Bridging the Gap Between Oracle Financial Analyzer and Oracle General Ledger

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Bridging the Gap Between Oracle Financial
Analyzer and Oracle General Ledger
NCOAUG Training Day Chicago, Illinois August
28th, 2000

• Mark Hoferle
• mhoferle_at_braunconsult.com
• [phone]

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Agenda

• Introduction
• What is Financial Analyzer?
• The Express Engine
• Whats wrong with Excel?
• Implementing the OGL-OFA link
• Taking Advantage of the Power of OFA
• Tips/Future Enhancements of the Link
• Questions

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Introduction
By describing the link, this presentation hopes
to introduce Oracle Financial Analyzer (OFA) to
potential users and developers. The link is a
systematic, fully functioning out-of-the-box
process developed and supported by Oracle Allows
developers to take tasks that were traditionally
performed by the OGL and transfer them to
OFA Enhanced features are continually being added
to the link
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Agenda

• Introduction
• What is Financial Analyzer?
• The Express Engine
• Whats wrong with Excel?
• Implementing the OGL-OFA link
• Taking Advantage of the Power of OFA
• Tips/Future Enhancements of the Link
• Questions

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What is Financial Analyzer?
A Budget and Forecast application with a GUI
front-end and an Express engine An OLAP
application (On-Line Analytical Processing) A
distributed data design that can run on either a
UNIX or NT platform View cross-sections of
multi-dimensional data via dimensions (product,
geography, etc.) Analyze historical trends,
monitor exceptions and drill-down
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What is Financial Analyzer?
Provide access to summary data optimized for
reporting and analysis Using GUI tools (point and
click, drag and drop) users create reports that
directly query the Express database Calculate new
data Modeling, forecasting, what-if,
allocations, aggregations Percent change, lags,
variances, moving averages, ratios, simultaneous
calculations
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What is Financial Analyzer?
The Express Engine Part of the On-Line Analytical
Processing (OLAP) family of database software
that stores data in a multi-dimensional
format Stores data in cubes instead of
tables Totals are embedded within the same cube
as the detail that comprises them Different types
of data (sales and units, actuals and budget) are
stored in separate cubes
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What is Financial Analyzer?
KEYS
DIMENSIONS
TIME
DEC JAN FEB
MARKET
EAST CENTRAL WEST
PRODUCT
FILM CAMERAS LENSES
SALES
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What is Financial Analyzer?
Express uses a multi-cube model
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What is Financial Analyzer?
The Express Engine Ideal for the Budgeting and
Forecasting community Allows the Finance
Department, with minimal IT assistance, to define
and create their own financial database Tracks
data at the monthly level, where most forecasting
takes place (not at the transactional level)
Cubes allow users to easily compare data from
different data sets (Actual vs.. Budget) Built
in modeling, consolidation and analytical
features (drill-down, ease of report manipulation)
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What is Financial Analyzer?
Whats wrong with Excel? Widely popular with
Finance departments to generate Forecast results
and reports, but . . . Difficult to implement
basic changes (adding new departments or
accounts) to the content of the spreadsheet
quickly and accurately Must manually copy
formulas if changes are made No built-in data
collection or aggregation features No true
analytical (drill-down) feature
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What is Financial Analyzer?
Whats wrong with Excel? Using the Express
engine, OFA can . . . Quickly get changes to
structures and formulas out to all users through
an automated process Through its distributed
environment, changes by a single user can easily
be relayed and consolidated using built-in
features With the power of Express, reports can
be quickly generated and manipulated (changing
views and drilling-down)
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Agenda

• Introduction
• What is Financial Analyzer?
• The Express Engine
• Whats wrong with Excel?
• Implementing the OGL-OFA link
• Taking Advantage of the Power of OFA
• Tips/Future Enhancements of the Link
• Questions

