Tips From Mount Olympus: Smart Push

Oracle now includes an ASO reporting cube by default in every Planning application built in Oracle EPM Cloud. While we don’t have to use the reporting cube, many Oracle customers choose to use it for a variety of reasons, generally related to performance. With reporting cubes come issues around keeping data in sync. Before the cloud, the answer was to schedule data syncs between the systems and in some extreme cases, build automatic syncs every time data changes.

With Oracle EPM Cloud, things have changed. Basically since the beginning, we’ve had access to Smart Push. Smart Push uses data maps that you define in the application to automatically sync data when users change data in forms. But, it doesn’t have to be limited to the data on the form, making it even more powerful. Using this functionality can be a huge time saver and it works very well, but it can be a little tricky to configure.  

As an example: your form uses drivers (like currency rates) to calculate the input data for multiple currencies, but your input sheet only shows Local Currency. After the business rule runs, you want to push all the data to the reporting cube. 

Let’s try it out.

Data Maps Change

To set up a Smart Push, you first need to define the data map. The location is not exactly intuitive. You can find the data map under Application where you select Data Exchange:

Next, look at the bottom of the screen where the page tabs are, you should see a tab called Data Maps:

Once there, you can define your data map by clicking the Create button. Select the Source and Target Cube and Oracle will match up all the common dimensions. Map any unmapped dimension manually.  Once we need to modify the member selection, you may be tempted to click on the ellipse button to the right of the dimension name (when you hover over it) only to find that the only available selection is “Add Exclusion”. This works fine if you want to add exclusions, but if you want to modify the member selection function, click on the function name (it’s blue).  

You want to define your data map to be inclusive of all data you might ever want to send with a Smart Push.  Luckily, with Smart Push we don’t push everything in the data map every time, we just need it available to push.

Smart Push

Now its time to build the smart push on the form. Open the form for edit and select the Smart Push tab. Click on the Green + button and select the previously defined Data Map. Check the “Run After Save” button and then save.  

So, what does this do when you hit save?  Smart push uses the members on the form to Filter the members defined in the Data Map. For example, if the Data Map defined the Currency dimension as ILvl0Descendants(Currency), then all Level 0 members in the Currency dimension can be pushed with a smart push. If the web form uses Currency as a page member, and you have Local Currency selected, the smart push will only send data for Local Currency to target. Since we calculated every currency using our Business Rule, that data needs to go as well. Luckily, you can override the members on the form and define what gets sent in the Smart Push, but it isn’t exactly apparent.

Customized Smart Push

So how do we send all of the currencies? Go back to the Smart Push tab in the edit form view and click on the small arrow next to the smart push name. This will expand the smart push to view all the Form Context selections. Uncheck Currency and add ILvl0Descendants(Currency) to the Overwrite Selection column. 

This will change the Smart Push Filter to ignore the currency from the form and send all level 0 currencies. Now our sync goes beyond just what we find on the form and makes Smart Push even better! Keep checking out our blog for more Tips from Mount Olympus!