Just Released: Oracle Hyperion Planning in the Cloud!

Posted on April 26, 2013 by astein

A Complete Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting Solution in the Cloud is NOW AVAILABLE.

For those organizations that believe they do not have the resources to implement Oracle® Hyperion Planning™, think again! Key Performance Ideas is proud to announce  PLANtasticSM: one of the nation’s first comprehensive implementation of an enterprise planning solution, including implementation, on-going maintenance, and hosting, at a low monthly price.

Key Performance Ideas can develop a complete, enterprise planning solution and move you from a spreadsheet environment to a scalable, systematic solution. Our hosted environment includes both production and development instances of the application, allowing Finance to focus on using a planning system versus building and maintaining one. Furthermore with application administration by our in-house administrators, the need to hire, train and retain specialized, full-time administrators is eliminated.

PLANtastic, one of the nation’s first Oracle Hyperion Planning in the Cloud offerings, allows organizations to mature their processes while reducing capital outlay and lowering operating costs to improve return-on-investment. Benefits of PLANtastic include:

  • Move from a spreadsheet focused manual environment to a scalable, systematic solution
  • Optimize your forecast & planning processes while reducing capital outlay
  • Avoid the cost and effort associated with the procurement, deployment, configuration and support of hardware
  • Utilize on-shore, Oracle certified, remote Oracle Hyperion application administrators to avoid the need to hire and train in-house personnel
  • Reduce operating costs and improve ROI and cash flow

PLANtastic provides you with an all-inclusive entry to Oracle’s Hyperion Planning for one low monthly price and includes:

  • A prebuilt planning application by the Key Performance Ideas consulting team, based on our best practices and practical experience implementing solutions for customers of various sizes and various industries
  • Delivery of a standard application with the option for adding features a-la-carte per your needs
  • A hosted environment in our secure data center, with a secure VPN connection
  • Oracle Hyperion administration by our in-house administration team

Plus, we will meet your advanced infrastructure needs:

  • HARDWARE: High Performance Scalable CPU & RAM, SAN Storage, and High Availability/Fail Over
  • SOFTWARE: Server OS, VPN (Point to Point), Malware Security, Firewall Protection
  • SERVICE: Backups, EPM Stack Support, Help Desk with ticket tracking system, 24/5 support included

For more information on PLANtastic, view the 3 ½ minute movie now!

Your PLANtastic Application will include:

  • Revenue & COGS planning
  • OPEX planning
  • Employee planning
  • CAPEX planning
  • Balance Sheet planning
  • Plan, Forecast, and Actual data
  • Data load automation
  • Data input forms available via the web or MS Excel
  • Offline planning
  • Task lists that navigate users through the planning process
  • Allocation rules
  • Planning drivers
  • Internal & External reporting using Smart View for Microsoft Office and Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting
  • Ad hoc reporting and analysis using Smart View
  • Application & User security
  • User training
  • Design documentation
  • System documentation
  • Test Plan and UAT scripts
  • 24×5 Remote on-going administration and post-implementation support

Contact us today at 847.855.0655 and ask us how your organization can  streamline your enterprise-wide planning and budgeting process at one- low monthly price!

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Is Your Organization Resisting Process or System Changes?

Posted on January 17, 2013 by astein

eWebinar: Is your organization resisting process and/or system changes and limiting your success?

Resistance to “Change” has been cited as the #1 reason why system implementation and transformation efforts fail. However, by evaluating your current environment and designing a comprehensive future-state solution, you can optimize your technology investments, meet the needs of your people and ensure your organization is ready for change.

Process Engineering and Change Engagement activities, including current-state business process documentation, technology inventory development, integrated process and system definitions, and change management planning, can deliver significant benefits:

  • Gain operational efficiencies, reduce cycle times, minimize manual efforts and leverage technology to the fullest extent possible, leading to higher ROI from system implementations
  • Improve resource productivity and focus time on value-added activities such as performance analysis and being a better business partnering
  • Identify challenges and pain points before making system changes e.g., eliminate migrating current issues into new and improved systems
  • Develop a strategic roadmap for future changes to ensure priorities and business needs are always key drivers of change
  • Provide a clear interface/liaison between key business and technology resources
  • Prepare for process, organization and system changes; ensure the organization and leadership are ready, committed and excited for the changes

Join us for this live event and learn how to move from saying ‘we need to be more strategic’ to actually doing so and reaping the rewards. Adam Sheinkopf, Process Engineering and Change Engagement Practice Director, will share how to:

  • Move from a typical technology-focused approach to integrated people, process, technology and change-focused approach
  • Identify key user and process activities throughout each phase of the approach: from assessment to continuous improvement
  • Leverage an 8-Step Change Management approach that is proven to drive change
  • Plus, Adam will present an illustrative project example with details on user activities and how to establish “demand” or the desire to attend training and a positive change attitude.

