[BEST & NEW] Hyperion Planning Interview Questions and Answers

Last updated on 17th Nov 2021, Blog, Interview Questions

If you are preparing for Hyperion Planning Interview, then you are at the right place. Today, we will cover some mostly asked Hyperion Planning Interview Questions, which will boost your confidence. Oracle Hyperion Planning is centralized planning, budgeting, and forecasting solution that integrates financial and operational planning processes. Therefore, Hyperion Planning professionals need to encounter interview questions on Hyperion Planning for different enterprise Hyperion Planning job roles. The following discussion offers an overview of different categories of interview questions related to Hyperion Planning to help aspiring enterprise Hyperion Planning Professionals.

1. When do we generally use build rules files?

Ans:

To automate the process of creating dimensions with thousands of members.

2. What are the three primary build methods for building dimensions?

Ans:

• Generation references
• Level references
• Parent-Child references.

3. Can we create more than 2 dimensions using only one build rule file?

Ans:

Yes, we can do that but it is recommended to use a separate rule file for each dimension.

4. What is UDA( user-defined attributes)? How are they different from Aliases?

Ans:

UDA represents the class of the members. Aliases are just other names of the members. both are different and have different usage.

5. What are the two storage options available in Essbase and what are the differences?

Ans:

ASO	BSO
If we have a large number of dimensions (generally more than 10).	Block Storage Option (BSO)
Dimensions are less and dense (recommended values for no of dim are between 4 and 8).	Most of the dimensions are sparse
We cannot write back in ASO. I heard recently that ASO will also have write-back capability.	We can write back hence much suited for planning applications.

6. Can we query a member for its UDA in a calculation script?

Ans:

Yes. You can query a member for its UDA in a calculation script.

7. What is Index cache?

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The index cache is a buffer in memory that holds index pages. How many index pages are in memory at one time depends upon the amount of memory allocated to the cache.

8. What is Data cache?

Ans:

The data cache is a buffer in memory that holds uncompressed data blocks. Essbase allocates memory to the data cache during data load, calculation, and retrieval operations, as needed.

9. What are LRO’s (Linked Reporting Objects)?

Ans:

They are specific objects like files, cell notes, or URLs associated with specific data cells of the Essbase database. You can link multiple objects to a single data cell. These linked objects are stored in the server. These LRO’s can be exported or imported with the database for backup and migration activities.

10. What is Hyperion planning architecture diagram?

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11. How does UDA’s database size impact?

Ans:

There will be no impact on the database as the UDA’s don’t store data in the database.

12. What are the Types of Partitions available in Essbase?

Ans:

Transparent partition: A form of shared partition that provides the ability to access and manipulate remote data transparently as though it is part of your local database. The remote data is retrieved from the data source each time you request it. Any updates made to the data are written back to the data source and become immediately accessible to both local data-target users and transparent data source users:

• Replicated Partition
• Linked Partition .

13. What is Dynamic calculator cache?

Ans:

The dynamic calculator cache is a buffer in memory that Essbase uses to store all of the blocks needed for a calculation of a Dynamic Calc member in a dense dimension (for example, for a query).

14. On what basis will you decide to invoke a serial or parallel calculation method?

Ans:

If we have a single processor, we will use serial calculation but if we have multiple processors we can break the task into threads and make them run on different processors.

15. How can you display UDA’s in reports?

Ans:

UDA’s values are never displayed in the reports and hence do not impact report performance.

16. What are the specified roles other than Administrator to view sessions, disconnect sessions or kill user’s requests for a particular application?

Ans:

You should have the role of Application manager for the specified application.

17. What are the three options specified in Username and Password management under the security tab in Essbase server properties?

Ans:

• Login attempts allowed before the username is disabled.
• Number of inactive days before username is disabled.
• Number of days before the user must change the password.

18. What is Explicit Restructures?

Ans:

When you manually initiate a database restructure, you perform an explicit restructure. An explicit restructure forces a full restructure of the database. A full restructure comprises a dense restructure plus removal of empty blocks.

19. How is data stored in the Essbase database?

Ans:

Essbase is a file-based database where the data is stored in PAG files of 2 GB each and grows sequentially.

20. Describe an EPM architecture diagram for Hyperion planning?

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21. What is CCONV?

