1. Administrator's Guide
  2. Getting Started with Planning
  3. Considerations for Working with Essbase

Considerations for Working with Essbase

Creating and refreshing on the Manage Database page affects data in the Oracle Essbase database. When you click Create, data is erased and Oracle Hyperion Planning plan types are rebuilt. When you click Refresh, data might be replaced. For important information, see Creating and Refreshing Application Databases.

When you refresh Planning applications, the Essbase database makes these changes:

  • If a member does not exist in the Planning relational database, the member and its properties, attributes, and User-Defined Attributes (UDAs) are not retained in Essbase on Refresh.

  • Planning first retrieves member properties from any existing member in Essbase, then sets and overrides any member property definable in Planning.

This behavior is different from prior releases, where the refresh process was incremental and retained modifications made directly to the outline in Essbase, even where those members, attributes, and UDAs did not exist in Planning.

The HSP_UDF UDA preserves member formulas defined outside of Planning. You can assign this UDA to members from within Planning. Unassigning them through Planning refresh does not unassign the UDAs from members in the Essbase outline. If a member with the HSP_UDF UDA is added directly in Essbase, refreshing the database preserves any formula on this member in Essbase, and does not generate a formula placeholder (;) on members that are level zero and dynamic calculation. Other UDAs, such as custom UDAs and the HSP_NOLINK UDA, are retained only if defined in Planning application administration. To create and update UDAs, see Working with UDAs.

Because member formula support is available in Planning application administration, there is less need for the HSP_UDF UDA. Every effort should be made to define UDAs in Planning application administration.

The @XREF function looks up a data value from another database to calculate a value from the current database. You can add the HSP_NOLINK UDA to members to prevent the @XREF function from being created on all plan types that are not the source plan type selected for that member. For more information on UDAs and functions, see the Oracle Essbase Database Administrator's Guide.

It is not necessary to modify Essbase outlines for the most commonly used Essbase member properties. Planning supports Dynamic Time Series in the Period dimension, alternate hierarchy in the Period dimension, hierarchies in Scenario and Version dimensions, and hierarchy and aliases for attribute dimensions.

Use these guidelines for working in Essbase while logged on as a supervisor or application administrator:

  • Do not change dense/sparse dimension settings or the order of dimensions in Essbase.

  • You can use any attribute dimension type, including text, Boolean, numeric, and date.

  • Do not use Link Reporting Objects (LRO).

  • Do not change the Time Balance default settings. The defaults are Ending for Balance and None for Flow.

  • Do not change the Variance Reporting settings. These are preset for all account types except Saved Assumptions. For Saved Assumptions account types, Expense and Non-Expense are valid settings.

  • Back up the database before refreshing. See Backing Up Applications and Application Databases.