Oracle Essbase Reviews

I worked in a Kia project where I worked on Oracle Essbase, focusing on the patching process and server's restart, and I handled Service Now tickets.

In Oracle Essbase, data aggregation helps my financial modeling by consolidating and summarizing data from higher levels to lower levels. We can perform hierarchical aggregation, which uses relationships between members, and dynamic aggregation, which arranges and aggregates data in real-time, allowing fast and flexible analysis. The benefits of aggregation include improving performance, enhancing analysis, and simplifying complex reports. We also have storage options in aggregations such as stored data and dynamic calculations.

I have performed a variance analysis with Oracle Essbase.

The features of Oracle Essbase are valuable, such as its multi-dimensional database used for dynamic calculations and reporting purposes.

These features are valuable because they support multi-dimensional data views, allowing users to analyze relationships across various data categories and establish a comprehensive perspective on business operations. Moreover, dynamic calculations allow real-time data analysis, significantly improving the accuracy and depth of financial insights.

I have utilized Essbase's data aggregation capabilities.

The Oracle Essbase interface provides a good user experience, allowing users to easily navigate and analyze data with fast query performance, effective data visualization tools such as charts, graphs, and tables, and flexibility for customizable analysis and reporting, including the ability to create ad hoc reports. The benefits of the interface include improving productivity and enhancing decision-making.

I would like to see enhancements in calculations within Oracle Essbase.

I would like to improve calculations by optimizing performance and reducing processing time. For Excel exports, I would prefer the ability to change the file format from .xlsx to .xls. Additionally, improving security updates by applying patches quarterly or monthly would help protect sensitive business data.

I have been working with Oracle Essbase for three years.

My experience during the initial setup had challenges; I handled Service Now tickets but sometimes faced issues getting solutions promptly. When I encountered such challenges, I connected with my teammates to find the right solutions.

For stability, I rate Oracle Essbase as eight.

Scalability and stability perform well enough for my use cases and requirements, though if I explore more, I might find areas for improvement.

I can rate Oracle Essbase scalability from ten to eight.

Scalability and stability perform well enough for my use cases and requirements, though if I explore more, I might find areas for improvement.

I have communicated with the technical support of Oracle Essbase, and I had a good experience with them; they interacted quickly, provided solutions efficiently, and communicated in an understandable manner.

Positive

Before Oracle Essbase, I used EPBCS Planning and I am currently working with HFM Hyperion Financial Management.

I decided to switch from my previous technology to Oracle Essbase because my previous project in my current company got closed, so I moved onto working on Essbase.

I participated in the initial deployment and setup of Oracle Essbase.

I use it internally in the company I'm working in, which is Infosys.

Regarding the pricing of Oracle Essbase, I think it is a little affordable, though I don't know the exact details.

Oracle Essbase is deployed on the cloud and also on-premises; specifically, we work on Oracle Cloud and Essbase 21C.

I rate Oracle Essbase an eight out of ten.

We use Oracle Essbase for EPM solutions, such as consolidation and planning custom tools. Also, for the dimension definition, load rule, calculation script, and other functionalities that are relevant at this moment. This is the main activity that I've done with Oracle Essbase, including filter definition for security purposes.

Regarding the initial setup process of Oracle Essbase, I find it straightforward. In my experience, I have created only one application from scratch in Oracle Essbase.

What I appreciate about Oracle Essbase is that it is very easy to use and sometimes it is flexible, allowing you to create some custom solutions that are based on Oracle Essbase. For example, for an automotive customer, we have done a custom solution based on an Oracle Essbase Cube with an external link. This client allowed connecting to the Oracle Essbase Cube on a remote server, enabling users to manage dimensions, filters, and create other members of the dimensions.

Oracle's capability to define custom hierarchies and dimensions has helped my organization in performing nuanced data exploration and advanced modeling because we use Oracle Essbase for dimension definition and also to define the properties of these members, such as dynamic members, stored members, shared members. This improves our management of the dimensions and enhances performance.

The main benefits I have seen from using Oracle Essbase include its flexibility. There are features that I would like to improve, such as the partition of Cubes and the security area.

I would like to see specific features included in the next release of Oracle Essbase in terms of security or partition, but I have not experienced these features with OneStream at a very base level.

