Oracle has recently added 2 fantastic new methods that significantly improve our ability to minimize our scripts and reduce the effort to build and maintain them. The first is a method in the EPMScript class called cscParams. The second is in the cube class named executeEssbaseScript. Read more
A specialty chemical products company created an ASO reporting cube in ePBCS. This application housed detailed data that rolled up to a GL account. The problem was the source didn’t always tie to the GL due to restatements, GL entries, and manual corrections. Since they wanted the data to match to the book of record, but still have the level of reporting at the detailed level, they wanted to load data from both systems, calculate the variance, and store that variance so users would see the difference between the two sources. Read more
One thing that I have spent a lot of time on is making calculations independent of forms so that they can be used on any form. For example, rather than hard coding a script to look at a form with one column header and one row header, I am now building things to be dynamic so that the POV, the rows, and columns all are read dynamically and identifying the edited cells is independent of the source it is looking at. This will be a multi-post article because there is a lot to cover. Read more
Often times, there is a need to lock cells from a user outside of the traditional dimensional security methods. Maybe you don’t want to add dimensional security to accounts so your data push allows users to push data to another cube. Or, maybe there is more complicated logic to identify who can and who can’t edit a cell. The logic to do with is very simple. Read more
Data forms that have rules on them run when a user saves a form, regardless of whether the form has edited data. Sometimes this is by design, to let a user run a calculation. But, most of the time, it is an accident. There is no reason to use system resources and have the user wait for a calculation to finish when it doesn’t need to be executed. Read more
If you haven’t heard, we now have the ability to execute REST API within a calculation script. Not only does that mean we can interact with other environments and do things in calculations we couldn’t do before, we also have the ability to interact with any provider that has REST. You could pull current prices for products from Amazon. You could see how many open box items there are at area Best Buy stores. You could pull in currency rates. That doesn’t even touch on the things like DM processes, metadata updates, and application refreshes. You can even send emails!
Importing data directly into PBCS can be done in two ways. There is a planning format and an Essbase format. Yes, it can be loaded through Data Management, but this is focused on explaining the direct import process, the formats, and the benefits to each. Read more
Identifying the months to calculate plan and forecast has always been a delicate balance between performance and maintenance. Having a calculation for each required duplication of forms or calculating more than what was required. Calculations required more complicated if logic than what it should have or (I hate when I see this) a calculation that just does both forecast and plan regardless of what needs calculated. Read more
I don’t normally write up monthly updated, but this month there are a number of intriguing changes/updates/enhancements that are important to know. Some may change existing processes. This is not an exhaustive list, but these are things I think all of us should take note of. Read more
Have you ever used a variable and received this error? Error: Unable to retrieve variable [variable name] deployed in the application [app name] Rule [app name].[plan type name].[rule name]. You likely saw this when a Groovy variable was used inside of {}. Read more