What it is folks?!
A happy belated New Years to everyone. My apologies for not blogging in January, I have been wicked busy with projects and gearing up for the upcoming 2019 conference season (more on that in an upcoming post). Today’s post is on one of the projects I’ve been working on which is figuring out ways to duplicate Financial Reporting Books in EPRCS. For those of you not familiar with Financial Reporting Books, let me break it down: report books or reporting books are a collection of financial reports that use, where applicable, a common POV to drive all reports within a book. Now, to make a long story boring, financial reports are built using Hyperion Financial Reporting (HFR), Financial Reporting Web Studio, or Management Reporting. HFR was an on-premise tool that connected to an EPM solution (Hyperion Planning for example). Financial Reporting Web Studio connects to EPM cloud solutions. As of 2017, HFR is no longer offered. Financial Reporting Web Studio is still around and kicking, but the client I’m working with uses Oracle Analytics Cloud – Essbase as their data source, so: 1) no access to Workspace to build the book; and 2) Management Reporting is the report authoring tool for Oracle Analytics Cloud – Essbase and there is currently no way to create report books in EPRCS.
What to do, what to do
So if you find yourself stuck in the same predicament as my client (needing to duplicate on-premise or cloud report books in EPRCS), let me tell you that there are a few steps you can take! First, let me comfort you by saying that Oracle is hoping to release a report book feature later this year.
That’s a huge plus!
In the meantime, here are some steps you can take.
1) Build a PDF-based report package
The only way to duplicate a report book in EPRCS is to build a report package. The great thing about the PDF-based report packages is that you can insert Management Reporting reports directly as doclets. No need to use reference doclets as you would in a Word-based report package.
2) Set the Variables
Now here’s a little secret. Remember how I mentioned common POVs drive all reports within a report book? Well, report packages have variables that can be used to drive the POVs in each Management Reporting report! For PDF-based report packages, you can insert variables only into the POV of Management Reporting reports that are inserted as doclets. You cannot insert variables directly into PDF doclets. To create a variable, click on the variables tab in the Report Center, and select “Add” in the Actions Menu.
3) Add a Management Reporting report to a doclet
Once the variables are set, it’s time to start adding the reports you want in your report package. First, add a doclet:
Second, provide the properties for the doclet and select the report. You will also confirm linkage of the report.
Third, insert newly created variable(s) into the POV.
4) Continue adding Management Reporting reports
If you require multiple reports in your report package, continue adding each report as a doclet to the report package. Remember to insert the variables into the report POV.
5) Publish the report
After all the reports are added and you added an optional table of contents, it’s time to publish. Within the Report Center, click the Actions Menu and select “Publish Report.”
And there you have it, a quick walk-through on how to duplicate report books within EPRCS. Now, once the report book functionality is available, you can forget everything I just told you. But until then, happy creating!
Till next time.
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