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Most Smart View users probably appreciate that they can use just one add-in to access data from the different sources they might work with, like Oracle Essbase, Oracle Hyperion Planning, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management and others. But not all of them are aware of the options to integrate data analyses not only in Excel, but also in MS Word or
Power Point. While in the past, copying and pasting single numbers or tables from a recent analysis in Excel made the pasted content a static snapshot, copying so called Data Points now creates dynamic, updateable references to the data source. It also provides additional nice features, which can make life easier and less stressful for Smart View users.
So, how does this option work: after building an ad-hoc analysis with Smart View as usual in an Excel worksheet, any area including data cells/numbers from the database can be highlighted in order to copy data points - even single data cells only.
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It is not necessary to highlight and copy the row or column descriptions
Next from the Smart View ribbon select Copy Data Point.
Then transfer to the Word or
Power Point document into which the selected content should be copied. Note that in these Office programs you will find a menu item Smart View;from it select the Paste Data Point icon.
The copied details from the Excel report will be pasted, but showing #NEED_REFRESH in the data cells instead of the original numbers.
=After clicking the Refresh icon on the Smart View menu the data will be retrieved and displayed. (Maybe at that moment a login window pops up and you need to provide your credentials.)
It works in the same way if you just copy one single number without any row or column descriptions, for example in order to incorporate it into a continuous text:
Before refresh:
After refresh:
From now on for any subsequent updates of the data shown in your documents you only need to refresh data by clicking the Refresh button on the Smart View menu, without copying and pasting the context or content again.
As you might realize, trying out this feature on your own, there won’t be any Point of View shown in the Office document. Also you have seen in the example, where only a single data cell was copied, that there aren’t any member names or row/column descriptions copied, which are usually required in an ad-hoc report in order to exactly define where data comes from or how data is queried from the source. Well, these definitions are not visible, but they are transferred to the Word or
Power Point document as well. They are stored in the background for each individual data cell copied and can be made visible by double-clicking the data cell as shown in the following screen shot (but which is taken from another context).
So for each cell/number the complete connection information is stored along with the exact member/cell intersection from the database. And that’s not all: you have the chance now to exchange the members originally selected in the Point of View (POV) in the Excel report. Remember, at that time we had the following selection:
By selecting the Manage POV option from the Smart View meny in Word or
Power Point…
… the following POV
Manager – Queries window opens:
You can now change your selection for each dimension from the original POV by either double-clicking the dimension member in the lower right box under POV: or by selecting the Member Selector icon on the top right hand side of the window. After confirming your changes you need to refresh your document again. Be aware, that this will update all (!) numbers taken from one and the same original Excel sheet, even if they appear in different locations in your Office document, reflecting your recent changes in the POV.
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Build your original report already in a way that dimensions you might want to change from within Word or
Power Point are placed in the POV.
And there is another really nice feature I wouldn’t like to miss mentioning: Using Dynamic Data Points in the way described above, you will never miss or need to search again for your original Excel sheet from which values were taken and copied as data points into an Office document. Because from even only one single data cell Smart View is able to recreate the entire original report content with just a few clicks:
Select one of the numbers from within your Word or
Power Point document by double-clicking.
Then select the Visualize in Excel option from the Smart View menu.
Excel will open and Smart View will rebuild the entire original report, including POV settings, and retrieve all data from the most recent actual state of the database. (It might be necessary to provide your credentials before data is displayed.)
However, in order to make this work, an active online connection to your databases on the server is necessary and at least read access to the retrieved data. But apart from this, your newly built Excel report is fully functional for ad-hoc analysis and can be used in the common way for drilling, pivoting and all the other known functions and features.
So far about embedding Dynamic Data Points into Office documents and linking them back into Excel worksheets. You can apply this in the described way with ad-hoc analyses directly on Essbase databases or using Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Management ad-hoc web forms.
If you are also interested in other new features and smart enhancements in Essbase or Hyperion Planning stay tuned for coming articles or check our training courses and web presentations.
You can find general information about offerings for the Essbase and Planning curriculum or other Oracle-Hyperion products here (please make sure to select your country/region at the top of this page) or in the OU Learning paths section , where Planning, Essbase and other Hyperion products can be found under the Fusion Middleware heading (again, please select the right country/region). Or drop me a note directly:
[email protected] .
About the Author:
Bernhard Kinkel started working for Hyperion Solutions as a Presales Consultant and Consultant in 1998 and moved to Hyperion Education Services in 1999. He joined Oracle University in 2007 where he is a Principal Education Consultant. Based on these many years of working with Hyperion products he has detailed product knowledge across several versions. He delivers both classroom and live virtual courses. His areas of expertise are Oracle/Hyperion Essbase, Oracle Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Web Analysis.
