Essbase Calc Script

Think of interRel as the Australian Sheepdogs of
Enterprise Performance Management.

Essbase Calc Scripts for Mere Mortals
interRel Consulting
Presented by Edward Roske
interRel Consulting
Gary Crisci
Morgan Stanley
In the world of enterprise performance management and business intelligence, centralized business rules and calculations are
www.interrel.com
key to obtaining actionable information to improve business. One of the big advantages of the Essbase solution is the
powerful calculation engine to perform these business rules. Whether it is basic aggregations, complex allocation rules, driver
based business rules, and more, Essbase can address any of these requirements across financial, operational, and other
applications. The way to define these business rules and calculations is through a calc script.
In basic Essbase, you calculations can be achieved via outline consolidations and member formulas (and it is certainly more
1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

optimal to place calculations here first if possible). Quite often, these tools provide all the calculation power an application
will need. However, as member formulas start to reference other levels or other dimensions, they can get very complex, very
quickly. In Sample.Basic, the Budget member has no formula. Let’s say you’re in charge of setting goals for the remainder of
the year. We don’t want our goals to be reasonable or obtainable (else everyone would reach them), so we want to set every
“Budget” member to be exactly fifty percent greater than the “Actual” number from last year. The problem is that this
calculation would be very complex, and probably not a good thing to store directly in the outline as it may change frequently,
so we’ll need to override the default calculation. Calc scripts to the rescue…
What is a Calc Script?

At this point, you’re probably asking yourself “What the heck is a calc script?” If you’re not, then you’re skipping the
headings that introduce each section. A calc script is short for “calculation script” and it allows you to override the standard
outline calculations and take complete control of how your database derives its numbers. While most of the time calc scripts
are run at regular intervals to do simple things like aggregate subsets of your database, they can also be run sporadically such
as at the start of budgeting season when you want to run your allocation processes with each what-if iteration.
(972) 735-8716
A calc script is really just a sequential series of commands, equations, and formulas. It is stored in a standard text file with a
.CSC extension, so you can even open them in Notepad if you want to. Here’s the calc script that will set all of your budget
values to 50% above your actuals:
http://looksmarter.blogspot.com/
/* Creates Initial Budget */
SET UPDATECALC OFF;
CLEARDATA Budget;
Budget = Actual * 1.5;
CALC ALL;
You might have noticed that this calc script actually does a few things beyond just creating the budget, but we’ll get to those
in due time.
There are a lot of reasons to use a calc script. If you’re not happy with the order that Essbase uses to calculate the members
and dimensions, a calc script can easily override the default order. If you don’t want to calculate the entire database, a calc
script can be written to only calculate the current month. If you want to clear data or copy data from one place to another, calc
Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 1

scripts can do the job. Want to create formulas that aren’t in the outline? Calc scripts are there for you. Calc scripts will even
let you perform allocations and multi-pass calculations. When one of the end-users passes you a multi-stage allocation
interRel Consulting
calculation that would make most Excel gurus run home crying to their mommies, you can just tie on your cape and write an
Essbase Calc Script to save the day.
Create a Calc Script

Normally, people edit their calc scripts in Administration Services. It is possible to create and modify calc scripts in your
favorite text editor, but only nerds do this (since the author of this whitepaper is a nerd, we’re completely okay with that).
www.interrel.com
There are some definite advantages to using your own text editor. Text editors tend to let you see more lines at once, allow
better find and replace functionality, have better line numbering, and provide greater printing options than Administration
Services’ built-in Calc Script Editor. If you do create your calc script in an external editor, it is very easy to copy and paste the
body into Administration Services, or you can also save your calc script as a text file in the appropriate database directory
(when you do this, remember to save the file with a .CSC extension).

My First Calc Script
For now, let’s pretend that you’re not a nerd for a second and use Administration Services to create your first calc script.
1. Open Administration Services and drill down below the database to the section named “Calculation Scripts.”
2. Right click on “Calculation Scripts” and choose Create Calculation Script:
(972) 735-8716
You can also create a calc script by going to the menu and choosing Editors >> Calculation Script Editor.
3. A window will appear called the “Calculation Script Editor”:

