Essbase Implied Shares

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Recently, one of our clients was experiencing an issue where they thought Essbase was returning some incorrect results. They were running a calculation script they thought would clear some upper level blocks but it didn’t appear the blocks were clearing correctly. After some analysis, we found that they were experiencing the inherent efficiency of the Essbase cube when it comes to something called “implied shares.”

When Essbase encounters one of the following situations in out an outline:

1. Parent with only one child
   ProductGroupA (+)

                        Product123 (+)

1. Parent with only one child that consolidates

ProductGroupA (+)
                        Product123 (+)

Product456 (~)

Product789 (~)

1. Parent tagged “Label Only” (first child’s value)

ProductGroupA (~)   (Label Only)
                        Product123 (~)

Product456 (~)

Product789 (~)

Essbase will store the data the most efficient way by implicitly sharing the value of the child with the parent. In essence, the parent member doesn’t even exist within the stored data. When it is queried, the Essbase engine knows of the implied share and returns the value of the child.

As a developer, it is important to understand this concept when designing your outline. If you may perform calculations specifically on a parent that is an implied share, you need to understand what is really happening under the covers.

To help with this, a best practice to follow is to tag a parent with the “Label Only” tag if you really want it to take on a single (or first) child’s value. We often see outlines where the parent isn’t tagged label only and only has one child (implied share), or only the first child consolidates (implied share). While this may work, it is not efficient and a change to the outline could result in unexpected changes to the data when retrieved.

Essbase also allows a member to be tagged with the “Never Share” tag. “Never Share” will not allow Essbase to create an implied share during data loads or calculations. The parent is created as a separate member and exists in the Essbase cube along with the child. This obviously has some effect on the efficiency of the database and could result in a difference in performance. Additionally, the opposite effect of the “implied share” could occur – you think you should see the same data but you might not depending on the calculation executed.

Long story short … test the effects of these various tags and see which ones you require. Utilize best practices in your design and Essbase cube should return exactly what you thought it would!

Are You Ready?

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We’re guessing that some of you will be attending Oracle OpenWorld September 19-23 in beautiful downtown San Francisco. It’s the world’s largest conference for Oracle technologists, business users, and partners. And because we’re an Oracle Platinum Partner, you can count on members of our EPM team making the September trip to the City by the Bay. They’re also going because they know how to have fun, and it sounds like OpenWorld won’t let them down.

Still not decided on whether to attend? Here’s what you’ll be missing if you decide to take the road more traveled and hang out at the office that week.

The Big Picture

• 1,800 sessions, 400 partner exhibits, almost 400 Oracle demos, and keynotes from the world's technology leaders

Networking Events

• Oracle Welcome Reception – Sunday, 7:45 p.m. - 9:45 p.m. Join the Oktoberfest celebration and raise a stein of German ale with other attendees
• Oracle Appreciation Event – Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. - 12:00 a.m. If you’ve attended before you know it’s the best part of OpenWorld, and this year it brings

o   Black Eyed Peas

o   Don Henley

o   Steve Miller Band

o   Montgomery Gentry

• It’s a Wrap! – Thursday, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Keynotes

See what's on the technology horizon by attending keynote speeches Sunday through Wednesday, featuring:

• Technology leaders
• Oracle top executives and key partners
• Technology sneak previews
• New product demos

General Sessions

Countless sessions will be offered, including many Hyperion-related and industry-specific sessions. Here are some sessions that might interest you:

• Oracle's EPM and BI Strategy and Roadmap – S318278
• What's New and What's Coming: Oracle Hyperion Planning – S316891
• Failure to Success: Best Practices for Driving Oracle Hyperion Planning Success – S319127
• Oracle Hyperion Applications Strategy and Roadmap – S317486
• Strategy Maps and Scorecards for Getting onto and Staying on the Same Page – S318319
• Using Oracle Essbase for Enhanced Financial Reporting – S315635

Things to do in San Francisco

When you’re not at the conference and still have per diem to burn:

• Fisherman’s Wharf
• Alcatraz
• Golden Gate Bridge
• San Francisco 49ers game Monday night
• Cable Cars
• Some of the best eateries in the country

Ready to register? You can still register for Oracle OpenWorld, with discounts offered for pre-registration.

Interested in learning about Crown’s Hyperion services and solutions? Email us at info@crownpartners.com or check out our Oracle Hyperion platform solutions.

By Kevin Bath 

Essbase Business Rules versus Calc Scripts – Which Way Do I Go?

