Essbase and Planning
Calculation Basics
John A. Booth
Topics
About me
Settings Ready set go
Dense / Sparse Its good to be dense
FIX / ENDFIX Mind the focus
Substitution Variables Be flexible
Block Creation Less is more
A simple calculation
Logs What is it doing
Functions Are your friend
About Me
Infrastructure and Integrations Practice
Leader at Blue Stone International
Co-author of Developing Essbase
Applications: Advanced Techniques for
Finance and IT Professionals
Owner of Metavero LLC (my blog)
Contributor to Network 54 and Oracle
Technical Network forums
Developing Essbase Applications
An Essbase focused book:
Advanced content
Good practices
Some of the biggest Essbase
names
You have to buy it
Products
CUBES A wonderland for data
Diet Cola
118
122
127
Root Beer
1252 1292 1343
Cream Soda
876
887
894
Fruit Soda
533
621
591
Jan Feb Mar
Periods
533 units of fruit soda sold in CA in Jan
Know your Outline
A modified sample basic application
Cross Dims Mind the focus
Essbase has an operator which is called a Cross
Dim
The Cross Dim is usually used on the RHS (Right
Hand Side)
Below we see Growth Rate is associated with No
Product / No Market; the lack of other dimensions for
a given variable on the RHS mean these are assumed
and come from the FIX statement.
FIX / ENDFIX Mind the focus
Proper use of fix can mean the difference between a
slow calc and a fast calc.
The less precise you are the more work the engine
does.
vs
Script/Rule Settings
SET UPDATECALC OFF - Always
@CALCMODE CELL As needed
SET CALCPARALLEL n For Aggregations
SET CALCTASKDIMS n If Pre [Link];
setting is automatic in [Link]+
Substitution Variables
Right click on Server Name
Edit / Variables
Select App / DB
Enter Variable / Value
Click Set
NOTE: Requires admin for Global Vars
Outline Formula or a Script / Rule?
General rule of thumb
Use scripts and rules for complex logic e.g. > 10 lines
Use formulas for simple logic e.g. < 10 lines
Considerations for outline formulas:
Dynamic Calculations and outline order can affect results
Be sure to look at Years, Quarters, and any calculated
YTD values when validating your numbers.
Make use of scripts when the logic is complex or does not play
well with other dynamic calculations
Functions Are your friend
Common member set functions
@Relative use this instead of
@Levmbrs
@Children
@Idescendents
Common boolean functions
@ISMBR
@ISUDA
Prior Time Periods / Shifting
@Prior
@MDShift
Common math functions
@Sum
@Round
@Truncate
Dense / Sparse
The old adage is fix on sparse, if on dense
I like put dense on Left Hand Side
e.g.
FIX(SOME,THINGS,HERE)
DENSE_MEMBER = A * B * C;
ENDFIX
Block Creation
Before our calculation we have no data in FY13
Block Creation Less is more
We execute the script snippet which creates blocks
Block Creation Less is more
Our tie sheet in Excel for this step now shows Budget FY13
Equals Actual FY12
Block Creation Some other thoughts
The [Link] release has a function @CREATEBLOCK
Below is a sample macro (Business Rules) to create blocks.
This uses an account called PL0001 which has an alias of
Create Block. The good thing about below method is it will not
over-write data. IT does require an extra account to exist.
/* Create blocks at the lowest level
%Macro_Alloc_CreateBlock(SOURCE,TARGET);
Parm 1: Entity where sales exist
Parm 2: Entity where blocks need to be created )
*/
FIX([AllocVersion],DEP01,@LEVMBRS(Product,0),@LEVMBRS(Distribution,0))
datacopy [parm1]->"4100" to [parm2]->"PL0001";
ENDFIX
Viewing the logs
Viewing the logs
Create assumptions to avoid hard coding
A little more complex
Next we setup a dense equation; notice a member from a dense dimension on the
Left Hand Side (LHS).
A snippet of the new log
The log is a powerful tool to locate slow pieces of your
calculation
Our final tie sheet
It is a good practice to keep a single Excel tab for each major
calculation
Good Script Practices
Never make new scripts in a production environment
It doesnt hurt to quote all members
Always test scripts in a dev environment
Be sure you know what it is going to do before you run it
Use comments
Think about reuse (macros and templates)
Understand concept of block creation and why creating all
blocks is not good
Checking the Syntax
The Syntax checking engine is not always consistent
Between products.
My preference is to use calc scripts to check the basics
if the other tools are providing an error that doesnt quite
make sense
Checking the Syntax (Green Checkmark)
Performance Factors
What you can control?
Dense Calculations; use always
Dynamic Sparse; use with care
Settings e.g. CALCPARALLEL
Caches (index/data/calc)
Outline
Data
Outside of your control
Server (CPUs/ RAM)
Storage Throughput
Basic Cache Tuning
Once you have ran a semi-complex calculation you may view the index and data
Cache hit rates on the Statistics Tab.
Index Hit > 95% is good
Data Cache Hit > 70% is good
Reference and Training Materials
Essbase Documentation
[Link]
Select your version, the Essbase Tab
See the Database Admin Guide (DBAG) and Technical Reference (Tech Ref)
Essbase Forums
Oracle Technical Network (OTN)
[Link]
Network 54
[Link]
Essbase Books
Visit [Link] and search for Essbase