Date: January 29th, 2013
Time: 2pmET, 1pmCT, 11amPT
Location: Convenience of your office

Register For This Event

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Custom Calculations on Essbase ASO Cubes

Posted on November 28, 2012 by Ed Apuy

Custom calculations extend the analytical capabilities of Oracle Essbase by enabling the execution of calculations on aggregate storage databases and the ability to store the results (rather than calculate dynamically – which may not always be preferred – specifically with large datasets, where top retrieval performance is paramount).

Custom calculation scripts are expressed in MDX and update target level 0 cells. You can perform custom calculations on an aggregate storage database using the MaxL statement execute calculation (aggregate storage version). Using the Essbase API, use EssPerformCustomCalcASO to perform or verify a custom calculation.

This post covers the execution of a Custom Calc via use of MaxL: The MaxL script defines the POV and the Source Region (more on that below). A text file contains the formulas that need to be executed.

This is relatively new functionality, therefore please note it does have some limitations: there is no editor to validate syntax (some trial and error involved), and at this point it does not support MDX member functions (like Descendants, children, etc -> only constant tuples are supported). With that said, just being able to calculate these formulas and store the values was extremely helpful with overall cube and retrieval performance.

Execute Calculation (Aggregate Storage)

Execute a custom calculation script expressed in MDX, specifying the script file, source region, and point of view (POV). Optionally specify the target, offset, and debit or credit
members.

Minimum permission required: execute.

Syntax
You can execute custom calculations with the following options:

Notes

  • The clauses following the with keyword can be entered in any order, each separated by white space.
  • Each clause can only be entered once.
  • The script_file, pov, and sourceregion clauses are mandatory; the others are optional.
  • You can specify only stored, level-0 members on the left side of the assignment
    statement in the custom calculation script; do not use upper-level members,
    attribute members, or dynamic calc members.
  • You can specify only stored, level-0 members in the following clauses: DebitMember, CreditMember, Target, and Offset.

Example

The following statement executes script.txt referenced above. For a sample use case, see “Performing Custom Calculations and Allocations on Aggregate Storage Databases” in the Oracle Essbase Database Administrator’s Guide.

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Hyperion Planning in the Cloud – It’s real!

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Shane Schmitt

At Oracle OpenWorld this month, the hot topic was all about ‘the Cloud’.  In fact, seven new offerings were announced by Oracle’s Thomas Kurian, Executive Vice President, Product Development, and how a Cloud platform is transforming business management and delivering great customer experiences.  Additionally, John O’Rourke, Vice President of Product Marketing at Oracle, blogged about the hype himself, specifically on Hyperion Planning, the first EPM application to be offered in the Cloud.

“Organizations that are struggling with spreadsheets or legacy planning and budgeting applications, want to deploy a world class solution for financial planning and budgeting, but are constrained by IT resources and capital budgets,” writes O’Rourke. “With the Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service, organizations can fast track their way to world-class financial planning, budgeting and forecasting – at cloud speed, with no IT infrastructure investments and with minimal IT resources.”

And, he’s not kidding- it is real! Abhay Parasnis, Senior Vice President of Development at
Oracle stated in a recent press release: “Cloud is a strategic business at Oracle and is growing aggressively. Customers and partners are extremely supportive of Oracle’s Cloud strategy.”  Key Performance Idea’s is one partner that is taking the lead in Planning in the Cloud through its PLANtasticSM service offering.

PLANtastic is a comprehensive entry into the implementation of an enterprise planning solution, including implementation, on-going maintenance, and hosting, at a low monthly price. Key Performance Ideas can develop a complete, enterprise planning solution and move you from an Excel environment to a scalable, systematic solution. Their hosting environment, both production and development instances of the application, allows leadership to focus on using a planning system, versus building and maintaining one. Furthermore with monthly Hyperion Application Administration by S.M.A.R.T, the
industry’s first onshore/remote administration only program, the need to hire, train and retain specialized, full-time administrators is eliminated.

