Decision Packages and Budget Request with Oracle Hyperion

Public Sector Planning and Budgeting Application

Author:-Sanjay Purohit
The Hyperion Public Sector Planning and Budgeting (PSPB) come with out of box Decision Packages
(DP) and Budget Request (BR) functionality. This functionality was a core selling point of Oracle PSPB
sales team to municipal, city and state governments. Government highly uses DP during the budget
formulation process. However the out of box functionality requires some setup and does not meet most
of requirements. We will cover a brief overview of DP and BR. We will also demonstrate the initial setup
of decision packages.

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this article is to provide you brief information about DP/BR and also provide you an
overview of setup process. I will also demonstrate the life cycle (The entire approval process) of decision
packages in my next posting posting. Before we start, let me write something about DP/BR; and how
they are used during the budget formulation.
Decision Packages (DP): - The DP is one of the primary elements to formulate government budget. The
DP is a mechanism for department/division to make convincing case of their proposal. The DP puts all
narrative justification, associated financial cost, required man power together and allows department
head or staff member to submit an incremental/onetime request funding request. The budget office really
depends on DP justification to make any judgment.
Budget Request (BR):- Each decision package may contain one or multiple budget requests for funding a
position, hiring an employee or operating expenses. All BRs aggregate to decision package and follows a
promotion path. BR can have narrative justification and the text can be mapped to budget book
publication. However the reporting options are limited.
Decision Package Highlights:-
Decision package option should be enabled during the application creation otherwise this
functionality will not be available. This functionality is only available with Classic planning
application. EPMA does not qualify.
If a user creates a decision package and define display alias for entity; the alias of entity will
display on decision package creation screen. ( only user friendly function)
Budget request and decision package can be ranked in an order as per department/budgeting
office priority.
Decision package provides flexibility of including and excluding a DP from total budget.
Decision packages follow the master planning unit hierarchy (PUH) but can be configured a
specific approval path. Admin also needs to assign scenario and version to PUH/DP.
The promotion of decision packages triggers validation rules on planning server. The DP will not
be promoted if any validation rule fails or givens error.
Decision package provides a flexibility of sharing with multiple entities/cost centers.
Planning BSO cube has limitation; Oracle recommends pushing the entire compensation budget,
operating budget and decision package data to ASO cube.
Decision packages are primary built for Public Sector Planning and Budgeting application. But if
users wish to use DP enable application will not able to use mass update such as overwrite
compensation or allocation default.
Decision package cannot be deleted if it is being shared or have not zero value.
Users can not terminate employee in non-recurring budget request. Termination of employees of
employee is only supported on recurring budget request.
Decision packages have reporting limitation. Only few reporting option are available to report
DP and BR.
Baseline decision package represents current service level of organization budget and new
decision package can be added on top of it.
User must have write access to own and edit decision package and view access to view.
Decision package is capable of delta capture budget request.
Users can add notes/comments and attach notes to explain decision package.
Administrator needs to create BR_1 BR_2 and. BR_& members to hold decision packages.

HOW TO

Creation of BR Members: - Admin user should create BR_ member for users. I am going to crate 30
member in below given example. The new created members will be used with DP


Creation of DP Type: - DP types are a way to organize the DP. I have created new DP type Operational
& Personal. The admin can create DP type by going to Administration>Manage>Decision
Package>Decision Package Type. Each Type of DP should have following. The PSPB comes with two
default DP types.
All Decision Packages
Compensation Expenses



Data Collection Forms: - Admin can assign any decision package compatible data form under this tab by
clicking plus sign.



Reporting Application Mapping: - DP provides a functionality to push data to reporting cubes. Oracle
recommends using ASO cube for reporting application.


Rollup Member: - Setting up of rollup members is required to see the data on DP and BR level. Admin
rollup members and write a business rule according. I have setup the rollup as per my dimension needs.
The rollup of HCP cube comes out of box (Default) Please see Hyperion Public Sector Planning and
Budgeting guide for more info.




Justification Questionnaire: - This is the place to setup an explanation or addition information that users
must enter before to submit any decision package.



Decision Packages Type Attributes:- DP attributes can created for reporting purpose.