Oracle Hyperion Planning

Administrator's Guide

Release 11.1.2.4

Updated: March 2015

Planning Administrator's Guide, 11.1.2.4

Copyright 2001, 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Authors: EPM Information Development Team

This software and related documentation are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use anddisclosure and are protected by intellectual property laws. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement orallowed by law, you may not use, copy, reproduce, translate, broadcast, modify, license, transmit, distribute, exhibit,perform, publish, or display any part, in any form, or by any means. Reverse engineering, disassembly, or decompilationof this software, unless required by law for interoperability, is prohibited.

The information contained herein is subject to change without notice and is not warranted to be error-free. If you findany errors, please report them to us in writing.

If this is software or related documentation that is delivered to the U.S. Government or anyone licensing it on behalf ofthe U.S. Government, then the following notice is applicable:

U.S. GOVERNMENT END USERS:

Oracle programs, including any operating system, integrated software, any programs installed on the hardware, and/ordocumentation, delivered to U.S. Government end users are "commercial computer software" pursuant to the applicableFederal Acquisition Regulation and agency-specific supplemental regulations. As such, use, duplication, disclosure,modification, and adaptation of the programs, including any operating system, integrated software, any programs installedon the hardware, and/or documentation, shall be subject to license terms and license restrictions applicable to the programs.No other rights are granted to the U.S. Government.

This software or hardware is developed for general use in a variety of information management applications. It is notdeveloped or intended for use in any inherently dangerous applications, including applications that may create a risk ofpersonal injury. If you use this software or hardware in dangerous applications, then you shall be responsible to take allappropriate fail-safe, backup, redundancy, and other measures to ensure its safe use. Oracle Corporation and its affiliatesdisclaim any liability for any damages caused by use of this software or hardware in dangerous applications.

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Intel and Intel Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. All SPARC trademarks are used underlicense and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. AMD, Opteron, the AMD logo, and theAMD Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices. UNIX is a registered trademarkof The Open Group.

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Contents

Documentation Accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Documentation Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 1. Using Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

About Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Planning Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Important Information on New Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Planning Web Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Performance Management Architect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

EPM Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Lifecycle Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Essbase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Financial Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Business Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Web Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Predictive Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

User Licensing for Third-Party Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Planning Usage Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Setting Up Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Building Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Launching Business Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Starting the Budget Review Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Post-Planning Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Chapter 2. Getting Started with Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

About Planning Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Starting Essbase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Considerations for Working with Essbase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Understanding Implied Sharing in Planning Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Connecting to Multiple Instances of Essbase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

iii

Starting the Relational Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Optimizing SQL Relational Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Setting Application and System Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Changing the JDBC Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Configuring JDBC Connection Pooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Configuring Data Synchronization on UNIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Setting Offline Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Controlling Smart View Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Showing New Planning Members in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Setting the Application Home Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Setting Background Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Setting Business Rules Launch Logging Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Setting Data Validation Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Setting the Maximum Length for Text Values and Comments in Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Managing Dimensions from Within Deployed Planning Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Controlling Smart View Cell Formatting in Planning Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Setting the Maximum Number of Members Displayed in the Simplified Interface . . . . 47

Setting Threshold Limits for Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Logging On to EPM Workspace and Accessing Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Using the Simplified Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Logging On to the Simplified Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Enabling Access to Planning Artifacts On Mobile Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Considerations When Using the Simplified Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

About Cell Formatting When Using the Simplified Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Copying and Pasting Data Between Microsoft Excel and Planning Web Forms . . . . . . 52

About Instant Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

About Autosave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Working with Planning Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Suppressing Password Prompts in Planning Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

About Text Files for Planning Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Running Planning Utilities on UNIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

About EPM Oracle Instance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Using Application Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

About Updating Instances and Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Closing Planning and Essbase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Chapter 3. Setting Up Access Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Levels of Access Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Planning Artifacts That Can Be Assigned Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

iv

Types of Access Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Enabling Access Permissions for Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Assigning Access to Members and Business Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Adding, Editing, and Removing Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

