HFM (hyperion Financial Management) Interview questions and Answers

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What is Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) ?

Hyperion Financial Management is a centralized, scalable, financial management and reporting solution.

HFM ( Hyperion financial Management Architecture )

Financial Management is designed to operate as a multitier system.

The client tier contains the user interface and the ability to communicate with the application tier. You can display data and metadata, enter data, and maintain metadata in this tier.
On the Web server tier, you access the Web-enabled portions of Financial Management.
The middle tier contains the domain intelligence and connections to the relational database.
The data tier contains the relational database and all Financial Management data and metadata.

HFM Dimensions

Dimensions describe an organization’s data and usually contain groups of related members.
Examples of dimensions are Account, Entity, and Period. Financial Management supplies eight system-defined dimensions and enables you to populate up to four custom dimensions that you can apply to accounts.

The following sections describe the system-defined dimensions:

Scenario Dimension

The Scenario dimension represents a set of data, such as Budget, Actual, or Forecast. For example, the Actual scenario can contain data from a general ledger, reflecting past and current business operations. The Budget scenario can contain data that reflects the targeted business operations. The Forecast scenario typically contains data that corresponds to predictions for upcoming periods. A Legal scenario can contain data calculated according to legal GAAP format and rules.

You can define any number of scenarios for an application and define attributes for Scenario
dimension members, such as the default frequency, the default view, and zero data settings.

Year Dimension

The Year dimension represents the fiscal or calendar year for data. An application can contain
data for more than one year. You specify a year range when you create the application and select
a year from the Year dimension to process data.

Period Dimension

The Period dimension represents time periods, such as quarters and months. It contains time
periods and frequencies by displaying the time periods in a hierarchy. For example, if the Actual
scenario maintains data on a monthly basis, generally 12 periods of data are available for this
scenario in a year. Financial Management supports years, months, and weeks for the period dimension. It does not support days for the dimension.

Entity Dimension

The Entity dimension represents the organizational structure of the company, such as the
management and legal reporting structures. Entities can represent divisions, subsidiaries, plants,
regions, countries, legal entities, business units, departments, or any organizational unit. You
can define any number of entities.

The Entity dimension is the consolidation dimension of the system. Hierarchies in the Entity
dimension reflect various consolidated views of the data. Various hierarchies can correspond to
geographic consolidation, legal consolidation, or consolidation by activity. All relationships
among individual member components that exist in an organization are stored and maintained
in this dimension. Entities in an organization are dependent, base, or parent entities. Dependent
entities are owned by other entities in the organization. Base entities are at the bottom of the
organization structure and do not own other entities. Parent entities contain one or more
dependents that report directly to them.

You define attributes for Entity dimension members, such as the default currency and security
class, and to specify whether the entity allows adjustments and stores intercompany detail.

Value Dimension

The Value dimension represents the different types of values stored in your application, and can
include the input currency, parent currency, adjustments, and consolidation detail such as
proportion, elimination, and contribution detail. For example, the Entity Currency member
stores the value for an entity in its local currency. The Parent Currency member stores the value
for an entity translated the to currency of its parent entity.

Account Dimension

The Account dimension represents a hierarchy of natural accounts. Accounts store financial
data for entities and scenarios in an application. Each account has a type, such as Revenue or
Expense that defines its accounting behavior. You define attributes for Account dimension members, such as the account type, the number of decimal places to display, and whether the account is a calculated, consolidated, or intercompany partner account.

Intercompany Dimension

The Intercompany dimension represents all intercompany balances that exist for an account.
This is a reserved dimension that is used in combination with the Account dimension and any
custom dimension. Financial Management can track and eliminate intercompany transaction
details across accounts and entities. You can also run intercompany matching reports to view
intercompany transactions.

View Dimension

The View dimension represents various modes of calendar intelligence; for example, Periodic,
Year-to-Date, and Quarter-to-Date frequencies. If you set the view to Periodic, the values for
each month are displayed. If you set the view to Year-to-Date or Quarter-to-Date, the cumulative
values for the year or quarter are displayed.

Custom Dimensions

Four custom dimensions are available for analysis of detailed data. You can use custom
dimensions to store additional details associated with accounts, such as products, markets, channels, balance sheet movement, or types of elimination. For example, custom dimensions could include Product Line, Region, Channel, or Customers.

Managing Applications

Application Administration

You define an application in five steps:

1. Create an application profile, which contains calendar, language, and frequency definitions
for the application.
2. Create an application shell, in which you define the application server where the application
resides, an application label and description, an application profile, and a location for a log
file..
3. Define security for the application including which users have access to the application and
what type of access each user has.
4. Define metadata for the application, including accounts, entities, scenarios, and custom
dimensions, as well as application settings, consolidation methods, and currencies.
5. Load data, data forms, member lists, rules, and journals to the application.

Creating Application Profiles

An application profile contains language, calendar, frequency, and period information for an
application. You can use a profile for more than one application. For each application that you create, you must specify an application profile.

Note: You create application profiles in the Financial Management Desktop in Windows.

To create an application profile:

1) From the Financial Management Windows desktop, select Define Application Profile.

2) Select one of the following options:
a. Create a New Application Profile
b. Select an Existing Application Profile and click to locate the file.

Note: By default, application profile files use the PER file extension.

3) Click Next.

Entering Languages

You can define up to 10 languages for labels that are used throughout an application. You can
use different languages to create descriptions for items in your application.

