And in another stealth update by Oracle (tip courtesy of Tracy McMullen and Edward Roske), the EPBCS website was first noticed by our team today. Interesting to note: instead of the expected “Enterprise Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service” the products PBCS and EPBCS have been merged to the name “Enterprise Planning Cloud”. In addition, the cloud link to PBCS has been removed and replaced by this one. Only generic information and pricing were made available – the product is listed as “coming soon”. At this time, supporting videos and documentation are also on hold.

EPBCS promises many unique additions to the current PBCS platform. It comes backed with pre-built objects called “frameworks” (not to be confused with the on-prem “modules”). These frameworks include best practice pre-built dashboards, reports, calculations, and application design. These, in combination with multiple tool wizards, promise less effort and a quicker build phase for those new to the Planning toolkit.

Current frameworks listed in this release include:

• Workforce Planning – includes employee demographics, strategic workforce planning, compensation planning, employee expenses, and more
• Capital Asset Planning – includes capital investment planning, management of existing assets, decision support, depreciation, leased assets, intangibles, capital expenses, and more
• Project Financial Planning – includes streamlined and detailed project planning, project performance, and more
• Financial Statement Planning – includes revenue and expense models, balance sheet, cash flow, and more

Priced at $250 per named user per month, this new entrant into the game is sure to round out the interests of customers who want to start with something great and build upon it.

At this point, inquiring minds have more questions than answers. How many applications and plan types come with this higher price point? Can existing customers lift and shift their current modules to EPBCS (and does that make sense)? How customizable are these frameworks? Will hybrid be supported?

It’s only a matter of weeks…days? #Salivating I guess we’ll have to wait and see… 🙂