PLANtastic, one of the nation’s first Hyperion Planning in the Cloud offering, allows
organizations to mature their processes while reducing capital outlay and lowering operating costs to improve return-on-investment.

View the YouTube Video to learn more about PLANtastic: Hosted Hyperion Planning in the Cloud

Benefits of PLANtastic include:

  • Move from an Excel focused environment to a scalable, systematic solution
  • Optimize your planning processes while reducing capital outlay
  • Avoid the cost and effort associated with the procurement, deployment, configuration and support of hardware
  • Utilize on-shore, Oracle certified, remote Hyperion application administrators to avoid the need to hire and train in-house personnel
  • Reduce operating costs and improve ROI and cash flow
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What’s New in EPM 11.1.2.2: Data Relationship Management (DRM), Financial Data Quality Management (FDM), ERPi, & Oracle Data Integrator (ODI)

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Shane Schmitt

As I have showcased over the past series of posts, the new release of EPM 11.1.2.2 brings several enhancements across several planning, forecasting, consolidations and reporting processes. The last post of my series reviews the improvements and integration of several products, including DRM, FDM, ERPi and ODI.

Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management (DRM), previously known as Hyperion
Master Data Management, provides enterprises with a solution to build consistency within master data assets despite endless changes within the underlying transactional and analytical systems.  In fact, DRM is a unique solution for managing key reporting structures and hierarchies as well as being the fastest growing EPM product.  The fact that it is data model agnostic and its automation capabilities reduce manual effort and errors, makes DRM incredibly valuable to any organization.  Not only does it help an organization improve data quality, it provides process alignment and simplification and accelerates
deployments and upgrades.

Additionally, DRM provides:

  • Performance Management Architect (EPMA) Integration
  • Web accessibility to most Win32 features
  • Version Variables
  • Domain Membership for Nodes
  • Copying of Nodes and Properties Across Versions
  • Hierarchy Group Properties
  • Hyperlink Enabled Properties
  • Navigation to Hierarchy or Node via URL
  • Formula Validations and New Formula Functions
  • Batch Validations for Export
  • Version Backup and Restore
  • User Interface Localization

Also significant for all organizations is DRM’s ability to create an enterprise view
of financial chart of accounts (CoA), cost centers and legal entities.  DRM helps organizations govern on-going financial management and consolidation based on consistent definitions of financial and reporting structures across general ledger systems, financial consolidation, planning and budgeting systems. For example the management of CoA within an E-Business suite environment is depicted in the following:

Finally, FDM, ODI, and ERPi extend source system integration across all EPM applications. FDM or Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management is a packaged
solution for finance users that helps develop standardized financial data management processes with its web-based guided workflow user interface. It includes prepackaged adapters for Oracle Hyperion Financial Management, Oracle Hyperion Planning, Oracle Hyperion Strategic Finance, Oracle’s Hyperion Enterprise, Oracle Essbase, and Oracle E-Business Suite to reduce data integration costs.  Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) delivers
unique next-generation ETL technology that improves performance, reduces data integration costs, even across heterogeneous systems.  And, Enterprise Resource Planning Integrator (ERPi) revolutionized how organizations approach data integration with their Oracle EPM suite of products.  ERPi allows data to be sourced directly from Oracle eBusiness Suite and PeopleSoft ERP systems using the powerful and proven technology of ODI.

Benefits of 11.1.2.2 FDM, ERPi and ODI enhancements include:

  • Packaged Integrations
    –  Fusion Financials*
    –  SAP ERP Financials*
    –  JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
    –  PeopleSoft Commitment Control
  • Custom Data Source Integrations
    –  File Based Data Loading
    –  Open Interface Adapter *
    –  Customizable Source Adapter *
  • Centralized Data Loads
    –  Multi-Ledger Load from Single Location
    –  Batch Processing
    –  Batch Scripts
  • Distributed DataSubmission
    –  Workbench for Interactive Data Load
    –  Location Security
    –  POV Defaults
    –  POV Locks
  • Mapping Enhancements
    –  Multi-Dimension mapping to support complex dependent mappings
    –  Look-up Dimension for reference data and enhanced import mapping
    –  Ignore mapping to support conditional filtering of source data
    –  Import and Export of Maps from files
  • Other Enhancements
    –  Extract Entered / Translated Currency Balances
    –  Full Refresh mode used to purge and do a clean data load
    –  Explicit Period Mapping to support Non-Standard source periods
  • Metadata Enhancements
    – Attribute Default value assignment
    – Prefix or Suffix support for members
  • Setup Enhancements
    – LCM support for ERPi Artifacts Migration
    – ODI 11g Support ( 11.1.1.6 )
    – Simplified ODI Configuration