About Effective Access Permissions to Shared Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Managing Access to Forms and Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Assigning Access to Forms and Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Adding, Changing, and Removing Access to Forms and Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Importing Access Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Improving Performance When Importing Access Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Exporting Access Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Reporting on Access Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Selecting Reporting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Selecting Reporting Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Working with Access Permissions Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Setting Up Audit Trails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Examples of Tracked Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Viewing and Clearing Audit Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Managing Security Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Synchronizing Users With the Provision Users Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Migrating User and Group Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Migrating Business Rule Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Removing Stale User Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Setting Up Access Permissions in Financial Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Chapter 4. Managing Planning Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Unlocking Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Using Broadcast Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Viewing Usage Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Creating and Refreshing Application Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Managing Exchange Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Creating Exchange Rate Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Editing Exchange Rate Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Deleting Exchange Rate Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Managing Currency Conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Working with Currency Conversion Calculation Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Optimizing Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

About Reordering Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Allocating Memory for Supporting Detail Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

v

Configuring the Data and Index Cache Sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Other Performance Optimization Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Backing Up Applications and Application Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Chapter 5. Importing and Exporting Data and Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

About Loading Dynamic Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Loading Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Working with the Outline Load Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Command Properties File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Generating Load Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Importing Data and Metadata Using a Flat File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Importing Data and Metadata from a Relational Data Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Exporting Data and Metadata from a Planning Application to a Flat File . . . . . . . . . 113

Exporting Metadata from a Planning Application to a Relational Data Source . . . . . . 115

Command Line Parameters for the Outline Load Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Dimension Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Working with Planning Import and Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Running Planning Import and Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Importing Metadata from a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Importing Data from a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Exporting Metadata to a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Exporting Data to a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Data Integrator Adapter for Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Using DIM Adapter for Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Enabling Data Load of Essbase Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Loading from Administration Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

File Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Loading with Performance Management Architect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Chapter 6. Managing Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

About Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Form Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Form Design Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Creating Simple Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Setting Form Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Setting Form Precision and Other Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Creating Asymmetric Rows and Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Adding Formula Rows and Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Defining Simple Form Page and Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

vi

Importing Form Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Creating Composite Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Setting Composite Form Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Setting Composite Form Section Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Setting Composite Form Point of View and Page Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Creating Master Composite Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Embedding Charts in Composite Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Designing Specific Types of Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Designing Forms for Multiple Currencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Designing Forms for Drill-Through Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Designing Forms with Formula Rows and Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Designing Forms with Data Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Designing Forms with Global Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Designing Forms for Rolling Forecasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Working with Forms and Form Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Selecting and Opening Forms and Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Previewing Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Printing Form Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Searching for Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Editing Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Moving, Deleting, and Renaming Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Importing and Exporting Form Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Specifying How Many Forms Users Can Simultaneously Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Using Grid Diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Using Business Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Planning Offline Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

How Cell Formatting in Smart View Persists in Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Working with Substitution Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Working with User Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Chapter 7. Using the Member Selector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

About Working with Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Selecting Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Using Wildcards in Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

About Selecting Attribute Values as Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

About Selecting Members for Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

About Selecting Substitution Variables as Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

About Selecting User Variables as Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

vii

Chapter 8. Managing Data Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Creating and Updating Data Validation Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Formatting Cells and Setting the Promotional Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Viewing Data Validation Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Order of Evaluation and Execution for Data Validation Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Conditions Supported by the Rule Builder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

If Condition Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Then Condition Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Range Condition Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Data Validation Conditional Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Data Validation Rule Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Scenario 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Scenario 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Scenario 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Scenario 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Scenario 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Chapter 9. Managing the Budgeting Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

About the Budgeting Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Planning Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Review Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Planning Unit Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Data Validation Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Task Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Setting Up Email for Approvals Notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Defining the Budgeting Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Approvals Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Approvals Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Approval Operations and Data Validations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Starting and Supporting the Review Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Printing Planning Unit Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Managing Planning Unit Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Creating Planning Unit Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Assigning Planning Unit Hierarchy Scenario and Version Combinations . . . . . . . . . 253

Selecting Planning Unit Hierarchy Scenario and Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Editing Planning Unit Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Deleting and Renaming Planning Unit Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Viewing Planning Unit Hierarchy Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Synchronizing Planning Unit Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

viii

Exporting Planning Unit Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Importing Planning Unit Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Planning Unit Promotional Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Modifying the Planning Unit Promotional Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Design Considerations for Planning Unit Promotional Path Data Validation Rules . . 261

Managing Task Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Working with Task List Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Working with Task Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Adding Instructions to Task Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Adding and Defining Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Adding Tasks to Task Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Editing Task Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Linking Tasks to Planning Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Assigning Access to Task Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Importing and Exporting Task Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Copying Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Clearing Cell Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Chapter 10. Working with an Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Managing Forms and Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Creating Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Working with Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

