The Finit Minute: Q1 2010

Welcome to the Q1 2010 Finit Minute!

2010 is already proving to be an exciting year for Finit. We recently attended and presented at the OAUG Connection Point EPM conference in Jersey City, New Jersey. This 2-day conference focused specifically on the Hyperion EPM suite of products and was a great opportunity to learn and share knowledge regarding Hyperion EPM products, implementation strategies, and expected features and functionality in the next releases.

Finit is also looking forward to attending and presenting at the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Applications Showcases in Hershey, PA on March 25 and in Berwyn, PA on March 26. Finit will present on Oracle’s Financial Close and Disclosure Management product, which is due to be released by summer.

Finit is extremely proud of the fact that we had 100% employee retention in 2009 and grew our team of consultants by just under 20%. In 2010, we will continue to recruit, hire, and retain the most qualified and talented resources in the industry so that we can keep providing the best solutions to our clients.

We’re pleased to share the latest edition of our quarterly newsletter with you. Our goal is to provide relevant information that you can put to use to make improvements to your environment. This issue includes:

• New Release Spotlight: Oracle Hyperion Enterprise 6.5.1
• Leveraging Technology to Improve the Budget and Forecast Process
• The Finit Solutions Series: Recent and Upcoming Webinars
• Recent and Upcoming Events for Hyperion / Oracle EPM Customers

We hope you enjoy this quarter’s articles, and we welcome your feedback. Please let us know what you think of the newsletter and webinars. We hope you can use this information to make some meaningful improvements at your company, and we’d love to hear about them.

New Release Spotlight:
Oracle Hyperion Enterprise 6.5.1

In December 2009, Oracle introduced the new release of Hyperion Enterprise, version 6.5.1. This is a full installation release and will require the removal of releases prior to 6.3.1. This release comes with a few new exciting features that compliment the product while also including some enhancements to make it more efficient, effective and secure. Some minor defects from previous releases have also been addressed.

Release Date: December 2009
Premier Support Ends: April 2013

Hyperion Enterprise 6.4: Premier Support Ends August 2010
Hyperion Enterprise Prior to 6.4: No longer covered under Oracle’s Premier Support and is currently in Sustaining Support.

New features in 6.5.1:

• Hyperion Enterprise Data Drill-back to FDM
• Hyperion Enterprise Extraction Utility
• Hyperion Enterprise Smart View installer
• User Account Control Feature

	Hyperion Enterprise Data Drill-back to FDM This feature enables you to view the detailed data that was imported to Enterprise through Oracle’s Financial Data Quality Management (FDM) product. With this feature, you can drill down from a single value in a Hyperion Enterprise Database cell or from Enterprise’s Web data grid to FDM to view details from the data source. For example, let’s say your organization’s local source ledger systems have multiple accounts receivable accounts and you use FDM to map all of these accounts to a single account accounts receivable in Enterprise. You would use this new feature to drill from Hyperion Enterprise down into FDM’s repository to see the local AR account balances without ever leaving Enterprise environment. Note: The data-drill back feature is supported for Oracle Hyperion FDM Release 11.1.1.x.
	Hyperion Enterprise Extraction Utility This new feature allows you to extract components from Hyperion Enterprise and import them into other consolidation products. Components such as metadata, security, entity lists, account lists, journals, data, and formulas can be extracted from Hyperion Enterprise. With this utility you'll also be able to extract a Hyperion Enterprise application into a format that can be leveraged to build an application in Oracle’s Hyperion Financial Management software, HFM. It is important to keep in mind that Oracle doesn’t present this feature as a turn-key solution for converting to HFM. After testing by Finit Solutions, we have seen that this is a great new feature for jump starting a conversion to HFM. However, depending on the complexities of the new HFM design and the current state of your Hyperion Enterprise application, there can still be a significant amount of pre and post conversion activities and considerations. For more information about design considerations for upgrading from Hyperion Enterprise to HFM, please see our Finit Solutions Series webinars: Hyperion Enterprise to HFM: Design Considerations and Best Practices (1 & 2)
	Hyperion Enterprise Smart View installer The installation of the Smart View Office Provider is now integrated with the Hyperion Enterprise Installer. No longer will you need to perform a separate Smart View installation. A user can select it along with the other components during the Enterprise Installation.
	User Account Control Feature Enterprise 6.5.1 supports User Account Control (UAC), a feature that is available in Windows Vista and Windows 2008 server. UAC improves the safety and security of your organization’s computers by preventing potentially dangerous software from making changes to your computer without your explicit authority.

