The Power of Automation for EPM Cloud

Written By: Ivan Casarrubias - Sr Principal Consultant
Publication Date: 12/02/2019

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EPM Automate

EPM Automate enables your company to autonomously perform tasks within Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud environments such as PBCS, PCM, FCCS, ARCS and more.

When combined with decision-making scripts, and a scheduler, your company can benefit from an intelligent system that quickly performs jobs which tend to be tedious, time consuming and prone to human error. Automation reduces cost dramatically, refreshes your data more frequently, and allows your leadership to allocate more time and resources to higher ROI endeavours.

save time

Save Time - Reduce 8 hours of dataload work down to 10 minutes, while increasing frequency at no additional cost

save money

Increase Profits - Updating Global Data twice a day, means more accurate reporting and quicker decision making. You choose the frequency.

easy

Relax - Data loads, Metadata Updates and Business Rules always run on schedule. Get Piece of Mind with daily Status Reports


Competitive Edge

Most companies load the previous month's Actuals over the course of the first week of the next month. Typically, this process involves multiple cubes, multiple files, a variety of business rules, all in preparation for Reporting. This periodic routine can take up the whole day, or even multiple days when errors are made. Using automation, your company can schedule all of these processes to run in the background, and run more frequently. Companies race to have the most up-to-date data in order to improve and adapt to external and internal factors.

Updating Data

You can automate the the system to update itself using: the latest files, newest metadata and most recent Actuals. You can fetch the latest files based on different qualifiers such as when the file was last modified, or when a newer version of the file is available. Updating the entire company's data through Data Management, requires too much time and labor to make it a daily routine. This is why many companies settle for outdated data. Through Automation, your organization can get the entire company's data updated daily, hourly or as quickly as needed.



Artificial Intelligence

A.I Systems are able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, text recognition and decision-making. We design our Systems to derive the Category (Actual, Budget, Average, etc) for each file it processes. This creates an Intelligent System that performs data management and runs business rules without the need for additional human interaction.

Our Autonous System is designed with respect to it's internal components and external environment per Total Quality Management (TQM) best practices. By reducing variance and avoiding bottlenecks in the environment, we minimize the need for maintenance or human interference.

Data Management

Imagine loading an Actuals file named Actuals12-02-19.txt for the Period of November through Data Management.

Simplified Interface - Loading Actuals for Single Period Data

The application will ask for: Category (Actual), Period (Nov), Location, file name, Start, End, Mode, etc. Because the Periods, Years and file names always change, a bottleneck occurs in the Data Load process and also when running Business Rules. The EPM Cloud Admin must decide what variables to manually fill-in such as: Which period to start on? Which Fiscal Year? What Scenario? What Version? Which Business Rule? This leaves room for ERRORS, especially human errors.

Dynamic Programming

Our Autonomous System removes human error thanks to our dynamic design. The system is able to make decisions and select the correct variables all on its own.

No more human errors in your Process Details log

Our Automated System fills in all of the information needed for the data loads and business rules. This is how the system is able to run continuously without maintenance. The same Autonomous Systems can be reused for the January 2020 Averages file, or for a Budget file which will be created five (5) years in the future. You set the schedule and duration, and the system runs in the background. That is the power of a dynamic system.



Notifications & Reports

Stay up to date with Reports, Notifications and Logs for your EPM Cloud Processes. Rest assured that the system is running smoothly by reviewing the progress and history of your processes. You can even schedule periodic back ups.

Email Notifications

There is no need to monitor the processes while they run. You can choose to receive email notifications to reassure you that all is well. Or you can choose to only be notified when an error occurs, so an issue can be addressed immediately.

Audit Trails

You can keep historical records of each data load, metadata update, business rule, etc in a human-readable log using simple-to-understand language. This allows you to audit a specific cube, category, or period and keep track of what files were used, what rules were executed and the outcome of each process. You can even time-stamp each individual task to compare the speed of automation vs human effort.



About the Author

Ivan Casarrubias Ivan Casarrubias is a Sr. Principal Consultant for Paradigm SES.

Ivan creates Autonomous Systems for Enterprise applications and has experience with Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics.

Paradigm SES CONSULTANTS

Paradigm SES provides EPM and BI solutions to companies across the globe. Our team of experts have over 30 years of hands-on functional experience. We deliver process improvements, data management, data visualization and reports, and greater insights to multiple fortune 500 companies.

Our experience in hundreds of different functions allows us to quickly identify proven solutions that will work within most any area of a business environment. We are passionate about creating better work environments through efficiency and imaginative solutions.



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We offer Autonomous Systems for EPM Cloud Applications such as Oracle Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS)/EPBCS, Financial Close & Consolidations Cloud Service (FCCS), Hyperion Financial Management (HFM), Account Reconciliation Cloud Service (ARCS), Profitability & Cost Management (PCM) and more.