To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the question……….

LinkedIn is brilliant isn’t it, so many relevant focus groups and so much more information to help (or hinder) your daily life.  Last week I got an update from one of the groups saying that the grace period for Hyperion 11.1.2.3. had been extended for which my first reaction was……..”Oh no, so that means there must be serious issues with 11.1.2.4. that I’m not aware of – AAARGH

My main concern was that my team are using 11.1.2.4. for our current client for Hyperion Planning, HFM, FDMEE and DRM i.e. the whole works.  We naturally carried out some internal testing of the version, and found a few major issues such as not being able to load any rules into HFM, but once we’d reported to Oracle support, we applied patches to resolve each issue.

We also looked to external sources of information for any reported bugs but found a clean bill of health so took the plunge and it’s been fine.  Of course now I can’t sleep because the grace period extension is keeping me awake at night.  Maybe we missed something and our whole world will fall apart.  Could the Dark Lord have missed something…………..GULP!

Given the importance of the upgrade decision, here are a few topics to bear in mind before you jump to the next version of…...

That Support email

By far the most common reason most people upgrade comes in the form of an email from Larry’s penthouse in Lanai when he explains that your current version is now coming to the end of extended support and suggests that you consider to upgrade to the latest version.

This email gets the Hyperion community really excited, especially most consultancies who will happily come and upgrade you to the latest version …….at a cost of course.

Some of these will publish articles on their web sites or social media urging you to upgrade too.  Some will even write to their customers to offer them special offers to upgrade.

So should you?

Well, from a software point of view, if a version has gone through the whole release life cycle and is now ready to come out of extended support, then it’s more than likely that any bug that’s ever been found has been resolved in patches.

Also, it’s likely that more customers are on this release than any other and at the end of the day, customer become the testers so once again, this version will be the most tested version out there.

That said, there may be other reasons to consider but in isolation, the answer is definitely “If it’s not broken, why fix it.”

The Lemming effect

So whenever a new release comes along and the new functionality is presented by Oracle there are generally two reactions at the same time:

Implementation Consultant “I wonder what doesn’t work…..”

Customer “WOW that’s so cooooooooooooooooooooool”.

Wandering round at the Oracle User Groups (OUG), you often hear…….”What version are you on…..” and generally followed up by “when are you upgrading……..”

You’d be surprised but the decision to upgrade is often made after meetings when customers get together.  Needless to say, a terrible reason.  If all of my mates bought a people carrier, I wouldn’t………..If I wanted to, I’d buy a white van though, cut some windows and strap in some armchairs.

Better Toys

New functionality can often be good reason but you should treat the decision just as you would treat the initial decision to buy.

There will be costs of the upgrade, costs to implement the new functionality, business impact to roll out the new functionality etc……….All of this should be justified against the business benefit.

Note, this is not to be confused with the personal benefit for the administrator who wants to get the new bit of kit on his CV or just wants to play.

Faster, faster, faster

The IT environment moves so quickly.  Speed of processing, availability of storage and new advances in operating systems can reap rewards in the Hyperion world.

One of the most relevant releases over the past few years was when Hyperion was enabled on 64 bit technology.  Overnight the performance was lightning quick just because 64 bit was allowed to use memory that Windows had fenced off in the 32 bit world.

This was definitely a good reason.

For HFM, the back end database performance is claimed to be much more advanced than 11.1.2.3. so if this is a problem for you, maybe have a look.  That said, any performance improvement won’t cover up for a badly designed solution.

Full pockets

It was a good year, budgets have been set favourable for the year including a pot of expenditure for the Hyperion team………er, so why don’t we upgrade?

You’d be surprised how many companies plan ahead for the upgrades every 3 years and you’d be surprised how many of these decision are made by accountants!

Two words…………COST………..BENEFIT

Newbie Syndrome

I remember back in the day when I was first planning to purchase Hyperion my first thought was ‘of course I want the latest version, why wouldn’t I?’  I knew no better and was only going to be influenced by those people I talked to…………………which back then would’ve been sales people so less said about that, the better……….

Big Brother said so

Big brother in this scenario is not Lanai Larry, but Big Brother in IT!  There will always be a push from IT to have software throughout the organisation on the latest upgrade as old systems are expensive to maintain.

