Finit formula and business rule efficiency in one stream
- 1. Formula and Business Rule Efficiency in OneStream July 29, 2016 Aaron Bolshoun
- 2. Finit Services Slide 2 Full Cycle Implementations Upgrades Dedicated Support
- 3. The Finit Family Slide 3 Fully aligned with our clients, not just bottom line $ No debt or external ownership Work with Finit employees, no subcontractors Compensation based on CLIENT SATISFACTION PRIVATELY OWNED CLIENT SATISFACTION NO SUBCONTRACTORS DEBT FREE
- 4. Finit Values Slide 4 Our values on which we ask you to provide consultant feedback: • Approach & Collaboration • Integrity & Honesty • Client Betterment • Self Betterment • Colleague Betterment • Finit Betterment • Work Effectiveness • Impact & Innovation • Proactiveness & Passion Service Solutions Betterment
- 5. Finit Customer Success Slide 5 Our values, culture, and approach to becoming a trusted advisor to our customers has led to 100% customer success for every Finit client (250+) and for every Hyperion and OneStream project (800+)
- 6. Slide 6 Some Finit Customers
- 8. Upcoming OneStream Webinar Slide 8 Friday August 19th Creative Solutions for Cash Flow & FX Analysis through Dashboards Presented by Jay Hampton & Christine Ong-Estrada
- 9. About the Presenter Slide 9 Aaron Bolshoun (abolshoun@finit.com) Certification/Education • MBA - Business Information Technology, University of Denver • BA - Northwestern University • HFM Certified Experience • 3 years with OneStream • 10 years with HFM • 10 years with FDM • 10 years of EPM / CPM Implementation experience
- 10. Agenda Slide 10 • Formula Efficiency • Data Buffers • New Functionality available in 3.7 Release
- 12. Elements of OneStream that can be Customized Slide 12 • Member Formulas • Formula Pass • Dynamic Calc • Business Rules • Finance • Parser • Connector • Conditional • Derivative • Dashboards: Method Queries, SQL Scripts • Transformation Rules: Complex Expressions • Confirmation Rules • Data Cells • Dashboard Data Set • Dashboard Extender • Dashboard XFBR String • Extensibility • Event Handler • Drill-Down
- 14. Types of Formula Efficiency Slide 14 Different Types of Formula “Costs”: 1. Efficient Processing 2. Efficient Maintenance 3. Efficient Storage 4. Efficient Script Creation
- 15. Efficient Processing Slide 15 Preferred Methodology 1. Can I do this without any formulas? Is it possible to produce result via metadata attributes and hierarchy? (Account type and/or Aggregation Weight) • No impact to processing 2. Can I build this as a Dynamic Calculation? • No impact to consolidation time, but takes time to calculate in memory when a report is run. 3. Can I build this as a Member Formula (Formula Pass)? • Stored in database, so increases consolidation time, but no impact to report generation. 4. Can I build this as a Business Rule? • Stored in database, so increases consolidation time, but no impact to report generation.
- 16. Dynamic vs. Stored Calculations Slide 16 Dynamic Calculation Formula Pass
- 17. Dynamic Calculation vs. Member Formula Slide 17 Dynamic Calculation Member Formula No Impact Consolidation Time Much Slower Much Slower Report Generation No Impact Unnecessary Consolidation Required Can use Formula Pass or Dynamic Calc in Source Use with other formulas Can use Formula Pass in Source Data must already be consolidated if source contains a Formula Pass Dependencies Must assign Formula Pass 1-16 accordingly Do not aggregate Aggregation Aggregate naturally
- 18. Efficient Processing Slide 18 • From the XF Design and Reference Guide: “Consolidation performance is directly impacted by the volume and complexity of Stored Calculations. Careful consideration should be given to each Stored Calculation since …. a large amount of data being written to the Cube would negatively impact Consolidation performance …. The quantity of stored numbers is the most important factor when optimizing Consolidation performance.”
