Hyperion Metadata & Data Integration 101 – What You Need To Know

The Approach

Do you remember those old western movies where the hero of the movie was extremely fussy about what gun he would use and what horse he would ride? If you remember great, if not just think of a Cowboy and that he is really picky about those two things.

Next things next, lets for a second put ourselves in the Cowboy’s boots, with two things that we have to be really fussy about; metadata integration and data integration.

So Cowboy, before we saddle-up and head off on our adventure, let’s make a few more assumptions:

• You have a budget or Need to Define One

• You have a timeframe or Need to Define One

• You have objectives of things you want to load or Need to Define them

 

The above will all become measures/consideration for what you can and can’t do, what tools you will use and how you will build your solution. Let’s go into more detail of each of these considerations to better help us understand how much impact they will really have.

Budget

This is an area where a careful amount of planning and scoping needs to be spent to ensure you capture the exact requirements and scope/estimate work accordingly. This is an area that if scoped incorrectly can quickly result in an overrun on the project budget. The scope must clearly capture who will do what and what exactly will be done, for example, who will be responsible for creating/defining source system views as this can cause a variation of weeks if done by the consultant. It is also essential that as part of this process you assess what is essential vs nice to have. In the scenario of a bigger/adequate budget, doing both metadata loads and data loads maybe possible versus a limited budget where only data loads maybe be possible. Budget will also limit you on which tool you can use as there are licencing costs and higher implementation costs with some products that do not exactly exist with others or maybe less. This is where a good consultant can guide you to the best solution possible to achieve your requirement within your budget.

 

Timeframe

Project overruns are something that no one likes and usually caused by incorrect scoping, scope creep, issues encountered, availability of resources and/or lack of project control (aka absence of a good project manager). Again the same concepts apply as they did for budget, you need to ensure correct scoping and select the right tool for the job. If on a limited time frame, simple Essbase load rules for data loads maybe all that is possible, where on a larger timeframe and with the relevant requirements Financial Data Quality Management Enterprise Edition (FDMEE) maybe the way to go. I recommend that data integration is treated as a project within the project and a detailed design of this aspect of the solution is required to ensure the exact requirements are captured and the right solution is implemented accordingly. Here is where quality comes into play, a combination of good project resources (that know what they are doing and with the experience to back it) and a good overarching project manager (with Hyperion experience) are good investments to ensure successful delivery of the solution.

Integration Objectives

Let’s stop for a second and think what exactly am I trying to achieve? Let’s create a list of possible things that may need to be achieved:

• Load data into Hyperion from source system(s)
• Load metadata into Hyperion from source system(s)
• Load data between Hyperion components
• Load metadata between Hyperion components
• Export data to external systems
• Export metadata to external systems

The next key thing is to take the above list and define what is required versus nice to have. From there the budget should be formed. A common mistake that happens, is that budget is agreed well before the detail is ever confirmed. This usually results in a budget we adhere to; instead of defining what the budget must be based on the requirements.

This is fairly common, organisations have a certain amount of money to spend and a list of so many things they wish to achieve. For this I always position the command and conquer strategy; start with detailed scoping and break the overall requirements into phases and work within the available budget. When more budget becomes available more phases can be completed.

There is a saying “You don’t know, what you don’t know”, well guess what? This isn’t any more different when it comes to projects, as you get to know the tool and the capability you become inspired and the more you will want to do and thus your priorities may change. The approach described helps control the deliverable and allows for a stop and assess approach to confirm that the delivery matches the requirements, any new requirements, and any requirements that are no longer must haves.

The Divide & Conquer strategy as an example is shown below for data integration:

• Detail Requirements Gathering & Scoping
• Detailed Integration Design
• Phase 1 – Data Integration
• Phase 2 – Metadata Integration

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tools

Now that we have understood the considerations around data integration that have a major impact in relation to what we can and can’t do, it’s now time for us to select the right tool for the job. Like the Cowboy who would not choose a sprint horse for a long trek across the desert we too must choose the right tool for the task at hand.

 

What Are The Various Hyperion Integration Tools?

