6.5.4 Oracle Essbase - Mapping Data Points to Essbase

Data points can be linked to Essbase

individually using the Value panel; and
via drag-and-drag and drop.

Value Editor panel

The data adaptor can be created and edited using the data adaptor control in the Value Editor panel.

If you change the data adaptor to “Oracle Essbase” or click on the Configure Data Adaptor button, the following form will appear:

Member selector

In each of the Essbase Dimensions, the Report Authority Essbase member selector is presented in a dropdown list:

The clear selection button can be used to remove an explicit selection and revert it to the mapped value.

Context Defaulted Dimensions

The context defaulted dimensions list any dimensions which have been given a context in the definition of the data connection. Their context is indicated in the parenthesis.

The member for context defaulted dimensions can be either determined by their respective value as determined by the mapping tables, or by explicit selection. This is so that a report can be created in such a way that if any document concept such as entity, year, period or currency is changed, the data adaptors will respond automatically and return the relevant data.

If determined via the mapping table, the mapping icon will be displayed followed by the resolved value in parenthesis (as in “[Entity Total]” above).

Explicit members are indicated by the member icon as in the Entity dimension below:

Other Dimensions

Other dimensions are all dimensions other than those that have been given a context. When mapping a document, unless a member is explicitly used from a dimension, it will be assumed to be the top member for that dimension

Drag and drop

Using drag-and-drop you can assign Essbase dimension members to single cells, entire rows and columns and entire tables. For each Essbase connection created, Report Authority will download present the metadata in the Automation panel:

Table rows and columns

Often, members from one dimension will be used on individual table rows, and members from other dimension members for columns. Whilst members can be dragged and dropped onto individual data points, it is usually much quicker to drop members on row or column headers as illustrated in this video:

Table sheets

Dimensional tables are tables that are repeated across many sheets. In these cases, the rows and columns in each sheet are all mapped to the same dimension members, but a third dimension is used to differentiate between the sheets (such as currency, geography etc).

To prevent each sheet from having to be individually mapped, the mappings for a single sheet can be copied to all sheets of the same table. It will then only be necessary to switch out a dimension member from a third dimension by dragging the member and dropping it onto a row or column header that spans all rows and columns as illustrated in the previous.

To copy the mappings from one sheet to other sheets of the same table, activate the sheet with the mappings, then select Tools -> Copy Mappings To Sheets:

Speed Up Mapping By Disabling Auto-Update

When HFM adaptors are modified by dragging and dropping a member onto a row, column, or entire table, the value of each data adaptor that is modified will be retrieved from HFM. This will introduce a delay between the dropping of a member and initiating the next drag action. This delay will depend on how many objects are updated and the speed of the HFM connection. If the delay is noticible, you can speed up the mapping process by temporarily disabling auto-update using the toggle button at the top of the Automation panel:

With this toggled on, Report Authority will store the connection chnages but will not attempt to retrieve data from HFM. You can complete your mapping, and once completed, you can trigger the global refresh links process.

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