About Setting Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Setting Personal Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Setting Application Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Specifying System Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Assigning Applications to Shared Services Application Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Limiting Use of an Application During Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Using the MaintenanceMode Utility to Limit Application Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Specifying Custom Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Setting Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Setting Printing Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Mapping an Application for Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

About the Reporting Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Creating a Reporting Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Mapping a Planning Application to a Reporting Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Defining Application Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Defining Dimension Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Setting the Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

ix

Validation Rules for Default Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

Pushing Data to a Reporting Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Pushing Data with a Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Unsupported Features with Mapping Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Mapping Applications and Substitution Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Adding an Essbase Server for Reporting Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Editing an Essbase Server for Reporting Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Removing an Essbase Server for Reporting Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Deleting Application Information Using SQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Deleting Account Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Deleting Supporting Detail Associated With a Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Chapter 11. Working with Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Creating and Updating Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Working with Menu Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Adding or Changing Menu Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Chapter 12. Working with Planning Application Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

About Creating Applications with Performance Management Architect and PlanningApplication Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Setting Up Applications Using Planning Application Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Managing Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Managing Data Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Managing Upgrades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

About Monitoring and Optimizing Performance Using the Application Monitor . . . . . . 312

Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

How the Application Monitor Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Using the Application Monitor Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Setting Limits for Application Monitor Warning and Error Thresholds . . . . . . . . . . 314

Launching the Application Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Modifying Artifacts for Optimal Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Working with Alias Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

About Alias Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Creating Alias Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Editing or Renaming Alias Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Deleting Alias Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Clearing Alias Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Copying Alias Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Specifying a Default Alias Table, and Setting Member and Alias Display Options . . . 318

Working with Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

x

Dimension Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Working with Dimension Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Viewing a Members Ancestors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Determining Where Members Are Used in an Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

About Custom Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

About Entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Base Currency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

About Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Accounts, Entities, and Plan Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

About User-Defined Custom Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

Adding or Editing User-Defined Custom Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Working with Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Working with Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Working with Attribute Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Customizing Calendars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Setting Up Currencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Enabling Multiple Currencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

Specifying Exchange Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Setting Up Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Specifying Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Sorting Version and Scenario Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Moving Scenario and Version Members in the Dimension Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Adding an Aggregate Storage Outline to a Planning Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

About Aggregate Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Aggregate Storage Outline Plan Type Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Process for Adding an Aggregate Storage Database to a Planning Application . . . . . . 362

Adding Plan Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

Setting up Dynamic Time Series Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Additional Supported Planning Application Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Considerations for Alternate Hierarchies in Period Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Working with Applications that Use Planning Application Administration . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Refreshing Application Databases Using a Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Refreshing Databases with Level 0 Members Set to Dynamic Calc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Working With Essbase Partitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Sorting Members Using a Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Deleting Shared Descendants Using a Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Using Smart Lists, UDAs, and Member Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Working with Smart Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Working with UDAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

xi

Working with Member Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Chapter 13. Customizing Planning Web Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Customizing Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Customizing the Planning Tools Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Customizing Cascading Style Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Location of Cascading Style Sheet Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Modifying Cascading Style Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Customization Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Customizing the Style of Row and Column Members in Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Customizing the Style of Header Cells in Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Applying Bolding to All Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Applying Bolding to One Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Customizing Skins to Add Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Registering Customized Skins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

About Customizing ADF Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

About Customizing Text, Color, and Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Customizing Text, Color, and Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Customizing Text in Non-Latin Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Restricted Characters in Customized Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Customizing Colors, States, and Actions for Process Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Customizing Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Customizing States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Customizing Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Creating Spreading Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Examples of Spreading Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

Creating Instructions for Planners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Chapter 14. Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Calculation Script is Too Long or Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Cannot Find Member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Cannot Process Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Conflicting Change by Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Copy Version Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Currency Conversion Calculation Script Failed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Form Error Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Database Locked by Another Administrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

500 Error Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Implied Sharing Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Invalid Value When Entering Date Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

xii

Manage Database Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Maximum Number of Applications Already Connected or Database is Locked . . . . . . . . 406

Optimizing WebLogic Server Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Optimizing Windows Network Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

Registering a Restored Application with Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

Session Timeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Slow Performance in Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Slow Performance When Opening Forms Using a Dial-Up Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Unable to Create Application Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Unable to Refresh Application Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Unsuccessful Log On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