interRel Consulting
www.interrel.com
This editor has three main panes:
1. Outline. This pane helps you to select members from the outline and add them automatically to the calc script being
edited.
2. Functions. This pane lets you select functions and commands and add them to the calc script being edited. The check
(972) 735-8716
boxes above this pane determine if arguments to the functions and commands will be inserted as well.
3. Data entry. This is where you actually type your calc script. While you could live without panes one and two (though
it would be a royal pain), all of the power of calc scripts is entered into pane three.
The calc editor (as we’ll call it from now on) has a toolbar at the top of the screen just below the menu:
While most of the buttons are the same ones you’d see in fancy Windows applications like Notepad, the rightmost three
icons are calc editor specific. The check mark icon validates the syntax of your calc script. The outline icon associates an
outline with your calc script. You’ll need to do this if you don’t see an outline in the outline pane (pane one, remember?). The
final icon (the green down arrow next to a cash register receipt) runs the calc script that’s open in pane 3. We’re not going to
be using the toolbar for right now, but go right ahead if you’d like to. It’s a free country.
Simplest Calc Script
While it’s small in stature, it’s powerful in nature. This single line will aggregate all of the dimensional hierarchies in your
outline, calculate all of the formulas attached to members, perform time balancing on time balanced members, and does it all

quickly using “intelligent calculation”. We’ll be covering more sophisticated calc scripts throughout this chapter, but you
should always remember that no matter what we create, we’ll always have the power of default.
interRel Consulting
CALC ALL;
Calc Script Syntax
www.interrel.com
There are a few simple rules to follow when writing a calc script:
1. End every statement with a semicolon.

2. You do not talk about fight club.

3. You can break a statement onto multiple lines, but the end of the statement must have a semicolon.
4. If a member name contains spaces or starts with a number, surround it with “double quotes.”
5. Start comments with /*
6. End comments with */
7. Statements must have a semicolon at the end.
8. Calc scripts are not case-sensitive.
9. Spaces between member names, commands, and functions don’t matter.
There are many more rules, but these are the important ones that people tend to forget and then wonder for hours why their
calc scripts aren’t working. Here’s a calc script that demonstrates several of those syntax rules:
/* Increase Opening Inventory */
(972) 735-8716
“Opening Inventory” =
“Opening InVeNtOrY” * 1.1;
Notice that the first line is a comment and it has the appropriate start and end characters. “Opening Inventory” has a space in
the member name, so it’s surrounded by double quotes. At the end of the entire statement (although not at the end of the
comment), there’s a semicolon. (You can tell the calc script language was written by a programmer, because only
programmers end sentences with semicolons;) Finally, observe that the second instance of Opening Inventory uses wacky
cases just to show you that calc scripts are indeed not case-sensitive (unless you have explicitly told Essbase to behave
otherwise).
Simple Calculations
One of the simplest calculations you can perform is to tell Essbase to do the calculation for a single member. In a production
system, this is the leanest, meanest calc script you can write, and is used when you want the script to finish in the quickest
possible time.
Calculate Single Members

Imagine for a moment that the “Variance” member in Sample.Basic was stored and not dynamically calculated. We’ve just
loaded data and we want to tell Essbase to calculate the formula on “Variance” and leave the rest of the outline alone. All we
interRel Consulting
have to do is spell the member name and add a semicolon:
Variance;
www.interrel.com
How do you think you’d modify the calc script to calculate both Variance and Variance %? Hopefully it’s something like this:
Variance;
“Variance %”;

Notice that we have to use double quotes around “Variance %” due to the space in the name.
The technique of specifying a member name on a line by itself can be applied to members that do not have formulas but do
have members aggregating into them. Imagine that we have just loaded data in Sample.Basic to the great state of Texas. Now
we want to roll-up the Texas numbers to the top of the Market dimension:
South;
Market;
The nice thing about this script is that it doesn’t bother rolling up totals that haven’t changed. There’s no Texas in the North
(thankfully) so we know we don’t need to modify the totals for North.
(972) 735-8716
It’s also possible to temporarily override the formula in the outline for a member. Let’s return to our earlier example where
we were an evil budget manager trying to set our budgets slightly higher than our actuals so no one could ever meet their
numbers. To do this in a calc script, we just set up an equation with Budget on the left-side of the equal sign:
This script will set the budget to be 50% greater (notice that we’re multiplying times 1.5) than actuals. If you’re really in need
of a raise, you could set the profit of your company to double what it should be:
Profit = Profit * 2;
Forgetting that the above calc script is probably illegal (thanks, Senator Sarbanes, wherever you are), it is interesting in that it
puts the member “Profit” on both sides of the equation. It’s also useful to understand that every time you run it Profit will

double, so make sure you only run scripts like this once.
Intelligent Calculation
interRel Consulting
Before we go any further, you have to learn the command to turn off intelligent calculation. Intelligent calculation allows
Essbase to remember which blocks in the database need to be calculated based on new data coming in, and which haven’t
been impacted (and don’t need calculation). Intelligent calculation is wonderful when you’re running a default calc.
But (there is always a “but”) intelligent calculation is the devil’s work when you’re running a calc script. Think about the
www.interrel.com
budget calc script from earlier:

Do we want this calc script only to operate on so called “dirty blocks” or do we want all budgets throughout the entire system
to be set 50% above actuals? If we leave intelligent calculation turned on during the running of our calc, Essbase will only
calculate our new budgets for blocks that have recently been loaded with data. That’s definitely not what we want, as some
business units will escape with a sensible quota. We definitely can’t have that!
The good news is that you don’t have to turn off intelligent calculation for the entire database: you can just tell Essbase to
ignore it during the calc script with this command:
SET UPDATECALC Off;
If you want to turn Intelligent Calc on again later in the script (maybe you want a “CALC ALL” command at the end of your
script to calculate just the dirty blocks), include the command SET UPDATECALC ON; and everything past that point will
(972) 735-8716
work “intelligently. We recommend that you include the command to turn intelligent calculation off at the top of every calc
script. If there’s a case where you actually want to use it, go ahead and remove the line on a case-by-case basis. Leaving it out
is courting disaster (and take it from a guy who dated disaster back in high school: you don’t want to be courting her).
Calculate Entire Dimensions
As we’ve already mentioned, there’s a simple command that you can include in a calc script that tells Essbase to evaluate all
your member formulas and do all of your outline aggregation. While “CALC ALL” is great and powerful, there are times
when you only want to calculate specific dimensions. For instance, what would we do if we just wanted to calculate
Sample.Basic’s Product dimension? We have a new command for this called “CALC DIM” (short for calculate dimension):
CALC DIM (Product);
This line calculates the Product dimension doing both outline aggregation (such as rolling all the Colas up into the parent
value) and member formulas, if they exist for members in that dimension. If we want to calculate multiple dimensions using
this command (say, Market and Product), just separate them with commas:

CALC DIM (Market, Product);
interRel Consulting
Remember how we said that “CALC DIM” not only does aggregation but also member formulas? Well, how many member
formulas are there in the Market and Product dimensions? That’s right - none, so “CALC DIM” is wasting time looking for
formulas that you know aren’t there. For dimensions that don’t have formulas, there’s a faster command that only does
aggregation:
www.interrel.com
AGG (Market, Product);
“AGG” can only be used on sparse dimensions. If you have a dense dimension with no formulas that you only want to

aggregate, you cannot use “AGG.” You must use the “CALC DIM” command.
Calculate a Subset of Data
While calculating entire dimensions makes you feel very powerful, sometimes you just want to calculate a portion of the
database. For instance, let’s say you just updated your budgets but you didn’t touch actuals. How could you ignore the Actual
member? Well it turns out that there’s an optional argument to the “CALC ALL” command called “EXCEPT”. You use it to
calculate everything except specific dimensions (DIM) or members (MBR). If we didn’t want to calculate actuals, we’d say:
CALC ALL EXCEPT MBR (Actual);
It’s also possible to list multiple members. Say that we didn’t want to calculate Texas and New York (no offense to either
state). We’d list the members separated by commas:
(972) 735-8716
CALC ALL EXCEPT MBR (Texas, “New York”);
If there’s an entire dimension you don’t want to calculate, replace “MBR” with “DIM”:
CALC ALL EXCEPT DIM (Measures);
The “CALC ALL EXCEPT…” method from above is really used to do the majority of a database and not just a smidgen, so
we need a new command: “FIX” and its sister command “ENDFIX”.
If we just want to calculate a specific member, we put this in double quotes after the “FIX” as such:

FIX (“Texas”)
CALC DIM (Account);
ENDFIX
interRel Consulting
“FIX” and “ENDFIX” are called sandwich commands because one command is like the top layer of bread and the other as the
bottom with lots of things thrown in between. For instance, we could choose to calculate a few specific accounts:
www.interrel.com
FIX (“Texas”)
Op_Income;
Margin;
ENDFIX

