This past June saw the annual gathering of Oracle EPM folk for KScope15.  For those not in the know, KScope is the premiere conference for all things Oracle Hyperion put on by the esteemed  ODTUG (Oracle Development Tools User Group) community. Thought leaders, product experts, and end users meet to share tips, implementation success stories, and to get details on upcoming product releases from the Oracle product management team.  Enter FDMEE.

If you couldn’t make it to KScope15, or you attended the conference but had too many commitments to make it to FDMEE sessions and the EPM Symposium (read: you were sitting poolside with a mojito in hand), here are the highlights of the near-term roadmap for FDMEE – 11.1.2.4.100.

Note: It’s always important to bring attention to Oracle’s Safe Harbor statement, which simply says, Yeah, this stuff is on the way, but no guarantees as to when.

PBCS Integration and the Universal Data Adapter

If you’ve ever attended one of Oracle’s presentations over the past couple of years, you know that data integration goal for FDMEE is any source/any target.

FDMEE delivers several pre-built source adapters for major ERP systems, like EBS Financials and PeopleSoft.  Earlier this year, the 11.1.2.4 Release also introduced the EPM Data Synchronization component.  With FDMEE EPM Data Sync we can map and move data between two EPM applications, such as HFM and Essbase.  In the next 11.1.2.4 patch set update (PSU), we can expect Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) to the be part of the EPM Data Synchronization family for quick and easy EPM to EPM integrations.

To achieve the objective of any source/any target, since Release 11.1.2.3, FDMEE has the open interface adapter.  The open interface adapter is essentially a generic staging table in the FDMEE repository you can push or pull data to using any technology you like.  PSU 11.1.2.4.100 will take this even easier with the Universal Data Adapter.  Using the Universal Data Adapter you will be able to register any database table or database view as a data source in FDMEE.  (I can already think of several implementations where I could have used this vs. the open interface adapter.)

FDM Classic to FDMEE Conversion Utility

This one has been in the works for a while now. PSU 11.1.2.4.100 should deliver a utility to convert your existing FDM Classic applications to FDMEE.  This is great news, right?  Absolutely.  But don’t expect the utility to be a one-click solution by which your entire app is converted to FDMEE in an afternoon.

Remember, a FDM Classic application can be comprised of a fair amount of components, including categories, locations, import formats, adapters, scripts, task flows… you get the idea.  There can be a lot going on in a FDM Classic application.  The utility won’t convert things like scripts or complex conditional logic to FDMEE speak.  You will still need a FDMEE implementation specialist to assist with this.

I see the utility as a quick way to jump start a FDM Classic to FDMEE application upgrade. You can get the main metadata components – like import formats, locations, and check logic – migrated and then work from there to manually re-create things like scripts, batch definitions, and complex mappings.

DRM Integration

Another item that’s been on the wish list for a while is official integration of DRM (Oracle Data Relationship Management) with FDMEE.  I say “official” because a number of us out there have been using DRM to manage FDM maps for years. With 11.1.2.4.100, there will be an out-of-the-box mechanism that will allow your organization to manage mappings in DRM and publish (push) the maps to FDMEE.

Hybrid Implementation Support

With 11.1.2.4.100, the Oracle FDMEE development team plans to support hybrid implementations. You might be wondering what Oracle means by “hybrid”.  Think on-premise applications vs. cloud applications.

With this enhancement to FDMEE, you will be able to use your on-premise FDMEE application to integrate with your Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) application.  You can use PBCS as both a data target and a data source. (Until this hybrid support is available, clients have to use the skinnied-down cloud version of FDMEE that ships with PBCS.)

On the Roadmap

We’re still waiting for a few other FDM Classic items to make their way to FDMEE, namely the map monitor report and map viewer (read-only) mode for auditors. We’re told these features are on the way.  Also, the FDMEE development team is working hard on enriching the feature set of FDMEE for Cloud that ships with PBCS.

Expect Oracle to debut 11.1.2.4.100 sometime in the fall.  Keep an eye out here or on the ThinkFDM twitter feed for details.

[Note: 10/01/15 – We’re now hearing from Oracle Development that the first patch set to FDMEE 11.1.2.4, PSU 100, will be out towards the end of 2015, possibly not debuting until the beginning of 2016.]