With the release of Oracle Hyperion On-Premise EPM 11.2, Oracle also announced the discontinuation of Enterprise Performance Management Architect (EPMA). This leaves anyone currently using EPMA with the task of figuring out how they can go ahead with their operations from here on. This blog will address the available options.
What is EPMA?
According to Oracle’s own description, Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management Architect (EPM Architect or EPMA) is a component of Hyperion Foundation Services and unifies and aligns processes across the EPM system. The visual environment provided by EPMA allows for a simple and intuitive user experience in modeling the financial business process including data, dimensions, and application logic.
EPMA helps users configure common dimensions from an extensible library, link these dimensions to different applications, re-use or move artifacts from one application to another, and graphically manage data flows between applications. In this way, EPMA provides the industry’s first business process modeling tool for building and maintaining Hyperion Planning Hyperion Financial Management, Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, and Essbase applications.
Despite all this, EPMA will NOT be available as a foundation component in the latest release of EPM 11.2 and beyond.
What are the Options to Replace EPMA?
Customers currently using EPMA, have two options:
- Converting exiting EPMA applications to “Classic” during an upgrade
- Import existing metadata from EPMA to Oracle Data Relationship Management (DRM) for use in 11.2
Migrating Meta Data from EPMA to DRM
To replace EPMA, Oracle includes Oracle DRM free of charge in the standard toolset of their 11.2 environments. Oracle DRM is offered under a restricted use license to facilitate Oracle Hyperion EPM (on-premises only) dimension maintenance.
A migration kit is available to assist in the migration of EPMA to DRM.
What does restricted use of DRM Mean?
DRM free license is provided for limited functionalities listed below.
- Functionality for Dimension Maintenance and Hierarchy Management
- Delivers Increased Value, Streamlined Application Maintenance via;
- App Dimension Definition– Adapt masters to create target-specific dimension properties
- Value inheritance – Calculate values based upon a controlling hierarchy
- Versioning–Take historical snapshots, spin what-if scenarios, rollback to points-in-time
- Derived properties – Calculate values based on user-defined functions and scripts
- Custom validations – Validate based on custom business logic
- Custom Exports – Define custom exports to filter and transform master hierarchies
- Compare hierarchies – Use “hotlists” of differences for repeatable reconciliation
What’s included?
- DRM for dimension maintenance of Oracle Hyperion EPM on-premises applications only
- Data Relationship Steward (max 5 named users) to administer, secure, and maintain hierarchies for Oracle Hyperion EPM on-premises applications only
What is not included?
- Reads and feeds from any other applications (e.g., Oracle EPM Cloud, Oracle Analytics Cloud, Transactional applications, ODS, D/W, Non-Oracle apps)
- Data Relationship Governance
- DRM Analytics
Expand DRM to “Full Use”
If you want a broader use beyond the restricted-use license of DRM, you will have to purchase either Oracle Data Relationship Management or Oracle EPM Cloud Enterprise Data Management
Use cases include:
- Corporate Chart of Accounts Maintenance
- Chart of Accounts Redesign
- Reference Data Management
- Master Data Management
- Mappings Maintenance