To set up languages:

In the grid, enter a language, and press the Tab key to move down to the next line.

Note: You can enter up to 10 languages, and each language can contain a maximum of 20 characters. Note that a space is counted as a character.

Click Next.

Defining Calendars

When you select the type of calendar and the time periods for the application profile, default
frequencies are created for the application profile. For example, if you select standard calendar
and include half-years, quarters, and months as the time periods, the system creates the following frequencies: yearly, half-yearly, quarterly, and monthly.

You can also select a custom calendar or manual calendar. If you choose to define a custom
calendar, you must define the number of periods and the period label prefix. A flat list is created and you can modify the hierarchy later. If you choose to define a manual calendar, the frequencies and periods are empty. You can then enter the frequencies and periods that you need.

To set up a calendar:

Select a type of calendar:
● Standard Calendar
● Custom Calendar
● Manually Defined Calendar
Do one of the following:
If you selected Standard Calendar:
a. Select the time periods to include (half-years, quarters, trimesters, or months).
b. If you included months in the calendar, from the Start Month drop-down list, select the first month in the calendar.
If you selected Custom Calendar:
c. In the Number of Base Periods text box, enter the number of periods in the year.
d. In the Period Label Prefix text box, enter a prefix for the periods to include.
e. The label can contain a maximum of 10 characters and can include spaces.
Tip: If you enter 10 for the number of periods and NewPeriod as the label prefix, the following
periods are added to the hierarchy: NewPeriod1, NewPeriod2, NewPeriod3, NewPeriod4, NewPeriod5, and so on.

If you selected Manually Defined Calendar, continue with the next step.

In the Start Year text box, enter the start year for the calendar.
In the Number of Years text box, enter the total number of years to include.
Click Next.

Editing Frequencies

Frequencies and their corresponding views are created based on the time periods that you
selected when defining the calendar. You can add, modify, and delete frequencies. You can also
enter a descriptive label for each frequency and view in each language that you previously defined.

When editing frequencies, you cannot change the label of the YTD frequency, which is contained
in the first column of Frequency 1 row. However, you can enter a description of the YTD
frequency for each language that you define.

Note: In addition to the frequencies that you can define, each application contains two system-defined frequencies and corresponding views, and Periodic.

If you selected Manually Defined Calendar as the time period for the calendar, the Frequencies
grid is empty, and you must enter the necessary frequency views and their descriptions. You
should enter one frequency for each level of the Period dimension.

Caution! After you create an application, you cannot change the frequency descriptions or labels in the application.

To set up frequencies:

From the Language drop-down list, select a language.
Enter or edit the values in the View column and enter a View description.
You can enter up to six frequencies.
Note: The View label can contain a maximum of 20 characters. The View description can contain a maximum of 40 characters. Labels cannot include these characters:
. + – * / # { } ; , @ “
Tip: Because you cannot modify frequencies after an application is created, make sure to include a view description for each frequency in each language.
Click Next.

Editing Periods

The period hierarchy is a combination of the time period and frequencies that you define. You
can make changes to this hierarchy by adding or deleting periods. For example, you may want
to add another month to the fourth quarter to achieve a 13-month year.

Note: You cannot edit period labels based on language. In other words, if you change a period label in one language, the change is carried over into all other languages defined in the application profile. However, you can have a unique period description for each language.

Saving Application Profiles

By default, application profile files use the PER file extension. If you are creating an application
profile, you must complete all steps in the Design Application Profile module.

To save an application profile:

In the File Name text box, enter a name for the file, or click to browse for a profile to overwrite.
Note: By default, application profile files use the PER extension.
Click Finish.

Creating Applications

Create an application by specifying the following information:

 The application server cluster on which to run the new application (The cluster name must be a valid server name.)
 The application label
 The application description
 The application profile, which contains calendar, language, and frequency definitions for the application
 The local storage folder, which stores some application information on your workstation
 The user management project to which to add the application.
 The Web server URL for security administration

Note: After you create an application, you must set up security for it.

Windows Procedure

To create an application:

From the desktop navigation frame, select Create Application.
From the Server drop-down list, select the application server cluster on which to run the application. If the server cluster is not listed, you may need to register the server cluster.
In the Application Label text box, enter a name for the application.
The application label can have a maximum of 10 alphanumeric characters but cannot start with a number or contain spaces or special characters. Application labels are not case-sensitive. For example, App1 and APP1 are considered the same application. HFM, HSV, and HSX are reserved names and cannot be used for application labels.

Caution: Do not create applications with the same name even if they are on different Financial Management application servers. Applications of the same name but from different Financial Management application servers cannot coexist on a Oracle’s Hyperion® Shared Services server.

In the Application Description text box, enter a description for the application. The application description can have a maximum of 40 characters, and can include spaces, but cannot contain an ampersand (&) character. HFM, HSV, and HSX are reserved names and cannot be used for application descriptions.
In the Application Profile text box, enter the path and file name of the application profile, or click to browse for the application profile to use. By default, application profiles use the PER file extension.
In the Local Storage Folder text box, enter the path and the folder name where downloaded application files will be stored on the workstation, or click to browse to the local storage folder.
From the User Management Project drop-down list, select the Shared Services project to which to add the application.

Note: Each application must belong to a Shared Services project.

In the Financial Management Web Server URL for Security Administration text box, enter the URL.
Click Create.
Click Close.

Web Procedure

To create an application:

Login to workspace. Select Navigate  Administer  Classic Application Administration  Consolidation Administration.
Select Create Application.
Click Create.

