Top Hyperion Interview Questions
1. Define Hyperion?
Ans. Hyperion is Business Intelligence (BI) and Business Performance Management (BPM ) tool. It is the market leader in Operational , Financial and Strategic Planning.
It contains the applications for reporting, Planning , dashboards, Analysis, scorecarding, consolidation, Workspace, Master Data Management and Foundation.
2. Explain Olap and mention if it is related to HYPERION FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT ?
Ans. Hyperion HFM/ Hyperion Planning both are Essbase based. They are front-end tech and Ess-base is the back end. Ess-base is a M-OLAP. There are three types of OLAP technology present in the market.
These are ROLAP, MOLAP and HOLAP.
An example of ROLAP is BO. Here we deal with table and they acts as a virtual cube. But if we think about Oracle Express Hyperion Essbase and Cognos then they are real cubes. Thus MOLAP.
ROLAP+MOLAP=HOLAP.
In case of BO, we need to join to attain the OLAP effect virtually but behind is a joined table. But in Case of
MOLAP there is no concept of table it is cube only.
For example a page is a table then a Book is a Cube.
If the data is large then it is advisable to take up ROLAP not MOLAP. because the performance of the cubes degrade. If the size of data is arround 100 GB to 150 GB then it is fine to go with MOLAP and if it is more then that then we should choose BO.
3. Explain why we use Hyperion?
Ans. We have IIS for HFM although there is no IIS for OLAp’s. If there is no IIS then it is a time taking process
to retrieve financial data.
4. Is it possible to have one ASO database and one BSO database in a single application. Justify .
Ans. No because ASO/BSO classification is defined at Application level and not at the database.
5. Can we have multiple databases in single application?
Ans. Yes, in this one database per application.
6.Can we start and stop an application individually and how to increase performance using this?
Ans. We can manage our server resources by starting only applications which receive heavy user traffic. When an application is started, memory is accompanied by all associated data bases.
7. Explain custom based macro?
Ans. We write Ess base calculator functions and special macro functions under Ess base macros. Custom defined macros makes use of an internal Ess base macro language that enables to combine calculation functions and also helpful to operate on multiple input parameters.
8. Explain data file cache?
Ans. It represents buffer in memory which holds compressed data files (.PAG ).
9. What does “DOU” mean?
Ans. In reference to RPG, DOU means (Do Until).This will execute a loop matched with an End or End do
For instance
Eval X=1
DOU X=4
Eval X=X=1
EndDo
This example will go through the loop 4 times with the result of X being 4.
“DOU” is similar to Do While(“DOW”) where the difference lies in that the DOU will always perform 1 pass through the loop and DOW will perform the comparison and only continue into the loop if the condition meets else the program continues after the End (EndDo).
For example:-
Eval X=1
DOW X=4
X=X+1
Enddo
The result is that the loop will not execute and the value of X will be 1.
10. Which property helps us to consider using ACE ?
Ans. A very little population of intercompany data forces us to consider using ACE.
11. Which two functions can produce a report that includes only Elimination entities?
Ans. two functions which can produce a report that includes only Elimination entities are a Fixed Name List and Dynamic Name List.
12. Explain Dense and Sparse Dimensions?
Ans. Dense dimension is a dimension in which most data exists for every combination of dimension members whereas sparse dimensions are the dimensions which has low probability that data will exist for every combination of dimension members.
13. What are the three primary build methods for building dimensions?
Ans. The following are the three primary build methods for building dimensions :-
1) Generation references
2) Level references
3) Parent-Child references.
14. Differentiate between ASO & BSO?
Ans. 1) We cannot write back in ASO although we can write back in BSO.
2) Most dimensions in ASO are sparse whereas in BSO most of them are dense.
3) We cannot create more than 1 database in ASO but we can create more than 1 db per application. If we have more than 10 dimensions then we should opt for ASO.
15. Explain attributes?
Ans. Classification of a member in a dimension is known as an attribute. We can do selection of group members based on their associated attributes. We can also specify an attribute while performing calculations and along with we can use calculation functions.
As example, the db in Sample Basic with product dimension has some attributes like package type, size, and flavor. We can add attributes to the dimensions and can retrieve data. For example, to retrieve “coke with 8 Oz with bottles”.
24. In what way can migrating of an application from the test environment be made if we want to move it in the production environment, also can we do this from Windows to Unix or if the test environment is different from the production environment?
There is a tool given to us by the Hyperion Administrative services but this only helps with the migration of the application and the objects database while the data is not migrating. In the other two cases the answer is yes.
25. Can we run on the same machine two instances of the same Essbase server and each one will have the test environment and the development environment?
We will respond with yes, because we can have two instances of Essbase with various sets of services on the same machine.
26. If we have A as the dimension and B,C as members of it how can we stop b and c from rolling up to A?
We can do it with (~)exclude of the consolidation operator.
27. What is the role of the never consolidate operator(^)?
It stops member from becoming consolidate on all dimensions.
28. Is it possible to have several metaoutlines in the Integration services that are built on a single OLAP model?
The answer is yes.
29. Is it possible to have a metaoutline built on two separate OLAP models?
No, it’s not possible.
30. What is the true meaning of a hybrid analysis?
The members with a higher level along with the data associated will stay in the Essbase database while the members of a smaller level and their associated data will live in the relational database.