Tag Archive for: EPRCS

Oracle Narrative Reporting – Part 2

Overview of the Report Package

  • EPRCS operates with the “Reporting Package” feature that provides the ability to merge with Microsoft Office data and documents. EPRCS can also be combined with on-premise software, cloud data sources or other Oracle EPM applications.
  • Report packages provide a secure, collaborative, and process-driven approach for defining, authoring, reviewing and publishing financial and management reports.
  • With report packages, one can organize the content, delegate roles to authors and reviewers, manage their collaboration/workflow approvals, and sign-off process to create a structured document.

 

Figure 1 Report Package Features

 

How to create a Report Package

While creating a report package we need to provide the following details:

  • Enter Properties
    In the properties section, we need to provide the Name, Description, Report Type, Style Sample and Save To fields of a report package.

Figure 2 Enter Properties

 

Define Process

Apply the respective development phases and define the timeline for each phase.

 

  • Author Phase
    Once this phase is enabled, click on the Calendar icons to define the following dates: Start Author Phase On, Submit Doclets By and End Author Phase On.

 

Figure 3 Define Process: Author Phase

 

  • Review Phase
    Once the “Review Phase” has been enabled, click on the Calendar icons to define the dates: Start Review On, End Review Cycle 1 On and End Review On.

 

Figure 4 Define Process: Review Phase

 

  • Sign-Off Phase
    Once the “Sign-Off Phase” has been enabled, click on the Calendar icons to define the following dates: Start Sign Off On and End Sign Off On.

Figure 5 Define Process: Sign-Off Phase

 

  • Assign Users
    Next, we need to assign users and groups to the following report package responsibilities such as Owners, Reviewers, Signers, and Viewers.

 

Figure 6 Assign Users

 

  • Define Options
    The last step is to define the options for a report package such as Format Options, Shared Folder, and Doclet Versions.

 

Figure 7 Define Options

 

At last click on “Finish” to complete the report package setup. Next, we will discuss the workflow process.

Collaboration and Workflow of Report Packages

The three phases that a report package includes are the Author, Review and Sign-Off phases. For a report package, one or more of the phases can be selected.

  • Author Phase
    Within this phase content, comments and supporting details are updated to help collaborate with other users. It can be applied to an entire report package, a section, or individual doclets.

 

Figure 8 Author Phase

 

  • Review Phase
    The Review Phase is a review cycle where the reviewers can view the current status of the Doclets and input comments on the drafts through the commentary feature if needed and eventually mark their view as complete.

Figure 9 Review Phase

 

  • Sign-Off Phase
    In the sign-off phase, anyone designated as a signer for that review package formally reviews the fully completed report package one final time and other sign-off or rejects it.

Figure 10 Sign-Off Phase

In the next blog, we will discuss integration/extension of EPRCS with Microsoft office products.

 

Oracle Narrative Reporting – Part 1

In this blog post, we will be focusing on EPRCS Security access rights and roles available.

EPRCS Overview

  • Oracle Enterprise Performance Reporting Cloud Service (EPRCS) is a Cloud solution for management and narrative reporting. It provides a secure and integrated solution that offers a collaborative and process-driven approach. Cloud maintenance, patching, and back-ups are managed by Oracle.
  • The workflow process provides collaboration, commentary, and delivery of management reporting through EPRCS objects which are stored in a Library. The library can be organized by folder and managed through security.
  • EPRCS allows users to easily combine both data and narrative content on report objects called Doclets. Doclets are grouped together in a report package. “Doclet” is used to perform check-in and check-out process to manage versions.
  • Extended Microsoft Office tools (Word, PowerPoint, etc.) can be used to provide the output of management reports. This includes an intelligent and intuitive simplified UI that can be accessed via desktop, mobile, and the web.
  • User Roles: Provides user types such as owners, authors, and approvers and role-based security and auditable access on desktop and mobile devices.

Figure 1 EPRCS Architecture

 

 

EPRCS Security

EPRCS enables secure collaboration between users. One can control which users can edit which Doclets. This allows users from various departments and areas to all contribute to the same report package thereby safeguarding sensitive data. Inside EPRCS, security is provided at three levels:

 

Figure 2 EPRCS Security Roles

System-Level Roles:

  • For EPRCS environments two sets of roles are created. One set is for Production and another set is for Pre-Production. Pre-Production allows EPRCS customers to keep security differentiated for testing purposes.
  • Roles can also be combined into groups under My Services via the Custom Roles tab. It is considered best practice for assigning security to users based on groups, rather than individually. The five predefined roles are as below:
Roles Access based on roles
Service Administrators Create and maintain all aspects of the system, except for user management
Reports Administrators Create and manage report packages, management reporting definitions, and Disclosure Management documents
Application Administrators Create and maintain all application artifact’s, such as applications, models, dimensions, and data grants
Library Administrators Create and manage folders including root-level folders
Users The minimum role required to log-in and participate in the reporting cycle, and to view artifacts’ to which the user has access

 

 

Artifact-level Security:

Figure 3 Artifact level Security

 

 

You automatically have permission to edit, delete, and maintain that artifact when you create an artifact (report package, folder, application). You can grant security by users and groups to the artifacts created. Users without access cannot see or access that artifact. Artifacts can be given the following forms of permissions:

 

Roles Application Report Packages Third-party Artifacts or Folders
Administer Y Y Y
Use Y – –
View  – Y Y
Write  – – Y

 

  • Administer: Unrestricted view and change privilege to all artifacts.
  • Write: Enables users to add folder content.
  • View: Enables users to view only the artifact.
  • Use: Enables the user to see the application in the library.

 

Figure 4 Access in Report Package

Figure 5 Access to Application


Data Security:

 

Figure 6 Data level Security

It determines the level of security, in which data access permissions can be granted to users. Data level security can be set through Dimension-based access: either by setting the READ access or NONE access.

Figure 7 Dimension-based access

 

Grant access to parts of data in a model. This grant may be at an individual level or by cross-dimension/intersections.

Figure 8 Data Grant level access

To Summarize:

  • EPRCS is a powerful reporting solution that is secure, collaborative and intuitive meant to complement and combine reporting from various types of technologies.
  • Simplify the report creation and distribution process.
  • Collaborate with content contributors and reviewers.
  • Access through Mobile or desktop – when you want, how you want.
  • Publish book – quality financial and management reports.
  • EPRCS has a wide variety of functions that can take it anywhere in an organization to meet unique reporting needs with its cost-effective pricing and is a great entry point for new cloud customers.

 

 

Part 2 will be on “EPRCS Workflow Setup and Details”: where we will talk about the workflow approvals and sign-off process related to the publishing of the reports.