2023 Release Notes

As of the latest product release, the Centage Product Development team will have made the following updates and improvements:

December 20, 2023:

• Optimization to the Process of Deploying Transactions to Cube
• Improvement to the Time Dimension Subset Filter Within Reports (with the exception of the Cash Flow report) to consider only the selected time periods in the time dimension subset for totals and subtotals.  With this enhancement, it is no longer necessary to use the “Select Date Range” option in the Plan Deployment workflow to restrict future periods from being deployed to the plan for reporting purposes.  Reporting time dimension subsets will now exclude future periods from subtotals and totals directly within the report itself.
  • Example Use Case: I have a $1000 monthly expense for rent.  If in November of the current year, I want to run a report to calculate the total amount of rent I have paid to date. I will create a custom time dimension subset as a filter within my report to show me P1-P11 of the current year and exclude P12. As a result, my report output will display 13 columns; 12 columns for $1000 for P1-11 and 1 total column calculated as $11,000.
• Enhancement to the “Forgot Password” Workflow which now gives users the option to reset their password by providing their email address or username (previously username only).

November 24, 2023:

• Cube Deployment Status Updates
  • Status for cube deployments are now included in the Job Status page.
  • Improved notification message during cube deployments to redirect users to the Job Status page and removed the refresh button.
  • Users now have the option to receive an email notification upon cube deployment completion containing the status and details of deployment.

• The notification indicator on the Bell icon in the header of the application will now display as solid red instead of flashing yellow.

November 8, 2023:

• New Feature! Dependency Tree - Accessible to all users via a new icon in the Tools menu bar of the Planning modules.  Opens as a pop-up to visualize all the dependencies that exist within your data as a tree structure. 

The Dependency Tree surfaces valuable insight into the connections that exist within your Plan’s data. It helps predict the effect a proposed change may have on your Plan and can identify the impact of a change already made for actions such as modifying or deleting an object. The Dependency Tree can help you identify the following scenarios:

1. Data projections that can be or have been affected by a specific change
2. Incorrect or unintended dependencies that need to be addressed
3. Dependencies that exist between versions prior to making changes to prevent unintentional impact to more than one version
4. Prediction or insight into data update and load times

Data projections are displayed for the following dependency object types: Data Link, Related Cost, Related Expense, Record Set Selection and Filter

Please Note: Allocations are NOT supported currently as part of this release.

• Notification of New Release via the Bell Icon in the Header Menu 
  • The notification will provide a link to the latest release notes containing relevant updates

October 25, 2023:

• Job Status Page - Enhanced to reflect job status for:
  • CIF Uploads
  • Setup Objects - increase/decrease method, spread method, allocation method, tiered rates, payment schedule, receivable schedule, work/pay schedule, recognition schedule
• Removed “See documentation on new features” link from the Dashboard
• Removed “Add New Hierarchy” button from the Currency Dimension
• Improved error messaging for duplicate hierarchy names
• Improved error messaging when trying to create passwords that use optional special characters not in the approved password rule list

October 12, 2023:

• Performance Improvement related to the inbound datamart.
• Performance Improvement for customers with a large number of aliased accounts.
• Job Status Page - Displays a log of currently running jobs, and those which have completed within the last 48 hours. This page is accessible to all users via the clipboard icon in the top right of the navigation panel. 
• Forecast Module is able to include adjustments from the Adjustments module.
• Sample Files in Data Source screen now download as individual files not as a zip file.
• In Data Modeler on Profile page, "Last Upload" label has been updated to reflect all uploads in the last 24 hours.
• In Data Modeler on Profile page, added data included in last upload to upload details.
• Improved error messaging when uploading a CIF file with an empty GLSource.

September 27, 2023:

• Performance Improvement to Inbound Data Mart
• Show password rules in Change Your Password dialog

September 13, 2023:

• Performance Improvement Limiting Data Ingestion To 13 Months -
  • Initial data ingestion will not be limited to 13 months until after a Plan is deployed for the first time.
  • For all subsequent data loads, only 13 months of historical data will be ingested and replaced within Planning Maestro.
  • Admin users have the ability to override the limitation to load all data for existing accounts in the Source Data until the Plan is next deployed.
  • Example: If the current date is 9/12/23, the data included for ingestion will be 8/01/22 - 9/12/23. This is calculated by extracting the current month and including data from the prior, full 13 months.
• Enhancement to Centage’s Quick Connect Onboarding Process - For all new Planning Maestro customers, onboarded via Centage’s Quick Connect process, the initial Admin user will land in an Income Statement containing their Actuals values for the current year.
• Enhancement to Forecasting - If an Actuals period contains a Beginning Balance, it will now be displayed on the Forecast Version card.

