The Finit Minute: Q2 2010

Welcome to the Finit Minute!

Finit Solutions is committed to providing our clients with practical, actionable product information that they can use to get the most out of their EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) investment. We do this via the Finit Minute (our quarterly newsletter), the Finit Solutions Series (our monthly webinars), and our direct interaction with clients.

In this edition of the Finit Minute, we are beginning a series of articles focused upon the project management side of implementations. This quarter we highlight the Characteristics of a Successful EPM Project. Aside from acquiring the appropriate EPM tools and understanding their functionality, what project management practices can be applied to ensure a successful EPM implementation? How can you align and manage scope, requirements, resources, and timelines to ultimately achieve your EPM goals?

Other articles this month include:
• New Release Spotlight: Oracle EPM 11.1.2 . This is a major release for all Hyperion EPM products and includes some important new modules and functionality.
• Financial Close Management and Disclosure Management: An Overview. These are two of the new modules that have been released with EPM 11.1.2.
• The Finit Solutions Series: Monthly Oracle Hyperion Webinars

We hope that you enjoy this edition’s articles, and we welcome your feedback. Our goal continues to be to provide our clients with practical, actionable information, and we welcome any requests you may have for future topics and information.

Project Management Highlight: Characteristics of a Successful Project

Product-specific knowledge and a thorough, accurate understanding of the features, functionality, and constraints of the EPM tools being implemented are clearly critical to a successful implementation. Few companies would commit to such an investment until they had thoroughly educated themselves about the capabilities of the tools and the degree to which those tools would meet their internal goals, objectives, and requirements.

In addition to product-specific knowledge, the ability to effectively plan for and manage EPM implementations is becoming increasingly critical. The products themselves are becoming more robust and, therefore, more complex; in addition, most companies are now implementing multi-product EPM systems in which proper segregation of processes and integration of data among tools are key to the project’s success. And, although the systems themselves are becoming more complex, timelines and resources do not always expand accordingly; they may, in fact, contract due to economic factors and limited internal staff available for projects.

When starting an EPM project, proper project management and planning are critical to the project’s success. Studies show that software projects have less than impressive success rates while similar corporate-level projects tend more often to meet their defined goals. This may be due to the fact that software projects have so many pieces to coordinate, including the software itself, hardware, end users, training considerations, testing, documentation, etc.

Finit’s experience has been that successful Oracle Hyperion implementation projects share common characteristics in their structure and approach to project management. The following are some project management practices that are common to these successful projects and that can be utilized to improve the likelihood of success.

Maintain Effective Project Sponsorship

The degree of effectiveness of the project sponsor is a leading indicator of project success or failure, and it is safe to conclude that a project without effective sponsorship has a much lower chance of success.

More than the person who approves project funding, an effective project sponsor has organizational respect across functional and organizational boundaries, proven leadership qualities and is actively involved from project start to conclusion. The effective project sponsor will:

• Be clear about the project’s objectives
• Champion the project within the organization
• Remove obstacles, arbitrate conflict, and mediate negotiations
• Approve major deliverables
• Provide high-level direction in support of the project manager and team

Clearly Define the Project

You can’t hit a target if you don’t understand what the target is. Successful projects have a clear definition of what the project is and is not. A clearly defined project will articulate the goals, objectives, constraints, deliverables and requirements which in turn set project scope.

Goals are the high level statements that define what the project is to achieve. Absent detail, goals set the vision of the project and are aligned with overall business objectives. A well-known, clearly defined goal was one expressed by President John F. Kennedy - “By the end of the decade, we will put a man on the moon and bring him back safely.”

Project objectives are specific statements that support the goal. Every goal has at least one objective that provides clear direction on how the goals will be met. As such, objectives should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. For example, if your project goal is to ‘improve the accuracy and timeliness of the financial close process’, one of your objectives may be to ‘develop a common account structure for the preparation of the 2011 financial statements.’

Every project has constraints - resources, time, quality and others unique to the project at hand. Constraints should be identified early, and the project must be defined within the barriers of these constraints. An example of a project constraint would be the timeframe within which the project must be completed.

Scope sets the boundaries of the project, defining what is and is not to be included within the project. Project scope is usually defined at a high level within the Project Charter and, if applicable, a Statement of Work. Additional details of the project’s scope are identified by the requirements of the project. High level scope statements are often derived from the required deliverables of the project which should be articulated in well understood terms. In turn, requirements provide the details of the project deliverables and quantify expectations into specific results. Requirements should be prioritized and documented in detail. Expect requirements, and therefore scope, to change over the life of the project. The use of Moscow Lists (“Must have / Should have / Could have / Won’t have”) and traceability matrixes are effective tools for monitoring and controlling project scope.

