applied to test environment on Friday, August 4, 2017 and to production environment on Friday, August 18, 2017

Please note that Oracle updates the document for August 2017  over time with most recent updates are at the top. Summarized from Oracle’s website on 28 JULY

Tanya Heise has outlined the August 2017 updates here

• • New chart type “Status Meter Gauge” quickly shows form values against threshold levels
  • Calculation Manager log values improved
  • Data Management will now provide option to include adjustment periods from Oracle GL source system
  • Data Management increased integration with FAH and FAHRCS
  • EPBC only, Consolidation Operator, Account Type and Variance Reporting are now editable options
  • EPBC only, Projects business process now provides Data Load Templates customized to the EPBC features enabled and any custom dimensions
  • EPBC only, Financials business process now provides Data Load Templates for Weekly Planning
  • Multiple Strategic Modelling enhancements
  • Get ready to update Smart View for Office to 11.1.2.5.710 to ensure compatability with the August 2017 update features and access new functionalities.
  • 19+ defects fixed

  Reminder: Transition to “Financial Reporting Web Studio” as it will “become the only environment for designing and building reports”

  The Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud updates for July

  applied to test environment on Friday, July 7, 2017 and to production environment on Friday, July 21, 2017

  Please note that Oracle updates the document for July 2017  over time with most recent updates are at the top. Summarized from Oracle’s website on 28 JULY

  Tanya Heise has outlined the July 2017 updates here

  • • New EPM Automate utility, including improved security on importsnapshot command
    • EPM Automate Manual
    • Installing the utility
    • Command Reference
    • CLEAR_CUBE added to EPMC REST API for specific data within input and reporting cubes
    • The Planning Clear Cube job has expanded options to include Essbase and relational (more detail in the “Creating Clear Cube Jobs” of Administering Planning for Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud
    • Provisioning Report updated to show total number of provisioned users
    • Designing Custom Navigation Flows is improved by the ability to create and edit existing navigation flows
    • Predictive Planning has been enhanced with new features
    • Member names with commas now supported in Data Management when loading to Oracle EPBC and PBC
    • In case one needs a reminder: (continue) to avoid special characters in artifact names, including calculation scripts
    • EPBC only, Weekly Planning now available in the EPBC Services for planning and forecasting at the weekly level
    • EPBC only, Weekly Planning has significant core functionality to support rolling forecasts and continuous weekly planning (13, 26, 52 weeks) all driven off the current time period (low maintenance)
    • EPBC only, Data Load Templates are now available customized to the EPBC features enabled
    • 27+ defects fixed
    • If using the Workforce framework, remove all custom members added to the Property dimension…see the announcement here
    • Workaround for gauage chart type that displays zero)

    Reminder: Transition to “Financial Reporting Web Studio” as it will “become the only environment for designing and building reports”

    The Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud updates for June

    applied to test environment on Friday, June 2, 2017 and to production environment on Friday, June 16, 2017

    Please note that Oracle updates the document over time with most recent updates are at the top. Summarized from Oracle’s website on 28 July 2017

    here for June 2017

    applied to test environment on Friday, June 2, 2017 and to production environment on Friday, June 16, 2017

    • New EPM Automate utility, including improved security on importsnapshot command
    • EPM Automate Manual
    • Installing the utility
    • Command Reference
    • Database query performance data now available in the enhanced Activity report (top 10 by worst performance, duration & execution)
    • Oracle Netsuite integrations to Oracle EPMC
    • Improved number formats for chart points in FR Web Studio
    • There is now only “Push Data” (eliminated separate “clear data” option)
    • A new “Approval Status Report” is provided (details in Administering Planning for Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud)
    • “Service Administrators can now set usage by cube for members of the Period dimension in the same way that they can set usage by cube for members of custom dimensions, the Account dimension, and the Entity dimension.”
    • “Interoperability with Google Chrome and Oracle Smart View for Office 11.1.2.5.700+ is available with this update.”
    • Service admins can manage applications from Smart View
    • Upload custom fonts (.ttf only) for FR (883 Google fonts available here)
    • In case one needs a reminder: (continue) to avoid special characters in artifact names, including calculation scripts
    • Other updates (see the June update for details)
    • EPBC only, Stategic Modelling
    • EPBC only, create business rules written in Groovy
    • EPBC only, Integration of EPBC Workforce with Oracle HCM
    • 27 defects fixed
    • Workaround for users are unable to access folders and reports (apply WORLD to the folder)