- 19. Member Formula vs. Business Rule Slide 19 • Member Formulas will always perform better than Business Rules: Member formulas are multi- threaded (parallel) while Business Rules run sequentially (serial) • Some logic, like custom Consolidation or Member Lists, must occur within a Business Rule—API vs. BRAPI
- 20. Efficient Maintenance Slide 20 • We need to build all logic with the understanding that we will eventually hand it over to someone else to maintain • We need to make troubleshooting easier • Formulas should be as dynamic as possible • Use Comments!!!! • HFM vs. OneStream: With great flexibility comes great complexity! Where exactly does that logic reside? • HFM: It’s in the rules file. • OneStream: • Member Formulas (on Account, Entity, Flow, UD’s, etc.) • Business Rules
- 21. Lists of Formulas by Formula Pass Slide 21 Grid View Formula List Dashboard
- 22. Formula for Calculation Drill-Down Slide 22 • Entering a formula in the Formula for Calculation Drill Down property allows drilling on calculated Scenario, Account, Flow and UD members
- 23. Efficient Storage Slide 23 • Storage isn’t free—it has costs associated • Every Stored Member creates a record which takes up storage space in the database when data is consolidated • Be Specific: much more efficient to write to one specific member instead of all of them
- 24. Efficient Storage: Data Explosion Slide 24 • OneStream warns upon consolidation about a formula that will cause data explosion: API.Data.Calculate • Tips to Avoid Data Explosion • Use same level of detail on target (left side of =) as on the source (right side of =) • Do not use #All in Stored Member formulas Formula Result “A#Profit = A#Sales” No Data Explosion “A#Profit:U2#Cust1 = A#Sales * 1.05” No Data Explosion “A#Profit = A#Sales:U2#Cust1” Some Data Explosion “A#Profit = 2.0” Large scale data explosion
- 25. Efficient Script Creation – Script Editor Slide 25 • Color Coding: • VB is blue • API is black • Strings are red • Comments are green • IntelliSense • Integrated Script Library with filter: • No need to “re-invent the wheel” – use existing code as starting point (GolfStream as a reference) • OneStream Script Editor provides many tools to simplify the process:
- 26. Efficient Script Creation – Rule Snippets Slide 26 • Sample code for common calculations that integrates with Script Editor is available in the XF MarketPlace • Common Account formulas (e.g. Current Ratio) • Formula for Calc Drill Down • Writing to Error Log • Confirmation Rules • Member Lists • Eval • Many more & list continues to grow!
- 27. TroubleShooting & Optimization: Logging • api.LogMessage(message, detail) and api.LogError(errorLevel, description) • Consolidate with Logging provides visibility into all calculations that run and how long each one takes • Entries are logged in Task Activity Log Slide 27
- 29. Balancing priorities: Slide 29 1. Efficient Processing 2. Efficient Maintenance 3. Efficient Storage 4. Efficient Script Creation
- 30. Data Buffers and Eval Buffers Slide 30
- 31. Data Cell vs. Data Unit vs. Data Buffer Slide 31 • Data Cell • One number uniquely represented by a Cube and 18 dimension members • Data Unit • All data for a single: Cube, Entity, Parent, Cons, Scenario, Time • E.g., Calculate one Entity/Period 1 Data Unit • Data Buffer • A subset of data in a Data Unit • E.g., A#Salary contains numbers for all Cost Centers Data Unit Dimensions Account-type Dimensions
- 32. Data Unit Concepts Slide 32 Stored Formulas run for an entire Data Unit Cube and 5 Data Unit dims are known Valid: If api.Pov.Entity.Name.XFEqualsIgnoreCase(“CO”) Then Account-type dims can be anything Not Valid: If api.Pov.Account.Name … or If api.Pov.UD1.Name … Conditional logic requires Eval Avoid using api.Data.Calculate in a loop (performance) APIs api.Data.Calculate (easiest to use) Eval (most flexibility) api.Data.GetDataBuffer (legacy cell-level processing)
