Hyperion Planning Input Forms

You’re Doing it All Wrong

Jake Turrell

16+ Years Hyperion Implementation Experience

Certified in both Planning and Essbase

Prior Practice Lead at Hyperion Partner Firm

Co-Editor of the book “Developing Essbase

Applications: Advanced Techniques for Finance and

IT Professionals”

Background

Developing Essbase Applications

● Over 50 years of expert experience between

the covers.

● Advanced content written so that developers at

all levels will gain assistance and insight.

● Chock full of experience proven best practices.

● Collaboratively written by a team of respected

and sought after Essbase developers.

● Source code at

www.developingessbasebook.com

● Includes all download access to all source

code & scripts.

● Purchase your copy today and energize your

Essbase career!

US-Analytics is an industry leading professional services firm focused

on helping clients successfully establish and maintain long term Business

Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)

applications and programs.

• BI and EPM Strategy and Processes

• Custom and packaged BI and EPM Applications

• Oracle Infrastructure

• Managed Services and Hosting

For over a decade, market leading companies have trusted US-Analytics

to solve complex business problems, drive managerial excellence, and

deliver operational agility.

Learn more at Booth #107 or

www.us-analytics.com

Planning 11.1.2.2 (ADF Interface)

Major League Baseball Statistics (Pitching & Hitting)

50+ Stat Accounts

FY10 – FY13

Covers All Teams, Players & Games

Attendees will Receive Exported Demo Application

Data Available from Windows Azure Marketplace

What’s in the Demo?

The Planning and Essbase objects used in this demo

are available for free. They are unsupported.

They are available for learning purposes only and

may include incomplete and/or inaccurate data.

Disclaimer

Difficult to Interpret

Perform Poorly

Allow Bad Data

Lack Interconnectivity

Let the Database Do All the Work

Include Only “Lifeless” Grids

Don’t Predict the Future

Characteristics of “Bad” Input Forms

Organizing Data

Limiting Data

Creating Interconnected Forms

Creating Data Validations

Creating Row & Column Formulas

Creating Embedded Charts

Predictive Planning

Agenda

ORGANIZING DATA

Good Layout = Easy Consumption

Forms vs. Bulk Data Interfaces

White Space

Borders

Composite Forms

Organizing Data

Don’t present users with a massive “wall” of cells.

Hide irrelevant rows and columns.

Use the “Show Separator” feature to give users context

regarding different subject areas.

Use blank rows to introduce spacing into forms.

Use Composite Forms to present different (but related) subject

areas on the same form.

Use Data Validation Rules that always evaluate to “True” for

additional formatting options.

Make Forms Easy to Consume

The “Wall” of Data

Introducing Blank Spaces

To introduce a blank line into a form add a

Formula Row with no formula or label.

Certain older versions of Planning require a

label, otherwise the dimension name will be

displayed. In these instances, use “.” as a

label.

Using Blank Spaces

Good Things

Bad Things

Using Borders

“Show Separator” does not work with

certain unpatched versions of ADF.

Using Composite Forms

Composite Forms

Pro’s

● Under the right circumstances, composite forms bring together

multiple subject areas into a single view.

Con’s

● Formatting and space allocation can be unpredictable, especially

when users have different display resolutions.

● In Smart View, composite forms render on separate Excel tabs.

Forms vs. Bulk Data Interfaces

Typical OTN Planning Forum Thread

Using Validation Rules for Formatting

Data Validations are good for more than just

validating data!

Developers can create validations that ALWAYS

evaluate to True, simply to format cells in a form.

Using Validation Rules for Formatting

LIMITING DATA

Suppress Missing Data (Rows & Columns)

● Set in the Grid Properties, Row Properties or Column Properties.

● Prevents blank rows or columns from being displayed.

Suppress Missing Blocks

● Set in the Grid Properties.

● Does nothing, unless used with “Suppress Missing Data”.

● Typically good for forms where most rows will have no data.

● Typically bad for forms where most rows have data.

● Can cause issues displaying certain dynamic members and attributes.

Suppress Missing Data / Blocks

Demo / Examples

Limiting Data

Pro’s

● Can keep irrelevant data off the form.

● Can make forms faster (when used correctly).

