He who fails to plan, plans to fail. | ||
| --—Winston Churchill | ||
Welcome!
In this first chapter, we will understand the basics of Oracle Hyperion Planning. In the process of understanding the basics of Oracle Hyperion Planning, we are going to introduce the gamut of complementing products for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). The chapter covers the following sections:
Planning, budgeting, and forecasting: In this section, we'll understand the basic definitions of planning, budgeting and forecasting with an example.
Budget software and Oracle Hyperion Planning: We'll understand the importance of budget software. We'll look into the current challenges faced in the budgeting process and how Oracle Hyperion Planning addresses them.
Oracle Hyperion Planning Architecture: In this section, we'll learn about the components of Oracle Hyperion Planning architecture.
Oracle Hyperion Planning is defined as a Web-based planning, budgeting, and forecasting software. We'll understand these three terms in this section with the help of some casual conversation between two gentlemen: John and Sam, given as follows:
John: Sam! Congratulations on your newly-bought apartment. How did you manage to buy it, considering it's a very expensive apartment worth 80,000 USD?
Sam: Thanks John. I have been saving money for some time to buy an apartment and managed to save 30,000 USD. The rest I got by taking out a home loan of 50,000 USD over a period of 15 years. I am pretty sure that apartment rates are going to increase in the near future.
John: That's good. But, how advisable is it, financially, to take such a huge home loan, considering you are going to re-pay a lot of money in the form of EMI's (Equated Monthly Installment to bank) every month? I hope, you don't end up paying more money to the bank.
Sam: Yes, you are right and that's the reason I am planning to repay the whole home loan amount in eight years rather than paying all 15 years and I forecast that the apartment price will appreciate from 80K USD to 100 K USD in three years. To save more money, I have started cutting down my personal expenses such as shopping, travel, and so on.
John: That's smart, so you have done all your planning already! Good luck.
This is a conversation that we might have heard or engaged in. The important observation from this conversation is that Sam has been 'planning'. Yes, the keyword is planning.
He planned and as per his plan, he saved money, and approached a bank for a home loan. He also planned to repay the loan amount quickly and he forecasts that his apartment price will appreciate by 20K USD in the duration of three years.
It would have not been possible for Sam to achieve his goal of buying an apartment without proper planning. If Sam has been living his life as if there is no tomorrow, then there is no plan and there is no prosperity too.
Therefore, individuals such as Sam plan and so do the corporate organizations. No organization is in the business with an objective to achieve nothing or make losses. The common goal is profit making that is generating more revenue. To achieve so, organizations plan.
Now, let us understand the definitions of planning, budgeting, and forecasting, and also understand the hidden, subtle differences between them.
The process of preparing for the future is planning. As a part of planning, Sam has to firstly set his goal. His goal was to purchase an apartment. To achieve it, Sam has to do initial research of his preferred location to buy an apartment, find out the market price, figure out the reputed builders, and many other such factors.
After rounding an apartment to buy, he'll start his financial plan to save and approach a bank for home loan. This is a simple plan. Now, let us try to relate the same to an organization.
Organizations initially set their goals or targets and plan accordingly. Hence, we define planning as the set of activities to achieve goal in preparing the future.
As a part of planning, generally, an organization has two types of plans:
Strategic planning : A strategic plan includes the goals and objectives of an organization. It looks into its current business and aims by setting goals of what it wants to be in future. It includes a comprehensive strategic plan of how to achieve and it is at a very high level of an organization.
Operational planning : This is a set of detailed guidelines or a detailed plan to be executed to achieve the strategic plan. This planning involves the granular details of setting the responsibilities of people, departments and divisions. Hence, it's rightly called 'operational'.
We'll learn more about these plan types from the Oracle Hyperion Planning application perspective in Chapter 4, How to create an Oracle Hyperion Planning Application.
We might have seen news papers printing in bold "United states budget for fiscal year 2010..." These are the budgets by the government of US, hence, it's defined as the 'government budget'. Likewise, organizations do budgeting, which is defined as a 'corporate budget', which is where our interest lies.
Note
What is a budget?
A budget in an organization is a formal plan that may be short term (one year) or long term (three years or more) and it's aimed to control its operations and help the management in decision making process.
