by Doug Correa | 10 10, 2014 | EPM, FDM, FDM Classic, FDMEE
Building a Better Goldfish Many of my long standing clients have been using FDM Classic for years. For the most part, they’re very happy with their goldfish, a la the guided workflow. So, you can imagine they’re a little leery of this new thing called “FDMEE“. I get it. FDM Classic is easy-to-use, has internal controls baked-in the product, and it’s been around for years. But when it comes to a data transformation tool for Oracle EPM applications, I tell my clients that Oracle has built a better goldfish. And with the forthcoming release of FDMEE 11.1.2.4 there’s even more reasons to make the switch. With FDMEE, you go from this guy… To this guy… So, What’s Coming in 11.1.2.4? In the last three months, I’ve had the opportunity to attend KScope14, take part in Oracle’s FDMEE Summit, and I presented a FDMEE customer success story at OpenWorld. I’ve got the scoop on what’s coming in 11.1.2.4. Among the variety of enhancements and parity features, here’s a quick list of what my FDM clients will care the most about in 11.1.2.4. At this point I should point out Oracle’s standard “”Safe Harbor Agreement”. The Safe Harbor Agreement simply states that some of these features may never see the light of day. That’s right, no guarantees here (wink, wink). With that out of the way, here’s what to expect with FDMEE 11.1.2.4. New Stuff in 11.1.2.4 Here’s a list of four major enhancements coming to 11.1.2.4.x. 1) EPM to EPM Data Sync Learn More FDMEE 11.1.2.4.x will allow you to import data directly from a source EPM application (e.g. HFM) and...
by Doug Correa | 09 11, 2014 | EPM, FDM, FDM Classic, FDMEE
For many legacy FDM clients, locking the point of view is a vital step in the close process. By locking the point of view, the FDM administrator can ensure that end users don’t modify data for the specified category and period. Since the initial release of FDMEE 11.1.2.3.0 the Oracle Product Development Team for FDMEE has been working hard to incorporate any missing key functionality from FDM Classic. POV locking has been on the wish list since the dot zero release. With the patch set update 11.1.2.3.520, it’s available. How to Lock the POV in FDMEE After installing the .520 PSU in your environment, using POV locking couldn’t be easier. Here’s how it works. Step 1) In FDMEE, go to Setup tab and select Application Settings from the Configure task area. Step 2) From the Target Application drop down, select the target application for the category and period you wish to lock. Step 3) On the Settings header bar, you will notice two new buttons: Lock POV and Unlock POV. Click the Lock POV button. Step 4) The Lock POV for All Locations dialog box appears. On the dialog box select the category and period you want to lock and click OK. Step 5) You will be notified with a message indicated that the POV has been locked. Attempting to Import Data for a Locked POV If you attempt to import data for a locked point of view, you receive an error message indicating the POV is locked. Now, it would have been cool if the .520 release included the POV lock symbol like FDM Classic,...
by Doug Correa | 09 04, 2014 | FDM, FDM Classic, FDMEE
FDMEE PSU 520 is Here! Oracle has released FDMEE Patch Set Update (PSU) 11.1.2.3.520. You can download PSU 520 from the My Oracle Support portal. PSU 520 applies to all supported platforms for FDMEE, including Windows, Oracle Solaris, and Linux. See the corresponding Read Me file for details on My Oracle Support. Features and Fixes Galore PSU 520 fixes a fair number of reported defects – 50 in all. Patch Set Update 11.1.2.3.520 also introduces 5 new features for FDMEE. One feature creates even greater parity between FDM Classic and FDMEE – Point-of-View Locking. POV Locking The inclusion of Point-of-View (POV) Locking will be of great interest to customers considering an upgrade from FDM Classic to FDMEE. As FDM users are aware, locking the POV prevents locations from modifying their data. For many FDM customers POV locking is an integral part of the close. I’ll have more info on this feature in a future blog post as I have a couple of clients upgrading from FDM Classic to FDMEE that rely on this feature. Updated Admin Guide An updated FDMEE Administrator’s Guide hast been released. You can find the .520 administrator’s guide on the Oracle EPM Release 11.1.2.3 Documentation Library. I’ll keep you up to date on findings as I test 520 in our lab...
