You known what they say? Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. Creating blocks with DATACOPY is only the second slowest way you can do it. Do you want to know how to create a calculation using a faster performing technique to create blocks while calculating the members in those blocks?

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Most of us know that there is a button in the calc rule editor that allows us the ability to select a smart list and the smart list entry.  It will add something [[smartlist name.smartlist entry]].  If this is new to you, what it does is replace reference the smart list and replaces it with the numeric value that exists in Essbase.  The beauty of this is that it is dynamic, so if the smart list is changed in any way, you don’t have to go into your rules and replace change the index values for the smart list entries to match.  Guess what, there are more!

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Introduction

One of the fundamental features of a Groovy calculation is the ability to dynamically grab aspects of a grid, and getting the POV is something that is required to dynamically generate an Essbase calculation.  There are times when the entire POV is required, times when only members from specific dimensions are needed, and situations where only the rows and columns of the edited cells are used to construct effective fix statements.  All 3 of these situations will be discussed. Read more

 

Introduction

Groovy provides a very easy way to interact with the user via run time prompts, or RTPs.  These can be linked to dimensions, members, and input.  One of the huge benefits of getting RTPs in Groovy is that the result can be validated, and the calculation can be cancelled if they don’t validate (we will touch on this in a future post).

The Solution

This is one of the easier things to do with a Groovy calculation.  There are two things required.  First, the Groovy calculation must prompt the user to select a value.  This is done by doing the following.

/*RTPS: {RTP_Consolidate_Data}*/

At any point in the script after the above, the value can be used.  If it is going to be used multiple times, it might be easier to set a variable.  Regardless of the approach, the value can be referenced using the rtps object as follows.

 String sRTP
 sRTP = rtps.RTP_Consolidate_Data.toString()

That is all that is required!

Conclusion

Beyond the obvious uses of an RTP, I have started using these for a number of other reasons.

  • On global forms where multiple values may be changed throughout a short period of time and execute long running calculations, like allocations, I have seen benefits of prompting a user with a yes/no smartlist RTP.  If the user has more changes, they may not need to execute the calculation after every save.  This gives them the option.
  • If there is a requirement where some prompts are dependent on other prompts, using RTPs in Groovy gives you the flexibility to validate the combination.  For example, if an employee is set to hourly with a VP title, the prompts can be validated and returned to the user as invalid combinations before the prompts are removed from user view.
 

Introduction

With the introduction of Groovy Calculations this summer, one of the things I use most, especially for applications with data forms that include a large sparse dimension in the rows with suppression on, is the option to loop through cells and identify only the POV on the cells that have changed.  Read more

 

What Is Groovy

Recently, Groovy scripting was added to ePBCS business rules as an option instead of the GUI, or the go-to scripting for you old-timers who still refuse to change.  These are defined in the Business Rule editor as Groovy calculations.  So, what is Groovy? Read more

 

Introduction

One of the problems with giving users of Hyperion Planning the ability to run calculations is opening up the possibility for all of them to run the same calculation at the same time.  Read more

 

The generic rule in Essbase is that calculations FIX on sparse members because sparse members are what define the number of blocks.  When you want to limit the members of the block on which the calculation is executed, an IF statement is appropriate. Read more

 

The introduction of Hyperion 11.1.2 has some fantastic improvements.  Many of these have been long awaited.  The next few articles on In2Hyperion will describe some of the enhancements to Hyperion Planning, Hyperion Essbase, and Hyperion SmartView.

XREF Background

If you have been developing Planning applications, you are probably very familiar with the XREF function.  This function is used in business rules, calculation scripts, and member formulas.  It provides a method to move data from one plan type (Essbase database) to another plan type.  It is executed from the target database and pulls the data from the source.  XWRITE was actually introduced in later versions of 11.1.1.x, but is very stable in 11.1.2.x.  XWRITE is executed from the source and pushes data to the target.  This function is a huge improvement over XREF.  Read more

 

There are times when planning and forecasting databases grow for apparently no reason at all. The static data (YTD actuals) that is loaded hasn’t changed and the users say they aren’t doing anything different.

If you load budgets or forecasts to Essbase, you probably do what I’m about to tell you. If you are a systems administrator and have never seen how finance does a budget or forecast, this might be an education.

The culprit? Read more