...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.

...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,

...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.

...Calculation status: OK SC

     A few weeks ago, I was working on an application update. I started the update on Friday afternoon and thankfully everything went well. I loaded the new metadata and new rules without any problem, completed the "Clear Invalid data" task in 20minutes and then I started the overnight consolidation in order to reconsolidate the whole application and get the status OK in all scenarios/years/periods. I was home before 7pm

...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.