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Rockport Software Ltd,
126 Fairlie Road,
Slough,
SL1 4PY,
Berkshire,
U.K.
Tel: +44 (0)1753 577201
Fax: +44 (0)1753 577202
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Click on the links below for more information about EPB

Oracle Enterprise Planning & Budgeting (EPB)

On this page you will find some background information relating to the EPB product as well as notes for if you are considering migrating away from EPB or implementing an alternative solution.

Are you currently using Oracle EPB?
Do you have questions relating to EPB functionality, licensing, upgrade options?
Would you like to know more about migrating from EPB to Essbase or Hyperion Planning?

Note: As of 2008, Oracle are no longer marketing the EPB product. Oracle acquired Hyperion in 2007 and are now marketing Oracle Hyperion Planning as their budgeting and forecasting solution.

Speak to us today to find out how we can help you with the decision and implementation process.

Oracle Enterprise Planning & Budget (EPB)

Oracle Enterprise Planning & Budgeting (Oracle EPB) is an industry leading planning and analysis application provided as part of the Oracle Corporate Performance Management (CPM) framework of the Oracle E-Business Suite.

EPB enables enterprise level organisations to control their planning cycles with tailored EPB business processes. Each business process can be defined according to business rules and allows complex rules, calculations, tasks and workflow controls. Responsibilities based on users and hierarchies allow control to be maintained over reporting and budgeting processes and for controlling business process required actions and approvals.

The calculation engine for EPB is based on the Oracle OLAP technology stack and provides powerful modelling and analysis capabilities. Links with the Oracle General Ledger simplify data acquisition and maintenance tasks, allowing greater emphasis to be placed on developing and monitoring budgeting processes (EPB can also be used as a stand alone product for customers who do not use the E-Business Suite). Core business structures (dimensions, hierarchies, attributes, datasets) are maintained in the Oracle Enterprise Planning Foundation (EPF) shared metadata model to allow common maintenance for all CPM applications.

EPB Screen Shot - Variance Report

Availability

EPB is on general release now! (as of August 2006). The current version is EPB v2 (aka Minipack B).

Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting is delivered as a component of the Oracle e-Business Suite (as a patch for 11.5.9, as part of the rapid installation from 11.5.10 onwards). EPB requires an Oracle database version 9.2.0.5 or greater (including the OLAP Option).

OFA / OSA Customers

EPB was originally intended as a direct replacement for the OFA/OSA/Oracle Express Server family of products - and includes many features recognisable to those products - however, for some customers, EPB may not be a suitable replacement for either product. Contact Rockport to discuss your existing OFA/OSA applications and whether EPB is a suitable upgrade route.

Application Features:

Budgeting, Planning, Forecasting, Modelling & Reporting Tool
Based on Oracle Database OLAP technology
Powerful Ad hoc analysis of multidimensional data
Powerful data selector and report query builder
Integrated with Oracle General Ledger

Rockport Expertise

Rockport offer a full range of services relating to Oracle Enterprise Planning & Budgeting (EPB)

EPB Software Advice & Installation
EPB Software licensing
EPB Patch Advice & Installation
EPB implementations
Proof of concept EPB designs
Bespoke training
Support & Upgrade assistance for customers migrating from OFA

EPB Documentation Downloads

	Oracle Link	Local Copy
August 2002	EPB Statement of Direction	download
August 2003	Migrating OFA to EPB (Oracle whitepaper)	download
September 2004	Migrating OFA to EPB (Oracle whitepaper)	download
September 2005	EPB Feature Comparison with OFA	download
October 2005	EPB FAQ from Oracle Development	download
August 2005	EPB v2 Datasheet 218K	download
August 2006	EPB Case Study - China Eastern Airlines	download

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view some of the files above

Enterprise Planning & Budget - Information

EPB has been on general release since August 2006. The current version is EPB v2 (aka Minipack B).

Current Release

Enterprise Planning & Budgeting v2 (Minipack B).

Minipack B was initially released Q4. 2005 as a controlled release.

Key Features

EPB v2 is an enterprise scaleable budgeting and planning tool.

EPB Feature Overview:

Manage your budgeting, planning & reporting processes centrally
Control the time plan and level of detail for each business process.
Share information across Oracle Applications or use interface tables to load external data sources
Single EPB instance for supporting multiple business areas across an enterprise
Multiple Business Areas within EPB to support multiple chart of accounts & company structures
Loading, calculation, budgeting cycles each configured as unique EPB Business Processes
Budget at different organisational levels
Control budgeting cycle using budget targets, annotations, budget approval workflow
Develop budgets using built in spread, grow, increase, aggregate functions
Budget validation and approval mechanism to enforce budget constraints
Reporting and Analysis with multidimensional crosstabs and graphs
Analyst calculations using calculation templates for ad-hoc analyses
Shared saved selections and shared documents for minimized administration
Distribute briefing books as automatic parts of business process
Support for multiple output formats: Word, Excel, PDF.
Data ownership, read/write access configurable by user
Grant users different responsibilities based on their functional role within the business processes
Grant users shadow responsibilities to allow vacation or succession planning for business users.
Set automatic exception alerts to monitor business processes

