Session ID:

Prepared by:

Remember to complete your evaluation for this session within the app!

10877

A Federal Agency is taking EPM to the Next Level with Groovy

PBCS

April 10, 2019

Alex RodriguezPatrick Ferraro

Huron Consulting Group

Our Topic for Today• Abstract: While some developers are only leveraging Groovy to dramatically increase

performance, a US Federal Agency has taken Groovy a step further to deliver richer functionality expanding what’s never been possible in Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Services. Complex validations and functionalities required of the Federal Agency's planning system have been implemented. Groovy has enabled outside the box thinking, and the ability to go above and beyond the traditional logic when it comes to building validations, adding functionality, and other behind-the- scenes features that uphold data governance.

• Objective 1: Introduce the additional functionality that can be built using groovy to enhance planning applications.

• Objective 2: Discuss the controls and data governance put in place to manage the Federal Agency.

• Objective 3: Discuss how groovy can significantly increase the user experience beyond just performance.

• Audience: Management

4

• OCM• Remote Delivery• Custom Development• Application and Technical

Support• Private Cloud

• Data Strategy• Financial and Operational

Reporting• Information Strategy• OLAP and Essbase• Big Data and Hadoop

• Financials• Human Capital Management• Supply Chain• Procurement• Projects• Expenses Management

• Process & Systems Diagnostic

• Strategic Roadmap• Vendor Selection• Blueprint Architecture

• Customer Experience Management (CXM)

• Sales Forecasting & Pipeline Management

• Lead, Contact & Opportunity Management• Data Management, Integration & Analytics

• Strategic Planning and Financial Modeling• Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting• Financial Consolidation,

Close and Reporting• Master Data Management

& Data Governance• Profitability and Cost Analysis• Robotic Process Automation

• Organizational Development• Post-Transaction Integration• Benchmarking &

Industry Insight

Huron ES&A Enterprise Solutions & Analytics

• Strategy, Growth and Digital Business Models • End-to-end capabilities to support clients’ successful

transformation programs• Strategy and Solution Selection, Architecture• Implementation and benefits realization

FULL SERVICESTRATEGY THROUGH EXECUTION

Data Governance and Controls in a Federal Agency Setting

B U D G E T F O R M U L A T I O N+ Budget Formulation + Costing & Allocations+ Budget Books

H Y P E R I O N P L A N N I N G

S A L A R Y / S T A F F I N G P L A N+ Salary Projections, WGI increase and projections + Staff Planning – Position and Employee & Integrated Vacancies + Budget vs. Actuals

H Y P E R I O N P L A N N I N G

I N T E G R A T I O N+ Integration with Actuals from GL, HR, and Contract systems + Fully Automated nightly and mid-day processes

O R A C L E D A T A I N T E G R A T O R

S O L U T I O N O V E R V I E Wagency historical

A N A L Y T I C S & R E P O R T I N G

+ Dashboards & KPIs + Budget vs. Actuals + Parameterized and dynamic

O R A C L E B U S I N E S S I N T E L L I G E N C E E N T E R P R I S E E D I T I O N

C O N T R A C T S P E N D I N G+ Contract Spending & Monitoring + Actuals + Forecast+ Commitments, Obligations, and Spend Plan

H Y P E R I O N P L A N N I N G

B U D G E T E X E C U T I O NO R A C L E P L A N N I N G A N D B U D G E T I N G C L O U D S E R V I C E S

S T R A T E G Y & R O A D M A P

CLOUD + Agency Cloud strategy success depends upon timing and approach+ Agency IT internal init iative driving cloud strategy across the

enterprise + Agency End-Users looking for an application with a modern look and

feel, and provides more intuit ive usability and improved solution adoption

4

2

3

1+ Understand overall strategy, current business

processes and models, and long-term strategy+ Conduct applications health check

+ New Budget Execution Application first to cloud

+ Pilot Cloud: net new development in cloud

+ Hybrid integration with on-premapps

I N T E R I M S T R A T E G Y( h y b r i d c l o u d )

C L O U D D E C I S I O N

+ Transition and prioritize current apps basedon life cycle

+ Incorporate added cloud functionality+ Mitigate change management risk

P H A S E D T R A N S I T I ON

+ PCM for Costing and Allocations+ EPRCS for Budget Book Narrative

Process

I N T R O D U C E S P E C I A L I Z E D M O D U L E S

Project Background – Budget Execution• Commissioned by the Executive Director of Operations based on a 2016 Mission Support

Task Force Report

• Required to standardize and streamline budget execution

• Enhanced mechanisms for allowance holders to plan and manage their allowances

• Enhanced mechanisms for lead offices to oversee execution on their business lines

• Specific requirements for IT budget execution

• Solution implemented as a new PBCS+ application

Definition – Budget Execution• Process whereby office create and maintain contract level execution plans during

the fiscal year to:

• Execute their budgeted resources efficiently, effectively and compliantly• Obtain requisite approvals & provide explanation for changes from baseline

plans • Inform the next budget formulation cycle

• Used interchangeably with commitment monitoring

Budget Execution Planning, Monitoring & Reporting Previous State PAIN POINTS

• No clear definition of planning budget for baseline execution plans.

