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Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Blog Tweak

I have just added a widget called My Twitter Stream on my blog's front page. The widget will show my tweets and retweets so you can also see those updates and links that I don't write a blog post about. I hope you will find it useful!

Friday, October 18, 2013

New Tuning Guide For EPM 11.1.2.2 and 11.1.2.3


The Oracle EPM/BI Customer Engineering & Advocacy Lab (CEAL) team has release an updated version of the EPM Infrastructure Tuning Guide. Existing information has been updated to match the latest EPM versions and some new sections have been added:
  • monitoring and tuning Essbase Analytics Link (EAL)
  • tuning Oracle ADF
  • monitoring and tuning IBM WebSphere and IBM HTTP Server
  • tuning Smart View
  • tuning Data Management products such as DRM and FDM
  • tuning web browsers (Internet Explorer and Firefox)
  • the Essbase tuning section has been extended

To download the document head on the EPM/BI CEAL blog post: EPM Infrastructure Tuning Guide v11.1.2.2 / 11.1.2.3

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

First PSU Out for HFM 11.1.2.3

Oracle has released the first Patch Set Update for HFM 11.1.2.3 last week. The PSU .100 (patch number 16956060) includes one new "feature":
The HFM UI has been tested in accordance with the software accessibility standards required by the US Federal Rehabilitation Act (Section 508).
Besides mentioning this accessibility feature the rest of the readme is stuffed with fixed defects (41 in total!). One of the most important corrections is that the web form performance fixes already released for HFM 11.1.2.2 have now been brought over to 11.1.2.3 as well. For the rest of the list please see the readme file on Oracle Support.

Note that this PSU requires three patches to Oracle common components: ADF patch 16788543 and two general Fusion Middleware patches: 13866584 and 16810628. Make sure you get the correct version (111170_Generic) of these packages when downloading them from Support.

Update: There are quite a few PSUs released for other products as well. See the Oracle Business Analytics Proactive Support blog for the lengthy list: October EPM patch set updates released.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Oracle Extends Premier Support for EPM 11.1.2.x

I haven't seen an official announcement yet but got a hint that Oracle has updated the Fusion Middleware Lifetime Support Policy document with an interesting change regarding the EPM product suite. The Premier and Extended Support periods for EPM 11.1.2.x releases are getting a 3-year extension as follows:

  • End of Premier Support moved from April 2015 to April 2018
  • End of Extended Support moved from April 2018 to April 2021

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Monday, August 19, 2013

Smart View 11.1.2.5

In a move that probably took even the most die-hard Hyperion pros (and myself ;) by surprise, Oracle has released Smart View 11.1.2.5 last Friday. Yes, you got it right, the version number indeed reads eleven-one-two-five! I'm not quite sure how Oracle came up with such a jump in the version numbering but I'll wager that they wanted to separate Smart View from the rest of the EPM suite as the product has pretty much started to live a life of its own anyway. Let's take a look at what the new package has got to offer.


What's New


Friday, August 16, 2013

FDMEE Receives First PSU

Oracle has been quick to update their new integration product FDMEE. Patch Set Update 11.1.2.3.100 is now available for the product and I recommend you to have a look at Francisco's blog post to see the full scoop about the new features and other changes: Fishing with FDMEE - FDMEE PSU1 released (11.1.2.3.100)

Monday, August 12, 2013

EPM Patches Roundup For The Summer

Having returned back to work I needed to check what has happened in the world of Oracle EPM software while I've been busy running after our kids in the Moomin World. Here is a list containing the latest EPM patches (based on the Business Analytics Proactive Support blog post but expanding it a bit with some comments and a couple of new PSUs).

Update 2013-08-13: Added HSS PSU 11.1.2.2.302 that was "hidden" by Oracle (not included in the Available PSUs document).


EPM 11.1.2.3
  • Patch Set Update 11.1.2.3.301 (patch number 16815318) for Oracle Data Relationship Management - Fixes for the repository upgrade process, for migration loads and several other features.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Support For Mobile Browsers In EPM 11.1.2.3

Financial Reporting 11.1.2.3 adds an interesting new twist to the EPM products: FR reports now have a mobile interface which is certified on iOS and Android platforms. EPM certification matrix states that the native browsers on Apple iOS5 & 6 and Android versions 3.x and 4.x are all supported. This means that no special apps are needed on either platform for viewing FR reports. I took the feature for a spin using the EPM test server I installed the other day.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

EPM 11.1.2.3 Rapid Deployment


While I was busy celebrating May 1st with my family some people have already studied the new EPM release. Therefore I will not reinvent the wheel by posting another "what's new" update and instead will link to these fine blog posts for those who are thirsty for more information:



One nice addition that hasn't been discussed much yet is the enhanced rapid deployment installation option which allows you to deploy a single Windows server installation of HFM, Planning or Essbase. The Repaid Deployment Wizard requires minimal interaction and produces a fully configured and tested EPM setup complete with an Oracle database.

