Yesterday, Oracle announced the official launch of the Enterprise Performance Management 11.1.2 Release.  This release introduces some major enhancements to the existing Hyperion applications, along with three new products – Disclosure Management, Financial Close Management and Public Sector Planning and Budgeting. 

I’ve had the opportunity to see the release live during a partner launch event and have been very impressed thus far.  Over the next few weeks, In2Hyperion will begin to look at this release and share how to take advantage of new functionality. 

View the press release below.

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/066183

More information is also available on the Oracle website, which has been updated to include information for the 11.1.2 Release.

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/mediakits/epm-system-release-media-kit-066160.html.

As Enterprise Performance Management and Business Intelligence systems become adopted as the core decision support mechanisms within organizations, the need for transparent, fact-based decisions increases.  It not enough for these systems to provide the voluminous amount of data to the end user for analysis, but to tie data and decision inputs to the collaborative decisions that these systems support. 

Although the organizational adoption of this style of decision making may face challenges, the technological groundwork is already in place.   Oracle’s addition of Annotation Service to Financial Reporting 11.1.x allows the capture of shared information against reporting objects and data.  This tool allows for threaded discussions and comments within EPM Workspace. 

Let’s take a look at how users can utilize this tool against a Financial Report for a Planning application.

Overview

With increased economic uncertainty, businesses need better tools for analyzing complex “what-if” scenarios that can have a significant impact on strategic and financial plans.  Oracle Crystal Ball helps decision makers manage risk and variability through spreadsheet-based Monte Carlo simulations, time series regressions, real options analysis and other predictive modeling.    

Users can create dynamic models, charts and reports and integrate them into existing Oracle EPM and BI applications, including Hyperion Planning and Essbase.

Product History

Crystal Ball was originally introduced in 1986 by Decisioneering, Inc, allowing users to easily integrate Monte Carlo simulations into spreadsheets.  The product was originally intended for use in capacity planning, new project evaluation, capital investment analysis, Six Sigma and other operational analytics areas.  The company grew modestly until the mid-1990s, as Crystal Ball became more widely used and product functionality was gradually extended to include a wider variety of risk and optimization simulations.

From 1998 – 2006, Decisioneering was ranked by Deloitte & Touche as one of the top 50 fastest growing technology companies in Colorado.  This caught the eye of Hyperion as the company looked for ways to introduce more predictive analytical capabilities into its performance management product stack, specifically Hyperion Planning.  Decisioneering was subsequently acquired by Hyperion, shortly before the Oracle acquisition in 2007.

Oracle offers several versions of Crystal Ball, including an Enterprise Performance Management edition aimed to tightly integrate with existing Oracle EPM and BI applications.  Crystal Ball is currently used by 85% of Fortune 500 companies.

Strengths / Benefits

• Powerful, fast simulations - built in predictive modeling, forecasting and optimization simulations are easy to run for any level of business user.
• Collaborative analysis - with the integration of Oracle EPM Workspace, users can share models, charts and reports across the organization.
• EPM integration - use Smart View to pull data from Hyperion Planning or Essbase analytical cubes and link to existing Crystal Ball models.
• Extend planning - create more accurate forecasts by running historical data through time regression models and even saving results as separate Planning scenarios.
• Enterprise-wide use - use Crystal Ball beyond classic EPM and BI areas, such as capacity planning, inventory optimization, resource allocation and supply chain management.

Resources

• Oracle Hyperion Documentation
• Crystal Ball Datasheet

 

Overview

The SQR Production Reporting module generates high volume, presentation-quality formatted reports with unparalleled performance—even when the data is taken from disparate sources. This reporting application delivers business context for key metrics by consolidating information from core business applications throughout the enterprise.

Product History

Since the mid-1980s, SQR Reporting has been part of numerous reporting suites with companies such as Sybase, MITI and Brio Software.  Prior to the Hyperion acquisition of Brio in 2003, the product was distributed under the name Brio Reports.  The product then became part of the Hyperion Performance Suite as Hyperion SQR, pre-System 9.  Hyperion SQR included SQR Activator, SQR Server, SQR Viewer, SQR Developer and SQR iServer.  As part of System 9, these modules were integrated and packaged as Hyperion Production Reporting.  With release 9.3, the product was changed to its current name, Hyperion SQR Production Reporting.  The product is currently part of Oracle’s BI Enterprise Edition Plus (OBIEE+) suite. 

