This document includes important, late-breaking information about this release of Oracle Smart View for Office. Review this Readme thoroughly before installing Smart View.

Applies to: Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, FreeForm, Planning, Tax Reporting

You can now insert and use Intelligent Performance Management (IPM) Insights in Oracle Smart View for Office.

IPM Insights analyzes past data and predicted data, helping you find patterns and insights into data that you might not have found on your own. With IPM Insights, you can reduce time spent in data analysis, improve forecast accuracy, detect trends early, and minimize biases, thus encouraging informed decision making.

IPM Insights provides the following types of insights:

• Forecast variance and bias: This insight reveals hidden bias in forecasts submitted by planners by analyzing historical data. For example, Actual Electronic Sales are 24.15% higher than forecast.
• Prediction: This insight uncovers significant deviations in forecasts compared to predicted values. For example, Predicted Utility Expenses are 20.06% lower than forecast.
• Anomaly: This insight detects outliers and unusual patterns in data that deviate from expected results. For example, Actual Manufacturing Expenses are 44% higher in Jun FY23.

Service Administrators configure and schedule IPM Insights to define what users view on the Insights dashboard in their Planning web application. You can now view the same insights in Smart View and insert them in the Microsoft Office applications of Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. To view and insert insights, right-click the application name in the Smart View Home Panel and click IPM Insights. You can also click More in the Action panel and then click IPM Insights. The IPM Insights dialog displays all the available insights generated in the application.

You can use IPM Insights in Smart View in the following ways:

• View available insights: You can view the list of available insights in the IPM Insights dialog, along with their details such as impact percentage and value, insight statement, POV, insight type (anomaly, prediction, and forecast variance and bias), priority, and status.
• Insert insights: You can select an insight and click Insert in the IPM Insights dialog to insert the insight in an Excel sheet, a Word document, and a PowerPoint slide as follows:
  • Excel: Insert insights as a chart along with the insight statement and the data table associated with the insight. The chart shows a brief description of the insight at the top, and the insight type and POV on the axis.

    For Prediction type of insight, you can also update forecast values in the data table for writable POVs and submit the changed values, just like the Update Forecast command available in the web application.

  • Word: Insert insights as a chart along with the insight description. The chart shows a brief description of the insight at the top, and the insight type and POV on the axis.
  • PowerPoint: Insert insights as a chart along with the insight description. The chart shows a brief description of the insight at the top, and the insight type and POV on the axis.
• Insert function: This action is available only in Excel. You can insert function to extract and display only the details related to the insight such as insight statement, insight type, POV, impact percentage and value, priority, anomaly point, and bias in the sheet. You can select an insight and click Insert Function in the IPM Insights dialog.
• Analyze: This action is available only in Excel. You can select an insight and click Analyze to insert only the data table associated with the insight in the ad hoc analysis mode. You can then perform ad hoc operations like Zoom In, Zoom Out, Keep Only, Remove Only, Pivot, and so on using the provider ad hoc ribbon.
• Save and refresh inserted insights: You can save the Excel sheet, Word document, or PowerPoint slide in which you have inserted insights and refresh the insights by clicking Refresh in the Smart View ribbon to get the latest data.
  • Excel: The active sheet is refreshed. To refresh multiple sheets with insights at the same time, click Refresh All Worksheets.
  • Word: The document is refreshed for all inserted insights.
  • PowerPoint: The active slide is refreshed. To refresh insights on other slides, open each slide and click Refresh.
• View metadata in Sheet Information: This action is available only in Excel. After you insert an insight or a function in a sheet, you can click Sheet Info in the Smart View ribbon to view metadata and other details in the Sheet Information dialog. For each insight, the IPM Insight section displays the insight ID, data source URL, application name, plan type, insight statement, type, POV, creation time, status, and impact percentage and value.

For more information, see the following topics:

• Using IPM Insights in Smart View in Oracle Smart View for Office User's Guide
• Planning: Configuring IPM in Administering Planning and Using IPM Insights to Inform Your Decision-Making in Working with Planning
• FreeForm: Configuring IPM Insights in Administering FreeForm and Using IPM Insights to Inform Your Decision-Making in Working with FreeForm
• Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management: Configuring IPM Insights and Using IPM Insights to Inform Your Decision-Making in Administering and Working with Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management
• Tax Reporting: Configuring IPM Insights in Administering Tax Reporting and Using IPM Insights to Inform Your Decision-Making in Working with Tax Reporting

Applies to: Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Planning, Tax Reporting, Oracle Essbase

You can now set a default POV in ad hoc grids for private connections and named connections. This way, whenever you connect to the specific connection and open an ad hoc grid, it displays data for the default POV that you have set.