Appendix A. Naming Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Restrictions for Applications and Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Restrictions for Dimensions, Members, Aliases, and Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Dimension and Member Names in Calculation Scripts, Report Scripts, Formulas, Filters,and Substitution Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Restrictions for User Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

Appendix B. Form Formula Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Using Formulas and Formula Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Creating Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Editing Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Deleting Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Formula Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Abs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

Average . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

AverageA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

CountA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Eval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

IfThen, If . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Min . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Mod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

PercentOfTotal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Pi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

xiii

Random . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Rank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Round . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Sqrt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Sum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Truncate/Trunc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

Variance/Var . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

VariancePercent/VarPer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Appendix C. Custom-defined Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

@HspNumToString . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

@HspDateDiff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

@HspDateRoll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

@HspDateToString . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

@HspGetMbrCount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

@HspGetMbrIndex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

@HspNthMbr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

@HspStringCompare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

@HspOffsetIdx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

@HspStringCompareArray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

@HspConcat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

Appendix D. Using Smart View to Import and Edit Planning Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Importing Planning Dimensions in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Importing Dimensions in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Using Smart View Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Editing Members in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

Adding Planning Members in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

Selecting the Add Mode within Planning Application Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

Adding Members in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

Guidelines for Adding Members in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Moving Members in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Guidelines for Moving Members in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Designating Shared Members in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Refreshing and Creating Cubes in Smart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

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18

1Using Planning

In This Chapter

About Planning ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Planning Features ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Important Information on New Features ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

Smart View... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

Planning Web Client .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

Performance Management Architect .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

EPM Workspace ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Lifecycle Management.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Essbase ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Financial Reporting .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Business Rules ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Web Analysis .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Predictive Planning... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

User Licensing for Third-Party Software ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Planning Usage Scenario.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

About PlanningUse Oracle Hyperion Planning to drive collaborative, event-based planning processes. Decision-makers and managers collaborate with budget holders to optimize the planning process,adapting rapidly and ensuring optimal plans.

Planning FeaturesPlanning:

l Facilitates collaboration, communication, and control across multidivisional globalenterprises

l Provides a framework for perpetual planning, to manage volatility and frequent planningcycles

l Provides ease of use and deployment through the Web or Oracle Smart View for Office

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l Decreases the total cost of ownership through a shorter roll out and implementation phase,and easier maintenance for an application

l Enhances decision-making with reporting, analysis, and planning

l Promotes modeling with complex business rules and allocations

l Integrates with other systems to load data

Important Information on New FeaturesFor important information on using Planning new features, see Oracle Hyperion Planning NewFeatures for the current release.

Note: Planning no longer supports the Classic user interface (that is, up to and includingPlanning Release 11.1.2.1).

Smart ViewSmart View is the Microsoft Office interface to Planning, where users can perform their planningand forecasting activities. Smart View also enables users to work offline in disconnect mode.They can analyze Planning data in Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Ad hocgrids in Smart View enable Planning users to personalize focused data slices that they frequentlyaccess and share them with others through Smart View or Planning. See the Working with AdHoc Grids chapter in the Oracle Hyperion Planning User's Guide and the Oracle Smart View forOffice User's Guide.

Planning Web ClientPlanning provides complete functionality for Web users. Use the Web interface to roll outapplications to large, distributed organizations without installing software on client computers.All software resides on the server. Many administrative features that were formerly in thePlanning Desktop are now available through Planning Web. Other administrative features, suchas creating and administering applications and dimensions, are now available through OracleHyperion EPM Architect.

Performance Management ArchitectPerformance Management Architect is a component of Planning installation and configuration.You use it to create and work with Planning applications and dimensions, Smart Lists, UDAs,member formulas, and other features. You can also create business rules.

With Performance Management Architect, you can view, create, and validate PerformanceManagement Architect applications, and deploy them to create Planning applications.

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Deploying applications from Performance Management Architect to Planning is a long-runningoperation. The initial deployment may take more time than subsequent re-deployments.