Managing Application Security

There are two ways to set up security for Financial Management applications:
● Create and load a security file into an application.
● Use the Hyperion Shared Services User Management Console to set up security information.

Setting up Security using Hyperion Shared Services User Management Console:

To launch the User Management Console from Financial Management:

Select Administration  User Management.

The User Management Console opens in the Financial Management browser window.

In the Browser View, expand Projects until you can select the application for which to set up security.

Assigning Users and Groups to Financial Management Applications

Before you can assign users and groups to applications, you must be assigned the Provisioning
Manager role and provision users.

When you select users and groups, only users and groups provisioned for the application are
available.
To select users and groups for an application:

 From Available Users and Groups, select an option.
 Select users and groups to assign to the application, and click.
 Click Next or Select Classes.

Setting Up Security Classes for Financial Management Applications

Security classes determine the access that users have to application elements.

Note:
Only users assigned to the Provisioning Manager role can define security classes for applications.
After you define security classes for an application, you can assign the security classes to
application elements such as accounts and entities. A user’s or group’s ability to access application elements depends on the security classes to which the user or group belongs and on the security class associated with the application elements.

Creating Security Classes

To create security classes:

 In Class Name, enter a name for the security class.
Note: The name can contain up to 80 characters.
 Click Add.

Deleting Security Classes

Before you delete a security class from an application, you must disassociate it from the
application elements to which it is assigned.
You can disassociate an entity, account, or scenario from a security class by modifying the
security class in the metadata file or by modifying the security class attribute in Metadata Manager. You can disassociate a journal from a security class by modifying the journal file or by updating the security class for the journal in the Process Journals module.

To delete security classes:

 From Available Classes, select the security classes to delete.
 Click Delete Classes.
 Click Yes to confirm deletion.

Selecting Security Classes

To select security classes for an application:

 From Available Classes, select the security classes to assign to the application, and click Add.
 Click Next or Assign Access.

Assigning User Access to Security Classes

After you define users and groups and security classes, you can specify the level of access each
user and group has to each security class in the application and set up e-mail alerts.

Note: You must select users and classes for the application before you can access the Assign Access module.
User Access Level

Access Level Description

None No access to elements assigned to the security class.

Metadata View a specified member in a list but cannot view or modify data for the member.

Read View data for elements assigned to the security class but cannot promote or reject.

Promote View data for elements assigned to the security class and can promote or reject.

All Modify data for elements assigned to the security class and can promote and reject.

Note: A user assigned to the Application Administrator role for an application has access to all
information in the application.

To assign user access to security classes:

 Select cells for which to assign access rights.
 From Access, select the access level to assign.
 Click to apply the level to the selected cells.
 Optional: To add an e-mail alert, select cells in the table and click Add Alert.
 Caution! The alerting process uses the e-mail addresses stored in the authentication files, such as MSAD, LDAP, or Native Directory.
Note: To remove e-mail alerts, select the cell and click Remove Alert.
 Click Save.
 Click Next or Security Report.

Creating and loading Application Security Files into Application:

Creating and loading Application Security File is an alternative to implement application Security.

Application Security File contains,

Users and Groups.
Security Classes.
Users and Groups Roles
Security Classes Access rights

Note: You must load application security first before you can load other information to an application.
User Roles

The user roles that can be assigned and the tasks that each role can perform are listed below.

Security Role Tasks

Administrator All tasks. Access to this role overrides any other access setting for the user. For example, if the user has Yes access to the Administrator role but has No access to Load System, the user is able to load to the system.

Load System Load metadata, rules, and member lists.

Read Journals Read journals.

Create Journals Note: Any user to whom you assign this role should also be assigned to the Read Journals role.
Create, modify, delete, submit, and unsubmit journals.

Create Unbalanced Journals Note: Any user to whom you assign this role should also be assigned to the Create Journals role.
Create unbalanced journals.

Approve Journals Approve or reject journals.

Post Journals Post and unpost journals.
Note: The security class of the entities contained in journal line items is checked when a user performs a pot or unpost action, and when a user performs a read or posted journals.

Journals Administrator All tasks involving journals.

Review Supervisor All tasks involving process management.

Reviewer 1 – 10 View and edit a block of data when that data is at the user’s designated process level. The privileges associated with these roles also depend on the user’s rights to access entity data. For example, a user assigned to the Reviewer 1 role can view a block of data when that data is at Review Level 1. When Reviewer 1 promotes the block of data to Review Level 2, Reviewer 1 can view the block of data but can no longer change it.
Submitter Submit a block of data for final approval.

Security Administrator Add users, assign security classes, and configure access for all users except self.

Lock Data Lock data in Data Explorer.

Unlock Data Unlock data in Data Explorer.

Run Consolidation Run consolidation in Data Explorer.

Consolidate All Consolidate all in Data Explorer.

Run Allocation Run allocations in Data Explorer.

Manage Data Entry Forms Manage data entry forms in the Web.

Save System Report on Server Save system reports on server.

Creating Security Files:

Application Security Files use the .sec extension.

Following are the syntax of an application security file:

When you create the file, use an exclamation mark (!) to indicate the beginning of a new section and an apostrophe (‘) to start a comment line.

Note: The exclamation mark must be followed by a valid section name.

Note: If there are lines in the file that duplicate information or that set different security rights for the same user, the system uses the last entry in the file for this user.

User and Group Section

This section of the file contains the users and groups to add to the application.

