Can FDM Do That?

Most everyone that uses or has seen a demo of Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management (“FDM”) knows the basic functionality that FDM provides – mapping, data loading, data validation and financial statement certification.  But FDM is so much more than the basics. 

FDM is a very open architecture product readily supporting advanced customization.  As I highlighted in my last blog post, the workflow process (Import  Validate  Export  Check) can be fully automated and executed on a scheduled basis using either FDM’s internal scheduling component or any Windows batch based scheduling tool that an organization prefers.  But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. 

Any organization that has recently experienced a Hyperion product upgrade – for example, System 9 to Fusion or Enterprise to HFM – knows the pain of revalidating years of financial data.  This exercise can easily take weeks.  Not only is this process time consuming, it’s tedious and often prone to error.  More importantly, data validation can be one of the biggest risks to a project.  The need to improve seems obvious. 

To address this opportunity, we developed a custom solution that leverages HFM and FDM’s advanced features, custom scripts and batch loading. The benefits are substantial – literally tens of thousands of data points can be validated (and re-validated) in minutes – with 100% data accuracy.  This process is easily extendable not only to other Oracle/Hyperion products like Planning & Essbase but potentially to other data stores.

The benefits of this process may be obvious but let’s take a moment to think about them:

• 100% Data Accuracy – How valuable is this to your organization in the current economic and financial market climate?  The cost of restated financials is far too great to fathom – potential for government fines, reduced shareholder equity and even loss of one’s job.
• Shorten Implementation Timelines – How nice would it be for your project to come in on time or early?  Using this solution, you can realistically trim weeks if not months out of a project timeline. 
• Reduced Implementation Costs – let’s face it, in this economy, every dollar needs to pay dividends.  Whether you choice to leverage a consultant, temp, intern or internal resource to validate your data, there is a cost associated with it.  Reducing the time associated with this activity will reduce your project cost. 

I invite you to check back often as I’ll continue to discuss “outside the box” solutions that can add significant ROI to your FDM investment.   

Contributed by:
Tony Scalese, FDM Design Lead
Hyperion Certified Consultant – HFM
Ranzal & Associates
ascalese@ranzal.com

Adding Drill Through to your Hyperion Implementation – Part 2

So I have been told I blog with the frequency of a solar eclipse, and with respect to this two-part series, several interested parties via e-mal have indicated I have done the equivalent of a network TV season ending episode – “just wait the whole summer folks for the answer to these questions”. Thanks to all of you who “gently” pinged me to remind me to complete the blog.

Implementation:

So for example, take the following view one might see at the bottom level (level zero, or base level members) of an Essbase cube:

Notice the accrual for Ranzal services that is visible, and multiple transactions are available at the weekly level. A further explosion into AP would reveal the identity of the vendors, and other relevant info looking something like this: 

So as can be seen from the above example, relevant data from multiple tables is required from the drill through view. With the accruals that are made, there is relevant information in the journal descriptions; for the AP system there is vendor detail that is valid. The solution to this drill through is the creation of a view (called VendorFact in the above schematic) that is a union of the two data sources, filtering on data source. The query might look something like this:

/**Begin pseudo-code***/
CREATE VIEW ‘VendorFact’ AS

SELECT
Company, Dept, FY, Per, Acct, JournalID, JournalDesc as Desc, PostingDate as MyDate, ‘00000’ as Vendor_ID, ‘00000 as Doc_Nbr, ‘0’ Line_Nbr, PostedBaseAmt as Amt
From
GLTRANS
WHERE
Source <> ‘AP’

UNION

SELECT

Company, Dept, Year(Trans_Date) as FY, Month(Trans_Date) as Per, Acct, ‘AP’ as Source, ‘NONE’ as JournalID, LineDesc as Desc, TransDate as MyDate, Vendor_ID, Doc_Nbr, Line_Nbr, Trans_Amt
From
AP
/**End pseudo-code***/

The following view might result:

With the required view in place, a drill through query could then be created in Hyperion Web Analysis, using the relevant GL chart fields (Company, Department, Fiscal Year, Fiscal_Period, and Account) as filters in the selection query as follows:

SELECT * from VendorFact
Where Company = [CompanyToken] and Dept = [DeptToken] and Account = [AccountToken] and FY = [FYToken] and Per = [Month]

Once this drill through query had been created, a drill-link could be added as a menu item on the Summary Expense analyzer view that was directly querying the Essbase database. When the user had drilled down to the bottom of the cube, the next action would open up the new Web Analysis report, pass the relevant parameters to the query, and display a relational grid like the one above.