    Reminder: Transition to “Financial Reporting Web Studio” as it will “become the only environment for designing and building reports”

]]> http://epm.jonhwilliams.com/oracle-planning-and-budgeting-cloud-updates/feed/ 0 http://epm.jonhwilliams.com/495-2/ http://epm.jonhwilliams.com/495-2/#respond Sat, 22 Oct 2016 19:53:39 +0000 http://epm.jonhwilliams.com/?p=495 We recommend staying away from fancy online password managers so Password Safe is our long-time go-to solution for securing logons. If Passwordsafe is part of your kit on OS X (or Ubuntu, Red Hat, et cetera) this will be useful.

Install wxPython:

brew install wxpython

Download Loxodo for OS X or (even better):

git pull https://github.com/sommer/loxodo.git

(you did remember git is context sensitive right?)

To run, cd into the location of loxodo.py and execute:

./loxodo.py

We prefer to execute from command line, so in /usr/<username> create a symbolic link:

ln -s  /usr/local/some/obscure/location/loxodo.py /Users/<username>/loxodo.py

Now one can open a terminal to run:

<computername>:~ <username>$ ./loxodo.py

“Cristoph Sommer’s pure Python Password Safe v3-compatible Password Vault Loxodo is a thing of beauty, especially when accessing the same v3 psafe archive file from multiple operating systems.”

“Renowned security technologist”^[1] Bruce Schneier, author of many books designed Password Safe for simple and secure password management. Password Safe is maintained at https://pwsafe.org/.

From git the source is open.

On Windows, each formal release of  Password Safe is digitally signed with the project administrator’s gpg key. To verify the signature, use this public key (key fingerprint = A703 C132 8EAB C7B2 0175   3BA3 9194 6451 5CCF 8BB3).

“If you do a lot of query and index performance tuning, you’re going to love the improvements in this month’s release of the First Responder Kit.”

First Responder Kit is from Brent Ozar Unlimited® via @BrentOzarULTD

“Simplify the time needed to deploy any of the following builds:

“Main Instance Server Build – for multi-drive servers (clustered or non-clustered)

“Additional Named Instance Server Build – adds another SQL Server instance to a server

“Workstatiodrive[sic] desktop machines

“Client Tools Only Build – just the tools, to allow remote administration of SQL Server

“There are five members of the FineBuild family:

• SQL2016 FineBuild to install SQL Server 2016
• SQL2014 FineBuild to install SQL Server 2014
• SQL2012 FineBuild to install SQL Server 2012
• SQL2008R2 FineBuild to install SQL Server 2008 R2
• SQL2008 FineBuild to install SQL Server 2008
• SQL2005 FineBuild to install SQL Server 2005

“All of these can be downloaded at FineBuild V3.2.1”
source: http://sqlserverfinebuild.codeplex.com/

steps

http://sqlserverfinebuild.codeplex.com/documentation

external links

Source for this is the original author in a SQL Server Central post about replication.
Get more information about FineBuild from discussions on CodePlex.

MobaXterm Professional provides full X server and SSH support in a portable (no install required) customized (no unwanted games nor tools) application.

connect from Linux servers to Windows clients

Diligent system administrators usually isolate the EPM system servers completely from the Internet, allowing no direct connections. The recommended practice is to download and validate more than 20GB of Oracle EPM source software and patches to a client desktop before transferring to the EPM servers. By running MobaXterm on a Windows client, secure connections, rapid file transfer and remote terminal access is straight-forward from the Windows client to Solaris/Linux servers AND from Solaris/Linux servers to the Windows client.

description

Prerequisite: MobaXterm Professional
This post describes the process that I use to setup MobaXterm Professional. The cost is negligible as we remove components undesirable in client environments (e.g., games, port scanner, network packet capture, http server, NFS server, et cetera).

