December 28, 2015

Hyperion Financial Management from the perspective of a Supervisor in Financial Reporting/Financial Planning & Analysis department

Item: Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Rating: 6
Author: Dan McDougell

Dan McDougell

Supervisor, Financial Planning & Analysis

Emerson Process ManagementMechanical or Industrial Engineering, 10,001+ employees

Score 6 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Modules Used

Asset Lifecycle Management
Cash & Treasury Management
Financial Control & Reporting
Financial Analytics

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Oracle Financials is used throughout the Emerson organization and is our primary enterprise management software platform. In my department (and in similar departments throughout the company), we primarily rely upon Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and its Excel add-in, Smart View, for all of our reporting needs. As a supervisor in the Financial Planning and Analysis department of Emerson's largest division, we use HFM and Smart View to retrieve and consolidate information loaded by our business units and world areas. Although HFM apparently has the functionality for report generation, we rely almost exclusively on data manipulation and analysis within Excel for our deliverable needs.

Pros and Cons

HFM is a powerful tool that has the ability to (usually) quickly consolidate and organize large amounts of data from many different sites around the world.
HFM's ability to eliminate intercompany transactions is very helpful when a number of our business units buy and sell from one another frequently.
Although the mechanics and coding are far from intuitive, the ability to export large amounts of data using the Excel add-in Smart View significantly reduces the amount of time required for manually adjusting individual pieces of data within the HFM system.

HFM's interface and functionality is far from being the most user friendly, and the learning curve is especially steep for those new to the system.
The coding required to effectively pull data from or export data to HFM within the Excel add-in Smart View is difficult to do and requires a fairly high degree of experience with the system.
It is very difficult to make changes to HFM without external support. Its lack of quick adaptability for those in non-IT positions is one of HFM's biggest weaknesses.

Return on Investment

Once fully brought up to speed, employees in Finance and Accounting are able to use HFM for most all of their reporting needs.
The complexity of the system has sometimes increased the amount of time necessary to complete needed analyses and presentations.
Assuming the coding is done correctly, using the Excel add-in Smart View allows us to create custom analyses and dashboards.

Alternatives Considered

Adaptive Suite and Adaptive Discovery

I have never formally explored alternatives to Oracle, nor am I anywhere near the level of authority to make such decisions, but in doing some personal research for alternatives, or supplements, to my department's usage of HFM, certain platforms like Adaptive have looked attractive. The ability to quickly create dashboards and presentations and modify them on the fly seems to be a huge benefit that could significantly reduce the amount of time that we currently spend cross-checking and ticking-and-tying data.

Likelihood to Recommend

My lukewarm recommendation should be taken with a grain of salt, as this is the first enterprise management software platform to which I've been exposed. But having spent 4 years working within HFM, I think I have had a fair amount of exposure to its strengths and weaknesses. Although its functionality can be very powerful and capable of addressing most needs of large organizations, its inability to be quickly manipulated as different business needs arise and its complex, not so user-friendly interface are negatives in my book.