To give you a flavor of what this might look like, check out the example below from another type of application…..

Step 1 – Create the Summary “Essbase” View, and establish Drill Links to target detail report

• The report is setup so that all dimensions except for currency must be selected at the lowest level. This is done as a sample and to put the constraint on the report so that it returns only expected rows.
• To drill through, first select data down to level 0 for all dimensions. Next double click the actual data cell you want to drill into.
• The drill through report will be initialized with the parameters passed. If dimensions are not at lowest level, a “no data available” message will appear on the drill through.
• Drill Link Options Configuration
  This is the configuration to point the report to the Drill Through Report. It is accessed by opening the report and right clicking in a cell selecting “Drill” and “Drill Link Options…”

• The drill link options page pops up. You specify the name of the report you want to open, and what to pass as the “WHERE” clause to the next report.

Step 2 – Create the detailed Web Analysis view accessing the relational data

• The drill through report is accessed by the FinPlan report based on the dimensionally that is picked. There’s a 10,000 row limit on drill-throughs, as any set of detailed transactions that can be drilled to should never exceed even a few hundred records. If this setting was not enabled, opening the drill through report directly would fail as too many records would be loaded.
• SQL Query Configuration
  This screen is accessed by right clicking on the Drill Through Report Grid and selecting “Edit Query…”
• The JDBC-ODBC bridge driver is used to connect back to the hyperion data mart housing the drill through data. Drill through users will leverage a shared drill through connection..The row limit and fetch size are also configured here.

• Click the “Query Builder” button in the screen above and another dialog box opens. This is where the drill through mappings are configured. Click Mappings and notice that all dimensions are configured to their drill through counterparts in the vw_GL_Transactions_DT view.

• When executing the drill through, an output like this can be generated.

 

• As a final note, in constructing the view, particular care must be paid to the structure of the member names in the Essbase outline. For, example, core chart fields such as Departments and Accounts are often prefixed or suffixed to make them unique (e.g. instead of “000610” one might have “Dept_000610”). In constructing the drill through view, the member names must match those exactly as defined in Essbase, in order for the filtering aspects of the queries to execute properly.
• Other Drill Through Choices
  So one problem with Essbase is that it has multiple ways to do everything. For example, how many ways are there to load data? (Answer: For block storage cubes, flat file via rules file; sql interface with rules file; EIS data load via ODB connection; lock and send via Excel; lock and send via smartview; planning web forms; FDM adapter; DIM adapter; ODI apdater; HAL adapter; I am sure I missed a few). There are 2 command line automation interfaces for goodness sake (MaxL and Esscmd). Transaction drill through is no different. Approach wise, the one consistent thought is this: never drill back to the live transaction tables. Ok, so never is a pretty strong word, but let’s just say as a general rule of thumb, doing so is not a good idea for the following reasons: •
• Your Essbase cube is a snapshot of data from a load. Querying a live database for open periods implies the sum of your details may not equal your account balances
• Performance – transaction databases are optimized for write based operations, and highly normalized. As we have defined in the above example, creating denormalized views for specific queries will make your DBAs and end users happier.

Now, technology gets better (hardware and software), and with some of the new items coming from Oracle, out of the box, they are trying to get you to a place where EPM apps are more real time, so the rules above won’t always apply, but for now, it’s a good starting point.

In general when deciding on drill through options, you want to ask the following questions:

• What products do I need to drill through from?
       o Web Analysis
       o Interactive Reporting
       o Financial Reports o Excel Add-In
       o Smart View
       o OBIEE
• What is the type of content I want to drill through two?
       o Transactions in a relational database
       o Some other content served up via a URL (for example, very clever way to serve up document images)
• What level of the source cube do I need to drill through from?
       o Either level zero, or the top of a dimension
       o Every level of a non-ragged hierarchy
       o Custom groups and ragged alternate rollups
• What release of the software are you using (Fusion vs. 9 vs 7.x)

For example, if you want to enable drill through from every product, and need to support ragged or standard hierarchies, you are looking at an Essbase Integration Services or Essbase Studio solution. Ranzal has some creative techniques for enabling drill through via EIS on cubes not built with EIS (thanks to our handy outline extractor), which makes it useful for Planning, but once your concern over “newness” has abetted, Essbase Studio allows you to enable drill through the right way – build your cube first, then add the drill through later on. Not the other way around.

On the other hand, if you are looking at something quick and dirty, a Web Analysis or IR view in the short term can get you where you need to be.

Either way, Oracle, particularly with its continued emphasis on OBIEE/Essbase integration, is looking to provide more out of the box options to enable drill through. For example, if you haven’t seen it, check out the Ranzal webinar on Financial Data Management; the latest releases are geared to provide drill back from Planning to FDM, and then ultimately if you load from Oracle Financials, drill all the way back to the ERP.

Closing
This blog was meant to give you an idea of options and approaches for enabling drill through on your Hyperion application. While its great to have options, remember the golden rule – when you make your choice, know WHY you chose that path. Design is basically the optimization of an approach against one set of requirements over another.

Until next time, good luck.

Authored by:
Mike Killeen – Ranzal and Associates
mkilleen@ranzal.com

For more than eleven years, Mike Killeen has scoped, designed, and implemented Planning & Essbase applications for Ranzal & Associates, an award winning, preferred consulting partner of Oracle Hyperion. Currently serving as practice director, Mike provides guidance to Hyperion product management, Ranzal customers, and internal consulting resources alike on best practices related to the implementation of Hyperion System 9. Mike is a certified Hyperion Professional, with certifications in Essbase, Planning, and HFM. He graduated cum laude from Cornell University with a degree in engineering, and received his MBA from the University of Connecticut.

BI for the BlackBerry Crowd

During the recent COLLABORATE 2009 Conference, Ranzal was selected to present a session designed around showing how to use the reporting tools from either traditional Hyperion or Oracle (formerly Siebel Analytics) and deliver content to smart phones.  The session started off with an overview of smart phones, methods of delivery to those phones and some potential pitfalls and considerations, such as what if a user loses their phone? What kind of security policies need to be in place?  Then a couple quick demonstrations in Hyperion were given which included a few tips and tricks on formatting.  This was all done using Interactive Reporting and Workspace.  Lastly, a couple quick demos in OBIEE Answers were provided to the attendees.

The demos were done in Hyperion version 9, although the content was pertinent for version 11 as well.  Some of the common themes in the demonstrations were focus around timely information (i.e. there is no need to send a month report to a cell phone) and focus on exceptions instead of a whole data set (cell phone reporting should be more around focusing on a problem that needs attention than sending a whole dashboard or report).

A copy of the presentation from COLLABORATE 2009 can be found at ranzal.com.

Smart View – Integration with Microsoft Office.

How many people take the time to read a product manual cover-to-cover?  For many, it feels like punishment, but for consultants it is a required duty.

Recently, I read about some of the latest features in the Oracle / Hyperion “Smart View” for Microsoft Office Add-In.  As I read the manual, I could not help being impressed by the all new features. 

“Smart View” is not a new product.  It was first provided with the release of Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) 4.0.x.  However, the pace of the development and enhancements has been incredible over the past four to five years, adding a laundry-list of new functions.

Soon after reading the documentation a client asked me to assist with planning a simple upgrade from HFM 3.5.1.  Their initial thought was to simply take a free upgrade to version 4.x in order to have access to the latest platform.

Like most companies, their users are most comfortable accessing data through Microsoft (MS) Excel. We reviewed the list of enhancements that are found only in the latest version of “Smart View”.  We touched on the availability of Data Forms, Import and Refresh of Workspace reports, Drag and Drop, and dynamic support of data within MS Word and MS PowerPoint. 

Their reaction made it clear that only the most current version would suffice.  I wanted to expand on other enhancements found in HFM such as the latest Calculation Editor, Minority Interest Module, Intercompany Transactions Module and Metadata Management, but they were almost sold on the Smart View enhancements alone.  A good salesman knows when to clam up.

Reflecting on the discussion, I discovered that what is really happening is the software functionality has matured to the point that it truly meets the users’ needs and then some. 

Not too long ago, a big part of a consultant’s time was spent managing a “work-around” to meet a client’s requirements. We don’t hear the phrase “work-around” too much anymore because the functionality is real. Today, a great deal of time is spent expanding upon the requirements with more uses of the inherent functionality and building integrations with other systems.

The embedded functionality is very user friendly in products such as “Smart View”.  One of my client’s reporting requirements was to incorporate their financial data with supporting commentary in MS Word and MS Power Point.  Rather than leading a demo myself, I passed my laptop across the desk to allow them to experience the ease-of-use first hand.

For example, to link financial system data into a Microsoft document or presentation with “Smart View” user would follow some basic steps:

1. Create an Ad-Hoc Analysis Grid in Smart View Excel.  Place the items you wish to display on the rows and/or columns.  The items that may need to change over time, such as the Month, Year or Scenario can remain as part of the point-of-view.
   

 

2. Format the Data. As data is moved between MS Excel, MS Word or MS PowerPoint, the data will retain its formatting.  Therefore, you can edit the formatting of the data.

 

3. Select the Area to Display.  The linked data can be displayed as only the amount field or can incorporate the row/column member labels by simply highlighting those cells on the worksheet.

 

4. Copy Data Points.  The Hyperion menu enables the data to be dynamically linked into other MS products by selecting Copy Data Points.
   

 

5. Open a MS Office Application.  Select the area in a document or presentation that requires the linked data.  Using the Hyperion menu choose, Paste Data Points.  For example, MS PowerPoint.

 

6. Refresh the Document. By choosing Refresh from the “Smart View” menu, the most current data will always be displayed as it is retrieved directly from an application such as HFM.

 

7. Account for Changes.  Depending on the design, the information can be updated for a change in the Month, Year and Period, Product or any dimension by simply changing the point-of-view setting in the “Smart View” menu item, POV Manager.  Simply change a parameter such as the current month and Refresh the document.

The results in the example above are a great indication on how easy it is to now incorporate financial system data into external applications.  Once applied, the data is able to be refreshed in order to display the most current data or alternate views.

Then enhancements made by Oracle / Hyperion to the entire Enterprise Performance Management suite of applications truly address the user’s need to collect and analyze data.   They also address the many issues surrounding the routine tasks when developing and maintaining financial documents.

Users new to Oracle / Hyperion, or those upgrading from earlier versions, will find the latest products really do live up to their expectations.  They will finally benefit from more flexible access to data and spend less time collecting and maintaining it.

 

Authored by:
Joseph Chimbolo
Ranzal Consulting
Sr. Consultant
Hyperion Enterprise Certified

Adding Drill Through to Your Hyperion Implementation

This is part one of a two part blog where I will discuss a general overview of how within the framework of a Hyperion Planning or Hyperion Essbase implementation, organizations may configure Hyperion to provide drill through to transaction details. In this first blog, I will discuss implementation background, and part two will provide information related to implementation approaches.

The final output of most Hyperion Planning implementations is the generation of a Financial Plan.  While various “sub-ledger” plan types may exist to support the generation of this plan (Revenues by Customer and Product; Salary Expense By Employee; Capital Expenditures by Asset Class), the fundamental level of granularity is usually equivalent to the various chart fields in the organization’s general ledger, summarized on a MTD basis.  For certain ERPs, this corresponds to the GL Account Balances table, or an aggregate of the transaction details. Depending on your ERP package, this can be one of the following:

• Lawson – gl_trans
• Oracle E-Business – gl_je_lines
• Peoplesoft – PS_Ledger
• JD Edwards – F0902
• SAP R/3 –
  o Profit Center Accounting – GLPCT
  o Cost Center Accounting – COSP
• Microsoft Great Plains – GL11110

For financial implementations, you are usually looking at the following standard chart fields:

• Account
• Fiscal Period
• Fiscal Year
• Currency
• Legal Entity or Company
• Management Chart Fields
  o Department or Cost Center
  o Product or Profit Center
  o Geography or Location

Inherent within the Hyperion environment is an ability to drill to a lower level of detail, usually to answer a question.  This type of functionality manifests itself in several forms, and the following terminology is used:

Drill Down:  Drilling from one level to another of more detail in one dimension of a cube (for example, expanding quarters into months)
Drill Up: Drill from one level to another of less detail in one dimension of a cube (for example, collapsing quarters into year)
Drill Thru: Drilling out of an Essbase cube into a RDBMS source system (for example, expanding months into days)
Drill Across: Drilling from one Essbase cube into another, normally to explode dimensionality that exists there (for example, on a MTD basis, while looking at Revenue in the Financial Cube, drilling across to expose Customer Detail in a Customer Cube)

The actual drill process from a user interface could be as simple as expanding the rows on the user’s grid (as in a drill down), to launching a new grid which creates a new point of view in a drill-thru and drill-across operation.

Much like the relationship between Planning sub-types and the primary financial cube, there is a relationship between the General ledger, and various sub-ledgers that feed it.  Primarily, detailed information is summarized prior to being posted. For example, individual employee payroll data may get aggregated by department and posted as one line into the ledger. Or Ship-To Customer and individual product SKUs may get aggregated into Channels and Profit Centers prior to be posted. In any event, when talking about exposing additional granularity in Financial cubes, it is critical to define what types of details the user wants to see, as there may be multiple steps in that process.  Because of this, it is very rare that a simple drill through into a general ledger will yield all of the results a user wants to see, since many of the results, while at least expanded from a monthly to a daily basis, will still be summarized across the other dimensions a user may wish to see (such as Vendor). This leads to the design of two new components:

1. Delivery of additional operational cubes, that expose details (such as Employee, Customer, and Vendor) for Drill-Across operations
2. Development of custom-data marts that create hybrid views integrating different levels of granularity of multiple data sources.

The overall schematic might look something like the workflow below:

 

 

In the example above, a new vendor “view” or table has been created to support the drill through view requested by the user, in a top down fashion.  Notice that the table actually pulls from two sources:

1. GL Trans – the general ledger transaction table where individual journals are posted
2. The Accounts payable table, where individual transactions exist

The need for both tables occurs because accruals may be made to the accounts in question, and those entries are generally made directly in the GL Transaction table.  So for the detailed drill through table to tie to the financials, it must contain both elements. However, since the AP element exists in both (detailed in AP, summarized in GL), special care must be made to avoid double-counting the entries that come back.  Since many GLs contain a field that identifies the source system (AP, AR, etc), or has a journal mask to accomplish the same, this is usually readily available.

In my next blog (part 2), I will discuss practical techniques for implementing the above.

Mike Killeen – Ranzal and Associates
mkilleen@ranzal.com

For more than eleven years, Mike Killeen has scoped, designed, and implemented Planning & Essbase applications for Ranzal & Associates, an award winning, preferred consulting partner of Oracle Hyperion. Currently serving as practice director, Mike provides guidance to Hyperion product management, Ranzal customers, and internal consulting resources alike on best practices related to the implementation of Hyperion System 9. Mike is a certified Hyperion Professional, with certifications in Essbase, Planning, and HFM. He graduated cum laude from Cornell University with a degree in engineering, and received his MBA from the University of Connecticut.

Can FDM reduce my monthly close cycle?

How many varieties of gold fish do you have?

With many of our clients, Oracle / Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management (FDM) is the preferred data loading mechanism for Hyperion Enterprise and Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) owing largely to its intuitive end-user interface. We find that FDM users will often refer to their progress in terms of how many gold fish they have. And no, these aren’t the Pepperidge Farm variety.

