Essbase 11.1.2 New Features review
In my last post I gave a brief overview of some of the new features in EPM 11.1.2, specifically from an installation and environment point of view. Today I want to focus specifically on Essbase, and what is good, great and maybe unfortunate in the new release. This is by no means a comprehensive overview of all the new features, but rather my take on some of the more interesting aspects.
EPM security link – Essbase apparently does not store user details in the .SEC file, if running in EPM security mode. This means there is no need to synchronize security between Shared Services and Essbase any more. This is very good news, as this synchronization added an extra step which could be forgotten and meant security issues all the time.
Allocations on ASO cubes – You can now perform allocations on ASO cubes, previously this could only be done in BSO. One more reason to go ASO rather than BSO as a default? If that is not all, the next feature might convince you…
Custom Calculations on ASO – Basically this means you can now write calc scripts for ASO cubes. Not as fully featured yet as for BSO, for example you can only target level 0 cells, but a step in making ASO on par with BSO in terms of calculation capability. Will BSO eventually fall away…?
New @XWRITE function – the inverse of the @XREF function. During calculation you can write to data blocks in the same or other remote cubes (whereas @XREF pulls data from remote cubes). Very useful if you have distributed cube environment with data dependencies, as from a central calculation you can update all dependent cubes, rather than pulling data from calcs in each cube.
32 alias tables – Instead of 10 you can now have up to 32 alias tables. I guess this is good for some applications, I must be honest in all my years of using Essbase I have never used more than 6 alias tables in a single cube, and that was an extreme case.
IPv6 support – As all the other modules in EPM 11.1.2, Essbase also supports the new IPv6 internet protocol, which aims to allow many more addressable internet addresses.
OCI support – Essbase can now use OCI to connect directly to Oracle sources in load rules, rather than ODBC. It helps that Oracle is now the boss…
Monitor progress of data loads and dim builds – While data loads or dim builds are in progress, you can now query the progress, to get info such as which stage of the process is taking place, number of records processed and rejected, etc. This can be done if you kick off an asynchronous data load or dim build only. Very useful to track progress, something you previously couldn’t really do, short of continually refreshing the log file to get some idea of what is happening.
Error handling in Calc Scripts – Using the new @RETURN function you can exit a calc script with a custom error code based on results of an IF..THEN statement. This means you can add a lot more logic to error handling in calc scripts, and return meaningful codes.
MaxL Error Handling improved – You have an IfError in the MaXL Shell that can detect errors like syntax and no permission errors. You can therefore directly in the MaxL shell test for more complicated errors and exit with a return code, or continue processing. This should make error trapping and processing in MaxL scripts a little better than currently possible.
Export metadata to XML files – Another addition to the sorely lacking metadata export in Essbase has been added. You can now export metadata to an XML file, using a MaxL command (EXPORT OUTLINE). These XML files can then be used by other proceses where you need outline information, or to compare outlines. I assume at a later stage you will be able to import from these XML files?
Failover support – You could do failover for Essbase with High Availability Services, but they now made it possible through using Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN). This offers comprehensive failoverand clustering support for Essbase.
This is some of the more important new features, there are more, if you want to read about these yourself you can access the EPM documentation at the following link:
Oracle EPM 11.1.2 – Reviewing the new features
Today I finally got my grubby paws on the latest, greatest, best thing ever version of Oracle EPM, 11.1.2. You know, the version Oracle is punting as containing the largest number of functional improvements in specifically the Hyperion EPM applications since Hyperion was bought. At first glance there certainly seems to be some exciting new functionality, things such as Disclosure Management and Financial Close Management for you HFM types, a proper HFM export to Essbase module based on HyperRoll, new functionality in Planning such as much enhanced workflow and excellent integration with Office, etc.
I plan to look at some of the major new features, module by module, and share my finding on this blog. Obviously this will not be done in one or two blogs, but probably a whole series over the next couple of weeks.
For a start, I want to share my thoughts on the new features and direction Oracle is taking in the installation and general architecture of EPM 11.1.2. So here are some of the new things you need to be aware of when starting to implement EPM 11.1.2, some good and some – well you will see…
- The first line which hit me between the eyes was the following: This release is intended for new deployments only. Upgrading or migrating from previous EPM System releases is not supported. In addition, products from this release are not compatible with products and applications from previous releases. What does this mean, exactly? Basically it means install EPM 11.1.2 on a clean environment (new servers), and rebuild your applications – or at least manually migrate them by exporting data and metadata and reimporting on the new environment. Essbase is not really an issue, Planning a little more complex but not too much, but HFM probably requires a lot of work to manually migrate, if not rather rebuild.
