Create Excel Groupings (Outline Levels) to show Essbase Hierarchies

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Working with people new to Essbase every three to six months, I am always looking for ways to show users their hierarchies effectively. Many of them don’t have access to Essbase administration services or EPMA.  So, I always fall back to excel as a distribution method, as well as documentation, to show hierarchies.

Expanding hierarchies to all descendants is a great way to show small hierarchies, but, I am always asked to make it a collapsible hierarchy using the Excel grouping feature. The challenge of doing this manually to a hierarchy with thousands of members is that it is extremely time consuming and very error prone.

The following script can be added to any workbook to automate this effort.

Sub CreateOutline()
    Dim cell As Range
    Dim iCount As Integer
    For Each cell In Selection
        'Check the number of spaces in front of the member name 
        'and divide by 5 (one level)
        iCount = (Len(cell.Value) - Len(Trim(cell.Value))) / 5
        'Only execute if the row is indented
        If iCount <> 0 Then cell.EntireRow.OutlineLevel = iCount
    Next cell
    MsgBox "Completed"
End Sub

Setup

First, this sub routine has to be added to a workbook.  Open up the visual basic editor. Right click on the workbook in the project explorer window and add a new module. Paste the code above in the new module.  The editor is in different places in different version.  In Excel 2007 and 2010, the Developer ribbon is not visible by default.  To make it visible, go to the navigator wheel and click Excel Options.  There is a checkbox named Show Developer Ribbon that will make this developer ribbon viewable.

How To Use

First, open the member selection option in the Essbase add-in or smart view and select the parent.  Add all its descendants.  Alternately, change the drill type to all descendants and zoom in on the member of the hierarchy.

Retrieve, or refresh, the data, and make sure the indent is set so the children are indented.  Now, highlight the range of cells that has the hierarchy/dimension that the grouping should be applied. This should include cells in one column of the worksheet.  Open the code editor and place the cursor inside the sub routine you added from above and click the green play triangle in the toolbar to execute the script.  When this is finished, go back to the worksheet with the hierarchy and it will have the hierarchy grouped.

Excel limits the level of groupings to eight. If the hierarchy has more than eight levels, they will be ignored. Now, the hierarchy can be expanded and collapsed for viewing.

Shortcut keys or toolbar buttons can be assigned to execute this function if it is used frequently. If you are interested in doing this, there are a plethora of how-to articles on this topic.  This Google search will get you started if you choose to go down that path.

So, the next time you need to explain a hierarchy in Essbase, or distribute it in a common format, hopefully this script will help.

 
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What’s New in Hyperion Essbase 11.1.2?

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Working with people new to Essbase every three to six months, I am always looking for ways to show users their hierarchies effectively. Many of them don’t have access to Essbase administration services or EPMA.  So, I always fall back to excel as a distribution method, as well as documentation, to show hierarchies.

Expanding hierarchies to all descendants is a great way to show small hierarchies, but, I am always asked to make it a collapsible hierarchy using the Excel grouping feature. The challenge of doing this manually to a hierarchy with thousands of members is that it is extremely time consuming and very error prone.

The following script can be added to any workbook to automate this effort.

Sub CreateOutline()
    Dim cell As Range
    Dim iCount As Integer
    For Each cell In Selection
        'Check the number of spaces in front of the member name 
        'and divide by 5 (one level)
        iCount = (Len(cell.Value) - Len(Trim(cell.Value))) / 5
        'Only execute if the row is indented
        If iCount <> 0 Then cell.EntireRow.OutlineLevel = iCount
    Next cell
    MsgBox "Completed"
End Sub

Setup

First, this sub routine has to be added to a workbook.  Open up the visual basic editor. Right click on the workbook in the project explorer window and add a new module. Paste the code above in the new module.  The editor is in different places in different version.  In Excel 2007 and 2010, the Developer ribbon is not visible by default.  To make it visible, go to the navigator wheel and click Excel Options.  There is a checkbox named Show Developer Ribbon that will make this developer ribbon viewable.

How To Use

First, open the member selection option in the Essbase add-in or smart view and select the parent.  Add all its descendants.  Alternately, change the drill type to all descendants and zoom in on the member of the hierarchy.

Retrieve, or refresh, the data, and make sure the indent is set so the children are indented.  Now, highlight the range of cells that has the hierarchy/dimension that the grouping should be applied. This should include cells in one column of the worksheet.  Open the code editor and place the cursor inside the sub routine you added from above and click the green play triangle in the toolbar to execute the script.  When this is finished, go back to the worksheet with the hierarchy and it will have the hierarchy grouped.

Excel limits the level of groupings to eight. If the hierarchy has more than eight levels, they will be ignored. Now, the hierarchy can be expanded and collapsed for viewing.

Shortcut keys or toolbar buttons can be assigned to execute this function if it is used frequently. If you are interested in doing this, there are a plethora of how-to articles on this topic.  This Google search will get you started if you choose to go down that path.

So, the next time you need to explain a hierarchy in Essbase, or distribute it in a common format, hopefully this script will help.

 
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What’s New in Hyperion Planning 11.1.2?

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What’s New in Hyperion 11.1.2?

Shared Services

 

As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, this has turned into a series of posts involving new features in the 11.1.2 release of the Hyperion products. This post will cover some of the significant changes to Shared Services, including improvements to Security Administration, Lifecycle Management, and Taskflows.

Security Administration

It’s been well-documented at this point that there have been multiple issues with the OpenLDAP approach to the Native Directory. In 11.1.2, the OpenLDAP has been replaced with a relational database as the storage point for native accounts and provisioning. This has already proven beneficial, as it allows for the next improvement below.
There is no longer a need for Essbase synchronization for users, as it is now done automatically. This is a welcome change from most, as it was always very easy to forget to refresh security. However, group synchronization must still be done manually.
The supported SSL configurations have also seen significant improvements. These include:
  1. SSL Offloading
  2. 2-way SSL deployment
  3. SSL termination at the web server
Oracle Single Sign-On (OSSO) is also supported in this release. The Oracle Internet Directory (OID) is used to provide SSO access to web applications.

Lifecycle Management (LCM)

Like the rest of Shared Services, LCM has adopted Oracle Diagnostics Logging (ODL) as the standard logging mechanism.
Perhaps the biggest improvement to LCM is that it now supports the extraction of data. Essbase data now appears as a selectable artifact when performing an export, and can be updated with the outline. On this note, I should probably point out that for cross-product migrations, LCM determines the correct order based on dependencies.
Some other modifications to LCM include:
  1. Additional information in migration status reports, including source and destination details.
  2. Users must be provisioned with the Shared Services Administrator role to work with the Deployment Metadata tool.
  3. The Calc Manager is supported, and has its own node under Foundation. As a result, business rules can now be migrated to classic HFM and Planning applications.

Shared Services Taskflow

This release has seen the addition of two new roles in Shared Services
  1. Manage Taskflows – This role allows users to create and edit a taskflow
  2. Run Taskflows – This role permits users to view and run a taskflow, but they cannot create or edit taskflows

 

Follow the link below to view the complete document of changes
 
 
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