While the data load process is very straight forward, it does require a user to extract a trial balance from the general ledger, import the file into the FDM repository, fix any mapping issues and then export the data to Hyperion Enterprise/HFM. This means that a close cycle is only as timely as your least efficient business unit.

We have worked with clients to leverage the capabilities of FDM to provide an elegant solution that is intended to drive out efficiencies in your company’s close cycle. FDM is configured to extract trial balance data directly from a general ledger, load into FDM’s repository, map unmapped members to a suspense account/entity and then load & consolidate Enterprise/HFM.Leveraging Ranzal & Associates’ expertise with FDM, this solution can help your close cycle become more streamlined and managed by exception – potentially resulting in days being removed from your existing close cycle.

Contributed by:
Tony Scalese, FDM Design Lead
Hyperion Certified Consultant – HFM
Ranzal & Associates
ascalese@ranzal.com

What is Temporal translation and how does HFM handle that?

Hyper-Inflationary translation means you must use what is called ‘Temporal’ as opposed to the common ‘Current’ method (which is out of the box).

Under the temporal rate method, the objective is to measure each subsidiary transaction as though the transaction had been made by the parent. Monetary items (e.g. cash, receivables, inventories carried at market, payables, and long-term debt) are remeasured using the current exchange rate. Other items (e.g. prepaid expenses, inventories carried at cost, fixed assets, and stock) are remeasured using historical exchange rates.

The Temporal Method:

• Monetary assets and liabilities (cash, liquid securities, accounts payable and receivable, debt) are converted at the current rate of exchange. – default rates in the system .
• Nonmonetary assets and liabilities (fixed assets and inventory) are translated at historical rates. Thus no accounting capital gains or losses arise from these items. – In HE, I would do this via USD overrides.
• Income state items are converted at the average exchange rate for the accounting period unless, as in the case of depreciation or cost of inventory sold, they are directly associated with nonmonetary items. In this latter case the historical cost is used for the translation. – Same as above using overrides.
• Dividends and other distributions are converted at the current rate of exchange at the time they were paid.
• Under the Temporal-Rate Method the net gain does go into the consolidated income statement but since no fluctuations in the value of fixed assets occur the effect on net income is moderated. Because the Temporal-Rate Method uses different exchange rates for different account items there is a problem in the consistency of the accounts. This is a rule you would add to the impact the expenses, I have seen this in other expenses, or other operating expenses. It is likely they know where they want to this impact.

I can’t imagine doing this with rates in HE. You would need a rate for each entity potentially.

Contributed by:
Peter Fugere, Practice Director
HFM & HE Hyperion Certified
Ranzal & Associates
pfugere@ranzal.com

What is PVA and VAL? And How should I do translation per GAPP in HFM?

There are 2 standard methods of translating an account, PVA and VAL.

PVA:

This method retrieves the periodic value for an account and multiplies that by the exchange rate for that period to obtain the translated amount for the current period. Then the translated amount for the current period is added to the prior period’s year-to-date (YTD) translated balance in order to calculate the YTD translated amount. The PVA method is usually applied to Income, Expense, and Flow type accounts.

VAL:

This method retrieves the YTD value in an account and multiplies that by the exchange rate. The VAL method is usually applied to Asset, Liability, and Balance type accounts.

An example of PVA and VAL is as follows:

PVA

	JAN	FEB	MAR	(Divide)
AVERAGE RATE.FRANCS	0.5	0.6	0.7
INCOME ACCT (EURO)	100	300	600	(YTD Amounts)
INCOME ACCT (USD)	200	533	962	(Translated Amt After Consol)

The PVA method takes the periodic value in the INCOME ACCT and divides that by the exchange rate for that period. It then adds this result to the translated value from the prior period. It does not change the exchange rate amount or look to the prior period for the exchange rate at all. In the example above the calculations are as follows:

JAN 100 / 0.5 = 200
FEB (300 – 100) = 200 / 0.6 = 333 + 200 (JAN) = 533
MAR (600 – 300) = 300 / 0.7 = 429 + 533 = 962

VAL

	JAN	FEB	MAR	(Divide)
AVERAGE RATE.FRANCS	0.5	0.6	0.7
INCOME ACCT (EURO)	100	300	600	(YTD Amounts)
INCOME ACCT (USD)	200	500	857	(Translated Amt After Consol)