In short, budgeting in an organization is planning how to spend money or how to allocate money to different departments or divisions. In the previous example, Sam had initially set the goal of buying an apartment and made a plan, and as part of his planning, Sam budgetted to allocate more money to bank savings and less money to personal expenses such as travel.
Therefore, we can say that budgeting is a part of planning and without budgeting the planning cannot be successful in achieving the organizational or strategic goal.
Forecast is to predict the future. We need to realize the fact that planning deals with future as well.
We know that the future is always uncertain and we cannot make any planning in uncertainty. Therefore, we make few assumptions about the future, which is called forecasting. In our previous example, Sam assumes that the price of the apartment will increase in near future and his forecast is appreciation of his apartment's price from 80K USD to 100K USD.
We clearly see that forecast indicates the probable course of future events, whereas planning looks at actions in terms of what is to be done, how to do it, and when it should be done.
Currently, many organizations do planning, budgeting, and forecasting using spreadsheet programs such as Excel. This has been the case for many years. But, Excel spreadsheets have inherent disadvantages. The following are a few of the challenges that organizations face while performing planning, budgeting, and forecasting in Excel spreadsheets.
Time taken: Working manually with Excel templates consumes more time.
Data integrity: There is no centralized data storage and data lies in many Excel sheets. Hence, the information is prone to errors and is not very reliable.
Cost: As it's a manually - driven process on Excel, the budgeting process needs many people to work on and it indirectly impacts the cost.
Scalability and adaptability: Any organizational changes need to be captured right from the start in Excel, which is a very tedious, time consuming, and manually-driven activity.
Organizations have started to realize that Excel spreadsheets are not financial applications. In recent years, enterprise budget applications have started replacing spreadsheets, and Oracle Hyperion planning is one of the leading budgeting and planning applications in the market.
Oracle Hyperion Planning is defined by Oracle as a centralized, Web-based planning, budgeting, and forecasting solution that drives collaborative, integrated, event-based planning processes throughout the enterprise.
Here is the list of benefits that an organization would enjoy with Oracle Hyperion Planning:
Time taken: The first and foremost benefit is that it eliminates the cumbersome Excel template maintenance and it shortens the planning cycle time.
Data integrity: As data is stored in a centralized place and with the reliable security feature of Oracle Hyperion planning, integrity of data is upheld.
Cost: It's a Web-based centralized application and does not need manual intervention, unlike Excel spreadsheets. Hence, the cost of maintenance comes down.
Scalability and adaptability: Oracle Hyperion Planning is highly scalable and at the same time it does not impact the performance. Coming to adaptability, changes are incorporated into planning system with ease rather than starting from square one.
There are other benefits of Oracle Hyperion planning, listed as follows:
The data entry, version control, process control, reporting and analysis is all done through a single interface in Oracle Hyperion Planning
Powerful workflow and process management, as well as enhanced features for audit trials, task lists, e-mail notifications, and alerts
Sophisticated reporting and analysis with drill down capabilities
However, the underlying planning and budgeting remains fundamentally unchanged but the software of Oracle Hyperion planning does it in a more reliable and efficient manner.
In this section, we'll understand the following topics:
Oracle Planning Product Architecture: We'll introduce and explore all the components of Oracle Hyperion Planning architecture
Oracle Hyperion Planning Process flow: In this section, we'll learn how the components of Oracle Hyperion Planning communicate when an end user logs into a Planning application
Oracle Planning Solution Architecture : In this section, we'll learn how additional products such as ODI, FDQM, and OBI are a part of a typical Oracle Hyperion Planning solution in an implementation
Oracle EPM : We'll explore the basic idea of Oracle EPM and also learn where Oracle Hyperion Planning fits in the scheme of Oracle EPM products
Firstly, Oracle Hyperion Planning is always bundled with other Oracle Hyperion products that enhance its capabilities. When we buy the software from Oracle, it's available in three licensed packages. They are as follows:
Hyperion Planning Plus : This is the most basic license package available. The list of products available in these packages is mentioned in the following table.
Hyperion Planning Suite : This is a combination of Hyperion planning plus along with another product called 'Oracle Integrated Operational Planning'.
