Release Notes for the following areas are included in this article:
- Platform
- Consolidation
- Account Reconciliation
- FluenceXL Reporting
- To download the latest FluenceXL Add-in for creating and designing reports, use the following link: FluenceXL Add-in.
For more information about any of these features, please contact your Customer Success Manager.
Note:
As of the May 2023 release, we have adopted a new naming convention. The format is YYMM.R where YYMM represents the year and month of the release, and R represents the release number. This change in naming convention has been made across the entire Fluence product suite to provide consistent and aligned versioning.
Platform Enhancements
Model Views
The Model Views user interface has been updated. Model Views can be used to provide a simplified view of the Fluence data model for reporting purposes within FluenceXL.
A model view simplifies the view of a Fluence Data Model by:
- Hiding dimensions and providing defaults for those hidden dimensions
- Pruning the members to include by selecting a subset of members or applying a property filter to filter the member set
- Providing a default layout when retrieving data so that certain dimensions can be pre-assigned to the rows, columns and slicers of a grid-based report
This predefined layout provides a suggested starting point but the FluenceXL end-user has the option of changing the orientation and member selections of the view if required. A sample use case would be to create Model View of the Consolidation Model that hides the Movement, Audit and Dataview dimensions so that FluenceXL end-users do not need to consider these dimensions when making their report selections.
The Model Views features has been updated in this release. If you were using Model Views in a previous release, please contact Support so that we can update your environment appropriately.
Model and Model View Exports
A new Workflow task, Model Export, allows you to export data from a Data Model or Model View. The export consists of the member names and amounts as defined by the Model or Model View. The data is exported to a staging table with the same name as the Model or Model View being exported. The data can additionally be output to a file in Fluence Explorer, ftp, or Azure file storage. Additional setup is required for outputting to ftp or Azure file storage. Please contact Fluence Support if you would like to use these options.
When exporting a Model View, leaf and parent data are exported using the Model View definition to define the order of the columns and members to include. The output is similar to a report but in a columnar format.
Data Import Enhancements
Restrict Data Imports from loading to Closed Periods
A new flag, ImportOnlyOnOpenPeriodsConsol, will prevent File Import workflow tasks from loading data to the data model if any of the records contain a closed period. The Configure Open Periods form is used to validate open periods when loading data from a file. This feature flag helps prevent data from being mistakenly loaded to closed periods.
New Clear Data option - Staging Source Values
A new Clear Data option, Staging Source Values, has been added to Data Import Definitions. This option clears members in the data model based on the members found in the staging table. For example, if the Staging Table (source file) contains London and Toronto entities, and the Clear Data Setting is set to Staging Source Values for the Entity dimension, rows with London and Toronto will be cleared from the data model before the data is imported.
Hierarchy Manager Enhancements
Append Hierarchy
The Import Hierarchy functionality has been enhanced to allow appending to an existing hierarchy. When importing a hierarchy, you will be prompted to either Replace or Append. Append will leave the existing hierarchy intact and only append the members in the Hierarchy Import file.
Update Hierarchy
You can now update member captions, operators, properties and parent assignments using the Update Hierarchy toolbar icon. It allows for ease of maintenance as the member key is no longer required to make these types of updates. In the update file, include the member name and only the columns that require updating.
Move Up and Move Down
Child members in a hierarchy (base and alternate) can now be re-ordered within a parent using the new Move Up and Move Down context menu options. When either of these actions are invoked, a reorder mode is activated. In reorder mode, you can only move members up and down within the parent - all other hierarchy context menu options are disabled. After clicking Save, the other hierarchy options will become available again.
Alternate Hierarchies
The Alternate Hierarchy editor has been enhanced to allow you to copy a parent member with all its children from the base hierarchy to the alternate hierarchy. You can also drag and drop leaf members from the base to the alternate hierarchy. These options can be used to create alternate hierarchies more efficiently.
You can now modify the rollup operator of parent and leaf members in an alternate hierarchy.
You can now modify the name, caption and properties of parent members in an alternate hierarchy.
Workflow Enhancements
Assign Tasks to Roles
Workflow Administrators can now assign interactive tasks to Roles instead of individually named users. This is can help reduce maintenance in cases where multiple people can be responsible for a task.
