...Smartview and OneDrive

Recently (July 2017), I discovered a new functionality of OneDrive which allows multiple users to work on the same file concurrently and I think it is called real time collaboration. This seems to be an amazing feature if you are preparing a presentation and you are collaborating with someone who is in the other side of the world. Unfortunately, it can be a huge inconvenience if you are using SmartView.

...Financial reports and Shared Services

A few months ago, we were ready for our monthly submission. Everything was quiet and I was relaxed enjoying our Cloud environment...until we received an alert from our monitoring tool that the first of the two FR WebLogic servers auto-restarted. Of course, having a WebLogic server auto-restarting was not a problem since that was the process. Until five minutes later

...CPU utilisation in HFM

There are 3 settings that manage the CPU utilisation.

•  MaxNumConcurrentConsolidations: The number of concurrent consolidations that can run in a server at one time. This setting will adjust the total number of consolidations that run in one server regardless the number.

• NumConsolidationThreads: The number of CPU treads that can be used to multi-thread a consolidation. A consolidation with 32 threads will finish quicker than a consolidation with 8 threads but the first one will use all the available CPU.

• ConsolidationMultiThreadingScheme

...Memory utilisation in HFM

Since version 11.x, Oracle has released the 64-bit version of HFM. The benefit is that the 64-bit version of HFM can hold more data in memory comparing to the 32-bit version.

Based on Oracle documentation, HFM virtual address space is dictated by the OS. So, if you have an application with large subcubes (large scenarios, dense data, big number of scenario) which struggles in the 32-bit environment,

...Records & Subcubes in HFM

A few years ago, I decided to spend time to understand how HFM calculation engine works with aim to improve the performance of the rules. The first stop was the HFM manual, the basic design considerations and the section that is referring to subcubes to understand the calculation mechanism.

...loading APP files in HFM

I have not posted any thoughts recently because I am working on an amazing migration to the Cloud project and I spend most of my time there. However, recently I got in a situation which reminded me of a discussion that I had a few months ago in OTN. The discussion was related with issues that users had with loading APP files in their upgraded applications.

In my case, we were working on upgrading the applications from 11.1.2.1 to 11.1.2.4. We followed the process suggested by Oracle and we upgraded 11.1.2.1 to 11.1.2.3 and then moved the applications to 11.1.2.4. When I started testing the upgraded applications I found that in one out of the three applications it was not possible to extract and reload the extracted metadata without corrupting the application.

...Org by Period

Recently, in the OTN forum, we were discussing the functionality of Org by Period.

Org by Period specifies whether the application allows new consolidation structures to co-exist with previous consolidation structures in the same application.  If it will be set to ‘Y’, it will enable the functionality to activate or deactivate legal entities by reporting period.

As an example, let's consider entity AB which should be consolidate to parent A for period P1 to P3 and then consolidated to parent B for periods P4 to P12. In order to achieve this, in the Ownership management module the entity would be flagged as Active under parent A for periods P1 to P3 and then it will be flagged as Inactive. For periods P4 to P12, the entity will be flagged as Inactive for parent entity A and Active for parent entity B.

Based on this, the parent entity A would retain the values on a YTD basis for only the data that came from P1 to P3.  Data from periods P4 to P12 would be only consolidate to Parent B.

Finally, the metadata would show the entity underneath both Parent A and Parent B, though the various metadata selector dialogs have a "show active only" button when you want to show only the current period's active structure.

Cheers,

Thanos

...the consolidation functionality

It is two days before the end of the year-end reporting period and at 4:50 pm the helpdesk receives a new ticket with title “Consolidation of subsidiaries and NCI query”.

Silence in front of my screen… the subject of the ticket is quite worrying for such a week and as I read further down the situation becomes even worst.  The request of the user was to explain how the system calculates the NCI for specific subsidiaries, why the closing balance was 150.000$ and what the movement consolidation movement represents. A lot of questions….

Proem

Until today, I have seen four approaches in consolidating the values of an entity to the parent entity.

• The first approach is to create manual journals at "Entity Curr Adjs". This journal will be posted both at the subsidiary and at the consolidation entity of the group.
• The second approach is to use the Sub Calculate and the function HS.Exp in order to populate specific members or consolidation accounts at the value dimension members "Entity Currency" / "Entity Curr Adjs".
• The third approach is to use the Sub Calculate and the function HS.Exp in order to populate specific members or consolidation accounts at the value dimension members [Proportion] / [Elimination].

...Debugging HFM rules

Hi all,

I hope you are doing well. I just came back from a 3-weeks holidays ready for a new year hopefully full with Hyperion projects and consolidation challenges.

Proem

Last night I was discussing in the OTN forum on how to debug a complex set of rules. This discussion brought into my mind the multiple times during the last project that I was in the same situation and I was trying to find a problem in a mechanism that includes triggers, variables and multiple HFM expressions.

Unfortunately when you are working on a complex set of rules with different cases and different statements, it is really easy to make a mistake and misread or misinterpret the existing rules.

For this reason, I believe that the easiest way to find the solution to your problem is

...FDM reclassifications with logic accounts

I was recently discussing (with my wife) about the various HFM reclassification journals (VAT, Corporate tax, Cash/Overdraft) and it occurred to me that the easiest way to complete this task is with the proper configuration and design of the FDM application.

