Like you use components to design business rules, you use members, variables, and functions to design components.
You use member selection in formula, script, condition, member and data range, and member block components to select members and functions that return a list of members (for Planning and Essbase applications) or members and member lists (for Financial Management applications). See Working with Members.
You use variables to build formulas for formula, loop, and condition components. There are two types of variables: execution variables, which are calculated when the business rule is launched, and replacement variables, which are substituted for more complex formulas or functions. (See Working with Variables.) You can create these types of variables:
Global variables for use in all applications belonging to an application type (You can create global variables in Financial Management and Planning.)
Application variables, for use in one application only (You can create application variables in Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase.)
Plan type or database variables, for use in one plan type or database (You can create plan type or database variables in Planning and Essbase.)
Rule variables, for use in one business rule only (You can create rule variables in Planning and Essbase.)
Functions are predefined formulas that you can use in loop, condition, and formula components. The functions you can use in components differ for Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase applications. (See Working with Functions for descriptions of the function types available for Financial Management, Planning, and Essbase applications. See the Oracle Hyperion Financial Management Administrator’s Guide for a complete list, and descriptions of, the functions you can use in Financial Management components. See the Oracle Essbase Technical Reference for a complete list, and descriptions of, the functions you can use in Planning and Essbase applications.) You can use functions to perform calculations like these:
Converting date strings to numbers
Calculating the averages value of a member across a range
Calculating the depreciation of an asset for a time period
Calculating the period-to-date values of members in the Time dimension
Planning users only: You use a Smart List to select predefined options instead of typing an option in data form cells.