Run Workflow
A new Workflow task, Run Workflow, has been added to start one workflow from another workflow. With this feature, you can create smaller, manageable workflows and then link them together by using Run Workflow tasks.
Lock Task
A new Workflow task, Lock, has been added to prevent other workflow processes from running a subprocess where simultaneous access could cause issues. For example, if there is a a particular task/stored procedure that needs to be completed before another workflow calls it, you can encapsulate that task into a Lock subprocess.
User Security Reports
There are three new read-only user-related security reports now available within the Security module that can be used for informational and audit purposes:
- User Information
- Roles with Assigned Users Security Report
- Role Authorizations Report
To view these reports, you must have the appropriate authorization - Security > User Reports > View and export user security reports. The reports display the user and role information in an easy to consume view with sortable, resizable and movable columns where applicable. The reports can also be exported to Excel.
User Information Report
The User Information report displays information about each user in the tenant. The report include user details, roles the user is assigned to, as well as their last login date.
Roles with Assigned Users Report
The Roles with Assigned Users report list all roles in the tenant with their assigned users. A row is displayed for each role/user assignment. Filtering on the Role column can easily display all users that belong to a specific role.
Role Authorization Report
The Role Authorization report displays a list of each granular authorization available and the roles that have each of the authorizations enabled.
Multi-tenant Single-Sign on
Fluence security infrastructure now supports SSO through a customer's own Enterprise Active directory, and is listed as a supported vendor directory service under Microsoft's Enterprise AD management. This allows central management, creation and deletion of user IDs by a company's internal security administration, and will sync automatically with the Fluence security directory. Please contact Fluence Support if you would like to use Multi-tenant Single-Sign on.
Consolidation Enhancements
Fluence XL Financial Reports
New FluenceXL consolidation financial reports have been added and can be found in the Fluence>Consolidation>Reports>Web Reports folder. The new reports include:
- Cash Flow Statement by Audit
- Cash Flow Statement by Entity
- Consolidated Financials - By Audit
- Consolidated Financials - By Entity
- Consolidated Financials - By Period
- Validations - Movement
- Validations - Opening Period
These reports are similar to the the original Fluence Excel based reports, but with added benefits including:
- Ability to be viewed directly within the Fluence web portal
- Dynamic Drilling within the report
- Ability to modify the report in FluenceXL without any coding required
- Ability to change parameters directly within the report
Compare Hierarchies Report
A new Compare Hierarchies report has been added. This report allows you to validate and compare members in the default hierarchy vs. members in any alternate hierarchy structures.
This report allows you to select:
- The dimension you want to work with
- A parent in the base hierarchy to use for the comparison
- An alternate hierarchy to compare to
- A parent member in the alternate hierarchy to use for the comparison
- Mapping display (to show all members or only unmapped members)
- Compare Type (you can compare your base parent to the alternate parent, or the alternate parent to the base parent)
The report will display results according to the selections made and will highlight any unmapped members in red for easy analysis.
Calculation Data Tracking
You can now track data changes when running a calculation within Fluence. This will allow you to view what data was changed when the calculation was run.
With tracking on, the Process Status report has been enhanced to allow viewing a trace log of data changes that occurred during the calculation
Conversion and Consolidation audit reports
Conversion and Consolidation audit reports have been added. Data for these reports will be available if either the Conversion or the Consolidation processes have been run with the Audit flag set to TRUE.
Intercompany Matching Report by Dimension
A new Dimension Breakdown maintenance form is now available to allow defining what dimensions are available to break down the Intercompany Matching rules by.
Once the Dimension Breakdown is defined, these rules can be applied to the Intercompany Matching Rules. In the example below, the Intercompany Matching report is now further broken down within the products dimension
Note: The parent Intercompany Matching member in the accounts dimension must now be tagged as #IntercompanyMatching in order to use the Intercompany Matching report
Enhanced Validation Rule Capabilities
A new 'Enforce' field has been added to validation rules to specify whether they will be hard (enforced) or soft validations
Additionally, the capability to include a Workflow step that checks if validation rules defined in the system have passed or failed has been added. This feature will take into account the rules 'Enforce' status as well as if the defined tolerance.
For example:
- A rule that is set to enforce will only fail if it is outside of the defined tolerance.