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Implementing the OGL-OFA Link
Allows OFA to share the chart of accounts
structure with OGL Actual data can be pulled from
OGL into OFA Forecasted information can be sent
to OGL from OFA Fully automated, supported
process Defining the Metadata in OGL Running
Extract Programs in OGL Pulling Information into
OFA Sending data from OFA back to OGL
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Implementing the OGL-OFA Link
From Relational to Multidimensional Data Storage
Relational View
Multidimensional View
Dimensions Dimension Values Time
Dimension Hierarchies Financial Data Items
Segments Segment Values Calendar Rollups Balan
ces
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Implementing the OGL-OFA Link
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Implementing the OGL-OFA Link
Dimensions and Segments Dimensions and dimension
values not limited to chart of accounts (can
create objects not associated to any segment in
OGL) Can filter segments and segment values if
not needed in OFA Summary Accounts Aggregation
takes place within OFA, or can load summary
accounts from OGL An unlimited number of
hierarchies can be created for any given dimension
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Implementing the OGL-OFA Link
General Ledger Admin
Financial Analyzer
Metadata Tables
Data Extract
General Ledger
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Implementing the OGL-OFA Link
Metadata - Define Metadata in Oracle General
Ledger to represent your planned OFA
structures Define the OFA dimensions in the G/L
by assigning segment(s) Define the segment range
sets to limit the number of segment values that
OFA will import Define hierarchies using segment
value relationships Define the OFA Financial Data
Items by identifying the OGL balances In
general, structure brought from the OGL cannot be
changed (edited) in OFA
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Implementing the OGL-OFA Link
From GL run extraction programs Analyzer -
Extract Balances Analyzer - Extract
Calendar Analyzer - Extract Currency Analyzer -
Extract Hierarchy Analyzer - Extract Period
Rates Analyzer - Extract Segment Values Oracle
General Ledger Run Requests form From OFA
Submit load request to Task Processor OFA
creates all the necessary structures
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Implementing the OGL-OFA Link
Sending Data back to OGL Not required, but some
companies may need to report forecasted results
from OGL Data is sent to the budget interface
table directly from OFA
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Agenda

• Introduction
• What is Financial Analyzer?
• The Express Engine
• Whats wrong with Excel?
• Implementing the OGL-OFA link
• Taking Advantage of the Power of OFA
• Tips/Future Enhancements of the Link
• Questions

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Taking Advantage of the Power of OFA
The Power of the Express Engine OFA can quickly
and easily perform intricate allocation
routines Can use non-OGL information to generate
allocations Express offers its own 4th generation
programming language
OFAs Reporting Capabilities OFA comes with its
own reporting utility With actuals loaded into
OFA, it can meet most reporting requirements In
OFA, users can easily change report layouts,
formats and selections, and can quickly perform
analysis of the information
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Taking Advantage of the Power of OFA
OFA or OGL? Who will need to access the
information? Do we need to train users unfamiliar
with a new application? Do we need to purchase
additional software licenses? Are we introducing
unnecessary complexity to an application? How
long will it take to Build the allocation
routines or generate the reports? Where does our
expertise exist? Run the routines to complete the
allocation or consolidations? How quickly do we
need to get the information out to users?
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Agenda

• Introduction
• What is Financial Analyzer?
• The Express Engine
• Whats wrong with Excel?
• Implementing the OGL-OFA link
• Taking Advantage of the Power of OFA
• Tips/Future Enhancements of the Link
• Questions

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Tips/Future Enhancements of the Link
Tips Dont pull in every segment into
OFA Unnecessary dimensions adds size and
complexity You can combine segments into one
dimension Dont feel confined by the link You can
combine GL and non-GL structure in OFA Understand
how hierarchies are created by the link Make note
of dependent segment values You can link OFA to
multiple OGL instances Now supported by Oracle
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Tips/Future Enhancements of the Link
Future/Recent Enhancements Pull in summary
balances from OGL Allowed to have different
currency types (functional and statistical)
within a single financial data item Can schedule
both extraction programs and requesting
information into OFA from OGL Drill-through
capabilities from OFA back to OGL and
sub-ledgers Incremental Loads from OGL
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Agenda

• Introduction
• What is Financial Analyzer?
• The Express Engine
• Whats wrong with Excel?
• Implementing the OGL-OFA link
• Taking Advantage of the Power of OFA
• Tips/Future Enhancements of the Link
• Questions