Planning with DodecaFor many companies, the planning season is notoriously stressful and often requires long hours. Too much time and effort is expended on developing the plan or preparing the budget, while far too little time is spent on critical analysis and strategy. When this happens, the planning process is cumbersome and expensive and is too inflexible to address the needs of management.
Excel compatible. For most users, planning is the task of iteratively entering, reviewing, evaluating and adjusting the plan numbers. Dodeca optimizes this task by providing the same Excel usability and flexibility that users are familiar with and have come to rely on. It also provides the same Excel worksheet protection options that ensure that only writeable numbers are edited. Planning views are easily configured to validate input and flag errors. Users are able to easily, efficiently and safely edit the numbers. With a full suite of Excel-compatible features, Dodeca administrators can expose as much, or as little, of the functionality in order to best fit the needs and skill levels of their users. Features such as Excel formulas, formatting, graphs, in-cell editing, undo/redo, cut/copy/paste and worksheet element protection provide extensive Excel-compatible spreadsheet functionality from within a secure, managed environment.
Essbase calculations. Dodeca provides flexible and extensive support for Essbase calculations, including the ability to perform a calculation either on-demand or automatically in response to a user-triggered event, such as when a number is changed. Context-sensitive commentary. Dodeca enables users to add context-sensitive commentary at any level or scope, such as for a single data point, for a pre-defined range, or for the entire plan. The commentary functionality is highly configurable and supports threaded conversations, in-cell indicators, flexible user-interface options for viewing and editing comments, and more. For instance, commentary that applies to a specific number is entered and reviewed using the Comments Explorer. Even though the comments are stored and maintained in the Dodeca server, comments can also be displayed as cell comments using the Excel comment paradigm. Integrated analysis, planning, reporting within a single workspace. Dodeca not only enables a user to change the plan numbers and write the changes back to Essbase, but to also view the results of the changes within the same application workspace. Audit logging. Dodeca provides a built-in audit log that keeps track of all uses of an individual report or view as well as all changes to individual plan numbers. Accountability is especially important in planning systems when actual results are to be measured against the plan as part of employee performance reviews and compensation. Ease of configuration and deployment. Regardless of the size or scope of the planning effort, whether 5 users or 5,000 users, Dodeca is fast and easy to configure and deploy.
With Dodeca, the planning process is efficient, accurate, and consistent; the underlying decision process is documented and individual changes are tracked; and the result is significantly improved cycle times, and ultimately better results.
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Dodeca helps planners complete the planning season with minimal effort and far less stress. By combining a front-end that is easy to use, highly interactive and responsive, with the unmatched analytical and calculation power of Oracle Essbase, Dodeca provides the ultimate planning solution. Several key features of Dodeca that facilitate planning include:
Using Dodeca, a planning manager can confidently review the audit trail for a specific number to instantly see when the number changed, who made each change, and the old and new values.
