A main reason people migrate to the cloud are the monthly updates that are pushed out to your environments. Just to name a few of the great updates delivered are Smart Push, Groovy, and Hybrid BSO. While these updates were all delivered automatically through the nightly update window, updating the Smart View add in for Excel to the latest version still requires a manual download and install.   Here is where you can download and install the latest version of Smart View:   https://www.oracle.com/middleware/technologies/smart-view-for-office.html   For many EPM Cloud users Smart View is the primary tool used to interact and query data from the cloud. Because of this its important to keep up to date with the latest versions of Smart View. There are many useful features that have been recently released this past April. To see if you can benefit with any of the latest releases of Smart view below is a summary of the past three releases.  

11.1.2.5.910 (Most current release)

Support for Adding Dynamic Members in Smart View

New Argument Added to HsAlias Function

Oracle BI EE Extension Installation Change

Narrative Reporting 20.04 Extension Update

Narrative Reporting 20.02 Features

Narrative Reporting 19.12 Extension Update

11.1.2.5.900

Multiple-Grid Ad Hoc

In-Grid Cell-Based POV

Submit Without Refresh

Enhanced Free-Form Support

Drill-Through Report Source POV Display

11.1.2.5.810

Support for Dashboards

Drill-Through to Excel Sheets from EPM Cloud

Improved Performance for Composite Forms with Modified Data

Attaching Files to Cells in Forms and Ad Hoc Grids

HsSetValue Accepts Additional Data Types

 

A good reason to update to at least the 11.1.2.5.900 version of Smart View is the Enhanced Free-Form Support.  This new feature is only available within Smart View and allows you to customize the row members within a form.  Having the ability to delete, insert and reorder members within a form can be helpful when using large forms.  Using an Enhanced Free-Form also allows you to sort and filter members using native Excel functionality.  These enhancements give users the ability to customize rows in forms while preserving the structure of forms for administrators.

 

Enabling Enhanced Free-Form must be setup by the administrator within Planning in the Create and Manage -> Forms.

 

After opening a form, navigate to the layout tab and within the Smart View Options check the Enable flex form and save the changes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once this option is enabled users will have the ability to open a form as a flex form.

 

                      After a form is opened as a flex form it will look like a typical planning form in Smart View.  Rows can be deleted by simply deleting the text in the row and hitting refresh.  Below is an example of deleting a row.   Form after opening

 

          Form after deleting

 

 

          Form after refreshing           Adding a row member to a flex form is just this easy.  Type in a valid member for the dimension in the row and hit refresh.  The member will appear in the form retaining the existing planning security to allow for entry or restrict to read only access.   As you can see this is easily enabled and can provide much needed flexibility within forms.  Getting the latest version of Smart View is easy, flex forms is a great reason to update to the latest version.  You can find more information on flex forms in the planning documentation with the link below:    https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/enterprise-performance-management-common/svpbc/flex_forms_about_106x5aa9f7a6.html