To set the default POV, first select the desired POV values in the grid as per your requirement and refresh the grid. Then, open the POV Manager dialog by clicking Manage POV under Functions in the Smart View ribbon. Click the Set Active POV as Default button. The default POV appears in the POV Manager dialog. Now, if you close the sheet and reopen it using the same connection, the POVs you set appear by default when you place an ad hoc grid on the sheet.

For more information, see Setting Default POV for Private and Named Connections in Oracle Smart View for Office User's Guide.

Applies to: Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, Financial Consolidation and Close, FreeForm, Narrative Reporting, Planning, Tax Reporting; Oracle Essbase for Cloud; Profitability and Cost Management, Oracle Fusion ERP

The following enhancements have been introduced for inserted reports.

The following option constants are added to the VBA functions, HypGetOption and and HypSetOption:

• HSV_USE_EXCEL_INDENTATION—Preserves native Excel formatting used for indentation in ad hoc grids.
• HSV_SHOW_DISTINCT_PAGE_MEMBERNAME—Displays distinct page member names or fully qualified names, instead of descriptions, in the Page list for forms.
• HSV_FREEZE_ROWCOL_HEADERS—Freezes row and column headers in all forms and ad hoc grids dynamically, irrespective of their size and layout.
• HSV_NEGATIVE_NUMBERFORMAT—Specifies the format in which negative numbers must be displayed.
• HSV_USE_CUSTOM_NUMBERFORMAT—Enables custom number format.
• HSV_CUSTOM_NUMBERFORMAT—A custom number format string, using Excel formatting standards.

These constants correspond to options that have been added in recent releases to the Options dialog. Use these constants as you would the other constants noted in the table in HypGetOption in Oracle Smart View for Office Developer's Guide.

Applies to: Enterprise Profitability and Cost Management, FreeForm, Planning, Planning Modules Tax Reporting, Oracle Essbase, Oracle Analytics Cloud, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management, Oracle Hyperion Planning

At times, in order for users to take advantage of the full functionality included in an extension update, a minimum version of Oracle Smart View for Office is required. In this release, during the extension update and installation process, a message notifies users when a dependency exists between the extension update and the Smart View version required.

Previously, administrators were required to use email or other means of notifying their users about the Smart View version requirement. Going forward, extensions can set a minimum required Smart View version of 25.100 or later. This version validation can be utilized starting with Smart View 25.100.

These extensions are supported for version check:

• Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM:
  • Task Manager
  • Supplemental Data Management
  • Enterprise Journals (Financial Consolidation and Close only)
  • EPM Books
  • Planning Admin Extension
  • Predictive Planning
  • Strategic Modeling
• Narrative Reporting
• Oracle BI EE extension for Oracle BI EE and Oracle Analytics Cloud
• Cube Designer extension for Essbase
• Oracle Journals extension for Financial Management

• Planning Admin extension for Oracle Hyperion Planning

For information on installing and updating extensions, see these topics in the Oracle Smart View for Office User's Guide, Smart View Extensions chapter:

• Initially Checking for Available Extensions

• Installing Extensions

• Updating Extensions

You can download this release from My Oracle Support:

https://support.oracle.com

For information on Oracle Smart View for Office, including the link to downloading the latest Smart View release, refer to the My Oracle Support Knowledge Article "Smart View Support Matrix and Compatibility FAQ" (Doc ID 1923582.1). To access the Knowledge Article, you must have a user account with My Oracle Support.

As a best practice, Oracle recommends periodically checking for and downloading the latest Smart View release from the Knowledge Article, Doc ID 1923582.1, on MOS:

https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=1923582.1

Complete installation instructions are in the Oracle Smart View for Office Installation and Configuration Guide. This guide is available in the Smart View library on the Oracle Help Center.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/applications/enterprise-performance-management/index.html

Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge require a browser extension. See the topics in Browser Support for information on downloading and installing the Smart View extension for those browsers.

