The Finit Solutions Series Archive

HFM

Hyperion Enterprise to HFM: Design Considerations & Best Practices (I)

Hyperion Enterprise to HFM: Design Considerations & Best Practices (II)

Getting the Most out of HFM: Intercompany Matching & Eliminations

Getting the Most out of HFM and FDM: Upgrading to the Fusion Edition

FDM

FDM Reports: Getting the Most out of Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management

Getting the Most out of FDM: FDM Application Settings

Getting the Most out of FDM: FDM Logging

Getting the Most out of HFM and FDM: Upgrading to the Fusion Edition

Getting the Most out of FDM: Fully Automating your Data Loads

Essbase

Getting the Most out of Essbase: Understanding the Basics

Planning

Getting the Most out of Oracle Hyperion Planning: Understanding the Basics

Hyperion Financial Reporting

Getting the Most out of Hyperion Financial Reporting: Tips and Tricks

EPM

Getting the Most out of EPM: Introduction to Financial Close Management and Disclosure Management

Getting the Most out of EPM: New Features and Functionality in Fusion Edition 11.1.2

Getting the Most out of Hyperion Enterprise: Release 6.5.1 and the Extraction Utility

Integration

Getting the Most out of Integration: Understanding the Various Products

Getting the Most out of Hyperion Enterprise:
Release 6.5.1 and the Extraction Utility

Hyperion Enterprise is widely and successfully used by many companies for consolidations, reporting, and analysis. Oracle continues to support Hyperion Enterprise and to enhance its features and functionality with each new release. At the same time, Oracle has also created a utility that may help companies accelerate a conversion from Hyperion Enterprise to Hyperion Financial Management (HFM).

You will learn about the new Extraction Utility in Hyperion Enterprise. This utility enables you to extract your Hyperion Enterprise metadata, lists, journals, data, and logic in formats that are compatible with other consolidation products, such as HFM. Although the Extraction Utility is not intended to be a turn-key solution for upgrading from Hyperion Enterprise to HFM, it may provide a ‘starting point’ for some companies as they begin their conversions.

In addition to the Extraction Utility, you will also learn about other new features and functionality in Hyperion Enterprise 6.5.1, including data drill-back to FDM, enhancements to the backup/restore utility, and sort/search features in Hyperion Enterprise Reporting.

Getting the Most out of EPM: New Features and Functionality in Fusion Edition 11.1.2

You will learn about the new features and functionality in EPM Fusion Edition 11.1.2 for HFM, Planning, Essbase, FDM, Smart View, and Financial Reporting. Topics will include a general overview of the 11.1.2 enhancements as well as specific discussion of new modules in 11.1.2, including Oracle Analytics Link, Public Sector Planning, Financial Close Management, and Disclosure Management.

Getting the Most out of EPM:
Introduction to Financial Close Management and Disclosure Management

As powerful as HFM and Hyperion Enterprise are for financial consolidations, reporting and analysis, clients who use these solutions are well aware that there are additional steps that take place outside the systems to complete the close process. These can include manual steps that lead up to the consolidation itself as well as tasks that follow the consolidation to prepare for external filings. On April 7, 2010 Oracle Hyperion announced the release of Financial Close Management and Disclosure Management, which are tools designed to pull this entire process together and to provide end users with a more streamlined and transparent experience.

In this session of the Finit Solutions Series we will review the functionality of these two solutions to help you understand the challenges that they address and the benefits that they provide.

Specifically we will discuss:

• An overview of the financial close process, from ledger to filing
• The associated challenges within the close process
• Features of Financial Close Management
  • Process Monitoring
  • Financial Close Calendar
  • Task Management
  • Account Reconciliations
• An overview of the disclosure process, from document creation to filing
• The associated challenges within the disclosure process
• Features of Disclosure Management
  • Document Life-Cycle Management
  • Process Management
  • Notifications
  • XBRL Reporting

Getting the Most out of FDM:
Fully Automating your Data Loads

Did you know that although Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management (FDM) inherently allows for a simple process to empower finance end users to manage the data loading process, it can get even easier?

Continually loading, checking and reloading data can be a bottleneck for the analysis, planning and consolidations processes. The combination of FDM’s Batch Loader, Automated Task Manager, and advanced scripting provides complete automation of this integration process.

FDM’s Batch Loader:

• “Auto-maps” unmapped dimensions
• Provides valuable information to the business analyst on auto-mapped accounts
• Notifies the business analyst of any other process issues that came up during the load.
• Provides complete visibility to these errors while eliminating key bottlenecks
• Shows you a cursory view of the data to check for overall quality issues without wasting valuable time.

Other set-up options and advanced scripting enable you to:

• Automatically email error alerts to the system administrator
• Provide custom reporting
• Run an unmonitored “lights-out” process
• Trigger process alerts to the appropriate party(s)

This advanced functionality makes FDM and its Batch Load capability something that can vastly improve the efficiency of your current process. In this webinar, you will learn how to use FDM Batch Loader’s features and functionality to streamline and increase visibility into your data load processes.