In conclusion to my blog series, the release of EPM 11.1.2.2 delivers several product strategy themes, including:

  • Simple
    – Simplicity of use and consistency across all EPM applications
    – Easy to implement, manage and grow
  • Pervasive
    – Not just finance… inclusive of all lines of business and all business users
    – On-premise and cloud, desktop and mobile
  • Integrated
    – Unified EPM application model
    – Embedded analytics and profound ERP integration
  • Compelling
    – Low total cost of ownership
    – Demonstrable business value
  • Extensible
    – By Oracle, partners and customers
    – Horizontal and industry-specific packaged content
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September 25th eWebinar: PLANtastic- Hosted Hyperion Planning in the Cloud

Posted on September 18, 2012 by astein

September 25th eWebinar: PLANtastic- Hosted Hyperion Planning in the Cloud

If you think your organization does not have the resources to implement Oracle® Hyperion Planning, think again! PLANtastic is an all-inclusive entry into a complete, enterprise planning solution for one low monthly price without a significant up front cost. Join us for this free, live event and learn how to:

  • Move from an Excel focused environment to a scalable, systematic solution
  • Optimize your planning processes while reducing capital outlay
  • Avoid the effort associated with the procurement, deployment, configuration
  • Utilize on-shore, Oracle certified, and remote Hyperion application and support of hardware administrators to avert the need to hire and train in-house personnel
  • Reduce operating costs and improve ROI, manage cashflow

Date: September 25th, 2012
Time: 2pmET, 1pmCT, 11amPT
Location: Convenience of your office

Register For This Event

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What’s New in EPM 11.1.2.2: Exalytics In-Memory Machine

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Shane Schmitt

Exalytics In-Memory Machine is the industry’s first in-memory machine that delivers the
fastest performance for business intelligence and planning applications.  It is a key enabling technology for EPM innovation and, for those utilizing Hyperion Planning, delivers Planning at the Speed of Business!  Customers can reduce planning cycle times with huge gains in response time.  In fact, an Exalytics deployment is 5x faster.  Better yet, users can run more complex planning models and receive detail at a finer level of granularity.  Furthermore, companies will be able to bring more users into the planning process and continue to improve accuracy of their plans and forecasts.

Exalytics vs. Standard Deployment: Performance ComparisonExalytics can also extend Line-Of-Business (LOB) planning with Essbase.  Companies will be able to scale to more users and run more complex planning models.  Those running monthly analysis reports can now run intra-day analysis and hence improve their company’s ability to respond to changes, immediately.  Use cases of Essbase for LOB Planning run across functional areas as well as industries and include:

  • Human Capital Employee Productivity
  • Finance Receivables Trending
  • Sales Customer Analysis
  • Marketing Loyalty Analysis
  • Supply Chain Inventory Optimization
  • Manufacturing Material Cost Modeling
  • Telco: Churn & Product Affinity
  • Finance Services: Instrument Level Planning
  • Retail: Store Level Forecasting
  • CPG: SKU Forecasting
  • Pharmaceutical: Clinical Trials Forecasting
  • Utilities: Smart Meter

Next up, we will take a look at what’s new in 11.1.2.2 specifically around Data Relationship Management (DRM), Financial Data Quality Management (FDM), Oracle  Data Integrator (ODI),and Enterprise Resource Planning Integrator (ERPi).

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What’s New in EPM 11.1.2.2: Essbase and Essbase Studio

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Shane Schmitt

The release of 11.1.2.2 by Oracle showcases the company’s promise of continued investment in Essbase. As illustrated in the diagram below, each release has delivered enhancements for both users and administrators.