Monday, April 29, 2013

EPM Release 11.1.2.3 Is Out!

Just a quick post to notify everybody who has been waiting for the new EPM/Hyperion release to go gold... You can now grab the 11.1.2.3 installation media on Oracle eDelivery:


When I find some free time I will install the release and post my findings about the installation and configuration process.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Updated HFM Tuning Guide

A new version of the official HFM Tuning Guide has been released by Oracle. New additions to the document include:
  • Basic information about custom dimensions in HFM 11.1.2.2
  • Section describing recommended web server timeout settings for IIS and OHS
  • Better explanations for commonly tuned HFM registry settings
  • An example case of tuning the memory settings for an HFM application

The guide can be downloaded via the following Oracle Support article:

The following statement in the new tuning guide also caught my eye: “A complete list of all published HFM registry settings can be found in Appendix A of the Oracle® Hyperion Financial Management, Administrator's Guide starting with Release 11.1.2.2.300”. This useful document is available in the Oracle EPM Documentation Library for Release 11.1.2.2 (direct link to hfm_admin PDF).

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Top Gun 2013 Presentations

As already noted by our friends over at the Oracle Business Analytics Proactive Support blog, the presentations from this year's Infratects Top Gun conference are now available for download. The presentations cover EPM infrastucture topics ranging from the initial planning and design phases to hands-on installation and troubleshooting sessions. To get the documents just head on to www.infratects.com, select News & Events and pick the link "Top Gun 2013 Presentation Downloads -29 Mar 2013" under Latest News.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

New Features Overview For EPM 11.1.2.3

While waiting for the release of the upcoming EPM version I thought I would publish my notes from the Oracle webcast covering new features in EPM 11.1.2.3. If you want to find out more details about each product I recommend you to reserve two and a half hours and listen through the entire webcast as it contains nice presentations from each of the EPM product teams. The recording is available via the Oracle BI&EPM EMEA Partner Community blog.

In the Top Gun conference we also received lots of interesting information about the changes that 11.1.2.3 will bring to EPM infrastructure. Unfortunately Oracle does not want to share this information until the new release is made publicly available so you will have to wait patiently for the juicy technical bits until then...

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Support For OBIEE And Other Goodies Added To Smart View

Oracle has just released Smart View Patch Set Update 11.1.2.2.310 which brings dozens of fixed defects but also a big bunch of new features into everyone's favorite Office add-in. Read on to find out what's new in this release.

New Feature Highlights 

Support For Oracle BI EE

Smart View now allows users to connect to OBIEE 11.1.1.7 or later - after this long-awaited version gets released first. The following features are (or will be) available:
  • Connecting to OBIEE Presentation Server
  • Viewing the contents of the Presentation Catalog
  • Importing BI Answers views from Presentation Catalog into Office programs (Excel, PowerPoint, Word)
  • Copying OBIEE Dashboard content and pasting it into Smart View client documents. The data, metadata, and view layout are all copied.
  • Programming OBIEE features using Visual Basic: adding OBIEE objects, managing prompts etc.
For complete overview of the OBIEE features in Smart View 11.1.2.2.310 see the Readme file for the PSU on Oracle Support.

Shared Connections Definition File

This feature seems to have been invented because EPM Workspace does not (yet) integrate with OBIEE. To use OBIEE connections in the Shared Connections menu in Smart View, you need to create an XML file which contains the provider connections for your EPM and OBI environment. The path to the XML file is then specified in the Shared Connections URL field in the Smart View Options dialog box, after which the entries should appear in the Shared Connections menu.

Office Table Report Object

A new MS Word only feature allows you to insert a table that is formatted just like tables in Office applications normally are. Office tables can be imported into for example HFM Smart Slices and then used as a part of Word documents. Table formatting tools and styles can be utilized and they are preserved when data and members are refreshed.

Other New Features

Smaller additions that are also worth mentioning:
  • Document Contents is a new pane that displays the structure of the current Office document in a tree format 
  • Cells containing HsGetValue functions can now be copied between Office applications (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)
  • Shared Connections can be used in functions for HFM, Essbase and Planning
Be sure to log on to Oracle Support and study the full Readme file for PSU 11.1.2.2.310 as the file also contains information about fixed defects and known issues and their workarounds. And remember that according to the EPM Certification Matrix you can use Smart View 11.1.2.2 with older EPM/Hyperion releases too (HFM, Planning and Essbase 11.1.2.x, 11.1.1.4, 11.1.1.3 and 9.3.3 are compatible - see the Certification Matrix document for full details).

Friday, January 11, 2013

resetConfigTask Utility

Here's a tip for those who haven't yet subscribed to the Hyperion Error of the Day blog maintained by Nicholas King. Nicholas has written a useful post about the resetConfigTask utility which enables you to reset the task configuration status for any given EPM product. This may be useful in case you want to reconfigure a certain module after a failed configuration attempt. The utility is available starting with the EPM 11.1.2.2 release.

Link: Hyperion Error of the Day blog post: resetConfigTask.bat