Certification Self-Study Guide and Key Categories Covered in Essbase 5

Certification Self-Study Guide and Key Categories Covered in Essbase 5 & 6 Certification Exams To help you prepare for certification exams, these are the product areas or features that Hyperion regards as key areas of knowledge on our products. Follow the links for the corresponding study guide sections, including sample exam questions. Each Hyperion Certified exam covers key concepts, technologies, and features of Hyperion's premier products. In preparation for the exams, we recommend Hyperion's course Student Guides, product User Guides, Installation Guides, white papers, and our Web site for review. The following information will provide you with targeted areas of study to help you prepare for certification for the Essbase, Enterprise and Pillar exams. We have also provided sample questions that represent the format and content of the Hyperion Certified exams at Thomson Prometric. Answering these questions correctly does not guarantee that you will pass the actual exam. Please note that there are 3 different Essbase exams: Essbase 5, Essbase 6 and Essbase 6 Bridge. The Essbase 6 Bridge exam may only be taken if you are currently and Essbase 5 HCP and want to upgrade your status. Otherwise, you must take either the Essbase 5 or Essbase 6 exam. The topics and questions below are reflective of both Essbase 5 and Essbase 6.

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Hyperion Essbase Key Topics • • • • • • • • •

Architecture/ Storage Manager Outline editor Rules Files Partitioning Spreadsheet Calculations Optimization System Admin. Add-Ons (Currency, API, HIS, etc.)

Architecture/ Storage Manager • • • •

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Given a set of database statistics that show which dimensions are dense and sparse and how many members are stored in each dimension, identify which dimensions are in the blocks and which are in the index Identify how big blocks are and how many cells are in the blocks Given the database statistics (sparse density, block density, compression ratio, etc.), explain how many blocks exist, how many cells on average have data, etc. Describe how a database's statistics would change during the following scenarios (A member is added to the outline, data is added for that member, a member is changed to dynamic calc, another month of data is added, the database contains input only data, the input data is calculated, etc.) Identify what each cache does Given database statistics, explain which compression type would be used and why Given an exhibit, explain how the isolation level setting and commit access will affect user access and rollback capabilities Identify the difference between input, level0 and upper level blocks

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Given exhibits of the Dense and sparse settings, explain what type of restructure will take place when a change such as adding a dense member occurs Describe the incremental restructure feature Given a fragmented database scenario, identify the causes, the identification, and the resolution of the fragmentation

Outline Editor • • • • • •

Identify the use of the following properties and how they affect calculations and the database (Expense reporting, time balance first/last, skip missing values, two pass, dynamic calc, label only, never share, shared members, implicit share) Describe the use of the following tags and how they affect calculations (Account Dimension, Time Dimension and dynamic time series) Identify the use of aliases Describe correct setting of UDA’s within the outline Identify correct use of UDA’s within calculations, etc. Identify the use of attribute dimensions

Rules Files • • • • • • • •

Given requirements, choose the appropriate build method (Parent/child, level, generation) Given a file and an exhibit of various setting such as "allow shares, remove unspecified, allow moves, etc.", correctly identify the resulting outline structure Identify how member properties can be set during a dimension build (For example: Dynamic calcs, expense reporting, etc.) Given a file and a resulting outline structure, identify the field properties necessary to build the outline (For example: Parent, Level3, Alias, Duplicate level2, etc.) Identify use of prefix, suffix, join, split, and replace. Given a file, explain how to set the column delimiters, define the file headers and set the embedded column headers Given a file, set the appropriate field definitions (i.e. set the dimension names, members names or '*data* for each column) Given a set of select and reject rules, identify which rows will load Given examples, identify an optimized data load

Partitioning • • • • • • •

Identify the three types of partitions and the pros and cons of each type Given a partitioned database, identify the calculation implications (Which partitions need to be calculated and in which order) Identify differences in the behavior of calculations when using replicated vs. transparent partitions Identify which files are used to synchronize outlines and how to execute outline synchronization Demonstrate an understanding of the wizard, demonstrate an understanding of the mappings, areas and cell count Identify how to import a map file Given a scenario, identify the partition type with the most optimal partitioning strategy

Spreadsheet • •

Identify the location and limitations of LROs Given different exhibits of where member names are placed on a sheet for retrieval, correctly identify the positive/negative implications

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Given a spreadsheet, which has implicitly shared members on it, correctly identify the impact that a lock and send of the sheet will have on the database Given an exhibit of the member select screen, identify which members will be selected and where they'll be placed on the spreadsheet Identify the use of the subset feature Given exhibits of various options settings, explain what the resulting spreadsheet retrieval will look like Identify the uses of the Essbase Query Designer

Calculations • • • • • •

Given a calc script with updatecalc and clearupdatestatus set, describe which blocks will be calculated and which will be clean or dirty at the end of the calculation. Identify the block level of intelligence Identify what causes blocks to be tagged dirty Given an outline, the dense and sparse settings, identify the default calc order Given a calc script, identify the outcome. Given the numeric outcome, identify the script that created the numbers Describe the problem with having the Create Blocks on Equation turned on Identify various SET commands (NOTICES, MESSAGE, CALC CACHE, AGGREGATE MISSING, etc.) and describe how they affect the calculations

Optimization • • • • • • • • •

Given examples of dimensions and their dense/sparse settings and number of members, identify optimal dimension order in the outline Given an outline, identify any shared members or labels that would optimize the outline Given an exhibit of dense/sparse settings and part of the outline, identify when to use dynamic calc Given database statistics, correctly identify how they would change if a few members were changed to dynamic calc Identify the use of FormulaBottomUp command Given exhibits of dense/sparse settings correctly identify when to use multiple Fixes vs. Ifs in a calc script Given a calc script, correctly identify how to optimize it to minimize the number of passes through the database Given a scenario and statistics, correctly identify the optimal caches, dense /sparse configuration and block size Identify when to use the Hash table

System Administration •

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Identify the various security levels, the specific security settings allow/limit user capabilities and access. Identify when and how to use filters, users, and groups. Given a filter. Explain what access a user has. Given a filter and calculation access, explain what access the user has. Describe basic Esscmd and MaxL functions (reset, login, logoff, shutdown server, settings, connect, dim build, import, calc, begin and end archive) and identify how to execute them Identify the location of certain database files (Security file, page and index files, logs, etc.) Given a database crash scenario, identify the files involved in recovery Given a scenario about migrating an application from one server to another, identify valid processes Given a sample Essbase.cfg file, identify functionality of each setting (Ssaudit, Notices and calc cache settings, network settings)

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Identify use of various database settings (Aggregate missing values, report buffer sizes, isolation levels, committed and uncommitted access, cache settings, Diskvolumes, compression) and how they affect the database Given a server command, explain use (Dump, logoutuser, start application, stop application). Identify where substitution variables are set Identify how to use substitution variables in a calc script

Practice Exam Questions for Essbase

1. How can you link the main and currency databases when using the Currency Conversion Module? A. Use the