I have been working with Oracle Essbase for three years, and during this period, I have the possibility to work with some Essbase solutions for different customers, such as in the automotive sector.

Regarding the initial setup process of Oracle Essbase, I find it straightforward. In my experience, I have created only one application from scratch in Oracle Essbase. Based on my experience, I can say that it is easier to create applications in OneStream, but creating applications in Oracle Essbase is not very hard.

I assess the impact of Oracle Essbase's ability to handle large volumes of data on my organization's forecasting and strategic decision-making processes by noting that performance can be worse if there is no correct management of the dimensions with a lot of data. It is necessary to define sparse dimensions and dense dimensions correctly. In the calculation script, it's important to define settings such as the non-missing block, the suppression of the zero-null members, and also the aggregation way, which are vital to prevent worse performance of the application.

When it comes to scalability, I note that the on-premise solution of Oracle Essbase is not very scalable. In the cloud solution, I think it is easier, because that is the point. However, in the on-premise solution, there is no scalability, so if the server goes down, Oracle Essbase is not reachable.

I know about the technical support. For some customers in the automotive sector, I engaged the AM team for technical support and customer support regarding Oracle Essbase.

I would evaluate the technical support and customer service of Oracle as a seven out of ten. I rate it as seven because I had this experience in the first years in my society. However, recently, I have been working on a new deployment in OneStream, so my recent experience is limited to two years, and I have not had interactions with Oracle Essbase in that time.

I am currently working with OneStream, not in Oracle Essbase. OneStream is this other tool that allows you to have everything in one application, including integration, consolidation, and planning solutions.

The key differences between Oracle solutions and OneStream include that OneStream is more flexible than Oracle solutions as it allows you to create dashboards and reports customized to the specific requirements of the customers. OneStream also enables you to implement data integration within the same application by writing business rules, which in Oracle are called calculation scripts, but in OneStream, business rules are more flexible and extensible, largely thanks to the C# programming language and Visual Basic Studio. Other features that make OneStream more flexible than Oracle include the automatically integrated currency conversion that requires only inputting the tax rates in a specific form that OneStream has natively. The security aspect is highly flexible because it only requires creating groups and associating these groups with specific components, allowing users to see these components in read or write mode. Additionally, there is a file explorer in OneStream that allows users to save and share content with other people in the company, and the security in this file explorer is easy to use.

Regarding the initial setup process of Oracle Essbase, I find it straightforward. In my experience, I have created only one application from scratch in Oracle Essbase. Based on my experience, I can say that it is easier to create applications in OneStream, but creating applications in Oracle Essbase is not very hard.

Given my experience with Oracle Essbase, my advice for other companies considering it for their environment is to focus on optimizing the calculation script for performance and optimizing the dimensions, particularly the properties of the members of the dimension. It is important to define the correct typology, such as dynamic members, dynamic stored members, and shared members.

Another experience I had was the update of Oracle Essbase; although I do not remember from which version to which other version we updated, we encountered some problems with Oracle during this environment update. I can say that it is easier to update Oracle Essbase if there are other servers available because Oracle can install the latest update of Oracle Essbase on a different server rather than on the same server where the previous version was installed.

I rate Oracle Essbase six out of ten.

I have been using Oracle Essbase for the last thirteen years and I am into this space for thirty years. I am working on the sales-based platform where I work with different clients for GE, Thomson Reuters, Sun Life, and TD Bank. All these organizations are multinational organizations where we help them enable to take their financial decisions by hosting a tool that plays a key role in planning, budgeting, forecasting, and statutory reporting for submitting documents.

I work for different clients across the globe, including clients from Australia, the US, the UK, and the Middle East. There are a few organizations in the Middle East as well as in the Western countries such as the US and Canada. I am working as a consultant on a customer implementation team, so I am part of an organization that utilizes Oracle Essbase.

I appreciate Oracle Essbase for its data loading and metadata structure, which helps enable the creation of reports using forms and assists in developing business rules, strengthening the logic, and taking requirements from business users to develop scripts accordingly through performance tuning and optimization techniques. I have been working on this end-to-end implementation continuum. As a techie person, I love writing code, and most of the business logic is used in calculation scripts and business rules, which operate on the form as well as oral calculations.