Performance Management Architect applications can contain business rules created using theOracle Hyperion Calculation Manager module in Performance Management Architect. Forassistance on tasks performed in Performance Management Architect, see the Oracle HyperionEnterprise Performance Management Architect Administrator's Guide. For information oninstalling and configuring Performance Management Architect, see the Oracle EnterprisePerformance Management System Installation and Configuration Guide.

EPM WorkspacePlanning is available within Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management Workspace.For information on EPM Workspace features, such as EPM Workspace preferences, see theOracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management Workspace User's Guide or Oracle HyperionEnterprise Performance Management Workspace Administrator's Guide. To log on to EPMWorkspace, see Logging On to EPM Workspace and Accessing Planning on page 50.

Lifecycle ManagementOracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management System Lifecycle Management providesa consistent way for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System products to migratean application, a repository, or individual artifacts across product environments and operatingsystems. Generally, the Lifecycle Management interface in Oracle Hyperion Shared ServicesConsole is consistent for all EPM System products that support Lifecycle Management. However,EPM System products display different artifact listings and export and import options in theLifecycle Management interface.

Lifecycle Management features:

l Viewing applications and folders

l Searching for artifacts

l Migrating directly from one application to another

l Migrating to and from the file system

l Saving and loading migration definition files

l Viewing selected artifacts

l Auditing migrations

l Viewing the status of migrations

l Importing and exporting individual artifacts for quick changes on the file system

In addition to providing the Lifecycle Management interface in Shared Services Console, thereis a command-line utility called Lifecycle Management Utility that provides an alternate way tomigrate artifacts from source to destination. The Lifecycle Management Utility can be used witha third-party scheduling service such as Windows Task Scheduler or Oracle Enterprise Manager.

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Lastly, there is a Lifecycle Management Application Programming Interface (API) that enablesusers to customize and extend the Lifecycle Management functionality.

For detailed information about Lifecycle Management, see the Oracle Enterprise PerformanceManagement System Lifecycle Management Guide.

EssbasePlanning leverages Oracle Essbase analytic and calculation capabilities, security filters, APIs, pre-built financial intelligence, calculation functions, and multi-database application support.Planning stores the application definition in a relational database, and creates Essbase databasesand security privileges for applications.

Data sources are used to link the relational database and the Essbase server, and are associatedwith each Planning application. For information on creating data sources for Planningapplication administration, see Managing Data Sources on page 306. For information on datasources for Planning applications created in Performance Management Architect, see the OracleHyperion Enterprise Performance Management Architect Administrator's Guide.

Financial Reporting Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting is a management reporting tool that transforms data intomeaningful business information through highly formatted reports. Planning users can useFinancial Reporting to manage reporting tasks and implement plan review and analysis. Userscan create reports featuring text, grids of data, charts, graphs, and images. They can use real-time, ad hoc variance reporting, and produce a variety of sophisticated financial reports that canbe viewed online or printed with production-quality formatting.

Business RulesBusiness rules perform complicated calculations through predefined formulas, variables,calculation scripts, macros, rulesets, and templates. See Using Business Rules on page 189.

Web AnalysisOracle Hyperion Web Analysis is an analysis, presentation, and reporting solution. It allowsorganizations to deliver information to large user communities at a low cost.

Predictive PlanningWith Predictive Planning, users can work in Planning forms to predict performance based onhistorical data. Predictive Planning uses sophisticated time-series and autoregressive integratedmoving average (ARIMA) statistical techniques to confirm and validate predictions entered into

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Planning based on other prediction methods. To use this feature, administrators must designforms as described in the Oracle Hyperion Planning Predictive Planning User's Guide. Then, if avalid Planning form is loaded in Smart View, users can access Predictive Planning functionalityfrom the Planning menu or ribbon. (For installation instructions, see the Oracle EnterprisePerformance Management System Installation and Configuration Guide.)

User Licensing for Third-Party SoftwareTo use Planning, you must purchase licenses from third-party vendors, for example, for arelational database and Web application server.

Planning Usage ScenarioYou create applications using Performance Management Architect application administration,and deploy them to create Planning applications. Applications contain dimensions anddimension attributes designed to meet Planning needs, such as accounts, entities, scenarios, andother dimension elements. You can create an unlimited number of applications. For informationabout Performance Management Architect, see the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise PerformanceManagement Architect Administrator's Guide.