In addition, we will add plugins (e.g., httperf, Curl, and DnsUtils like dig or  nslookup).

The Home Edition is free, subject to MobaXterm terms and conditions, but somewhat limited and excludes professional support.

steps

1. Subscribe online.
2. Buy and download the MobaXterm Professional package. Existing licensed customers visit Customer Area for updated packages.
3. Download required plugins to project build location
   

   MobaXterm_Customizer and plugins directory

4. Extract the download to project build location, and run MobaXterm_Customizer_x.x.exe 
5. The GUI allows customizations to meet our needs
   

   MobaXterm Customizer GUI

6. Modify the banner – this is what I use:

        ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
        │                  • MobaXterm Professional ${V} •                   │
        │            (Unix utilities and X-server on Gnu/Cygwin)             │
        │                                                                    │
        │ ➤ Your computer drives are accessible through the /drives path     │
        │ ➤ Your DISPLAY is set to ${EXPORTED_DISPLAY}                       │
        │ ➤ When using SSH, your remote DISPLAY is automatically forwarded   │
        │ ➤ Each command status is specified by a special symbol (✔ or ✘)    │
        │ ➤ For more info, type help or click on the help button above.      │
        └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
   this product is licensed to Jon H. Williams and installs nothing on the server(s) ...please delete the MobaXterm directory to remove this software from the system

7. Edit the .profile
   

   Editing MobaXterm profile

8. Add a custom logo
   

   Set a custom logo

9. Keep the SSH Server, and remove the un-necessary components
   

   select options and set security

10. Create the portable package
    

    Create the final package

11. Save the customization for re-use
    

    Save customization

12. I name them the same and keep the two pieces together
    

    save the customizations as a file for reuse

13. Close the customizer and test the new package by extracting the zip; I used C:\projects\software\MobaXterm\MobaXterm_Portable_epm-jonhwilliams
14. In addition to the MobaXterm.exe, the folder might contain an automatic backup, configuration files and plugin files, per your selections. MobaXterm configures and starts X at runtime
    

    X is configured and started at runtime

15. Starting an SSH server on Windows is a three-click process. This allows a Linux user to connect to a Windows machine and rsync files as needed.
    

    Select Servers

16. Start, stop and configure SSH Server using the buttons. Use any available port
    

    click the Blue arrow to start the SSH Server on Windows

using rsync and ssh

There are extensive writeups on-line to help with rsync and ssh. Here are the two commands I use most frequently.

First validate that SSH Server (in MobaXterm) is running on the Windows client machine. From the Linux server:

ssh -X WindowsUser@windows.client.where.SoftwareDownloaded

If that works the following will synchronize and validate  all source files in drive L to the Linux hyperion installer drive (dry-run does what you think it should; check out the other options here)

rsync --dry-run -Ivvvrtz -e "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null" --progress WindowsUser@windows.client.where.SoftwareDownloaded:/drives/l/ /u01/hyperion/installer

external links

The rsync utility can really mess things up if you don’t know what you are doing, so take some time get to know what you are doing. The advantage is a rapid, validated file transfer, that if interrupted will resume without complaint wherever transfer got interrupted.

If you need more robust tools for frequent transfers of massive (TB) data, there are other options.

… All I need do now is type showFiles and hideFiles whenever I need to show/hide OS X’s hidden files. Here’s how you can do it too.

How to set up an alias for AppleShowAllFiles. Edit ~/.bashrc:

alias showFiles='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES; killall Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app'
alias hideFiles='defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO; killall Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app'

The very first things one should do on OS X are system updates, Homebrew setup, install Java,  install GNU system tools, , install favorite editor, setup the shell & configure the bash_profile.

System Update

Before you start the 30 minute timer…

Connect to the Internet
Unplug everything except the power supply (no external drives, no usb keyboards/mice, etc.)

Select ‘’ > ‘About This Mac’ > ‘Software Update’

Install all available updates.

