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I have gathered some Hyperion questions. If you find good answers than this please share your answers.
- suresh
Que:2 What are the specified roles other than Aministrator to view sessions, disconnect sessions or kill users
requests for a particular application?
Answer: You should have the role of Application manager for the specified application.
Que:3 What are the three options specified in Username and Password management under security tab in
Essbase server proprties.
Answer: 1. Login attempts allowed before username is disabled.
2. Number of inactive days before username is diabled.
3. Number of days before user must change password.
Que:4 Why do objects gets locked and when does this happens?
Answer: Objects gets locked to prevent users to make simultaneous and conflicting changes to Essbase database
objects. By default whenever an object is accessed through Aministrative services console or Excel spreadsheet
add-in, it gets locked.
Que: 5 I have created an application with one database in Essbase at test environment and now needs to copy the
entire application with all security permissions to the production server which is not connected to the test server.
How can I do that?
Answer: You can acheive this using migration wizard to migrate an application to a text file which you can take
physically to the production server.
To know how you can do that, take a look at this post Essbase Application Migration.
Que:6 From the above question, When I migrated the application to the production server I do not see any data in
the Essbase database. What has gone wrong and how to correct this?
Answer: Nothing has gone wrong. Migration utility does not migrate the actual data. If you want to copy the exact
data from the test machine, get it exported using export utility and import it on production machine.
Que:7 Referring to the above question, Can I still do this if my production server and test server are two different
operation systems. Explain.
Answer: While exporting the database, you can write the database data to an ASCII text file which enables you to
load data on different platforms.
Que:10 How can you make a Max L script run at a specified time?
Answer: MaxL scripts can be called from a BAT file which is used for scheduling.
Que 1: What are the two storage options available in Essbase and what are the differences?
Ans: ASO( Aggregate Storage Option) - Used for 1. If we have large number of dimensions(generally more than 10)
2. Most of the dimensions are sparse 3. We cannot write back in ASO. I heard recently that ASO will also have the
writeback capability. I don't remember.
BSO (Block Storage Option)- 1. Dimensions are less and dense(recommended values for no of dim are between 4
and 8) . 2. We can write back hence much suited for planning applications.
Financial applications are generally dense structures and normal analytical cubes are sparse. Here we also need to
understand what are these dense and sparse members. When the intersections or cells of two dimensions mostly
contains a value it is dense. Say for example we have two dimensions period(Month or quarter) and region and we
are calculation the sales amount. Generally maximum regions(countries, cities) will have some sales value for a
particular month or quarter. Hence we can say that our period dimensions would be dense. But now instead of
period, consider another dimension products. Now there are some products which are sold in only some particular
regions hence for them there will be no values in other regions or will have very low percentage of data values hence
the structure will become sparse.
Now the question arises what is the use of calling them dense or sparse. What difference does it make. Do some
research and try to find the answer.
Que 2: Can we build dimensions directly from data sources without using rule files.
Ans: No.
Que 4: What are the three primary build methods for building dimensions?
Ans: 1. Generation references
2. level references
3. Parent-Child references.
Que 5: In what case we can define generation 1 to a feild in generation build method.
Ans: We cannot define that as Generation 1 is not valid.
Que 6: Suppose we have assigned Generation 2 and Generation 4 as of now and think of adding generation 3 later
some time. Can we build the dimension.
Ans: No. If gen 2 and gen 4 exists, we must assign gen 3.
Que 7: Can we create more than 2 dimensions using only one build rule file.
Ans: Yes, we can do that but it is recommended to use seperate rule file for each dimension.
Que 8: What is UDA( user defined attributes). How are they different than Aliases.
Ans: UDA represents the class of the members. Aliases are just another names of the members. both are different
and has different usage.
Que 12: How does Attribute dimensions and UDA's impact batch calculation performance?
Ans: UDA's- No Impact as they do not perform any inherent calculations.
Attribute dim- No Impact as they perform only dynamic calculations.
Que 13: How can we display UDA's in reports? How do they impact report report performance.
Ans: UDA's values are never displayed in the reports and hence do not impact report performance.
Que 15: While loading the data, you have applied both the selection criteria as well as rejection criteria to a same
record. What will be the outcome.
Ans: Thw record will be rejected.
Que 18: Can we have one ASO database and one BSO database in one single application. If yes, how and If No,
why.
Ans 18. No. Because we define ASO or BSO option while creating the appication and not database. Hence if the
application is ASO, the databases it contains will be that type only.
Que 19: What are the file extensions for an outline, rule file and a calc script.
Ans: .OTL, .RUL and .CSC
Que 21: What is an alternative to create metaoutline, rule file and load data.
Answer: Integration services and in version 11, we have Essbase studio.
Que 22: Can we start and stop an application individually. How ca this be used to increase performance.
Ans: Yes. We can manage our server resources by starting only the applications which receive heavy user traffic.
When an application is started, all associated atabases are brought to the memory.
Que 23: We have created an application as unicode mode. Can we change it later to non-unicode mode.
Ans: No.
Que 24: How can I migrate an application from my test environment to the production environment. Can I still do this
if my test environment is a windows one and my production env is UNIX one. Also can I still do it if my test env and
prod env versions are different.
