How many times have you been in a situation where you have to traverse through hundreds of lines and errors from an Essbase data load only to figure out that all the rejected records are caused by an issue with one member? You load the file again and wham – another error file with issues you didn’t see the first time.
Although this is typically less of an issue in a production environment, these situations are very likely in the development and testing phases of a project.
In2Hyperion is introducing another free tool that will navigate through errors and summarize the reasons for the rejects. Read more
A Primer for Master Data Management in Finance Organizations
Part I
Overview
You can only improve what you can measure. That popular business maxim, like many others today, is highly dependent upon data. What’s more it can’t be just any data. Quality decisions require “Quality” data that is timely and reliable. Moreover, executives must understand what should be measured, how those measurements are obtained and much more in order to correlate all the data necessary for accurate decision making. After all, that’s the objective, right? Making better decisions faster? Read more
Oracle has confirmed a bug related to the deployment of security with a planning application maintained in EPMA in version 11.1.2.x. When the Shared Members checkbox is selected in an EPMA deployment of a Planning application, it ignores this option. Even if the Shared Members box is checked, the user still only gets access to Ohio Region, and not the children, in the example below. Oracle is currently working on a patch. Read more
There are times when planning and forecasting databases grow for apparently no reason at all. The static data (YTD actuals) that is loaded hasn’t changed and the users say they aren’t doing anything different.
If you load budgets or forecasts to Essbase, you probably do what I’m about to tell you. If you are a systems administrator and have never seen how finance does a budget or forecast, this might be an education.
The culprit? Read more
Thanks for all the great feedback on our Essbase Add-in Ribbon! I have seen praise and thanks on the Oracle forums, network54, and a number of other popular hotspots. I am constantly getting emails of gratitude. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Hyperion customers are using the ribbon. With the accolades, I am also getting some great suggestions for additional functionality. In the spirit of giving back to the Hyperion community, I have every intention of implementing these requests.
What is new for the second release of the ribbon? For those of you who used the Essbase Powerbar, you are aware of the option to save commonly used server connections. I am happy to announce that it is now part of the In2Hyperion Essbase Add-in Ribbon feature set!
We moved the connection button that existed on the right, to the first button on the ribbon and renamed it Quick Connect. From this menu button, users can select connect, add quick connection, or remove quick connection. As connections are added, they will appear automatically in the Quick Connect menu.
The benefit of this option is that a user can select a “quick connection,” which remembers the server, application, database, username, and password. Connecting to an Essbase application requires fewer clicks and less typing. After quick connections are added, a file in My Documents named In2Hyperion.txt will exist. This is where the connection information is stored. The password is encrypted to ensure your information is not made available to other parties.
Download version 2. To stay informed about future releases by signing up for our newsletter. If you have any feedback, send us an email through the contact page. Thanks again for all your support!
Step 4: Adding ‘Advanced Suppression’ to each of the Year & Period columns.
Step 4 in the development of this report contains a majority of the logic to be setup which will allow a range of periods to be displayed to users. The idea behind the logic in this section is to move the range of periods displayed to users based on the Period selected in the User POV. The “Range Matrix” below will shed some light on what should be displayed based on what is selected.
Just as Conditional Suppression was setup for the trigger columns, Conditional Suppression will need setup for these Year/Period columns. The difference between the “Trigger” section and the “Year/Period” section resides on how columns are chosen to be suppressed. As the name suggests, the “Trigger” section added in steps 1 & 2 will drive the conditional logic, and thus the range of Periods displayed to users. The examples below display a high-level subset of the column logic.
Example 1:
- User selects “Jan” as the Period.
- Which Periods will be displayed?
- Sep (Prior Year)
- Oct (Prior Year)
- Nov (Prior Year)
- Dec (Prior Year)
- Jan (Current Year)
- Which Periods will be hidden (suppressed)?
- Feb-Dec (Current Year)
Example 2:
- User selects “Sep” as the Period.
- Which Periods will be displayed?
- May (Current Year)
- Jun (Current Year)
- Jul (Current Year)
- Aug (Current Year)
- Sep (Current Year)
- Which Periods will be hidden (suppressed)?
- Sep-Dec (Prior Year)
- Jan-Apr (Current Year)
- Oct-Dec (Current Year)
When adding columns to a report, each column will be tagged with an alphanumeric value that identifies the column number. Staying true to the rolling 5-month solution, columns “A” through “L” of your report identify the “Trigger” section (Jan equals “A”, Feb equals “B”… Dec equals “L”). The “Year & Period” section is identified by columns “M” through “AB” of your report (Sep of Prior Year equals “M”, Oct of prior year equals “N”… Dec of current year equals “AB”). When setting up the “Year & Period” Conditional Suppression, it is imperative that you know and understand which Periods correlate to which column numbers.
“Trigger” Section:
“Year & Period” Section:
The Conditional Suppression will need added to all “Year & Period” section columns (columns “M” through “AB” in the above images). Column “M” (which correlates to “Sep” of prior year) will need displayed to the user ONLY when the user selects “Jan” for the current POV of the Period dimension. By selecting “Jan”, the user is requesting to see data for Sep-Dec of the Prior Year, and Jan of the current year (as shown above in the “Range Matrix”). A subset of the Hyperion Reporting logic is shown in the image below. Similar logic is required for the remaining columns of the “Year & Period” section (columns “N” through “AB”) with the only difference being the suppressed “Trigger” columns selected.