I have seen many times a drive to upgrade Hyperion because of a corporate decision around browser of versions of Office.

This causes problems for the Hyperion community because the supported versions generally lag behind so if IT go to version hyperspace of IE, you might find you can’t even log on.

Extreme, but can happen.

Close relationships with IT supporting your decision are the key here.

The future is cloud

Having just written this piece I realise that in 10 years it will be the equivalent of a “should I go from Betamax to VHS” as in 10 years’ time we’ll all be on the cloud and the software provider will be releasing the updates for us, taking the decision out of our hands but for now I leave you with a mental image of Lord Hamlet lighting up a cigar and pondering whether patch 501 is worth the hassle……………

Hyperion Cloud Road map 2016

So for those you who weren’t at Oracle Openworld, thought it might be useful to share the roadmap Oracle are currently working to for 2016 for Hyperion cloud products.  Of course, all of this is subject to the usual safe harbour statements so things may change and these dates may not be realised.

All of the Hyperion cloud releases this year will be based on the Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) platform so look and feel will be identical and ways to develop the apps will also be very similar look and feel.  The major implication here is that Essbase will be the underlying database for everything, including the legacy apps that were based on relational database, such as Financial Management (HFM) and Tax Provisioning (HTP).

From a ‘techy’ perspective this is largely irrelevant as Oracle along with most other software vendors are aiming to make the underlying technology expertise less important for the implementation.  For Example, in an Oracle briefing recently a technical consultant asked the question as to where can you change the cache settings in Essbase for PBCS and the response was firmly “you don’t need to, the technology has changed so it’s no longer relevant.  In fact, it wouldn’t work anyway”.

So Oracle are firmly pitching their new cloud Hyperion products with the view that the end users should be the guys developing the solutions, not something delivered end to end by a consultant to the end user.  The wizards that I saw on the early versions of Enterprise Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service will also help make this a possibility.

Another interesting point of note that has snuck in under the radar I that the new simplified user interface that comes with PBCS is the strategic interface going forward for all Hyperion products, including the on premise versions such as Hyperion Planning (HP).  In fact the guidance from Oracle is to start any new 11.1.2.4. implementations of Hyperion Planning using the simplified interface as the current one will be phased out.

Oracle will admit that their roadmap is very aggressive but the order for 2016 is as follows:

Enterprise Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS) – Q1 2016

See my previous update on this but essentially based on PBCS we now have some pre-built applications including workforce, CAPEX, project and full financial statements.  Looks really nice and slick according to the demos.  Pricing expected to be around double PBCS which in my opinion is great value.

Essbase Cloud Service (ECS) – Q1 2016

So although PBCS is already built on Essbase, there are many use cases for Essbase reporting so this is very exciting.  It will be REALLY exciting once Oracle have integrated with their BI Cloud Service (BICS) that currently integrates only with relational data.  To maintain the price point of Essbase Cloud, Oracle will need to enhance this product and not just deliver a stripped down version of PBCS.

Account Reconciliation Manager Cloud Services (ARMCS) – Q1 2016

I’ve only seen a brief demo of this but looks to have most of the features on the on premise version with the addition of social media enhancements (common to the new cloud offerings) to enable on line chat which might be useful which reconciling various accounts.

Financial Consolidation Cloud Service (FCCS) – Q2 2016

Oracle have been key to point out that this is not a replacement for HFM and that HFM will continue to be developed and improved in the on premise guise.  This new solution is aimed at the mid-market and a logical start point are the hundreds of customers out there who are still paying using good old Hyperion Enterprise.  Partner evaluation sessions are promised for the New Year and very much looking forward to seeing this product.  It will be one of the more expensive Hyperion cloud offerings as it is being shipped with functionality from the Close Suite i.e. Financial Close Manager (FCM) and Supplementary Disclosure Manager (SDM)

Profitability & Cost Management Cloud Service (PCMCS) – Q2 2016

Oracle see a lot of potential for this product outside of the finance function e.g transfer pricing.  For those of you who have been implementing the on premise versions will know that there’s two versions of the on premise product, one based on Essbase and one which uses relational database to handle additional volume of ledger transactions.  So I guess this will be close to the Essbase version.

