SmartView / Essbase Error 1051021

This will be a quick post on a common SmartView / Essbase error message that comes to me from my clients:

"What does this error message mean?"

Cannot set active application/cube. Essbase Error(1051021): You have been logged out due to inactivity or explicitly by the administrator.

Either there was too much time between your retrieves that SmartView automatically logged you out of Essbase or the Administrator has taken the cube offline for some reason.  But don't worry, there is an easy solution:

HFM Extended Analytics 101

One of my clients asked me to give them a quick write up of how Extended Analytics works in HFM since they've never used it before but are looking to explore more possibilities going forward.

Normal data extracts from HFM are limited in the point of view you get to select for the data being extracted.  You are limited to select on 6 of the 12 dimensions the remainder are defaulted, you can only select the following dimensions:

• Year
• Period
• Entity
• Account
• Scenario
• View

The remainder of the dimensions are defaulted for you: 

• ICP - Base ICP
• C1 - Base C1

Essbase Alternative : deFacto Performance Mangement

I have used Essbase ever day for the past 13+ years, its huge part of my life, but I've recently started working on some clients running a viable Essbase alternative, deFacto Performance Management.  I'm not saying that I'm leaving Essbase behind, but those of you looking for an alternative to the Hyperion suite (Essbase, Planning, HFM) on the Microsoft platform, might want to give deFacto a look.  Since it offers as good or better performance but at a far more manageable cost, deFacto is a definite possibility for you.

For more information, please see their website defactoglobal.com and mention this blog for special discount on pricing.  Here is some quick points for your reference regarding deFacto Performance Management

• A good way to think about deFacto is that they are Microsoft’s answer to the Hyperion’s of the world, except far less expensive to get up and running and support.

• deFacto Planning is a complete & unified solution - combining budgeting, planning, forecasting, consolidation, reporting and analysis all into one unified product. So unlike their competitors you only have to purchase one solution and not cobble together a bunch of different products to get the functionality you need.

• deFacto’s native Excel user interface securely connects to deFacto’s pre-built Microsoft SQL-based data warehouse. Utilizing both the relational database and multi-dimensional (cube) Analysis Services capabilities of SQL, deFacto offers unmatched performance and scalability.

• deFacto offers the most flexible deployment options as well – on-premise, hosted, cloud, physical or virtual – the choice is completely up to you. Additionally they have both web and device-based reporting, analysis, and budgeting capabilities

Check them out and let me know what you think, I am really stoked about the possibilities of working with deFacto.

Essbase Member Properties for Dimension Builds

When building an Essbase dimension build file, 99% of the time, I will build it using a Parent / Child relationship.  I feel its the easiest to maintain and shared members are added automatically.  Here's a simple example for the Scenario dimension:

Scenario|Actual|+|
Scenario|Budget|~|
Scenario|Forecast|~|
Scenario|Revised Forecast|~|

In case you were wondering what the + and ~ mean or need more properties, here's a good list for you:

Essbase Member Properties for Aggregate Storage Database

% Set consolidation to express as a percentage of current total.
* Set consolidation to multiply by the current total
+ Set consolidation to add to the current total

HFM Task Audit

So I need the ability to see who modified HFM and figured using HFM Task Audit was the best approach.

You can use the Task Audit feature to view the tasks performed by users where you can filter audited tasks by date range, application server, user, and task performed.

Keep in mind, only users assigned the Administrator role can perform a task audit.

These user activities are logged in the task audit:

Essbase Retrieval Performance with Attributes

So everyone knows that Attributes can be an awesome feature to add to Essbase cube.  I use them all the time.   A primary example would be your Customer dimension in Essbase.  It's a 'stored' dimension, but you need to include many facets of the the customer...like Country/State, Size, Sales Rep, etc.

Migrate from Essbase Excel Addin to SmartView

I am long time Essbase guy that was a big supporter of the Essbase Excel Add-in, but as you know, SmartView is the way of the future when it comes to Excel and Essbase.  Here are some Pros and Cons to migrating to SmartView:

Pros:

Essbase EAS Error 1250053

I was recently working with a client that wanted me to take a look at their outline, specifically to optimize MDX member formulas.  They sent over the .otl file and when I opened it up, I received the following error message:

I did some searches and was coming up empty.

SmartView is gone from Excel!!

I get this a lot from my clients, "SmartView is missing from Excel, please help!!"

Actually, its not missing, its just disabled.  Usually, if  Excel crashes for some reason (like a long retrieve or run out of memory), Excel will blame SmartView and disable the add-in.  Have no fear, you can enable SmartView very easily.

In Excel 2010 (works similarly for other version of Excel), follow these steps: