Oracle Financials Cloud

What’s New in Release 10

June 2015

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................................................................. 3

GIve Us Feedback ............................................................................................................................................................... 3

RELEASE FEATURE SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................ 3

COMMON USER EXPERIENCE FEATURES ................................................................................................................ 4

Home Page ......................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Navigator ........................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Grouping ............................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Notifications ....................................................................................................................................................................... 8

COMMON SECURITY FEATURES ........................................................................................................................... 10

Role Simplification ........................................................................................................................................................... 10

PAYMENTS ........................................................................................................................................................... 12

Advanced Security Features ............................................................................................................................................. 12

RECEIVABLES ........................................................................................................................................................ 14

Discount Calculation Basis Date ....................................................................................................................................... 14 Print Receivables Transactions in Different Formats including Zipped PDFs ................................................................... 15

PRE-UPGRADE PREPARATION .............................................................................................................................. 17

Preserve Customized Reports .......................................................................................................................................... 17

POST-UPGRADE CONSIDERATIONS ...................................................................................................................... 19

REVISION HISTORY ............................................................................................................................................... 20

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OVERVIEW

This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in Oracle Financials Cloud Release 10. Each section includes a brief description of the feature, the steps you need to take to enable or begin using the feature, any tips or considerations that you should keep in mind, and the resources available to help you.

GIVE US FEEDBACK

We welcome your comments and suggestions to improve the content. Please send us your feedback at oracle_fusion_applications_help_ww_grp@oracle.com

RELEASE FEATURE SUMMARY

Some of the new Release 10 features are automatically available to users after the upgrade and some require action from the user, the company administrator, or Oracle.

The table below offers a quick view of the actions required to enable each of the Release 10 features.

Action Required to Enable Feature

Feature Automatically

Available

End User Action

Required

Administrator Action

Required

Oracle Service Request Required

Common Technology and User Experience Features

Unified Home Page and Navigator

Role Simplification

Payments

Advanced Security Features Receivables

Discount Calculation Basis Date Print Receivables Transactions in Different Formats including Zipped PDFs

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COMMON USER EXPERIENCE FEATURES

Oracle’s focus on providing an exceptional user experience pervades Oracle Applications. Creating a compelling, pleasing user interface (UI) that provides what you need when you need it is of the highest priority.

For more information on these features please refer to What’s New in Release 10 for Oracle Cloud Applications Common Technologies and User Experience.

HOME PAGE

Enjoy unified access to desktop applications and simplified interfaces through a clean, modern, contemporary entry experience for the Oracle Applications Cloud. Experience this new home page that enables you to take a quick glance at your work related tasks and activities and provides you with easy access to perform any functions.

Use the icons to easily access relevant work areas and dashboards, and the social and announcement cards. Alternatively, use the Navigator to access any additional applications. Leverage the global header section of the page to access common functionality such as:

• Search • Favorites & Recent Items • Notifications • Watchlist • Accessibility • Help

A single click on the Home icon or the logo quickly returns you back to the entry page thus providing a fulfilling home experience.

The Welcome dashboard, which was the home page in earlier releases, is preserved as My Dashboard. Any previous personalization and customizations are also delivered in My Dashboard.

New default home content is set by the application, but can be configured to meet your business needs. Enhanced extensibility features allow you to maintain control over who sees what in the home page and the navigator.

The following screen capture shows a typical home page.

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STEPS TO ENABLE

A new URL is needed to access the new home page.

• For a new implementation, there are no additional steps necessary to enable this feature. • For an upgrade, you will experience a new home page after the upgrade.

Your link to the home page from earlier releases is no longer active, and will display a message directing you to the new home page.

o Select the Home icon in the Global Header to access the new home page. o Bookmark this new link in your browser favorites and ensure that you use the new

home page moving forward.

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TIPS AND CONSIDERATIONS

• You should ensure you always use the newly published Home URL to access cloud applications. Even though URL redirection is enabled for bookmarked URLs of old home pages, it is recommended to switch to new URLs for a better user experience.

• Redirection of old URLs to the new one is enabled only for home pages. Any other work areas or dashboards accessed using old bookmarked URLs do not support URL redirection and should be replaced.

• The new home page is designed to provide a unified access to both Desktop and Simplified interfaces. Therefore, after the upgrade you may experience new content that was not previously available, due to the unified access.

• The new home content has been reorganized and therefore some of the old icons may no longer be present. Example: The Navigator icon is no longer available from the Home page. It is now represented by a different icon in the global header section of the Home page.

• Previous personalization and customization, if any, of the home page in earlier releases, is preserved in My Dashboard.

KEY RESOURCES

Review the Oracle Applications Cloud Using Common Features User Guide for additional information.

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NAVIGATOR

Access your work areas or dashboards using the conveniently placed Navigator in the header section of the home page. While the springboard grid on the new home page provides you an iconic view of your commonly accessed applications, the Navigator provides you a list view of all the applications that your application user role has access to.

When you click the Navigator icon button, the Navigator menu opens with links to work areas and dashboards. Logical, related tasks are organized into groups or categories and are displayed in a pre-determined order set by the application, but can be configured to meet your business needs.

Every icon in the springboard grid will have a corresponding entry in the Navigator menu. Entries that are grouped together may be rendered as group icons on the springboard.

STEPS TO ENABLE

There are no steps necessary to enable this feature.

KEY RESOURCES

Review the Oracle Applications Cloud Using Common Features User Guide for additional information.

GROUPING

Leverage groupings to facilitate easy navigation to all related functional areas you have access to, directly from the home page. Grouping allows functional work areas and dashboards to be assembled together into related, logical clusters which can be readily accessed as a group icon on the springboard.

Note: If the total number of icons rendered on the springboard is less than sixteen, then a group is flattened and only child icons are rendered on the springboard. The group to be flattened is determined based on the rendering order of the group on the springboard.

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STEPS TO ENABLE

There are no steps necessary to enable this feature.

KEY RESOURCES Review the Oracle Applications Cloud Using Common Features User Guide for additional information.

NOTIFICATIONS

You may now action items and social conversations at any time as they are available from the Global Header anywhere in the application. Drill down to detail pages linked in the notification text, or search for more details on work items coming from all dedicated servers, implemented throughout the enterprise.

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STEPS TO ENABLE

There are no steps necessary to enable this feature.

KEY RESOURCES

Review the Notifications and Approvals chapter in the Oracle Applications Cloud Using Common Features User Guide.

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COMMON SECURITY FEATURES

Oracle Fusion Applications Security provides a single console in which security managers and security administrators can review, design, and modify roles in Oracle Fusion Applications. It enables users to visualize the relationships among roles, and to model applications-menu and task-pane entries for any role. Users can also manage certificates and review a set of security reports.

ROLE SIMPLIFICATION

Role definitions for the security reference implementation are simplified. The simplified roles reduce the complexity of role administration. Every job or abstract role that existed in Release 9 also exists in the simplified hierarchy for Release 10, and each authorizes the same privileges. Beneath that level many roles have been consolidated.

The nodes in the hierarchy between a job and its privileges are reduced and simplified. Release 10 will include both the hierarchy you are used to and the new simplified hierarchy. On upgrade, users will be members of the old hierarchy. You can move users to the new hierarchy at your discretion.

Although not applicable for Oracle Financials Cloud in Release 10, note that new functionality may exist under the new reference hierarchy in future releases. New functionality exists under the old hierarchy only if the role to which it is granted remains. You can use role comparison to locate functionality that only exists in the simplified hierarchy if you wish to move it to your old model.

The following are examples of R10 role simplification for the Financials offerings:

• In Financials Release 9, the Accounts Payable Manager job role inherited a duty called Payables Invoice Management Duty. This duty had privileges that allowed the Accounts Payable Manager to perform tasks such as submit payables prepayment status requests, submit payables matching detail report and submit payables autorate program. With role simplification, all privileges of the Payables Invoice Management Duty are now merged with the Payables Invoice Processing Duty and the Payables Invoice Management Duty is removed.

• In Financials Release 9, the General Accounting Manager job role inherited a duty called Journal Approval Duty. This duty had privileges that allowed the General Accounting Manager to manage journal approvals. With role simplification, the privileges of the Journal Approval Duty are now directly assigned to the General Accounting Manager job and the Journal Approval Duty is removed.

STEPS TO ENABLE

To take advantage of Role Simplification:

1. Opt in to utilize the new Release 10 simplified role hierarchies, ensuring all future new application features will be added without effort:

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• Review the new Release 10 roles. • Review the privileges for new product features in these roles and compare to your company

policy. • Execute the steps in the Migrating to the Simplified Reference Role Model section of the

Upgrade Guide for Oracle Cloud Applications Security white paper.

2. Move authorizations for new functionality released in your applications.

• Review and execute the instructions found in the Implementing New Features in a Pre-existing Role Model section of the Upgrade Guide for Oracle Cloud Applications Security white paper.

3. Use new product feature privileges with your previously created custom roles.

• Review the Implementing New Features in a Pre-existing Role Model section of the Upgrade Guide for Oracle Cloud Applications Security white paper.

KEY RESOURCES

• What’s New In Release 10 for Oracle Cloud Applications Common Technologies and User Experience

• Upgrade Guide for Oracle Cloud Applications Security white paper (My Oracle Support Doc ID 2016990.1)

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PAYMENTS

Oracle Fusion Payments provides a highly configurable and robust engine to make and receive payments. Payments is a fundamental part of the Oracle Applications Cloud architecture and is integrated with multiple products that require support for payment processing. As the central payment engine, Payments processes invoice payments and expense reports from Oracle Fusion Payables and settlements against credit cards and bank accounts from Oracle Fusion Receivables. Payments provides the infrastructure needed to connect these applications and others with third-party payment systems and financial institutions.

ADVANCED SECURITY FEATURES

You can now protect your sensitive payments data in a more secured manner. Payments provides the following advanced security features in Release 10:

• Enhanced Encryption Method: Payments now uses 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for encrypting the sensitive payments setup and transaction data. This is a highly secured method of encryption that replaces the Triple Data Encryption (3DES) method previously used by Payments.

• Automatic Wallet Creation: Payments now automatically generates the master encryption key and imports it into a wallet file. You no longer need to provide the wallet path and key file inputs to create the master encryption key.

STEPS TO ENABLE

For Existing Customers with Encryption Enabled: If you have already enabled bank account encryption in Release 9 and are upgrading to Release 10, the new bank accounts created in Release 10 will continue to be encrypted using 3DES encryption. This continues until you upgrade the existing encrypted data.

To upgrade the existing encrypted data, navigate to the Manage System Security Options page and click the Rotate button. You will see the following message: All encrypted payment instruments and sensitive payment data will be upgraded with a new master encryption key. Do you want to continue? Click Yes. A background process upgrades the existing encrypted payments data by generating a new master encryption key in a new wallet. The existing encrypted data is then re-encrypted using the AES method. After upgrading, all newly created external bank accounts are encrypted with the AES method.

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Upgrading existing encrypted data on the Manage System Security Options page

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RECEIVABLES

Oracle Fusion Receivables provides a comprehensive solution for running day-to-day accounts receivable operations. It includes a host of services for customer billing and payment activities, revenue recognition and adjustments, accounts receivable balances, and reconciliation to the general ledger. Oracle Fusion Receivables introduces SmartReceipts, an industry leading automated cash application solution, and role-based work areas that provide embedded intelligence and focused to-do lists of transactions, receipts, and other activities requiring immediate attention. You can actively monitor transactions and drill down to details with sophisticated reporting tools. Oracle Fusion Receivables comes complete with Excel integration, tagging, watch lists, collaboration, and context-sensitive embedded help.

