Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office (Smart View) is a Microsoft Office Add-in that provides a common interface designed specifically for analysts to interact with the data and business intelligence content that they have stored within their Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) system.
One of the most common way of using Smart View is users access Excel to interactively investigate the data contained in the different sources such as Oracle Essbase, Hyperion Planning, or Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) etc.
In this post, we will discuss some of the tips and tricks that we think you’ll find very useful.
1. Downloading the right Smart View Client?
Smart View has gone through many changes over the last few releases. Users are recommended to upgrade their Smart View client that had been installed on their PC. One major confusion for users though is not knowing where and which version they should be downloading. This is because users don’t necessarily upgrade their client when they are informed of a change, it could take several months for various reasons. When they have a genuine need to do so later, more changes may have been introduced.
Fortunately Oracle has made this a simpler process now. If you want to obtain the most compatible version of Smart View client, simply log into Oracle Workspace and click on Tools | Install | Smart View. Oracle Workspace will prompt you to download the relevant SmartView client.
2. Dealing with ‘#NoData’ or ‘#Missing’
In data intersections where there is no data i.e. blank, Smart View will display “#NoData” or “#Missing” by default depending on the version of your Smart View. This can cause issues for your Excel report because both “#NoData” and “#MIssing” are text cells that cannot be computed. One way to overcome this is to configured Smart View to display zero in its place. To do this, click on the Options button, under the Data Options group, you will see the “#NoData/Missing Label” setting. Simple type ‘0‘ into the field and then press OK.
3. How to print Point of View (POV) Headers
One of the key user benefits Often, analysts would generate a widely popular report such as “Revenue by Quarter” in Smart View. On screen, the Point of View manager is shown to allow the user to understand the data inference (e.g. geography, scenario, product etc). However, if you print the Excel worksheet, you cannot see the Point of View.
Well here’s a trick. In Excel click on the Insert tab and then click the Insert Header & Footer button. Now enter “POV:{}” on the header or footer field. When you click outside of the field to commit the entry, you will not see any changes.
In order for the Point of View to appear on your worksheet, you will need to click the File | Print | Print button.
4. Fix Smart View Time Out Issue
Large data retrieval often requires more time to complete. As a result, users may be notified of the error: “The request timed out. Contact administrator to increase NetRetryCount and NetRetryInterval.”
To overcome this on the client’s PC (where Smart View is installed), go to the Windows Registry Editor by clicking Start | Run | regedit. Next navigate to the following entry:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]\
One important thing to take note is make sure you choose “CurrentVersion” and not “Current Version” with a space, because both folders exist under the Windows folder, and can be quite confusing.
Now enter the following registry key and value:
- “ReceiveTimeout”, use dword and enter hexidecimal ’00dbba00′;
- “KeepAliveTimeout, use dword and enter ’002BF20′;
- “ServerInfoTimeout”, use dword and enter ’002BF20′.
The above values are shown in hexadecimal, not decimal and correspond to 18000 milliseconds (3 minutes) and 240 minutes for the receive timeout.
Now, restart the client PC and you should be able to retrieve large data sets without issues.
5. How to Retain Excel Formatting
For most analysts, building financial reports requires rigorous Excel formatting e.g. cell color, borders, data precisions etc. In Smart View version 11.1.2.1, the user has the option whether to let Smart View or Excel control the formatting. For highly formatted report, users should use “Excel Formatting” over Smart View. To do this, click on the Options button. Choose the Formatting tab and check the “Use Excel Formatting” option. Click OK to confirm.
6. Using Provider Services Properties
In Smart View version 11.1.2.1, users will appreciate the ability to control the Smart View Client. For example, the user could set the “Force Client Upgrade” option and the Smart View client could be automatically prompted for upgrade whenever Oracle EPM is upgraded by IT. This could help to reduce future manual maintenance effort. The Provider Services preference can be found towards the bottom right of the Smart View window.
7. Display Member Name and Alias On The Same Row
One of my pet peeve on SmartView vs. the legacy Essbase Add-in is that SmartView does not have the extremely useful option to display the member name and alias together. Well that’s all changed in from Smart View version 11.1.2.102. You can turn on the option to display both member names and alias in Smart View by clicking on the Options button, choose the Member Options tab and select”Member Name and Alias” for Member Name Display.
8. Using Multiple Grids
One extremely cool feature in the new version of Smart View is the ability to retrieve multiple grids into the same worksheet. Previously this is prohibited. In addition, you can use a different data source e.g. different Essbase cubes for each of the data grid created. To do this, all you have to is highlight a region of your worksheet and select “Ad hoc analysis” for a particular data source.
You will be asked if you want to enable the multiple grids feature in this worksheet. Choose Yes.
Data for the first grid will be pulled into the worksheet. After this, you can repeat the same action to build more data grids on the same worksheet.
9. Use Smart Slices To Create Data Views
Smart Slices can be described as a view of a data source such as Oracle Essbase or Hyperion Planning, made up of a selection of members, filters or combination designed to limit the data set. It is especially useful for distribution of information to users who has authorization to use the data, and is likely to be using it repeatedly. For example, you could create a Smart Slice for the General Ledger accounts for the current month, which will be useful to the accounting department for the financial close.
10. Smart View “Power Pack” Extensions and Utilities
Although Smart View is already a very powerful tool, it’s functionality can be further extended by installing the Smart View Power Packs. You can download and install the Smart View Power Packs by clicking on the link here.
The list of Smart View extensions are quite impressive. They include:
- Adjust Data Extension – Simple data adjustment panel for use with Smart View.
- Options Extension – Quickly change the most common options for Smart View.
- Table of Contents Extension – Display open workbooks and worksheets originized by connection type.
- MDX Script Library Extension – Run MDX scripts and use them as a starting point for new queries.
- Substitution Variables Extension – List and use Essbase substitution variables in ad-hoc operations.
- Grid Themes Extension – Format ad-hoc grids with pre-defined themes.
- Member Search Extension – Search for Essbase memebers in the Smart View panel without the need to open a dialog.
- Smart Chart Extension – Link native Excel chart to ad-hoc grids. The chart will update as you zoom or pivot.
- Extend Smart View Add-In – Once installed the add-in will add a new ribbon to Excel called ‘Extend SV’. This ribbon allows you to refresh all worksheets and workbooks, submit data for all worksheets and workbooks, and store key options with the workbook so when another user opens that workbook they can use the options the creator was using.
- Smart View VBA Conversion Tool – Tool that will assist in the conversion of Legacy (Classic) Add-In VBA code to equivalnt Smart View VBA Code.
This post is getting long, and so we will cover the Smart View extensions in another post in the future. Thank you for visiting our blog.
Next you will need to register an account within the app and then 
After that, what we need to do is to forward our system notifications/alerts from our primary email account e.g. Microsoft Outlook. This can be done by creating inbox rules that will forward selective emails to our Boxcar email address (that we obtained above).
And that’s all you have to do. Any time a Hyperion alert email is sent to your regular inbox, it will be forwarded to Boxcar, and within 5-30 seconds, your iPhone/iPad/iTouch will receive the alert even when your iDevice is in locked state. Is that a Key Performance Idea or what?