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After you create a currency conversion application, you convert data values from a local currency to a common, converted currency by using the CCONV command in calculation scripts Ex: CCONV USD;CALC ALL;

22. What is Dense restructure?

Ans:

If a member of a dense dimension is moved, deleted, or added, Essbase restructures the blocks in the data files and creates new data files. When Essbase restructures the data blocks, it regenerates the index automatically so that index entries point to the new data blocks. Empty blocks are not removed. Essbase marks all restructured blocks as dirty, so after a dense restructure you need to recalculate the database.

23. Can we have one ASO database and one BSO database in one single application? If yes, how, and If No, why?

Ans:

Because we define ASO or BSO options while creating the application and not the database. Hence if the application is ASO, the databases it contains will be that type only.

24. What are the file extensions for an outline, rule file, and calc script?

Ans:

OTL, .RUL and .CSC

25. What is the difference between UDA and Attribute dimensions?

Ans:

UDA	Attribute dimensions
UDA’s. Attribute calculation dimensions which include five members with the default names sum, count, min, max and avg are automatically created for the attribute dimensions and are calculated dynamically.	Attribute dimensions are a special type of dimension that are associated with a business dimension, and contain members that can be used to classify members of another, associated dimension. Attribute dimensions describe characteristics of data, such as the size and color of products.

26. A customer wants to run two instances of an Essbase server on the same machine to have both the test environment and the development environment on the same server. Can he do that?

Ans:

We can have multiple instances of an Essbase server on a single machine and there will be different sets of windows services for all these instances.

27. What is Implicit Restructures?

Ans:

Essbase initiates an implicit restructure of the database files after an outline is changed using Outline Editor or Dimension Build. The type of restructure that is performed depends on the type of changes made to the outline.

28. Dynamic calc decreases the retrieval time and increases batch database calculation time. How true is the statement?

Ans:

The statement should be just the opposite. As dynamic calc members are calculated when requested, the retrieval time should increase.

29. What is a block locking system?

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Analytic services (or Essbase Services) lock the block and all other blocks which contain the Childs of that block while calculating this block is the block locking system.

30. What is nodded Hyperion planning architecture?

Ans:

31. What is BSO in Hyperion?

Ans:

Using BSO, data can be loaded at all levels of a dimension and is stored in logical structures called “data blocks” which make use of page and index files.

32. What is CCTRACK?

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You can use the CCTRACK setting in the essbase.cfg file to control whether Essbase tracks the currency partitions that have been converted and the exchange rates that have been used for the conversions. By default CCTRACK is turned on.

33. What is a hybrid analysis?

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Lower-level members and associated data remain in the relational database whereas upper-level members and associated data reside in the Essbase database.

34. What does never consolidate operator (^) do?

Ans:

It prevents members from being consolidated across any dimension.

35. What are the reasons to turn off CCTRACK?

Ans:

For increased efficiency when converting currency data between currency partitions, you may want to turn off CCTRACK. For example, you load data for the current month into the local partition, use the DATACOPY command to copy the entire currency partition that contains the updated data, and then run the conversion on the currency partition.

36. What is Hyperion reporting system?

Ans:

Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting, Fusion Edition (Financial Reporting) enables book-quality financial management and reporting targeted at meeting the unique requirements of the Finance department or any functional area that requires very highly formatted multidimensional reporting.

37. How can you turn off CCTRACK?

Ans:

You can turn off CCTRACK in three ways: · Use the SET CCTRACKCALC ONOFF command in a calculation script to turn off CCTRACK temporarily · Use the CLEARCCTRACK calculation command to clear the internal exchange rate tables created by CCTRACK. Set CCTRACK to FALSE in the essbase.cfg file.

38. What is the role of provider services?

Ans:

To communicate between Essbase and Microsoft office tools.

39. How do you create LRO’s?

Ans:

Users create linked objects through Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in for Excel by selecting a data cell and choosing a menu item. There is no limit to the number of objects you can link to a cell. The objects are stored on the Essbase Server where they are available to any user with the appropriate access permissions. Users retrieve and edit the objects through the Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in for Excel Linked Objects Browser feature, enabling them to view objects linked to the selected cell.

40. What is Oracle Hyperion Essbase architecture?

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41. Can we have multiple databases in one single application?

Ans:

But only one database per application is recommended.

42. What is Outline-only restructure?

Ans:

If a change affects only the database outline, Essbase does not restructure the index or data files. Member name changes, creation of aliases, and dynamic calculation formula changes are examples of changes that affect only the database outline.