Oracle supports and certifies the current release and one release prior (25.100 and 24.200) of Oracle Smart View for Office against current products on Premier Support.

Oracle Smart View for Office 25.100 is supported on Windows 10 and Windows 11, and requires a supported version of Microsoft .NET Framework. Oracle recommends using .NET Framework 4.8 or higher.

Note that Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2, 4.6, and 4.6.1 are no longer supported after April 26, 2022. For more information, see .NET Framework 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1 will reach End of Support on April 26, 2022.

For information on additional Windows operating system support, see the matrix for your release in Supported Platforms Matrices.

Oracle Smart View for Office supports Microsoft Office 2016, 2019, and 2021.

After installing the November 12, 2024 Microsoft Office update for Excel 2016, Excel was not able to locate the Smart View HsTbar.xla file upon startup. The issue is described in Excel 2016 stopped loading .xlam Excel Addins after security update from 12-nov-2024.

This issue is fixed by Microsoft in November 19, 2024, update for Excel 2016 (KB4484305). If you are using Excel 2016, Oracle advises that you download and install this fix.

Smart View for Windows requires locally installed supported versions of Microsoft Office 365 applications, including Office 365 ProPlus installed using Click-to-Run. Smart View (Mac and Browser) provides an interface between Oracle's Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management solutions and Microsoft Office 365 deployed either in a web browser on Windows or Mac systems, or on Office for Mac.

For more information, see the Knowledge Article entitled Smart View Support Matrix and Compatibility FAQ (Doc ID 1923582.1):

https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=1923582.1

You can use Oracle Smart View for Office to interact with supported browser-based applications in Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management and Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System in these ways:

• Starting in a form or ad hoc grid in Smart View, use drill-through to launch an application web page in a browser.

• Starting in a web application, launch a form or ad hoc grid in Smart View for Excel.

• Starting in a Task List in Smart View, opening a task in a browser.

Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge require a Smart View add-on for drill-through, web launch, and opening a task in a browser from Smart View.

Browser extension installation instructions are in the Oracle Smart View for Office Installation and Configuration Guide, Installing Browser Add-ons.This guide is available in the Smart View library on the Oracle Help Center here:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/applications/enterprise-performance-management/index.html

Oracle Smart View for Office does not have a browser version dependency; however, it is possible that the products that Smart View works with do.

For your platforms and products, check the system requirements and supported platforms documents, and specific product readmes for any additional browser support requirements.

Oracle Smart View for Office uses the Microsoft Internet Explorer module to display the authentication page. But certain authentication schemes may require newer controls, such as Microsoft Edge WebView2, to process a complex login sequence. To use WebView2, Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime should be installed and enabled on each Smart View client machine.

During runtime, Smart View detects the presence of Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime installed on the machine and launches the WebView2-based dialog to host the login page.

Once WebView2 is installed on Smart View client machines, users can enable or disable it in the Smart View Options section of the Health Check dialog (described in Performing a Health Check On Your System in the Oracle Smart View for Office User's Guide).

Administrators can also enable or disable WebView2 by editing the Smart View properties.xml file (present by default in C:\Oracle\SmartView\cfg) and then distribute this file to users.

These are the configuration settings for enabling and disabling WebView2 in properties.xml:

• Enable for All (the default setting):

  <disableWebView2>0</disableWebView2>

  <useWebView2forNetworking>1</useWebView2forNetworking>

• Enable for UI:

  <disableWebView2>0</disableWebView2>

  <useWebView2forNetworking>0</useWebView2forNetworking

• Disable:

  <disableWebView2>1</disableWebView2>

  <useWebView2forNetworking>0</useWebView2forNetworking>

Administrators: If WebView2 is required to handle the login sequence used by your organization, then you should ensure that Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime is installed and enabled on the machines running Smart View. If you are installing Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime, Oracle recommends using the Evergreen version.

Once installed, Microsoft distributes WebView2 updates on a regular cadence, unless a fixed version was installed. Administrators can use their own internal procedures to download and distribute Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime to Smart View users. The download is here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/webview2-install#webview2-runtime-installation

For more information, see the WebView2 documentation.

