Month: June 2025

Smart Split feature in 25.07

New EPM Data Integration Features in 25.07

Oracle updates for the 25.07 patch just recently came out and there are a couple of great features for Data Integration in the mix this month.

First, a new application role called “Data Integration – Administrator” is rolling out. This access role will grant a user access to all activities in Data Integration. This means a user will be able to create/manage integrations, execute and monitor pipelines, and perform data and metadata extraction and transformation from on-premises sources using the EPM Integration Agent. The new role is a fantastic addition to allow a user to manage your integrations without giving them Service Administrator permissions on the rest of application. This applies to pretty much all EPM business processes including ARC, EPCM, FCC, Planning, PCM, and Tax Reporting.

The second update is the addition of the Smart Split feature in Pipeline. Basically, Essbase has a governor and it gets mad when you try to push too much data into it. The solution up to now has been to split a large volume data integration into multiple smaller slices of data to get around the limit. Going forward, we can set up a large integration like normal with one big data load rule. Then, in Pipeline we can add an “Integration with Smart Split” job which will split the files for us based on the Split Dimension specified. This will allow the system to bypass the governor to submit smaller data slices without requiring the creation of multiple integrations. Smart Split will be available in EPCM, FCC, Planning, and Tax Reporting

Check out the Proactive Support Blog update here for more information on all of the 25.07 updates: https://blogs.oracle.com/proactivesupportepm/post/oracle-planning-july-2025-cloud-updates

EPM Data Integration Copy Features

Just catching up after Kscope and I was going to write a quick blog post about the EPM Data Integration Copy Integration and Copy Pipeline features, but I was scooped.

These features were released in the 25.04 updates (April 2025), but I haven’t had a chance to use them yet and actually forgot it was a thing until Mike Casey talked about it at Kscope.

My friend Trey Daniel just happened to post about it five days ago on LinkedIn. Please check out his post on the subject here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cross-pod-migrations-selected-oracle-epm-cloud-data-trey-daniel-mba-yglgc

One thing I didn’t realize was that it is possible to copy integrations and pipelines to other pods by using the connection feature. The EPM community is alive and well thanks to those who share their knowledge.

UPDATE: TLS 1.2 Deprecation Testing

After the 25.06 update was released, I did a quick test of a Windows 10 VM with Smart View and EPM Automate. The concern was that TLS 1.3 is supported only on Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11 and that our customers on older versions of Windows may have issues.

The test consisted of a Hyper-V Windows 10 Enterprise Evaluation VM with MS Office 365 installed. Using a test pod with the Vision Planning sample app installed, I tried to get in and start testing around 5:30 PM CDT (22:30 UTC) but the update wasn’t pushed yet. I tried a couple of times to run the “epmautomate rundailymaintenance” command to force the update, but no luck. After 6:00 PM CDT, I tried the rundailymaintenance again and it worked.

My Smart View ad-hoc template retrieved data just fine. Similarly, EPM Automate logged in after the update and told me it needed an upgrade. I ran the upgrade command and logged out. Even after the upgrade, EPM Automate logged in just fine.

Looks like a big nothing burger, which is the best result for us all. This was a test of end user tools, so I would still recommend all of you out there in EPM land to thoroughly test after this update just to make sure everything is good.

The coming TLS-pocalypse?

On Friday, June 6, 2025, the June (25.06) update will be released. Since at least April, Oracle has been communicating that TLS 1.2 will be deprecated in favor of TLS 1.3. Transport Layer Security is used to encrypt data transfers between computers, like between your company laptop and the Oracle EPM Cloud server. TLS 1.3 has stronger encryption algorithms to safeguard that data so it makes sense that we need to update to the later standard.

Browsers have supported TLS 1.2 and 1.3 for quite some time, so no worries there. There is some ambiguity in Oracle’s statement that causes me some concern, though. In the June Update, we have the following:

Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol version 1.2 is no longer used for connections to Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM environments; all connections are made over TLS 1.3 only. This change requires you to use a browser that supports TLS 1.3. Additionally, you need to ensure that the operating system and EPM Clients (such as EPM Automate, Smart View, and EPM Agent) that you use support TLS 1.3. The newest version of EPM Clients, and many previous versions, already support TLS 1.3.
If you integrate on-premises EPM instances with Fusion Cloud EPM using Financial Data Quality Management Enterprise Edition (FDMEE), make sure to use FDMEE version 11.2.7 or newer because older versions do not support TLS 1.3.

Over the last 15 years, I think 80% or more of my work at customers has been done on Windows client machines and servers. Many times, customers have implemented their corporate standard OS version which might not be the latest available at the time of installation. Given that information, the third sentence of the Oracle Update notes seems to indicate that the OS also needs to support TLS 1.3.

After searching on some Microsoft sites, it seems that the only flavors of Windows to support TLS 1.3 are Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022. The concern is that customers who sometimes are a little slower to adopt new technology may experience issues trying to integrate with EPM Cloud products if they are on Windows 10 or older Windows Server versions that don’t support TLS 1.3. Customers who use FDMEE on-premises instead of the EPM Integration Agent still will also want to ensure their FDMEE has been upgraded to at least 11.2.7.

We will see what happens Friday night. Hopefully it’s as non-eventful as my New Year’s Eve in 1999.