Oracle Essbase enables organizations to take their strategic decisions, which helps them make the right decisions at the right time. If we consider historical data and actual data, we can plan and forecast for the future, enabling organizations at a high level to ensure that they are moving according to their needs and how they forecasted and budgeted. They can track each and every detail, and it is one of the critical business intelligence tools providing intelligent information to make strategic decisions and helping organizations stay on the proper trajectory. It enables proper reporting and submission to the government, assisting in audits as well, making it a key critical tool at the corporate level for tracking and making strategic decisions.

Improvements for Oracle Essbase could be made, as there are many tools available now, such as FCCS, TRCS, and ERCS. I find managing the database difficult, especially regarding optimization and data storage with the huge volume of data. At that point, focusing more on performance issues would be beneficial, making it a beautiful tool. Being a centralized repository where all users, including top-level corporate CEOs and CFOs, connect is crucial. If they can make effective tool optimizations, that would provide a significant advantage to compete with other tools currently available in the market.

I have been using Oracle Essbase for the last thirteen years.

Regarding stability, I find that it depends on how you build and make architectural decisions. I have worked on around four to five projects, with four of them being stable. One was unstable due to poor architectural decisions, impacting how the application was hosted and the technologies that were used. In general, my observation is that it is stable, with only one implementation being somewhat flawed, but that was purely related to architectural choices.

Oracle Essbase performs well in terms of scalability. I have seen a lot of issues arise, but in general, it is quite good. Having worked with more than fifteen hundred users, my experience has been that it provides a flawless user experience, with very few reported issues, making it a highly scalable solution.

The Oracle support team has standard operating procedures to follow. When we encounter issues, they guide us through documents to help troubleshoot. From an infrastructure standpoint, they have good knowledge and can assist us with fixes. However, when it comes to application knowledge, they are less helpful, and it really requires individuals with good subject knowledge to fix those application-level issues.

I would rate Oracle's support team an eight to nine from an infrastructure standpoint, as it may vary for different people. For application support, I would rate them a five, as it typically depends on the individual's experience and the assistance they need.

The initial setup of Oracle Essbase depends on whether it is for on-premise or cloud. If it is for an on-premise setup, we have to have good technical specifications because the servers must be hosted appropriately, and we need to determine what kind of product and modules we are installing. For on-premise setups, clients receive installations for base planning, shared services, SmartView, ES console, APS services, and all necessary servers need to be configured. On-premise setups are more critical and complex, requiring communication with various teams including Windows, database, firewall, and network teams. Meanwhile, cloud setups, while a bit easier, also require organizing data and ensuring secure communication.

For Oracle Essbase overall, I would rate it an eight or nine from the infrastructure side, and for the cloud solutions we are using, such as PVCS, I would rate it around seven. On average, I would give a score of seven point five to eight overall.

Regarding Oracle Essbase's pricing, I do not know the specific costs, but every year, we have discussions with Oracle about pricing. My primary focus is on the technical and implementation part, so I do not involve myself in commercial discussions. The organization pays a hefty amount based on the usage of the tool, the number of pods that we subscribe to, and various other factors. I cannot specify exactly how much they charge or how much organizations pay for that.

My overall rating for Oracle Essbase is 8 out of 10.

We provide complete ownership of this application to Walmart projects. In the UK system, we support and develop for the Asda account, known as Eltham. 

We provide installation and support to over 50+ technical business users for over 650+ stores through incident and change requests. We have around 2 million DSO skills, involving all types of analytic processing data.

We only do the development here. We receive multiple requests for new group developments as the business requires analysis on particular data. For example, they may need analytics support to compare last year's budget data with this year's actual sales data for Walmart projects. So, we get multiple requests for new configurations and have to create new SKUs, particularly ASO aggregate storage SKUs and block storage for calculations. 

With respect to that, we need to create more dimensions, assign member properties, and decide on dimension building properties, database restructuring, optimization, and fragmentation of the database, and consolidation process. We develop all these things based on the requirements, and after unit testing, we deliver the application to the users with live data.

It's definitely growing and has many great features, especially in the cloud. I haven't used the on-premises server as much.

Multidimensional data processing: Essbase is a kind of backbone, or back end, for systems like Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Management. It's a multidimensional cube where we can store and process details, generate reports, and do multiple data processing, which isn't possible in Oracle or other alternatives. So, I'm grateful for this experience.