• Data not normalized • Potential data discrepancies • Manual Interfaces• Office specific processes• No clear baseline and change

reporting• Lack of transparency • Lack of integration and automatic

controls (Including IT)• Lack of integrated reporting

Commitment Planning –Cuff Sheets

Data Calls:Office

Spreadsheets

IT ChangeRequests

SharePoint

Formulation Acquisition Execution

Execution Planning & Monitoring

Budget ExecutionPlanning, Monitoring & Reporting Current State

Formulation Acquisition Execution

PBCS+ BI Reporting

BENEFITS

• Clearly defined planning budget at appropriate levels

• Normalized data• Standardized, integrated and

controlled data• Clearly defined baseline plans and

change reporting• Automated interfaces• Integrated reporting• Formulation informed by execution

Execution Planning & Monitoring

Controls and Validations

1. Baseline2. Change Tracking3. IT Approvals4. Continuing Resolution5. Full Budget Upload6. Mid Year Resource Reviews 7. Linked Commitments8. Validation Messages

Benefits

Normalized, reportable data integrating budget formulation with execution

Standardized, controlled processing facilitating optimal resource allocations

Automated & integrated data hand-offs and approvals between program and budget offices

Systematic controls in lieu of key person dependencies

Solutions to capture essential data not available in financial/ acquisition systems

Ability to respond to internal and external questions relating to resource (or planned resource) usage

Implementation Considerations

• Executive Support and Buy-in

• Upfront assessment of processes and applications

• Clearly defined vision

• Change Management

• Dependencies – Technical and Functional

• Core Team – key Subject Matter Experts

• Strategic Decisions

• Transparency and Accountability

• One integrated System (One End to End View)

• Full Integration of Execution and Formulation

• Meeting External Compliance (FITARA)

• Normalized Data and Convention Facilitate Analysis

• Systematic Controls Replace Key Person Dependencies

Value Add:PBCS+

Systems Diagram

ODI OBI

Reporting

RequisitionManagement

System

Requisition(ASO)

Commitment PlanReporting DB

(ASO)

SpendingPlan

CommitmentPlan

ERP GLSystem

METADATA

METADATA

ME

TA

DA

TA

SpendingPlan

Hyperion Planning PBCS+

ODI Oracle Data Integrator

Using Groovy to Enhance User Experience Beyond Performance

The Back Story: Hyperion Planning & Essbase Before Groovy• Hyperion Planning has used Essbase as a calculation engine and database for

a very long time

• Essbase scripting language used to configure business rules and calculations in Hyperion Planning. (ASO notwithstanding)

• My top 6 design challenges:1. Execution order of Smart Push vs. Rules run on save2. Runtime of Downstream Operations / Runtime3. Rule Fix had to align with form layout4. Could not use User Variables in Business Rules5. Long Run Time: Essbase runs each script in it’s entirety6. Limited ability to program “conditions”

Then, in 2017…

What is Groovy?• It’s a Java “helper” language

• Bridges the gap between Essbase and Java

• Enables Java functionality to be used with Hyperion/PBCS & Essbase

• Works with many additional languages, not just Essbase script

So, what does this mean for HP/EPBCS?• Groovy Augments existing Essbase code

• Ability to interact with EPBCS artifacts in real time

• Provides the “Java-based” ability to execute logic based upon the users actions – not just the save button

• Groovy is available in:– EPBCS – PBCS + – On-prem* v11.1.2.4+

• a different API exists between on-prem and cloud

GROOVY CODE{……ESSBASE CODE(

………

)……

}

The Groovy Performance “Headline”• Brought to you by the dataCellIterator

Labor Planning Form

Business Rule will run only for:- JC_498 Plant Maintenance Senior Manager- Sept:Dec- 2019

The Groovy Performance “Headline”

28 secs.

1 sec.

