Infosys-Oracle Blog:The new improved Multi-Load functionality in FDMEE

Part 3

The new improved Multi-Load functionality in FDMEE

FDMEE has introduced a hassle free great way to load multi-period files in the same way as single period files are loaded.

We no longer need to have an excel file with the location name, scenario, start period and number of periods in the file. All this and other features have been incorporated in the Import Format itself - there is a new file type introduced in the import format called "Multi-Period".

The multi-period format is very useful for loading budget and forecast data where data for the entire year or multiple years needs to be loaded.

Multi-Period Import Format:

To set up the multi-period import format, the following details are needed:

Select the File Type as Multi-Period and File Delimiter according to your source file.

In the mappings section of the Import Format, map the source files column numbers with the target application dimensions.

The dimension mapping is the same as the single period file.

The main difference here is the Amount column mapping. In the Expression column for Amount, open the Add Expression editor.

In the editor window that opens, select the following:

Expression Type: Column=start,end

Expression Value: column number of the first amount in the source file, column number of the last amount in the source file.

E.g. If the source file has budget values from Jan to Dec and the amount for Jan starts from column 7, the Dec amount would be at 18. Specifying 7,18 in the Expression Value will pick the amounts starting from column 7 and load them in the correct month for the next 12 subsequent amounts up to Dec.

The remaining setup of location and data load mappings remains the same.

Executing a multi-period location:

A location with multi-period import format is not executed from the Data Load Workbench. It is only executed through the Data Load Rule.

To execute a multi-period data load rule, go to Data Load Rule, click on Execute and enter the details as shown below:

Select the start and end periods according to the data that is required to be loaded and click Run. Data will be imported, validated and exported for all the periods between the start and end period range.

Some more features:

It is not required to have all 12 amount values for all the records in the source file. If there are no amounts for some months in between the start and end period range, the source file can have "#Missing" as well. Those months will not be loaded.

Data need not always be loaded from Jan to Dec even if the source file has 12 months data and even if we have specified 12 amounts in the Import Format. We can specify the Start Period as, say, "Mar" and End Period as "Oct". The corresponding amounts from the file will be picked up and loaded at the correct periods.

This is a very useful feature for the budget and forecast data loads between Hyperion applications. This can be implemented end to end in the following manner:

a. Call a batch in the BefImport event of FDMEE which will extract data from the source Hyperion application.

b. Fix up a folder on the FDMEE server where the file will always be placed after extracting the data.

c. Save the file name and path permanently in the data load rule

When the load rule is executed, the BefImport event will be triggered which will call the batch to extract data from the source application and the file will be created in the fixed folder. Since the filename is already saved in the load rule, it will be imported into FDMEE and data will be loaded to the target application according to the start and end period selected.

This simplified and more flexible way of processing multi period data is a very useful feature of FDMEE.