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We've had a number of clients ask questions regarding Essbase business rules and calculation scripts - which one should I choose? It's a good question. They are very similar in nature and both can be launched via Essbase Administration Services console and the Planning web interface. Today, we will attempt to identify some subtle differences that you can utilize to help make the decision.

Scheduling Differences

It's common to create MaxL or Esscmd scripts to perform maintenance on Essbase applications. Many times, these consist of clearing and rebuilding an outline, loading some data, and then calculating the database. When this is the case, calculation scripts are the best choice. Business rules cannot be launched via Esscmd or MaxL.

However, if it is only a calculation that is required, business rules can be launched via a command line (CmdLnLauncher) and scheduled. So, in cases where you simply want to perform a calculation or series of calculations, business rules can be created and scheduled without the need to create additional MaxL or Esscmd scripts to schedule the calculation execution.

Business Rules Advantages

Macros and sequences - Business rules provide the option to use macros and sequences. Macros are mini rules that can be reused across multiple rules. Additionally, the macros and business rules can be sequenced to order the rules based on business requirements.

Run-time prompts - Business rules have the ability to use runtime prompts.  A value or dimension member name can be entered by a user via a prompt or read directly from a Planning form. The business rule then becomes dynamic in nature through the use of the run-time prompt.

Security - Many assume that business rules can only be utilized within the Planning product. This is incorrect. Business rules can also be executed against standalone Essbase cubes. An advantage of the business rule approach is that business rules can be included in a project within Shared Services, and security can be assigned and managed at the project level rather than against the individual business rules.

Calculation Script Advantages

Debugging - Calculation scripts provide a much better environment for debugging any errors that may occur. Calculation scripts provide much more detail in the error messages generated. Calculation scripts will provide the user and line number in the script where the error occurred. Business rules, on the other hand, will not show the user executing the rule, merely the user associated to the data source name.

Script Creation and Maintenance - It sounds simple, but the ability to perform search-and-replace functions in the calculation script editor is definitely better than the find only feature within the business rules editor. Also, you can't perform an Undo function within the business rules editor. Finally, validation is easier in the calculation script editor, since there is no requirement to save the script prior to validation.

Hopefully these tips will help you make a more informed choice the next time you have to.

Hyperion Planning

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Good news for Hyperion customers. Oracle will soon release Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System Release 11.1.2. And with it comes some great enhancements to the Oracle Hyperion Planning application-a core component of Oracle EPM.

Already a flexible web- and Microsoft Office-based planning application, Hyperion Planning supports enterprise-wide planning, budgeting, and forecasting. Hyperion Planning 11.1.2 offers  help for organizations by providing planning data in a fast, efficient way, ensuring that your entire organization is accountable for the submitted and approved planning numbers.

Here's a rundown on some of the latest features of Hyperion Planning:

Data Form Designer

• Web form designer features drag-and-drop technology
• Uses a composite form layout manager
• Layout Manager offers dynamic context-sensitive property setting
• Data validation rules allow data to be validated against thresholds

Process Management

• Enables users to add another tier dimension to the Planning Unit definition depending on where the user is in the workflow process
• Offers enhancement to associate business users for validation and submission
• Provides new promotional rules, delegation, and out-of-office assistant features

End-User Experience

• Features adhoc grids
• Provides the ability to save personal views
• Offers new sorting and filtering capabilities
• Allows display of consolidation operators

SmartView for Planning

• Full forms technology available in SmartView
• Features data validation
• Provides traffic lighting
• Offers task lists integrated into Outlook and Excel
• Provides composite forms using tabs
• Allows copying of versions

Interested in learning about Crown's Hyperion services and solutions, including how you can get the most from Oracle Hyperion EPM? Email us at info@crownpartners.com.

Best of both Worlds: An Essbase solution using both block and aggregate storage

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Written By: Dennis Hogan

Best of Both Worlds:
An Essbase Solution Using Block and Aggregate Storage

Crown Partners recently undertook a complex project where we actually combined the use of Block and Aggregate storage to accomplish our client's goal. Here's what happened:

The Mission 

1) Build a solution with 7 total dimensions (3 of which contain several thousand members);

2) Two of the dimensions share the same base level members. These cannot be alternate hierarchies-they must be presented to the user in separate dimensions;

3) Include complex calculation logic to perform allocations.

4) Include 10 scenarios that all need to have the calculations run against them;

5) Include 5 years of actual data for historical trending and one future year for plan and forecast results; and,

6) Process updates nightly in 4 hours or less.

