Hyperion Solutions Corp. and SRC Software Inc. are both announcing this week new versions of their respective business performance management offerings, with Hyperion also announcing an update to the Essbase XTD platform its applications are built on.
Hyperion, of Sunnyvale, Calif., on Wednesday announced Version 3 of its Business Performance Management Suite, made up of the Planning, Financial Management, Performance Scorecard and Business Modeling applications. Separately, SRC, of Portland, Ore., on Monday announced Advisor Series FI, a budgeting, financial planning and reporting product specifically designed for banks, thrifts, credit unions and other financial institutions.
Version 3 of Hyperions BPM Suite features tighter interoperability across applications, including a common user interface and single sign-on, plus support for data exchange across all applications. There are also capabilities to extend the technology to more users with support for the entire management cycle, including goal-setting, scenario modeling, business planning, monitoring, analyzing and reporting results.
This version is also designed to foster interdepartmental collaboration with support for cascading plans and scorecards that link corporate or business unit strategies to individual employee performance. In this way, models can be created from data captured and consolidated across multiple departments, officials said.
Hyperion BPM Version 3 also provides enhanced support for meeting Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other regulatory requirements with features such as shortened reporting cycles, audit trails, internal reviews, controls and validations.
The BPM Suite is built on the Essbase XTD platform, which now supports hybrid analysis of data from both relational and multidimensional data stores, more detailed query and reporting capabilities and improved scalability and performance, Hyperion officials said.
Hyperion BPM user John Monczewski cited a number of new features in Version 3 as benefits including the flexibility to make custom changes without programming assistance, an intuitive development environment that required little intervention from Hyperion and improved data integration. Monczewski, manager, balanced scorecard at Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., in McLean, Va., also welcomed the collaboration and interoperability enhancements
“We have been able to share information across various professional communities and even sub-teams regarding objectives, measures, and results,” he said. “In the future well be able to link [Hyperion Planning] with Business Modeling and Planning. However, today we are able to use Hyperion Essbase and Analyzer to provide additional reporting capabilities.”
Meanwhile, SRCs Advisor Series FI combines three existing applications—Budget Advisor for budgeting; Payroll Planner for payroll planning; and Information Advisor for consolidations, financial reporting and ad hoc analysis—with a new application, Cash Flow Analyzer, which allows banks to forecast future cash flows by warehousing and analyzing loan and deposit records.
Advisor Series FI is available today, with pricing ranging from $60,000 to upwards of $500,000, including consulting and training.
The Essbase XTD upgrade is available immediately with BPM 3, which requires Essbase, available within 90 days. Pricing starts at $100,000.