It’s also possible to give list multiple members in a FIX as long as you separate them with commas:
FIX (“New York”, “Texas”)

Op_Income;
Margin;
ENDFIX
Let’s say you only loaded budgets to next year (which for our purposes, we will call “NY”) for both the states above. Here’s
one way to accomplish that by nesting one “FIX” within another:
(972) 735-8716
FIX (“New York”, “Texas”)
FIX (NY)
Op_Income;
Margin;
ENDFIX
ENDFIX
While this is a valid method, two “FIX”es are not necessary. You can list members from multiple dimensions within one
“FIX” command, and this is the traditional way to do it:
FIX (“New York”, “Texas”, NY)

Op_Income;
Margin;
ENDFIX
Using “FIX” commands on sparse dimensions will speed up the performance of your calculations, because it limits the

number of blocks pulled into memory to just what’s listed in the “FIX” statement.
Point to Another Member
interRel Consulting
While you’re inside a “FIX” command, blocks outside are ignored. What if you want to refer to values from blocks that aren’t
being retrieved into memory? Surely there must be a way, you cry out of quiet desperation. Stop your incessant bawling,
because there is indeed a way. It’s called the cross-dimensional operator. There is no “cross-dimensional operator” symbol on
your keyboard. You type this in by pressing dash followed by a greater than symbol. Its job is to point to another member in
the database and it looks like this:
www.interrel.com
->

If we wanted to set net revenue for the Texas equal to net revenue for the New York, we could write a calc script that looks
like this:
FIX (“Texas”)
Net_Rev = Net_Rev->“New York”;
ENDFIX
What exactly is this doing? On the right-side of the equation, we told Essbase to get the value from net revenue for the New
York. The left-side of the equation told it to put the result in net revenue, but which net revenue? Well as you see from the
“FIX”, we told Essbase to only calculate the Texas, so it will put the value into net revenue for the Texas.
Whenever possible, try to avoid cross-dimensional operators. They’re unseemly and slow. For instance, if we had to add
another account, we would have to include it within the “FIX”:
(972) 735-8716
FIX (“Texas”)
Net_Rev = Net_Rev->“New York”;
Op_Expense = Op_Expense->“New York”;
ENDFIX
We could remove the need for the cross-dimensional operator (called “cross-dim” for short) by pivoting the customer and
account dimensions. That is, we’ll put the account dimension in the “FIX” and the customer dimension inside the “FIX”:
FIX (Net_Rev, Op_Expense)

“Texas” =
“New York”;
ENDFIX
This is much easier to read, and more flexible as well. It’s obvious now that we’re focusing on two specific accounts and

setting one conference to be equal to another.
It is also possible to string cross-dims together to point to more and more specific intersections in the database:
interRel Consulting
FIX (“Texas”, CY)
Net_Rev = Net_Rev->NY->“New York”;
ENDFIX
www.interrel.com
Net_Rev->NY->”New York” is called a “member combination. This is how the on-line documentation refers to the
intersections of members via cross-dimensional operators.
Clear Data

Have you ever had one of those days when everything was going wrong and you just wanted to wipe out the entire day and
start over? Fortunately, it’s much easier to do this in Essbase than it is in reality. If we wanted to clear all of the data in our
cube, we’d need the following little calc script:
SET UpdateCalc Off;

CLEARBLOCK All;
The first line (as no doubt you’ll recall from a few pages ago) tells Essbase to operate on all blocks in the database and not
just the dirty blocks. The second line tells Essbase to clear all the blocks in the database.
This script will run extremely quickly, and when it’s finished, it will certainly appear that your database is empty, but if you
look closely, it’s not. Look out on your server’s hard drive and you’ll see that the .PAG file still exists. The reason that
(972) 735-8716
“CLEARBLOCK” runs like a paparazzi after Angelina Jolie is that all it does is blank out the index entries: the pointers to the
corresponding blocks in the page file. Since it can no longer find the blocks, they might as well be blank.
A powerful way to use “CLEARBLOCK” is within a “FIX” statement. We want to blank out our Sample.Basic budget so that
we can try again (our last attempt at the budget was horrendous, let’s be honest), so we write this script:
FIX (Budget) http://looksmarter.blogspot.com/