Hyperion Enterprise Planning suite : As the name suggests, this package not only includes the basic products of Hyperion Planning Plus, but also has a lot of additional products such as Hyperion Workforce Planning and Hyperion Capital Asset Planning, as shown in the following table:
As we see, there are many additional products mentioned in Hyperion Planning Suite and Hyperion Enterprise Planning Suite. They are as follows:
Oracle Integrated Operational Planning : This is another module of Oracle Hyperion, which is aimed exclusively at Operational Planning.
Hyperion Workforce Planning : This is a separately licensed module and as the name suggests it deals with the human resources of an organization. Hence, this module is handy in computing headcount salary and workforce-related expenses such as bonus, fringe benefits, overtime, and so on.
Hyperion Capital Asset Planning: Organizations have assets such as real estate, equipment that cannot be converted into cash or revenue directly to the organization. These are defined as capital assets and Oracle Hyperion has a separate module to plan for capital assets and related expenses.
Oracle Integrated Margin Planning : This is another specialized module that aids in understanding margins and Cost of Goods (COGS) of an organization.
Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management : Profit for an organization depends on the cost spent. Hence, drivers of cost impact profitability and Oracle Hyperion has an offering in this space to provide insights with an objective to increase the profitability.
Here, we'll understand the architecture of Hyperion Planning. This is a placeholder for detailed architecture. After we install and configure Oracle Hyperion Planning in the next chapter, Installation and Configuration, we would be better placed to understand all the components in detail about planning architecture. This architecture is divided into different tiers such as Client tier, Web Server, WebApp Server, Services tier, and Database tier. Hence, we'll revisit the architecture in the next chapter, where we will also cover the specifications in terms of supported operating systems, databases, application and web servers, memory and processor requirements in the Compatibility section in Chapter 2.
Broadly, Planning Product Architecture is divided into three layers, shown as follows:
The database layer consists of databases both of relational and multidimensional in nature. Examples of relational databases are Oracle, SQL server, and so on (the complete list of compatible relational databases is covered in Chapter 2, Installation and Configuration under the section Prerequisites) and an example of a multidimensional database is Oracle Essbase.
Relational Database (RDBMS)
Oracle Essbase
Oracle Hyperion Planning is connected to both Oracle Essbase and Relational Database and in the following image, we can see the list of objects saved in RDBMS and Oracle Essbase separately:
In the architecture diagram, we see both Hyperion Planning RDBMS and EPM Architect RDBMS. Oracle Hyperion Planning applications can be of two kinds—Classic and EPM architect—and both of these planning application types need a relational source. (We'll learn about Classic and EPM Architect Hyperion planning applications in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5) Hence, to cater to both kinds of planning applications, we see Planning RDBMS and EPM Architect RDBMS in the previous architecture image.
This following information is saved in RDBMS of an Oracle Hyperion Planning application:
Security: User privileges, system roles, and access rights of users/groups constitute security of Oracle Hyperion planning. The security of planning determines which user to access and what a user should access within a Planning application. Security is covered in depth in Chapter 11, Security.
Metadata: Oracle Hyperion Planning application is made up of dimensions and dimensions have members. Dimension names, member names, properties of these members, and dimensions make metadata and it's stored both in Oracle Essbase and Relational source. More about planning metadata is covered in Chapter 7, Metadata Load.
Foreign exchange rates: The rate at which one currency is converted to another is defined as exchange rate. A simple example is 47 INR (Indian Rupee) = 1 USD (United States Dollar), approximately. Organizations are no longer local; they are global and run their business in multiple countries and every country has different currency. It's becoming increasingly important for planning and budgeting application to handle the currency conversion on the fly. Oracle Hyperion Planning stores the exchange rates in the relational database and more about how Oracle Hyperion Planning application handles exchange rates can be learned in Chapter 9, Data Entry.
Process management details: Process management is the review process of budgeting exercise in an organization. Every organization has a hierarchy and there is a defined approval process. The information includes who should promote to whom and who has the authority to finally approve. Process management has been covered in detail in Chapter 12 and Chapter 13.
Annotations/supporting details: Annotations are additional information and in Oracle Hyperion Planning application, we can add a document or add comments as a part of annotations to help planners in the process of planning budgeting, and forecasting.
Supporting details are also additional information but it has in-built calculator and deals with members that are not a part of planning application dimensions.
Annotations and supporting details are explored in detail in Chapter 9, Data Entry.