Enhancements

In addition to the new features in this release, Oracle has also made some enhancements to some of its existing features:

Release 6.5.1 product enhancements:

• Application Backup and Restore Utility
• Messaging
• ASP.NET
• Server Administration Utility

	Application Backup and Restore Utility Many different enhancements have been included with the Application Backup and Restore Utility, which was released in version 6.5. While still being able to perform full backups while users are in the system, major enhancements include being able to launch the Application Backup utility from the Windows Start Menu or as a task in an AutoPilot routine. The logon information related to the utility’s profile is encrypted using the AES encryption algorithm. In addition, you can select a preferred location to restore backup applications. You also now have the ability to delete backup profiles.
	Messaging Hyperion Enterprise messaging, which allows messages to be sent to users logged on to Hyperion Enterprise, now supports Web messaging.
	ASP.NET Release 6.5.1 allows for the migration of Active Server Pages (ASP) to ASP.NET. This enhancement can drastically improve the performance of your Hyperion Enterprise application. Part of what makes this possible is the caching of output, which means the database doesn’t get queried each time a request is made. The fact that an ASP.NET application can handle two to three times the number of requests per second than an ASP application should certainly lead to an application performance boost if web deployment is used.
	Server Administration Utility This utility, which allows the management of all Enterprise servers from a single location, has been enhanced to include the ability to change the .ini settings and the ability to change the FDM settings that allow users to view details of the imported FDM data.

New features in Hyperion Enterprise Reporting release 6.5.1:

Search and Sort in Reports and Books Navigation Tree New as of release 6.5 is the hierarchy-based folder structure which allows you to manage reports and books (as well as sets of reports and books), through a folder structure similar to Microsoft Windows Explorer. This functionality allows you to create, delete and edit reports or books (or sets) within the folder structure. An additional feature in 6.5.1 enables you to manage your Reports and Books using sorting and search options. By default these items are sorted in ascending order.

With release Hyperion Enterprise 6.5.1, it is clear that Oracle Hyperion continues to enhance one of its most successful, longest running products by continuing to evolve and adapt to today’s financial reporting and business analysis needs.

In addition to the new features and functionality discussed here in the 6.5.1 release, please visit our previous coverage of Hyperion Enterprise 6.5 – New Features and Functionality to uncover additional benefits that are automatically included in this latest release The Finit Minute (Q1 2009)

Leveraging Technology to Improve the Budget and Forecast Process

Budgeting used to be a once-a-year exercise. At most organizations, it had to be once a year, considering the significant effort that was required in coming up with a budget. Geographical diversity, disparate local systems, and other communication problems turned the budget process into an ordeal that could only be performed once a year, and even then it was still a painful process.

But with the combination of the Web and cutting edge budgeting software, that once-a-year, painful task has now been transformed into a quarterly, monthly, or even daily exercise. The additional forecasting process iterations have not adversely affected the effort required from corporate financial staff; the new processes are, if anything, making life easier for both management and executives alike.

Executives are the primary beneficiaries from more frequent budgeting, planning & forecasting. At dynamic companies, a budget that took months to build can be obsolete weeks after completion as business environments change. Executives need tools and processes that enable them to provide a fresh look at the transformed environment and its effect on the firm’s business. Technology has given executives this ability without an undue cost to the organization.

Executives’ appetite for more frequent forecasting data is nothing new. Having that type of data would have proved valuable in the past, but the prohibitive cost of obtaining collaborative data such as a budget forced executives to come up with alternative methods of forecasting: high level estimation. These estimates were based on the executives’ knowledge of the business as a whole, with some input from field operations. The forecast detail delivered from the field operations to the executive had to be at a high level; anything more detailed than that would have taken too long to define, populate, collect, store, combine and analyze. This left the quarterly or monthly forecast processes in a “back of the envelope” mode, ripe for inaccuracies and misstatements.

To enhance the forecasting process, firms are using technology that is able to improve on a few key components: Collaboration, Status Tracking, and Change Management.