The syntax for this section is as follows:
Username@ProviderName

Example for this section:

! USERS_AND_GROUPS
admin @Native Directory
user1 @Native Directory
group1 @Native Directory

Security Classes Section

This section of the file contains the security classes to add to the application. Security class names can contain up to 80 characters.

Example for this section:

! SECURITY_CLASSES
SYSTEM
CORPORATE
US
EUROPE

Role Access Section

This section of the file assigns users to HFM roles

The syntax for this section is as follows:
role; user

Note: The role in the security file is required
Example for this section:

! ROLE_ACCESS
‘role; User Administrator;admin@Native Directory Load System;user1@Native Directory Journals Administrator;group1@Native Directory

Security Classes Access Section:

This section contains Security Classes Access roles for the users.

The syntax for this section is as follows:
Class; user; access rights

Example for this section:

! SECURITY_CLASS_ACCESS ‘Class; User; Rights SYSTEM; admin@Native Directory; All SYSTEM; user1@ Native Directory; Read SYSTEM; group1@ Native Directory; Promote
EUROPE; user2@ Native Directory; None

Loading Application Security

You must load application security before you can load other information to an application.
To remove a role from a user or group you must modify the role in User Management.

Windows Procedure

To load application security:

Open the application.
From the navigation frame, select Load Security.
For Security Filename, enter the name of the file that to load, or click to find the file

Note: Security information files use the SEC file extension. You can click View to display the contents of the application security file that you specified.

For Log Filename, enter a log file name, or click to find the file.
For Delimiter Character, enter the character used to separate information in the file.
These characters are valid:
, ~ @ # $ % ^ & | : ; ? \

Note: You must use a character that is not used in the file name or in any other way in the file. For example, if you use the comma in an entity description, you cannot use the comma as the delimiter.

Optional: Select Clear All Security Info before Loading to clear security information for the application before loading new security information.

Caution! You can use the Clear All option only if you have been assigned the Application Administrator and Provisioning Manager roles. Also, if you use this option, you will have to reprovision users, as all users (including the user doing the clear) will be removed in this process.

Select the types of security information to load.

Tip: Use the Select All and De-Select All buttons to quickly select or de-select the security types.

Click Load.

Note: After you load the security file, you can click the View button next to Log Filename to display the log file.

  Web Procedure

  To load application security:

Open the application.
In Browser View, expand Tasks, and select Load Tasks.
Select Load Security.
For Security File, enter the name of the file to load, or click Browse to find the file. Note: Application security files use the SEC file extension. Clearing and Loading Security Information

You can clear security information from an application and then load new security information. For example, if you plan to change security class Class1 to Class2 during the load of security, you need to make the change to all application elements that reference the security class Class1. However, because the system generates new security references for application elements that use security class information, you must perform prerequisite steps before you load the new security information, and you must perform follow-up steps after you load the new security information.

To clear security information and load a new security file:

Extract application elements from the application.
Select to clear existing security information and load a new security file.
Load application elements to the application.

Note: You must be assigned to the Application Administrator security role to be able to perform these procedures.

Before Clearing Security Information

Before you clear security information and load a security file, you must perform these
procedures.

Before Clearing Security

Before you clear security information and load a security file, you must perform the following tasks for the specified application elements that utilize security class information.

Metadata

To update metadata before clearing and loading security information:

Extract all application metadata elements in the application.
Make changes to the security class information of the metadata elements as necessary.

Journals

To update journals before clearing and loading security information:

Unpost posted journals in the application.
Reject approved journals so that the journal status reverts to Working.
Extract all journals.
Make changes to the security class information of the journals as necessary.

Grids

To update grids before clearing and loading security information:

Extract all grids that have a security class assigned.
Make changes to the security class information of the grids as necessary.

Data Forms

To update data forms before clearing and loading security information:

Extract all data forms that have a security class assigned.
Make changes to the security class information of the data forms as necessary.

After Clearing Security Information

After you clear security information and load a security file, you must perform the following
tasks for the specified application elements that utilize security class information.

Metadata

To update metadata after clearing and loading security information, load the updated metadata file to the application.

Journals

To update journals after clearing and loading security information:

Load the updated journal file.
Post journals that you unposted before clearing and loading security information.
Approve journals that you rejected before clearing and loading security information

Grids

To update grids after clearing and loading security information:

Load the updated grid files.
Select the option to overwrite existing documents.

Data Forms

To update data forms after clearing and loading security information:

Load the updated data form file.
Select the option to overwrite existing documents.

Folders

To update folders after clearing and loading security information:

Delete folders that may have an incorrect security class assigned.
Add new folders back to the application.

Reports

To update reports after clearing and loading security information:

Reload all reports with an assigned security class.
Provide the new security class assignment if applicable.

Task Lists

To update task lists after clearing and loading security information:

Reload all task lists with an assigned security class.
Provide the new security class assignment if applicable.

Managing Metadata

You can define metadata for Classic Financial Management applications in two ways:

a. Create an XML or APP metadata file and load it to an application.
b. Use Metadata Manager to create an XML or APP metadata file and load it to an application.

  Note: You must set up security for an application before you can load metadata.

Defining Accounts

  Account Member Attributes

Account Type Behavior

The following table describes how account types behave in the system. For example, ASSET accounts do not total across periods, while a REVENUE account provides a year to date total. If you debit an ASSET account, the value that you enter is added to the account. If you credit an ASSET account, the value that you enter is subtracted from the account. All account types, except for GROUPLABEL, contain data.