Hyperion Tax Provisioning Cloud Service (HTPCS) – Q3 2016

Planned to be released after the consolidation service as I expect this to be the underlying technology.  No clues on pricing yet but if it follows the on premise principles, should be slightly higher than the cloud consolidation service.

Dimension Management Cloud Service (DMCS) – Q4 2016

So Data Relationship Management (DRM) in the cloud, very exciting.  Will it work with on premise too or just be cloud products?  Not much known about this but has the potential to be absolutely brilliant.

BTW, pretty sure I’ve got some of these acronyms wrong but it’s a start J

So whilst all of these dates may change I think it’s fair to say that 2016 will be a critical year for Hyperion in the cloud.  The strategy is aggressive (Oracle’s words) but the landscape is changing rapidly and with the investment funds available to a company that owns a Hawaiian Island, I’m expecting big things…………….

Hyperion Enterprise Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service

So the Dark Lord has been keeping a secret within that has been burning because this could possibly be a game changer for Oracle Hyperion in the cloud and last week, Enterprise Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service was officially announced at Openworld and so the secret is now out!

The ‘non-enterprise’ version of PBCS has been out for a couple of years now and whilst the platform and technology underneath is strong and proven to work in a cloud environment, it was still a blank canvas and therefore the work involved to develop an application was still of a similar effort as if the solution was based on the ‘old’ on premise Hyperion Planning.

Enterprise Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service is built on the same proven platform but adds pre-built applications around:

i)                 Full Financials i.e. Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and calculated Cash Flow

ii)                Project Planning

iii)              Workforce Planning

iv)              Capital Planning

Some of you may shudder from the mention of Workforce, Projects and Capital planning from experience of the ‘on premise’ applications and in fact Oracle recognise that the majority of developers out there tend to ditch most of the pre-build but this time, it looks a little different.

A month ago, the Dark Lord attended a ‘pre-general release’ partner viewing where we were taken though what had been built to date for the new applications.  From what I saw, the new solutions looks really good.

No longer are they USA centric, especially on workforce.  Oracle have built ‘wizards’ into each solution that allow the developer to input new metadata into the right place into the application.  For maybe the first time, it becomes a lot easier for the end user/admin to build a model……..Is this the end of the consultant????  Well, no but it’s certainly a step forward from PBCS which relied heavily on consultant input into the design.

The financial application is probably where the benefit will be felt by most customers as it’s still the case that most companies are using Excel to generate the three primary statements, often only two and in many cases, just the p&l.

The cash flow in EPBCS is automatically generated and also offers full currency translation functionality so should deal with the ‘often complex’ impact of exchange in the cash flow statement.

Workforce looked great……..and I’ve never said this about the on premise version.  It still offers planning by employee or role but the addition of the wizards really simplifies the development.

The wizard lets you specify categories of people cost (e.g. flat percentages, stepped changes, ceilings) and then you add the detail and link these to the appropriate roles.  The demo here looked great………straight out of the box!

All of his looks excellent but what’s the cost?  Well, this is still moving but the thought is that it will be about twice PBCS so still cheap as chips.

The other cloud planning providers are also offering ‘accelerators’ but I haven’t seen anything this comprehensive so my hat is taken off to Oracle product development for their vision.  Of course, the proof in the planning pudding will be when we start to implement it and try breaking it BUT so far so good………

Well done Oracle!

Openworld 2015 Presentations available!

For those that weren't at Openworld last week, the presentations are now on-line, see the link below.

CLICK HERE FOR OPENWORLD 2015 PRESENTATIONS

Best Practice Excel ????

Sitting on the 7:21am from Peterborough to Doncaster today and amongst the train rattles I overheard a fascinating conversation in the seat behind me which had me chuckling.

The voice behind me was from the West Coast of America and was having a conversation with someone about a piece of work they were collaborating on.  The analysis sounded like an investment decision and of significant value from the “….can you show all numbers in millions….” comment.  Obviously the tool of choice that had been entrusted to these gentlemen’s employer to justify whether the investment was worthy or not was the most popular investment appraisal financial solution…………Excel!

