Link to Part 1
Link to Part 2
One of our clients’ favorite features of DRM is the ability to configure custom governance rules for their dimensions. Without DRM, many organizations are forced to use manual enforcement coupled with inadequate tools such as Excel, Access, and SQL procedures. Simply maintaining these processes becomes a job in itself.
DRM validations provide a simple and scalable solution. The application can easily be configured to enforce even the most complex rules governing an organization’s enterprise dimensions.
So let’s look at an example…
The infamous ABC Corporation has a rule that all accounts beginning with numeral 6 or 7 must be classified as an ‘Expense’ in the organization’s Hyperion Planning application. ABC utilizes DRM for governing the Planning account dimension:
Steve, ABC Corporation’s awesome DRM administrator, has received a request from a Finance Manager to create a new expense account for Trash Removal. Steve right-clicks on the ‘Misc Expense’ parent/limb and selects New -> leaf. (Leaf = bottom member, no descendents)
He enters a name and description for the new account. But notice, he is creating an expense account without 6 or 7 as the first numeral in the name field. He’s violating ABC’s governance rules (something he rarely, if ever does. But hey, everyone has an “off-day”).
Steve clicks ‘OK’. But since he has violated a custom DRM violation, he is presented with an error!
DRM has disallowed the creation of the new account since it violates a configured validation. At this point the user clicks ‘OK’ and is returned to the New Leaf window to enter a valid name.
With the valid name entered, the new account passes validations and is saved to the hierarchy. Additionally, the Planning account type property is automatically set by inheriting the value from the parent (i.e. Misc Expense). This is confirmed by resting the cursor over the Status column of the property pane on the right.
To summarize, DRM provides mechanisms for configuring validations unique to an organization. The validations can be configured to prevent the creation of invalid data — a feature that enhances any organization’s governance process!
