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Oracle

Excel4apps Wands 20.2

Release Notes

www.insightsoftware.com/wands

© Excel4apps Pty Ltd 2019 | of 12

Table of Contents

1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 4

2 Version 20.2.0 ................................................................................................................................. 4

2.1 General ..................................................................................................................................... 4

3 Version 20.1.1 ................................................................................................................................. 4

3.1 General ..................................................................................................................................... 4

3.2 Reports Wand ........................................................................................................................... 4

4 Version 20.1.0 ................................................................................................................................. 5

4.1 General ..................................................................................................................................... 5

4.2 Reports Wand ........................................................................................................................... 5

4.3 Journal Wand ............................................................................................................................ 5

5 Version 6.4.1 ................................................................................................................................... 6

5.1 General ..................................................................................................................................... 6

5.2 Reports Wand ........................................................................................................................... 6

6 Version 6.4.0 ................................................................................................................................... 6

6.1 General ..................................................................................................................................... 6

7 Version 6.3.2 ................................................................................................................................... 7

7.1 General ..................................................................................................................................... 7

8 Version 6.3.1 ................................................................................................................................... 7

8.1 General ..................................................................................................................................... 7

9 Version 6.3.0 ................................................................................................................................... 7

9.1 General ..................................................................................................................................... 7

9.2 Budget Wand ............................................................................................................................ 7

9.3 GL Wand ................................................................................................................................... 7

9.4 Reports Wand ........................................................................................................................... 8

9.5 Journal Wand ............................................................................................................................ 9

10 Known Issues ................................................................................................................................... 9

10.1 Allowed Resources feature in Oracle EBS 12.2 ........................................................................ 9

10.2 Office 365 Calculates on workbook open ................................................................................. 9

10.3 Slow performance with large volumes (Excel calculation) ..................................................... 10

10.4 Citrix compatibility ................................................................................................................. 11

10.5 Snapshot process .................................................................................................................... 11

10.6 Invalid Segment Criteria ......................................................................................................... 11

10.7 Office 365 Version 1903 GL Wand Sheet Refresh Performance ............................................ 11

10.8 GL Wand View Transaction .................................................................................................... 12

11 Office 365 Excel Support Statement ............................................................................................. 12



1 Introduction

Set out below is a summary of the enhancements and bug fixes in this release of the Excel4apps Wands for Oracle.

Please note, while we endeavor to perform as much testing as possible on all new releases, we strongly recommend that you always test a new release in a development environment before deploying to production. Specific attention should be placed on testing larger and more complex reports.

2 Version 20.2.0

2.1 General

Feature Description Benefit

End User License Agreement.

A new End User License Agreement (EULA) is provided for all users to continue using the Wands products. It will only appear on first

launch of the new release.

New End User License Agreement

Dropbox URL. The Dropbox URL on Shared Templates Drive

configuration was not opening the correct page.

Bug Fix.

Shared Templates Drive

error.

A NullPointerException (NPE) error occurs

when non-administrator users try an open

Shared Templates Drive, specifically when

Shared Templates Drive has not been

configured.

Bug Fix.

3 Version 20.1.1

3.1 General


Stop calculations.

An update to Microsoft’s asynchronous function handles resulted in Excel becoming unresponsive if Wands calculations where

stopped. We have applied a fix for this.

Bug Fix.

3.2 Reports Wand


Generate seeded content with EBS multi-language

support enabled.

We have updated the process to generate seeded reports wand content for customers

who have multi-language support enabled on their EBS environments.

Bug Fix.



4 Version 20.1.0

4.1 General


Community Icons on Excel Ribbon.

Removed all unnecessary community related icons.

Less clutter, and better user experience.

Support Dialog. Support Dialog has been updated to direct

customers to the Customer Portal. Improved support

experience.

Improved insights launcher for Internet

Explorer (IE).

Ability to download insights launcher components from the EBS application server instead of an external insightSoftware hosted

server.

Improved launch experience with IE.

Insight Launcher Installer.

An option to automatically uninstall the

launcher should a customer require it. Easy uninstall.

4.2 Reports Wand


Add Columns Dialog Stage.

Under certain circumstances the Add Columns stage on the Edit Report Definition Dialog

would show the incorrect title and description. This has been fixed.

Bug Fix.

Create Pivot Tables. Automatically create pivot tables when

creating a new report. Efficient report creation.

Updated Invalid Package Messaging.

If the database package used in Reports Wand is invalid it will be correctly communicated to

the users.

Identify invalid database package without help of

support.

Edit Report Definition

Dialog updates.

Prevent users from overwriting Seeded or

Advanced insight report definitions when

using the Edit Dialog.

Persistence of original

content.

