Pushing data to Hyperion Planning Applications from Informatica 9.1

With EOL notice from Informatica for its 8.x versions, to get continuous support from Informatica it’s mandatory to migrate to 9.x versions.

Hyperion Planning application

On analyzing our old environment in 8.1, we found that 9.1 doesn’t support Hyperion Planning Application connection but we need to push data to planning application. We need to replace the existing planning adapter targets in the mapping with a delimited flat file. This flat file will act as source for the data push to Hyperion Planning.

We can push data to planning application by two methods,

1. Java code which makes use of Hyperion planning library files.
2. Through ODI (Oracle Data Integrator)

Method: 1 (Using Java Code)

It involves two steps,

1. Java code

We first need to develop a java file which makes use of HSP.jar library file of Hyperion planning application. The program flow includes locking a dimension before doing a data push, checking for UDA and finally it saves the dimension member using saveMember() function.

1. Batch file

This batch file should call the above java file and the parameters are planning application name, server, RMI port no, user name, password and delimiter.

In post success command of a session, we will call this batch file along with the parameters. The problem was that it took more time to complete and it was also noted that throughput was very less while saving the records in planning application using saveMember().

Method: 2 (Using ODI)

The reason why we went on to implement ODI is that we don’t need to get new licenses if we are using Hyperion suite of applications.

Steps in ODI Designer:

1. Install and configure ODI, in the same server where Informatica is installed.
2. Reverse engineer the Hyperion planning knowledge module.
3. Create planning models (targets) and file models.
4. Create interfaces for all the UDA’s, attributes and dimensions and specify log file names.
5. Create packages for each dimension say Customer, the flow should have first its attribute interfaces, UDA’s if applicable and then customer interface.
6. Create scenario’s (Scenarios will be called from batch file) and publish the package.

Steps in Topology Manager:

We need to create physical schemas and context for the different planning environments. Generally we would be having two planning applications viz budgeting and forecasting for planning DEV, UACC and PROD.

Scenario’s can be started from command prompt and the syntax is,

startscen <<scenario name>> <<version no>> <<context name>> <<trace level>>

A batch file needs to written to call the scenarios from command task

set EXECPATH=D:\Oracle\ODI\oracledi\bin

cd /d “%EXECPATH%”

call startscen.bat %SCENARIONAME% %VERSION% %CONTEXT% %LOGLEVEL% %TRACELEVEL%

In Informatica workflow designer, worklet variable to specify the context name at run time needs to be created and we will be passing the values in parameter file. Call the batch file created specifically for this purpose in post session command task.

Conclusion

On comparing these both methods, through ODI we found that time taken for data load was consistent and was near to the time taken by Hyperion planning adapter in Informatica 8.1 than through JAVA code.