The complex calculation logic suggests the need for the robust calculation engine that Block Storage (BSO) offers. But, the significant volume of historical data, dimension sizes, and processing window suggest the need for an Aggregate Storage (ASO) solution. Which one should you use? The answer is BOTH!

The Solution:

Here's a high-level view of how we made it happen.

Step 1: We created three BSO cubes. Each one contained a subset of the data:

        Cube A:  Current Year and Last Year - Actuals only

        Cube B:  All other History Years - Actuals only

        Cube C:  Forecast and Plan data for Current Year and Next Year.

Step 2: Each BSO cube contains one less dimension than defined in the mission. In the BSO cubes the two dimensions that share the same base are combined as alternate hierarchies. These BSO cubes are used for pre-processing only. Users do not see the combined dimension.

Step 3: We created one ASO cube. It contains all the data described above and includes separate dimensions for the items that were combined as alternate hierarchies in a single dimension for the BSO cubes.

Step 4: Only cube A processes nightly in the 4-hour window


Step 5: Cubes B and C are processed as needed when history, forecast, or plan data is revised. This processing includes all allocation logic. The results of the processing are then exported to text files using data export calculation scripts.

Step 6: Nightly processing runs Cube A and executes all of the complex allocation logic. Results are then exported out to text files using export calculation scripts. 


Step 7: The text files from the nightly processing are then loaded into the ASO cube along with the files from the other cubes that were created prior to the nightly process launching.

Step 8: As part of the load process, the alternate hierarchy used in the BSO pre-processing cubes is split into 2 separate dimensions for presentation to the users.

Step 9: The end-to-end processing time for the nightly process, including significant levels of aggregation in the ASO cube, is just 2 - 2.5 hours.

This is a high-level overview of our approach. Interested in the details? Feel free to contact me at dhogan@crownpartners.com.

Face to Face Networking in Ohio

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Written by: Dennis Hogan

Social and Professional networking sites are all the rage.  The list of sites is long including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.   We use text messages and "IM" software to communicate with people in the same building, often as close as the next cubicle.   Blogs and Message boards offer great options for educating yourself or finding solutions to issues you may be experiencing.    Since you are reading this  blog entry, you obviously believe that these technologies offer us great advantages in communications.  With all of these communication options available, does it make sense to take time out of our busy schedules to engage in face to face networking opportunities like user groups?   Yes it does!

In the past I regularly attended and presented at Hyperion User Group meetings across Ohio.   These sessions were widely attended and produced great opportunities for information exchange between individuals using the Hyperion product line to meet business needs.     After the Oracle purchase of Hyperion, these conferences seemed to fade out of existence.   About a year ago I began working with Jon Riley of the Ohio Valley Oracle Application User Group (OVOAUG) in an effort to bring an EPM/Hyperion track into their meetings.     While the turnouts have not hit the level of the old Ohio Hyperion group meetings yet, we have had good numbers and expect to continue to grow the attendance numbers with each meeting.    

The content of the breakout session presentations for the EPM track at the OVOAUG meeting has been excellent.   However, what I believe is more important is the level of interaction that we have seen.   Virtually every presentation has gone "off-script" due to questions or comments from attendees in the audience.    This was so prevalent that our last meeting actually included a panel discussion where a handful of long-time Hyperion users opened the floor for any questions the audience wanted to tackle.     Some of the topics covered were lessons learned, best-practices, upgrade plans, product selection criteria, and complimentary products.    

Beyond the fact that the meeting itself offers great exchange of ideas, many of the attendees have established trusted advisor status with one another.   They now have peers that they can call or email to discuss a specific issue or to debate alternative approaches.  

Whether you agree with me that conferences offers a great opportunity for information sharing,
or you simply long for the "good-ole days" of face to face communications, please consider joining us for the next OVOAUG meeting in Cincinnati (details and link below).     See you there!

What:                    Ohio Valley Oracle Application User Group Meeting (OVOAUG)
When:                  February 19, 8:30 - 4:00
Where:                                 CrossRoads in Oakley

For more information go to http://ohio.oaug.org/index.html

The key to a happy life might just be a well designed Essbase Cube

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The Key to a Happy Life Might Just be a Well-Designed Essbase Cube.

