Implementing Hyperion Planning at Reading Borough Council Julie Cave

1. Implementing Hyperion Planning at Reading Borough Council Julie Cave

2. Julie Cave • Financial Systems Manager • Team of four looking after EBS and Hyperion • Local Government for 20 years • With RBC for 10 years • Customer Project Manager for original 10.7 implementation

3. Reading • Reading stands at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, midway between London and Swindon off the M4 motorway. It is one of the contenders for the title of the largest town in England. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Berkshire and has served as the county town since 1867. • Reading was an important national centre in the medieval period, as the site of an important monastery with strong royal connections, but suffered economic damage during the 17th century from which it took a long time to recover. Today it is again an important commercial centre, with strong links to information technology and insurance. It is also a university town, with two universities and a large student population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading,_Berkshire

4. Reading Borough Council The Unitary Authority of Reading is located in the County of Berkshire in The Southern Counties of England, it covers an administrative area of 40Km² and in 2001 was home to a population of 144,000 persons, that represents 0.29% of that of England and 0.24% of the population of the entire United Kingdom. The Borough of Reading became a unitary authority area in 1998 when Berkshire County Council was abolished under the Banham Review, and is now responsible for all aspects of local government within the borough

5. Reading Oracle Estate • EBS • Financials since 10.7 1998 • GL,AP,PO,CM,ADI • Added iProcurement 2003 • Currently 11.5.10 • Discoverer with NoetixViews

6. Relationship with Fujitsu • Trusted Partner • Implemented the original system • Managed Service ever since • Hosted infrastructure • 1st & 2nd Line Technical support • 2nd line application support (1st line is combined with business support in a dedicated Reading team) • Regular discussions on strategy • Ongoing change requests

7. Budgeting Challenges • FSG and clever use of ADI meant that we able to generate next years budget quite easily • The challenge came with our 3 and 5 year budgets which use the next year budget as part of the complex calculations. • So we didn’t.. • Cant get away with that for ever

8. The history.. • When we purchased Financials we bought Oracle Financial Analyzer licences intended to implement them later • When we started thinking about using OFA Oracle were talking about it being replaced by Enterprise Planning & Budgeting so we waited for that…

9. EPB • Initial feedback of EPB from OFA users was it was lacking the functionality of OFA so we waited a little longer… • Mid 2007 couldn’t wait any longer so Fujitsu demonstrated EPB and it would do what we needed • Agreed with Fujitsu that we would do a joint risk implementation early 2008

10. Spanner in the works • Just as we were agreeing the contract Oracle purchased Hyperion and announced that EPB would be withdrawn and users ‘encouraged’ to move to Hyperion Planning. Ok so let’s use Planning oops it costs more

11. But I have no more money • Budget agreed on shared risk implementation of EPB by Fujitsu • No more money available, so do I install EPB knowing it is on its way out • Or find a solution with to install Hyperion?

12. What’s involved • Hyperion Planning is an application that runs over the Essbase Cube • SQL Server for the application • Also needs Oracle Database Licence • Installed on Unix server as we had processor based full use licence • Data Loading Tool needed for metadata build • Oracle Data Integrator (Synopsis) – free • Unexpected middleware • Smartview (integration with Microsoft Office)

13. Ever Resourceful • Beg, borrowed and stole… • Gave up a rarely used test instance to give capacity for the Oracle Database • ‘found’ a de-commissioned but adequate SQL Server • Took a risk on running 13 licences on the included tomcat middleware (advice < 20 OK) • Sold my soul to be a reference

14. The Approach - migrated OFA to Hyperion Planning at a much discounted rate, they also provided the install resource at a discounted price in exchange for a reference. Traditionally Hyperion hadn’t sold into public sector. – had no Hyperion Planning skills so entered into a mid term commercial agreement with a partner (Paragon) and provided resource free of charge to shadow and learn. - an existing Hyperion partner who help Fujitsu with their own use of another Hyperion product provided discounted consultancy to configure the Planning module to gain experience with EBS - provided project management for the configuration and a full time resource for the design and implementation phase.

15. Implementation Process • Design – RBC and Paragon • Technical Install – Fujitsu and Oracle • Build – RBC and Paragon • Planning is a business front end that in simple terms generates the Essbase ‘cube’ • Complex calculations are required to aggregate the data from the lowest level • These complex calculations too complicated for Hyperion Planning • This was achieved but via technical build direct into Essbase • Latest release (July 2008) contains Calculations Manager which may get around this

16. Processes • Download current budget data (FSG into excel) • Load into Hyperion (via Essbase load rules) • Centrally apply inflationary elements • Using dataforms created during build user can view data and make adjustments • Once budget agreed by Cabinet, extract from Hyperion (via SmartView) • Load back into EBS via budgeting spreadsheets

17. Demonstration • Web interface • SmartView

18. Big Challenges • Maintenance • Two separate systems (with a roadmap of integration) so continuous maintenance required (COA segment values) • Doesn’t utilise cross validation rules to minimise combinations • Amending of business rules until a business front end • Integration • Because it isn’t (yet) Hyperion creates every possible combination which effects calculation performance and general response times • If a created combination is used but didn’t exist in EBS, the load back will fail until you replicated the combination in EBS (remember dynamic insertions do not work with budgets) • Mitigated part of this for end users with restricted dataforms, live with it in the central team but this introduces another challenge, by suppressing content for them they cannot add new rows, central team must - additional work

19. Lesser Challenges • Knowledge • Would feel happier if I knew how it all worked under the covers in Essbase (recommend attending a course at start of project) • Hierarchies • You can create dimensions (based on COA Segments) which are great but within a dataform can only be used once • E.g. If dimension is a page item, it cannot also be a row item • List of Values • Would like them sorted alphanumerically not within hierarchy • Report Writing • not user friendly, we are actually doing most of it in dataforms

20. Benefits • Got a working solution for mid & long term budget planning cycles • We will be able to have budget monitoring reporting in Hyperion, better functionality than EBS • Visibility of process throughout, currently hidden in end user spreadsheets • Smartview means the user experience is the accountant loved ‘spreadsheet’. • Within my budget • Look forward to planned full integration, but pleased I implemented when I did. Benefits outweigh the challenges

21. A Year On… • Successful 1st year process Budget cycle completed to timescale High level management reports produced for Director of Resources during process Budgets created for next year plus 5 years in one budget cycle No issues reported from Accountants using the system • Still problems with reporting High level reports work fine Cost Centre detail reports will not run based on the number of segments we have in our COA • Budget Monitoring Fujitsu working with us to implement a solution