Hyperion Reporting – Conditional Suppression Logic:
Year & Period Suppression Logic:
As stated before, the “Trigger” section of the report drives what is ultimately displayed to the user, and this is based on what the user selects in the User POV for Period. If a report requirement exists for something other than a 5-month rolling view, the number of “Year & Period” section columns would need adjusted, as would the Conditional Suppression logic, but the “Trigger” section will not need adjusted. The overall idea of how to implement this solution remains intact. Please feel free to contact me directly with any questions on implementing a solution such as this, I’m happy to assist when possible.
Step 3: Adding Year and Period columns.
The columns added here will be those which are displayed to the users. The Trigger section added in steps 1 and 2 above will determine which range of Periods will ultimately be displayed to the users. The key to adding columns in this section of the report is to include ALL possible Periods that could be displayed to the end-user. The Trigger section of the report will essentially move & display a subset range of Periods. For example, If a user selected “Jan” as their current Period, The report will need to display Sep-Dec of the prior year.
Keys:
- These columns will be those displayed to the end-users.
- These columns MUST be Data columns.
- A rolling 5-month report will display Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec and Jan IF Jan is selected by the end-user.
- Either ‘Substitution Variables’ or the ‘RelativeMember’ function can be utilized for the Year dimension (ie. CurrentYear, CurrentYear-1, etc.).
- The Period members can be “hard-coded” into the report (don’t use the POV Period option here).
“Validation”
In installment #3 of this series we installed and configured the 11.1.x software. In this installment we will discuss what Infrastructure Architect will do before the environment is turned over to the development or migration teams.
It is quite frustrating to the developers if the environment is not fully functional when they start using the system. Additionally, it is very frustrating for the installation architect to have users in the environment as debugging of issues is occurring. Each installation and configuration project plan should include at least a day or two to review an environment, restart it a few times, check out the logs, and then test the functionality of all installed components. The number of items to validate depends on the products used and licensed by the client but it should start with the following and adjust as necessary.
- Shared Services
- Essbase
- EAS and Business Rules
- Planning
- Financial Reporting
- Web Analysis
- Interactive Reporting
- SQR
- Workspace
- Smart View and Provider Services
- Financial Management
- Financial Data Quality Management
- Oracle Data Integrator
- Data Relationship Management
- Strategic Finance
The Installation Architect will test the use functionality of each of the installed product to ensure there are no errors. This activity takes a combination of functional and technical ability. The installation architect must know how the application works from the interface as well as understanding what any potential errors mean and how they may be corrected. I’m not suggesting the infrastructure engineer know how to create a P&L report or design a Planning application, but the ability to navigate the user interfaces and test functionality eliminates the problems of encountering them after development has begun.
Early in my exposure to these applications, I’d spend a lot of time with a developer or functional user of the applications to show me how to test the system. I’d ask them to tell me the first thing they try to do when they get a new environment. It is always useful to know more about how the applications are used.
Some of the common problems that occur include the following.
EPMA dimension server does not resolve in Workspace
Shared Services doesn’t find users in Active Directory
Cannot create Planning Application
Cannot create FDM Database
ODI repositories are not available
Common Essbase commands do not work
The solutions to some of these problems may range anywhere from Database Access Permissions, Windows Security Rights, DCOM Settings, or incorrect Active Directory Setup. Over the past few years working on dozens of installation, I’ve seen all of these. From encountering many of these, the pre-installation requirements covered in installment #2 have been improved. Some of these problems don’t arise until functionality is tested. It’s important to test each installation and environment. I’ve had situations where the development environment will test out fine and the QA Environment will have issues. Each installation is usually different from each prior installation because of server settings, security policies, database settings, firewalls, or some other nuance.
If there are problems with the functionality there are a number of resources available to assist in troubleshooting. I find the Oracle Technology Network Forum to be very useful. I recommend anyone looking to work in this space, get an ID, and get involved. You may also find some real useful things on blogs like this or a number of other very experienced bloggers. There is a wealth of information at Oracle Support in the knowledge base. In addition, if you have a support agreement with Oracle, register here and you can get support from Oracle.
Assuming everything is functioning as expected, the environment is turned over to the appropriate support person, or maybe support falls on the same individual that did the installation. Either way, there is a lot of information that needs to be collected. In the next installment, we’ll look at the information that should be compiled to capture the state of the environment as it was at the end of the installation as well as information that is useful to those that will be using the system.
Step 2: Adding ‘Advanced Suppression’ to each of the 12 Trigger columns.
The Conditional Suppression set on each of these columns (see Step 1) will suppress the column that correlates to the Period selected. If the end-user selects Jan, then the column representing Jan will be suppressed. This is used later in step 4 of the report development.
Keys:
- The Advanced (Conditional) Suppression for each column relates to the 12 Periods added in Step 1.
- The logic for Jan is as follows:
- Suppress Column If:
- “Member Name” “Period” “equals” “Jan”.
- “Jan” is the actual member name.
- Suppress Column If:
- The same logic in place for Jan will be required for the Feb-Dec columns, Thus…
- Suppress Column If:
- “Member Name” “Period” “equals” “Feb”.
- “Feb” is the actual member name.
- Etc…
- Suppress Column If:
- Once steps 1 & 2 are complete, development of the trigger section has been finished.