Copy Seeded and

Advanced insights

content

Users can create a copy of an existing insights report definition (seeded or advanced), which will include its business value definition and

column metadata.

Customize insights report content.

4.3 Journal Wand


Cache Account

Combinations

Configuration Option.

The ability to disable the caching of account combinations should your chart of accounts be too large to cache. This option impacts

Journal Wand line validation and the Account Combination Enabled, Start Date and End

Date functions.

Excessively large chart of accounts will not stall the

application.

Validation Improvement.

Account code combination validations are

only indicated on the first segment value of

a Journal Wand template and not every

segment value cell.

Improved validation

performance.



5 Version 6.4.1

5.1 General


RDM Scheduler Validation.

A NullPointerException would occur if you start the RDM scheduler on a blank Excel

sheet with no template. Bug Fix.

Insight Launcher with Internet Explorer.

A "Remote host terminated the handshake" exception would occur when trying to

download the Insight Launcher when using Internet Explorer.

Bug Fix.

Server Installer.

An "Exhausted Resultset" exception would occur when using the the

DEPLOY_ADSPLICE_FILES install option on the server.

Bug Fix.

Wands Community Single Sign-On.

Disabled this deprecated feature to ensure the user guide always opens for the correct

product release. Bug Fix.

Launcher SSL Connectivity.

Prevent SSL handshake error from occurring when downloading certain Wands launcher

files from and HTTPS EBS server. Error presented itself as a

"javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: PKIX path building failed" exception.

Bug Fix.

Insight Launcher Installer for non administrator

users.

Unable to install if Windows user does not have administrator privileges.

Bug Fix.

5.2 Reports Wand


Advanced Content generation.

A NullPointerException would occur when importing the insights Advanced Content.

Bug Fix.

6 Version 6.4.0

6.1 General


Installer Update. Fixed a false exception that occurs if the administrator tries to recreate database

objects from the installer. Bug Fix.

Wands Intellicast Integration.

Integration with Intellicast to provide exciting new options to distribute trusted Oracle E-

Business Suite information across your organization.

For more information please see the Wands Intellicast page in the online user guide.

Share Wands content with a wider audience.



7 Version 6.3.2

7.1 General


Internet Explorer Support.

A Wands Launcher application has been built to support customers using Internet Explorer.

Launch Wands from Internet Explorer.

8 Version 6.3.1

8.1 General


Updated Help icon user guide URL’s.

Update the URL’s on the Wands toolbar ribbon to point to the correct user guide.

Bug Fix.

9 Version 6.3.0

9.1 General


Custom App Data Folder.

All configuration files and applications required to launch and run Wands for Oracle

can now be saved to a custom directory instead of the default AppData/Roaming

folder.

Allows customers that save user data to central servers the ability to do

so with Wands for Oracle.

Updated Splash Screen. A new splash screen has been added to the

product launch. New company branding.

Launcher Plugin Updates. All around improvements for the plugin

Wands uses to launch. These include user interface, error handling and support.

Improved user experience.

Java 6 no longer supported on Oracle E-

Business Suite.

The Wands application supports Java 7 on the Oracle E-Business Suite as a minimum server

requirement.

Improved Java feature support.

9.2 Budget Wand


Budget Wand snapshot process not working.

Changing the "Snapshot processes Load Budget functions" option would only work once Wands is relaunched. This option will

now take effect immediately.

Bug Fix.

9.3 GL Wand


Drilldown from Secondary Ledger to

Primary Ledger Journal.

Ability to drill from a secondary ledger to its primary ledger journal, in order to view the

associated subledger transactions.

Easy access to primary ledger journal

information from its secondary ledger journal.




NullPointerException when launching Wands.

A NullPointerException occurs when launching Wands due to responsibilities without a Data Access Set or ledger assigned for the GL Data

Access Set profile option in Oracle.

Bug Fix.

SLA drill downs failing with numeric overflow

exception.

Numeric overflow exception was experienced by customers with huge volumes of SLA data

when performing a sub ledger drill down. Bug Fix.

Drill Criteria Sheet shows incorrect ledger id.

Opening a Drill Criteria Sheet, displays the incorrect ledger id. This was especially evident when Excel calculation mode is set to manual. It will now correctly display according to the

ledger set in the ledger selector.

Bug Fix.

Manage Criteria Templates dialog tabbing

sequence incorrect.

Tabbing in the Manage Criteria Templates dialog would not follow a natural sequence.

Bug Fix.

Drilldown Template totals showing #Value.

Saved Drilldown Templates that use Excels grouping, and were saved with the grouping open, would incorrectly display the drilldown

totals as #Value.

Bug Fix.

Users could see privately

created criteria

templates in the Report

Wizard.