• Collaboration

  To be truly valuable as a forecasting tool, the budget process needs to be collaborative. Collaboration sends the budget process throughout the organization, beyond the corporate finance team. Detailed input is needed from marketing, business line managers, finance, etc. It is difficult for a finance person sitting in a corporate office to know as much about the upcoming year for a remote factory as those who are working there day in and day out; input is needed from the local resource. In other words, the people closest to the numbers are those most prepared to forecast the numbers.
  
  In a traditional spreadsheet-driven budgeting process, this collaboration can be a hurdle. Spreadsheets are generated at corporate, sent out to the field, populated by the field, and returned to corporate. This can work well at times, until something happens - change. If corporate requirements change, forms need to change. Since the forms have already been sent to the field, a “version 2” needs to be sent out. Some regions will submit version 2, while others will inadvertently submit version 1. Corporate needs to send those back to the field and have them resubmit, and while that process is going on, corporate requirements may change again. A “version 3” of the forms needs to be created and sent back out the field. With manual spreadsheets, it is also difficult to consolidate the data. Elaborate excel sheets are needed to pull and aggregate the different data sets together to come up with a consolidated forecast or budget.
  
  Technology allows the entire process to reside on a single platform – with all users looking at the same data set all the time. When corporate requirements change, the change is made in the central repository and all users are made aware instantly. In addition, data can be consolidated and calculated more efficiently and effectively. Calculation and consolidation times are especially important when key drivers change, because the entire data set must be re-calculated and distributed for analysis as quickly as possible . Cross departmental collaboration is also made much easier with technology. Marketing demand data can be loaded and modified in the database, giving production users instant visibility to revised figures for required updates to resource projections. SG&A / Operating Expense information detailed by departments can be consolidated and combined with the sales and cost of sales details to generate a full P&L.
  
  

• Status Tracking

  Another attribute of a successful forecasting system is the ability to track the progress of the process. With hundreds of geographically disperse users, knowing when the process is complete and the budget is “done” can be quite a challenging task. There is nothing worse than beginning the analysis process on an incomplete data set that ends up changing after a user has begun compiling, running reports, etc. Replacing the traditional spreadsheet checklist, a technology-driven budget process can quickly tell the status of each and every action within the process. With the click of a mouse a user can determine when a user received a form, when it is due, and who has missed any deadlines. With this approach all users in the process can tell when the budget process is complete, not just the person who maintains the spreadsheet checklist.
  
  

• Change Management

  Finally, if there is one thing that you can count on during a budget cycle, it is revisions. Corporate requirements, targets, and data inside of a budget are all things that can change once a process has begun. When this change happens, it is difficult in a spreadsheet-based budgeting process to track changes and variances. Multiple budget iterations are generally required to get the results of the process to something that is agreeable to both executives and the field alike. Technology provides the tools to manage these iterations – storing versions of each pass and providing a means in which the results from each pass can be compared to see which components are coming together and which ones haven’t made the necessary adjustments. Multiple iterations are no problem, because each “version” is stored separately from the others in order to compare and contrast the different submissions.

By employing technology to your current once-a-year, painful budgeting process, not only should you be able to make that annual process less painful, but you should also be able to forecast your results more often than once a year. As you increase the quality of the information that you capture on where your firm is going, you will also increase the likelihood that you will be able to guide it towards optimum performance.

If you would like to find out more about how Oracle Hyperion Planning can be leveraged to streamline and improve your budget and forecast process, please review Finit’s February 2010 webinar: Getting the Most out of Oracle Hyperion Planning: Understanding the Basics.

The Finit Solutions Series

Continuously getting the most out of your EPM suite of products can be a challenge – new versions with new features and functionality are released, the products themselves are becoming more tightly integrated, and the analysis needs of the business are frequently changing. To help adapt your systems to changing business requirements while also taking advantage of the most recent product enhancements, Finit has created “The Finit Solutions Series,” a monthly progression of webinars that helps you stay up to date on recent product functionality and implement incremental improvements to your own system.

The sessions are very product and solution oriented and are designed to provide practical, usable tips. Our clients have found them to be extremely useful; we received the following unsolicited quote after a recent webinar:

Thank you for the fabulous webinar today. I’m a seasoned HFM administrator in an organization already using ICP’s and still found numerous useful bits of information. Finit is clearly well-versed in HFM and the presentation style was very audience-friendly (good pace, good volume, solid navigation among screens and slides, etc.). Well done!

