Preparing your Middle and Database Tier for Hyperion EPM System Fusion Edition Installation

If you're planning to install and create a testing development for Planning, consider using a virtual machine for your Middle and Database Tier. It maybe easy for some to install the Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management Fusion Edition, but for other, installation is taking forever. So, to help lessen your burden and to help you prevent from reformatting your personal computers over and over again, i suggest you use either VMWare or Microsoft's Virtual PC to host your Middle and Database Tier.

Below is a list of what I did to successfully install Hyperion on my Web Application and Database Server:
1. I created my virtual machine to host my Middle and Database Tier.
2. I then installed it with Windows 2003 with SP2 and IIS.
3. And then I installed it with MS SQL 2005. This will serve as my RDBMS.
4. I made sure that cookies and javascripting is enable on my IIS.
5. I made sure that .Net Framework 2.0 is installed on my PC.
6. I checked and made sure that .Net Framework 2.0 is an allowed web service extension on IIS. To do/check this option, go to your IIS Manager, click on the Web Service Extensions folder, select .Net Framework 2.0 Web Service Extension on the right side, and click on the Allow button if it's not yet clicked.
7. Login to MS SQL 2005 and create a new database and a new user with the system admin role.
8. Install the latest version of Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management Fusion Edition. The version I installed was version 11.1.1.0.307
9. And configure each of the components by going to Foundation Services and clicking the EPM System Configuration icon. The wizard will easily help you configure all the Hyperion Fusion Edition tools and applications.

I will discuss about setting up the Hyperion Planning Client Tier on my next post

My first Oracle Hyperion Training

I just attended my first Oracle Hyperion Sales and Pre-Sales Training at the Oracle Philippines office here in Makati City last Aug 11 and 12. Thanks to Sean, Julia, Chris, and Anne for sharing their thoughts and selling skills!

Just to share, here's a list of what i saw or have found out about Hyperion:
1. I've learned that the BI Foundation is composed of the EssBase and the OBIEE tools
2. I've learned that thru the EssBase, Hyperion is able to produce information that answer's the How? and the What if's?.
3. I've learned that the BI Applications sits on top of the BI Foundation.
4. I've learned that all the BI Applications are pre-built and are ready to install hot pluggins. This means that these are not templates that need to be configured. But if you have an existing datastorage built from oracle, sap, peoplesoft, or siebel, then it can easily use those datastorage.
5. I've learned that the EPM applications such as the Planning, Financial Manager, Performance Scorecard, and Data Quality Management all sits on top of the BI Foundation.
6. I've learned that the Workforce Planning and CapEx Planning have a different license.
7. I've learned that there are still a lot more that i want and need to learn about datawarehousing.
8. And best of all, with these kinds of new BI applications, I've learned that anyone withought IT education can easily create their own applications!

What's the difference between OLTP and OLAP?

This two words which both starts with the letters OL, both ends with the letter P, and both consists of four letters are very much different IT/BI(Business Intelligence) jargons.

How are they different?
By Definition :
OLTP which stands for Online Transaction Processing or simply transaction processing is a class of systems that facilitates and manages transaction-related applications and provide real time accesses to its data which is being updated by other transactions. It is also used to refer to a processing wherein the system can quickly respond to user requests/transactions.

OLAP which stands for Online Analytical Processing refers to an approach to quickly provide answers to analytical queries that are multi-dimensional in nature. Through the use of what they call Aggregations, some have claimed that for complex queries, OLAP cubes can produce an answer in around 0.1% of the time for the same query on OLTP relational data.

An Inside look on some of the New Features of Hyperion Planning Fusion Version 11.1.1.0.0 : The Enterprise Performance Management Architect

The EPMA(Enterprise Performace Management Architect):
- You can now organize your applications into folders
- With this, you can now organize your application library the way you organize your shell library. Also, it helps you easily find the application you're looking for.
- There have been improvements in the simplification of import process. Now you can directly import in the application. In the past, this has to be done on the Shell library first.
- Grid Editor. You can now make bulk updates to multiple members at the same time. This now also allows you to see, create, and delete multiple members of the same dimensions without having to go back in the dimension library.
- There is now an Application Creation Wizard which is a tool that walks you thru the creation of an application or planning application in the EPMA.
- New EPMA Batch Clients which allows running EPMA tasks in the batch log thru scripting or using a cover line interface.
- Planning Classic Parity Items now supports DTS(Dynamic Time Series)

Terminologies in EPMA
- Master View = Libraries of shared dimensions
- Application View = Application (Now made up of shared and local dimensions and not considered as a view on the main dimension catalog.)
- Shared Dimensions = Dimensions that can be used by multiple applications and that are stored in the Shared Library.
- Local Dimension = Detached, independent dimensions that exists only in one application.

An Inside look on some of the New Features of Hyperion Planning Fusion Version 11.1.1.0.0 : Calculation Manager

3.Calculation Manager
- This will be used for Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Manager.
-Will ease the maintenance of business rules since it allows you to create and share complete rules which you can also organize using folders and rule sets. This has predesigned templates which you can use to build your own rules. This is categorized as one of the next generation of Hyperion Business Rule.