Proem

When designing an FDM – HFM solution, my understanding is that FDM should be used to replace all the manual, time consuming, non-value-added data-management steps of the ETL process while moving data from the ERP to HFM.

This design has 2 main guidelines:

• The extract query from the ERP system should not exclude any of the data. The main reason of this guideline is to prevent the exclusion of any future ERP changes to be extracted in the extract file.

... configuring an HFM environment

One really interested task that is a crucial phase of a project and I would like to share a summary of my experience is the configuration of an Oracle HFM environment.  Before going further, I would like to clarify that I am not an expert on that field but I will do my best to describe it...

Proem

As it happens in every project after the receipt of the new environment from the OS team, the implementation team will install and configure all the Hyperion components. Based on the great improvements of Hyperion v11.1.2.3 (11.1.2.4 is out but not in production yet so…), the installation is a really quick task contrary to the configuration of the environment which needs a lot of study, preparation and communication with the different infra teams of the customer.

Main

For me the best way to discuss about configuration is

..synchronising HFM applications

Hi all,
 

It’s been a long time since my last post but I am in the middle of 3 different projects and blogging is not one of the priorities. However, I spend a lot of time on OTN Financial consolidation space.

    1. Proem

The topic of post today will be the data synchronisation of two HFM applications with the use of the rule file.

To give you a bit of background, during an Oracle training for the HTP application, one of the interesting topics that we discussed was how to keep the data of the HTP application in sync with the data of the statutory application. The solutions offered were:

• Use of FDM.
• Use of Data synchronisation (if the application are EPMA).
• Manually extract and load data.
• Use of the rule file 

    2. Approach

Since more or less all the rules have a VB code to write to text file the debugging logs during the calculation of the data, we will use the same approach to extract the data from the source application and load the data to the target application.

..delays

Initially, I had in mind to write an analysis related to the HFM application settings. However, after such a huge delay, I think that I should describe what I experienced the first 3 months of 2014.

    1. Proem

So, 2013 left our lived a few months ago and 2014 came in. Santa Clause did his annual job and brought a lot of lovely presents and Oracle teams did their job and brought HFM version11.1.2.3, FDMEE and a whole set of new features which will improve our applications.

    2. Installation of version 11.1.2.3+

..designing a scenario

Hi all,

In this post I am trying to clarify my thoughts regarding the Scenario dimension.

The scenario dimension in HFM holds the different data sets reported by the group. Despite the fact that scenario dimension has usually up to ten members, it is one of the most important dimensions of the application. The reason is that the scenario dimension defines the input frequency (month-to-date, quarter-to-date or year-to-date), the calculation sequence between Periodic and YTD for the flow accounts, the process management, the data audit and the execution of the consolidation rules.

From a functional perspective, the most common scenarios that I have seen up to today are:

• Flash
• Actual
• Budget
• Forecast
• Translation scenarios of the previous data sets

Following, I have a quick description of the scenario dimension setting. The description is based on my experience, on the HFM admin manual and on discussions that I had with other consultants.

1. Member or Label or Name:

The name or the label of the scenario. After version 11.1.1.3, the name must be unique and can contain up to 80 characters,

..Value dimension

Hi all,

In 2008, I was asked to train the admin users of a financial group and explain them how their future application will work. Everything was really simple until I started thinking on how to present the Value dimension… since then I keep on trying to find the best way to present the Value dimension. So, I will start with the basics and then try to present my understanding on more complicated points.

Purpose

The Value dimension is not used for a single purpose. The three purposes that I have identified are:

1. It is used to store and identify the different types of data within HFM (data and journals).
2. It is used to translate the values from local currency to parent currency and eventually calculate the contribution to the parent entity.
3. Finally, it is used to maintain all the foreign currencies that the application can support.

Structure

The Value dimension is a system defined dimension. The Value dimension members are

..calculation options

Hi again,

There is a really interesting topic that I believe the majority of the administrators and users are confused with. What calculation option to select when they are working on a grid or a form.

The available options are Calculate, Force Calculate, Translate, Force Translate, Calculate Contribution, Force Calculate Contribution, Consolidate, Consolidate all with data and Consolidate all.

Analysis:

• The first option available in every entity is the

...HFM Application Copy Utility

Hi all,

This is a post for one of the most useful utilities that Oracle has provided us. The Financial Management Application Copy Utility!!!

The main purpose of this utility is to copy a single HFM application to a new HFM application in the same or in a different environment. The utility will copy all the HFM tables from the source application to the target application including the tables with metadata, rules and data.

Based on my experience, I believe that the main reasons of using the application copy utility are:

...Apps 13, London

Hi all,

Apps13 was a great event organized by UKOUG for Hyperion community. It was an opportunity to be updated for the product developments, hear about products or services that are offered to support the day-to-day tasks and to networks with other Hyperion customers and professionals.

I attended the event for two days and I had the opportunity to get introduced to the new features of versions 11.1.2.3 and 11.1.2.4, to meet ex-colleagues and to listen to the stories of other Hyperion users. Interesting part of the event was the social time when we drunk, ate and danced until late.

The key points that are in my mind after these two days are:

...locking entities in HFM

Hi all,

Recently, I was working on an assignment to start locking the entities in an HFM application with 8 scenarios, 9 years of data and 600 base entities.

The options were the following:

1. Should we lock only the base entities?
2. Should we lock both the base entities and the parents?
3. Should we not lock anything? 

In the end, we decided that the best approach is