The Finit Minute: Q4 2007

Happy Holidays From Finit!

Wow! What an amazing year this has been! The acquisition of Hyperion Solutions by Oracle seems like a distant memory, though it was less then 9 months ago. 2007 continued to be another year of exceptional growth for Finit. During 2007, Finit had the great fortune to experience the following:

• Welcoming 32 new clients to Finit!
• Being recognized by Inc. Magazine as the 42nd fastest-growing IT services company and #367 overall. Finit was the only services organization with a Hyperion practice to make the Inc. 500.
• Helping to start the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) Hyperion Special Interest Group (SIG) (see article)
• Presenting and Exhibiting at Hyperion Solutions’ Conference in Orlando
• Exhibiting at the Open World Conference in San Francisco
• Launching of the “World’s Best” Mugs (order a free one today!)

Throughout 2007, we’ve provided a wide range of assistance to our clients , from System 9 migrations to new or redesigned Hyperion product implementations. Some of our joint successes include:

• Assisting a Fortune 100 insurance organization with their migration to Hyperion System 9.3. This organization was one of the first companies to successfully go live on Hyperion System 9.3.
• Helping a Fortune 500 bank design and implement a lights-out, nightly, automated loading process through Hyperion FDM into Hyperion Enterprise. Users are notified via email if problems or controls are not met during the process.
• Successfully migrating a Fortune 1000 manufacturing company from Hyperion Enterprise to Hyperion System 9.3.1 (Financial Management, FDM, BI+ Financial Reporting).
• Designing and implementing integrations between Hyperion products (Planning, Essbase and HFM) through Hyperion FDM for a large hospitality organization.
• Providing key HFM rules functionality and enhancements to a number of clients. Some enhancements include actual data copying to forecast scenarios, roll-forward optimizations and cash flow calculations.
• Assisting a Fortune 1000 consumer products organization with improving the controls and accuracy of their data submission process by implementing Hyperion FDM into Hyperion Enterprise.

These successes, along with the rest of our 2007 projects, represent Finit’s unique ability to deliver Finance / Accounting experience, Hyperion product expertise and superior customer service.

One of the reasons this is our favorite time of year is that we get to stop for a moment and thank our clients for the trust and confidence you have placed in Finit to deliver superior solutions and customer service. Without your cooperation and willingness to let us demonstrate our passion for delivering value, our story wouldn’t be as exciting as it is.

Thank you for supporting and depending on us.

We look forward to assisting you in 2008 and beyond as we continue to differentiate Finit by providing the absolute best service possible and by ensuring that the value received by our clients cannot be matched.

We wish you and your families a very safe and happy holiday season.

Warm Regards,

Finit Solutions

A Hyperion User Group – The OAUG Hyperion SIG

It might sound like vegetable soup, but it’s much more! The OAUG is the Oracle Applications Users Group, and the Hyperion SIG is the Special Interest Group that offers a place for Hyperion clients to access resources, share experiences, and volunteer to contribute to the group. http://hyperionsig.oaug.org/

Formed in 1990, the OAUG is one of the software industry’s most successful user groups and speaks with one voice for the family of Oracle Applications users across the globe. The OAUG is a global knowledge marketplace of users and partners of the family of Oracle products with multiple opportunities for:

• Influence on product enhancements, usability, quality, pricing and support.
• Education on techniques, best practices and tools.
• Networking with Oracle, peers, industry experts, third-party software firms and other Oracle Applications specialists.

To help get things started, Ed DeLise, VP of Sales at Finit, has volunteered to lead this group in the role of SIG Coordinator. He's assembled a team of leaders to help build momentum and to create a group that will truly be "Your Home for Hyperion."

The biggest event of the year, COLLABORATE 08, is coming up in Denver, CO, from April 13-17. COLLABORATE 08 is a conference that is actually larger than the Hyperion Solutions Conference used to be. As the name implies, it’s a collaboration between three of Oracle’s largest user groups:

• IOUG (Independent Oracle Users Group)
• Qwest
• OAUG
• For more information and to register - http://www.collaborate08.com/collaborate08/

It’s free to join the Hyperion SIG – complete the following membership application – http://hyperionsig.oaug.org/Membership.php?page=Membership

This user group can only be as valuable as its members make it, so we encourage you to join and take advantage of this group of Hyperion clients, partners, and enthusiasts.

Oracle's New Support Policy

One of the most frequently asked questions that we hear is "I wonder what Oracle's support plans are for our products?" Fortunately, Oracle has a "Lifetime Support" policy that covers all products, and they've provided a clear outline as to how they will handle support for each version of each product. There are three stages to Lifetime Support, as follows:

http://www.oracle.com/support/lifetime-support-policy.html

Premier Support - provides you with maintenance and support of your Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and Oracle Applications for five years from their general availability date.

Extended Support - lets you stay competitive with the freedom to upgrade on your timetable. It provides you with an extra three years of support for specific Oracle releases for an additional fee. You benefit from the same quality of service you receive with Premier Support with the security of knowing you can expand your systems when the time is right.

Sustaining Support - puts you in control of your upgrade strategy. With Sustaining Support, you will receive technical support for as long as you operate your systems—including access to Oracle’s online support tools, knowledge bases, pre-existing fixes for your solution, and assistance from technical support experts.

