Can I run Data Management rules from a form?  For quite a while the answer was sorry you cannot. But with Groovy + Calculation Manager you can do that. Yes, you can call the Data Management rule from a Calculation manager rule and attach the Calculation Manager rule to a Menu and attach that Menu to the Form, so the users can run them when needed.

The next question is if the User id is not an Admin user, will he be still able to run the Data Management rule. As per the Oracle EPM security setup you cannot.

But you can overcome this by using Connections either by using On Demand Connections or Named Connections.

A Brief intro on when to use when, (from the Oracle document)

In general, connections can be created in one of two ways:

On-demand connection

  Connection connection = connection(http://server:port/HyperionPlanning/rest/v3/applications/Vision, "user", "password")

These connections are easy to change and are great for prototyping and trying out connections.

Named connection

  Connection connection = operation.application.getConnection("Job Definitions")

These connections allow clean separation between resource details and usage. This has multiple benefits over on-demand
connections including:

• Ease of maintenance - Reuse a connection definition in multiple scripts. Any changes to the definition will automatically apply to all scripts using the named connection.
• Enhanced security - with on-demand connections, confidential information such as passwords and API keys are visible to anyone who can edit the Groovy script. With named connections, sensitive information can be encrypted and stored securely and cannot be seen or retrieved by Groovy scriptwriters.
• Ease of use - simplifies the creation of connections to first-party resources such as Oracle Cloud Services.

Invoking REST API via Groovy program outside of EPM Cloud – Authentication to EPM Cloud Part-2

This post is the continuation of the previous one where I explained how to read the User ID, Password, etc.. from a file in the Groovy Program. So the file containing the  User ID, Password, etc.. is a central repository where you need to change it only once.

In this post, I will extend that feature by using the encoding/decoding methods to encode the password and decode it wherever needed. So the password Is not exposed anywhere and no security breach of storing the password in a file or a program.

Let me divide this post into two parts

1. Encode the Oracle EPM authenticating Password using a Secret Key.

Kindly note I have used the AES encryption algorithm to encrypt the password.

 

Invoking REST API via Groovy program outside of EPM Cloud – Authentication to EPM Cloud

In this blog, we will see how to invoke the Oracle EPM REST API endpoints outside of Oracle EPM (as a standalone program accessing the REST API endpoints from any machine where the Groovy program can be executed). We all knew we can call Oracle EPM REST API endpoints from the Calculation Manager Business rules as Groovy rules but this is entirely different from that.

 

All About Connecting EPM Cloud Environments & Managing it via REST API!

Connections

Service Administrators can connect multiple EPM Cloud environments of the following types:

• Planning
• FreeForm
• Financial Consolidation and Close
• Tax Reporting
• Profitability and Cost Management
• Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management
• Account Reconciliation
• Narrative Reporting
• Oracle Strategic Workforce Planning Cloud

Once Service Administrators set up the connections, users who have access across EPM Cloud environments can navigate across them from a single access point with one login. 

Also, artifacts such as forms and dashboards, from across environments can be co-mingled within a cluster or within tabs on a card in navigation flows. Artifacts in the target environment are accessible based on the user's role.

All about Cross application data map in PBCS/EPBCS application!

Oracle released the cool feature of "CROSS APPLICATION SUPPORT FOR SMART PUSH IN DATA MAPS" in April 2022. 

Cross Application Smart Push feature enables customers with multiple applications to instantly move data, cell comments and supporting detail from a cube in a source application to a reporting or other cube in a remote target application

Applies to: Planning, Planning Modules (both as source and target), FreeForm (both as source and target),  Financial Consolidation and Close (target only), Tax Reporting (target only).

Fix - Capital data was not getting pushed into Financials!

We ran into an issue that the Capital data was not getting pushed to the Financials using the system-generated Data Map "Financial Statement Integration".  As this was working before but was not working since we added new accounts to the "Map Capital Account to FS"

There is no problem with data push and the members selected in the data map are set up correctly.

While running the Data Map it does give a warning stating as below,

[Data row: 4]

Skipping Smartlist(NumericToSmartList2Transformer (OCX_FinstatementAccounts)), Missing Label not defined.

One or more rows or columns was not converted due to missing members in the reporting application

Adding history Years in PBCS/EPBCS!

We all might have come across this request when we need to add a history year. The Years are populated using the parameters specified while creating the Planning application. 

It is pretty common where we created the Planning application starting from FY16 but later on the request was to add the FY15 too. 

Newly added users to PBCS/EPBCS cannot access the instance!

Newly added users to PBCS/EPBCS cannot access the instance!

You might have hit this issue that the recently added users to PBCS/EPBCS cannot access the instance, it gives an error message,

"User is not authorized on this service instance" 

Cube refresh failed with Essbase Cube: Cube Name, Error code: 1060374 - Fix/suggestion

A quick one that took a while to fix the issue, assuming it helps the needy.  

The customer was running on EPBCS on version latest version. While running the database refresh it did throw the following error message, 

Cube refresh failed with Essbase Cube: Cube Name,

List Backups via REST API for PBCS/EPBCS applications

The new REST API features enabled on April 22 are so cool, you can now access all the backups created by Oracle on your own without the need to raise an SR with Oracle support. I am referring to the Artifact Snapshot taken by Oracle when there is a change to the instance.

From the Oracle Documentation,

List Backups - Only for OCI (Gen 2) Environments

In OCI (Gen 2) environments, you can list available backup snapshots archived by Oracle in the Oracle Object Storage Cloud.

You can then restore available backup snapshots (copy them to the environment), To restore backup snapshots in OCI (Gen 2) environments, see Restore Backup. After copying the backup, you can archive it or use it to restore the current environment by yourself. After copying the backup, you can archive it or use it to restore the current environment by yourself. With the List Backups and Restore Backup APIs, you no longer have to create a service request to request a backup from an OCI environment.

This API is version v2.

KSCOPE 21 - Takeaways and programs/code used in my presentation - Part 1

Welcome back to my Blog. Hope you find this one useful & informative.

I did present this topic in KSCOPE 21 -  and as promised during the session will be posting all the programs and the code that is used during the presentation.

In this post, I will post the EPM Automate program and the Groovy Program to automate security management.

Also, you could find my presentation here.

Automating Security Management in PBCS! from Dayalan Punniyamoorthy