A recent ‘Biggest Loser' contest in the office had me thinking about data. OK, pretty much everything in my life makes me think about the data-it's a job hazard. But this contest had me tracking things I'd never paid much attention to. I'm counting calories at every turn, weighing myself every morning, charting my progress in a spreadsheet, and forecasting my percentage of weight loss as well as that of my competitors.

And that got me to thinking...

Science and technology have us at a point that we can track virtually unlimited things about ourselves. We carry personal devices with computing power that makes even our desktop computers of 5 years ago seem silly. Devices that can track our location and the location of our friends ride around in our pocket like a pack of chewing gum (low-cal sugarless gum, of course...but I digress). Modern software has taken to whole new levels our ability to track our personal finances, personal schedule, blood sugar levels, the pace of our heart, the words we speak, the number of key strokes we type, and on and on. With very little effort, and with a high degree of accuracy, we could track where we spend out time (and with whom we spend it), the pattern and intensity of our speech, and more. (Btw-I'm guessing there are a wireless scale and an app to read and chart your weight. If not, there should be.)

So with some investment in portable data collection apps, we could track an endless amount of data about ourselves. Very cool! But what does it all mean? I don't know, but I can imagine. I can imagine the possibility of saving a few bucks personally (and tons of carbon emissions globally) when we pull the data together and realize that on days when our schedule is most busy, our gas mileage suffers most (triggering a schedule minder alert on busy days reminding us to not be so heavy on the pedal). Or even better, what if we could measure happiness? They used to have mood rings that purported to monitor our every mood. So what if we had something that actually quantified that mood, logged it, and correlated it against every other thing we could choose to measure-like how much sleep we get per night, how much time we spend with our loved ones, and so on. Sweet! Next step? Let's drop that data in an aggregate storage cube, layer on Visual Explorer, and suddenly Larry Ellison becomes our self-help guru and puts Tony Robbins out of business (look for project Data Utopia to kick off in the near future ;-)!

OK, so happiness isn't necessarily a practical measure to capture, but maybe there is something with a more immediate return. Perhaps through capturing our own personal metrics we can correlate our own productivity to our commute, time with family, or even the right number of calories! Or, perhaps to the horror of the ACLU, corporations will get involved and seek to identify statistical consistencies in their top performers. Who knows where the collective corporate imagination might lead. Perhaps they will ask their top sales people to self-collect data, looking for what common traits they possess in an effort to increase the productivity of the entire force. Or insurance companies will offer us substantial discounts for providing them with constant weight measurement. Perhaps they'll even quantify exactly what work-life balance really does produce the best result. 

Whether or not we ever reach such heights of data analysis, PDAs are becoming more powerful and ubiquitous every second-and the amount of data being collected about us is on an exponential growth curve. It seems only logical that the two collide.

Article written by Abe Combs
(Who, at time of authorship, was exactly 20lbs lighter than his starting weight. )

Getting the Most from Data Relationship Management

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Written by Kevin Barth

Crown customers are always looking for ways to leverage technology for improved business and IT operations. With a strategic use of hardware and software, you can cut costs, simplify processes, boost productivity, and on and on. When we see companies deploy new Oracle enterprise performance management systems, for example, they see immediate and widespread returns in the form of improved understanding of corporate finances and operational data. But hidden in the databases that store critical corporate data are opportunities for less obvious but nonetheless weighty business and process improvements.

We're talking about data relationship management. You might already be considering the Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management solution or may have even purchased it and are looking to implement it soon, or maybe you've already installed it. But regardless, Crown can show you specifically how the solution can help you proactively manage changes in master data across operational, analytical, and enterprise performance management (EPM) silos. We can also help you implement and maintain it. And for companies that have already deployed it, we can help you get the most from your investment.

When companies are benefiting from a strategic implementation, Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management builds consistency within master data assets. This is especially difficult to achieve for companies with endless changes occurring within the underlying transactional and analytical systems. Yet Oracle's solution-the first-ever data model-agnostic master data management (MDM) tool-delivers financial and analytical MDM in these dynamic business environments.

Here's how it works. At the highest level, the solution delivers accurate and timely master data to support day-to-day operations, EPM, and business agility. And that's whether you're processing analytical master data such as reporting structures and business dimensions, or financial master data such as accounts, legal entities, cost center, and other hierarchies.

Taking a closer look, it offers other important capabilities. Hierarchy management is simplified and improved, with drag-and-drop hierarchy maintenance, side-by-side hierarchy comparison, one-click navigation, and built-in referential integrity. Change management and control functions include reconciling cross-functional perspectives to a master record, with the flexibility for users to make changes through customized views. To meet audit and compliance requirements, you can query, view, and report on point-in-time or a full history of master data changes. It also allows hot-pluggable integration with workflow tools using web services.