An Inside look on some of the New Features of Hyperion Planning Fussion Version 11.1.1.0.0: Smart View

2.Smart View for Planning
- On Adhoc Queries and Analysis
-You can now write data back to the database
-Provides a smooth integration between the Planning web and the Smart View - no need to relogin to excel.
-You can view attached docs on the cells

- Connection Manager is improved
- You get a tree view of each product and from each of these products you can browse to different servers and different applications
- You can also drill from the web form level

- Will allow you to perform modelization of cubed slices thru the use of Smart Slice.
- Report is now created using one or more Smart Slice/s that can come from different sources.
- Your Power Point presentations can now be dynamically linked to the data sources.
- There is a Function Grid that links a cell in Excel to a data from a data source that now makes it a more flexible formatting report.

Benifits of Smart View on Planning 11.1.1:
a. There is a tight integration in Planning web since you can now simply go back and forth from the Excel file to your web UI.
b. You can now dynamically link your office presentation such as Power Point or Word to your EPM sources withought doing other manual steps such as copying and pasting tables or graphs.
c. You can now create interactive reports from all your EPM sources

An Inside look on some of the New Features of Hyperion Planning: Core Planning

1. Core Planning
- With the enhancement, you will now be able to work with data forms and perform the following actions:
- Attachment of excel documents on data forms
- Select dates automatically using the calendar
- Show member formulas from data form
- Hide and show rows with no data on data form
- Launch SmartView from data form through a simple click w/o the need to reconnect.
- Drill through the Financial Data Quality Management (FDM)

On the user interface:
- You may now choose to display the aliases when using copy versions
- You will now be able to cleanup annotations using the clear data option

Others
- You can create folder securities. will this feature, all the forms under this folder will inherit the assigned security on the folder. And if a form under the folder still has a unique security other that the security created on the folder, you may still opt to override the folder security for this particular form.
- Job Status

An Inside look on some of the New Features included on Hyperion Planning Fusion Version 11.1.1.0.0 : About Local and Shared Dimensions

This is still a continuation of post I started re: Oracle Hyperion's latest fusion version..

More about Local and Shared Dimensions:
Note that an application can now be made into local dimensions.

With Local Dimensions you can now do the following:
- copy dimensions to shared library or to an application
- synchronize between dimensions in the shared library and dimensions in the application.
- share dimensions so that you can change a local dimension to a shared dimension which can be used by other applications.

With Shared Dimensions, you can detach the dimension.

What you can do with Life Cycle Management(LCM)?
Below are some major features that you can do with LCM:
1. Move artifacts or entire applications between development, test, and production.
2. Export or import artifacts to the file system for the disconnected environments, or utilize direct migration for connected environments.
3. and Execute LCM functionality within Shared Services.
** The new version already has an available Shared Services Migration Wizard to help you easily set up and run migrations. With the wizard tool, you can:
a. Migrate individual or multiple applications,
b. Select one, many, or all artifacts,
c. Migrate logical applications (this includes User Provisioning, Planning, EPMA and Calculation Manager, Essbase, and Financial Report.),
d. and Migrate dependent artifact

Also,
- With LCM you can work with both the disconnected and connected environments. Disconnected Environment here means that the development, test, and production environments are completely isolated.

When you decide to install LCM you have to ensure that the following components are installed and properly configured:
1. Shared Services
2. Planning
3. EPMA (Enterprise Performance Management Architecture)
4. Calculation Manager
5. and Essbase

Latest Update on Hyperion Planning! Version 11.1.1 now available

What amazes me in this Business Intelligence software is the number of dedicated developers that they have who continuously upgrade and maintain the Oracle Hyperion Products.

Now, they have already released version 11.1.1 which they call Oracle Hyperion Planning, Fussion Edition Version 11.1.1.0.0.

It's important and key new feature includes the following:
1. Improvement on the Core Planning product
2. Smart View enhancements
3. Functionality enhancements on the EPM architect
4. Calculation Manager - dedicated to the design and maintenance of Business Rules, and
5. Lifecycle Management - which will allow you to migrate your applications between different environments.

Hyperion Planning Overview

Hyperion Planning is a Web-based, multitiered planning and forecasting application that maximizes the power of Essbase.

There are three separate logical tiers in any Planning configuration:
1. A Database Tier
-The database tier contains the database servers, a relational database, and an Essbase database. The database tier includes the following components:
❍ Essbase
❍ A relational database server (either Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or IBM DB2).

2.Application/Web server tier (also referred to as the middle tier)
-The application/Web server tier, or middle tier, contains the Planning Windows-based server, the Web server and Web Application server. Multiple application servers can be created on additional hardware for scalability. The application / Web server tier includes these components:
❍ A Planning Windows-based server
❍ A Planning Java application server
❍ A Essbase® Administration Services Java application server
❍ A Web server (optional)

The middle tier application server complies with the J2EE standard and supports popular Java application servers such as WebLogic, WebSphere, and Tomcat. Because the middle tier is a true application tier and no data resides in that tier, scalability and availability is greatly enhanced.