These topics outline how Planning is used:

l Deployment on page 23

l Setting Up Applications on page 24

l Building Plans on page 29

l Launching Business Rules on page 29

l Starting the Budget Review Process on page 29

l Post-Planning Activities on page 31

DeploymentAn IT professional installs and configures Planning on server computers and client workstations.The IT professional should have experience administering relational databases, installing client/server and Web server software, and configuring user directories.

Table 1 Server Installation

User Task

IT professional Installs Planning system requirements, including operating systems, relational database, Web server, application server,and Web browser

IT professional Installs Essbase

IT professional Sets up the data source name (DSN) for the OLAP and relational databases

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User Task

IT professional Installs Planning and Financial Reporting

IT professional Creates relational databases and connections

IT professional Configures the Web server

IT professional Sets up users in an external user directory

IT professional Optional: Creates a test application with users

IT professional Tests installation and configuration

Table 2 Client Installation Users and Tasks

User Task

IT professional Installs the Planning remote Windows client, Smart View, Microsoft Excel, and Financial Reporting

IT professional Installs a Web browser

IT professional Tests connections to the Web and network

Setting Up Applications

Subtopics

l Creating Metadata

l Defining Users and Access Permissions

l Creating and Refreshing Applications

l Designing Forms

l Designing Worksheets

l Populating Applications with Data

l Creating Business Rules

l Setting Targets

l Creating Tasks Lists

l Reporting

l Initializing Planning Cycles

Setting up applications includes the tasks listed in this section. Administrators can also set upapplications using Performance Management Architect application administration, and deploythem to Planning. See the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management ArchitectAdministrator's Guide.

Creating MetadataConsulting partners and the Planning administrator design applications and create anapplication framework with Performance Management Architect application administration.

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There is only one application owner per application. The owner can grant ownership to anotheradministrator. The application framework includes:

l Application name

l Number and names of plan types

l Calendar structure

l Whether the application is a multicurrency application

l Default currency

After the application framework is created, dimensions and members are added to theapplication and assigned to the plan type in Performance Management Architect. There are upto eight required dimensions in an application:

l Currency (for multicurrency applications)

l HSP_Rates (for multicurrency applications)

l Account

l Entity

l Scenario

l Version

l Period

l Year

Table 3 Creating Metadata

User Task

Administrator Designs and creates applications

Administrator Defines metadata (currencies, scenarios, versions, calendar)

Administrator Enters exchange rates

Administrator Defines attributes and attribute values

Administrator Loads custom dimensions

Defining Users and Access PermissionsAn IT professional defines users and groups and configures a user directory before users canaccess Planning applications. For detailed information, see the Oracle Enterprise PerformanceManagement System User Security Administration Guide. Within Planning, you assign users orgroups to secured objects.

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Table 4 Setting Up Users and Access Permissions

User Task

IT professional Sets up Planning users with a supported user directory

Administrator Synchronizes users in the user directory with a Planning application

Administrator Assigns access permissions to users and groups

Administrator Assigns access permissions to dimensions, members, forms, folders, and task lists in Planning (see Chapter 3, SettingUp Access Permissions)

Creating and Refreshing ApplicationsAdministrators create and periodically refresh the Essbase outline and security structure for thePlanning application. The outline and security structure are created based on metadata storedin the Planning applications relational database. Planning creates:

l An Essbase application

l Multiple Essbase databases (one per plan type)

l Essbase access permissions filters

l Essbase outlines (all metadata):

m Members

m Shared members

m User-defined attributes and attribute values

m Exchange rates

Table 5 Generating Databases

User Task

Administrator Creates and refreshes Planning applications based on metadata stored in the applications relational database

Designing Forms

Table 6 Designing Forms

User Task

Administrator and interactive user Creates and maintains forms in Planning

Administrator and interactive user Creates and manages folders in Planning for form management

Administrator Assigns access permissions to forms and folders

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Designing WorksheetsPlanning users can install Smart View to work with forms in Excel to leverage Excel worksheetmodels, build custom formulas, format reports, and work disconnected from Planning.