Continuous improvement: Recently, I faced a version upgrade from 11.1.2 to 11.4. Now I'm on 11.2.10. Essbase is continuously upgrading its features in different areas, like configuration, properties, and the cloud platform. It's great to have experience with this, as well as working with the fundamental parts of the VM sets.

If I got the opportunity to work with Hyperion, which is the best product, I would definitely go with that. The main concern is that Oracle is ending on-premises server support, so it would be better if there was a cloud platform available for Oracle Essbase.

I have around five to five and a half of hands-on experience with Essbase. 

I have experience with both cloud and on-premises servers. Currently, it is on Oracle Cloud, like PBCL and EPPL.

It's 90% to 95% a stable product. The remaining 5% to 10% involves maintenance activities like renewals, password changes, cost positions comparisons, upgrades, etc. Other than that, it's mostly stable.

I am a technical user of Oracle Essbase products. I do all the technical work, like configuration, designing queues, giving access to users, gathering requirements, and developing and designing aggregate storage and block storage to apply calculations. After that, I provide reports to the end-users.

It's not that expensive, but also not cheap. I'm not sure because it's a private license.

If you want to do some analytical processing and you have a huge amount of raw data, Oracle Essbase is a good choice. When you need to analyze the data, transform raw data into consolidated data, do some calculations, and apply Oracle tools to see the hierarchies of the data, Essbase is very effective. 

For example, if you need to consolidate data from various regions or cities or even on a worldwide or countrywide scale, Essbase is suitable for such analytical operations. There are no other tools that provide as many features for understanding and analyzing data as fast as Essbase.

Advice for beginners:

As a beginner, there are a few parts you need to understand as basic concepts, like how to build dimensions.

If as an end-user, you want to implement this tool in the organization. Then you don't need to worry too much. If you have practical experience with Excel, Smart View is an alternative to access data from Essbase. With Smart View, you can experience the data within Excel and perform some operations without directly using the Essbase application or interacting with the database.

Overall rating:

I would rate it an eight out of ten for performance and features.

Oracle Essbase is mainly used for its functionality. Your system stores your day-to-day variances. You analyze them, such as your daily, monthly, quarterly, or yearly earnings. Usually, you generate P&L statements, balance sheets, and cash flow reports.

You can also achieve predicting and forecasting reports with historical and current data. For example, based on your performance for the last five to ten years, you can predict which product sales were high. 

Based on that, you can do budgeting for those products or geographical locations. It is entirely used for financial data.

The best thing is that we can handle a huge amount of data at a time. The processing speed is very good. It's a very powerful analytical engine with Essbase as the back end. We can analyze, transform, or utilize a big chunk of data for our calculations. 

We can also enable the users to run those calculations on their demand. We develop the system and hand it over to the user, and they can have it on their own. It only needs one or two admins for infrastructure or issue-related support.

The consolidation engine, which is HFM or FCCS, needs some room for improvement. Clients currently opt more for OneStream for consolidation purposes, rather than HFM or FCCS. 

The consolidation part might need some improvement in terms of how they perform, how efficiently they are.

I have been using it for 11 years. 

You will definitely get bugs, for sure, with every version that comes. Oracle is active in creating fixes, and they release patches. If you are using Oracle Cloud and the infrastructure is owned by Oracle, you don't need to worry. They will push the bug fixes themselves. 

When we use PBCS or EPBCS applications on the cloud, they handle those things. It might be a downtime during the weekends for 30 minutes, but it's a very stable area. You don't actually use Essbase when you use PBCS or EPBCS. It is in the backend, and things are happening there as well, for sure, but you won't get to see the console. You'll just see the front end, the planning part.

There are many end users in my company. There are dedicated EPM practices in the company I work for, which has its own auto practice as they deal with this product. Capgemini also has a pretty good practice with 50+ people. 

Usually, the MNCs will find more, like, 200+ people or 300+ people. It's widely used, and clients across the globe use it. So, it depends on the client who is asking for it. Oracle products are separate, especially the cloud products are really problematic.

Oracle support, surprisingly, is very bad. 

It depends on the problem. Currently, we are migrating our database. We are upgrading our database. We have a new database on a separate server. We have already migrated our EPM database, and we are supposed to do the configuration of our front end, DRM, and all those EPM Oracle EPM products. 