Getting the Most out of HFM and FDM: Upgrading to the Fusion Edition

Oracle’s latest major release of the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) suite of applications is the Fusion Edition, and it contains a number of important new features and tools. In Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and Financial Data Quality Management (FDM) specifically, there are some significant enhancements over the System 9 releases that will greatly improve your organization’s ability to perform tightly integrated and controlled consolidation, reporting, and analysis in these tools.

Oracle Premier Support for Hyperion application release 9.3 will expire in January 2012. Premier Support for release 9.2 expires in June 2010, and Premier Support for all earlier versions has already expired. Therefore, if your organization has not already upgraded to the Fusion Edition, you will want to begin learning about the improvements in Fusion and planning an upgrade strategy for your organization.

This webinar will include discussions of:

• New HFM features and functionality in Fusion Edition, including Enterprise Performance Management Architect (EPMA) and Calculation Manager
• New FDM features and functionality in Fusion Edition, including ERP Integrator for connecting into source ERP systems
• Migration options for upgrading existing applications to Fusion Edition
• Technical considerations for upgrading to Fusion Edition, including hardware requirements and environment design
• Project planning and implementation strategies for migrating to Fusion Edition

By staying on top of the latest features and functionality available, you will continue to get the most out of your EPM applications and continue to provide your organization with faster, more meaningful information for reporting and analysis.

Getting the Most out of Oracle Hyperion Planning:
Understanding the Basics

Large complex spreadsheets, tight deadlines, high stress, multiple revisions, and then when you’re finally done it’s out of date – sound familiar? You can do better.

When it comes to powerful alternatives for planning, budgeting, and forecasting, Oracle Hyperion Planning leads the market. Hyperion Planning integrates financial and operational planning models, thereby aligning financial targets with operations-specific budgeting processes.

Hyperion Planning is a critical component of Oracle's prepackaged suite of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) applications for financial reporting, consolidations, and budgeting / planning. In fact, many companies are now using Planning in conjunction with tools such as Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and Hyperion Strategic Finance (HSF) to provide optimal planning, consolidation, and modeling capabilities. Join us on February 17 to learn the basics of Planning as we review the features and benefits of this solution, discuss implementation strategies, and show a brief demo of the software. This webinar will include discussions of:

• What Hyperion Planning does and how it is used
• How Planning can provide better control over and insight into the budget and forecast process
• How Planning differs from other EPM tools such as HFM and HSF
• How Planning and HFM are used jointly for optimal budgeting, forecasting, reporting and analysis

By fully understanding the capabilities of Planning and how it can fit into your company’s overall Finance IT vision, you will be able to develop a strategy for providing faster, more relevant information to management and ultimately get the most out of your finance technology investment.

Getting the Most out of Integration:
Understanding the Various Products

Oracle provides a range of tools for integration activities that cover everything from financial data movement and data quality to metadata management and loading. The thoroughness and flexibility of Oracle’s integration product suite provide customers with a wide range of choices to consider. However, the volume of tools available can make it difficult to determine which ones best fit your organization’s specific requirements.

On January 20, Finit will host a webinar in which you will learn about the differences and business use cases for the following Oracle integration products:

• Financial Data Quality Management (FDM)
• Oracle Data Integrator (ODI)
• Data Integration Management (DIM)
• Data Relationship Management (DRM)
• Hyperion Application Link (HAL) *Sustaining Support for the last releases ends in June 2010
• Enterprise Performance Management Architect (EPMA)
• ERP Integrator (ERPi)
• ‘Classic’ Metadata Management Tools

We will provide examples of typical integration requirements and will discuss the considerations that your company should weigh when selecting from among these integration tools.

Getting the Most out of Essbase:
Understanding the Basics

When it comes to powerful alternatives for analyzing, reporting, and consolidating Financial and Operational data, Essbase leads the market. Essbase 's dominance in OLAP (on-line analytical processing) is the result of its ability to deliver extremely fast query response times for vast numbers of users, large data sets, and complex business models.

Essbase is a strong compliment to Hyperion's prepackaged applications for financial reporting, consolidations, and budgeting / planning due to its power and flexibility for superior analysis. In fact, many companies are now using Essbase in conjunction with tools such as HFM and Hyperion Enterprise to provide optimal reporting and analysis capabilities. Join us on December 16 to learn the basics of Essbase as we review the features and benefits of this technology and create a database “live . ” This webinar will include discussions of:

• Essbase dimensionality, and how it differs from tools such as HFM
• Dense and Sparse dimensions
• ASO and BSO cubes - the differences, advantages, and disadvantages
• Typical uses of Essbase
• Essbase and HFM used jointly for optimal reporting and analysis

By fully understanding the capabilities of Essbase and how it can fit into your company’s overall Finance IT vision, you will be able to develop a strategy for providing faster, more relevant information to management and ultimately get the most out of your finance technology investment.

Getting the Most out of Hyperion Financial Reporting: Tips and Tricks

The quality of your Financial Reporting reports is a large part of your organization’s perception of your HFM, Planning, and/or Essbase system, because many users (especially those in high-level management positions) only interact with those reports. Therefore, it is critical to make sure that the Financial Reporting reports are clean, accurate, and intuitive.