Data forms: Data forms are Web-based spreadsheet such as grids for data entry by planners. The data form definitions are stored in a relational source, but the data that is entered into a data form is stored in Oracle Essbase. More about data forms is covered in Chapter 8 and Chapter 9.
User variables: User variables are created to limit the number of members displayed in a data form. A planner should see the members that are relevant to him. It hardly makes any sense for an HR planner to view members of sales team. More about user variables is covered in Chapter 9, Data Entry.
Oracle Essbase is the most popular and powerful multi-dimensional online analytical processing server and Oracle Hyperion planning lies on the top of this engine. Oracle Hyperion planning essentially stores its data and consolidates in Oracle Essbase. Apart from storing the data, Oracle Hyperion Planning uses the business rules/calculation scripts feature of Oracle Essbase.
As we see in the previous image, there is some information that is stored both in Oracle Essbase and its relational data source.
The following information is stored only in Oracle Essbase:
Data: The data entered by end users or planners in planning application is stored in Oracle Essbase.
Calculation scripts/business rules : In planning and budgeting, the typical calculations such as allocation computation, revenue calculation, expense calculation, balance sheet computation, and so on, can be achieved using business rules/calculation scripts. We'll learn how to write business rules in Chapter 15 and Chapter 16.
Substitution variables : One that takes the place of another is defined as substitute. We have dimension members such as month, year, and so on, in Oracle Hyperion Planning application. We can use substitution variables such as CurrentMonth, CurrentYear, which would refer to months and years. The substitution variables are very handy in data forms of Oracle Hyperion Planning application.
Security of Oracle Hyperion Planning is the responsibility of Hyperion Shared Services. Hyperion Shared Services ensures the secure environment of not only Oracle Hyperion Planning but also of the whole Oracle EPM product suite. Hence, all Oracle EPM products, including Oracle Hyperion Planning rely on Hyperion Shared Services for User authentication and authorization. We can do the following security activities using Hyperion Shared Services.
User authentication and authorization : Oracle Hyperion Shared Services obtains the identification credentials of a user such as user ID and password and validates these credentials against native directory of relational database or External User directories, which are corporate user identity management systems. Post authenticating, Oracle Hyperion Shared Services takes care of the user authorization too.
User directory configuration : Oracle Hyperion Shared Services can be configured to external user directories such as Sun Java System Directory Server and Microsoft Active Directory, which are LDAP-based, for User Authentication.
User provisioning : Oracle Shared Services provisions user and groups. Users of Oracle EPM products need to be provisioned with the roles specific to the roles of the product. For example, Oracle Hyperion Planning product has roles like Administrator, Provisioning manager, Planner, Interactive User and View User, and users are provisioned according to their usage and requirement.
More details of Hyperion Shared services can be found in Chapter 11, Security.
We understood that Oracle Hyperion Planning is a Web-based planning, budgeting, and forecasting application and users/planners can access the application on their browsers using a simple URL (that is an HTTP request).
A WebServer serves pages for viewing in a web browser. Hence, we need a WebServer that receives HTTP requests from users and sends out the result in response to the users upon processing the request by WebApp server.
After the WebServer receives a user's request, that is, a HTTP request, the subsequent responsibility is of Application server which serves the business logic to application programs. Therefore, J2EE Application server and a WebServer are a part of the architecture.
Note
Apache Tomcat and Apache Web Server have been respectively the default embedded Java container (J2EE App server) and embedded Web Server till recently. But in 11.1.2 version, Tomcat is no longer the default embedded J2EE server, it's replaced by WebLogic. Apache is no longer the default Web Server; it's replaced by Oracle HTTP Server.
The flow diagram of WebServer and AppServer is illustrated in the subsequent section of Oracle Hyperion Planning Process Flow.
As said earlier that Planning application can be created in two ways – one way is Classic and the other way is using EPM architect. EPM Architect Dimension Server is applicable for Oracle Hyperion Planning applications, which are created using EPM Architect.
EPMA integrates the maintenance of Oracle Hyperion EPM products such as Hyperion Financial Management, Profitability and Cost Management, and Oracle Hyperion Planning.
We'll learn more of this in Chapter 4, EPM Architecture.
Oracle EPM Workspace is the end-user web interface and is also termed as Zero foot print client, which lets a user access all Oracle EPM products including Oracle Hyperion Planning in a single portal.