Start the 30 minute timer now!

Install xcode

Open Terminal and paste this into the prompt:

xcode-select --install

Agreement to the licensing is required:

xcodebuild -license

Type: ‘agree’

Set up Homebrew

Everyone needs an elegant, simple, speedy way to manage and install GUI applications.

Open Terminal and paste this into the prompt:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Source the brew path by adding the following to /Users/<user>/.bashrc

# source the brew path
export PATH="/usr/local/sbin:$PATH"
# increase the size of your history
export HISTFILESIZE=10000000
# commands that start with a space won't be written into history
export HISTCONTROL=ignorespace

Test the installation with

brew doctor

Read the output, and correct any errors.

Set .bash_profile to use .bashrc

Open /Users/<user>/.bash_profile and paste this into the file:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
   source ~/.bashrc
fi

Save and close. To understand why, read this post (later).

Get the most up-to-date formulae (software packages)

Open Terminal and paste this into the prompt:

brew update

Install Java

The best approach for Java is to use the binaries provided by Oracle but install them using Homebrew, and select the version of Java in use with jenv.
The current version of java is output with this command:

java -version

Open Terminal and paste this into the prompt:

brew tap caskroom/cask
brew install brew-cask
brew update && brew upgrade brew-cask && brew cleanup
brew install https://raw.github.com/gcuisinier/jenv/homebrew/jenv.rb

Source jenv automatically by adding the following to /Users/<user>/.bashrc

# ensure jenv is available
if which jenv > /dev/null; then eval "$(jenv init -)"; fi

Look for available versions of java by pasting this into the prompt:

brew cask search java

Add two new versions by pasting these lines into the prompt:

brew cask install java6
brew cask install java7

Notify jenv of the newly installed java versions

jenv add /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_76.jdk/Contents/Home
jenv add /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_31.jdk/Contents/Home
jenv add /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_40.jdk/Contents/Home
jenv rehash

Now set a global java version to use

jenv global oracle64-1.8.0.40

Review all the java versions known to jenv

jenv versions
  system
  oracle64-1.7.0.76
  oracle64-1.8.0.31
* oracle64-1.8.0.40 (set by /Users/<user>/.jenv/version)

One can now change Java versions for a project by passing the parameter local to jenv. This will support vendor-specific requirements (e.g., Java 6 for Eclipse, Java 7 for Jython in an FDMEE project, or an Atlasssian sdk when building add-ons to extend applications like JIRA or Confluence).

It is necessary to set JAVA_HOME in various start scripts as well. Here is an example:

jenv exec <program name>

Enable GNU core utilities

This requires some consideration of what you actually need. I just need sed, wget and rsync to behave the way I am familiar with on solaris/Ubuntu/Red Hat. Please review this post so you don’t create issues for yourself and break the default utilities. I used this post as well to understand what I needed to do.

Open Terminal and paste this into the prompt:

brew install coreutils

Modify /Users/<user>/.bashrc like:

# .source the GNU utilities
# and add brew path
export PATH="$(brew --prefix coreutils)/libexec/gnubin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH"
# fix the location of man pages for the GNU utilities
export MANPATH="/usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnuman:$MANPATH"

This puts the gnubin directory in the path, and adds the man path to the profile.
It is necessary to install a few new items now:

brew install wget

Get a great text editor, and some other great software

Open Terminal and paste this into the prompt:

brew install atom
brew cask install eclipse-ide
brew install jython
brew cask install citrix-receiver --appdir=/Applications
brew cask install angry-ip-scanner
brew cask install cyberduck
brew cask install colloquy
brew cask install geektool
brew cask install unetbootin
brew cask install audacity210
brew cask install valentina-studio
brew install git
brew cask install google-chrome
brew cask install vlc

That’s all for now.

Remember to install and uninstall software using your new ‘package manager’ and work with jenv to understand its features and use cases. #44 is a good place to begin.

Please let me know if you find an errors.