Plan the Project

A failure to plan is a plan for failure.

The size of Hyperion EPM projects varies significantly, from a simple single location upgrade to global multi-product implementations including reengineering of processes. Successful projects are planned commensurate with their level of size and complexity. Larger, more complex EPM projects with geographically dispersed team members have more detailed documented plans for identifying and managing risks and issues, controlling project scope, maintaining communications, and monitoring and managing task execution. Planning documentation for small projects with few team members is often accomplished with abbreviated project management plans or memorandums. Planning efficiencies are gained with the use of standardized project management processes and templates.

A baseline project work plan (or schedule) containing clearly defined milestones, tasks at the appropriate level of granularity, assigned resources, and dependencies among tasks is developed during the startup phase of the project. The work plan is elaborated for additional details and updated for work performed, schedule variances and scope changes over the course of the project. Performance is regularly measured against baselines and the critical path.

Assemble the Right Team

A properly staffed project doesn’t ensure success but does significantly improve your odds. Ask yourself whether you have:

• Included future application administrators, subject matter experts, decision makers, and leaders within the core team.
• Defined roles and responsibilities to set clear expectations for team member participation and direction.
• Provided the team with the resources necessary to achieve success, including timely product training, adequate time for on-going non-project duties and personal time off.
• Developed a sense of team commitment and enthusiasm.

Provide On-Going Communications

Projects are dependent upon people communicating effectively, and human interactions can make or break a project. Constant, effective communication is a key prerequisite of getting the right things done in the right way. For all sized projects, a well-structured communications plan is a must from the beginning. Your project plan should include an outline for ongoing communications with team members, sponsors, steering committee, and other key stakeholders on a consistent basis. Scheduled team meetings and updates with the steering committee should be conducted on a regular basis.

Establish Risk and Issue Resolution Processes

A risk is something that may happen and, if it does, will have a positive or negative impact on the project. Issues are situations affecting the progress of the project that require resolution. Successful projects identify risks and issues early and establish processes to resolve and mitigate them over the life of the project. Having a clearly defined issue resolution process will help expedite issue resolution and mitigate risk. Risks and issues should be recorded, assigned to a specific owner and monitored. If an issue cannot be resolved by the expected date, it should go through a defined escalation process.

Conduct Quality Reviews

Assessing the quality of your own work can be difficult. It is also difficult for a project team to assess the quality of the overall project. This is why it is important to have regularly scheduled project reviews carried out by someone who is not directly involved with the implementation. An independent assessment can evaluate whether the appropriate documentation is being created, determine whether project deliverables are complete, review the project timelines, and provide insight on the overall project status. An independent review can also provide a readiness assessment as the implementation prepares for a go live.

Prepare for Steady State

Often project teams are focused on designing a system and developing the applications to support the system design. A successful project will have a plan to transition to a post go-live steady state environment. For most organizations having the implementation team provide indefinite support for steady state operations is not an option. This is why it is essential to include in the project plan the transition to steady state. The plan for post go-live support would include knowledge transfer, clearly defined support roles and a defined timeline for transitioning responsibility.

Having a comprehensive plan, from clearly defining the project all the way through transitioning to a steady state, is essential for a successful system implementation. Utilizing proven project management practices to develop a plan, monitor project status, resolve issues, and communicate to stakeholders helps ensure the viability and success of the project.

New Features and Functionality in EPM Fusion Edition 11.1.2

Oracle released version 11.1.2 for EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) on April 7th 2010. This represents one of the most significant releases since version 11 originally came out in July of 2008. EPM 11.1.2 includes not only new functionality but also some completely new products and modules.

The following is a summary of the new features, functionality, and products in EPM 11.1.2. For a more thorough overview of EPM 11.1.2, please review our Finit Solution Series presentation: Getting the Most out of EPM: New Features and Functionality in Fusion Edition 11.1.2

Oracle Hyperion Disclosure Management and Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management

Hyperion Financial Close Management provides visibility to the overall financial close process with views on task status across various products and in calendar lists, process monitoring, workflow automation, and account reconciliation functionality. Hyperion Disclosure Management is focused on the external reporting process, the gathering of documents from different sources and managing/tracking all the changes that follow from different people involved in the process. These two standalone products are covered more thoroughly in the next article, Financial Close Management and Disclosure Management: An Overview.