Ans: Hyperion Administrative services console provides a migration utility to do this but onluy the application,
database objects are migrated and no data is transferred. the answers to other two questions are Yes.
Que 25: A customer wants to run two instances of an Essbase server on a same machine to have both test env and
Development env on the same server. Can he do that?
Ans: Yes. We can have multiple instances of an Essbase server on a single machine and there will be dfferent sets
of windows services for all these instances.
Que: 26 suppose I have a dimension A with members B and C and I do not want B and C to roll up to A. how can I
do this.
Ans: Using (~) exclude from consolidation operator.
Que 28: Can we have multiple metaoutlines based on one OLAP model in Integration services?
Ans: Yes
Que 29: Can we have an metaoutline based on two different OLAp models.
Ans: No.
Que 31: Why top-down calculation less efficient than a bottom-up calculation?Being less efficient, why do we use
them.
Ans: In the process it calculates more blocks than is necessary. Sometimes it is necessary to perform top-down
calculation to get the correct calculation results.
Que 32: On what basis you will decide to invoke a serial or parellel calculation method.
Ans: If we have a single processor, we will use serial calculation but if we have multiple processors we
can break the task into threads and make them run on different processors.
Que 34: What are the types of partitioning options available in Essbase?
Ans: 1. Replicated partition. 2. Transparent partition 3. Linked partition.
Que 35: Dynamic calc decreases the retreival time and increases batch database calculation time. How
true is the statement?
Ans: The statement should be just opposite. As dynamic calc members are calculated when requested,
the retreival time should increase.
Que 36: A customer has a cube with 13 dimensions and the performance was fine. Now they have
added two more dimensions in the existing cube and the performance becomes very very slow. Customer said
logically nothing wrong with the two new dimensions they have added. What could be the reason for slowdown.
Ans: Even I dont have any clue. I experienced this few days back with a customer. If you can throw
some light on this, please post your answer.
Question:How you generally Approach to ur Analytics Project?
Answer: Any project should start from defining the scope of the project and the approach
should be not to deviate from the scope.
Then the project should be functionally divided into smaller modules generally done by
project managers alongwith technical and functional leads.
The functional leads then decide on majorly three things:
1. According to the defined scope of the project they start gathering requirements while
interacting with the clients.
2. They had a discussion with the technical leads and try to reach a solution.
3. Technical leads decides what schemas to create and what requirements are going to
fulfill by that schema.
Technical leads discuss all this with the developers and try to close requirements.
Simultaneously testing and deployment is planned in a phased manner.
Question: How we are going to decide which schema we are going to implement in the data warehouse?
Answer: One way is what is mentioned in Question above.
If you ask me to blindly create schemas for the warehouse without knowing any requirements,
I will simply first divide the schemas on the basis of functional areas of an Organisation
which are similar to the modules in an ERP like sales, finance, purchase, inventory,
production, HR etc.
I will broadly describe the expected analysis an organisation would like to do in every
module. I think this way you would be able to complete at least 40-50 % of the
requirements. To move ahead, study the data and business and you can create few more
schemas.
Question: What are the Challenges You Faced while making of Reports?
Answer: Making of an report has never been a difficult task. But problem comes when users
are reluctant to adopt a new system. I have experienced that if you are not able to create
the report in exactly the way they used to see, they will keep asking for the changes. Your
approach should be to first show them what they want to see and then add more information
in the report.
Question: What you will do when your Report is not Fetching Right Data?
Answer: this is the biggest problem in report creation and verification. There could be two
reasons for report not fetching the right data.
1. Mostly clients do not have correct data in their database and on top of that to correct
the results they make some changes at the report level to bring the desired result which
you may not e aware of while creating the reports. Clients try to match the data with their
existing reports and you never get the correct results. you try to discover the things and
at later stage come to know of all these problems and you are held responsible for this
delay. Hence always consult the SPOC(Single Point of Contact) and try to understand the
logic they have used to generate their reports.
2. If the database values are correct, there there could be a problem with the joins and
relations in the schema. You need to discover that analysing and digging deep into the
matter.
Question: How analytics Process Your Request When you Create your Requests.
Answer: If the Question means how does Oracle BI Analytics Server processes the user requests, the answer is-
Oracle BI server converts the logical SQL submitted by the client into optimised physical SQL which is then sent to
the backend database. Also in between it performs various tasks like converting the user operations like user
selections to form a logical SQL, checking and verifying credentials, breaking the request into threads(as Oracle BI
is a multi threaded server), processes the requests, manages the cached results, again converting the results
received from the database into user presentable form etc.
Question: What are Global Filter and how thery differ From Column Filter?
Answer: Column filter- simply a filter applied on a column which we can use to restrict our column values while
pulling the data or in charts to see the related content.
Global filter- Not sure. I understand this filter will have impact on across the application but I really dont understand
where and how it can be user. I heard of global variables but not global filters.
When we are Use SA System how Does SA Server understand that It needs to use it For Getting
Question: Is Drill Down Possible without the attribute being a Part of a Hierarchical Dimension?
Answer: No