Recent Finit Solutions Series Sessions Included:

• FDM

  • Getting the Most out of FDM: FDM Reports
  • Getting the Most out of FDM: FDM Logging
  • Getting the Most out of FDM: Application Settings

• Consolidations (HFM / Hyperion Enterprise)

  • Getting the Most out of HFM: Intercompany Matching and Eliminations
  • Hyperion Enterprise to HFM:
    Design Considerations and Best Practices (1)
  • Hyperion Enterprise to HFM:
    Design Considerations and Best Practices (2)

• Planning / Essbase

  • Getting the Most out of Essbase: Understanding the Basics
  • Getting the Most out of Planning: Understanding the Basics

• General

  • Getting the Most out of Hyperion Financial Reporting:
    Tips and Tricks
  • Getting the Most out of Integration: The Various Products
  • Getting the Most out of HFM and FDM:
    Upgrading to the Fusion Edition

Upcoming Sessions Include:

• Getting the Most out of FDM: Fully Automating your Data Loads (April 14)
• Getting the Most out of EPM: New Features and Functionality in Fusion 11.1.2 (date tbd)
• Getting the Most out of Hyperion Enterprise: New Features and Functionality in 6.5.1 (date tbd)

Events for Hyperion / Oracle EPM Users

OAUG Connection Point – Enterprise Performance Management Conference

This conference was organized by the Hyperion Special Interest Group of the Oracle Applications User Group (OAUG) and was held on February 23-24 in Jersey City, New Jersey. The conference focused specifically on the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) product suite, and the content was modeled from the Hyperion Solutions conferences that were held each year before Oracle acquired Hyperion.

Over 200 people attended Connection Point, and there were approximately 35 presentations covering topics on 5 different tracks:

• Budget - Forecasting and Planning
• Financial Consolidations and Reporting
• Business Intelligence and Analytics
• The Office of the CFO
• EPM and the Product Roadmap

Finit presented two sessions at Connection Point:

• Upgrading HFM to Fusion 11.x – Introduction to New Functionality and Upgrade Considerations
• Converting from Hyperion Enterprise to HFM: Design Considerations and Best Practices

There are a number of other exciting events coming up in 2010:

Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Applications Showcases

These events will take place in Hershey, PA on March 25 and in Berwyn, PA on March 26. In addition to delivering presentations, several of the partner consulting companies will set up demo workstations, so that attendees can see live demonstrations of the products and interact directly with the products in a ‘hands-on’ format.

Finit will present on Oracle’s Financial Close and Disclosure Management product, which is expected to be released by summer. This new tool provides functionality that streamlines and provides better insight into the ‘last mile of the close’; tasks related to consolidation, external reporting, footnoting, xbrl tagging, etc. Functionality includes systematic account reconciliations, close process monitoring, task management, and document management.

For more information and to register for the Hershey event, click here.

For more information and to register for the Berwyn event, click here.

Collaborate 10

April 18 - 22, 2010
Las Vegas, NV

The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and Quest International Users Group (Quest) jointly put on this annual conference. The content is developed by and for customers and encompasses the full family of Oracle business applications and database software. This is a great conference for those looking to gather information about a wide range of Oracle products and solutions.

Click here for more information and to register for the Collaborate 10 conference.

ODTUG Kaleidoscope

June 27 – July 1, 2010
Washington, D.C.

The Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) puts on this conference each year. The focus is on providing sessions for developers who work directly with Oracle databases. ODTUG’s website also states that ‘Hyperion and Essbase users have also found a home at ODTUG, with ODTUG Kaleidoscope offering the breadth of content that used to be available at the Hyperion Solutions and Top Gun conferences.’

Click here for more information and to register for the Kaleidoscope conference.

OpenWorld 2010

September 19 - 23, 2010
San Francisco, CA

OpenWorld is an annual conference put on by Oracle. The conference covers Oracle’s full range of business applications and database software. OpenWorld is a great forum for learning about a wide range of tools and hearing firsthand about Oracle’s product direction and upcoming initiatives. In addition to attending sessions, attendees can also attend user group forums, work directly with products in the ‘hands-on’ labs, see real product demos, visit partner exhibits, and attend a large number of networking events.

Click here for more information and to register for the OpenWorld conference.