• • Financial Data Quality Management Enterprise Edition (FDMEE) – Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management, Enterprise Edition allows business analysts to develop standardized financial data management processes and validate data from any source system (Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management Enterprise Edition. 2016).
  • Outline Load Utility – Is a planning utility can be used to load metadata and data for Account, Period, Year, Scenario, Version, Currency, Entity, user-defined dimensions, attributes, UDAs, exchange rates, Smart Lists, and planning unit hierarchies.
  • Essbase Load Rules – An Essbase database contains dimensions, members, and data values, Essbase Load Rules enable loading data/adding data or metadata values to an Essbase database from a data source, such as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or SQL database. If the data source is not perfectly formatted, you need a rules file to load the data values.
  • Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) – Oracle Data Integrator is a comprehensive data integration platform that covers all data integration requirements: from high-volume, high-performance batch loads, to event-driven, trickle-feed integration processes, to SOA-enabled data services (Oracle Data Integrator. 2016).
  • Data Relationship Management (DRM) – Oracle Data Relationship Management helps proactively manage changes in master data across operational, analytical, and enterprise performance management silos. Users may make changes in their departmental perspectives while ensuring conformance to enterprise standards. Whether processing financial or analytical information, Oracle Data Relationship Management delivers timely, accurate, and consistent master data to drive ongoing operational execution, business intelligence, and performance management (Oracle Data Relationship Management | Oracle. 2016).
  • Enterprise Performance Management Architect (EPMA) – Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management Architect (EPM Architect) unifies and aligns processes across the EPM system. The visual environment provided by EPM Architect allows for a simple and intuitive user experience in modeling the financial business process including data, dimensions, and application logic. EPM Architect helps users configure common dimensions from an extensible library, link these dimensions to different applications, re-use or move artifacts from one application to another, and graphically manage data flows between applications. This provides for faster deployment of applications, simplifies the design process, and enables enhanced analysis of the EPM environment. In this way, EPM Architect provides the industry’s first business process modeling tool for building and maintaining Hyperion Planning Hyperion Financial Management, Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, and Essbase applications.( Hyperion EPM Architect. 2016)

 

 

 What Hyperion Integration Tools Is Good At What?

For the sake of analysis we shall treat the below points as key decision factors in choosing the right data integration tool.

• Type: There are two types of integration – Metadata & Data.

• Environment Location: On-Premise/Private Hosted & Oracle Cloud.

Decision Tables:

Hyperion in the Cloud (PBCS) – Loading Metadata & Data:
Tool	Additional Licensing	Metadata	Data
FDMEE	No	-Cannot load Metadata (Road-Map for Future Improvement)	-Ideal Tool/Recommended Tool -Excellent Mapping Capability -Transparency of data loads/mappings -Flat file Source -User friendly setup & use -Great for automation/manual triggers -Drill through capability to source file
PLANNING OUTLINE LOAD UTILITY	No	-Flat file Source -More script driven, less GUI	-Flat file Source -More script driven, less GUI -Recommended for non-numerical data

 

 

Hyperion On-Premise – Loading Metadata & Data:
Tool	Additional Licensing	Metadata	Data
FDMEE	YES	-Metadata loads available for direct source system access only (example E-Business) -Metadata loads not available for custom relational or flat file sources (Road-Map for Future Improvement)	-Ideal Tool/Recommended Tool -Excellent Mapping Capability -Transparency of data loads/mappings -Flat, Relational or Direct Source System -User friendly setup & use -Great for automation/manual triggers -Drill through capability to source
PLANNING OUTLINE LOAD UTILITY	No	-Flat file or Relational Source -More script driven, less GUI	-Flat file or Relational Source -More script driven, less GUI -Recommended for non-numerical data
ESSBASE LOAD RULES	NO	-Essbase Only. -Flat file or Relational Source -Excellent Performance -Simple Mapping / Manipulations -GUI Oriented	-Recommended Tool for View loads on projects with tight budgets -Essbase Only -Flat file or Relational Source -Excellent Performance -Simple Mapping / Manipulations -GUI Oriented
ODI	YES/NO	-Can only be triggered manually without full licence -Target must be Planning or HFM only on restricted license -Excellent for complex integration (not much it can’t do). -Single Load can use different source systems (files, tables, views) and link together to create query.	-Can only be triggered manually without full licence -Target must be Planning or HFM only on restricted license -Excellent for complex integration (not much it can’t do). -Single Load can use different source systems (files, tables, views) and link together to create query.
EPMA	NO	-Good for centrally managing metadata across Hyperion products. -Great when hierarchies are the same across application. -Deploy when ready approach. -Source can be Hyperion Application, Data Interface Area or External Source.	-Good for centrally managing data across Hyperion products. -Great when hierarchies are the same across application. -Deploy when ready approach. -Source can be Hyperion Application, Data Interface Area or External Source.

 

The Summary

Hopefully this blog has better prepared you for Hyperion Metadata & Data Integration and gave you some insider knowledge to approach the solution correctly and choose the right tool for the job.

This is Ahmed Hafez, signing out, I hope you find success in your adventures & May The Force Always Be With You…

 

References:

Oracle Data Relationship Management | Oracle. 2016. Oracle Data Relationship Management | Oracle. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/business-analytics/performance-management/data-relationship/overview/index.html. [Accessed 07 February 2016].

Oracle Data Integrator. 2016. Oracle Data Integrator. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/data-integrator/overview/index.html. [Accessed 07 February 2016].

Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management Enterprise Edition. 2016. Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management Enterprise Edition. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/business-analytics/performance-management/financial-close-reporting/hyperion-financial-data-quality-management/overview/index.html. [Accessed 07 February 2016].

Hyperion EPM Architect. 2016. Hyperion EPM Architect. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/epm-architect-101593.html. [Accessed 07 February 2016].

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