Table: Account Type Behaviors

Defining Custom Members

Define Custom Members using attributes in the following table:

Defining Entity Members

Define Entity Members by using the attributes in the following table:

Defining Scenario Members

Define Scenario members by using the attributes in the following table:

Defining Application Settings

Application settings apply to an entire Financial Management application. Application settings
determine the following information for the application:

● Is the organization dynamic, using organization by period?
● Which dimensions are secured?
● What default translation rates and methods are used?
● What is the ICP weight?
● Are consolidation rules applied?
● What is the default currency?

Define application settings by using the attributes in following table:

Organization by Period

The organization by period functionality enables the most recent consolidation structure to
coexist with past structures in the same application.

Organizational structures can change for many reasons, including acquisitions, disposals,
mergers, and reorganizations. To support organizational changes, Financial Management uses
a system account, Active, to reflect the active or inactive consolidation status of a child into its
parent. The Active account acts as a filter of the entity hierarchy. The Active account is an
intercompany account that stores data at the parent level and uses the ICP dimension to store
information about children.

For an ICP member that corresponds to a child of a parent, the Active account indicates to the
system whether the child should be considered as an active consolidation member for the current
year, scenario, and time period. Children that correspond to ICP members for which the Active
account is equal to 0 are considered to be inactive children and are not consolidated. Children
that correspond to ICP members for which the Active account is equal to 1 are considered to be
active children and are consolidated. Active account values can be viewed or changed in Data
Explorer. Similarly, changes to active child data affect the parent, while changes to inactive child
data does not affect the parent.

The DefaultValueForActive attribute controls the status of children for which the Active account
is blank. So, every parent-child intersection does not have to be flagged as active or inactive. By
default, every child is active in relation to its parent unless otherwise specified.

Defining Consolidation Methods

Using Consolidation Methods

Consolidation methods are defined in the consolidation methods section of the metadata. The
methods are used during the consolidation and calculate ownership processes.

When you define consolidation methods in the metadata, the system automatically generates
the [ConsolMethod] system list for the Custom1 dimension. The system list consists of all
methods defined in the consolidation methods section of the metadata.

There are two ways to assign the consolidation method to an entity for use during consolidation.
The method can be assigned manually through data load or data entry. The method can also be
assigned by the calculate ownership routine, which is based on the ultimate percent control
assigned to the entity.

Assigning Consolidation Methods Manually

To enter consolidation method information manually, you can create a data grid with the
following information:

POV: Scenario, Year, Period, View, Entity, Value, Account, C2, C3, C4
Scenario: Applicable scenario
Year: Applicable year
Period: Applicable period
Entity: A parent entity
Value: [None] Account: [Method], a system generated account called Method
C2: [None] C3: [None] C4: [None] Row: ICP entities (For parents, user can use the system list [ICP Entities] or the user-defined
list of selected ICP entities.)
Column: Custom1 (The user should use the system-generated list [ConsolMethods].)
Method assignment information is stored in the account method of the data file of the parent
entity. For each child of a parent, the system stores the consolidation method assignment in the
ICP dimension. The assigned method is used when the children are consolidated to the parent.
For an intersection of the grid, use 1 to indicate the method assignment to the ICP entity. For
example, if a parent group has two children, A and B, and you assign the Global method to A
and the Equity method to B, enter 1 in the intersection for the Global method and entity A and
1 in the intersection for the Equity method and entity B.

System-Generated Accounts

When you create an application, system accounts for consolidation and ownership are
automatically created for the application.

Note:
You can change only the description, security class, and decimal location for system accounts.
All other attributes for system accounts are predefined and cannot be modified.

Consolidation Accounts

The system accounts described in the following table are required for each parent in the Entity dimension and are used in the consolidation process.

Note: All system accounts that are used for consolidation, except for the Active account, are BALANCE accounts. The Active account is a BALANCERECURRING account.

System Accounts for Consolidation

Ownership Accounts

The system accounts described in the following table are used for ownership calculations.
Note: All essdbsystem accounts that are used for ownership calculations are BALANCE accounts.

System Accounts for Ownership

Editing System-Generated Accounts

When you create an application, system account members are automatically created for the
application.

Note: You can modify only the description, security class, and the decimal location for system account members. All other attributes are predefined and cannot be modified.

To modify system accounts:

In Metadata Manager, open the file that contains the system-generated account members.
Select the List View tab.
From the list, select a system account, and modify the description, security class, and decimal location as needed.
As desired, repeat step 3 to modify other system account members.
Click Save File.

Note: You must load the updated metadata file into your application for your changes to take effect.

Setting Up Intercompany Partners

Intercompany transactions are managed across the Intercompany Partner (ICP) dimension. The
ICP dimension represents a container for all intercompany balances that exist for an account.
ICP is a reserved dimension used in combination with the Account dimension and custom
dimensions to track and eliminate intercompany transaction details.

To set up an application for intercompany transactions, you must perform the following actions:

Indicate the accounts that perform intercompany transactions and indicate a plug account
for each intercompany account (IsICP and PlugAcct attributes in account metadata)
Indicate the entities that perform intercompany transactions (IsICP attribute in entity
metadata)

When you create intercompany transactions, each group must have at least one intercompany
account and one plug account. You designate an account as intercompany by selecting the IsICP
attribute for the account in Metadata Manager. When an account is designated as intercompany
and intercompany transactions are entered, eliminating or reversing entries are generated in the
[Elimination] value dimension member through the consolidation process. A plug account is an account that, when eliminations are completed, stores the difference between two intercompany accounts. A plug account can be set up as an ICP account. For a plug account to be detailed by ICP, set the IsICP attribute to Y or R so that the system writes eliminations to the corresponding ICP member. If you do not want a plug account to be detailed by ICP, set the IsICP attribute to N so that the system writes eliminations to [ICP None]. During consolidation, transactions between valid intercompany entities are eliminated.