So what does this mean to you in terms of business benefits? Users can easily make data changes using the solution. You can reduce or eliminate errors in data flow between analytical and operational systems, plus ensure consistent corporate definitions and metrics. You'll also save time and resources typically spent reconciling reports across business units. Manual IT data maintenance tasks are minimized while you maintain data integrity across systems and departments. You can even enhance data integrity by performing what-if scenarios and impact analyses. And importantly, you can achieve compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and other industry regulations.

This all sounds great to companies and IT departments hoping to improve their MDM activities around EPM master data. But unless you're equipped with the best-practices know-how on implementing, using, and maintaining Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management, you'll be challenged to achieve its intended results. But that's where Crown Partners comes in. Whatever your stage of implementation-from still shopping to already purchased and installed-we can help. Some of the related services Crown offers include:

• Conducting a requirements review with selected business and IT users
• Analyzing existing EPM application metadata
• Developing a working DRM model to integrate the master data from your existing EPM system
• Producing relevant design documents
• Implementing account and entity hierarchies and reports
• And more

Whatever your needs around Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management, we offer the services to get you there. We're a Certified Oracle Partner with extensive experience in successfully delivering solutions for the Oracle Hyperion platform. With Crown's assistance, our customers achieve better ROI from their Oracle Hyperion solutions, while knowing they can depend on Crown for any future Oracle Hyperion needs.

What's next for Essbase?

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Whether it's new music or new software, you can rely on consumers looking down the road to the next big release while the current one is still warm in their hands. And so it is with Essbase 11.1.1.3. While Oracle hasn't yet committed to a release date, they did whet our appetites with some enhancements for 11.1.2 at OpenWorld in October.

It's pretty clear that the Aggregate Storage Option (ASO) figures heavily in 11.1.2. ASO will feature functionality like that of the procedural calc engine used now in the Block Storage Option (BSO). What does that mean for geeks like us? It means you can run a calc script in ASO (without MDX) and the data can be stored directly in the cube. There may be some limited functionality within the calc engine initially, but it's a heck of a start. ASO will also support the predefined allocation function. Lastly, the calc engine will be exposed within the Java API and MaxL.

From an enterprise-ready point of view, there are a few enhancements that, while they're not terribly sexy, are definite improvements from an infrastructure standpoint. These include process monitoring, status dashboards, identification of key metrics, centralized logging, and error identification. Oracle also revealed some Essbase Studio improvements, such as the ability to move, copy, and backup the import/export catalog.  Additionally, there is increased support for ODBC DSN sources and improved data source synchronization. 

If you're looking down the road already, these enhancements show all the promise of improved performance and usability.

Tech Spotlight: Configuring FDM & ASO

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-Written by Abe Combs  

FDM will work with aggregate storage (ASO). It also works with Internet Explorer, Adobe Acrobat, Notepad, and the newest KitchenAid food processor.

Okay, sarcasm aside, FDM has a little-used feature call mShellandWait-a subroutine that lets you call pretty much any external executable code, whether it's a batch file or an executable. Even a batch file you would use to call a MaxL process that builds or loads an aggregate storage cube.

But, the operative words here are "will work", which are different from "is supported". While FDM does not support aggregate storage, you could use the mapping and import formatting (both strengths of FDM) to get a file all the way through to export where you would then launch a MaxL process (via a batch file) that loads and aggregates an ASO cube.

No, it's not ideal; you're flying blind to a degree. You have no interface into the executable you launch, so you can't be sure it was successful. But, if calling MaxL is your goal, and you're a little creative, you can use MaxL's ability to write error logs and use FDM scripting to read the logs and send emails-and in the process make up for a lot of the shortfall.

If you're still with us, here's even more excitement: you can use FDM to call any executable-so in some ways you're limited only by your imagination. One of our favorite uses of the mShellandWait command is in conjunction with Hyperion Reports. Hyperion Reports' batch scheduler actually allows you to execute a report from a batch file on the fly, and email the results to a select audience. So once FDM has sent you the email confirming successful execution of your cube/HFM build process, you can send yourself an email, using mShellandWait and Hyperion Reports, that checks the database for validity. Did the balance sheet really balance? Do those alternate roll-ups tie out? Or, you can be a real hero and send the accounting department the first-look P&Ls during close week.