- Tomcat is no longer the default embedded J2EE server, Weblogic is. Apache is no longer the default Web Server, Oracle HTTP Server is. This is actually not a bad move for scalability reasons, as long as the promised relatively seamless deployment actually works.
- All EPM tools now make use of a new logging mechanism, Oracle Diagnostic Logging (ODL). Seems like this will offer much better housekeeping of logs, such as max log file size, log file rotation, etc.
- Essbase Excel add-in now has a small Microsoft MSI file for installation. This is great news, you don’t need the entire foundation installation file set just to install the Excel add-in.
- No more OpenLDAP (great news, how many of you have experienced corrupt OpenLDAP repositories). Basically the Shared Services database repository will now house the Native Directory info.
- Default directory structures have changed completely, again. Something like Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11\ is what you can expect, but this can be set at installation time.
- Shared Services and Workspace Web is now a single web service
Next blog I will probably start with the new Essbase features, as well as some Smartview stuff. Let me know if you have any questions on EPM 11.1.2, or want to share any experiences with it.
Managing your financial challenges with Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)
Remember when you were a kid and you were scared of ghosts and monsters or the boogeyman hiding in the closet? It’s funny … As we grow up, most of us lose our childhood fears, but all of us will certainly acquire new ones. Our mature fears tend to fall well within the bounds of realism and deviate from the realm of the impossible (although some grown men and women might still be afraid of Casper for all we know).
What scares us most often is that which CAN happen, that which IS possible – for instance, the loss of a loved one, loneliness, disappointment, inadequateness or the more tangible phobias such as heights or small spaces or having to live with the huge tarantula that shows up every few days for but an instant, only to disappear just as quickly, thus causing you to watch your every step.
As much as the above fears are apparent, there is one that is consistent with most of us, if not all of us – the fear of losing or not having money! According to British scientists, losing money or experiencing an economic loss (i.e. financial pain) has the same neurological roots to physical pain.
From a business or corporate or enterprise perspective, this “pain” is aggregated through the encompassment of fears of its employees. As an employer, how do you curb these fears? Well, the answer is fairly simple – you give them the assurance of a safe and secure future at your enterprise just as a parent would assure their child a pleasant night’s sleep by tucking them in or leaving the light on until they’ve fallen asleep.
In order to be in a position to offer these assurances however, your enterprise needs to make a profit. This is the bottom line to every business. The biggest profits are realized when every process, every individual, every team, and every department are working together toward that uniform goal. Managing this synergy can be a cumbersome task for any employer … but not anymore! Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) systems are here to help keep those business demons hidden in the closet for good!
EPM systems are a specific tier of the Business Intelligence (BI) toolset. Managers can now assess the performance of every component of their enterprise by understanding and analyzing where they’ve come from and where they currently stand (i.e. using the historical and current data of the business). Once this is done, a link can be formed between these operational activities and a business strategy that increases future profits. This is the goal of Performance Management – it gives you insight into the future so that you can cure your employees’ and consequently your enterprise’s fears of the present. Go ahead and turn your business’ lights on by investing in an EPM tool – knowing is always better than not knowing!
“I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today” – William Allen White
For more information on Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management products, see http://www.intellient.co.za/live/content.php?Item_ID=1142
What are my competitors using Essbase for (or: why do they know more faster)?
Essbase has a reputation of being an excellent platform for financial analytical applications, but not much else. In some part this perception is created by competitive vendors who benefits from pigeon-holing Essbase, so that their tools can rather be used. Also Hyperion were traditionally strong selling into finance departments, and neglected IT in the pure BI applications arena. While it is certainly true that certain types of financial uses hit the sweet spot for Essbase, it can definitely be used for a large number of other analytical applications beyond the financial arena.
Essbase offers a OLAP platform for the construction of basically any kind of analytical application. With the addition of aggregate storage functionality the possible uses for Essbase expanded exponentially. While very strong in complex calculations and financial-type functionality, Essbase suffered badly from multidimensional explosion if the number of dimensions or number of members in dimensions increased to very large numbers (more than 10 dimensions, more than million member dimensions). Aggregate storage addressed these issues and it is now possible to create cubes with large numbers of dimensions, and multi-million members in dimensions. All this while not loosing the intuitive and responsive end-user experience Essbase offers.