On November 18, you will learn tips and tricks for taking full advantage of Financial Reporting’s features and functionality. We will demonstrate many of the more complex and less known features, including:

• Formatting options
• Advanced formulas
• Cell text display
• Creating reports that are more dynamic
• Simplifying maintenance of reports
• Reports security, including how Financial Reporting object security interacts with Shared Services user provisioning

By applying best practices to your Financial Reporting reports, you can significantly improve your end-users’ experience while also reducing the maintenance workload on your corporate consolidations team.

Getting the Most out of FDM: FDM Logging

FDM is a great solution to help you standardize your processes and ensure the quality of your data. One of FDM’s best features is the outstanding audit trail it provides; however, many users only take advantage of a few of FDM’s logs and are unaware of some of the best logging features that FDM provides for tracing data and user activities.

On October 21, you learn about the different types of logging features in FDM that can be used to track the full data audit trail and the full detail around all activities performed in the application. We will review logs and reports that provide insight into the data and end-user processes at various stages of the data integration process (Import, Validate, Export, Check.) You will also see how to track other end-user and administrator activities such as map changes, security changes, and script execution. This webinar will provide you with the tools to better leverage the FDM logging capabilities and to place tighter controls on your data and FDM application.

Getting the Most out of HFM:
Intercompany Matching & Eliminations

If you are using HFM for consolidations, then you already know that it is a powerful and complex tool that can vastly improve the analysis and reporting capabilities in your monthly consolidation process. However, one element of HFM that companies often do not use to its full potential is the intercompany matching and elimination functionality. In many cases, companies simply have not had the opportunity to develop a full understanding of all the intercompany features, and have therefore opted not to use them.

In this webinar, you will learn about the metadata and security features that can enable you to take full advantage of HFM’s intercompany matching and elimination functionality. We will discuss how the intercompany dimension, the value dimension, and the account and entity dimensions interact to perform intercompany matching and eliminations at the appropriate levels within your entity structures. You will learn how to analyze intercompany eliminations using data grids, BI+ Financial Reporting, and system intercompany matching reports.

By fully utilizing HFM’s intercompany features, you will not only make your consolidation process much more efficient, but will also provide valuable, detailed intercompany information to both end-users and management. The availability of that intercompany detail can drive critical management decisions and can greatly increase the value of your HFM applications within your organization.

Hyperion Enterprise to Hyperion Financial Management: Design Considerations and Best Practices (II)

The decisions that you make regarding the design of your HFM application and the conversion process itself will have a huge impact on the value you will ultimately get from HFM. A hasty design and conversion can burden you with costly application problems that can persist for years, whereas a carefully thought-out and executed implementation will provide you with tremendous gains in efficiency and functionality.

In this two-part series, we will cover best practices, design considerations and project planning tips for converting from Hyperion Enterprise to HFM. In the second session, on August 19, you will gain insight into planning and managing a conversion to HFM, including pre-project architecture considerations, implementation resource commitment, and end-user training plans.

Getting the Most out of FDM: FDM Application Settings

FDM is a great solution to help you standardize your processes and ensure the quality of your data. Users of FDM may or may not realize that there are a number of FDM application settings that allow you to control how FDM interacts with your target data systems. In this webinar, you will learn how to change those settings and get more out of FDM.

In this webinar, we will:

• Review the basic application and configuration settings in FDM.
• Show you how to change the user settings and web settings in FDM to modify FDM's appearance for the end user.
• Demonstrate how to change the wording on various FDM menus.
• Review the application settings that are specific to different Oracle Hyperion products, including Hyperion Enterprise and HFM.
• Show the latest application settings that are available in FDM 11.1.1.2.

Hyperion Enterprise to Hyperion Financial Management: Design Considerations and Best Practices (I)

The decisions that you make regarding the design of your HFM application and the conversion process itself will have a huge impact on the value you will ultimately get from HFM. A hasty design and conversion can burden you with costly application problems that can persist for years, whereas a carefully thought-out and executed implementation will provide you with tremendous gains in efficiency and functionality.

In this two-part series, we will cover best practices, design considerations and project planning tips for converting from Hyperion Enterprise to HFM. In the first session, on July 22, we will demonstrate the basic differences between the two products and offer recommendations for utilizing the enhanced functionality in HFM.

FDM Reports - Getting the Most out of Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management

FDM is a great solution to help you standardize your processes and ensure the quality of your data is sufficient. Everyone who works with this product also knows that it comes with a useful set of reports to help you gain further insight into the data that you've collect. Not everyone knows how to make the most out of these reports, so this webinar helps you to do just that.

In this webinar we review all of the reports in the standard FDM set of reports that is shipped with the product. We then show how to make modifications to these standard reports and how to move reports between folders. Changing security access to individual reports as well as folders of reports is covered next. Lastly we who some of the customized reports that FDM have had tailored to meet their specific FDM reporting requirements.