Labor Planning Calc – Runtime

Essbase Business Rule

Groovy-enabled Essbase Business Rule

96% faster

The Groovy Performance “Headline”

Groovy Code

Essbase Code

The Groovy Performance “Headline”

Groovy-EnabledEssbase

CodeEssbase

Code

The Groovy Performance “Headline”• Compounding time savings yield Returns across the system:

Driver Based Planning

Downstream / Dependent Calculations

FX Translations & Data Aggregations

Smart Pushes to ASO

Data Available for Reporting

Groovy - Beyond Performance Gains• dataCellIterator changes the game for:

– Conditional Logic and IF statements

• It allows programming to act specifically depending on form-level events, such as:– Identifying what, if any cells have changed– Whether or not certain cells have changed– Error handling at data input level:

• Error messages• Disables save function

• Increased flexibility of sequencing, and a customizable execution order of:– Business Rules– Smart Pushes

Using Groovy to Enhance Validation Logic

Governance, Controls, and ValidationsHow we define Governance – insinuates a different approach:• Validation = transactional at the contract (transactional) level• Controls = series of validations applied in each budgeting artifact• Governance = All control systems working together in the entire application

• Approximately $1B in budget spending each year:– Need to manage 5,000+ active spending obligations across the agency

• Different validation logic for different departments / offices:– Auto approvals for some– Manual approvals required for IT-related spend

• Different validation logic for “Continuing Resolution” (i.e. Gov’t shutdown) periods

Everything that Groovy enabled us to do:• Input Controls• Contract level validations for each commitment line item • Contract line item activation / deactivation (saving it for later)• Application of Approvals for IT-related items• Conditional validations on Copy Contract feature• Smart Push to reporting cube (data movement between DB’s)• Record transactional history

Input controls using Groovy• Input Controls on Form• If total committed amounts exceed the obligated amount,

highlight the cell Red & display an error message• Prevents user from saving

Input controls using Groovy• Check if UDA = IT

– Copy newly entered amount to “Pending Approval” version

Validation logic for IT approvals• If the line item in question is an IT item, it must be sent for an additional

approval. • Copies the record to the IT approval scenario, prints a flag• Using Groovy to check UDA

Contract Line Item Validations Using Groovy

Up to

1,500Contracts per office

7Validations per Contract

Run Validation Rule only on updated cells

Up to

10,500Data Points validated

on every save, regardless if updated

Agency Data Volumes: Without Groovy: With Groovy:

Line Item Deactivation / Reactivation Using Groovy• Active contracts sometimes do not receive funding• Users may want to “deactivate” or “remove” line items, but not delete them so

that they can be re-used at a later date. • A Smart List populated with “Keep” and “Remove” is added to a “Plan Status”

account on the form for each line item. • Set the Plan Status member to “Remove” for the

line item that you wish to deactivate

Line Item Deactivation / Reactivation Using GroovySTART

Run dataCellIterator

Do any edited cells exist?

END

Does Cell = “Remove” ?

Does commitment ≠

$0 ?

Is IT Dept. Item?

Copy item to “Deactivated”

version

Calculate Delta and log transaction

history

Run Smart Push on item

Does a commitment

exist?

Send Item for Deactivation

Approval

Send Item for Deactivation

Approval

Line item deactivation / reactivation using GroovyDeactivation Routine Runs on Save to checkFor any “edited” cells In the Plan Status column

On Save:+ Runs validations, if passed:

+ Copies line items to “Deactivated” scenario+ Runs Smart Push for selected line items

Line item deactivation / reactivation using GroovyReactivation Routine Runs on Save to checkFor any “edited” cells In the Plan Status column

Copy Contract Feature - Validations• Users required the ability to copy contracts between accounting strings• BUT – this operation should only be permitted under certain situations• Copy Contract is a Business Rule tied to an Action Menu

getSmartPush

• Call the Smart Push in a business rule:

• Dynamically build the Smart Push on the fly using the variables defined earlier by the dataCellIterator:

operation.grid.getSmartPush(“SmartPushName").execute()

operation.grid.getSmartPush(“SmartPushName").execute([“Account":strAccount,"Period":strPeriods,”Year”:strYear])

Transactional History• What EPBCS gives you:

• What we needed:

Huron on Stage:April 8: Unraveling the Mystery of PCMCSApril 9: Rounding in Oracle financial Close and Consolidation (HFM and FCCS)April 9: Add Advanced Analytics into PBCSApril 10: A Little Cloudy on Your Master Data Governance Strategy? Oracle EDMCS vs. DRM/DRGApril 10: Help! I Need my Oracle Cloud Application DataApril 10: A Federal Agency is taking EPM to the Next Level with Groovy

Upcoming Events:April 30, 12pm ESTLIVE WEBINAR: A Modern Approach to Managing Profitability to Cost

May 14, 12pm ESTLIVE WEBINAR: A Modern Approach to Financial Consolidation and Close

June 24-27: Kscope 19

September 15-19: Oracle OpenWorld

Finance Transformation & Innovation at Collaborate 19

Register @huronconsultinggroup.com

Session ID:

Remember to complete your evaluation for this session within the app!

10877

Alex Rodriguezalrodirguez@huronconsultinggroup.com

Patrick Ferraropferraro@huronoconsultinggroup.com

Thanks for coming to our presentation.We enjoyed sharing with you today.

- Alex & Patrick