HFM Smart View: Smart Slices

Smart Slices allow the user to create centralized views with specific dimensionality and preferences. This allows the user to ‘filter’ HFM dimensionality down to only those dimensions of interest for his or her own reporting and analysis. You can also save grids as reporting objects from a Smart Slice and then drag and drop those reporting objects into Word or PowerPoint.

EAL (Essbase Analytics Link) for HFM

EAL (formerly HyperRoll) is a standalone product that is used with HFM. EAL provides integration between Essbase and HFM with automated synchronization providing real-time reporting of HFM data through Essbase. Once the data and metadata are pushed to Essbase, Essbase dimensions can be modified, additional data sources can be rolled in, and more calculations can be added.

EAL allows companies to take advantage of the inherent financial intelligence of HFM as well as the inherent query and reporting capabilities of Essbase. Companies using EAL can perform items such as intercompany eliminations, currency translation, and cash flow calculation in HFM, then offload reporting from the HFM engine into Essbase. This allows the company to increase the number of users, reports, and queries on the Essbase side without impacting performance on the HFM side. For more information on Essbase Analytic Link, see the Oracle page: EAL.

Updates to Financial Data Quality Management (FDM)

FDM received some significant updates in the previous release ( 11.1.1.3.) 11.1.2 adds some new enhancements, including support for Financial Close Management, extended Essbase support, and the ability to create period and category mappings. The user interface has been revised somewhat as well. FDM 11.1.2 has full support for Excel 2007, including exporting web grids and importing from Excel 2007.

Smart View Enhancements

Smart View has several new features, including a Smart View Panel for connections, context sensitive ribbons in Microsoft Office applications, and integration with Outlook. The Smart View panel displays shared connections (those defined by the administrator for all users), private connections (those created by the user) and recently used connections. The ribbons display commands for a given combination of data source, mode, and Office application. Smart View 11.1.2 is also now integrated with Outlook; users can execute task-list-based tasks in Outlook for HFM or Planning.

As mentioned above, HFM Smart Slices are a new feature that allows users to view and work with data within specific pre-set dimensional parameters, thus simplifying navigation among dimensions.

Hyperion Planning

Hyperion Planning has received a major upgrade with the 11.1.2 release. Most significantly, Process Management functionality has been enhanced to include:

• Added granularity to the Planning Unit (Entity, Scenario, Version plus one additional dimension)
• Predefined promotion paths with pre-assigned owners and reviewers
• Dynamic promotion paths with data validations and rules/triggers for approvals and promotions
• Automatic out-of-office actions (e.g. Delegate, Promote, or Reject)
• Ability to accommodate Budget vs. Forecast having different paths/levels of review via multi unit hierarchies in the same application.
• Ability to select and promote multiple planning units at one time

Web forms in Planning 11.1.2 also received some improvements, including the ability to drag and drop dimensions when creating a web form, the ability to make ad hoc structure changes to a web form (e.g. pivoting dimensions, zooming into hierarchies), and the ability to sort and filter web form rows and columns.

A new product that leverages core Planning functionality has also been created in 11.1.2. Hyperion Public Sector Planning and Budgeting is specifically designed and built for public sector, healthcare, and higher education. For more detail, see the Oracle page – Oracle Public Sector Planning.

Essbase

Release 11.1.2 contains multiple enhancements for Essbase. Most significantly, allocations and custom calculations can now be performed in aggregate storage (ASO) cubes, thus reducing the requirement for block storage (BSO) cubes when calculations must be performed. There has also been an important change to security, in that synchronization of security between Essbase and Shared Services is not required when in EPM security mode. Instead, Essbase queries Shared Services upon user log-in and preserves the user privileges throughout the session.

New calc scripts in Essbase 11.1.2 include the @XWRITE function (opposite of XREF), which writes to another data block, and the @RETURN function, which can be used as a troubleshooting tool with IF-THEN statements to stop script execution and capture error messages.

Technical/Support

Significant technical enhancements with version 11.1.2 include:

• Support for Windows Server 2008
• True 64bit processing for all products except FDM, Financial Reporting Print Server, Interactive Reporting Services, and Strategic Finance.
• Support for Internet Explorer 7 and 8
• Support for Firefox 3.5 (except FDM)
• Java 1.6 is now the standard.
• Weblogic is the only supported J2EE app server – it has replaced Tomcat as the bundled J2EE app server.