I don’t normally eavesdrop conversations but the gentleman from the USA wasn’t exactly quiet (no comments about stereotypes please) and the topic was relevant for the blog and therefore the greater good.  Again, given the volume of my friend from California I can only assume the investment wasn’t confidential…….?

The comment that really had me chuckling was “……..and could you make your you put in some comments into those little yellow stickies, that was I can see your logic for each item…..”

Followed up with “…………can you shade cells in ‘red’ that have formula in, shade cells ‘blue’ with cells that link to other worksheets and obviously input cells are ‘yellow’…….but NOT the bold highlighter yellow, the lighter shade of ‘yellow’…….”

Now I am digging the yellow, I don’t think I’ve ever created a spreadsheet that didn’t use the light shade of yellow for input cells OBVIOUSLY.  In fact, most systems (in addition to Excel) also use the universal yellow for input cells too so that’s a given in my book.  Get’s me thinking, I’m going to copyright the shade of yellow……..from here on in, it shall be known as “Carfax Yellow”………nice!

Back to my friend on the phone, his last comment before he naturally lost signal was “…..that’s great, if you could make those best practice changes, then we’re good to go!”

Aside from the yellow, I’m disappointed in myself for not knowing the rest of his lecture.  I’ve been using spreadsheets for over 20 years but all this time I’ve been using them in a sub-standard manner.  I did wonder how this guy would have used a Classic Lotus (backslash) spreadsheet back in the day, especially before ‘wysiwig’ (shift colon) came along.  I had even been part of a ‘task force’ many years ago to convert all of our old Lotus spreadsheets to this new-fangled Excel back in the day…….don’t get me started on macros…….and all this time, the only best practice rule I had been following was the use of “Carfax Yellow”.

As I got up to exit at Doncaster, I did see the gentleman in question looked about 12 years old so no point in asking his view on the name “Carfax Yellow”………….

What’s new for Oracle Hyperion 11.1.2.4.

So while Oracle Openworld has all the ritz and glamour, Larry and Aerosmith etc…..  for the past few years the most informative event I’ve been attending over this side of the Atlantic is the Oracle EMEA partner forum, this year held is  Utrecht in October 2014.

Although the forum caters for a wider range of products, my focus as always is EPM the following update will concentrate on the EPM stream.  Hope this helps...........

Firstly, 11.1.2.4. is promised for release end of 2014 but probably late November.

Hyperion Financial Management (HFM)

Announced as the biggest release of HFM ever and this is mainly down to some staggering improvements in performance.  They have made ‘under the cover’ improvements around database integrations and the UI much faster.

The performance improvements are hundreds of times faster in the testing against 11.1.2.2.  Oracle themselves haven’t tested against 11.1.2.3. because they don’t have enough dot 3 environments live.  That is a fairly damning assessment on 11.1.2.3.  Certainly in my experience, before patch 500, it was a little bit flaky on HFM.

LCM will now include data and process status, not just metadata – useful for backups.

Everybody was expecting the cloud to be release for HFM, following Hyperion Planning last year.  However, the next big step for HFM is Exalytics and will be available on from 11.1.2.4.

Financial Data Management Enterprise Edition (FDMEE)

FDM is definitely dead and linked to this, Enterprise adapters have not been developed for the replacement that is FDMEE so if you want to continue with Enterprise it’s FDM only on an old version.

FDMEE becomes the product to product tool of choice i.e. HFM to Planning but drill back is not working yet.  Previous functionality was available with Data Synchronisation  but performance has always been slow so this EPMA is going.

Financial Close Management (FCM)

FCM next release three discrete modules (CM, ARM, SDM)

Supplemental Data Manger (SDM)

Used for collating information that is supplementary to the core financial statements which would be included within HFM.  You can pull down and push back up data to HFM and it has its own database with its own metadata that is separate to what’s in HFM.

Reporting is via BI Publisher, hmmmmm.

Disclosure Management (DM)

Further investment still being worked but product is on its way out so I would continue to give a wide berth.

Account Reconciliation Management (ARM)

Successful in the USA, not Europe.  Did not discuss any improvements for 11.1.2.4. although I seem to remember some rumours around detailed reconciliations.  Will have to do some digging……..