Users without admin rights should not be able to see or use private criteria templates in the Report Wizard dialog. Only admin users can see private report wizard criteria templates.

Bug Fix.

Users could see privately

created criteria

templates in the

Manage Criteria

Templates dialog.

Users without admin rights should not be

able to see or use private criteria templates

in the Manage Criteria Templates dialog.

Only admin users can see private report

wizard criteria templates.

Bug Fix.

View Transaction opens

in default browser

After performing a drilldown to subledger, clicking on the View Transaction feature will

use the users default browser. Bug Fix.

Create List of Values

filter clearing out.

The Create List of Values filter was not being cleared out correctly after selecting an LOV.

Bug Fix.

9.4 Reports Wand


Report Usage Statistics.

Monitor report usage by report name, responsibility, user and execution times. See

the user guide for more information regarding configuration.

Allows administrators to

analyse report usage in

the organization.

Add Columns stage support for ANSI joins.

Support for ANSI joins has been added to the Add Columns stage of the Edit Report

Definition Wizard dialog.

Use the Add Columns

feature with ANSI join

SQL.

Pivot Table improvement.

Updating a report template in a sheet that contains a pivot table would causes Excel to

break. Bug Fix.

Add Columns view name displays incorrectly.

The Add Columns stage of the Edit Report Definition Dialog renders the name of an inline view incorrectly. It should say Inline

Bug Fix.




View (<alias>) with the view alias in brackets but was instead resolving to the SQL

statement.

AP_USERS_V seeded report definition

returning duplicate rows.

A certain number of seeded report definitions where returning duplicate rows due to a

missing "distinct" clause. AP_USERS_V was one of these definitions.

Bug Fix.

Missing IN or OUT parameter exception

when opening the Parameter List dialog.

This is a result of caching table validated value sets that have the colon character (:) as part

of the where clause. These are not supported, and the application has been changed to

ensure they are not used.

Bug Fix.

9.5 Journal Wand


No updates No updates No updates

10 Known Issues

10.1 Allowed Resources feature in Oracle EBS 12.2

With Oracle EBS 12.2.7 or 12.2.6 + Patch 24737426:R12.FND.C the “Allowed Resources” feature adds servlets as protected resources to the former “Allowed JSPs” feature. The purpose of this is to reduce the attack surface of Oracle EBS by enabling the creation of a whitelist of resources that are allowed access to Oracle EBS.

Excel4apps Wands makes use of a servlet to access Oracle EBS data and therefore now needs to be granted access either by setting the new profile option "Security: Allowed Resources" to "ALL" or by adding the following Excel4apps servlets to the resources whitelist.

Servlet Description

/OA_HTML/excel4apps Manages communication between

Excel4apps and Oracle.

/OA_HTML/OracleDownloadClientPropertiesServlet Downloads the client properties file.

/OA_HTML/OracleDownloadLauncherServlet Downloads the Excel4apps Launcher

application.

/OA_HTML/OracleDownloadClientZipServlet Downloads the Excel4apps Oracle

Client.

For further details of these settings please see the “Oracle E-Business Suite Security Guide”.

10.2 Office 365 Calculates on workbook open

By design the Excel4apps custom Excel functions will not recalculate when a workbook is opened. We use standard Excel features to achieve this. Excel’s standard behavior is that when a workbook is opened the last calculated result will be displayed in the cells and no calculation is triggered. In the background we restore the last function results for all Excel4apps custom functions so that they are



available in the session. Those results will be used until a recalculation is performed using one of the “Refresh” buttons on the Excel4apps toolbar.

An issue has been noted in Office 365 (latest build but could occur in previous releases as well) where Excel triggers a recalculation when a workbook is opened. This will occur specifically for workbooks that have not been saved on the local PC e.g. items opened from a network drive or email. The calculation is triggered before our application has an opportunity to restore the last function results and therefore an Excel4apps calculation begins in order to resolve the functions which currently have no result in the session. This behavior does not occur on other Excel releases, only Office 365. It is unclear why Excel is functioning in this manner. The problem is likely an Excel bug.

What you can do to work around the issue:

• Set the Excel calculation mode to manual before opening the workbook and then set it back to automatic once the workbook is opened. This ensures that our application has an opportunity to restore the last function results before the calculation is triggered.

• Alternatively, set the Excel4apps calculation mode to “Off” before opening the workbook. Again this ensures that our application has an opportunity to restore the last function results. The functions will initially resolve to “pending”. You can then return the Excel4apps calculation mode to “On” and trigger an Excel refresh using Ctrl-Alt-F9 which will then resolve the functions using the last results.