The following link has each version of each product listed, so you can tell specifically where your products fall in the policy. You'll find the Hyperion product set beginning on Page 12:

http://www.oracle.com/support/library/brochure/lifetime-support-applications.pdf

As a result of this policy, our clients are able to plan how long they can stay on their existing products and versions and when they need to upgrade or migrate to a new product. We've found that requests for assistance with migrations and upgrades are on the rise, as clients want to ensure that they get the most out of any changes that they are making and maximize their investments in the latest and greatest products. We're pleased to provide decades of collective experience to help ensure these projects are all worthwhile. If you have questions regarding the support policy, we would be happy to answer your questions and help point you in the right direction.

DENTSPLY International Completes Successful System 9 FDM/HFM Implementation

DENTSPLY International, located in York, PA, recently completed a major overhaul of its consolidation process by implementing System 9 FDM and HFM (version 9.2). Increased visibility into financial data and controls, exciting new analysis capabilities, and a less arduous monthly close process for the corporate finance team are just some of the benefits DENTSPLY achieved.

Before the project began, DENTSPLY’s locations submitted an Excel workbook to corporate that contained high-level data for approximately 100 accounts. These workbooks were loaded to DENTSPLY’s HFM 4.0 application using Hyperion SmartView, a process that put the burden for data loading completely on the corporate team.

The FDM application was built to accept GL extracts and supplemental data templates from approximately 75 locations worldwide. The FDM application includes several custom scripts developed specifically for DENTSPLY, including one to map intercompany AR and AP by intercompany partner to separate accounts based on whether a netted GL balance is positive or negative.

The redesigned HFM application includes approximately five times as many accounts as the previous application, allowing for enhanced visibility into balances. The application uses 20-25 different currencies and several US dollar value overrides to translate certain accounts at historical rates. All four custom dimensions are used to track data such as product type, geographical location, business function, and roll-forward detail to capture activity in specified accounts. Process Management is being used to monitor the status of each division and ensure certain supplemental data submissions reconcile to the general ledger. Finally, extensive rules were written to perform calculations, translations, and validations.

Due to this dynamic system that DENTSPLY is now using, end-users now have a more automated monthly procedure by using FDM rather than manually keying data into a workbook. FDM’s stored mapping capabilities allow users to modify maps only when their GL changes. Corporate users are able to see greater levels of detail in all of the reports generated from HFM. Additionally, the audit capabilities in FDM and HFM allow for internal and external auditors to thoroughly review mapping changes, activity and error logs, and certifications.

From Amy Gunarich, DENTSPLY International Senior Project Manager:

• “Finit Solutions provided DENTSPLY International with the right blend of technical resources to successfully implement Hyperion System 9 and FDM at over 100 global entities that had previously not interacted directly with an automated financial consolidation system. The project laid a firm foundation from which DENTSPLY has increased visibility and exciting new analysis capabilities to better understand and drive future business operations.
• “Finit Solutions team members were key contributors to the project’s success. Finit Solutions is strongly recommended to others for the following reasons:
• Integrity and support quality from the Finit Solutions management team is unsurpassed.
• Finit Solutions provided DENTSPLY with the right blend of FDM/HFM/BI+ resources at the right time.
• Finit Solutions’ consultants truly became integrated members of the DENTSPLY team for the duration of the project.
• The DENTSPLY team has been fortunate to have Finit Solutions on its side during the Hyperion implementation and can rest assured that their partners at Finit will continue to provide unsurpassed support in the future.”

FDM Loads - Eliminate the Risk of Overwriting Good Data When Doing Multiple Loads with Smart Merge

The Smart Merge Solution is a Hyperion FDM solution that addresses Data Protection when loading data through Hyperion FDM. This document details an overview of the solution, the issues it addresses and an example of how the solution works.

Smart Merge Overview

The Smart Merge solution was developed to address two common and painful issues that organizations face when loading data into a Hyperion system (Enterprise, HFM, Essbase, etc.). These issues are:

• The need to protect previously loaded data in a Hyperion system when additional data needs to be loaded. Data protection is generally needed when organizations wish to load data as ‘Replace’. The standard ‘Replace’ load functionality deletes all data for an entity before loading the new file, and thus, previously loaded data is completely wiped out. Data protection may be needed under the following circumstances:
• when supplemental data is loaded through HFM Web-Forms, Hyperion Enterprise schedules or Hyperion Smartview / Retrieve, a subsequent trial balance data load through Hyperion FDM as ‘Replace’ will delete this data.
• when multiple submissions occur, such as loading P&L and Balance Sheet data at different times, loading as Replace will overwrite the previous data.
• The need to have the ‘Merge’ load option pick up re-classifications that occur between loads. The standard ‘Merge’ load option does a selective replace. This means that it will replace only the items that exist in the 2nd file that is being loaded. Thus, if a re-classification occurs, that data is not picked up when the 2nd file is loaded.

The Smart Merge solution involves looking to the previously loaded data file through Hyperion FDM, which stores that previously loaded file. As a result, a data file that contains both the current data as well as the previously loaded data will be created. This will be loaded as ‘Merge’, but will essentially act as a ‘Replace’ of loaded data. All previously loaded data is added to the new load file with a designation of ‘NO DATA’ (HFM) or 0 (Hyperion Enterprise). This designation removes the value that existed previously. So, in total, the solution loads both the new data values and the previously loaded values which are zeroed out.

For an example, click here: Smart Merge Example