This is a desired and expected behavior to guarantee a secure connection. When running a temporary SSH server on Windows, it can be repetitive.

steps

Begin by starting the SSH server in MobaXterm on Windows where the source software was downloaded
'Servers' > 'Start SSH/SFTP Server' > 'OK'
From the Linux server, ssh into the Windows Server
'ssh WindowsUser@WindowsServer.where.SourceSoftwareIsDownloaded.com'
Alternately, attempt an rsync to rapidly transfer and verify the source software and patch archives (this requires some fiddling to get right).
'rsync -Ivvvrtz -e "ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null" --progress WindowsUser@WindowsServer.where.SourceSoftwareIsDownloaded.com:/drives/l/ /u01/hyperion/installer'

Some time later, when you attempt to repeat the process, ssh will fail with error like:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that the RSA host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
34:df:34:df:34:df:34:df:34:df:34:df:34:df:34:df.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /home/<user>/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending key in /home/<user>/.ssh/known_hosts:3
RSA host key for <servername> has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.

This is caused by stopping and restarting MobaXterm on the Windows server; The SSH Server fingerprint will change.

Delete the offending key (the location of known_hosts will vary):
sed '3d' -i /var/lib/sss/pubconf/known_hosts  
sed -i -e 3d /home/<user>/.ssh/known_hosts

Note: the sed command is worth learning.

description

MobaXterm is the preferred method for facilitating X and SSH between Windows and Unix/Linux. A single portable exe painlessly facilitates the use of standard tools like rsync. This recurs at most clients for transferring 22.7+ GB of  11.1.2.4.000 Oracle EPM Linux files and patches to a Linux server that is not connected to the Internet.
Additional details are in the MobaXterm toolbox post.

In a normal use case (not a temporary SSH server) one should update the offending key, as long as the same hostname is re-used.
ssh-keygen -R <hostname>

external links

Additional thanks for the post:  user mockinterface  help.
Get more information from stackoverflow.

tested with file V44215-01
5/24/2015
The README for Patch 17529887: (Release 11.1.2.3.500 Patch Set Update (PSU): 17529887)  indicates you can apply to 11.1.2.3.0 and that there are no prerequisites beyond the usual Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package.

This is not exactly the case, as various Windows OS prerequisites impact whether the patch is applied successfully.

As others have noted, the ADF patches often do not truly apply. I have applied the superpatch on nearly a dozen systems without having any issues so was surprised to finally see the ADF patch deployment failure today.

A new interesting quirk came up as well, when installing the patch with local accounts on a multi-node system. The Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host will fail to process vbscripts like:

D:\software\17529887\custom\scripts\create_version_history.vbs(32, 1) Microsoft VBScript runtime error: Path not found

The intrepid Windows administrators had not set up Windows with cohesive Region and Language settings.

steps

Rollback the patch

D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1\OPatch\opatch rollback -id 17529887 -oh D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1 -jre D:\Oracle\Middleware\jrockit_160_37

Check that Region and Language settings match the System Locale. This was corrected by changing the Region and Language setting from “English (United Kingdom)” to “English (United States)“.

Reapply the patch.

Verify after restart that the expected versions are picked up and showing in Workspace > About.

description

None

external links

None at this time

Smart View for Office to 11.1.2.5.710 is coming mid-August, 2017

Oracle Smart View for Office 11.1.2.5.700 Readme | Patch Name 21178353 | This download link was good on 4/18/2017: https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download/p25606837_11125000_Generic.zip?aru=21178353&patch_file=p25606837_11125000_Generic.zip

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/epm/downloads/smart-view-1112x-2412371.html

Oracle Smart View for Office 11.1.2.5.600 Readme | Patch Name 23168020 | This download link was good on 7/18/2016: https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download/p23168020_11125000_Generic.zip?aru=20255072&patch_file=p23168020_11125000_Generic.zip

Oracle Smart View 11.1.2.5.520 Readme | Oracle EPM BI Proactive Support post

Oracle® Smart View for Office Release 11.1.2.5.500 PSU. Readme

Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office Release 11.1.2.5.410 PSU. Readme

Release 11.1.2.5.400, Patch 20327649 is now available. Readme