Almost every planning or forecasting application will have some type of allocation based on a driver or rate that is loaded at a global level.  Sometimes these rates are a textbook example of moving data from one department to another based on a driver, and sometimes they are far more complicated. Many times, whether it is an allocation, or a calculation, rates are entered (or loaded) at a higher level than the data it is being applied to.

A very simple example of this would be a tax rate.  In most situations, the tax rate is loaded globally and applied to all the departments and business units (as well as level 0 members of the other dimensions).  It may be loaded to “No Department”, “No Business Unit”, and a generic member in the other custom dimensions that exist.

If a user needs the tax rate, in the example above, they have to pull “No Department” and “No Business Unit.”  Typically, users don’t want to take different members in the dimension to get a rate that corresponds to the data (Total Department for taxes, and No Department for the rate).  They want to see the tax rate at Total Department, Total Business Unit, and everywhere in-between.

There are a number of ways to improve the experience for the user.  An effective solution is to have two members for each rate.  One is stored and one is dynamic.  There is no adverse effect on the number of blocks, or the block size.  The input members can be grouped in a hierarchy that is rarely accessed, and the dynamic member can be housed in a statistics hierarchy.

Using tax rate in the example above, create a “Tax Rate Input” member.  Add this to a hierarchy called “Rate Input Members”.  Any time data is loaded for the tax rate; it is loaded to Tax Rate Input, No Department, No Business Unit, etc.  Under the statistics/memo hierarchy, create a dynamic member called “Tax Rate”.  “Tax Rate” would be the member referenced in reports.  The formula for this includes a cross-dimensional reference to the “Tax Rate Input” member, and would look something like this.

“No Department”->”No Business Unit”->”Tax Rate Input”;

When a user retrieves “Tax Rate”, it always returns the rate that is loaded to “No Department,” “No Business Unit,” and “Tax Rate Input,” no matter what department or business unit the report is set to.  The effort involved in creating reports in Financial Reporting or Smart View now becomes easier!

There is an added bonus for the system administrators.  Any calculation that uses the rate (you know, the ones with multi-line cross-dimensional references to the rates) is a whole lot easier to write, and a whole lot easier to read because the cross-dimensional references no longer exist.

Before you move the application to production, make sure to set the input rates consolidation method to “Never.”  Don’t expect this change to make great improvements in performance, but it will cause the aggregations to ignore these members when consolidating the hierarchies.  A more important benefit is that users won’t be confused if they ever do look at the input rates at a rolled up level.  The ONLY time they would see the rate would be at level 0, and would be an accurate reflection of the rate.

Note:  It is recommended to create member names without spaces.  The examples above ignored this rule in an effort to create an article that is more readable.

 

What’s New in Hyperion 11.1.2?

Shared Services

 

As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, this has turned into a series of posts involving new features in the 11.1.2 release of the Hyperion products. This post will cover some of the significant changes to Shared Services, including improvements to Security Administration, Lifecycle Management, and Taskflows.

Security Administration

It’s been well-documented at this point that there have been multiple issues with the OpenLDAP approach to the Native Directory. In 11.1.2, the OpenLDAP has been replaced with a relational database as the storage point for native accounts and provisioning. This has already proven beneficial, as it allows for the next improvement below.
There is no longer a need for Essbase synchronization for users, as it is now done automatically. This is a welcome change from most, as it was always very easy to forget to refresh security. However, group synchronization must still be done manually.
The supported SSL configurations have also seen significant improvements. These include:
  1. SSL Offloading
  2. 2-way SSL deployment
  3. SSL termination at the web server
Oracle Single Sign-On (OSSO) is also supported in this release. The Oracle Internet Directory (OID) is used to provide SSO access to web applications.

Lifecycle Management (LCM)

Like the rest of Shared Services, LCM has adopted Oracle Diagnostics Logging (ODL) as the standard logging mechanism.
Perhaps the biggest improvement to LCM is that it now supports the extraction of data. Essbase data now appears as a selectable artifact when performing an export, and can be updated with the outline. On this note, I should probably point out that for cross-product migrations, LCM determines the correct order based on dependencies.
Some other modifications to LCM include:
  1. Additional information in migration status reports, including source and destination details.
  2. Users must be provisioned with the Shared Services Administrator role to work with the Deployment Metadata tool.
  3. The Calc Manager is supported, and has its own node under Foundation. As a result, business rules can now be migrated to classic HFM and Planning applications.

Shared Services Taskflow

This release has seen the addition of two new roles in Shared Services
  1. Manage Taskflows – This role allows users to create and edit a taskflow
  2. Run Taskflows – This role permits users to view and run a taskflow, but they cannot create or edit taskflows

 

Follow the link below to view the complete document of changes
 
 

What’s New in Hyperion 11.1.2?

EPMA

The release of version 11.1.2 has brought a plethora of improvements to the entire Hyperion suite of products, and EPMA is no different. This post will cover some of the significant changes that were included.

Improved Support for Essbase

This release has provided several updates that increase the functionality of EPMA as it relates to Essbase. Some of the more important ones include:
  1. Utilizing the Reorder Children dialog box, a new sort order can now be created to reorder members in the hierarchy.
  2. Performance settings for dimensions can now be modified in EPMA
  3. Dynamic Time Series (DTS) is now supported on the period dimension (BSO cubes)
  4. The ability to add Typed Measures and members with a Date Format has also been included.
    1. Varying Attributes are still not supported in this release

Application Troubleshooting Support

As we all know, EPMA can occasionally become out of sync with the dimension library or one of the products to which we are trying to push metadata. A new application diagnostic feature has been added in this release to help users fix this issue. This diagnostic tool determines inconsistencies between the source and target. Once the inconsistencies have been discovered, they can either be corrected manually or dealt with automatically.

Financial Management Copy Application Utility

HFM supports the ability to copy an EPMA app using the Copy Application Utility. This can be done two different ways:
  1. Select the Financial Management app. It will then be copied as a Classic application. Once this has been done, the EPMA upgrade feature can be uses
  2. Alternatively, the LCM tool can be used to migrate the application. Once this is done, the Copy Application Utility can be utilized to move the data.

Batch Client

 This release includes a couple of adjustments to the batch client that improve the automation process.
  1. Login through a proxy is now supported
  2. Single Sign On (SSO) login is also supported
Follow the link below to view the complete document of changes

Oracle EPMA Documentation