● Can make forms easier to consume.

Con’s

● Planning does not support “Conditional” suppression in forms.

● What happens when users want to plan for a member combination

that currently has no data? (Hint . . . Take the Form Ad-Hoc)

Suppress Missing Data / Blocks

INTERCONNECTING FORMS

One aspect of building a “good” form is providing

multiple navigation routes to and from that form.

Create right-click menus that take users from one

form to another, while passing “context”.

This is especially useful when moving from a

summary form to a detail form.

Creating Interconnected Forms

Menus can be used to do much more than navigate to

another form. They can:

● Take Users to a URL.

● Launch a Business Rule (Now with confirmation messages!)

● Take Users to Manage Approvals

● Take Users to the Previous Form

Creating Interconnected Forms

Create a menu using the menu options

Administration, Manage, Menus.

Add menu items that open forms, launch business

rules, manage approvals, open URL’s, etc.

Assign the menu to a Required Parameter. This

simply tells Planning where the user must right-click

in order to open the menu.

Add the menu to a form in the form’s Other Options.

Creating Menus

Demo / Examples

Menus

Users can set User Variables that limit the data

presented on a form.

Forms must be built to take advantage of variables.

Variables can be placed in the POV, Page, Rows or

Columns.

Variables can be placed within functions.

User Variables

Open the Planning application.

Select the menu options Administration, Manage,

User Variables. Click Add.

Creating User Variables

In the form layout, select the variable from the

Variables tab.

Designing Forms with User Variables

A typical User Variable is set by the end-user in their

Preferences.

Users open the Planning application and select the

menu options File, Preferences. **

Users must select the Planning icon, then the

User Variable Options tab.

Setting Variable Values

Setting Variable Values

The documentation is not clear.

Use Context is a variable setting.

Enable Dynamic Variables is a form setting.

Both options allow users to change variable values on

the fly, but in different ways.

Both options can be used at the same time.

Use Context vs Enable Dynamic Variable

There are two main differences:

● Use Context variables are set when the user right-clicks on

one form to navigate to another form (and passes context).

● Use Context variables can not be set in the user preferences.

● Enable Dynamic variables can be modified directly in a form.

● Enable Dynamic variables can be set in the user preferences.

● A variable can leverage both settings.

Use Context vs Enable Dynamic Variable

Demo / Examples

User Variables

If a user does not have read or write access to a

member, it will be suppressed on the form.

Usefulness of this feature is limited, because users

often have read access to more members than those

to which they can write.

There is no easy way to limit members in a Page list

box, row or column based only on write access. **

Use Security to Limit Data

DATA VALIDATIONS

Data validations allow developers to alert users to

bad data.

Developers can create “soft” validations that do

nothing but present a message.

Developers can create “hard” validations that prevent

users from promoting their data or alter the

promotion path.

Developers can create data validations that ALWAYS

evaluate to “true” simply to introduce some

formatting into their forms.

Creating Data Validations

Evaluate conditions in an individual cell or range of cells.

Evaluate conditions in a “design-time” cell, for example a cell

defined in the form with a function that returns multiple

individual cells.

Evaluate conditions in a column or row.

Evaluate cells specific to a member’s data value.

Evaluate cells specific to a member name itself.

Evaluate the cells of a specific account type.

Data Validations Can . . .

Evaluate cells with a specific version type.

Evaluate cells with a specific variance reporting type.

Evaluate cells that reference members of a dimension with a

specific user defined attribute.

Evaluate cells that reference members with a specific attribute

member association.

. . . . format cells that meet these criteria.

. . . . display a validation message.

. . . . alter or stop the Approvals process.

Data Validations Can . . .

Demo / Examples

Data Validations

Data Validations

Pro’s

● They’re very flexible and support many conditions.

● They integrate with Approvals.

● Unlike custom JavaScript, they work in Smart View.

● Unlike custom JavaScript, they don’t require programming skills.

● Unlike custom JavaScript, they don’t break every time you upgrade.

Data Validations

Con’s

● Watch out for floating point decimal errors. Reference a range of

numbers rather than an explicit number.

● Cannot easily exclude non-editable cells.

● They don’t actually prevent data from being saved (yet).

● A data validation in one form cannot reference another form.