Now, let us understand what is zero foot print and how Oracle EPM Workspace be rightly defined as zero foot print client.
As already mentioned, Planners/end users access Oracle Hyperion Planning either though Oracle Hyperion Planning web URL or they can access the same from Oracle EPM Workspace URL in browsers such as Internet Explorer or FireFox. Other browsers are not compatible with the current version (version 11.1.2). We'll look into the complete list of compatible browsers along with their versions in next chapter, Installation and Configuration.
Oracle Hyperion Planning is one of Oracle's many products. There are several other products; some are mentioned as follows:
Hyperion Financial Management : This product is for financial consolidation.
Hyperion Performance Scorecard : It's a Web-based scorecard solution offering from Oracle Hyperion where an organization can set its KPI's and monitor its performance.
ERP Integrator : This is a new module of FDQM that helps in integration between ERP systems such as Oracle EBS to performance management applications such as Oracle Hyperion Planning and Oracle Hyperion Financial Management.
Oracle Business Intelligence : This is an enterprise wide reporting solution that can make reports from all possible sources such as relational, multidimensional, and also, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management. It had a few reservations in making reports from multidimensional sources such as Oracle Essbase, but the latest release of 11g had ironed out all the issues of past, and now it's the mega star of all reporting products. And yes, we can create Oracle Hyperion Planning reports too.
Profitability and Cost Management : Profit of an organization depends on money earned that is, Revenue and money spent (cost) and this product helps organizations understand their profitability.
Hyperion Web Analysis : This is a reporting product of Oracle Hyperion which is known for interactive ad hoc analysis and it has ability to create reports from Oracle Hyperion Planning, Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting and also from RDBMS, which makes it a very handy reporting product.
Hyperion Interactive Reporting : This product creates very intuitive reports and it can talk to both relational and multidimensional sources to create reports. As it can communicate to multidimensional sources like Oracle Essbase, we can also use this reporting product to create reports from Oracle Hyperion Planning.
Hyperion Financial Reporting : This reporting tool is known for its book quality financial reports and it has the ability to create reports from both relational and multidimensional sources. Hence, Oracle Hyperion Planning reports can be created using this tool.
All the above products can be accessed from one single web interface—Oracle EPM Workspace. We can work on all of these applications in terms of creating new applications, creating objects of a product or application, create web forms, and create reports; but its still a zero foot print client product.
The objective of a zero foot print product is the ability for the end user to work in his browser and not have the need to store the content of the applications on his system. In simple terms, a user is able to work or able to walk but his system will leave no foot prints of his walk (his work). Likewise, a planner works in his browser on his PC, using the Oracle Hyperion Planning application to enter data in the forms and others, but at the end there is no trace content from his planning application on his PC. Hence, we can rightly call Oracle EPM Workspace a zero foot print client component.
When Oracle Hyperion Planning application can be accessed from Planning Web, why is a planner/user recommended to access Oracle Hyperion Planning application from Oracle EPM Workspace?
Yes, a user can access Oracle Hyperion Planning application from Hyperion Planning Web using a URL which is different from the URL of Oracle EPM Workspace, but in most of the Oracle Hyperion implementations, we deploy more that just Oracle Hyperion Planning. Let us take an example of a client implementation, where we deployed Oracle Hyperion Planning, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management, and Oracle Business Intelligence as its reporting product. Now, end users would be more comfortable to access all these three application from a single portal rather than three different interface, and three different URL's. With Oracle EPM workspace, an end user is given one single URL and he will be able to access all three applications of Oracle Hyperion Planning, Oracle Financial Management and Oracle Business Intelligence reports from a single web interface of Oracle EPM Workspace.
All the while, we have been saying that Oracle Hyperion Planning is a Web-based application, but we need to admit and agree the fact that the user community loves Microsoft Office and Oracle Hyperion cannot take away Office from users. Therefore, Oracle Hyperion has to offer EPM SmartView for Microsoft Office lovers.
SmartView provides integration with Microsoft Office with Oracle Hyperion Planning. It provides a Microsoft Office interface to Oracle EPM suite of products and Oracle Hyperion Planning is one of the Oracle EPM products.
Using SmartView, users can view, import, manipulate, distribute and even share data in Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook.
