Analysis and Reporting in the Oracle EPM World (Part 2)

Hi everyone, welcome to Part 2 of Analysis and Reporting in the Oracle EPM World!

Previously we discussed Adhoc Web & Excel, Dashboards and  Reports / Financial Reporting. On this occasion, we are going to talk about Narrative Reporting and Oracle Analytics Cloud. 

Remember this picture? 



Narrative Reporting

If you want to go beyond PDF documents and books and have a collaborative workflow with multiple authors and more regulatory reporting, Narrative Reporting is your tool. 




Narrative Reporting offers you a tool to create report packages that combine data from multiple sources with rich and dynamic narrative. This tool gives report contributors access to content based on their role and ensures that sensitive content is secure. Also, it allows report owners to see the progress of the reporting lifecycle as the report goes through the phases of authoring, reviewing and sign-off. 


The screenshot below shows the different components that make up a report package, the report package can be divided into smaller ‘doclets’ which can then be assigned to owners and reviewers.



Advantages:

  • Internal and External regulatory reporting
  • Collaborative Workflow including versioning, check in, checkout and commenting 
  • Publishing in XBRL, iXBRL, PDF and SEC EDGAR HTML formats supported. 
  • Multi-source connection such as ERP and EPM cloud
  • This tool comes with your EPM Enterprise Cloud Service

Disadvantages: 

  • Read Only reports.

Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC)

Do you want a combination of all the above options, and your EPM application is not your only data source? OAC is all you need!!

With Oracle Analytics Cloud you can take data from any source and explore and collaborate with real-time data. Built on a high-performance platform with flexible data storage, Oracle Analytics Cloud provides a complete set of tools for deriving and sharing data insights.


Advantages: 
  • Users can visualize any data, on any device, on-premise and in the cloud.
  • Build data models, reports, and analytic dashboards. 
  • Design and publish pixel-perfect reports
  • Migrate content from your existing on-premise environment
  • Visualise data and reports from your mobile application
Disadvantages: 
  • More complex when creating reports.
  • For the cloud version, you need to buy the subscription. It is not included as part of the Oracle Enterprise EPM offering. 
If you want to know more about this tool, you can download the desktop version and play around with sample data: Oracle Analytics Desktop 

Just upload data files or connect to your database, select the elements that you’re interested in, and let Oracle Analytics Desktop finds the best way to visualize it. Choose from a variety of visualizations to look at data in a specific way. Oracle Analytics Desktop also gives you a preview of the self-service visualization capabilities included in Oracle Analytics Cloud.

What to do next? 

If you are reading this article, you are probably a User with access to one of the EPM Cloud applications, so I encourage you to use them all!!  

Once you have investigated these tools, think about which option is the best for you. This will depend on your needs as a financial manager and your business structure. 

Thank you for reading and please feel free to share this content and leave your comments!

You can read many other useful Oracle EPM Cloud and NetSuite ERP blogs posted by my colleagues at Brovanture here.

At Brovanture, we offer an array of services and training to help you and your company implement the reporting tools we have discussed in Part 1 and Part 2

For more information, don't hesitate to reach out to me at cristina.arzuza@brovanture.com

Until next time,

Cristina.

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