System Generated ICP Accounts

Dimensions Not Included in Metadata Files

The Year, Period, and View dimensions are not included in metadata files. You define these
dimensions in the application profile that you specify when you define an application.

Value and Intercompany Partner dimension members are mostly system-defined. However, you can define descriptions for Value members, and security classes and descriptions for some
members of the Intercompany Partner dimension, as described in the following:

Value — Standard members are automatically generated by Financial Management. In
addition, after you load metadata, Financial Management automatically creates a triplet of
Value dimension members for each currency that you loaded: CurrencyName,
CurrencyName Adjs, and CurrencyName Total, where CurrencyName is the currency label.

For example, for a currency of USD, Financial Management creates the following triplet of
Value dimension members:
 USD
 USD Adjs
 USD Total

You can define descriptions of the system-generated members, as well as descriptions that will be appended to the Value members that the system creates for user-defined currencies.

Intercompany Partner — This dimension is automatically generated by Financial
Management. An Intercompany Partner dimension member is generated for each Entity
dimension member whose IsICP attribute is set to TRUE. You can define security classes
and descriptions for some Intercompany Partner members.

Using Metadata Manager Views

You use Metadata Manager to edit and create metadata files. Metadata includes information
relating to dimension member attributes and currencies. For example, you can use Metadata
Manager to add accounts to an application.

Note: Metadata Manager is available only in the Financial Management Desktop in the Windows client.

Metadata Manager can open files in extensible mark-up language (XML) and APP file formats.
You can use Metadata Manager to create an XML or APP file or to edit an XML or APP file that
was extracted from a Financial Management application. Metadata files created in Metadata
Manager are automatically encoded with the Unicode format, using Little Endian byte ordering.
After you create or edit a metadata file, you can load the metadata contained in the file into an
application.

Note: All procedures in this topic assume that you have the Metadata Manager workspace open. To open the workspace, select Manage Metadata from the desktop navigation frame.
You cannot edit metadata directly in an application. When you make changes to metadata in
Metadata Manager, you are making changes only to the file, not to the metadata in the
application. After you extract and modify the metadata in the file, you must load the metadata
back into the application for your changes to take effect.

Metadata Manager Views

Adding Members from the Member List

You can add members to the hierarchy by dragging members from the Member List tab and
dropping them into the hierarchy structure. If you add a child member to a parent member and
the parent exists more than once in the hierarchy, the child member is added as a child member
for all instances of the parent member. You can add multiple members simultaneously.

To add members from the Member List tab:

Make sure that the Tree View tab is selected and, from the Metadata Item drop-down list, select a dimension.
From the Member List tab, select the members to add.

Note: You can select multiple members by holding down the Ctrl key as you select each member.
3 Drag the selected members to the hierarchy.

Note: The members are not removed from the Member List tab; they are only copied into the hierarchy.

Creating a Data Grid

You can use data grids to manually enter or edit data in Financial Management applications. After you enter or edit the data, you can calculate the data, translate the data to other currencies, or consolidate the data. You can view data status, calculation status, process levels, line item detail, and destination and source transactions. In addition, you can lock and unlock data, run allocations, and run entity transaction detail reports.

You can display data, calculation status, or process level in data grids. If journals are posted to the selected intersection in the grid, you can display all journal transactions against the cell. You can store text and line item detail for cells in the grid.
Dimensions are displayed in rows and columns on a data grid. You can save the grid settings and reopen the grid later instead of resetting the rows and columns.
From a data grid, you can select menu commands to calculate, translate, and consolidate the data. If a task is not applicable for a cell, the menu command is not selectable.
To create data grids:

Select Administration > Manage Documents, or click Manage Documents and select Data Grid.
Click New Data Grid.
Set the grid rows and columns.
Set the grid display options.
Data Grid Tasks
Setting Grid Rows and Columns
Entering or Editing Data
Setting the Point of View on the Web
Entering or Editing Data
Using Process Management
Data Grid Options
The following options are available for cells in data grids:
Viewing Cell Information
Adding Cell Text
Viewing Cell Adjustments
Adding Line Item Detail
Calculation Process
Translating Data
Consolidating Data
Locking Data
Viewing Cell History
Viewing Destination and Source Transactions
Running Entity Transaction Detail Reports
Running Allocations
You can select a cell and right-click to display a menu of these options. If an option does not apply to a particular cell, it is not selectable.
Process Management Options
These Process Management options are available from data grids.
Information
Start
Promote
Reject
Sign Off
Submit
Approve
Publish
These options are also available from the Process Control module. See Using Process Management.