August 30, 2023:

• Audit Log - Available to our Enterprise customers, is a searchable record of changes made in your Planning Maestro environment. The Audit Log is updated throughout the day as changes are made, with about a 15 minute delay before it is available to view. Data is available for up to 1 year in the past.
• Performance Improvements - Related to reducing the load on the Inbound DataMart Servers. Users will experience overall performance benefits in the following areas: Data Maintenance
• Other Enhancements -
  • Add a spinner for selected Plan dropdown on landing pages
  • Quick Connect flag set to “On” as default on all new accounts
  • Notification Bell blips after the user logs in for all types of notifications

August 16, 2023:

• Reduce read lock failures for Dimension fetch/updates - Fix to mitigate calculation failures
• Email notification for Plan deployments - Implemented option for users to receive an automated
  email notification when Plan deployment completes
• Analytics Maestro URL added in Settings for Admin User access
• Performance Improvements: Related to reducing the load on the Inbound DataMart Servers.
  Users will experience overall performance benefits with Profile Synopsis and Data Maintenance

August 2, 2023:

• Change to the notification for failed login attempts to more accurately reflect the remaining number of allowed login attempts.
• Performance Improvements: Related to reducing the load on the Inbound DataMart Servers. Users will experience overall performance benefits in the areas of Profile Synopsis and Data Maintenance.

July 19, 2023:

• Performance Improvements: Related to reducing the load on the Inbound DataMart Servers. Users will experience overall performance benefits for CIF Upload, Plan Deployment, Plan or Modeler Cube/Redeploy, and Plan Preview.

July 5, 2023:

• Connect to Default Profile Automatically: Removed Profile Connect Button. Now, upon login, the Profile will default to the last connected Profile in Data Modeler and will be displayed in all Landing Pages for Admin users.

  If Multiple Profiles Exist:

  • Profile will default to last Profile connected.
  • Profile drop down will be displayed.
  • If a Plan selected in any Landing Page changes the Profile connection, the new Profile will display for all Admin users above the Plan dropdown in all Landing Pages and in Data Modeler.

Note: For all other Users without Admin roles who are not aware of the concept of Profiles, the Profile will change behind the scenes depending on the Plan selected.

• Performance Improvements: Related to reducing the load on the Inbound DataMart Servers and Plan Deployment.

June 21, 2023:

• Enhancement to Forecasting: Ability to create Fixed Period Forecast versions. Allows for the selection of fixed periods to display Actuals vs. Budget amounts.
• Performance Improvements – Related to reducing the load on the Inbound DataMart Servers and Plan Deployment.

June 7, 2023:

• Performance Improvements – Related to reducing the load on the Inbound DataMart Servers and Plan Deployment.
• Fix for HTTP Status Errors after releases which caused users to have to clear their cache and login again  - Users are now redirected to the login page instead of getting a 403 error.

May 24, 2023:

• Ability to Delete Forecast Versions – Any user who has permission to view a Forecast Version is now able to delete it right from the Forecast’s card.  Selecting the new trash bin icon and entering the name of the Forecast Version will delete the version from Data Modeler and anywhere else it is being used throughout the application.  The deleted version will be replaced by the (Default) Plan Basis Version if it was previously selected as a filter anywhere in the system.  If the (Default) Plan Basis Version is already in use for example, as one of the selected versions in the Variance Report, the deleted Forecast Version will be replaced with the Actuals Version.

April 26, 2023:

• Plan Deploy Improvements - Minor performance improvements for deploying a plan with transactions. Calculations in certain areas gained improved performance.

April 12, 2023:

• Show Existing GL Sources in Add New GL Source Pop–up window - When a user is uploading a new GLSource source, any existing GLSource(s) will be displayed.
• Improved Instructions in Add New GL Source Workflow – Added instructions to the user on how to find their Domain Name in the URL of their instance.

March 29, 2023:

• Hide “Copy BB” Toggle in Copy/Data – The option will no longer display so that we can plan for future enhancements.
• New Improved Format for Export of Cash Flow Report – Exported data will have a new cleaner format that more closely aligns with the UI.
• Plan Deploy Improvements -  Improvement to trial balance calculation when “Retained Earnings Calculation” is disabled to make the process of calculation more efficient.

March 15, 2023:

• New Reporting Formats – A new improved hierarchy structure for Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Reports was implemented for ALL new customers (with Net Income total at bottom).  The new structure will also apply for ALL existing customers when creating a New Account Number Dimension.
• Add New GLSource Validation - On the data upload screen, there is now an “Add New GLSource” validation screen workflow where the user must manually enter the name(s) of each new GLSource to be uploaded. This will be required for first time CIF uploads and optional for other uploads. At the time of CIF processing, the system validates if the GLSource should be uploaded or not by checking against the existing GLSource values and the passed in GLSource values if any exist. If any other GLSource, in addition to those, is found, an exception will be thrown. This enhancement was implemented to protect against errant GL Source members and data being introduced to client data. - Uploading CIF Files

March 1, 2023:

• Performance enhancements to the CIF upload process.
• Ability to delete Transaction Members from all Subsets.
• Copy Beginning Balance now applied to the Data Projections for Account Numbers that do not Reset Balance each Fiscal Year.

February 1, 2023:

• Enhancement to Copy Data for Actuals data to be copied over to the Operating Expenses, Expense (Input) transaction line and Revenue's, Revenue (Input) transaction line. This change will allow for Increase/Decrease Methods and Drivers to be applied directly to the Expense (Input) and Revenue (Input) lines without the need for a manual Excel import.
• Enhancement to clearly denote Actuals from Budget values, with blue background shading when viewing a Forecast Version in the Planning and Reporting modules.
• Update to support allocation for static Forecast Versions.
• Updates to Planning Maestro Password rules:

January 18, 2023:

• Removed Time Dimension security settings
• Update to allow changes made in Excel, for Operators, to reflect within Planning Maestro’s Data Link settings after import