Top 115 HFM Interview Questions And Answer Part-2

Here we are starting the series on hfm interview questions and answers. We would be presenting 115 frequently asked HFM interview questions in Four-part series

Here are Part -2 Questions.

Question 31

what is Hyperion Life Cycle management(LCM)?

Answer

Lifecycle management is a component of Shared Services that provides a mechanism of moving artifacts – for example, copying of web data entry forms from one application to another.

In prior versions (prior to 11 versions) items required extracting and loading. The ability to use Lifecycle Management is controlled via a unique role for which the user must be provisioned

Question 32

Can we delete the content inside the server working folder?

Answer

Normally, the paged data (temporary) files should be deleted automatically by Financial Management. If it has not been done automatically, these files can be deleted manually. Whilst the server (HsvDatasource.exe and HsxServer.exe processes) is running they should not be deleted.  In fact, the process keeps a handle (file lock) on these data files, so it should not be possible for a user to delete the files. However, when the HFM server processes are not running, the files can be deleted if they still exist. There should be no risk of paged data being lost by deleting the files, especially if the application server was allowed to close itself normally.

Question 33

Where are HFM module System Messages (errors, warnings, and information) stored?

Answer

The information available in HFM module System Messages (errors, warnings, and information) is stored in 3 places:

• The HFM_ERRORLOG table in HFM repository database,
• The HSVEeventLog.log file(s) in the file system on the HFM application server(s),

The Windows Application Event Log on the HFM application server(s)

Question 34

What is the recommendation for HFM_ERRORLOG?

Answer

To maintain good application performance, the general recommendation is to archive and delete the content of the HFM_ERRORLOG table in the HFM repository database before it reaches 500,000 records. In HFM there is no built-in mechanism that allows monitoring the size of this table, so the database administrator should be tasked with it and provide required maintenance.

Question 35

What is the HFMErrorLogViewer.exe utility?

Answer

HFM is a financial consolidation product. The HFMErrorLogViewer utility is the primary executable used to review the file hsveventlog.log. This is the main log that is used to track most HFM activities. They include messages, warnings, and errors:

• Messages – include informational messages related to consolidations; data loads; log-in; etc.
• Warnings – include warnings related to subcube size; etc.
• Errors – include errors that may relate to vbscripts; database errors; etc.

Question 36

How many types of adjustments we can post.?

Answer

In HFM we have:

Entity Currency Adjs

Parent Currency Adjs

Parent Adjs

Contribution Adjs

Question 37 what is the Journal Review Process?

Answer

Journal goes through below process

1. Crate journal
2. Submit the journal
3. Receive approval or Reject
4. Post journal

Question 38 Why should I use the HFM Windows Service?
Answer It is recommended that customers use the Windows Service approach only when their individual applications within their HFM database are known to take several minutes to start up. By starting the Windows Service, the application server will pre-launch each application, which will then be “active” and already started when the first user attempts to connect to the application. In this way, the user will not experience any “delay” while logging in, due to application startup time.  A potential disadvantage of using the Windows Service approach is that all applications are started, regardless of the true requirement and usage of the end-users. If there are many applications that exist in the HFM database, unnecessary memory and CPU cycles may be used to launch applications that are not needed by the end-users

Question 39 Why Applications may take longer to startup?

Answer This can have happened when their metadata dimensions are very large, when an application server or database is under heavy load, or when the rules file of the application contains a slow-performing “NoInput” rules section. This section may take longer to execute if it contains many loop statements through many different metadata Point of View (POV) members.

Question 40.  When should I not use the HFM Windows Service?

Answer   As answered in Question 39, it is recommended that customers not keep unused HFM applications in production environment HFM databases, or not use the HFM Windows Service approach if there are known unused HFM applications in the database.

Question 41 How is HFM processes are started if we are not using the HFM window’s service?

Answer If the HFM Windows Service is not being used, Financial Management will start itself when end users attempt to log on to an HFM application. So we are basically allowing HFM to start and stop as needed.
When an end-user connects to HFM for the first time on a particular application server, the process HsxServer.exe will be started. This process builds connections to the HFM database repository, authenticates the user connecting, and returns a list of available HFM applications within the database. There will only be one HsxServer.exe process on each application server. If the end-user who connected to the HFM application server then proceeds to select an HFM application name to open, the HsxServer.exe process will then launch the HsvDataSource.exe Windows process to start that application. The HsxServer.exe process will remain running until there are no users logged on to that application server and all HsvDataSource.exe processes have also stopped.

Question 42. How many Account types are in HFM?

Answer We have 10 Account types in HFM

Question 43 How about the consolidation process in HFM?

Answer

Question 44. What are the dimensions in HFM?

