Before you Begin

This 30 minute tutorial shows you how to analyze insights and take action on them. The sections build on each other and should be completed sequentially.

Background

Insights empowers finance and operational users with data science optimized for multidimensional planning and forecasting use cases. Insights analyzes past data and predicted data, helping you find patterns and insights into data that you might not have found on your own. You can evaluate those insights and take action on them.

You use the Insights dashboard to review the insights your administrator configured for you. The dashboard includes all available insights based on your user security. Each row on the Insights dashboard represents an insight, which can help you find patterns to analyze. Insights are displayed in the order of magnitude of the deviations to help you prioritize the order in which to evaluate them. For example, if the deviation is higher, it's more important for you to evaluate it.

In this tutorial, you analyze insights and take action on them.

What Do You Need?

An EPM Cloud Service instance allows you to deploy and use one of the supported business processes. To deploy another business process, you must request another EPM Enterprise Cloud Service instance or remove the current business process.

You must have:

• Service Administrator access to an EPM Enterprise Cloud Service instance.
• Upload and import this snapshot into your instance.

Reviewing the Insights Dashboard

In this section, you review insights on the Insights Dashboard. You can search and filter the Insights dashboard to focus your analysis.

1. From the home page, click IPM, and then click Insights.

   

2. Review your insights on the dashboard.

   The columns include the following attributes:

   • Priority of insights: Represents a categorization of insights based on the magnitude of impact (how significant the variance is)
   • Percentage of impact: Shows the magnitude of impact in relative terms
   • Absolute value of impact: Shows the magnitude of impact in absolute terms (the amount)
   • POV: Provides information on the intersection for which the insight was generated and is based on the configured display dimensions
   • Insight type: Either Prediction, Anomaly, or Forecast Variance & Bias
   • Details: Includes a brief description of insight and a link to a detailed view
   • Status: Either Opened or Closed
   • Creation date: The date the insight was created
   • Comments: Includes insight comments
   • Actions: Select to perform insight actions to view insight details, accept or dismiss insights, add comments to insights, or open as Adhoc
   
   

   

   
   

   Each row on the Insights dashboard represents an insight; the columns represent attributes for each insight. Unread insights are flagged with an indicator: (Unread Insight Indicator). Your insights are listed in order of magnitude with High priority listed first followed by Medium priority and then Low priority.

   Key criteria you can use to sort insights include these options:

   • Priority categorizes insights into High, Medium, and Low priority, using magnitude thresholds defined by your administrator.
   • Impact indicates the relative amount of deviation. You can focus your attention on the insights that have more extreme variations, or a higher magnitude.
   • Amount displays the absolute value of the deviation for this insight.

   You an also sort insights by the POV, type, details, status, and creation date.

Searching by Key Words

The dashboard displays all available insights for the user (based on user security), and allows users to search for specific items using the search bar at the top.

1. In Search, enter Electronics.

   

   
   

   Only Insights for Electronics are displayed.

   

2. Clear the Search by clicking X.

   

3. In Search, enter Medical.

   

   
   

   Only Insights for Medical are displayed.

   

4. Clear the Search by clicking X.

   

Filtering Insights

You can filter the Insights dashboard to show only the insights you want to evaluate. Filters are displayed below the Search Bar.

1. In Filters, click Priority High.

   

2. In the Priority list, select Medium and select High to clear it.

   

3. Click on the white-space outside the search bar to close the selection.

   

   
   

   Insights with a medium priority are displayed.

   

4. Click Percentage of Impact, change the higher percentage to 30%.

   

5. Click just below the search bar on the right to close the percentage of impact selection.

   Insights with a medium priority and impact from 10% to 30% are displayed.

   

6. Clear the Priority filter by clicking X.

   

7. Clear the Percentage of Impact filter by clicking X.

   

Performing Actions on Insights

In this section, you perform actions on insights. You can view insight details, accept or dismiss an insight, or add a comment to an insight. You can also examine the data by opening the details in ad hoc analysis.

Viewing Insight Details

1. In the Filter, click Anomaly.

   

   
   

   Anomaly insights are displayed. Anomaly insights detect unusual patterns in data that deviate from expected results. There are two anomaly insights displayed.

   

2. For Consumer Channel Sales West-Sentinal Standard Notebook, click (Actions), and select View Details.

   

3. Review information about this insight.

   

   
   

   The title of the insight is displayed. It provides information about the insight.

   The description at the top of the page provides more details about the insight in a narrative format including the POV and time period for the outlier value. It adds more details by comparing the absolute value of the anomaly with the average value for the historical time period. While the average revenue in Consumer Channel for Sentinal Standard Notebook for the last 2 years was 52,083, the actual value for Jun FY21 was 94,365.

   This section includes the chart with the underlying data which was used to determine the anomaly - indicated with a star.

   There is a horizontal slider where you can change the time period shown in the chart.

   Select the ellipses to display an action menu where you can add a comment to the insight, dismiss the insight, or open ad hoc.

   

4. Hover over any graph point to see details about the value.

   

5. Move the slider to the right.

   

   
   

   You can use the slider bar to see more periods, or to zoom in on a time frame or set of values. You can see up to 18 periods at a time on the graph.

   

6. To return to the Insights dashboard, click Cancel.

   Notice that this insight no longer has the unread indicator.

