The HFM Express Adapter is a universal adapter for all versions of Oracle (Hyperion) Financial Management until version 11.1.2.4. The main difference with the existing HFM Adapter is that the HFM Express Adapter does not rely on the Data Extraction module of Financial Management (also known as Extended Analytics). Instead it extracts data and metadata by directly connecting to the relational database underlying HFM (SQL Server or Oracle). Also, the configuration and execution of the data extraction process has been simplified.

Prerequisites

If the relational database underlying HFM is an Oracle database, then ODAC must be installed on the CXO Cockpit Application Server. We tested version 11.2 Release 5 (11.2.0.3.20), but newer versions will also work.

Creation of a HFM Express Source System adapter

Creation can be part of the creation of a new CXO-Cockpit application or the creation of a Source System within an existing application. In both cases the following wizard will appear:

Select 'Use Backend System Adapter'
Select Adapter 'Hfm Express'
Enter a name (usually the name of the underlying HFM application)
Press Next / Next / Finish

After finishing, two more databases have been created:

cxo_fact_<name>: the database that will hold the extracted data and dimension information. At creation of the source system it will contain some sample data not related to the HFM application yet
cxo_hfmexpressstaging_<name>: a database that will be used to store the specifications of the data-extraction process. Also, during extraction it will act as a temporary storage for the raw data-extracts.

Also an Analysis Services OLAP Database will have been created (name = <name>), initially containing sample data.

Connection to HFM

Open the Source Sysem adapter console as follows (select the right adapter):

In the first tab, enter the connectivity details to the HFM database:

DB Type: We support 2 Database Types: SQL Server and Oracle.

SQL Server:
SQL Server: The SQL Server is the SQL Server instance where the HFM data are stored. Note: as a rule this is not the same database-server as used for the CXO-Cockpit databases.Consult your HFM System Administator to get these specs.
Database: The name of the HFM database (usually something like FM, HFM, HYPPROD, ...)
Application: The name of the HFM application from which we want to extract.
Authentication:
- Check the box if you want to access the HFM database by Windows Authetication: Note that not only the user of the Design Studio ('you') should be authenticated, but also the Windows account that is used as a Service account for the CXO-Cockpit services. Data extractions are carried out by our Agent Service:
  
  The Windows account(s) must have read-rights on the HFM database.
- If you want to use a SQL Server account: enter a username / password. Also this account can be a read-only user.
Oracle:

For an Oracle connection a TSN configuration is required on the CXO Cockpit application server:

Consult your Oracle DBA for more details.

ICP Specifications

In this dialog you can also set two parameters related to HFM Intercompany (ICP) transactions:

Extract ICP Details: check this box if you want to report on ICP transactions. Note that this may result in a lot more data records and will slow down the extraction and transformation process.
Aggregate ICP Entities: this is a reflection of a setting within HFM named ICPEntitiesAggregationWeight. Checking the box is equivalent to an weight of 1.0 (this is most widely used). Un-checking means 0.0.

Retrieve HFM Meta-data

In order to setup the extraction (creating Load Sets and Subsets) we first need to retrieve a local copy the HFM Meta-data, mostly the HFM Dimensions.

This can be done by pressing the button 'Get Metadata' and then wait (few seconds to couple of minutes) until the following dialog appears:

Note that copying the metadata has to be done each time the dimensionality of HFM has changed (added / removed / moved members of a dimension)