But the support people are not that knowledgeable sometimes. They are taking time to analyze the issue. They are taking too long to get a reply from the product development team, which they have. They are opening additional tickets from their side to resolve the issue, but they're not getting answers. This is what always happens for Oracle support. In my experience, it's not good.

The installation is easy, so you can just follow the guide provided by Oracle. If you have the understanding, like at least one project experience, it won't be difficult. 

I haven't done it myself, but I see people doing it. They say that if you have at least one project experience on installation and configuration, it's quite easy for you, especially on the Linux side.

For PBCS, that is the Hyperion Planning Cloud version. I have worked on Oracle Cloud, but I have also worked on the on-premise version, like 11.1.2.4. That was hosted on a private cloud. The client owns the cloud and installs it.

The pricing is not cheap. The clients usually have partnerships with Oracle. They have some categories of partnership, and that determines the licensing price. But if it's for a few users and the data volume is not that much, I would recommend other products. Clients with 300+ or 400+ users and a huge volume of data usually acquire Essbase.

First, I would like to understand what you want to achieve and what amount of data you are handling. You don't use Essbase for small or medium-sized volumes of data. It is especially used for a large volume of data. 

Otherwise, people use Anaplan or more cheaper products. Also, the nature of the data you are using and the purpose of the data, like what you'll do with the data, will help.

It is not difficult for a beginner to learn to use Essbase for the first time. If you have an understanding of how databases work, that will help. Every tool has its own syntaxes and UI, so learning that won't be difficult.

Essbase is a pretty stable and good database. The calculation engine is very good. It definitely has some shortcomings, but that's why I would rate it an eight out of ten overall. 

From day one, I was allocated to a project where this technology, Essbase and Hyperion Planning, is used. This is an enterprise performance management tool. You can do analysis and forecasting with it, like current budget and long-range forecasts. You can do all those things with this database and the front end.

It is very fast compared to other normal databases, like SQL and MySQL. It doesn't store data in tables in the back end. To load data into Essbase, we need to prepare it in a table format. When we find the data in the table, we need to verify it. This way, you can rate the data. But Essbase stores multidimensional data. We have dimensions, which means the data belongs to some company or some time period. 

For example, if you work for three years, your salary should be something. In this way, we prepare top-level members called dimensions. The dimension defines your position, the year, and the section you were working in the company. 

We get an intersection of all these dimensions for certain data, and fetching that data is very fast in Essbase compared to normal SQL. If you store this data in a normal SQL table, you need to prepare a row with your company name, employee name, employee ID, joining date, and everything, and then you need to push it into a SQL table. 

You can search it using your query, but here, that thing is different. Here, you can collect data using forms, reports, and we use a Microsoft tool, which is an add-in called Smart View. Using that, you would just take that data. Here, you need to just create an integration of all these dimensions, and then only you can find the data.  

The reporting tool needs improvement. 

The built-in reporting tool, Reporting Studio, is not up to par compared to Essbase. We use third-party products for reporting. The reporting tool should be upgraded to improve the fetch of the data because it could take time to fetch huge amounts of data. The fetch time could be smaller in its reporting tool. 

It can also upgrade its interface, but it's already upgraded to the cloud. We can use the cloud version now; we have PBCS, the cloud version of the database on-premise version.

I have been using it for two years and eight months now. 

For the on-premise version, we need to build our own setup. We need to buy or rent a PC. In that setup, we actually use on-premise, so our client uses their own PC. In that case, everything is in our hands. 

When you up your system, when you down your system, what are the business hours of your system, when you run the job - everything is in the administrator's hands. 

In the other case, if you take the cloud version, nothing is in your hands. You can just run the job, but the system up and down is not in your control. It'll break down either way, like with internet issues. But if it is on-premise, in my two years and eight months of experience, I have never seen a system breakdown.

There are many end users in my company using this solution. 

We need to contact Oracle many times. For example, we are facing one issue in reporting that I just updated you on. We have a volume limit of 2.5 million cells that we need to refresh at a time in a report. 

In one dimension, we have many members, maybe 1000 or 10,000 members, or more than that. If you were to drill down on the member, choosing the top-level member and drilling to the bottom level, and each intersection has data, the report will increase dramatically. In just a fraction of a second, it reaches 2.5 million and gives you an error. We didn't know this earlier, so we gave a snapshot of that error to Oracle. They told us that this is a product requirement and that they cannot give us more than 2.5 million cells of data. There are many things like this. 