Using the VAL method instead of PVA, the results would be:
JAN 100 / 0.5 = 200
FEB 300 / 0.6 = 500
MAR 600 / 0.7 = 857

Contributed by:
Peter Fugere, Practice Director
HFM & HE Hyperion Certified
Ranzal & Associates
pfugere@ranzal.com

Common Essbase & Planning Problems & Resolutions: The Essbase Add-In

Over the last 11 years of consulting, there are certain issues I have seen in the implementation of Planning and Essbase applications that are so common, that I have decided to list them here and their resolution in the hopes of sparing you all some undue pain. Today we will focus on a set of issues that probably affects the greatest number of users – the Essbase Add-In. Personally, I think the native Excel Essbase-Add in is still one of the most compelling features to Essbase – which is probably why there hasn’t been a mass migration of older Essbase clients to SmartView (yet). In the words of Mr. Heston – “Not until they pry it from my cold dead hands…”. I sort of feel the same way – so with that in mind, here we go!

Problem # 1 – More than 1 Instance of Excel Open
The Essbase Add-In technically only supports 1 instance of Excel open at a given point in time. If you have ever had issues with retrieving data, but not having anything come back, there is a good shot that this is the cause. As a matter of fact, if anyone ever tells me they have ANY problem with the add-in, this is the first thing I tell them to look at.
Since this is kind of tough to tell given how workbooks appear as separate “programs” in the taskbar now of your desktop, the clearest thing to do is to perform a <CTRL>-<ALT>-<DEL>, display Task Manager, click the processes tab, and do a sort in ascending order by process name. If you see more than 1 Excel.exe process listed, while it may appear that the add-in is working, you will get flaky results (for example, retrieving data and nothing returning). The solutions – terminate one of the excel processes.

Problem # 2 – Conflicts with Other Add-Ins
What other add-ins do you need besides Essbase? (Rhetorical question) Well, how about SmartView, or Peoplesoft’s Excel add-in for reporting? Even a Hyperion Enterprise Retrieve…I’ve had success making the various add-ins work together, but some functionality (such as double clicking) will cause conflicts with each other. To resolve, you can certainly load and unload the various add-ins as you need them, or on the Essbase side, there is a great option made available in the 7.x release called “Limit to Connected sheets” – it basically prevents Essbase from taking your mouse buttons until you manually connect a spreadsheet. Note this also has the added benefit of giving Excel users their native Double Click to Edit Cell, and right click pick from list functionality back. An always on setting for me…

Problem # 3 – Where did my add-in go?
This next problem I am bringing up only because it’s personally happened to me so many times. I call this the “I changed my mind” problem. What happens is the following:

• You are performing an ad-hoc analysis in a spreadsheet against Essbase
• You are done, and click X to close out Excel
• You are prompted to Save Changes for any open workbooks, and instead of saying Yes or No, you click Cancel, which stops the closing of Excel
• You are no longer able to run retrieval code or any add-in function

What happened? Clicking Excel unloads the add-in immediately, despite the fact on exiting the workbook, you have changed your mind

I have also seen this in a # templates with VBA code – generally if you starting getting negative numbers as return codes, this is an indication of that problem – the ad-in is loaded.

The solution is to goto your Tools->Add-Ins menu, deselect the add-in, and close, then go back to your Tools->Add-In menu, and reselect the Add-in, which will load it back up.

Problem # 4 – Why are my retrievals so slow?
Recently at ODTUG Kaleidoscope in New Orleans I gave a presentation on optimizing Essbase retrievals – I got a lot of great feedback from people, specifically related to a number of the tips not being your standard Essbase Common knowledge (you know, your classic IF on dense, FIX on sparse, which isn’t always true anyways). In any event, overall retrieval time is a combination of the server performance, the network performance, and the client performance. Assuming you are an end user, there isn’t much you can do about network or server performance, but there is a lot you can do about your own template configuration on the client, specifically including the following:

• TIP – Minimize the Usage of EssCell

  I have seen former Enterprise users and even HFM users who work with the Essbase add-in fall in love with this excel function that retrieves data into an individual cell in an Essbase grid. While OK for 1 or two values, each usage of this function executes a separate call to the Essbase server. You are better off doing a hidden retrieval sheet with one retrieval from Essbase, and then referring to the values from that spreadsheet.