● Be careful using red cells with data validations if your users format

negative values as red in their user preferences.

ROW & COLUMN FORMULAS

In the Form Layout, right-click a row or column and

select Insert Formula Row (or Column).

Give the row or column a name in the Formula Label.

Select the formula row or column heading (not the

cell) to display the formula properties.

Indicate the Formula Data Type for each dimension.

Enter and validate a formula.

Creating Formula Rows & Columns

Abs

Average

AverageA

Count

CountA

Difference

Eval

Creating Formula Rows & Columns

IfThen

Max

Min

Mod

PercentofTotal

Pi

Product

Random

Rank

Round

Sqrt

Sum

Truncate

Variance

VariancePercent

Sum(row[2])

row[2].Sum

Sum(column[A], column[C])

IfThen((IsMissing([A]) AND [B] > 0), 0, Eval([A] / [B]))

IfThen(Not(IsNN([B])), Eval(PercentofTotal([B], [B,3]) / 100),[B])

Example Parameters

Demo / Examples

Formula Rows & Columns

Pro’s

● Can help with database retrieval performance.

● Can help resolve database calculation order issues.

● Can save having to run a business rule with the save of a form.

● Good for one-off calcs that don’t require database development.

● The function “Pi” is available for anyone who wants to forecast the

circumference of a circle or is to lazy to type some numbers into a

formula . . .

Creating Formula Rows & Columns

Con’s

● Does not handle divide-by-zero issues gracefully.

● No explicit function to return #Missing. This is a challenge when

suppressing missing rows and you have a column formula.

● Formula columns are suppressed entirely if a label does not exist in

the first row heading.

● Limited control over in-sheet calc order when mixing Row AND

Column formulas in the same form.

● The “Pi” function is irrational . . . what if I need 16 digits???

Creating Formula Rows & Columns

EMBEDDED CHARTS

Users can add charts in Composite forms.

● Bar

● Horizontal Bar

● Line

● Area

● Pie

● Scatter

Embedding Charts in Forms

Step 1 – Create Composite Form

Step 2 – Edit Form Layout

Step 3 – Right-Click One of the Forms

Step 4 – Select “Display as Chart”

Step 5 – Select “Options” Tab

Step 6 – Select Legend Position

Step 7 – Select Label Position

Embedding Charts in Forms

Demo / Examples

Embedded Charts

Embedding Charts in Forms

Pro’s

● Very quick and easy.

● Charts are attractive out-of-the-box.

Con’s

● Chart options are very limited.

● Cannot place labels on chart axes.

● Not without bugs . . .

OTHER RANDOM TIPS

To monitor the performance of forms, Planning includes

Grid Diagnostics. (as of version 11.1.2.2)

Select the menu options Tools, Diagnostics, Grids.

Select the Run Diagnostics button.

Select the forms to review.

Press the Run Diagnostics button.

Click the chart for individual form stats.

Experiment with different chart options.

Grid Diagnostics

Demo / Examples

Grid Diagnostics

By default, Planning users may open one form at a

time.

To change this behavior, select the menu options

Administration, Application, Properties.

Add the setting DATA_GRID_CACHE_SIZE and give it

a value.

Save changes and restart the Planning server.

Opening Multiple Forms at Once

Place the property in the Application Properties to

only affect a single application.

Place the property in the System Properties to affect

all applications.

WARNING – This will increase memory consumption.

Opening Multiple Forms at Once

When using the ADF interface, Planning will return

the form in “chunks” of 25 rows and 17 columns.

When the user scrolls beyond this initial “chunk” the

application will fetch 25 more rows and 17 more

columns.

Administrators can change this threshold by

adjusting an Application Property called

“GRID_PARTIAL_FETCH_SIZE”.

Grid Fetch Properties

Grid Fetch Properties

Property requires two values (row &

column setting) separated by a comma.

Affects all forms and all users in a given application.

Only available starting with 11.1.2.2 patch 303.

Patch readme file makes no mention of a related

System Property.

Grid Fetch Properties

PREDICTIVE PLANNING

Turbocharge Your Input Forms with Predictive Planning

Wednesday, June 26

11:15 AM – 12:15 PM

Grand Ballroom E

Questions?