EPM 11.1.2.2 delivers several new benefits.  First, Oracle has enhanced block storage
performance with parallel calculation, restructuring, data export and data load with cache sizes larger than 4 GB.  The new release also optimizes distinct count calculations on aggregate storage databases (NONEMPTYCOUNT (set, measure, exclude_missing) –nx versus 1x).  Users now have a distinct way to reference shared members in MDX and administrators can change Essbase server and application log levels.  Additional improvements include:

  • MDX Property Expressions
  • Throttle Active Transaction
    - MAXTOTALACTIVETRANSACTIONS
    - MAXACTIVEUPDATETRANSACTIONS
  • Essbase API Changes
    - Changed C Main API Structures
    - Compiler Support
  • Configuration Setting (Essbase.cfg) Changes
  • SET CALCPARALLEL Calculation Command Enhancement
  • New MDX Functions
    - PROPERTY_EXPR function for querying properties of ancestor members
  • MaxL Grammar Changes

For Essbase Studio, a module that provides a single interface for performing tasks related to data modeling, cube design, and construction of analytic applications, was also improved in release 11.1.2.2.  For instance, using the new “Update Out-of-sync Models” option, you can pick and choose which models to sync, without having to recreate them or reset properties.

A new streaming option in the cube deployment wizard allows the Essbase Studio Server to query external data sources directly, compared to the Essbase Server completing the task. Minischemas are now part of the data source connection and alias sets are now treated as metadata elements, on par with hierarchies, dimension elements, cube schemas, etc.  Release 11.1.2.2 has also streamlined the modeling of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) model sources and allows users to create a cube scheme and model during the data source connection creation process.  Users can also deploy Essbase cubes from within OBIEE.  Finally, the release provides support for Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) data sources.

Next up, we will take a dive into Exalytics In-Memory Machine, the industry’s first in-memory BI machine that delivers the fastest performance for business intelligence and planning applications.

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What’s New in EPM 11.1.2.2? Hyperion Project Financial Planning

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Shane Schmitt

Our second edition of the “What’s New in EPM 11.1.2.2” blog series will review the
new Hyperion Project Financial Planning application.  Following other special-purpose planning applications such as Workforce and Capital Asset planning, Project Financial
Planning allows managers the ability to identify expenses and revenue, plan new
projects, and track results.  Bridging the gap between Project Management applications and financial planning and budgeting processes, Project Financial Planning will help managers evaluate projects, manage funding and approve projects. Furthermore, to help complete the project financial planning cycle, Project Financial Planning provides the ability to monitor and report actuals which exposes impacts of projects and project
portfolios ultimately leading to better information for the next forecast.

Some key takeaways of Project Financial Planning are:

  • It unifies the planning process by connecting project plans to the organizations
    overall financial plans and forecasts
  • It ensures company alignment by having an approval process that is aligned to the financial plans and forecasts
  • It supports all industries and is applicable to most large and medium sized
    businesses for IT and HR projects
  • It supports project financial requirements from summarized to detailed levels for
    capital, contract and indirect projects

Functionally, Project Financial Planning provides pre-defined members, forms, business rules, menus, task lists, smart lists, validation rules and project planning plan types.  It is integrated with Human and Capital Resource Management and delivers horizontal and vertical values.

Additionally, Project Financial Planning uses a template for importing metadata and data to support planning for indirect, capital and contract projects, as well as perform expense planning at detail level or account level for items such as labor, materials, and equipment.  Finance Managers can allocate workforce resources and capital assets to projects easily
and calculate driver-based overheads for projects.  Different types of revenue planning/revenue recognition can be completed based on the type of contract project, including time and materials, fixed price and cost plus.

Project Financial Planning in EPM 11.1.2.2 allows organizations to view the impacts on financial statements from a project level or an entity level, including profit and loss,
cash flow, and key performance indicators (KPIs).  Furthermore, the application helps managers rank and approve projects based on a project scores using financial measures
and subjective measures such as net present value or NPV, return on investment
or ROI, payback, lifetime investment, risk assessment, strategic assessment, business assessment, and organization mission.  Additional benefits include:

  • Perform planning for intercompany projects and reconcile them
  • Request funding
  • Track the project approval flow
  • Use out‐of‐box reports
  • Provides a sample project for information technology

Our first two blogs in our series focused on the enhanced Planning capabilities of
EPM 11.1.2.2.  Next up, we are going to dive into the new closed-loop solutions for financial close and disclosure management within the Hyperion Financial Close Suite.

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