43. How does Essbase locate and retrieve linked objects?

Ans:

Essbase uses the database index to locate and retrieve linked objects. If you clear all data values from a database, the index is deleted and so are the links to linked objects. If you restructure a database, the index is preserved and so are the links to linked objects.

44. How can we display UDA’s in reports? How do they impact report performance?

Ans:

UDA’s values are never displayed in the reports and hence do not impact report performance.

45. When retrieving data from hfm, treat it like an onion?

Ans:

This means start at the top layer unless you are looking for a particular detail. In the preceding example, the total for Product, Customers and Channel were selected. For UnitsFlows the closing balance was selected.

Some accounts may require a specific combination of custom dimensions. In that case, you may see a message like “#Invalid” highlighted in orange signifying the application does not store data for that particular intersection of Custom dimensions.

46. When does Fragmentation occur?

Ans:

• Read/write databases that users are constantly updating with data
• Databases that execute calculations around the clock
• Databases that frequently update and recalculate dense members
• Data loads that are poorly designed
• Databases that contain a significant number of Dynamic Calc and Store members
• Databases that use an isolation level of uncommitted access with commit block set to zero

47. What is a data file cache?

Ans:

buffer in memory that holds compressed data (.PAG) files.

48. What is an alternative to creating a meta outline, rule file, and load data?

Ans:

Integration services and in version 11, we have Essbase studio.

49. What is Sparse restructure?

Ans:

If a member of a sparse dimension is moved, deleted, or added, Essbase restructures the index and creates new index files. Restructuring the index is relatively fast; the amount of time required depends on the size of the index.

50. How getting started with Hyperion?

Ans:

51. What is a custom-defined function?

Ans:

Essbase calculation functions that you develop in the Java programming language and then add to the standard Essbase calculation scripting language by means of MaxL.

52. Can we start and stop an application individually? How can this be used to increase performance?

Ans:

We can manage our server resources by starting only the applications which receive heavy user traffic. When an application is started, all associated databases are brought to memory.

53. How can I migrate an application from my test environment to the production environment? Can I still do this if my test environment is a windows one and my production env is a UNIX one? Also, can I still do it if my test env and prod env versions are different?

Ans:

Hyperion Administrative services console provides a migration utility to do this but only the application, database objects are migrated and no data is transferred. the answers to the other two questions are Yes.

54. A customer wants to run two instances of an Essbase server on the same machine to have both test env and Development env on the same server. Can he do that?

Ans:

We can have multiple instances of an Essbase server on a single machine and there will be different sets of windows services for all these instances.

55. What is smart push in Hyperion Planning?

Ans:

Smart Push is a function that allows you to push data from one plan type to another when saving a form. You have the capability of pushing data, including comments, attachments, and supporting details from BSO plan types to ASO plan types.

56. I have created an application with one database in Essbase at the test environment and now needs to copy the entire application with all security permissions to the production server which is not connected to the test server. How can I do that?

Ans:

You can achieve this using the migration wizard to migrate an application to a text file which you can take physically to the production server.

57. From the above question When I migrated the application to the production server I did not see any data in the Essbase database. What has gone wrong and how to correct this?

Ans:

Nothing has gone wrong. Migration utility does not migrate the actual data. If you want to copy the exact data from the test machine, get it exported using export utility and import it on a production machine

58. What Is The Extension Of Cal Scripts, Batch Files, Outline, And Rule File?

Ans:

Rule file is .rule Calc Script is – .cscBatch files – .bat outline – .otl

59. How Does Essbase Recover From A Database Crash?

Ans:

After a database crash or server interruption, Essbase automatically recovers a database after rolling back the transactions that were active at that time.

60. What is an three noded Hyperion planning?

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61. What are Dense And Sparse Dimensions?

Ans:

Dinse	Sparse Dimensions
A dimension which has the high probability that data exists for every combination of dimension members.	A dimension which has low probability that data exists for every combination of dimension members.

62. What Does “dou” Mean?

Ans:

In reference to RPG, DOU means (Do Until).This will execute a loop matched with an End or End do

• For instance
• Eval X=1
• DOU X=4
• Eval X=X=1
• EndDo

This example will go through the loop 4 times with the result of X being 4.

“DOU” is similar to Do While(“DOW”) where the difference lies in that the DOU will always perform 1 pass through the loop and DOW will perform the comparison and only continue into the loop if the condition meets else the program continues after the

• End (EndDo).
• For example
• Eval X=1
• DOW X=4
• X=X+1
• Enddo

The result is that the loop will not execute and the value of X will be 1.

