Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide- P47 docx

First of all, instead of an interfacing system establishing a connection with your database and fetching data into something like a recordset or a cursor, with Essbase, you are limited t

Another method is the reporting of your data using the MDX query language that

has been included with Oracle Essbase since version 7.x MDX queries can be written

in a similar way to an SQL query and executed in batch or through the EAS MDX

query editor screens

Export data

What always happens when you have a good system with good data, which is

in demand by other departments in your company? Why, it seems as though

everybody has to get some of it loaded into their own system, that's what happens

If there is anything that could be remotely described as a drawback to an Essbase

system, it would be the data exporting functionality Where traditional RDBMS

systems allow the selection of data for export to meet almost limitless criteria,

the Essbase method is a bit less robust

First of all, instead of an interfacing system establishing a connection with your

database and fetching data into something like a recordset or a cursor, with Essbase, you are limited to using an Essbase report script and extracting the required data

into a flat file The flat file can then be sent to the downstream system so they can

load it into their tables as needed Unfortunately, the selection arguments available

when building an Essbase report script are somewhat limited We'll get more into

report scripts in a moment!

Forecast analysts

The forecast analyst is one person who takes full advantage of Essbase's unique data calculating abilities For starters, a forecast analyst wants to see what the data looks like out into the future When we say "future" we mean future periods based on what

is most commonly tagged as the Time dimension in the database outline.

The forecast analyst has data which, on a period to period basis, is dependent on

the previous period's numbers Consider that a Gross Stock number for the current

month is the result of the prior month's Gross Stock number, plus the current month's production (units produced), less the current month's sales (units sold) If we would

like to know the resulting Gross Stock numbers for the next six months, all we need

to do is update the forecasted sales numbers and the forecasted production numbers

in the database, run a small database calculation script, and we now have forecasted

Gross Stock numbers

This type of data analysis can be performed over and over with the results

repeatedly retrieved into the same Microsoft Excel worksheet until the forecast

analyst is satisfied with the resulting data

In the preceding screenshot, notice how changing just one Sales value has affected

all of the future Gross Stock values All you had to do was send back the new value,

calculate your data, and then retrieve into your worksheet You literally get your

results immediately Just try that with a typical relational database

Better still, you could add a member formula to the Gross Stock member and tag it as a Dynamic Calc member Then all you would

need to do is send the data back and retrieve the new values

Planning analysts

Planning analysts perform many of the same data analysis tasks as forecasting

analysts, but there are some noticeable differences

Because of Essbase's dynamic data calculating abilities, Essbase is the perfect tool

for planning analysts who not only need to look at forecasted data like a forecast

analyst, but also need to look at several versions of forecasted data and the variances

between them With a Scenario dimension in your Essbase database outline, you can

enter different forecast data for the same time periods at the same time You can then calculate the data and almost immediately look at several different strategies for your business' planning activity

How is that for results? As you can see in the previous figure, a planning analyst

can easily see three or more different scenarios that represent the same market

conditions, yet allow differing factors to display long term effects

Budget analysts

Yes, most of these different analysts seem like they perform somewhat similar

tasks That is true for the most part and budget analysts are not very different

from the others, at least in terms of procedure

An Essbase database is ideal for a budget analyst, as it is for most any type of

data analyst Essbase's ability to dynamically calculate large amounts of data

is a key factor in the successful budget analyst's job to provide the company's

decision makers with powerful, accurate data It is this data that helps them

make intelligent business decisions

The primary job of the budget analyst is to combine the data created by the

planning and forecast analysts with actual historical data to establish baseline

data This baseline data will be used to gauge the company's performance going

forward against the actual data as it occurs and the forecasted data as planned

Good, accurate data can have an effect on the very course a company travels By

using the wide assortment of analytical calculation commands in conjunction with

the unparalleled flexibility of the Essbase database outline, a good budget analyst

can create reports that show:

• How the company actually performed compared to the long range

budget forecast

• How the company continues to perform compared to the monthly

revised forecast and the long term budget forecast

• How the company needs to perform to meet its goals and objectives

Hey, they don't call it business intelligence for nothing!