Financial Close Management and Disclosure Management: An Overview

Oracle Hyperion recently released several new modules with its April 2010 Fusion Edition 11.1.2 release. Two of them, Financial Close Management and Disclosure Management, are directly related to an area where the Finit team has a lot of experience - the Finance and Accounting department. Both these modules were designed to complement the existing EPM set of products and to work with the other tools used in finance and accounting.

The following is a summary of the features and functionality of these new products. For a more thorough overview, please review our Finit Solution Series presentation: Getting the Most out of EPM: Introduction to Financial Close Management and Disclosure Management

Financial Close Management

The Challenge:

• Complex coordination of Processes, People, and Tools needed during the Financial Close
• Tight deadlines, No room for errors
• Lack of visibility into status along the way

Primary activities that have to be dealt with during each close include:

• General Ledger Close Activities
• Data Integration
• Financial Consolidation
• Internal Management Reporting
• External Reporting

The high level of coordination needed is a result of the inherent dependencies between the various activities. The goal, of course, is to wind up with a set of results in which everyone has a high level of confidence.

The Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management Solution:

Manually intensive processes are converted to clean, easily tracked processes by leveraging each application’s built-in process monitors and providing a centralized view of progress.

• Visibility into the entire process – across Oracle Hyperion and other vendor’s products
• Calendar and List views
• Automation, E-mail notification
• Process monitoring
• Status reporting
• Account reconciliations

This integrated financial close solution helps to manage the process from sub ledgers through to regulatory filings while delivering process risk assessment in near real time. The tool is designed to decrease risk as well as the time needed for the close process while increasing communication and confidence for everyone involved.

Oracle Hyperion Disclosure Management

The Challenge:

• Manual steps needed for:
  • Creation of critical documents (10K/Q, Board Packages)
  • Disconnected processes for 10K/Q, EDGAR, and XBRL
  • Gathering and managing commentary
  • Adjustment of financial data
  • 3rd Party conversions by EDGAR and XBRL vendors

Each are error prone, which can pose significant risk due to the sensitive and highly visible nature of the data involved.

The Disclosure Management Solution:

• Provides complete XBRL creation and management, including Taxonomy Management
• Addresses the entire process of transforming consolidated results into statutory filings
• Allows for document creation and management to address the distributed development of statutory reports
• Allows the user to combine multiple documents into a master document for versioning and review
• Leverages Microsoft Word and supports multiple output formats
• Provides process management with notification to allow for distribution of tasks and monitoring

The Finit Solutions Series:
Monthly Oracle Hyperion Webinars

Keeping up with the latest information regarding Oracle Hyperion’s offerings can be a time consuming exercise, as there is a lot to digest. Understanding how the various products' functionality, interoperability, and new and upcoming changes can impact your company takes a concentrated effort. To assist in this effort, the Finit Team is pleased to share our team’s knowledge on a monthly basis. This knowledge comes from constant training, delivering a wide variety of solutions for our clients, and working closely with the Oracle Development Team and Customer Advisory Boards to keep up to date. You can leverage this experience for your personal benefit by attending a 1 hour session each month to help keep you up to date as well. Based upon requests from our clients, we deliver presentations that are practical and actionable, so you can make improvements to your system from the information you learned.

Previous sessions include:

Getting the Most out of EPM:
• Upgrading to the Fusion Edition
• New Features and Functions in Fusion Edition 11.1.2
• Financial Close Management and Disclosure Management
• Integration: Understanding the Various Products
• Release 6.5.1 and the Extraction Utility for HFM

Getting the Most out of FDM:
• Automating Your Data Loads
• Application Settings
• Logging
• Reports

Getting the Most out of Planning:
• Understanding the Basics

Getting the Most out of Essbase:
• Understanding the Basics

Getting the Most out of HFM:
• Migrating from Hyperion Enterprise to HFM – Design Considerations and Best Practices Part 1
• Migrating from Hyperion Enterprise to HFM – Design Considerations and Best Practices Part 2
• Intercompany Matching and Eliminations

To request copies of these presentations, or for replays of the sessions:
http://www.finitsolutions.com/Insights_Webcast_Archive.html

Upcoming Sessions Include:

Getting the Most out of Integration: Essbase and Oracle Hyperion Planning Integration Options

• August 18, 2010 Noon – 1:00 PM EST
• To Register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/296752499

If you aren’t already receiving the monthly invitations send an e-mail to subscribe@finitsolutions.com. Please include your Name, Company, and Title and we’ll be glad to add you to the list.

We welcome any request or suggestions that you’d like to share with us. Please send a note to insights@finitsolutions.com. We look forward to hearing from you.