We have patching quarterly, so they upgrade the security of this product, and that way, we might face some issues. So, we need to reach out to them to resolve those issues and get to the root of them. Even in Smart View, sometimes we get issues because Smart View is compatible with the EPM Add-in. 

We use the Oracle product, and there, we can fix that data. Sometimes, we get a replacement issue in Smart View because of a version issue. At that time, we need to upgrade Smart View. This way, we need to reach out to Oracle several time. They are very supportive. 

Positive

The initial setup is time-consuming. It will take around two to three months. First, we need to deploy it and gather the business requirements, like what they need and how many users there are. 

Essbase is preferred for 300 to 1000 users on the front end. If we have more than that, then Essbase is not preferable because it will take more time to fetch data. 

In that case, we would prefer the cloud version for larger volumes of data. We have a PBCS for that. From my perspective, it is for more than a hundred thousand users. 

Other than that, we need to check all the business requirements and all the avenues where we can apply it. So we need to think first, and then we can decide whether to use it or not.

Before using it, I recommend you check with an expert. We have some EPM administrators who can analyze your requirements and tell you which product is suitable for you. Essbase is the database used in the backend, and in the front end, we have several options like Workspace, Planning, and Enterprise Performance Management reporting tools. 

The experts can comment on which tools are suitable for you. But if you are looking for some performance management tools, then go for Essbase. There are other competitive tools, like SAP, which can also work.

Moreover, the interface is very easy. So, it is easy for a beginner to learn to use Oracle Essabase. Within one or one and a half months, any user familiar with company figures can learn it and implement their forms and everything.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We use the solution for user-based queries and to extract the required data from Oracle Database. Also, we prepare the reports based on the queries with its help.

The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use while preparing monthly reports and making amends. Our users request reports from us every month-end. Here, the solution helps us fetch specific data sets per users' requirements.

They should improve the solution's performance. Whenever we have a lot of reports to test, it takes considerable time for the process.

They should have a customized back or front-end feature to rectify and fix the errors. Every time, in case of link breakage, we ask the administrator to look into it. Instead, they should add a feature to deal with it so that we save time and effort.

I have been using the solution for more than a year.

It is a stable solution but not 100% regular. I rate its stability as a seven or eight.

It is a scalable solution. We have around 100-150 users of the solution in our organization.

We first try to resolve the issue with the help of standard operating procedures. If we don't get any solution from it, we contact the IT staff and the administrator. I often have to visit the administrator to fix a link breakage issue. Otherwise, no assistance is required.

It is a good product. Also, it receives a patch update from the back end every quarter for maintenance purposes. I recommend the solution and rate it as an eight.

We are a telecommunications company operating in Iran, and we manage a vast amount of data related to our network infrastructure. We have hundreds of data points specifically pertaining to our network resources, and the processing demands for this data can be quite intensive. This data includes metrics such as JPI and is closely tied to the payload traffic on our network. We also handle extensive datasets related to marketing, charging, and various other aspects of our operations. These datasets are substantial in size, contributing to the overall enormity of ours. We use separate databases for product management and phone management, each housing specific data related to those functions.

Storing our data on a dedicated server and ensuring fast access when we need to retrieve information is indeed a smart approach facilitated by Oracle Essbase.

There is room for improvement in terms of cost-effectiveness.

I have been working with it for ten months now.

It offers good stability capabilities.

The system is scalable. Certain data is private, and restricted to database access only. Meanwhile, some data is intended for users, and a significant number of users, potentially in the millions, require access to it.

The support for the application seems somewhat unclear, and I'm not entirely certain about its specific responsibilities or functions.

It is a costly solution. This is because we require high-performance servers with substantial CPU and RAM capacities to handle our extensive datasets effectively.

It is highly efficient and easily scalable, particularly for handling large databases. When it comes to relational databases, they are a strong choice, scoring nine or even ten out of ten in terms of suitability.

We have projects where application development is supported. We are using Oracle Essbase as as a backend for sorting data, queries, functions, and procedures.

I have found the most valuable aspect is the user-friendly environment and current features.