The Oracle Smart View for Office user interface supports these languages:

You can upgrade to Oracle Smart View for Office Release 25.100 from the following releases:

Oracle Smart View for Office supports the product versions listed in the system requirements and platform support documents for your environment.

For information about compatibility with other Oracle platforms and products, check the system requirements and supported platforms documents for your environment, as well as any specific product readmes.

• 36826908, 37414773 – Oracle Smart View for Office supports using SharePoint or OneDrive, to store your shared connection XML file. For more information, see "Accessing Shared Connections from an XML File" in the Oracle Smart View for Office Installation and Configuration Guide.

• 37218893 – When using a Shared Connections XML file and connecting to a new server on a new workbook, the active workbook no longer switches to the previous workbook and remains properly on the active workbook.

• 37378210 – When installing a new Smart View release:

  • If Smart View is already installed and the options.xml file is present in the cfg folder, users need to click Reset in the Smart View Options dialog to obtain the latest settings set by their service administrator.
  • If Smart View is being installed for the first time or if no data is available in the registry, then Smart View refers to the options.xml file, if available.

• 37473725 – The Submit Data Without Refresh action now works as expected against cells containing Excel formulas.

• 37488804 – Kerberos is supported with Microsoft Edge WebView2 and requires the following registry key and string values.

  • Registry key:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\WebView2

  • String Values:

    • AuthNegotiateDelegateAllowlist—Set to organization authentication server (can contain *)

    • AuthServerAllowlist—Set to organization authentication server (can contain *)

  If this key and the string values are not present, create them.

• 37680312 – You can now successfully use the Submit Data Without Refresh action to submit data of a text data type value that’s used as a cell reference in an ad hoc grid. Note that you must use the Submit Data Without Refresh action in these cases.

These defects are fixed in this release:

• 37319079 – When flex form is enabled on row and Suppress Missing Blocks is enabled, users can now type in the row members and refresh the form to bring in members on the flex form.

• 37352159 – Workbooks containing function sheets created on the Mac using Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser) can be shared with users on Smart View for Windows. The Smart View for Windows user must run the Fix Links action one time in order to make the function sheets refreshable.

• 37039085 – Excel formatting is now preserved and extended from parent cells to their zoomed-in cells when the Move Formatting on Operations option is selected in the Smart View Options dialog.

• 36544522 – Users can now type a member name in the cell of a POV drop-down in Excel 365 version 2403 + on the first instance of typing the member name.

• 37533571 – In Essbase ad hoc grids with POV, users can now type in the POV header cells, without any cell drop-down lists restricting the typing.

• 37528121 – While typing a member name in a cell containing a POV dimension, if users stop typing midway, then the dimension name no longer displays in the drop-down list.

• 35901867 – When working with Reports, Oracle Smart View for Office uses the date format "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS" in the Properties dialog, regardless of the date format specified in the web.

• 37092593 – Reports with prompts can now be opened and analyzed without any errors.

• 37415126 – Reports with semicolon in report name can now be imported in Smart View without any errors.

• 37575797 – The date and time present in the report header are updated correctly whenever the report is refreshed in Smart View using Refresh Report.

• 37746957 – Formatted reports can now be imported successfully when report POV has non-unique members in the default selection list and the Preview POV option is not enabled.

• 33992974 – When working in a two-monitor scenario using a laptop screen and an external monitor screen in extended mode, Oracle Smart View for Office may not able to recognize selections in the POV. This is due to having different resolution and scaling settings on each screen, which can result in false clicks where some UI clicks are not captured.

  Workaround: If your display resolution settings are different between the laptop monitor and the external monitor with extended display, use the same scale settings on both screens. For information on monitor display settings, see the Microsoft article, How to use multiple monitors in Windows.

• 34032813 – After installing Smart View as a System user, when Excel is launched for the first time, the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER, or HKCU is updated with the location of the HsTbar.xla file. While uninstalling Smart View, the HKCU entries are not removed automatically. After uninstalling Smart View, when Excel is launched for the first time, Excel tries to locate the HsTbar.xla file and shows an error stating it could not find the file.

  Workaround: To avoid this error, delete the entries from the Windows Registry manually using the steps given in Excel Looks for HsTbar.xla File After Uninstall in the Oracle Smart View for Office Installation and Administration Guide.