   

Analyzing Insights in Ad Hoc

For Forecast Bias insights, you can review where variances are greatest between historical forecasts and actuals. This can help you recognize any hidden bias in forecasts. You can review the data in graph and in table form. You can also open the insight for further analysis in ad hoc.

1. On the Insights dashboard, for Type click Anomaly.

   

2. Select Forecast Variance & Bias, and click Anomaly to clear it.

   

3. Click on the white-space outside the search bar to close the selection.

   

4. For Electronics-Sales West-Product X, click (Actions), and select View Details.

   

5. Review the sections of the the insight.

   

   
   

   The title of the insight is displayed. It provides information about the insight.

   The description at the top of the page provides more details about the insight in a narrative format including the POV and time period for the future forecast and predicted data.

   This section includes the chart with the underlying data used for the analysis.

   There is a horizontal slider where you can change the time period shown in the chart.

   This section shows the data used for the analysis (Future Forecast vs Actual) shown in a table.

6. In the lower left, click (Actions), and select Open As Adhoc.

   

7. Click Forecast, and click (Zoom Out).

   

8. Double-click Scenario.
9. Select Predict Base, and click (Remove Selected).

   

10. Repeat the previous step to remove each of the following:
    • Current
    • Variance
    • Variance Comments
    • No Scenario
    • Plan
    • Adj Plan
    • Revised Plan
    • Act vs Plan
    • Act vs Plan %
    • Act vs Forecast
    • Forecast vs Plan
    • Plan Adj %
    • Scenario

    Actual and Forecast scenarios are displayed.

    

11. Select Jul, and click (Zoom Out).

    

12. Select Q3, and click (Zoom Out).

    

13. Double-click YearTotal.
14. Select YearTotal, and click (Remove Selected).
15. Repeat the previous step to remove Q3 and Q4.
16. In the first column, right-click FY19, and select Select Members.

    

17. On the left, click (Settings), and select Remove All.

    

18. For the year, select FY21, and click OK.

    

19. In the second column, right-click FY19, and select Select Members.

    

20. On the left, click (Settings), and select Remove All.

    

21. For the year, select FY21, and click OK.

    

22. Click (Refresh).

    The Sales Representative is being overly optimistic since the forecast is quite a bit more than the actual.

    

23. Close the AdhocElectronic-Sales West-Product tab, by clicking the X.

    

24. At the Warning message, click OK.

    

25. Click Cancel to close the insight and return to the Insights Dashboard.

Overriding the Current Forecast

For Prediction insights, you can review where variances are greatest between future forecasts and the predicted values. You can update your forecast to use the predicted values. You can also manually revise any of the predicted values before you update the forecast. You can override the current forecast either with the forecasted numbers or with the predicted numbers.

1. In the Search area, for type, click Forecast Variance & Bias.

   

2. Click Prediction, and then click Forecast Variance & Bias to clear it.

   

3. Click on the white-space outside the search bar to close the selection.

   

4. Scroll down to the bottom and for the Consumer Channel-Sales West-Sentinal Custom Notebook, under Actions, click (Actions), and select View Details.

   

5. Review information about this insight.

   

   
   

   The title of the insight is displayed. It provides information about the insight.

   The description at the top of the page provides more details about the insight in a narrative format.

This section includes the chart with the underlying data used for the analysis.

There is a horizontal slider where you can change the time period shown in the chart.

This section shows the data used for the analysis (Future Forecast vs Future Prediction) shown in a table.

This action menu can be used to perform actions such as adding a comment, dismissing the insight, or opening as ad hoc.

Below the data section, you can override the forecast using either the prediction data or forecast data.

6. Select the Base Prediction row, and to the right of Override, click (Override).

   

   
   

   The Base Prediction data is listed in the override row.

   

   
   
7. Change the Override data based on the following:
   • Jul FY21: 45000
   • Aug FY21: 40000

   Tip:

   Double-click in the field to change the value. Press Enter when done.
8. Click Update Forecast.

   

9. Add a comment in Confirmation - Adjust Forecast that says "Moving forecast closer to predictions", and click Confirm.

   

   
   

   The forecast is adjusted and the chart is updated. With insights you can perform quick action on your forecast based on predicted data values and your own judgement.

   

10. Click Dismiss to change the status of the insight to Closed.

    

11. In the Confirmation message, click Confirm.

    

12. Click Cancel.

    

13. Click Status Open.

    

14. For Status, click Open.

    

15. Click Closed, and then click Open to clear that selection.

    

16. Click on the white-space outside the search bar to close the selection.

    

    
    

    Closed insights are displayed on the Insights dashboard. The status for the insight you dismissed is "Closed".

    

17. For Status Closed, click X.

    

Dismissing Insights

Before generating insights again, you can remove any existing insights so you can clearly distinguish any new insights generated. You remove insights from the insights dashboard by dismissing them. When you dismiss an insight, its status changes to Closed.

1. On the Insights dashboard, in Search, to the right of Prediction, click X.

   

2. For Consumer Channel-Sales West-Sentinal Standard Notebook, click (Actions), and select Dismiss Insight.

   

   Tip:

   You can also dismiss all insights at one time by using the selection box in the top left of the Insights dashboard, and the Dismiss button in the upper right of the dashboard.
3. At the Confirmation message, click Confirm.

   

Learn More

• Related videos and documentation

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Title and Copyright Information

Analyzing Insights and Taking Action

F56999-01

June 2022

Copyright © 2022, Oracle and/or its affiliates. 

This tutorial shows you how to analyze insights and take action on them.

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