I'm pretty sure you are already aware of it already had a look to all published by bloggers all around the world. If not, you should know EPM 11.1.2.4 was released at the beginning of the week.
I have been offline for some time...I had to move forward in many different matters before my 1st baby comes :-)
Although I have to publish some Part 2, 3, etc. I would like to write a brief introduction about what new features of FDMEE 11.1.2.4. Once I have my EPM installation up & running I will update this post with some screenshots and feedback and will continue the series with other new enhancements you cannot easily see but they are actually there...either in the documentation or code line...
In this first post I will point to the ones documented in the New Features Document which you can find here (I know, erpi is still in the doc name!)
Target Application Enhancements
Native support has been added for HPCM and TAX provision (HFM application)
They will be available as target application type in the registration page:
- Financial Management and Tax
- Profitability
What about Hyperion Strategic Finance? We will have to wait as it is on the road map.
Target Load Options
This is a good one. Do you remember in FDM Classic the capability of having different adapter for the same target application due to requirement of different locations having different requirements when loading. For example, use data protection or not.
In FDMEE, we can only register a target application once so that was not possible (only with scripting). Now it is.
Data Load Rules have 3 types of options:
- Source Options (as they already had)
- Target Options (we can define target application option at location/data load rules level)
- Custom Options (integration options 1-4)
Data Synchronization
This is the key seller of FDMEE 11.1.2.4. We can now move data between EPM apps out of the box. No more import scripts, no more Open Interface Adapter to extract data from EPM apps, no more calls to Extended Analytics, etc.
In this release, we will be able to configure data sync in a very easy way. We can even define filters using application native syntax (Es: @RELATIVE...) when extracting data.
Write Back
So now that we can extract data from HFM applications, why not being able to write-back to ERP systems?
Before 11.1.2.4 we could only do it from Planning and Essbase.
POV Locking
As you can see in my old post I was not so fan of POV lock and the way it was designed. It seems they have added FDM Classic parity so you can now lock POV for all locations or individual locations. I still need to double check if the enhanced the locking method.
Import Format Builder
Honestly I don't know many people using this feature in FDM classic but I understand it can be very useful specially for business users.
For those who don't know how it was working, basically you could build your import format in a more graphical way so FDM was telling you how source fields and dimensions were mapped int he import format.
Concatenating ERP segments
This is also a good one as it solves a limitation. We can now concatenate unlimited number of ERP segments/chartfields (before only 5)
Fix mappings on the fly
Anyone could provide an answer about why this feature was not available since FDMEE born.
We can now fix missing mappings from the validation screen as we did in FDM Classic.
Report Translation
There are now report templates in different languages. I will check if Spanish is one of them :-)
FCM integration with FDMEE
In previous releases FCM users could only trigger data loads for ARM.
Now we go one upper level. FCM users will be able to trigger data loads and navigate to Data Load Workbench from FCM when closing periods. I will have to check if users can also lock periods from FCM?
SAP Adapter
Although it was already available in PSU52, there is a new version of the FDMEE-SAP Adapter (4.0)
You can download it from Bristlecone site as usually. The new version has two main enhancements:
- Performance improvement for Cost Center adapter including deletion of temporary tables
- Some ODI KM bugs regarding KM parameters have been now fixed
And also documentation which is now much clearer and complete.
I think this is a good starting point...the show must go on! What do you think about new features?
BTW, I'm very happy to announce you good news for this 2015:
I expect a very busy year especially with the most difficult project...being father :-)