New Features introduced in EPB v2 include the following:

Integrated link with Oracle General Ledger (loading data from GL)
Import budgets from Microsoft Excel worksheets
Professional Quality Reporting via XML Publisher
Budgeting with Multiple Currencies
Multiple Business Areas, Duplicate Business Areas
New calculation templates with IF..THEN...ELSE conditional logic
API control of business processes
API control of security management
API access to expose data in EPB analytic workspaces to SQL query

Features not available in EPB yet:

Budget Write-back to Oracle General Ledger
Drill to GL within EPB
Support for customization

Availability

EPB v2 is available for Oracle Applications 11.5.9 and above.
EPB v2 requires Oracle 9.2.0.7, 9.2.0.8, 10.1.0.2, 10.2.0.2
EPB v2 runs on Linux, Unix and Windows 2

Future Releases

Initial Release - EPB v1 (MiniPack A)

EPB v1 - released 2004:

Controlled release
Migration techniques included for OFA customers
Transitional link to Oracle General Ledger (reduced functionality)
Distributed Reporting and Forecasting
Multidimensional reporting and analysis
Control and tracking of Business Processes
Variance analysis across all dimensions
Automations and process management
Complex security and data access rules
Driver based modelling
Exception monitoring and reporting

Oracle Links

Enterprise Planning & Budget - Frequently Asked Questions

What is EPB?
Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting (EPB) is a new planning application in the E-Business suite that offers a scalable budgeting tool with advanced modelling and ad-hoc analysis capabilities. The modelling and analysis functionality is based on Oracle's multi dimensional OLAP engine.

How can we obtain EPB?
The base components required for Oracle EPB are delivered with Oracle Applications 11.5.10. EPB requires several further minipack installations and patches before it can be accessed as an application.

What are the benefits of implementing EPB?
EPB provides a single location for managing the budgeting, planning, forecasting operations throughout an enterprise. EPB offers a great deal of flexibility when defining these business processes to enable the EPB processes to be tailored to your company's requirements. Data can be loaded from Oracle General Ledger, external data sources or can be entered manually and developed inside EPB. Development of budgets within EPB can be structured within a hierarchical distribution and approval process.

What Oracle applications link with EPB?
EPB is included as a component within Oracle E-Business suite and has a link to the Oracle General Ledger module. However, EPB can be implemented as a stand alone application with links to other non-Oracle ledger applications by loading data through the EPF interface tables.

What Oracle technology is required for implementing EPB?
Oracle EPB requires Oracle Applications 11.5.9 or later. EPB requires the Enterprise Performance Foundation (EPF) product to be enabled and patched.
The full list of detailed oracle technology requirements, patch levels and operating system requirements is maintained within the Oracle Metalink documents.
304853.1 - About Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Mini-pack 11i.ZPB.B
304874.1 - About Oracle Enterprise Performance Foundation Minipack 11i.FEM.D.1

What are the functionality differences between OFA/OSA and EPB?
Oracle Financial Analyzer (OFA) and Sales Analyzer (OSA) are analytic tools based on the Oracle Express Server multidimensional OLAP engine. EPB is based on the Oracle OLAP technology stack - which itself was based on the Oracle Express Server multi dimensional OLAP engine. EPB builds on the functionally available in OFA/OSA to offer additional workflow integration, greater automation, data driven exception alerts, flexible business processes, enhanced reporting and analysis and new advanced calculations. However, EPB is not necessarily a direct replacement or upgrade path for either of the OFA/OSA analytic tools due to design and functionally differences.

An Oracle paper is available with a more comprehensive comparison of application features between OFA and EPB.

Click here to download the document.

We currently use OFA, how to we migrate to EPB?
Oracle have provided a migration white paper and a detailed migration document that outlines the general method of migrating data and structures from and OFA application. A set of procedures were included in the first version of EPB for extracting data and structure from OFA in a format that would assist loading into EPF. Data and structures from OFA applications can be loaded into EPB version 2 in a similar manner by exporting to flat files and loading them into EPF as external data sources.

The Oracle white paper discussing possible migration from an OFA application to the EPB product can be downloaded here

However, for many OFA customers it may not be possible, nor desirable, to migrate to EPB. There are limitations on migrating structures from OFA into EPF becuase of the structured nature for the dimension definitions in EPF. In addition, there is no concept in EPB for many of the customisations (structural, solves, or custom code) that many OFA users have in their current applications. A careful analysis of your OFA application and the functionality within EPB would be required to make a judgement on whether EPB is right for you.

Please contact us if you require any additional information or help with your EPB evaluation.

OFA/OSA and Express Server continue to have error correction support until end of 2008 with extended support until 2010.