In this blog I would like to share some of the Essbase applications I have experience of beyond just pure finance. Hopefully this will provide a reference of other uses for Essbase to help people trying to sell Essbase, as well as people already using Essbase and thinking of ways to expand its usage. Note this is just a selection of some of the applications I have personal experience with, please feel free to comment on any other non-financial uses of Essbase you might have come across.
Telecommunications industry
- Customer usage analysis – a cube based on the call detail records (CDR’s) which allows analysis of subscriber usage by minute, region, package customer demographic. Helps to understand usage of packages and customer segments and plan for better focused products.
- Customer demographic analysis – analyze the customers by all demographic information, such as age, gender, income, region etc. Helps to understand the customer base and better target products.
- Customer profitability – understand which customer segments are the most profitable, and maybe more importantly which are not, and who to target for better structured packages.
- Network quality – a cube which get loaded with hourly raw data from base stations, and which then calculates a large number of key statistics. which allows for better analysis of the quality of the network, where problem areas are, and helps plan expansions an network reconfigurations.
Motor vehicle manufacturing industry
- Market share analysis – use publicly available data to build a cube which shows all car manufacturers market share, by all vehicle attributes. Helps to determine where strong and weak points are, and support marketing efforts.
- Car flow planning – plan the flow of vehicle construction from parts to vehicle stock yard, based on demand forecast. Handles complex issues like ensuring optimum stock levels, planning for enough raw parts to meet demand, and the flow tempo through each segment of vehicle construction.
- Sales analysis and planning – analyze the vehicle sales by region, dealer and vehicle type, as well as customer demographic, to better understand the market and plan distribution to the dealer network.
Banking industry
- Customer Profitability analysis – understand profitability per individual customer (in the millions, this is an aggregate storage cube) to see which offerings actually make money, and across which customer segments.
- Market Share analysis – use publicly available data from banking regulators to understand market share in a large number of banking instruments, such as loans, mortgages, deposits etc. Helps to quickly identify growth areas as well as areas with declining share, and to plan better products.
- Risk Scoring models – use Essbase to calculate the risk for corporate customers based on quantitative (financial statements) as well as qualitative (perception of the company, market strength) factors. Essbase calculates key ratios, scores, and risk ratings based on a complex set of rating business rules.
- Exposure analysis – understand the exposure the bank has across various instruments and clients, to help early identification of risks and better plan investment activity.
- Funds Transfer Pricing modeling – perform complex FTP modeling in Essbase, where the flow of cash within the bank based on complex rules is calculated.
- Cash flow forecasting – model cash flow on a daily basis based on surplus and shortfalls, using treasury rules to determine investment options and movements of cash.
Energy utility
- Demand forecasting – use Essbase to forecast energy production and usage demand based on various factors such as seasonality, historical usage, expected growth factors etc. Use as a basis for revenue planning, as well as production plans.
- Environmental analysis – understand the environmental impact of energy generation based on models in Essbase. Track emissions and pollution factors per generating unit over time, and serve as early warning system.
- Production/generation analysis – cube which houses production of energy per generating unit to serves as basis for dashboards used at board meetings to discuss generation issues and forecasts.
Insurance industry
- Broker performance – a cube which provides daily updates of each broker’s performance compared to their peer group, based on sales per product, region, demographic. Used as a basis for broker commission calculations, and to run broker competitions to award top-performing individuals.
- Customer profitability – understand profitability per customer and customer segment across all types of insurance products.
So as you can see, the usage of Essbase spans way beyond the pure financial reporting and analysis applications most companies use it for. If you would like details on any of the applications above feel free to contact me, details below.
To read more on Hyperion Essbase go to the following URLs:
http://www.intellient.co.za/live/content.php?Item_ID=1157
http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/essbase.html
What is HPCM?
This article serves to introduce the HPCM application, with further articles focusing on the uses, benefits and value of implementing Profitability and Cost Management solutions.
Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM) is the “new kid on the block” as far as the Oracle|Hyperion suite of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) applications go. Released in 2008 – on the common EPM platform of Essbase, EPMA, Workspace, Shared Services – HPCM allows for actionable insight into cost and profitability management.
HPCM allows for the creation of decision support models, utilising either pre-defined cost allocation methodologies such as traditional ABC, Time Based ABC, Standard Costing or customised models allowing for the creation of very unique network costing or shared/support costing models.
The solution drives business performance by discovering drivers of cost and profitability, empowering users with visibility and flexibility, and improving resource alignment.
Traceability maps and audit trail capabilities provide unique transparency and ease of use. Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management is the only packaged profitability application that leverages Oracle Essbase Plus, the industry’s leading OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) server, for faster, easier, powerful multidimensional analysis.
