Oracle Open World Day 4

I’m actually awake and in a session at 9:00 am. My first session (maybe my only) is on Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management.(HPCM). The presentation was very good, but went quickly and I’ll try to hit the highlights from it.

HPCM is is an application that allows you to allocate costs to customers based on drivers. IT has multiple components including relational and Essbase.

  Multiple skill sets necessary to build HPCM

• Tool knowledge
• Business Analysis for determining methodology
• ETL skills
• EPMA
• Essbase skills

What is a allocation methodology

A defined process to Allocate costs

• Cost Object
• Basis of allocation – Drivers
• Assignment – logic for assignment

 

It is important to have a Allocation Methodology before you start. Standardize the methodology as much as possible. You need internal agreement of business requirements before you start. .

 

Model Design

Defined as turning a logical design into a physical environment

• Stages (where you are bringing data in
• Drivers
• Assignments

Model Design is a iterative process.

• Many different approaches
• Determining factor 
• importance and priority of “things”

Rules

Leverage the underlying Essbase database to do the heavy lifting.

• One rule can do multiple allocations
• Ease of development, maintenance and understanding
• Consistency of applied logic
• Dramatic performance improvement

Some overlooked gems.

HPCM provides staging tables where you can

• import dimensions
• Driver data
• dimensions
• Cost data
• per existing  model definitions

aids in assignment process. Importing to getting up running quickly. Pre-apply consistent logic to speed up allocations.

Testing

• Out of the box validation reports are indispensable. Use them to validate your model.  (My note, This is an important differentiator. The logging and traceability of calculations; the next bullet point,is something not easily done in Essbase or many other products)
• Graphical tracing maps use as a development aid to verify your model(must load data to take advantage of graphical maps)
• Dense sparse settings can be used for impacting performance but requires knowing your data.

Training

• Take HPCM training early
• Best training is hands on testing/ parallel testing
• Focus on functionality not mechanics
• Develop initial reports for end user then educate on metadata
  • remember end users care more for reports than the model that produces the reports
  • In the users mind good reports translate into good model
•  Leave enough time to test

My session on LCM is us soon, so I’ll spend a little time reviewing the slides.

I just finished my session on LCM. For those of you who missed it, I believe it will be on the interRel webcast series in October. It was a small but interested group. I had the best timeslot. Thursday after the concert, after lunch. I was actually amazed when people came to the session.

After my session, it was a dash to the airport. I really do like the Bart system. It is fairly efficient and reasonably priced. I made it with plenty of time. So I bid a fond farewell to Oracle Open World  2010. It will probably take me the full year to recover and prepare for next year.