• TIP – Minimize the Usage of Preserve Formulas
  
  When you preserve formulas on an Essbase retrieval, Essbase needs to check the value of each cell in the grid to see if a formula is there before retrieving it. On particularly large retrievals, this takes additional time.

• An alternative technique is to make use of locking/unlocking cells, and protecting the worksheet. In the attached retrieval sample from Sample:Basic below, % of Sales is a calculated column with an Excel formula.

• To “preserve formulas” without using the Essbase feature, the steps you would take would be as follows:

Step 1 – Select all cells in the grid, and unlock the cells

All cells in a spreadsheet by default are tagged as locked.

Step 2 – Highlight the Columns or Rows with Formulas, and Only Lock Those

Step 3 – Protect the Worksheet

Now, all of the cells you want Essbase to retrieve into will be able to overwrite the values since the cells are not locked, and the cells with formulas will be protected.

Note that for a retrieval this size, the above technique is really not necessarily, but particularly if you are using the cascade function, or doing batch workbook retrievals of spreadsheets with hundreds of rows, even a 4-5 second improvement is worthwhile, particularly when you amplify that over the course of multiple retrievals.

• TIP – Minimize the Usage of “Unknown Members” in Retrieval RangesIn the example above, I added a calculated member called % of Sales. This is not an Essbase member, and as a result, Essbase will let me know about it.

I can work around this annoying message, but I turning off the option for “Display Unknown Members” in the Essbase Options dialog box.

Now when I run my retrieval, I no longer get a message displayed on my client workstation. Problem solved! Well, it is for me, but all of those messages are still occurring, they just aren’t being written the client workstation. They still appear in the Essbase server log.

Imagine a spreadsheet with hundreds of labels that don’t belong – that’s 100 additional lines on every retrieval where the Essbase server is writing really useful messages to the log file instead of processing your query. For something this small, it’s not an issue, but on larger retrievals, I have seen this have an affect of a few seconds per retrieval.

An option to address this issue is to make use of labels in the Excel grids.

Now when the retrieval runs, because the value isn’t stored in a cell, problem solved on both client and server. This also has the added benefit of allowing you to keep “Display Unknown Members” on so in the event something happens that you do care about, say a member name getting renamed and blowing up your retrieval, you will be aware of it.

• TIP – Turn off Enable Flashback

  If you are doing cascade retrieves, or VBA batch retrievals in the Essbase add-in, this setting is unnecessary because it will use memory to store the previous operation only, which won’t necessarily allow you go to back more than 1 sheet. In really early versions of the add-in, we saw lots of issues with both this and preserve formulas on.

Closing Thoughts…

In the next installment of this series, I will spend more time focusing on the # 1 thing you can do to improve retrieval performance, specifically changing the orientation of your retrievals themselves, and selective usage of attribute dimensions. That should be a blog by itself!

Mike Killeen – Ranzal and Associates
mkilleen@ranzal.com

For more than eleven years, Mike Killeen has scoped, designed, and implemented Planning & Essbase applications for Ranzal & Associates, an award winning, preferred consulting partner of Oracle Hyperion. Currently serving as practice director, Mike provides guidance to Hyperion product management, Ranzal customers, and internal consulting resources alike on best practices related to the implementation of Hyperion System 9. Mike is a certified Hyperion Professional, with certifications in Essbase, Planning, and HFM. He graduated cum laude from Cornell University with a degree in engineering, and received his MBA from the University of Connecticut.

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Ranzal specializes in Business Intelligence and Business Performance Management with a concentration in Oracle/Hyperion’s toolkit. Ranzal works closely with corporate executives, line-of-business management, end users, and information systems departments alike to address the business issues and challenges inherent in data gathering, management, and dissemination. Organizations from various industries have engaged Ranzal with outstanding results.

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