Financial analysts

Okay, these are the guys you need to watch out for What the financial analyst does

is take in everything all of the other analysts do and crunch it into money numbers

It seems as though a financial analyst in a company typically carries a lot of weight Well, lucky for you and for your programming in Essbase

Once again, Essbase comes through for you and your customer Essbase provides

a full complement of financial calculation functions which will satisfy the most

discriminating number cruncher From such computations as compound interest,

discounts, and growth, you can be sure that the financial picture of your company

is in good hands

The real target users of your Essbase data

As an IT person you may ask, "Why do I need to know who the Essbase data

user is?" Well, because of the usefulness and versatility of your Essbase data to

the decision makers in the company, the real end-user of your Essbase data is

usually an executive or some other big shot In fact, you may not even know it,

but the data in a typical Essbase database system usually shows up in reports

that are used at the highest levels of the company

Your job is to make these people happy Thankfully, Essbase makes your job

easy in so many ways

Ways to extract your Essbase data

There are many different ways to extract data from an Essbase database We have

described several of them at different times in this book, depending on the topic

being covered For the sake of organization, we will list the various methods of

extracting data from your Essbase database here:

• Essbase Add-in for Microsoft Excel: It seems like we can't say enough about

this particular tool Designed to work seamlessly with the world's most

popular spreadsheet program, the Essbase add-in is the tool of choice of data

analysts everywhere Yes, you can pull data out of your Essbase database with the add-in and load up an Excel worksheet Even though Microsoft Excel has

a limit of 65,536 rows through the 2003 version and many more rows available

in Microsoft Excel 2007, it seems that Essbase can have a hard time handling

spreadsheets that contain more than 1,000 rows Performance rapidly degrades and you can even experience timeouts We highly recommend that you pay

attention to this and at the first signs of trouble with large spreadsheets, you

split them into smaller subset spreadsheets

• Oracle Smart View: This tool is separate from the Essbase add-in and in fact,

must be purchased as a separate component to be used with the Essbase suite

of applications As will be discussed at great length in the Appendix, Smart

View is a dynamic data retrieval tool that allows the user to pull data directly from an Essbase database into any of the Microsoft Office components This

allows for the creation of Microsoft PowerPoint presentations that never need data updating as fresh data can be retrieved in real time into the slides The

same holds true for Microsoft Outlook emails and Microsoft Word documents

Oh yes, and it also works with Microsoft Excel

• Essbase Query Designer: This tool is a part of the Essbase add-in and

is a menu pick from the Essbase menu in Microsoft Excel The Essbase

Query Designer tool allows you to create simple to complex Essbase

queries This is accomplished through the use of an easy to use visual

query wizard The saved query can be opened and retrieved in Microsoft

Excel to return your data

• Essbase Report Script: The Essbase report script will be discussed in great

detail in the next section An Essbase report script can be created from

scratch as an ASCII text file or conveniently, a report script can be created

by Essbase, as a by-product of the Query Designer function Essbase

report scripts can be executed within a Microsoft Excel worksheet, Essbase

command script or MaxL script, or from an Essbase API call

• Essbase MDX Query Language: Essbase MDX can be easily described as

a structured query language for multidimensional databases MDX queries

for the most part use simple and easy to understand statements to extract

data from your Essbase database MDX queries can be executed in much

the same manner as Essbase report scripts or MaxL scripts

All of the above mentioned methods are used to report or extract the data that is in

your Essbase database or cube Some of the above mentioned tools go beyond the

scope of the Microsoft Excel add-in and can be used by the other Microsoft Office

products as well like Oracle Smart View The Essbase add-in is the most complete

tool in terms of functionality and ease of use Included with the Essbase Add-in for

Microsoft Excel is the Essbase Query Designer (EQD), which allows you to visually

design custom reports from Essbase The downside to the EQD is that

the reports are only usable in Microsoft Excel

The Essbase report script can be used to run reports from a batch program and

automatically send a morning report to key persons While the formatting can be

orderly, the report is still an ASCII based report without the pretty colors or graphs And then there's MDX, which is a nice option, but the scripts do tend to require

a bit of maintenance However, the resultant output is in a very usable format