DISCOUNT CALCULATION BASIS DATE

The Create and Edit Payment Terms pages contain a new field called Discount Basis Date. You can use this field when creating payment terms to determine which date to use as the basis for calculating discounts on transactions: receipt date, receipt application date, or deposit date.

STEPS TO ENABLE

Log into Functional Setup Manager as the administrator:

4. From Navigator > Setup and Maintenance. 5. Click on All Tasks tab. 6. Search for the Manage Receivables Payment Terms task, and in that task row, click Go to Task. 7. On the Manage Receivables Payment Terms page, click on the create icon. 8. On the Create Payment Terms page, enter payment term details and select the Discount Basis

Date.

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PRINT RECEIVABLES TRANSACTIONS IN DIFFERENT FORMATS INCLUDING ZIPPED PDFS

Printing receivables transactions now has added flexibility, with an option to specify the output file type: HTML, Excel, PDF, and Zipped PDFs. The Zipped PDFs output contains an individual PDF of each transaction and an index file of the print run. The index file can include printed transaction information, such as bill-to customer names and addresses.

The following is a screenshot of the Process Details window for the process Print Receivables Transactions, where the parameter Output File Type is specified as Zipped PDFs.

Figure 1: Print Receivables Transactions Process Details

STEPS TO ENABLE

There are no steps necessary to enable this feature.

TIPS AND CONSIDERATIONS

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• The seeded transaction print templates are optimized for output in PDF format. If you plan to specify HTML or Excel as the output file type, consider using customized transaction print templates that are more suitable for HTML or Excel file formats.

• To display transaction attributes in the Zipped PDFs index file, you can customize the transaction print templates by adding <doc index> tags to the related transaction attributes.

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PRE-UPGRADE PREPARATION

Some of the Release 10 features require steps to be taken before the upgrade, to ensure that your upgrade runs smoothly. Please review the following pre-upgrade considerations for Oracle Financials Cloud Release 10:

• Ensure that any custom BI reports or templates (Oracle Fusion Transactional BI or BI Publisher), or delivered reports you have modified, are stored in the folder labeled Shared Folders > Custom. Alternatively you may download BI content to local storage and reload it once the upgrade is complete, using the Archive / Unarchive feature. For more details, see Guidance for Managing Customizations in Oracle Cloud Application Services: Business Intelligence Migration (Doc ID 1510577.1)

• Ensure that any Financial Reporting Studio reports or books are stored in the folder labeled Shared Folders > Custom. Alternatively you may download content to local storage and reload it once the upgrade is complete, using the Archive / Unarchive feature.

If you are using General Ledger Reporting:

• It is good practice, but not required, to close your open accounting periods, run the reports, and reconcile General Ledger account activity and balances.

If you are using Subledger Accounting Reports:

• Although this is not a required step, we recommend that you close your open periods in subledgers and accounting periods in General Ledger. Run the reports and reconcile General Ledger account activity and balances with subledgers.

PRESERVE CUSTOMIZED REPORTS

During the upgrade, any reports that you have changed will get overwritten. To preserve your customized reports, do one of the following:

• Move all your customized reports to one of these folders: o “Custom” folder under “Shared Folders” if you want the report to be available to

others. o “My Folders” if you are not sharing the report.

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Important: The changes to reports in other folders will be overwritten.

• Archive your reports on your local machine to back them up. And upload (unarchive) them in the upgraded environment.

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POST-UPGRADE CONSIDERATIONS

After your upgrade is complete, you should perform the following steps for Oracle Financials Cloud:

• Restore and verify any custom Oracle Fusion Transactional BI and BI Publisher content and Financial Reporting Studio reports.

• Conduct a thorough test of your upgraded environment as soon as possible. • You will experience a new home page after the upgrade. The link to your home page in

earlier releases is no longer active, and will display a message directing you to the new home page.

o Select the Home icon in the Global Header to access the new home page. o Bookmark this new link in your browser favorites and ensure that you use the new

home page moving forward.

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REVISION HISTORY

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates are logged below, with the most recent updates at the top.

Date What’s Changed Notes

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