Biju  Varan,  Sr.  Manager  FP&A  at  MV TransportationBrian  Marshall,  Director  of  Essbase  and  Planning   at  US-­Analytics

How  to  Succeed  with  Oracle  PBCS

02.11.2016

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AGENDA Introductions1

Why  PBCS?2

Initial  Implementation  Woes3

Fixing  the  Initial  Implementation4

Using  More  Advanced  Features5

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About  US-­AnalyticsDallas-based, Hyperion-focused for over 15 years with continuous business growth

§ We are nimble and respond quickly to customers’ needs

§ Over 500 clients and over 1,000 successful Hyperion engagements§ Seasoned business and technical acumen with EPM and BI initiatives§ Over 65 professionals with 12+ years each of Hyperion experience and certifications

§ Active leaders in the Oracle community

� Founder of Hyperion Professional Women's Forum, advisory board leadership, conference

presentations, webinars, EPM Speaker of the Year at Kaleidoscope in 2015 and 2014

§ Corporate culture of integrity with 100% customer commitment

§ Managed services� Managed services team is Dallas based, each with 10+ years of experience

� Proven processes for all aspects of managed services

ABOUT  US-­ANALYTICS

Managed Services

Upgrades & Migrations

Implementations

Infrastructure

Process & Advisory

Services

Big Data

Master Data Management

Business Intelligence

Financial Close & Consolidation

Planning & Forecasting

Solutions

Data IntegrationTraining

Accolades

– Original Oracle Hyperion and Pillar Partner – Oracle Hyperion Financial Management 11– Oracle Hyperion Planning 11– Oracle Essbase 11– Oracle Data Relationship Management 112013, 2014, 2015

2015  Oracle  TOLA  EPM  Partner   of  the  Year

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About  MV  Transportation§ Largest private provider of paratransit services

and the largest privately owned transportation contracting firm in the United States

§ Over 130 operations in 28 of the United States, the District of Columbia, two Canadian Provinces, and Saudi Arabia

§ Over 17,000 employees

§ Over 10,000 vehicles in service

§ Over $1 billion in annual revenue

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Why  PBCS?§ Limit reliance on IT§ Initial cost up front greatly reduced▶ No hardware costs

▶ No software costs

§ Total cost of ownership much lower vs. on-premises Hyperion Planning▶ No hardware maintenance costs

▶ No IT-related costs

▶ No annual software maintenance costs

§ All of the great functionality of Hyperion Planning

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Initial  Implementation  Woes§ Initial implementation partner attempted a “rapid-start” methodology

§ Instead of PBCS supporting the MV process, MV was expected to fit into the methodology

§ It eventually became clear that while a rapid start may work well in the mid-market and for more simplified applications, MV needed a more sophisticated implementation

§ Budget overrun required a change request

§ It became clear that another partner should be investigated

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Assessing  the  Situation§ US-Analytics was engaged to assess the application and work done to date§ The application had a myriad of problems▶ The account dimension was built at the wrong level, causing massive

performance problems▶ Data didn’t tie to the ledger▶ Virtually all forms were unusable▶ The one form that was theoretically usable performed so slowly that it was

problematic as well▶ Only simple business rules were created for aggregations, data clears, and simple

data copies▶ No automated processes whatsoever

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The  Account  Dimension§ The majority of the problems with the application revolved around the

account dimension

§ Built at the sub-account level, the dimension contained over 4,500 members

§ This isn’t a problem… except that they don’t plan at the sub-account level

§ Instead, they plan at the account levels

§ The upper level members contained “made up” account numbers rather than just using the name and having no alias

§ This made it difficult to look at account numbers at level 0 and the parents at the same time

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Data  Issues§ The data did appear to tie for the most part at level 0

§ Because no automated processes existed yet and training had not been completed, new entities were not yet added, causing even level-0 issues

§ At upper levels, the data didn’t tie at all

§ This was found to be related back to the root of all evil in our original application: the account dimension

§ Many of the consolidation operators were incorrect, causing data tie-out issues above level 0

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Form  Issues§ With only one form that served any usable purpose… this form somehow still

had significant issues

§ The form was built using cherry-picked accounts at the top and then IDESC at the bottom, effectively doubling the number of accounts on the form

§ This meant that the form was taking an incredibly long time to load

§ Also contributing to the load times: sub-account

§ Back to the root of all evil

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Fixing  the  Initial  Implementation§ MV needed to be operational quickly so that they could finalize their budget

and perform consolidated financial reporting

§ First we had to export all of the data to make sure that any data that had been budgeted could be restored once the application was fixed

§ Made great use of the test environment provided by PBCS

§ Identified the key areas to get things up and running

▶ Fixing the account dimension▶ Fixing the data tie-out issues▶ Loading consolidated financial data

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The  Root  of  All  Evil§ First we stripped out the sub-accounts, leaving accounts as our lowest level

§ This reduced the number of accounts from 4,500 down to roughly 1,500

§ Next we fixed all consolidation operators

§ Finally we reloaded the data back into the newly structure model

§ The operational income statement was fixed!

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Not  Quite  as  Evil§ Next up was fixing our form

§ The form was re-built from scratch with the new account structure in mind and performance was massively increased

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Consolidated  Financials§ MV uses a very complex mapping to arrive at consolidated financials§ This mapping is at the sub-account level… and the company level… and the

business unit (entity) level§ The code behind this mapping is over 900 lines long and found only in a stored

procedure§ This was the reason for sub-account in the first place… but without company,

it was a fruitless pursuit§ So why try to re-invent the wheel?§ Instead, we use FDMEE to roll the wheel into our PBCS application, but still

provide the users with the detail necessary to see how the data got there using drill-through

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Demo  – Web-­Based

The  small  character  in  the  top  right  corner  of  a  cell  means  that  drill-­‐through   is    available  for  the  intersection.

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Demo  – Smart  View

The  green  outline  means  that  drill-­‐through   is  available  for  the  intersection.

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Demo

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Next  Steps§ Automate data and meta-data feeds▶ Monthly builds from Lawson for OPS Income Statement using FDMEE▶ Monthly builds from Lawson for Consolidated Income Statement using FDMEE

§ Expand the number of users accessing the system directly§ Move calculations from spreadsheets into PBCS for OPS Planning§ Asset Management Expense Planning§ HR Expense Planning§ The “Bid” model