Populating Applications with DataAdministrators and interactive users use Performance Management Architect applicationadministration to pre-populate Planning applications with data. See the Oracle HyperionEnterprise Performance Management Architect Administrator's Guide.

Table 7 Populating Applications with Data

User Task

Administrator Use Copy Data to copy plans from one dimensional intersection to another, including relational dataand supporting detail

Administrator and interactive user Performs bulk loads

Any user Enters values for global saved assumptions referenced in business rules

Any user Enters data into the Planning application through forms or Smart View

Any user Calculates and creates data using business rules or Copy Version

Creating Business Rules

Table 8 Creating Business Rules

User Task

Administrator Assigns users access permissions to business rules

Administrator and interactive user Creates business rules. See theOracle Enterprise Performance ManagementSystem User Security Administration Guide for information on CalculationManager roles and rights.

Administrator, interactive user, and planners who areassigned launch access permissions by anadministrator

Launches business rules for Planning applications

For information on administering business rules, see the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise PerformanceManagement Architect Administrator's Guide.

See also Using Business Rules on page 189.

Setting TargetsAdministrators set target type versions for Planning applications. User access to target data isdetermined by access permissions. Typically, target data is stored in the upper levels of metadata,such as Business Unit. Administrators configure the Essbase database so target data is notreplaced by lower-level #MISSING values.

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Target data is typically used as guidance for data entry and analysis. Create it, for example,though:

l Manual data entry

l Modeling with business rules

l Pushing targets down to lower-level members using business rules

Table 9 Setting Targets

User Type Task

Administrator Adds a standard target-type version

Administrator Assigns users access permissions (typically, read-only) to the target version

Administrator Configures the Essbase database so target data is not replaced by lower-level #MISSING values

Any user Creates target data

Administrator Publishes targets using Financial Reporting

Any user Displays targets on forms for guidance or input

Creating Tasks Lists

Table 10 Task Lists

User Type Task

Administrator Creates task lists that structure the budgeting process for users

Administrator Assigns access permissions to task lists and tasks

ReportingUse Financial Reporting to create reports for Windows or Web-enabled clients. FinancialReporting uses Essbase databases and adheres to Essbase access permissions filters generated byPlanning.

Table 11 Reporting

User Type Task

Administrator and interactive user Creates and launches reports using Financial Reporting

Any user Prints reports

Any user Views reports throughout the planning cycle

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Initializing Planning Cycles

Table 12 Initializing Planning Cycles

User Type Task

Administrator Selects planning units for iterative review, analysis, and approval

Any user Specifies whether to receive email after becoming planning unit owners

Building PlansAdministrators define task lists to guide users through the planning process. Planning users startthe planning cycle by logging into an application and opening forms. Users read forminstructions and review historical or target data for guidance when preparing plans. Foradditional user tasks, see the Oracle Hyperion Planning User's Guide.

Users can save data in forms, and can refresh currently stored data values in forms before saving.Users can restore data to the last saved version, and save a personal version using Copy Version.When users save:

l Data is saved to the Essbase database.

l Subtotals on forms are calculated and stored if the Calculate Form business rule is selectedto run on save when forms are created. (By default, this business rule is not selected to runon save.)

l Business rules are launched to calculate data.

Launching Business RulesThe business rules available to users depend on access permissions. Administrators can assignlaunch access permissions to business rules from within Planning (see Chapter 3, Setting UpAccess Permissions). For more information on business rule access permissions, also see theOracle Enterprise Performance Management System User Security Administration Guide.

Users with launch permissions can launch business rules from Planning or Smart View.

Starting the Budget Review ProcessYou track budgets and review status, process issues, and planning unit ownership using planningunits. Planning units are combinations of scenario, version, and entity or part of an entity.Scenarios and versions are the basis of the review cycle. The planning unit moves from onereviewer to another until the budget process is complete. The review process follows thepromotional path you set up when you select the owner and reviewers for a planning unit, unlessan event triggers a change in the promotional path.