• 34344067 – When attempting to launch certain dialogs, the Script Error dialog is displayed if WebView2 is disabled; for example, you launch the Instructions dialog, and the instructions area is blank and the Script Error dialog is displayed.

  Workaround: In the Health Check dialog, ensure that WebView2 Runtime is installed and select Enable for UI, described in Performing a Health Check On Your System in the Oracle Smart View for Office User's Guide.

• 35054608 – No keyboard shortcuts are available to select in the Login dialog when WebView2 is enabled.

• 35116820 – If the Health Check option, WebView2 Runtime, is set to Enable for UI or Enable for All, then you cannot update extensions using the Check for Updates, New Installs, and Uninstalls in the Smart View Options dialog.

  Workaround: In the Health Check dialog, set the WebView2 Runtime option to Disable. Restart Office. Then proceed with the extension update (or install or uninstall) using the Check for Updates, New Installs, and Uninstalls link in the Options dialog. When you’re finished with extension update tasks, reenable the WebView2 Runtime option in the Health Check dialog and restart Office.

• 35673178 – If different Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management instances use different Identity Cloud Services (IDCS) instances, users will be prompted once per IDCS instance. For example, after logging into Narrative Reporting and launching a Planning-based Report, you may be prompted to log in again after clicking Analyze.

• 35728359 – When performing drill-through to an Excel sheet, data value amounts on the sheet are shown in US format (with . as the decimal separator) and not in the regional format (with , as the decimal separator).

• 36401841 – When WebView2 is enabled, selecting outside of a WebView2 dialog, such as the Sign In dialog, switches focus to the Excel application, making it unresponsive.

These are the known issues related to Cloud EPM:

• 33622708 – While saving a Microsoft Office file to the Cloud EPM Library from Oracle Smart View for Office, if the file size is nearly 20 MB, an error appears stating that it exceeds the maximum allowed size limit of 20 MB.
• 34372232 – In ad hoc grids connected to Standard-mode applications, when repeated members are suppressed, the Preserve Format option does not preserve any formatting changes done for data cells corresponding to the repeated members. The formatting changes are lost on refreshing the grid.
• 35029572 – When importing metadata for copied content, the POV metadata is not imported in PowerPoint 2019.

• 35480273 – Comments outside the flex form grid area will not be adjusted to match grid layout changes.

• 35673349 – In certain scenarios, the Windows File Download dialog erroneously appears. You must click the Close button, X, in the upper-right corner of the dialog to close it and continue. These are the scenarios where this may occur:

  • When a report is set up where the grid data source of the report is pointing to an environment in a different domain than the one with which you originally logged on, the user performs a member selection from the Edit POV dialog, clicks OK to download the new report with the updated POV, and multiple authentication prompts appear. In the end, the File Download dialog is displayed.

    Click the X in the upper-right corner of the dialog and launch the Edit POV dialog again but choose members from the drop-down list instead of the Member Selection dialog.

  • A report is opened for an extended period of time in Excel, which has resulted in a session time out. When the user refreshes report, the File Download dialog may display.

    Click the X in the upper-right corner of the dialog and retry the refresh.

• 36180640 – With WebView2 and the Save password dialog enabled, and using a shared connection to connect to an OCI data source, the Save password dialog is not displayed.

  Workaround: Connect to the OCI data source a private connection and save the password when prompted. Disconnect or close Excel. Then, log in using the shared connection.

Tips and troubleshooting topics are listed in the Tips and Troubleshooting chapter of the Oracle Smart View for Office Installation and Configuration Guide.

All Oracle Smart View for Office guides are available in the library on the Oracle Help Center:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/applications/enterprise-performance-management/index.html

Find the latest Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management and Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System product guides in the Oracle Help Center:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/

When you cut and paste code snippets from a PDF file, some characters can be lost during the paste operation, making the code snippet invalid.

Workaround: Cut and paste from the HTML version of the document.

This topic lists the open-source and proprietary third-party software components (or portions thereof) that are included with or used by Oracle Smart View for Office:

• MSXML 6.0

• NewtonSoft.Json 13.0.2

• Office PIA 14.0

• InstallShield 2023 R2

• Open XML SDK 2.18.0

• Zlib Data Compression Library 1.3.1