Oracle has launched a new version of its Business Intelligence Applications with a new component Spend Classification, prepackaged integration with its JD Edwards World and expanded support for third-party platforms. The release 7.9.6.1 also extends the product, content and integration functionality to additional platforms and languages.

A component of Oracle Fusion Midddleware, Oracle BI Applications are prebuilt analytic applications for Oracle and non-Oracle applications that enable customers to make informed, actionable decisions and drive toward optimised performance across the enterprise, the company claims.

Oracle said that the new Spend Classification uses Oracle Data Mining for machine learning and other predictive techniques to automatically categorise spend. It features a knowledge base that analyses an organisation’s buying patterns and is pre-integrated with Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics Release 7.9.6.

The latest release introduces a new adapter integrating Oracle Financial Analytics, a module of the Oracle BI Applications, with the company’s JD Edwards World Financial Management (version A9.2).

The integration will enable front-line managers to improve financial performance with complete information on their department’s expenses, payables, receivables, and revenue contributions, the company said.

Reportedly, Oracle Financial Analytics features prepackaged Extraction, Transformation, and Load (ETL) maps for the Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, Siebel CRM, JD Edwards Enterprise One and JD Edwards World Financial Management.

Oracle BI Applications Release 7.9.6.1 is integrated with Oracle Database 11g and is suitable for data warehouses running on the Sun Oracle Database Machine. It also adds support for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.1, Informatica PowerCenter 8.6.1 for ETL; third-party databases including IBM DB2 9.5, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Teradata v13; and operating systems spanning Oracle Enterprise Linux 5, IBM AIX 6.1, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Red Hat Linux 5.

Paul Rodwick, vice president of product management for Oracle Business Intelligence, said: “This release of Oracle BI Applications further extends this intelligence solution to a wider range of Oracle Application users and technology platforms. Oracle BI Applications help private and public sector organisations get more out of their enterprise applications by offering insight into finance, workforce, customers, project management, procurement, and more, to improve their execution within departments and enterprise wide.”