Why I created a blog

Its been many years since I first created this blog. It has remained true to Essbase and related information over those years. Hopefully it has answered questions and given you insight over those years. I will continue to provide my observations and comments on the ever changing world of EPM. Don't be surprised if the scope of the blog changes and brings in other Hyperion topics.


Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Smart View Patch to a patch

In September, Smart View patch 11.1.2.1.102 was released which gave us parity with the Excel Add-in. While it is great, I was informed by a colleague that there is a newer version of the patch available. I checked on Oracle support and sure enough, there is now 11.1.2.1.103 available. It is only for Smart View, there don’t appear to be equivalent patches for Essbase, APS or any other  products. Below are the fixes in this patch. If you go to the support site and look up the patch, there are also known issues that are worth looking at. 

• 6928106

General: Smart View cannot display member names and their aliases at the same time.

• 12828079

General: When Smart View is enabled in PowerPoint, images are displayed as blanks during Slide Shows.

• 12858015

General: When you perform web launch from Financial Reporting with a report that has multiple members in the POV, the POV selection is lost in Smart View.

12896500

General: If Smart View is located in a different directory from that specified in the server, Excel may terminate abruptly with this runtime error: "Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library…"

• 12957863

General: When you to open or save a Smart View Excel file, you may get this message: "Microsoft Office Excel experienced a serious problem with the 'oracle hyperion smart view for office, fusion edition' add-in. If you have seen this message multiple times, you should disable this add-in and check to see if an update is available. Do you want to disable this add-in?"

• 11779755

Essbase: When you change the POV, you may get this error: “Invalid start location.”

• 12918727

Essbase: If you are connected to a non-unique Essbase outline from a multiple-grid worksheet, you may get this error: "Invalid spread sheet data. An application protocol error might exist between server and client processes."

• 13242869

Essbase: When the Use Excel Formatting option is selected, cells that contain formulas may display the formulas rather than data after you refresh. In addition, cell formatting may change from general to text.

12854000

Planning: In the Smart View Panel, Planning folders and forms are not displayed the same order that they are in Planning. Instead, they are displayed in alphabetical order.

12902911

Planning: In ad hoc grids, cross-worksheet references in formulas do not work; the formula itself is displayed in the cell rather than the contents of the cell referenced.

• 12908185

Planning: When you search for members using the drop-down menus in the Page section of a Planning data form, Smart View may take an inordinate amount of time to return the members.

• 13001747

Planning: When you try to open Smart View from within Planning, you receive a Microsoft Excel error.

• 13253314

Planning: If the first worksheet of a composite form contains a formula, you cannot submit data from the other worksheets in the composite form.

• 13403509

Planning: After refreshing, column widths are reset even if Adjust Column Width is selected.

• 13419370

Planning: The "The form contains unsaved data." warning mesage is not displayed when you refresh a composite form.

• 13255112

Financial Management: Excel files in which Smart View is enabled may take a long time to open.

• 13401856

Financial Management: If "Member Name and Description" is selected as a member name display option, Smart View only displays only the description.

• 12559490

Reporting and Analysis: When you attempt to export a Financial Reporting query-ready report to Smart View, you get an error.

12982945

Reporting and Analysis: When you import a functional grid from Financial Reporting into Smart View, the formatting may be lost.

• 13093388

Reporting and Analysis: After you upgrade to Smart View 11.1.2.1.102, Excel may not launch.

• 13365904

Reporting and Analysis: After you upgrade to Smart View 11.1.2.1.102, Excel may terminate abruptly.

9 comments:

srx said...

So to conclude wait for the next major release before applying an attractive patch in production!

GlennS said...

I don't think so. Every version has bugs but this version has a lot of compelling reasons to use it to get the parity with the Add-in (.102 and .103). They have reacted wuickly getting an updated patch out there and it is just updating smartview itself so it is fairly non intrusive. I would do it now.

Bobk said...

In the read-me for the .103 patch there are almost 6 pages of "known issues". .104 can't be too far behind!

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm with Glenn,
I too have reported alt least tree bugs and not all of seems not to fixed. At least I could not see anything in the fixed bug list.
But a bunch of other bugs seemed to be fixed now. And I this this is good. And it was a fast reaction from the dev team. This is uncommon woth oracle but I really appreciate that. Take a look at SQL Developer developement and bug fixing time line. Are you really sure that you would like this more...
SV team to make it right! Please stay with that!
Regards
Andre

Here is what I reported to Oracle:
A)
There are two wrong reaction with this issue:
1. In such a case the seach windows usually opens for the account dimension.
2. Nothing is to choose from in the element selection windows

B)
The default font size of our customers is 11,5 in size (the important part here is the “,5”) (Please don't ask me why they specifically need this size :-) )
Issue:
with Smart View 11.1.2.1: every time when a data refresh takes place the font size in all cells of the current sheet is set to a value of 2. Since this happens all the time it’s impossible for the User to work with SV.

C)
When in SV option the value for Label for #NoData/Missing
is set to "#NumericZero"
then is is impossible to write back an value of 0 (zero) to the database.
In such a case the already existing value in the database remains as it is.
(It turns out to be a unlucky naming of option and description)

GlennS said...

Your bug 3# When in SV option the value for Label for #NoData/Missing
is set to "#NumericZero"
then is is impossible to write back an value of 0 (zero) to the database.
In such a case the already existing value in the database remains as it is.
(It turns out to be a unlucky naming of option and description)

Is not a bug. If you look at the documentation, it specifically describes this as defined behavour. If you want to be able to send zeros, then change the #numericzero to (0).

Anonymous said...

Any Insight? Looking to create a simple report in SmartView utilizing an Essbase datasource. How can a user build a query that utilizes multiple selections from the same dimension and have results of these selections appear as a consolidated total? Example: If user wanted to see the $ total of sales results from four business units as one figure without adding columns, etc. Business unit dimension selections would be in page and Account and Period would be on row and column respectively. Very basic request. Can this be done in SmartView? Am I missing something?

Anonymous said...

Regarding #3:
Yes I know that thsi is not a "real" bug.
As I said it is more or communication issue. I gave my recommendation to the support folks at MOS how to make it more clear regarding the sequence of and dependences between options in the options dialog. As as far as I understood the reaction they have been gracefully and willing to think about it.
Andre

Anonymous said...

When parity is the best Oracle can offer with SmartView - why not keep working with *the best in class* the normal Essbase Excel AddIn?

Seeing these problems, the message is clear to me.

Regards,
Philip Hulsebosch

GlennS said...

While I talk about Parity, Smart View offers a lot to the table. Can the Add-in connect to Planning, HFM and FR? No. The the Add-in use a secure connection to the server? No. Can you retrieve in Word or Power Point from the add-in? No. Does the add-in support Drill through from Studio? NO.
While Smart View is not perfect, it is much better and getting better with every release. The Add-in is dying.