Sometimes, the current program is slow. We have tried to do what we can from our part of the equation to optimize certain queries. They should review the storage and the RAM so that whatever application will behave at that speed and whatever queries have been performing at a good rate. Sometimes it depends on the hardware also, how your application runs. They may have to consider the storage and the RAM, increasing the speed and performing the queries at a faster speed. I would also like to see an integration with application performance management and a version control management tool. Whatever data has been saved, should be centralized. This will make it easy to manage rather than putting on different software. We need to make sure we are able to manage and have the proper configuration of whatever database-related components are needed.

I have been working with Oracle Essbase for the past one to two years.

Oracle Essbase is stable.

The current environment is sufficient for us and we are not required to scale at this point. We currently have between thirty and forty individuals in the organization.

We have been using SQL and we switched to Oracle Essbase. Both programs are operating and depending on the client's needs. We move between both platforms. However, the primary solution is Oracle Essbase. Depending on how we need to provide the solution because they have already something on the Azure server in that case, we need to use Azure servers. Now we have a solution that tackles both the database needs. It is my opinion, it is more comfortable in Oracle rather than a SQL server.

There were some difficulties migrating from the older version to Oracle nineteen, but we were able to manage.

I believe the licensing is on a monthly base.

I would rate Oracle Essbase a seven on a scale of one to ten.

The initial setup of Oracle Essbase is dependent on whether you select BSO or ASO cubes. First, you need to set up the type of information and once the type of cubes is defined, you need to define the dimension types. You keep working with the business to have all the dimensions migrated and everything they want in Oracle Essbase.

Apart from that, the only difficult thing is if finance is not clear on the final result they want, it will be really difficult to have Oracle Essbase provide added value to the business. Finance needs to be clear on the final result, and you need to have a space for pricing analysis, so let's get the data from your CRM or from other management modules.

However, it's a big investment for pricing alone, and I don't recommend anyone to use Oracle Essbase for only one thing. You can do everything in terms of finance in Oracle Essbase as long as you know what you want and expect clear outcomes because in Oracle Essbase, you have to develop everything manually, unlike in EPM where modules are already developed.

What I appreciate most about Oracle Essbase is my comprehensive knowledge of all its features, although my UNIX knowledge is limited, requiring assistance for server installations. I have worked with finance in defining calculation scripts, which is the most complex aspect, and also worked on transformation processes.

While Oracle Essbase has evolved into EPM, my knowledge of Oracle Essbase translates directly to understanding EPM.

The benefits of using Oracle Essbase include avoiding data silos, as previously, Finance had data scattered across different sources such as CRM, ERP, and other satellite sources. With Oracle Essbase, everything is centralized in a comprehensive financial statement analysis. This centralization allows for complete management of budget, actuals analysis, and forecast.

A significant area for improvement in Oracle Essbase is that financial statement analysis, CAPEX and OPEX analysis, and financial consolidation must be done manually, as Oracle Essbase doesn't include the financial consolidation module that is available in EPM.

While you can analyze market trends, track expenses, and compare actual expenses against budget and forecast, currency variances can be handled in both Oracle Essbase and Excel.

You can maintain aggregation values of all your accounts in finance within Oracle Essbase. Period-end balances and monthly transactions can be included, though it's primarily designed for aggregation values. Different cubes in Oracle Essbase can contain all necessary data, eliminating the need to source data from multiple reports for financial analysis, which can be accomplished through the data integrator.

The initial setup of Oracle Essbase is dependent on whether you select BSO or ASO cubes. First, you need to set up the type of information and once the type of cubes is defined, you need to define the dimension types. You keep working with the business to have all the dimensions migrated and everything they want in Oracle Essbase.

The pricing functionality in Oracle Essbase is handled through the model you develop, where each cube can be customized with members and dimensions for pricing and entities. You can implement any functionality, but everything needs to be developed within Oracle Essbase.

Based on comprehensive knowledge of Oracle Essbase, I rate it seven out of ten. I recommend companies evaluate not just Oracle Essbase, but also Oracle EPM since it includes Oracle Essbase with predefined functionalities. In EPM, features such as actuals analysis cube and planning modules are pre-built, though customization options remain available. If EPM didn't exist, Oracle Essbase would deserve a nine, but its evolution to EPM justifies the seven-out-of-ten rating to using only the Essbase legacy platform or Cloud service.