To access Process Management options, take one of these actions:

Highlight a cell in a data grid that is set up for Process Management, right-click and select Manage Process.
To use the Process Control module, in the File Browser, expand Tasks and Data Tasks, and select Process Control.
Entering or Editing Data
You use data grids to enter data manually into input accounts for base entities in Financial Management applications. Values for parent-level members are aggregrated from the children of the parent-level members. In some cases, data for base-level members is calculated. For example, the Salaries member might be a base-level member calculated based on headcount and salary rate.
Calculated and consolidated accounts do not accept data entry, because the values they contain come from other sources. For example, if a company called USA East has three dependents, you enter values into the dependent entities. After you consolidate, the value in USA East is the total of the values in its three dependents.
To view more of a page when entering or editing data, you can use the Page Up, Page Down, Page Left, and Page Right arrows in the toolbar at the top of the data grid.
After you enter or edit data, you can submit the changes to the database, and refresh the grid with the most recent data from the database.
To enter or edit data:
Open a data grid.
The following figure shows a sample data grid on the Web.
Select the cell in which to enter or edit data.
Enter a value in the cell and click Enter.
Repeat steps 1 through 3 until you have entered or edited all the necessary data.
Note: You can clear a value by entering NODATA in a cell.
Click Submit Data to save the data, or click Reset Data to refresh the database.
Running Allocations

You can run allocations from a data grid if you are assigned the Run Allocation security role.
You can allocate data from a source account in an entity to a destination account in a list of
entities. The entity for which you run allocations can be a base or parent entity. Before you can
run allocations, you must first create rules for them.

To run allocations:

Open a data grid.
Select a cell for which to run allocations.
Right-click and select Allocate.
Attaching Documents to Data Grids
In addition to or instead of entering cell text, you can attach one or more documents to cells for additional detail. For example, you can attach a Microsoft Word document, Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, XSL, or RPT file. To attach or extract any custom documents to or from the server, you must be assigned the Manage Custom Documents security role.
You can set a size limit for document attachments and a maximum number of document attachments by user when you create an application. You set the limits in the AppSettings attribute for the application metadata.
You can attach multiple documents, but Hyperion recommends that you attach no more than two or three documents to a cell. Each document should be smaller than 100K to limit the performance effect on the database.
Note:
Cell attachments are accessible only from the Web.
To attach a document to a cell:
Select the input cell to which to attach a document.
Right-click and select Cell Text.
Click Attach.
From your list of custom documents, select one or more documents to associate with the cell, and click Attach.
Note: You cannot attach private documents.
Click Submit Data.
The attachment is displayed in the Attachments section of the Cell Text dialog box.
Tip: To detach a document from a cell, select the document to detach, and click Detach.
Adding Line Item Detail
You can enter line item detail for accounts that are set up to accept it through the Use Line Items metadata attribute, and for a scenario that supports line item detail. Line item detail is used as the lowest level of detail for you to enter information for that account. For example, you might have an account for travel expenses and want to detail the amount by type of expense, such as gas, tolls, or parking. To enter the information for the travel expense, you must first enter the amount for each line item detail. After you save the detail, the system calculates the total amount for the travel expense account.
You can enter line item detail only in the base frequency defined for the scenario. For example, if the scenario is Monthly, you cannot enter line item detail in “Quarter1.”
Note: Line item detail cannot contain single quotation marks ( ‘ ), and the maximum length for the description is 80 characters.
Line item detail applies only to the Value member, or to the default currency. The system does not consolidate, translate, or calculate contribution for line item detail.
In a data grid, after you enter the line item detail for the cell, a blue border is displayed to indicate that there is line item detail associated with the cell.
To add line item detail:
Open a data grid.
Select the cell for which to add line item detail.
Right-click and select Cell Line Item Detail.
Click New Entry.
Enter a Description and Value for the line item detail.
Enter line items, and click Enter or select a different cell to see the change.
Tip: To clear line item detail, enter zero as the value to clear the amount.
Click Save to save the line items.
Click Close.
Member Lists
Member lists enable you to specify a segment of information within a dimension. You create
member lists in a VBScript file and load the file into your application. Once loaded, the member
lists are available to users of the application. For example, you can select member lists when
setting the point of view in Data Explorer or in journals or when copying or clearing data in
Database Management. You can create member lists for all Financial Management dimensions.

You can create static and dynamic member lists. Static member lists contain specific dimension
members. For example, you can create a static account member list called ProfitAndLoss that
includes only these accounts: Sales, Purchases, Salaries, OtherCosts, and TotalCosts. To have
additional accounts in the list, you must add the new accounts to the member list file.

Note: You can combine static and dynamic member lists in the same file.

A dynamic member list contains the members that, at runtime, meet the criteria that you specify
in the member list file. For the Scenario, Year, Period, and Entity dimensions, you can use the
current member in the POV as the starting point for the list. Because member lists are dynamic,
changes to the metadata are automatically reflected in the list the next time that the list is called.

Creating Member List Files

You create member list files using VBScript in an ASCII format supporting multibyte character
sets (MBCS), or a file encoded with the Unicode format, using Little Endian byte ordering.
Member list files use the LST file extension. The file format for listing members within a member list file is the same for all dimensions with the exception of Entity. For member lists in the Entity dimension, you must specify the entity and its parent.

You use these subroutines to create member list files:

Sub EnumMemberLists (): Defines the member lists for each dimension. You define the
number of lists for each dimension and the name of each member list within that dimension.
Sub EnumMembersInList (): Defines the members within each member list.

EnumMemberLists

Within the EnumMemberLists () subroutine, you use the syntax and functions in the following
table to define member lists:

Example

What follows is an example of the EnumMemberLists sub-routine. In this example, there are three entity lists defined: NewEngland Allis which are fixed member lists and AllEntities (@POV) which is a Dynamic POV member list. There is also one Account list defined: ProfitAndLoss.

Sub EnumMemberLists()
Dim EntityLists(3)
Dim AccountLists(1)
If HS.Dimension = “Entity” Then
EntityLists(1) = “NewEngland”
EntityLists(2) = “Alloc”
EntityLists(3) = “AllEntities(@POV)”
HS.SetMemberLists EntityLists
Else If HS.Dimension = “Account” Then
AccountLists(1) = “ProfitAndLoss”
HS.SetMemberLists AccountLists
End If
End If
End Sub
EnumMembersInList

Within the EnumMembersInList () subroutine, you use the syntax and functions in the following
table to define the members of each member list:

Example

What follows is an example of the EnumMembersInList section of the file. In this example, the
entities for three entity lists are defined. The members of the Account list are also defined.

Sub EnumMembersInList()
If HS.Dimension = “Entity” Then
If HS.MemberListID = 1 Then
HS.AddEntityToList “UnitedStates”, “Connecticut”
HS.AddEntityToList ”UnitedStates”, ”Massachusetts”
HS.AddEntityToList ”UnitedStates”, ”RhodeIsland”
HS.AddEntityToList ”UnitedStates”, ”Maine”
ElseIf HS.MemberListID = 2 Then
HS.AddEntityToList ”UnitedStates”, ”Connecticut”
ElseIf HS.MemberListID = 3 Then
HS.AddEntityToList ”UnitedStates”, ”California”
End If
ElseIf HS.Dimension = ”Account” Then
If HS.MemberListID = 1 Then
HS.AddMemberToList ”Sales”
HS.AddMemberToList ”Purchases”
HS.AddMemberToList ”Salaries”
HS.AddMemberToList ”OtherCosts”
HS.AddMemberToList ”TotalCosts”
HS.AddMemberToList ”GrossMargin”
HS.AddMemberToList ”HeadCount”
HS.AddMemberToList ”AdminExpenses”
HS.AddMemberToList ”InterestCharges”
HS.AddMemberToList ”NetIncome”
HS.AddMemberToList ”Taxes”
HS.AddMemberToList ”NetProfit”
End If
End If
End Sub

Note: You can have as many member lists for each dimension as you need, and you do not need to create member lists for all dimensions.

Dynamic Member Lists

For dynamic member lists, instead of listing all members of the member list, you enter rules to
pull the information from the system. You can use Financial Management functions and
arguments to build member lists. Use the Rules Editor to write rules with proper syntax.

The following syntax creates a dynamic member list to get all USD entities:

If HS.Dimension = ”Entity” Then
If HS.MemberListID=1 Then
ELi=HS.Entity.List(” ”,” ”)
‘Entities are read into an array.
For i=Lbound(ELi) to Ubound(ELi)
‘Loops through all entities.
If (StrComp(HS.Entity.DefCurrency(ELi(i)),
”USD”,vbTextCompare)=0) Then
HS.AddEntityToList ” ”,ELi(i)
‘String compares default currency for entity to USD. If there is a match,
the entity is added to the member list.
End If
Next
End If
End If

Loading Member Lists

After you load a member list file into an application, anyone using that application is notified
that the system has changed and that the user must log off from the application and log back
on.

Windows Procedure

To load member lists:

Open the application.
From the navigation frame, select Load Member Lists.
For Member List Filename, enter the name of the file to load, or click to find the file.

Note: Member list files use the LST file extension.

You can click View (next to Member List Filename ) to open the file that you selected.

For Log Filename, enter a log file name, or click to find the file.
Optional: Click Scan to verify that the file format is correct.
Click Load.

Note: After you load the file, you can click the View button next to Log Filename to display errors
encountered during the load.

Web Procedure

Note: Hyperion recommends that you add Financial Management to the exceptions for your Web
pop-up blocker. When you perform some Financial Management tasks on the Web such as
loading data, a status window pops up showing the task status. If you have a pop-up blocker
enabled on your computer, the status window is not displayed.

To load member lists:

Open the application.
In the Browser View, expand Tasks and select Load Tasks.
Select Load Member Lists.
For Member Lists File , enter the name of the file to load, or click Browse to find the file.

Note: Member list files use the LST file extension.

Optional: Click Scan to verify that the file format is correct.
Click Load.

Note: If an invalid member list is loaded, Web users may not be able to access the Data Explorer grid. If the following error message is displayed, you may need to correct the member list and load the file:

“Type Mismatch /hfm/Data/ExploreData.asp. Error Number 13. Error Source:
Microsoft VBScript runtime error.”

Managing Journals

After you load or enter general ledger systems data into the database, you might need to make adjustments to it. Journals enable you to make adjustments to accounts after the data is loaded or entered. They provide an audit trail of changes made in the application and indicate the accounts, entities, and periods that were affected.

Creating Journal Files

You can create journal files using an ASCII format supporting multibyte character sets (MBCS)
or a file encoded with the Unicode format, using Little Endian byte ordering. Journal files use
the JLF file extension.
A security information file can contain these sections:
● File Format
● Version
● Journal Group
● Standard
● Recurring
● Header – Scenario, Year, Period
A line starting with an exclamation point ( ! ) indicates the beginning of a new section in the
journal file, and must be followed by a valid section name (for example, Year). A line starting
with an apostrophe ( ‘ ) is considered a comment line and is ignored by the system.
You can use these special characters to separate information within the file as long as the character is not used in the file in another way:
Creating Journal Files

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