Strengths / Benefits

• User Friendly GUI - delivers its comprehensive enterprise reporting capabilities through a graphical report creation environment and a powerful 4GL reporting language (called SQR) for advanced reporting and data processing.
• Multiple Data Sources - Including IBM DB/2, SAP R/3, SAP NetWeaver BI, and SQL Server.
• Flexible and Scalable - Report designers can take advantage of SQR Production Reporting's comprehensive report lifecycle management, flexible formatting, layout, and distribution options. Additionally, SQR Production Reporting provides proven, massive scalability through report bursting, and reduced processing time from single-pass production of reporting jobs.
• Common Infrastructure - Shares common administration, user management, and installation and configuration support with other Hyperion BI modules of Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus.

Resources

• Oracle Hyperion Documentation
• SQR Production Reporting Datasheet

Overview

As companies grow and evolve, it becomes essential to manage master data across information silos that result from mergers and acquisitions, departmental initiatives, or legacy system proliferation. Data consistency, integrity, quality and accuracy can suffer creating a process that lacks integrity.  Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management provides enterprises with a solution to build consistency within master data assets despite endless changes within the underlying transactional and analytical systems.

Product History

Data Relationship Management was developed in the mid-1990s by a small Texas company called Razza Solutions.  The product was then known as Razza Dimension Server and was used by about 30 Fortune 500 companies.  With the acquisition of Razza by Hyperion in 2005, the product was renamed to Hyperion Master Data Management (MDM) and integrated into Hyperion’s BI foundation.

Now part of Oracle’s Master Data Management Suite, the name has been changed to Hyperion Data Relationship Management (DRM).  While DRM is Oracle’s core product for Financial and Analytical master data management, Oracle also has other operational MDM applications available including Oracle Customer Hub and Product Hub.

Strengths / Benefits

• Change management and control - Unify cross-functional perspectives to a master record while giving users the freedom to make changes and construct alternate departmental views of the data that are consistent and accurate.
• Best-of-breed hierarchy management - Streamline master data changes using drag-and-drop hierarchy maintenance. Enable side-by-side comparison and one-click navigation across both, balanced and ragged hierarchies, with built-in referential integrity.
• Audit and compliance - Provide a framework for query, comparison, and full history of all master data changes, including documented versioning and roll-back at any point in time or recorded modification to master data elements.
• Workflow integration - Hot-pluggable integration with workflow tools using web services.

Resources

• Oracle Hyperion Documentation
• DRM Datasheet

Overview

Finance organizations need to eliminate the data integrity risks associated with collecting, mapping, verifying and moving critical financial data across the entire organization.  Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management (FDM or FDQM) reduces variability, helping finance workers to trust their numbers and lower their cost of compliance. Hyperion FDM is a packaged solution for business users to help develop standardized financial data management processes with its Web-based, guided workflow user interface. Its data preparation server can ease integrating and validating financial data from any of your source systems.

Hyperion FDM includes prepackaged adapters for integration with Hyperion Financial Management, Planning and Essbase.

Product History

Originally developed by Upstream Software, Financial Data Quality Management was intended to be a business user’s ETL tool for data management and data quality management.  The product grew in popularity with organizations’ increased requirements for tools that promoted Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulatory compliance.  

In 2002, Hyperion became a preferred partner of Upstream, eventually leading to the distribution of the product to 200+ Hyperion customers.  In 2006, Hyperion acquired Upstream and branded the product as Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management. 

Strengths / Benefits

• Guided workflow - Web-based, guided workflow user interface helps users easily create timely, accurate financial data management processes.
• Transparent - Audit trails deliver transparency of every data point back to the original source.
• Data Quality Checks - Data validations and quality checking at every step in the process.
• Pre-Built Processes - More than 85 pre-built audit, log, system, and process management reports.

Resources

• Oracle Hyperion Documentation
• Essbase Datasheet