PBCS and EPBCS – 3 Key Differences

We often have our clients ask us about the differences between Oracle’s Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) and Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS). In this blog post, we will explore 3 of the main differences.

Pre-built Content

The first difference is in pre-built content. When you purchase a subscription to PBCS, you can create (or migrate) one application that contains multiple plan types. There are options to create both Block Storage Option (BSO) and Aggregate Storage Option (ASO) plan types. The current subscription model includes up to 3 BSO plan types and up to 4 ASO plan types. Similar to an on-premises application you will have the common dimensions and the ability to create forms, rules and other typical planning artifacts.

However, unlike on-premises, there is no option to enable Workforce or CapEx planning. If you need those plan types, you have two options. One, you can migrate an existing Workforce or CapEx plan type to the cloud as a generic plan type and make use of the existing functionality. Two, you can leverage the content of EPBCS (discussed later). When you create your new application in PBCS, you will have the traditional Planning required dimensions of Accounts, Time Periods, Years, Scenario, Version, Entity and optionally Currency (for out of the box currency translations). Optionally you can add custom dimensions such as Cost Center, Product, Region and so on.

When you have created all of the dimensionality that you require you can then move on to building out Web Forms, Dashboards (new to cloud solutions), Calculation Manager Rules and begin loading data. From here the sky is the limit, but in terms of any out of the box forms, reports, or rules, there are none. You essentially have a Planning framework in which to build out the application that you require.

EPBCS is a different setup entirely with considerable prebuilt and configurable options. You do get all that is previously mentioned (generic plan types in BSO and ASO, forms, rules, other objects) and also you can create and configure business processes. At the moment five business processes can be enabled. They are:

• Financials
• Workforce (really two business processes available here)
• Capital Expense
• Projects
• Strategic Modeling

Each of the business processes comes with feature-rich content including configuration wizards, forms, dashboards, calculation rules and more.

Conceptionally, they are designed with best-practices in mind and hopefully require minimal customization. In Workforce, for example, ideally, you would enable the business process, configure everything using the wizards and then load up your company’s employees and jobs and be ready to go! In practice, we have found that if often requires some tailoring to meet your organization’s individual needs but for many of our clients they can be up and running with each of the business processes fairly quickly.

Number of Plan Types

The next difference to mention is in the number of plan types. As stated above, in PBCS you are allowed to create up to 3 BSO plan types and up to 4 ASO plan types. The idea is that you could create an ASO reporting cube for each of your BSO plan types and then one more ASO plan type to tie everything together.

In EPBCS you have much more flexibility in terms of the number of plan types. You can create all of the generic play types listed for PBCS, plus you get plan types for each of the business processes and then you can create unlimited ASO reporting cubes.

Future Development Offerings

While it isn’t always possible to predict the future direction of the solutions, it is possible to reflect on what has transpired to date and consider what may come next. When EPBCS was first launched, the initial offering contained four business processes. As the product has matured the inclusion of Strategic Modeling has been added. It is now available for all EPBCS subscribers to use and doesn’t require any special license.

While PBCS has matured and been enhanced with new features – things like new chart types and so on – the core functionality of the product remains fairly static. I would assume that in the future PBCS will continue to be enhanced with new features to the existing functionality but if you want to take advantage of new business processes and functionality that will likely remain in the EPBCS subscription.

What’s right for you?

At PARC consulting we offer an Oracle PBCS cloud readiness and roadmap service where we can work with you to help plan out your future state and provide guidance in product selection. A few things to consider are:

• Are you migrating from on-premises to the cloud?
• Do you have existing Workforce and/or CapEx modules initialized on-premises?
• Do you plan on using prebuilt content at all? Not all of our clients want to take advantage of the business processes.
• Are you looking to build a very customized solution?

These questions can help identify the right fit for your organization’s planning needs. We have the capability to provide a broad spectrum of customizable coverage options, providing your functional and technical teams peace of mind.  Contact us today!