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Oracle updates all Planning & Budgeting Cloud environments ( PBCS /EPBCS) monthly to address defects and introduce new features. These updates are delivered automatically on specific dates scheduled by Oracle , during the mandatory daily maintenance window. Keep in mind that while you can configure your daily maintenance window time, you can't change the dates these updates are applied. Oracle announces next month's update dates via newsletter at the end of each month.

November 2018 updates are currently scheduled to be deployed in test environments on Friday, November 2 , and to production environments on Friday, November 16, starting at 11:00 p.m. UTC . Any schedule changes are also announced via the newsletter, which is automatically sent to all cloud administrators (keep an eye out for Oracle emails with Enterprise Performance Management Cloud Services in the subject).

These are the highlights of the November 2018 Planning & Budgeting Cloud update:

• There is a new version of the EPM Automate Utility that includes recently added new features such as addUsersToGroup, removeUsersFromGroup, assignrole, and provisionreport. The new features are a great effort to mirror and enhance the classic security groups, roles, and reports that you are used to in on-premise versions.
• There is also a new version of Oracle SmartView for Office (11.1.2.5.810) that addresses several known defects and includes the following new features:
  • 1. Drill-Through to Excel Sheets from EPM Cloud
  • 2. Attaching Files to Cells in Forms and Ad Hoc Grids
  • 3. Additional Information Added to Health Check
  • 4. Support for Oracle Sales Planning Cloud
• You can now push data between Strategic Modeling and Planning using data maps and Smart Push. The advanced options let you define complex mappings using single or multiple dimensions, however, please note these options are only available if Strategic Modeling is enabled and is a source/target in the data map.
• The search functionality is more intuitive for forms, dashboards, and infolets. You can now toggle between a flat view or a hierarchal view.
• Additional updates to User Preference Changes have been expanded since the September 2018 release and can be found in the link provided below. Some of the notable updates include selecting members for user variables and setting preferences for ad hoc options. Oracle continues to expand these changes to enhance the cloud experience and alleviate the learning curve when migrating from on-premise versions.

A few of the anticipated ASO filter, design-time prompt, and date conversion Calculation Manager features have been released in this update and listed below:

• @FilterDynamic(Dimension Name, Member Name) removes all dynamic members from the list of members
• @FilterShared(Dimension Name, Member Name) removes all shared members from the list of members
• @FilterSharedAndDynamic(Dimension Name, Member Name) removes all dynamic and shared members from the list of members
• @IsAncest returns true if the specified ancestor member is an ancestor of the child member
• @IsChild returns true if the specified child member is a child of the specified parent member
• @CalcMgrDateTimesToExcel function converts multiple dates in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS format to Excel dates

More details including a full list of defects fixed on the November 2018 Planning & Budgeting Cloud update can be found here .