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Who among us has not heard about the “good old” days? My grandmother regularly peppered my Sunday dinner with stories, sometimes lectures, on how life was a little simpler way back when. However, if you apply some logic, it may be apparent that the premise might not hold water.
Technology is our revolution which has freed us from monotonous tasks, as well as provided new opportunities for insight and growth. Surprisingly, we need to learn how to free ourselves from our old ways.
So do you still have this on top of your television?
Take the “Betamax” player. Aside from taking the space of a small loveseat, it was pretty simple to use. Press the “on” button, insert the tape and press play. Soon consumers demanded a few more features and we were all graced with the latest and greatest invention of all time, the programmable VCR.
What more could I want in life? I now had the opportunity to record the debut of the “Thriller” music video while in detention room 101. However, we all know life is not that simple. I had to first learn to program the clock, channel and record time. Those benefits came with a small price to pay.
As a veteran Oracle / Hyperion Instructor, I could train our Oracle / Hyperion Enterprise clients how to press the “on” button, insert the tape and press play in about a week. Following the incredible success of Oracle / Hyperion Enterprise, Pillar and Essbase, clients wanted more features and functionality.
Oracle / Hyperion Solution’s met the challenges presented by their customers. With the acquisition of Hyperion by Oracle, the Oracle / Hyperion suite of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) products merges a host of financial, reporting and analysis, and data integrations tools. These tools have refined how people work and interact with business information. It has also changed how we must provide training in order to prepare project teams, administrators and end users.
The System 9 and Fusion generation of products touch a much more diverse population of users. The products range from Executive Dashboards, to administrative budget collection forms and into the Information Technology (IT) back-office environment.
A one-size fits all training solution is no-longer as effective as it once was, like in the “old days” of desktop reporting. Now, we need to think about tailored training to meet the needs of each group of users and instruct them on how to most effectively incorporate the technology into their user-specific work day tasks.
The stepchild of training is managing change. Everyone is “fired-up” during the implementation phase. Each person striving to learn and understand all there is to know about the new system. But what happens when some people move on and others move in? Again, the scope of the latest products demands tailored training to meet the needs of the users, but also a plan to cover the entire cycle of ownership.
The challenge of providing training to an incredibly diverse user base, preparing users for multiple phases of projects, and how to live with and maximize their investment in technology has been exciting. Training solutions now weave together, printed materials, customized courses; web-based training seminars and re-usable recorded instruction. Training has become a separate and distinct project unto itself.
The products are not difficult to use, the challenge is ensuring people know how to thoroughly utilize all of the features and functions. Second, to make sure they understand how the technology fits into their daily tasks.
An Oracle / Hyperion competitor used to boast that one of their products was more user-friendly than HFM, and therefore required little training. That should throw a warning flag to the consumer. As the Oracle / Hyperion suite is an EPM set of applications, there must be an “enterprise” plan how to manage the needs of the users that the system will touch throughout the cycle of ownership.
A well-defined training plan must address educational needs across all phases of an implementation. It cannot be overemphasized that effective preparation can truly play a key role in keeping a project on schedule and budget. The results are that project leaders can more effectively communicate and understand design decisions. The members of the project team are able to test, validate and troubleshoot tasks more efficiently. Lastly, users understand the purpose of the project and how it fits into their daily tasks.
You will find that having a comprehensive training plan will be invaluable when you need to prepare new employees, manage employee movement, and preparing everyone for software upgrades and enhancements.
Should I use EPMA or DRM?
Over the past several months, and quite possibly the past year or two, there have been numerous discussions regarding the need for a separate master data management (MDM) tool such as Hyperion / Oracle Data Relationship Management (DRM) to manage Hyperion metadata outside of the Enterprise Performance Management Architect (EPMA) tool that comes with Hyperion System 9 and Oracle Fusion 11.
Recently at a users’ conference, I heard comments like “EPMA is DRM ‘Light’” and “EPMA is DRM with a Web interface”.
Hyperion, and obviously now Oracle, has invested deeply in EPMA and it is difficult to identify how and where it might differ from the DRM product. Oracle has even used portions of the DRM base code and underlying architecture in EPMA and when looking at vapor-ware demos, you might draw similar conclusions to those quotes above. In reality, EPMA, in its current state, is a pumped up version of the old Hyperion HUB as it relates to metadata management. Granted, EPMA has updated the user interface leveraging the glyphs (icons) and nomenclature from DRM while completely missing the intellectual aptitude that a master data tool provides.
Below are the key uses that were provided in a recent Oracle presentation as well shows the difference between EPMA and DRM:
EPMA
EPMA
- Unifies and aligns application administration processes across the Hyperion EPM system
- Imports and shares business dimensions in the Dimension Library
- Builds, validates, and deploys applications in the Application Library
- Designs and maintains business rules in Calculation Manager
- Loads and synchronizes transaction data into and between EPM applications
DRM
- Manages change of business master data across enterprise applications
- Consolidates and rationalizes structures across source systems
- Conforms dimensions and validate integrity of attributes and relationships
- Synchronizes alternate business views with corporate hierarchies
- Key Features include:
i. Versioning and Modeling
ii. Custom rules and validation
iii. Configurable exports
iv. Granular security
v. Change tracking
*Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management, Fusion Edition 11.1.1- Robin Peel