Oracle Financial Management Analytics (OFMA)

Previously version was far too rigid and adoption was low, more features to allow customers to change the dashboards, and includes mail alerts for key accounts.

It now opens as a tab within HFM now so you can easily tab between HFM screens

HFM Exalytics

New in 11.1.2.4.!!!   Business case is still around reducing the cost of ownership in IT.  Windows and Linux capable but in first release only Linux supported.  You still need to run Windows for EPMA and DRM so you still need another server.

Financial Reporting Cloud Service (FRCS)

Brand new cloud based solution for narrative based reporting and has been developed from scratch i.e. there isn’t already an on premise solution.  Will replace disclosure management but phase 1 does not include all of the DM functionality.  There’s no IXBRL functionality at the moment but it’s coming – watch out DM!

The current version only supports Word documents.  For editing you check out documents, download into Word, edit and upload back up.  Alternatively you can log in directly to Smartview MS Word.  You can also work offline.

There is workflow for approval of content, lots of workflow.

Will include Essbase (BSO but with ASO query engine) for storing and working with data from report packages.

Hyperion Tax Provisioning (HTP)

Now FDMEE can have HFM as a source so great if you want to take data out of your main HFM application into Tax Provisioning application.  Aside from that, not many more features, other than those associated with HFM.

Smartview (SV)

For 11.1.2.4. now has HFM Journal capability in Excel, very cool!!!!!!!!

More formatting has been made available and you can see the HFM “Entity Detail Report” now.

Data Relationship Management/Governance (DRM/DRG)

DRG Has now had successful implementations since it was introduced last year for 11.1.2.3.

New in 11.1.2.4. will be integration with PBCS and the authorization process will be enabled for the EPM app.

With DRG it will now be possible to initiate new requests via a file so will facilitate bulk requests for new accounts rather than one at a time, cool!

Support

11.1.2.x premier support moved from 2015 to 2018

Internet Explorer 11 capability from patches 500 for 11.1.2.2.500 and 11.1.2.3.500.  However, feedback in the room from most partners was that 11 is not the case, and 11 is very glitchy.

Enterprise Planning

More availability to access the tablet UI interface for planning.  The simplified interface completely by passes workspace and would be useful for ‘non core’ users.  It is very similar to the cloud interface.

Reports in the simple user interface are only available in 11.1.2.3. on snapshots of data which seems prehistoric.  11.1.2.4. provides that reports will be available dynamically.

On the fly iterative planning using sandboxes is new.  This feature allows a version to be copied on the fly, useful if certain users want to take data out of the system and then work off line for a while and then push back into the main version.  It’s not a full ‘version’, created from the web form.

Valid member combinations will be automatic based on initial member selections

Has been some performance improvements around the UI

Planning and budgeting cloud service (PBCS)

The three client installs are still Smartview, Predictive Planning add in and Reporting Studio

On line support feedback goes to support and product management but aside from that the support model is still SR to Oracle support.

FDMEE is still only available in limited format, no scripting is allowed so straight mapping on and can only be flat files.

In 11.1.2.4. “CAPEX” and “Workforce” standard modules will be available.

Dashboards and reporting can now be created on the fly from a grid and better drag and drop on grid

Scheduler and automation new tool– “EPM Automator” allows importing /exporting of data & metadata, plan refreshes etc…..

11.1.2.4. Oracle are removing constraints around maximum number of members in dimensions and number of users (used to be 350)

New Admin Console looks simpler

Still no integration with active directory but it is planned.

Oracle Openworld Presentations 2014

So now the party’s over and the presentations have been completed, thought it might be a good idea to share with you guys the link to the presentation material.

First a few stats.  For those of you have never been to Openworld, the size and scale is off the roof

• Number of sessions 2,037
• Number of speakers 3,334
• Number of exhibitors 797

Well in general if you read any of the presentation material then you’ll see that Oracle have definitely learnt how to spell the word ‘cloud’ as it’s mentioned constantly.  Although this has been an overly used buzzword over the last few years, the big red square are certainly taking this seriously and especially in EPM.

Have a search.  Lots of good stuff, click below.  I will be blogging a fuller update on 11.1.2.4. over next few days.......................

CLICK HERE FOR OPENWORLD 2014 PRESENTATIONS