Answer Total we have 12 dimensions in HFM, 8 standard dimensions, and some custom dimensions

8 Standard dimensions

Scenario

Year

Period

View

Entity

Value

Account

ICP

For custom dimension

9 version to 11.1.2.1 version only we having 4 custom dimensions. After that versions are like (11.1.2.2 and 11.1.2.3) having 100 custom dimensions.

Question 44. How is the Value Dimension defined?

Answer

In value dimension, there is two type of members one is system defined which you find in brackets and another one is user-defined, whenever we define a currency the system will automatically create 3 value dimensions based on one particular currency enter by the user.

If you observe here USD, based on USD system will create USD, USD adj, USD total. this is equal-ant to entity currency, entity currency adj, entity currency total. entity currency adj for adjustments like journals and entity currency total = entity currency – entity currency adj.

Question 45: Explain member attributes?

Answer

Member attributes have differed from dimension to dimension; every dimension member will be having importance to their respective areas

So it will be different for account dimension, entity dimension

Question 46 What is the Account dimension attributes

Answer

Member

Description (English)

Account type

Is Calculated

Is Consolidated

Is Icp

Plug Account

Custom 1 Top Member

Custom 2 Top Member

Custom 3 Top Member

Custom 4 Top Member

Num Decimal places

Use line items

Enable Custom 1 aggregation weight

Enable Custom 2 aggregation weight

Enable Custom 3 aggregation weight

Enable Custom 4 aggregation weight

User-defined 1

User-defined 2

User-defined 3

Security class

ICP Top member

Enable data auditing

Default parent

Question 47 What is the Entity dimension attributes?

Answer

Member

Description (English)

Default currency

Allow adjustments

Is Icp

Allow adjustments for children

Security class

User-defined 1

User-defined 2

User-defined 3

Holding Company

Security as partner

Default parent

Question 48

How do Different Cell Colors indicate in HFM?

Answer

Blue	Header cell
Off White	An input cell. You can manually enter or edit data.
Light Yellow	Locked or derived cell
Light Gray Text	No write or read access, or maybe derived data
Dark Yellow	Indicates one of these conditions: 1) Cell data has been modified but has not been saved 2) The input status is OK, but the status of the adjustment is not OK (CH, CN, or TR)
Light Green	Allows allocations and derived data
Dark Green	Read-only
Orange	Invalid POV (Point of View) intersection

Question 49

How many Access Levels for Security Classes in HFM?

Answer

1 All

2 Metadata

3 Read

4 Promote

5 None

Question 50 What is the use of value dimension in HFM?

Answer

1. It is used to store and identify the different types of data within HFM (data and journals).
2. It is used to translate the values from local currency to parent currency and eventually calculate the contribution to the parent entity.
3. Finally, it is used to maintain all the foreign currencies that the application can support.

Question 51. How many levels of security are in HFM?

Answer

1. a) User authentication
2. b) Task securities
3. c) Document securities (Data grids and forms, journals, reports)
4. d) Data security

Question 52. How many plug accounts we can create?

Answer

In HFM, we can create a number of plug accounts, but based on requirements we will create the plug accounts for the elimination process.

Question 53. What are the Scenario dimension attributes?

Answer

Member

Description (English)

Default Frequency

Default View     Periodic

Zero views for Nonadjustments

Zero views for adjustments

Consolidated       YTD

User-defined 1

User-defined 2

User-defined 3

Security class

Enable data auditing

Support process management

Maximum review level     10

Use line items

Default Frequency for ICP transactions

Default parent

Question 54. What is the Custom dimension attributes

Answer

Member

Description (English)

Switch sign for flow

Switch Type for flow

User-defined 1

User-defined 2

User-defined 3

Security class

Submission groups

Default parent

Question 55. What is an alternative hierarchy?

Answer

For different reporting purposes, we will create alternative hierarchies, in an alternate hierarchy one member can be shared by more than one parent, but the default parent will be only one.

Question 56. what is Enable Metadata Security Filtering?

Answer

This setting specifies whether users of an application see all dimension members or only those to which they have access. (Means we can see the metadata particular entity only which we have right)

Question 57. Where is HFM data available?

 Answer

Data is stored at the cells formed by the intersection of the members of the different dimension members in the subcube. All aggregations and calculations are performed on data in sub cubes retrieved into RAM on the application server

Data is stored in the Oracle database

Question 58 What is the differences between Data Form and Data Grid

Answer

Question 59. What are the Currency dimension attributes?

Answer

Currency

Description

Scale

Translation operator            D,M(% ,*)

Display in ICT

Question 60

How do you create a members list in HFM?

Answer

Member list we can write with the function called list and we will save with extension .lst, once you uploaded the member list you can select the member in a particular POV working with different areas like journals, ICP, etc., we can also create our own custom member list for different purposes.