Before a planning unit is started, anyone with write access can modify data associated with theplanning unit. However, once the planning unit is started, the ability to modify data is dependantupon the user type:

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l Approvals AdministratorThe Approvals Administrator is responsible for defining andsetting up the approvals process. Once the planning unit hierarchy is defined, the ApprovalsAdministrator begins the approvals process by starting the planning unit.

l Approvals OwnerWhen the Approvals Owner receives ownership of a planning unit, theyare allowed to review the planning unit, modify any data associated with the planning unit,and they may enter comments.

l Approvals ReviewerWhen the Approvals Reviewer receives ownership of a planning unit,they are allowed to review the planning unit and they may enter comments. Reviewers arenot allowed to modify data associated with the planning unit.

l Approvals NotifierThe Approvals Notifier is an interested party that receives emailnotifications when a planning unit transitions to another user.

For detailed information about the approvals process, see Chapter 9, Managing the BudgetingProcess.

Table 13 Starting the Budget Review Process

Users Tasks

Administrators Starts the planning unit for the planning cycle

Users with access Enters data

Users with access Calculates data

Users with access Optionally, creates a copy of submissions

Users with access Promotes data for review

Users with access Enters annotations to support the review process.

Note: Until an owner is established for a planning unit, multiple users can update it. Accesspermissions for non-owners are changed to read-only when the planning unit is promoted to thenext reviewer.

Users with access Notifies reviewers that the planning unit is ready for review

Users with access Reviews data in the promoted planning unit

Users with access Reads and modifies promoted data through forms

Users with access Runs business rules

Users with access Reads promoted data using Financial Reporting, Oracle Hyperion Web Analysis, Smart View, or third-party reporting tools

Users with access Modifies data values, enters annotations, signs off on planning units, and promotes, rejects, andapproves planning units

Administrators Checks the planning process status

Administrators Reads supporting annotations

Administrators Views the audit trail

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Users Tasks

Administrators Completes the planning cycle

Administrators Changes user access of scenarios and versions in Essbase to read-only

Administrators and interactive users Publishes reports using Financial Reporting

Post-Planning ActivitiesTable 14 Post-Planning Activities

Users Tasks

Administrators and interactiveusers

Upload planning data by scenario to other applications, a general ledger, or an ERP

Users with access Copies a version of the completed plan to a new version or copies data from one dimensionalintersection to another

Administrator and interactive user Performs bulk loads of the latest actuals data to report on actual performance versus plan

Users with access Accesses forms, Financial Reporting, Smart View, or third-party reporting tools to read updates toactuals and analyze performance to plan

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2Getting Started with Planning

In This Chapter

About Planning Applications ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Starting Essbase ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

Considerations for Working with Essbase... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

Understanding Implied Sharing in Planning Forms ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Connecting to Multiple Instances of Essbase ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Starting the Relational Database... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Optimizing SQL Relational Databases ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Setting Application and System Properties.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

Logging On to EPM Workspace and Accessing Planning ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Using the Simplified Interface ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

Working with Planning Utilities.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54

Using Application Servers .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

About Updating Instances and Clusters .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Closing Planning and Essbase... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

About Planning ApplicationsA Planning application is a related set of dimensions and dimension members used to meet aset of planning needs. Each application has its own accounts, entities, scenarios, and other dataelements.

You can work with applications using Performance Management Architect and Planningapplication administration. See the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance ManagementArchitect Administrator's Guide for these Performance Management Architect applicationadministration tasks:

l Creating an application in Performance Management Architect and deploying it to create aPlanning application.

l Creating entities to reflect your organizations budget structure.

l Creating accounts and dimensions for gathering planning data.

l Creating scenarios and versions.

l Modifying the calendar with any custom summary time periods needed by yourorganization.

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l For multicurrency applications, specifying the base currency, currency code and symbol,triangulation currency, reporting currency, and exchange rate type.

l Creating business rules in Calculation Manager.

See this guide for Planning application administration tasks, including:

l Creating, deleting, and registering Planning applications.

l Creating forms, task lists, and menus.

l Assigning access permissions for dimension members, task lists, forms, and form folders.See Chapter 3, Setting Up Access Permissions and theOracle Enterprise PerformanceManagement System User Security Administration Guide and its information on Planning.

l Managing currency conversion and exchange rate tables.

l Identifying the review and approval process, requirements, and participants, and managingthe budgeting process.

For information on installing and configuring Planning and Perfor