63. What are business rules in Hyperion Planning?

Ans:

A business rule is a Oracle Hyperion Calculation Manager object that consists of calculations. The calculations are grouped into components. A rule can contain one or more components, templates, or rules. You can create business rules for applications to which you have access.

64. What language does Hyperion use?

Ans:

The Oracle’s Hyperion® SQR® Production Reporting language is a specialized programming language for accessing, manipulating, and reporting enterprise data.

65. What is Hyperion support?

Ans:

Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) helps you model and plan across finance, HR, supply chain, and sales to drive better decisions while supporting a broad range of strategic, financial, and operational management processes. Read about Oracle’s commitment to Hyperion.

66. What is the Hyperion System?

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Hyperion System 9 is a flexible business performance management (BPM) system integrating a modular suite of financial management applications with the most comprehensive business intelligence (BI) capabilities for reporting and analysis.

67. What is Hyperion code?

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Hyperion is a new three-dimensional dust continuum Monte-Carlo radiative transfer code that is designed to be as generic as possible, allowing radiative transfer to be computed through a variety of three-dimensional grids

68. What is Hyperion Planning Plus?

Ans:

Planning Plus Hyperion Planning Plus is a centralized, Microsoft Excel- and Web- based planning, budgeting, and forecasting solution that integrates financial and operational planning processes.

69. What is data compression?

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Essbase allows you to choose whether data blocks that are stored on disk are compressed, as well as which compression scheme to use. When data compression is enabled, Essbase compresses data blocks when it writes them out to disk. Essbase fully expands the compressed data blocks, including empty cells, when the blocks are swapped into the data cache. Generally, data compression optimizes storage use. You can check compression efficiency by checking the compression ratio statistic.

70. How improved cash forecasting with Hyperion planning?

Ans:

71. What is a transaction?

Ans:

When a database is in read/write mode, Essbase considers every update request to the server (such as a data load, a calculation, or a statement in a calculation script) as a transaction.

72. What are LRO’s( Linked Reporting Objects)?

Ans:

They are specific objects like files, cell notes or URLs associated with specific data cells of the Essbase database. You can link multiple objects to a single data cell. These linked objects are stored in the server. These LRO’s can be exported or imported with the database for backup and migration activities.

73. What are the actions that improve performance for restructuring?

Ans:

There are a number of things you can do to improve performance related to database restructuring:

• If you change a dimension frequently, make it sparse.
• Use incremental restructuring to control when Essbase performs a required database restructuring.
• Select options when you save a modified outline that reduce the amount of restructuring required.

74. What are the files used during Restructuring?

Ans:

When Essbase restructures both the data blocks and the index, it uses the files described:

• essxxxxx.pag
• Essbase data fileessxxxxx.ind
• Essbase index file dbname.esm
• Essbase kernel file that contains control information used for db recovery dbname.tct
• Transaction control table dbname.ind
• Free fragment file for data and index-free fragments dbname.otl
• Outline file in which is defined all metadata for a database and how data is stored

75. What are the conditions affecting Database restructuring?

Ans:

Intelligent Calculation, name changes, and formula changes affect database restructuring:

• If you use Intelligent Calculation in the database, all restructured blocks are marked as dirty whenever data blocks are restructured. Marking the blocks as dirty forces the next default Intelligent Calculation to be a full calculation.
• If you change a name or a formula, Essbase does not mark the affected blocks as dirty. Therefore, you must use a method other than full calculation to recalculate the member or the database.

76. What are the types of database restructuring?

Ans:

The two ways by which a database restructure is triggered:

• Implicit Restructures
• Dense restructure
• Sparse restructure
• Outline-only restructure
• Explicit Restructures

77. Why is database restructuring?

Ans:

As your business changes, you change the Essbase database outline to capture new product lines, provide information on new scenarios, reflect new time periods, etc. Some changes to a database outline affect the data storage arrangement, forcing Essbase to restructure the database.

78. How can you prevent and remove fragmentation?

Ans:

You can prevent and remove fragmentation:

• To prevent fragmentation, optimize data loads by sorting load records based upon sparse dimension members. For a comprehensive discussion of optimizing data load by grouping sparse members.
• To remove fragmentation, perform an export of the database, delete all data in the database with CLEAR DATA, and reload the export file.
• To remove fragmentation, force a dense restructure of the database.

