When creating a new Subject Area by cloning or deriving it from an existing one in FDI (Semantic Model Extensions), not all logical objects are correctly propagated into the new Subject Area.
In particular:
- Logical-level calculated columns
- Parent-child hierarchies (e.g. Natural Account Tree Hierarchy)
are missing in the derived Subject Area, even though they are present and working correctly in the original one.
Other hierarchies (such as time-based hierarchies like Fiscal Calendar) are retained correctly, which makes the behavior inconsistent and difficult to predict.
Oracle Support has confirmed that Parent-child hierarchies are currently not supported in SME and therefore cannot be extended or correctly included in custom Subject Areas.
This limitation significantly reduces the usability of Subject Area cloning and forces manual rework or alternative modeling strategies.
Current Behavior
- Cloning an existing Subject Area does not preserve:
- Parent-child hierarchies
- Some logical calculated columns
- The derived Subject Area is incomplete compared to the source one
- There is no warning or validation explaining what is not supported or why objects are missing
In the screenshot, the comparison highlights the issue observed when cloning a Subject Area.
- Left side: the standard GL Balance Sheet Subject Area is shown.
Under GL Segments → Natural Account, the Natural Account Tree Hierarchy is correctly available and can be used in analyses (e.g. for hierarchical rollups in balance sheet reports). - Right side: the custom Subject Area created by deriving/cloning the GL Balance Sheet Subject Area is shown.
Although the custom Subject Area is explicitly created using the Balance Sheet Subject Area as its base, the Natural Account Tree Hierarchy is missing from the semantic structure.
As visible in the right panel, other dimensions and hierarchies (for example Time / Fiscal Calendar and several GL Segments) are correctly inherited, but the parent-child Natural Account Tree Hierarchy is not carried over into the custom Subject Area.
This clearly demonstrates that parent-child hierarchies are not supported or propagated when creating custom Subject Areas via Semantic Model Extensions, leading to functional gaps compared to the original Subject Area.
Expected Behavior
One of the following enhancements would be highly valuable:
- Full support for parent-child hierarchies in Semantic Model Extensions, including:
- Extension of existing dimensions
- Correct propagation when cloning Subject Areas
Business Impact
- Financial reporting and analytics heavily rely on parent-child hierarchies (e.g. Chart of Accounts, organizational structures)
- Inability to reuse these hierarchies in custom Subject Areas leads to:
- Increased manual effort
- Inconsistent semantic models
- Higher risk of errors
- Reduced adoption of SME and Subject Area reuse patterns
- This limitation is especially critical in enterprise and finance-driven implementations of FDI
Use Case Example
A Subject Area containing the Natural Account Tree Hierarchy is cloned to create a customer-specific Subject Area. After cloning:
- The Natural Account Tree Hierarchy is missing
- Time hierarchies (Fiscal Calendar) are still present
- Reports depending on account rollups cannot be reproduced