For instance, planners can open the Planning application's data forms, enter data, adjust data and also calculate data in Excel interface using SmartView. Almost all the functionalities of the web based interface of Oracle Hyperion Planning can be accessed from Excel using Hyperion SmartView like tasklists, process management, annotations, data entry into the forms and others. It's also used to create ad-hoc reports in Excels.
Another important feature of Hyperion SmartView is that it lets a planner work both online and offline.
Note
When a planner is connected to Planning server and works on Planning application, it's termed as online, this is usually the case when he is connected to his office network or is at workplace.
But, when the same planner is not connected to Planning server and sitting at an airport, he is still allowed to work on Planning application data forms in Excel using SmartView. Planners can perform operations such as entering data, adjusting data, and so on, and the changes made are synchronized back to the server when Planner connects to the server.
As a Planner is permitted to work even when he is not connected to the Planning server, its defined as 'Offline' and this offline feature is pretty useful to planners.
In this section, we'll understand the control flow among the various Hyperion Products when a user interacts with Oracle Hyperion Planning application.
Let us consider a simple scenario of a Planner entering Plan data into one of the data forms of an Oracle Hyperion Planning application.
In the above image, a Planner firstly opens a browser and logs into Oracle EPM Workspace and then selects an Oracle Hyperion Planning application and enters data into a data form. The entered data is saved into Oracle Essbase. In this simple scenario, we mentioned Oracle EPM Workspace, Oracle Hyperion Shared Services, Oracle Hyperion Planning and Oracle Essbase.
The same flow helps us in understanding the communication between the Oracle Hyperion Planning components of Oracle EPM Workspace, Oracle Shared Services, Oracle Hyperion Planning, which is again connected to Relational Database and Oracle Essbase as shown in the following image.
Oracle EPM Workspace is the end user interface, and after a user provides their credentials, the user's details are authenticated using Oracle Shared Services, and the user is authorized to access the Oracle Hyperion Planning application.
Depending upon the operation performed in the Planning application, the information is stored or retrieved from a Relational source such as metadata or security information and/or from Oracle Essbase as shown in the following image:
Now, we will understand the process flow including the Web Server and AppServer.
As we see in the following image, the flow is numbered. Firstly, a user logs into Oracle EPM Workspace to access Planning application. User needs to open a browser and provide the URL in Step 1, which is an HTTP request and Web Server handles all the HTTP request, as shown in the following image. Hence, Step 2 is WebServer receiving the request.
Oracle HTTP (default Web Server) server is the Web Server in our case. Web Server forwards the user request to Application Server in Step 3. Oracle WebLogic (default WebApp Server) is to do server side processing by providing business services to the client in Step 4.
In Step 5, Relational and Oracle Essbase databases are queried, Business Rules are run and the output of calculated data or retrieved data in a data form is sent back to the client-side browsers through the Web Server again from Step 6 through Step 10.
We'll learn briefly of a typical Oracle Hyperion Planning solution architecture, it would include additional products such as the following:
We'll learn how these products complement the solution of Oracle Hyperion Planning.
We'll move from the left-hand side to the right-hand side in the architecture image given next. We see the source systems and ERP systems (which have transactional data) that are connected by Data Management products such as ODI (Oracle Data Integrator) and FDQM on the left-hand side.
ODI is useful in loading both metadata and data from ERP systems such as Oracle EBS or any other source system into Oracle Hyperion Planning applications.
Typically, the dimension members of Oracle Hyperion Planning application have the same naming convention as that of the Chart of Accounts (COA) of EBS. Hence, we can load the metadata with the help of ODI. Oracle EBS is not only needed to load metadata, but most importantly it is the source of actual data for Planning applications.
Let us explore this in more depth with an example. Consider that we are at the start of a fiscal year of 2011, which is from Jan to Dec. In the month of Jan, we had done Planning for the coming year of 2011 for all 12 months. Post completion of three months, that is the 1st quarter, the management needs to understand their performance in terms of where they actually stand against the plan. Hence, the actuals of the first three months are loaded and made available from the transactional systems such as EBS into the Oracle Hyperion Planning application, which will help us do a variance analysis between actuals and planned figures. Based on the analysis, management can alter the future plan for the rest of the year, if the acutals are not in line with the planned numbers. We will see in the next section that measuring and managing the performance against the goals is what Business Performance Management software like Oracle Hyperion Planning should do.