We currently use OSA, how to we migrate to EPB?
EPB is not a natural replacement for current OSA customers. We would recommend that OSA customers consider using other Oracle technology as their upgrade path from OSA. Oracle Discoverer for OLAP reporting, components of Oracle BI Standard Edition or Oracle BI Enterprise Edition should all be considered by OSA customers.

OFA/OSA and Express Server continue to have error correction support until end of 2008 with extended support until 2010.

Can EPB be customized in a similar manner to our current OFA application?
EPB does not offer scope for customizations similar to those used in OFA applications via programs for custom calculations, custom solves or custom automations. EPB is designed to provide a pre-buiilt set of calculations and functionality rather than allow custom extensions.

EPB does provide standard APIs to assist with common task automations, such as security management and control of business processes. In addition, there is an API that allows EPB data (held in analytic workspaces) available to external applications via relational tables through SQL commands.

Can we migrate our OFA custom code to EPB?
There is no scope for migrating custom program code from existing OFA applications due to the differences in functionality and methodology between the two applications. However, some functionality provided in OFA via custom code has been provided as standard functionality in EPB.

Where can we find EPB training?
Rockport can provide bespoke training for all aspects of EPB functionality. Oracle University also offers end user training for EPB responsibilities.

What is EPF / FEM?
EPB requires the Enterprise Performance Foundation (EPF) Oracle Applications product to be enabled and patched. EPF provides a single shared metadata model for all the Oracle CPM applications in the E-Business suite (EPB, FCH, OPM) and includes a database schema where data is initially loaded before importing into the EPB workspaces. EPF provides a set of pre defined dimensions (as well as allowing user defined dimensions) and interface tables for loading metadata, structures and data from multiple sources. All EPF structures reside within the FEM schema within the database (the EPF produce was originally called FEM).

How is security managed in EPB?
EPB is integrated with Oracle Applications, so all EPB users are set up as Oracle Applications users and are given one of four EPB responsibilities.

- EPB Controllers are administrators for EPB business areas and business processes and can create and view reports
- EPB Business Process Administrators can administer business processes and can create and view reports
- EPB Security Administrators control security and access to EPB business areas
- EPB Analysts can create and view reports

Each EPB user must be explicitly assigned read or write access to data by an EPB administrator. In addition, ownership of data can be assigned to individual users based on dimensional hierarchies, which allows approval, accountability and notification functionalities within EPB for controlling data.

What is a Business Process in EPB?
Each business activity is packaged within EPB as a business process. For example, a separate business process would be defined for loading monthly actual data, current year budgeting, rolling forecast, etc. Each business process contains multiple tasks and events that complete in turn; for example, data loading, data solving, allocations, worksheet distributions, data collection, report publications, exception alerts, and scheduling. All EPB business processes are enabled with applications workflow technology. Each task within a business process is controlled by Oracle Workflow and runs as a task in the concurrent manager. EPB users can elect to have notifications for individual stages within business processes, business process completions or for data exception alerts.

How does EPB link to the General Ledger?
EPB has procedures to load structures and data directly from the Oracle General Ledger into EPF interface tables ready for loading into EPB. There is a specific table (FEM_BALANCES) used for storing data from the General Ledger. The general ledger link includes support for loading multiple currencies, multiple sets of books from the General Ledger. At present, there is not a defined procedure for passing data back from EPB into the Oracle General Ledger, though this can be achieved via a customization and is intended as a standard feature in a future EPB release. EPB version 1 (minipack A) had a transitional link to the Oracle General Ledger that was replaced in EPB version 2.

Can multiple business processes by run together?
Yes. Separate business activities (actual data loading, budget cycles, forecasting) are held in different business processes, each with different task lists and timescales. It would be common to have several business processes running concurrently. For example, a full budgeting cycle may take several months to complete, a forecasting process may be ongoing and actual loading and reporting processes may run on monthly cycles.

What reporting options are available with EPB?
The EPB user interface is html based (unlike the web clients for OFA/OSA, which are java/html based). EPB has three main document types: crosstabs, graphs and data entry worksheets. EPB data and reports can be exported from EPB to HTML (Excel), txt or csv formats. In addition, reports can be exported in an XML format that can be used to create reporting templates for XML publisher (now known as BI Publisher).

Does EPB have an Excel Add-in?
EPB reports and worksheets can be exported in an HTML Excel format, preserving data formatting, data layout and page formats.
EPB Data entry worksheets can be exported to Excel files in which the spreadsheet data cells are linked back to the source EPB cubes. Budgets can therefore be developed offline and later imported back into EPB.
An Excel Add-in for EPB is also available, as a recent patch to be applied to EPB. Based on the FCH Excel Add-in and XML Publisher technology, the Excel Add-in allows EPB reports to be viewed in Excel, new reports and selections be created that report on EPB business process views.

How is EPB licensed?
EPB is licensed on a named user basis; either as a full or read-only user. EPB licences include a run-time version of the Oracle database with the OLAP option.

Existing OFA/OSA users can trade in their existing licences for EPB licences.

Contact Rockport for more details about EPB licence costs.