- 33. Eval Buffer Example Slide 33 • api.Data.Calculate("A#Bonus = A#Salary * Eval(A#BonusLevel)", AddressOf OnEvalDataBuffer) • Bonus by Cost Center using BonusLevel and Eval • Order of Operations • A#Salary – Data Buffer is retrieved from storage • A#BonusLevel – Data Buffer is retrieved from storage • Eval evaluates and modifies the BonusLevel Data Buffer • Data Buffer Math creates a new Data Buffer • A#Bonus - The new Data Buffer is stored
- 34. Eval Buffer Example - Formula Slide 34
- 35. Eval Filtering – Method 1 Slide 35 • Filter using api.Data.Calculate: • Syntax: api.Data.Calculate(formula, accountFilter, flowFilter, originFilter, icFilter, ud1Filter, ud2Filter, ud3Filter, ud4Filter, ud5Filter, ud6Filter, ud7Filter, ud8Filter, onEvalDataBuffer, userState) • For example: api.Data.Calculate("A#Bonus = A#Salary * 0.05", "", "", "", "", "U1#Selling.Base, U1#Eng")
- 36. Eval Filtering – Method 2 Slide 36 • Eval Filters the new Data Buffer: • For example: api.Data.Calculate("A#Bonus = Eval(A#Salary * 0.05)”, AddressOf OnEvalDataBufferFilter) • Generates the same result as Method 1
- 37. Eval Filtering – Method 2 Formula Slide 37
- 38. New Functionality in Version 3.7 Slide 38
- 39. Convert Unbalanced Slide 39 • AddUnbalanced, SubtractUnbalanced, MultiplyUnbalanced, and DivideUnbalanced • Used to avoid data explosion when varying level of Account-Type dimensions are required in a formula • Valid: api.Data.Calculate("A#6050 = A#5000 * A#3000") • Bad Idea: api.Data.Calculate("A#6050 = A#5000 * A#3000:O#Top") api.Data.Calculate("A#6050:O#All = A#5000:O#All * A#3000:O#Top")
- 40. Convert Unbalanced Slide 40 • Instead, use new Convert Unbalanced functions: api.Data.Calculate("A#6050 = MultiplyUnbalanced(A#5000, A#3000:O#Top, O#Top)") • First two parameters are Data Buffers to be multiplied (or added or subtracted or divided) • Third parameter is the Account Type dimension member that will always be used with first parameter, without causing data explosion.
- 41. Get Data Buffer Using Formula Slide 41 • Allows use of an entire math function to calculate a final data buffer: • Syntax: Dim objDataBuffer As DataBuffer = api.Data.GetDataBufferUsingFormula(formula, scriptMethodType, changeIdsToCommonIfNotUsingAll, expressionDestinationInfo, onEvalDataBuffer, userState) • For example: Dim myDataBuffer As DataBuffer = api.Data.GetDataBufferUsingFormula("A#Sales – A#Costs")
- 42. Get Data Buffer Using Formula Variables Slide 42 • After creating a data buffer variable, it can be named as a Formula Variable and then reference inside api.Data.Calculate or inside other calls to api.Data.GetDataBufferUsingFormula. • This provides a lot of flexibility and it can even improve performance because you can calculate a data buffer once and re-use the variable multiple times instead of recreating it. • For example: Dim myDataBuffer As DataBuffer = api.Data.GetDataBufferUsingFormula("A#Sales – A#Costs") api.Data.FormulaVariables.SetDataBufferVariable ("myDataBuffer", myDataBuffer, False) api.Data.Calculate("A#Profit = A#5000 + $myDataBuffer")
- 43. Get Member Names from ID’s Slide 43 • Allows identification of Member Names when looping: • For example: For Each sourceCell As DataBufferCell In myDataBuffer.DataBufferCells.Values Dim accountName As String = sourceCell.DataBufferCellPk.GetAccountName(api) Dim ud1Name As String = sourceCell.DataBufferCellPk.GetUD1Name(api) Next
- 44. Log Contents of Data Buffer Slide 44 • Allows logging of Data Buffer contents for Debugging • Third parameter indicates number of records to be logged. • For example: myDataBuffer.LogDataBuffer(api, "MyDataBuffer Output", 1000)
- 46. Thank You for Attending! Slide 46 Today’s Presenter: Aaron Bolshoun abolshoun@finit.com General Questions: Greg Barrett gbarrett@finit.com Copy of the slides or Recording: Email us for a copy of the slides or a link to the recording insights@finit.com Past webinars: www.finit.com/webinars Follow us on Twitter for updates: @Finit_Solutions