We'll understand more of actual vs plan later in this book.
We see FDQM and ODI in the architecture image shown next. We can load the data but the quality of loaded data is more important and these days it has become a business issue which is paving the way for products like FDQM (Financial Data Quality Management).
FDQM with the framework of ODI (Oracle Data Integrator) along with ERP I (ERP integrator) adapter has the ability to integrate Hyperion planning with ERP systems/ transactional systems such as Oracle EBS or PeopleSoft. With the help of this kind of integration, a planner now can drill back to the transactional systems such as Oracle EBS from a web form of Planning application.
We'll understand more about the metadata load and data load in Chapter 7, Metadata Load and Chapter 8, Data Load.
OBIEE 11g is the latest offering from Oracle and this new release has the ability to make reports from Oracle Hyperion Planning/Oracle Essbase flawlessly. There are many other reporting products such as Hyperion Web Analysis, Hyperion financial Reporting, and so on that can also be used to create reports out of Oracle Hyperion Planning applications depending upon the reporting requirements.
We see Oracle Hyperion Planning is in the presentation layer as it's the web interface to the end users/planners. We see Oracle Essbase connected to Oracle Hyperion Planning in the above architecture.
Therefore, apart from the products bundled within Oracle Hyperion Planning, there are other products that complement the solution of Oracle Hyperion Planning in an enterprise.
These days the buzzword is EPM and in the Oracle world it's Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). Oracle Hyperion planning is one of the products of Oracle EPM. Now, let us first understand what EPM means and then learn how Oracle Hyperion planning is related to this buzz about EPM.
EPM is synonymous with Business performance management and it's defined as a set of management and analytic processes that are aided by technology to enable businesses to define strategic goals and then measure and manage performance against those goals.
To make the definition simpler we can say that an organization would have its goals and management would like to periodically measure the performance to check how close to or how far from those goals they are. Financial planning is the core business performance management process and Oracle Hyperion Planning is the technology that fits the bill. Hence, Oracle Hyperion planning is a part of Oracle EPM.
Let us take a look at the Oracle EPM architecture and spot the presence of Oracle Hyperion Planning in it.
We'll move from top to bottom, starting with 'EPM workspace'. EPM workspace is a web based portal to access all Oracle Hyperion products along with Oracle Business Intelligence and it sits on the top of Performance Management Applications.
Next is the layer of 'Performance Management Applications'. We see Oracle Hyperion Planning highlighted and rounded to signify that it resides here. Other products that are a part of 'Performance Management Applications 'layer are Hyperion Financial Management, Hyperion Strategic Finance, Hyperion Scorecard, and Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management.
The next layer is 'Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation'. Oracle Essbase, BI server are included in this layer. BI server is the core engine for Oracle Business Intelligence (or OBI). We have already learned that Oracle Essbase would be the backend and foundation for Oracle Hyperion Planning applications.
The bottom layer is Oracle Fusion Middleware which connects to all the possible data sources of an enterprise as we see in the above image.
We'll continue with the architecture of Oracle EPM in the next chapter explaining at a granular level before we start installation of Oracle Hyperion Planning software.
In this first and very basic chapter on Oracle Hyperion Planning, we started by understanding the basic terms—planning, budgeting, and forecasting. Later we discussed the importance of budget software and the learned the currently faced challenges, then we introduced Oracle Hyperion Planning as one of the leading budgeting software applications and learned how it addresses the challenges.
Next, we learned about the architecture of Oracle Hyperion Planning and explored the connected products such as Oracle EPM Workspace, Oracle Essbase, Oracle Smart View, and Oracle Shared Services.
We also understood the process flow of Oracle Hyperion Planning application with the help of a simple scenario of a planner entering data into a data form.
Later, we learned about the architecture of a typical Oracle Hyperion Planning solution in an enterprise, where we introduced products such as Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), Oracle FDQM, and Oracle Business Intelligence as a reporting platform and understood how well these products complement in a typical implementation.
Finally, we understood EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) and also learned about the role of Oracle Hyperion Planning in the context of oracle EPM solution.
In the next chapter, we'll install and configure Oracle Hyperion Planning software.