by Doug Correa | 06 17, 2014 | EPM, FDM, FDM Classic, FDMEE
One of the great things about FDM is scripting. Sometimes certain actions cannot be performed by standard application functionality alone. That’s where scripting comes in. You can customize and enhance your FDM application with scripts. Scripting is vital to nearly all FDM Classic applications I’ve worked on. So, when it comes to FDMEE, you keep hearing about this new scripting language called “Jython“. You’ve got other questions, too. Here are answers to your most common FDMEE scripting questions. 1) When we upgrade from FDM Classic to FDMEE, will we need to rewrite our scripts? Yes, some of your scripts will need to be re-written. Learn More Unlike FDM Classic which exclusively uses VBScript, FDMEE offers various scripting options depending on the type of script. The following diagram shows a breakdown from Old World (FDM Classic) to New World (FDMEE). It’s possible to leverage existing FDM Classic event scripts and custom scripts when upgrading to FDMEE. I’ve done it before. But you’ll have to re-develop your import scripts, mappings scripts, and custom scripts. 2) So, the de facto scripting language for FDMEE is Jython. What is Jython? Jython is the Python scripting language integrated with the Java platform. Learn More You can find plenty of resources out there for Jython programming. Check out Jython.org for starters. Also, the FDMEE Administrator’s Guide has several Jython script examples to get you started. 3) For our upgrade, we have to transform some of our existing FDM Classic scripts from VBScript to Jython. How difficult will this be? It shouldn’t be too hard. To precisely gauge the level of effort requires an audit of your...
by Doug Correa | 06 11, 2014 | EPM, FDM, FDM Classic, FDMEE
What happened to my data? Why are my totals off? Why the *@#%! do I have to reload the same set of data AGAIN!? I’ve heard these questions on many-a-implementation involving FDM data loads to HFM and Essbase. Here’s why. Re-loading Trial Balance Data – It’s not uncommon to load trial balance data multiple times during the close. After all, it typically takes accountants and controllers a few passes to finalize their month-end financial information. Supplemental Data – It’s also not uncommon to have information for a single entity come from multiple sources. Consider trial balance data from the general ledger system and statistical data loaded manually via Smart View or data forms. The above data load circumstances can often lead to data integrity issues. This is where a custom FDM data protection solution can help. Data protection is about protecting target system data from being overwritten by multiple data loads to the same point of view. FDM Data Load Options Both FDM Classic and FDM Enterprise Edition (FDMEE) support two data load methods: Replace and Merge. For illustration, consider this example. Statistical data, e.g. headcount and units sold, is loaded once during the close. Conversely, during the same month-end cycle trial balance data is loaded several times as the financial information refined and finalized. Loading Data with Replace Mode When data is loaded using the standard Replace mode, the data for the specific point of view (POV) – Scenario, Year, Period and Entity – is cleared in HFM before FDM loads the new data set. Drawback – All data for the entity is erased. Based on our example,...
by Doug Correa | 05 29, 2014 | FDM, FDM Classic, FDMEE
Oracle Hyperion EPM folk know that Financial Data Quality Management Classic (FDM Classic) is the ideal data transformation tool for getting your data into Oracle Hyperion applications. But it takes some effort to get things up and running. In particular, installing and configuring FDM adapters (FDM Classic software modules for communicating with target Hyperion apps) can be a chore. Well, Hyperion target application setup is different with FDM Enterprise Edition (FDMEE). FDMEE makes things a lot easier. FDM Classic Setup Here’s a rundown of how things typically go in the FDM Classic world. Your infrastructure resource installs the FDM Classic software. Now, you’re ready to create a FDM Classic application. You can do this via the FDM Classic web console. After you create a new application, you need to configure FDM to communicate with your Hyperion target applications. For this, you use the Workbench Win32 desktop client. Most likely, you’re using Workbench on the FDM application server. Using Workbench, you perform Steps 1 through 4. You execute Steps 5 and 6 on the web. Register the adapter file (e.g. fdmFM11XG6C.dll) , Import the corresponding metadata interface file (e.g. FM11X-G6-C.xml) , Configure COM settings for the adapter, Add a machine profile, Specify the application name in Integration Settings, and Validate that FDM Classic is communicating with the target app FDMEE Setup FDMEE is fully integrated in Oracle EPM Workspace; it’s not a stand-alone application like FDM Classic. There are some real benefits to this. For starters, out of the box, FDMEE is ready to talk to Oracle Hyperion applications registered in Workspace. In FDMEE you will simply do the following. Go...
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