- A rule that is set to not enforce will pass validations regardless of the tolerance defined.
To leverage this feature, a decision step within Workflow must be used.
Allocation Enhancements
The Allocation module has been enhanced to support alternate hierarchies.
Journal Entries Enhancements
Journal Entries Bulk Import and Export
Journal Entries can now be loaded from an Excel file via the new Bulk Import toolbar icon. This feature is useful during initial system setup or if you need to create or load several journals at once.
You can use the Bulk Export to export a file as a template to determine the format of the bulk import file. If you do so, be sure to clear the data in the file, especially the JEID and DetailID columns.
The bulk import adds only new journal entries. Existing journal entries are not updated.
Sample bulk import file
For reporting purposes or to update other systems, you can also now export your journal entries in bulk for a particular query. Attachments are not included in the export.
Recurring Journal Entries
The Recurring From date field is now editable. The Recurring From date initially defaults to the CurrentPeriod from the Global Variables. Users can click the Edit icon next to the Recurring From and select a different date.
Enhancements to the Copy Journal Entry Process
The Copy Journal Entry process has been enhanced to provide additional controls around copying journal entries that have already been copied for the scenario and date selected
- If the Journal Entry has already been copied but is not posted, a warning message will be provided and the user must select TRUE to Force Copy the journal in order to overwrite the one that currently exists.
- If the Journal Entry has already been copied and is posted, a warning message will be provided and the user must unpost the Journal Entry prior to re-running the Journal Entry copy process.
The Copy Journal Entry process has also been enhanced to allow selecting a source and target scenario
Account Reconciliation Enhancements
Supporting Items for Matching Transactions
A new feature in the Transaction Matching interface has been added to create Supporting Items directly from transaction details. There are two types of supporting items for transactions:
- Transaction Support
- Match Support
Supporting items that are created in the Matching interface have the same parameters as supporting items that are created manually in the Reconciliation Details form, but they automatically calculate total transaction amounts and Match variances.
A reconciliation association to one or more included transactions will be saved in the system tables. Once the association has been created, these transactions cannot be removed and if they are matched, they cannot be unmatched.
There are two new buttons, Support and Support Match. to create or update supporting items, one button for each type - Transaction support and Match Support.
In addition, visual indicator columns have been added to show the existence of a supporting reconciliation by type.
Support Transaction
You can now create/update a supporting item for one or multiple transactions by selecting those transactions and clicking on the Support button. A supporting item popup can be used to add a new supporting item or update an existing one. Some parameters are not editable in update mode, such as name, account, entity, and start date. Each subtotal can be used as natural, reverse, or absolute and the final amount can be used as natural or reversed in create a match.
Support Match
You can also create/update a supporting item for a match by selecting one or more transactions in that match and clicking on the Support Match button. The Amount for this type will be calculated based on the match variance and can also be be used as natural or reversed sign The Support Match button will be active only if the selected transactions belong to same match and the match variance is not zero.
Transaction Select Menu
There are two new options in the Matching interface Select Menu:
- Select Support
- Select Support Match
Select Support will filter based on the support or support match item and will display and select all transactions associated to the support. This functionality is particularly useful when you want to view all transactions for a supporting item or when you already have an associated supporting item, and you want to add a new one.
Supporting Item Transactions
This is a new form to display all transactions associated to a Transaction support or a Match support. Transaction information details will be displayed in review tables, one table for each dataset. The tables display the columns of the dataset that have been mapped as ID, Description, Date, and Amount in the Match Group Datasets form.
Reconciliation Details – Supporting Items
The Reconciliation Details form has been updated to display support and support match items. Start Date and Account are locked out for these transactions and there is a link to the Supporting Item Transaction form to display transaction details.
Error Handling
Matching forms have been updated to add some restrictions regarding rules for transaction supporting items. These are generally restrictions the on update, deletion of datasets and transactions that have transaction or match support associations.
FluenceXL Reporting Enhancements
Model Views
FluenceXL now supports Model Views for simplified reporting. When creating a connection, you can choose the Model or Model View.
Other Enhancements
- Calculated Column support on template tables
- Row heights can be defined on the format sheet
- Report Designer editor - Added an indicator when there are Advanced selections applied