Olympus specializes in both cloud and on-premise EPM solutions provided by Oracle. For clients ready to migrate to the cloud or implement from scratch, the Oracle Cloud EPM stack provides a world-class budgeting and forecasting solution. Oracle Cloud EPM provides a specific business process for budgeting and forecasting with a variety of options to meet virtually any functional need.
Other clients may not yet be ready to embrace the shift to the cloud. For those clients, we have extensive experience implementing the on-premise suite of Oracle EPM products. Traditionally, Hyperion Planning and Essbase are the tools of choice for on-premise clients for budgeting and forecasting.
Cloud Solutions
The Oracle EPM Cloud product is offered in two different licensing options: Standard and Enterprise. Customers who choose Standard have the ability to implement a very trimmed down version of Budgeting and Forecasting with one production instance and one test instance. Those who license Enterprise, which is always our recommendation, get access to the full suite of EPM products including three different Budgeting and Forecasting types. In addition, customers can set up multiple production and test instances for multiple applications.
The Module Planning version of Budgeting and Forecasting is the only option available with the Standard license. The Standard version is limited a single custom BSO and ASO plan type while also providing access to Workforce, Capex, and Project Planning modules. The Enterprise version extends the features of Standard by including three BSO and ASO plan types.
The Custom Planning version of Budgeting and Forecasting is only available with an Enterprise license. This version is a great fit for clients migrating from existing on-premise applications. This is especially beneficial for clients with three custom plan types with any modules. These modules can be migrated to custom plan types in the cloud without the need for a full reimplementation.
Like Custom Planning, Free Form Planning is only available with an Enterprise license. This version of Budgeting and Forecasting serves two main purposes. You can easily import an OTL file from an on-premise standalone Essbase application. This version also allows for building large-scale applications and supports millions of members and any combination of dimensions.
On-Premise Solutions
With thousands of customers still using Hyperion Planning, Oracle has chosen to extend support through at least 2031. While it does not have all of the new features and the modern look of Oracle EPM Cloud, Hyperion Planning is still a world-class Budgeting and Forecasting solution. Upgrading to 11.2.x should be a short-term goal because support for 11.1.2.4 ended for most companies in 2021.
With ten's of thousands of existing stand-alone Essbase applications, Oracle continues to support and extend the use of Essbase. With the recent release of 21C, customers who use standalone Essbase applications and those using third-party tools like Dodeca will continue using this product for Budgeting and Forecasting for years to come.