79. How can you measure fragmentation?

Ans:

You can measure fragmentation using the average clustering ratio or average fragmentation Quotient.

• Using the average fragmentation quotient
• Any quotient above the high end of the range indicates that reducing fragmentation may help performance
• Small (up to 200 MB) 60% or higher
• Medium (up to 2 GB) 40% or higher
• Large (greater than 2 GB) 30% or higher
• Using the average clustering ratio:
• The average clustering ratio database statistic indicates the fragmentation level of the data (.pag) files. The maximum value, 1, indicates no fragmentation.

80. What is financial management for Hyperion?

Ans:

81. What is isolation level and what are the types of isolation levels?

Ans:

Isolation levels determine how Essbase commits data to disk. Essbase offers two isolation levels for transactions –committed access and uncommitted access (the default).

82. What are the design considerations for calculation optimization?

Ans:

You can configure a database to optimize calculation performance. The best configuration for the site depends on the nature and size of the database.

• Block Size(8Kb to 100Kb) and Block Density
• Order of Sparse Dimensions
• Incremental Data Loading
• Database Outlines with Two or More Flat Dimensions
• Formulas and Calculation Scripts

83. What are the ways to improve performance during data loads?

Ans:

There are several ways to optimize load:

• Grouping of Sparse member combinations
• Making the data source as small as possible
• Making source fields as small as possible
• Positioning the data in the same order as the outline
• Loading from Essbase Server
• Managing parallel data load processing

84. How do you optimize the outline?

Ans:

Usually, the outline is optimized using the hourglass design for dimension ordering i.e,

• Dimension with Accounts tag
• Dimension with Time tag
• Largest Dense dimension
• Smallest dense dimension
• Smallest Sparse dimension
• Largest Sparse dimension

85. When do you disable compression?

Ans:

You may want to disable data compression if blocks have very high density (90% or greater) and have few consecutive, repeating data values. Under these conditions, enabling compression consumes resources unnecessarily. Don’t use compression if disc space/memory is not an issue compared to your application. It can become a drain on the processor.

86. How does Attribute dim impact report performance?

Ans:

The highly impact the report performance as the attributes are calculated dynamically when referenced in the report. For a very large number of att dim displays in the report, the performance could drastically reduce.

87. Talk about committed and uncommitted access?

Ans:

Committed at the end of a transaction. Data retained till then. All blocks in question locked. Pre-Image Access: If enabled, Read only access allowed Wait Times: Indefinite Immediate Access or no Wait No. of Seconds Specified Uncommitted: Committed only at synchronization points. Block by Block Locks. Commit Row: No of rows of data loaded when Sync point occurs. Commit Block: No. of Blocks Modified when Sync Point occurs. For Rollback, Commit Row=0 and Commit Block=0

88. What is TB First and TB Last?

Ans:

TB FIRST	TB LAST
TB First: in the Sample Basic database, the accounts member Opening Inventory is tagged as TB First.	TB Last: in the Sample Basic database, the accounts member Ending Inventory is tagged as TB Last.
Opening Inventory consolidates the value of the first month in each quarter and uses that value for that month’s parent. For example, the value for Qtr1 is the same as the value for Jan.	Ending Inventory consolidates the value for the last month in each quarter and uses that value for that month’s parent. For example, the value for Qtr1 is the same as the value for Mar.

89. What are filters?

Ans:

A method of controlling access to database cells in Essbase. A filter is the most detailed level of security, allowing you to define varying access levels different users can have to individual database values.

90. What is oracle enterprise for Hyperion planning?

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91. What are the different types of attributes?

Ans:

Essbase supports two different types of attributes.

• User-Defined attributes
• Simple attributes

User-Defined attributes: The attributes that are defined by the user.

Simple attributes: Essbase supports some attributes, which are: Boolean, date, number, and string.

92. Why do objects get locked and when does this happen?

Ans:

Objects get locked to prevent users from making simultaneous and conflicting changes to Essbase database objects. By default whenever an object is accessed through the Administrative services console or Excel spreadsheet add-in, it gets locked.

93. What are attributes?

Ans:

A classification of a member in a dimension. You can select and group members based on their associated attributes. You can also specify an attribute when you perform calculations and use calculation functions.

Eg: The database in Sample Basic which has product dimensions has some attributes like size, package type, and flavor. We can add these attributes to the dimensions where we can retrieve the data like for example to retrieve “coke with 8 Oz with bottles”, this is useful for generating reports.