10.3 Slow performance with large volumes (Excel calculation)

When processing workbooks containing a large calculation volume, typically around 100 000 or more, the process of returning the final answers to Excel can take a significant amount of time. During this process the Excel status bar shows a calculation percentage which slowly increments.

We have conducted extensive testing around this issue and have concluded that there is nothing we can change in our application to improve the performance. This is an Excel process that is running and we cannot influence it in any way.

This problem is compounded by the fact that during Excel4apps calculations (triggered by using one of the refresh buttons on the toolbar) we switch the Excel calculation to a single processor (single threaded process). This is required to prevent the occurrence of an Excel bug which manifests as a “Out of resources” error or Excel crashing with certain workbook configurations.

What you can do in the short term:

• Lower volumes calculate exponentially faster, for example in our benchmarking, a workbook with 50 000 calculations completed almost 9 times faster than a workbook with 100 000 calculations. Therefore, try and keep workbooks to smaller sizes where possible or calculate in sections to keep the volume being processed lower.

• Workbooks with complex dependent formulas tend to perform the worst. So limit this where possible.

• The Excel bug mentioned above does not affect all workbooks. You can therefore try disabling the option that restricts the calculation to using a single processor. If the calculations complete without error, you can leave this setting disabled and this should improve the performance of the Excel calculation. The option can be found under the GL Wand options.

What we are doing:



We are investigating alternative options to stream our calculation results back to Excel. The option we are currently using is the technology that Microsoft recommends for our requirement but clearly cannot handle the required volumes and also has a number of bugs which Microsoft does not seem to be addressing.

This investigation of alternatives will unfortunately take some time to complete and the development of a new solution is likely to be a significant project. But please be assured that we are working as quickly as we can to find a solution to process large calculation volumes efficiently.

10.4 Citrix compatibility

The Excel4apps Wands application is supported on a Citrix Desktop. However, deploying Excel via Citrix Application Streaming, as a standalone application, is not supported. Our recommendation though, seeing as there is no longer a client installation, is to run our product from the PC rather than from Citrix.

10.5 Snapshot process

In GL Wand 4 the snapshot process would create its results in a new workbook. However due to the fact that an Excel bug regularly results in Excel crashing during this process, we have changed the way this works in version 5. The results are now created in the original workbook but it is saved with a new name. To open the original file you can simply choose it from the recent items in Excel.

10.6 Invalid Segment Criteria

In GL Wand 4 the Excel4apps functions would return an empty value or a zero value when you entered invalid segment criteria. In version 5 we have changed this behavior to report an error message so that it is clear that the criteria you have entered does not result in any valid segment values being selected.

As from version 5.8 there is a new option available which allows you to switch the behavior back to the way version 4 worked. You should only set this option if you have situations where you know that the segment criteria may be invalid at times due to the structure of your Excel workbook.

10.7 Office 365 Version 1903 GL Wand Sheet Refresh Performance

When using Excel 365 Version 1903 (build 11425.2020), and possibly later, there is a noticeable difference between performing a Sheet Refresh and Range Refresh calculation. Instead of batching our calculations into manageable chunks of questions and answers, the Sheet Refresh is processing each calculation one at a time. This is evident on the calculation counter when the calculation dialog is open. The calculation counter increases sequentially instead of in batches.

This has been identified as a bug in Excel and we are pursuing the correct Microsoft channels to investigate further and hopefully rectify the issue. We are currently recommending that customers prevent this update from occurring. If the update has already been performed, it is recommended to un-install and rollback to the previous build.

NOTE: This release of Excel is part of the Monthly Channel update. Microsoft recommends that any companies using third party add-ons use the Semi-Annual Channel update releases of Excel, which is far more stable and reliable. Wands for Oracle is developed, tested and supported on the Semi-Annual Channel release schedule.



UPDATE: Microsoft has acknowledged the bug and it should not affect any Semi-Annual Channel releases, and therefor will only every be experienced with the above-mentioned Monthly Channel updates.

UPDATE: Microsoft has stated that the fix for this issue will be included in following releases:

• Semi Annual “Targeted” Version 1908 build 16.0.11929.20428 and later

• Semi Annual Version 1908, available in January 2020

10.8 GL Wand View Transaction

Due to changes in the Wands architecture, the GL Wand view transactions feature will only work should you be running Java Web Start for your Oracle E-Business Suite implementation. The view transaction feature allows users to open the transaction from a GL Wand subledger drilldown directly in Oracle forms.

11 Office 365 Excel Support Statement

This version of Excel4apps Wands has been developed and tested on Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus Version 1908 (Build 11929.20562). This was the latest Semi-annual Channel release available at which point in time testing commenced. Wands for Oracle is only supported on the Semi-annual Channel.

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