Create an application in Oracle Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS)

posted on January 13, 2016 by

I have been working on PBCS since some time and wanted to share more of it. Hence this blog post on creating a new PBCS application.

With Planning and Budgeting Services you create applications by using a wizard, which ensures that you include all the required components needed for a successful deployment. The wizard contains property and dimension information.

You can create applications in Planning application administration if you are assigned roles: Service Administrator or Identity Manager. You can then administer PBCS.
Planning application administration enables you to work with single applications. With Planning application administration, you can create and delete applications, manage data sources, and upgrade applications.
It does not create Application groups or Shared Services Projects. After creating the application, you can add and modify dimensions and members, set performance options, and define the dimension evaluation order on the Dimensions page.
Performance Management Architect is not supported for creating applications in PBCS.
For all PBCS applications, you use Calculation Manager to set up and modify business rules for complex calculations.

Here are the high-level steps for creating Planning applications:
• You cannot configure relational databases for PBCS, and configure data sources. These are managed by the cloud in the background and automatically created.
• Create applications, including application name, calendars, currencies, plan types and metadata and dimension definition.
• Creation of Shared Services Project or an Application group is not created as only one application is created in PBCS.
When you create Planning applications, a folder and database are created on the Essbase server. After adding any metadata to your application, you refresh the Planning application so that the Essbase database is updated.

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When PBCS workspace is launched, you will see the Planning and Budgeting Services page opened.
• On the Planning and Budgeting Services page, click on “Create Application” and select New Application.
• Create Application Wizard will open.
• Select the application information according to you need.
• Click Create.
• PBCS application will be created.
If you already have an existing PBCS application, the “Create Application” option disappears from the Planning and Budgeting Services page. This is because you can have only one PBCS application. To create a new application you will have to delete the existing application first.

2

Creating a new application wizard provides 3 options for application types to be created:
• Sample Application: Creates a Demo Application which helps to understand PBCS capabilities and functionalities.
• Simple Application: Create a simple app to get users up and running quickly and to be market ready faster. Build a simple application if you want a straight forward, Excel-based implementation and only one Plan Type and you want your users setup quickly. You can convert a Simple application to an Advanced application later.
• Advanced Application: Create an advanced application if you have complex business needs and will requires extensive business logic for your calculations and rules. Build an Advanced application to support complex implementation that requires more business logic, calculations, different Plan Types and if you want to use all the functionalities of the release.

3

When you create a PBCS application, you specify application information, such as the application name, Currency, Calendar structure, Plan Types.
To select application information:
• Enter an application name. It can be up to eight characters.
• Optional: In the Description box, enter a description.
In the Currency and Calendar Dimensions box, Select a currency from the Currency list. Select whether you want a multiple currencies in your application:
• For Base Time Period, select an option: 12 Months, Quarters, or Custom.
• In the First Fiscal Year drop-down list, select the first fiscal year.
• For Number of Fiscal Years, enter the total number of years for your application.
• In the Fiscal Year First Month drop-down list, select the fiscal year first month.
• Optional: If the fiscal year first month is a month other than January, select the fiscal year start date from the drop-down list:
• In the Weekly Distribution drop-down list, select one of the following options: Even Distribution, 4-4-5 Distribution, 4-5-4 Distribution, or 5-4-4 Distribution.

You specify up to three generic (BSO) plan types total and one ASO database for each BSO database plus one additional ASO database for consolidation purposes.

You can also define the Metadata and Custom Dimensions information on the same page. You can also import the metadata from flat files.

4

Before you finish the application creation process, you can review and modify application settings. After creating applications, you cannot change some settings, such as the first fiscal year or multi-currency selection.

5

Application creation Status is displayed as “Application Created Successfully” if there were no errors while application creation process.

To launch a PBCS Application:
• To launch the application created, go to Navigate > Application > Planning.
• You will see the name of the planning application.
• Click on the Application name to open it in a separate tab.
Also, you can Click on the “Launch Application” option on the Planning and Budgeting Services page to directly open the PBCS application in a separate tab.

Creating an Advanced Application is a similar process to Simple Application process. Advanced Application creation process gives you additional options to select such as “Enable rolling forecast for this application” and “Enable Sandbox”.
Select these features if you want to use it in your PBCS application.

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Simplified Interface:
PBCS also offers a Simplified Interface designed for busy administrators, Planning’s mobile-friendly user interface offers easy-to-navigate pages to help accomplish common administration tasks quickly.

7

Creating Application in Simplified Interface is a 3 step Process.
In the First step, give a name to your application. Click Next to proceed.

9

In the Next Step you define the Application Information such as Calendar properties, Currency and Plan Types.

10

After confirming that the settings and information selected by you are correct, you Click on Create button to create the PBCS application.

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You can then Launch the PBCS Application in the Simplified Interface.
Using the Console, you can create and delete dimensions, view and update dimension properties, and import and export dimensions.
To manage dimensions:
1. Click or tap Console on the Home page, then on the Application page, click or tap the Dimensions tab.
2. Click or tap a dimension name to view and update dimension properties.
3. Click or tap Create to add a dimension.
4. Click or tap Import to load dimensions from a file.
5. Click or tap Export to extract dimension metadata and save it to a file.

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You can also work with plan types using the Console. The mobile-friendly user interface supports creating, deleting, and renaming plan types.
Note: You can manage plan types only for advanced Planning applications.
To manage plan types:
1. Click or tap Console on the Home page. Then on the Application page, click or tap the Plan Types tab.
2. Click or tap a plan type name to view plan type properties and associated dimensions. From here, you can also rename a plan type.
3. Click or tap Create to add a plan type.
4. Click or tap Actions next to a plan type to delete it.

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You must refresh the application database whenever you change the application structure. Changes you make to applications are not reflected to users performing data entry and approvals tasks until you refresh the Essbase database.

We will see more about how Essbase related activities are managed in PBCS in a later post.

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