3.Client Tier
-The client tier contains the administrator client and Web client that communicate with the application tier. You use the client tier to enter data, perform process management, manage metadata, manage users and security, launch business rules, copy versions, develop data forms, and perform other administrative tasks. The client tier consists of the following components:
❍ The Planning Windows client
❍ The Planning Web client
❍ The Smart View client

Planning uses a thin Web-client architecture so that common users only need a supported browser on the client computer. There is no processing on the client workstation. The actual data is stored and calculated using Essbase on the database tier along with a relational database repository for storing the application framework, metadata, and textual data.

Planning provides complete functionality for the Web user, including reporting and analysis, process management, and form design.

Additional Components that you can use together with Planning:
1.Business Rules
- Business Rules is an underlying component of Planning that is installed automatically with Essbase® Administration Services. This is a graphical tool that guides users through the creation, maintenance, customization, documentation, and execution of sophisticated calculations and business models. With this you can do a variety of analytic applications, such as product and customer profitability, budgeting and planning, financial management, and customer relationship management.

2.ESSBase
- Planning runs on top of Hyperion® Essbase® – System 9 and enhances its analytic and calculation capabilities, security filters, APIs, pre-built financial intelligence, calculation functions, and multicube application support. Planning capitalizes on OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) and data warehouse technologies

**OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing. It is a software tool that provides analysis of data stored on the database. It's tools help the users to analyze different dimensions of multidimensional data. OLAP is most often used for data mining.

**Data Mining is a class of database applications that look for hidden patterns in group of data that can be used to predict future behavior. This tool helps users discover previously unknown relationships among the data.

**Data Warehouse is a repository of an organization's electronically stored data. Data warehouses are designed to facilitate reporting and analysis.

3.Financial Reporting
-Hyperion® Financial Reporting – System 9 creates reports that combine grids of data and text, charts, graphs, and images. Aside from providing complete control over layouts, formatting, fonts, and colors, it also provides business analytics, such as conditional suppression and automatic calculations that can be used to focus and filter reports.

4.Data Integration Management
-Data Integration Management Adapter for Planning enables you to define target tables for loading data and metadata into Planning and use the target tables in workflows.

5.Hyperion Application Link
-Hyperion Application Link is a suite of application integration services that integrates external source with Hyperion’s business analysis software. You can use it to load data accounts, entities, and custom dimensions from flat files, ODBC compliant databases, or an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system into Planning.
-This is purchased separeately

** Enterprise Resource Planning is the planning of how business resources (materials, employees, customers etc.) are acquired and moved from one state to another.

** Enterprise Resource Planning System is a business support system that maintains in a single database the data needed for a variety of business functions such as Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Financials, Projects, Human Resources and Customer Relationship Management.

6.Smart View
-Smart View provides integration with Microsoft Office for Planning, Hyperion® Financial Management – System 9, Financial Reporting, and Hyperion® Web Analysis – System 9

7.Shared Services (formerly called Hyperion Hub)
-Shared Services provides User provisioning, external authentication definition, metadata synchronization, and data synchronization

Planning Architecture
There are many possible architecture for Planning (depending on your configured environment).

Configuration for Planning on Windows is available for all Planning components.

UNIX configuration for Planning is available for Relational database, Essbase Server, web application server, Essbase Administration Server, and Shared Services server. In addition, most Financial Reporting components can be configured on UNIX.

Diagram below is a sample of a Oracle recommended distributed configuration.



Another possible configuration, as shown below, if you’re combining the application/web server and the database server is to use the single-server configuration. This is recommended only for a development environment or for clients with very minimal users.



Deployment on Multi Servers
Figure below illustrated the recommended configuration if you are deploying multi servers for each application.


Planning Application Modules:
1.Oracle Hyperion Workforce Planning is a special-purpose planning module that makes head count, salary, and compensation planning efficient across the enterprise. It allows you to accurately assess the business impact of workforce decisions on your overall expense plans in real time.

2.Oracle Integrated Operational Planning links financial plans and metrics to operational plans from manufacturing, sales, marketing and other functions to create an integrated business planning framework that enables fact-based decision-making. It addresses a range of high-value planning processes typically solved with offline spreadsheets today—such as integrated revenue and profit planning, cost of goods sold (COGS) modeling, product allocation, and stock keeping unit (SKU) rationalization.


3.Oracle Hyperion Capital Asset Planning allows you to accurately assess the impact of capital decisions on overall expense plans.

With Oracle Hyperion Capital Asset Planning, you can:
a.Make Accurate and Predictable Forecasts
b.Simplify Implementation and Reduce Maintenance Burdens
c.Address All Planning Requirements with Customization Capabilities
d.Manage Expenses with Prebuilt Functionality and Best Practices
e.Assess the Financial Impact of Capital Asset Expenses in Real Time
f.Improve Plan Accuracy, Predictability, and Accountability
g.Automate the Planning Process
h.Gain Dependable Security over Data, Calculations, and Global Settings


There are still a lot about Hyperion Planning that were not included here. Please do send your comments and let me know if you find something wrong in this post. Like what i mentioned on my previous post, I'm still new in this area so your comments are most appreciated=)