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? More...

A number of minor enhancements and fixes have been included.

Replace 0 Option

The replace 0 option with #Missing has been a huge hit!  The option worked great on smaller worksheets.  On sheets where there are thousands of cells to check, the time to perform this operation was unacceptable to some.  After some research, a faster way to process this request was identified.  More than 40 times faster, we have finalized the change and are now making it available.

Connection Manager Not Functioning Properly

A number of users have had issues with the connection manager menu.  With the help of those involved, we have identified an issue when using &, >, or < characters in the name of the connection.  When adding connections, those keys are no longer available for use.

Retrieve All

The Retrieve All function now operates as expected.

For those who need help installing this as an addin, please read the installation instructions here.

Download Version 3.3

As Hyperion applications have become more integrated, the need for multiple servers to support the environment is now required.  Although the recent releases of version 11 are less dependent on the order in which the services start, Hyperion still recommends a specific order to start the services so they perform correctly.  As these services are typically on multiple servers, it is time consuming to perform this operation and it is prone to error.  Many organizations lack the ability to automate this task when services are interrupted, or operating systems are updated, and there is no automated way to start and stop the services.

In2Hyperion is now making available HypServicesManager.  HypServicesManager is an application that will start or stop the services in a predefined order.  An XML file holds the server/service order so the services to be included, and the order in which they start/stop, is completely customizable.  It will impersonate a domain account that has permissions to the respective servers, so the starting or stopping of the services on multiple servers can be performed quickly and remotely.  With command line parameters, it can even be automated.

Keep in mind, HypServicesManager is completely independent of Hyperion services.  Although it was developed to fill the need to manage Hyperion services, it can be used for any windows service as it uses the windows APIs. 

I have used this application in multiple organizations and it is often used in a production environment.  With that said, this has not been tested on thousands of environments in every Windows OS.  If it doesn’t work for you, we certainly welcome feedback and will make every effort to fix any bugs that are discovered. 

Details on the use of the application are available here. 

We have been working diligently to add the requests from our community. We hope you enjoy the following improvements.

Manage Quick Connections

The most important enhancement is the Manage Quick Connection under the Quick Connect menu.  Now, passwords can be quickly changed for multiple connections.  This is an important update for those of you who have to change your password frequently.  Saved connections can easily be removed.

Eliminating unnecessary database growth

Every worksheet now has the option to replace zeros with #Missing when Lock/Send is used.  When this option is turned on, all zeros are replaced with #Missing prior to sending the data to Essbase.  This helps keep the database size from growing unnecessarily and improves performance on the server.  After the data is sent, #Missing is replaced with a blank to maintain visual appeal.

Other minor tweaks

• The ribbon includes the Indent Level option.
• There are multiple disconnection options - disconnect the active worksheet, disconnect all connections on the active workbook, and disconnect all connections in all open workbooks.

For those who need help installing this as an addin, please read the installation instructions here.

Download Version 3.1.

UPDATE ON FEB 18, 2011

A bug was discovered today by one of our members and was gracious enough to help us debug it.  Member names in a spreadsheet that are numbers, formatted as text, were replaces with numeric values when using the option to replace zeros with #MI.  This obviously causes errors as Essbase only recognizes textual member names.  If you downloaded version 3.1, please download version 3.2.  Thanks to those bringing this to our attention.

Download Version 3.2.

Over my journey through the Hyperion toolset, there are a plethora tools I have developed that make repetitive tasks easier, make some tasks unnecessary, and provide functionality that doesn’t exist otherwise.  I am going to devote time to add these to the in2hyperion BLOG so that others may benefit.  You can find a new menu item that reads tools that will take you to the tools section of the BLOG.

The first free tool added is a utility that will convert Hyperion Essbase business rules’ exports, which are in the XML format, to a more readable format for documentation.  This tool will extract the name, description, and syntax/formula for all the business rules in the export.