CLEARBLOCK All;
ENDFIX
Remember that “CLEARBLOCK” will clear out entire blocks by removing the pointers, but in Sample.Basic, Budget is in the
Scenario dimension and Scenario is a dense dimension. Since Budget is in every block in the database? Does it remove all the
blocks? No, “CLEARBLOCK” is smart enough to only clear out index entries when the entire block is not being “FIX”ed on.
In cases where just a portion of a block needs to be cleared, “CLEARBLOCK” will read the blocks into memory, clear out the
necessary slices, and write the blocks back out to the page file. As such, “CLEARBLOCK” when used inside a “FIX” on a
dense dimension is noticeable slower.
If you want to blank out a specific dense member, there’s a simpler way than including a “CLEARBLOCK” inside a “FIX”

on that dense member:
interRel Consulting
CLEARDATA Budget;
The “CLEARDATA” command allows you to specify a single member (in our case, budget). Do not use this on a sparse
member, because the “CLEARBLOCK” command will always be faster. It is also possible to use a cross-dim operator on the
www.interrel.com
right-side of a “CLEARDATA” command. If we wanted to clear out only our sales budget, we could write:
CLEARDATA Budget->Sales;

If you need to clear out multiple dense members, do not write your script like this:
CLEARDATA Actual;
CLEARDATA Budget;
This will result in multiple passes through your database since Essbase will not know to clear your data from actual and
budget during a single pass. In this case, go back to using the “CLEARBLOCK” command within a “FIX”:
FIX (Actual, Budget)

CLEARBLOCK All;
(972) 735-8716
ENDFIX
At various times, you’ll want to make sure that all of the aggregated blocks in your database are cleared. For instance, if
you’re about recalculate all of the totals in your database, it’s faster if Essbase doesn’t have to read the old totals into memory
before writing out the new ones. There is an argument you can use in place of “All” called “Upper”:
CLEARBLOCK Upper;
This command will clear all of the upper-level blocks in your database. As before with the “All” argument, “CLEARBLOCK
Upper” can be used within a “FIX” statement. A related argument is “NonInput”:
CLEARBLOCK NonInput;

This will clear out all the blocks that haven’t had data directly input to them. Assuming we’re following best practices and
only entering data into level-0 blocks, this command will only clear out the upper-level blocks like “CLEARBLOCK Upper”.
interRel Consulting
There’s one other way to clear data. You can set a member equal to #Missing:
Budget = #Missing;
www.interrel.com
While this is valid syntax (and we’ve even seen a few sub-par consultants use it), it’s just weird. Stick to “CLEARBLOCK”
or “CLEARDATA”.
Copying Data

There are two common ways to copy data. The first is with a simple equation:
“Texas”=“New York”;
This equation copies the Oracle conference data over to the Hyperion conference data. Depending on the settings in your
database, this method may or may not create blocks. The way to be sure you create all necessary blocks is by using the
“DATACOPY” command. It takes two arguments: a member to copy the data from and a member to copy the data to. This
command accomplishes the same thing as the line of code above, but with added comfort that there will be no block creation
hijinx:
DATACOPY “Texas” TO
“New York”;
(972) 735-8716
Both of these methods can be used within a FIX command. Do not use multiple “DATACOPY” commands on dense
members:
DATACOPY Jan TO Feb; http://looksmarter.blogspot.com/

DATACOPY Feb TO Mar;
In the case of Sample.Basic, this calc script will actually cause two passes through the database since Time is a dense
dimension. In this case, the first method of setting one member equal to another would be better.
IF and Its Other Brother, ENDIF
You learned earlier how easy it is to use the “IF…ENDIF” sandwich commands (technically, they’re functions, but since they
don’t start with @, we like to think of them as commands) inside of a member formula. As a refresher, let’s say we wanted to

check and see if our number of defected products equaled our total number of products. If so, let’s fire everybody (i.e., set
headcount equal to zero). Here’s what this would look like if you made it the member formula for “Headcount” in the outline:
interRel Consulting
IF (Defect_Prod_Count = Tot_Prod_Count)
Headcount = 0;
ENDIF
www.interrel.com
Now since this is attached to the Headcount member, it’s technically not necessary to specify “Headcount =” on the third line.
As a matter of policy, we don’t tend to include it, because if the “Headcount” member gets renamed, the member formula
reference to it will not rename. As such, we’d write the formula like this:

IF (Defect_Prod_Count = Tot_Prod_Count)
0;
ENDIF
Now, if you just type this into a calc script and verify it, you’ll get the following message:
“Error: 1012061 The CALC command [IF] can only be used within a CALC Member Block”
First of all, note that the error message calls “IF” a command, so we were right all along about it not being a real function, on-
line documentation be damned. To translate the error message into semi-English, “IF” can only be used in a member formula.
“Uh, oh,” you say, “but I want to do IFs in a calc script. Is now the time for ritual suicide?”
While it may indeed be, don’t do it over this, because there’s a simple work-around: create a temporary member formula
(972) 735-8716
within your calc script that contains the needed “IF”. You do this by specifying the member that you want to assign the
temporary formula and then include the formula in parentheses. For example:
Headcount
(
IF ((Defect_Prod_Count = Tot_Prod_Count))
0;
ENDIF
)
Notice “Headcount” at the top and the parentheses surrounding the “IF…ENDIF”. Voila! The calc script will now validate
and run successfully.
Functions
Everything we’ve done up to this point has been focused around using the calculation commands. There are also at least 135
functions that let you do most of the interesting things that Microsoft Excel functions can do (like absolute values, statistical
deviations, and internal rate of return calculations) and many things that Excel functions can not (like return the parent value

of the current member in a hierarchy and allocate values down across a hierarchy). To make it easier to find the functions in
the on-line help, Hyperion segmented the functions into several nebulous categories. Some of the categories are easily
interRel Consulting
understood (like “Boolean”). Some, like the mysterious “Miscellaneous” category, are not.
Boolean functions return true or false (@ISMBR). Relationship functions are used to lookup values at intersections elsewhere
in Essbase. Generally, the value being looked up is in the same database, but it doesn’t have to be (the extremely helpful but
slightly slow “@XREF” functions looks to other databases). One of the common needs is to look at the value at a parent
member (@PARENTVAL). Mathematical functions perform standard arithmetic type calculations such as absolute value,
integer, and factorial. The “@VAR” function used in Sample.Basic to calculate variances is, for no apparent reason, a
www.interrel.com
mathematical function. While simple statistical functions like maximum and minimum are found in the Mathematical
category, advanced statistical functions get their own category: Statistical. Member Set functions simply return lists of
members. These are commonly used in “FIX” commands. Say that we wanted to focus on just aggregating products in the
East region. Rather than hard-code all the members in “East,” we could use a member set function called “@CHILDREN”.
Range functions (sometimes called “Financial” functions just to be contrary) operate on a range of members. The most
commonly used range function is “@PRIOR” which looks to earlier members in the outline and “@NEXT” which looks to

later members in the outline. Both of these functions assume that you want to look forward and backward through the
dimension marked as the “Time” dimension if you do not otherwise specify a range. As such, many people think of them as
time-specific, but they do not have to be. Allocation functions allocate summarized higher level values down to detailed
members. This is often used for top-down budgeting or targeted forecasting (when values are often loaded to parent members
and then spread downward). There are only two functions. “@ALLOCATE” allocates values down a single dimension and its
more impressive counterpart “@MDALLOCATE” which allocates values down multiple dimensions simultaneously. Date &
Time functions change dates in the form of strings to numeric dates. This category only has one function in it at the moment,
“@TODATE”, which makes me wonder why they didn’t just put this function in the Miscellaneous category. Somehow, we
think the marketing department is involved. Miscellaneous is the category for functions that don’t have a place elsewhere. The
“@TODATE” function should be here, but it’s not. Instead, you get the bizarre “@CALCMODE” function which changes the
way Essbase calculates a member and three string manipulation functions (@CONCATENATE, @NAME, and
@SUBSTRING).
Custom-defined functions are whatever you want them to be. It is possible to write your own functions in Java, register them
with Essbase using the MaxL “create function” command, and call them from a calc script as if they were part of the native
language.
(972) 735-8716
Where Do We Go From Here?
Learning everything there is to know about calc scripts would take several years, we’re fairly certain. Rather than drag this
white paper on any further, we’ll point you in the right place for further information: the Essbase Technical Reference. From
within Administration Services, click on Help>>Information Map. When this comes up, click on Technical Reference to be
taken to a bounty of detailed, look-up information:

The “Calculation Functions” section contains details on all of the @Functions. The “Calculation Commands” section is where
you go to find information on all of the commands that can be used in a calc script that don’t start with an @ symbol. Several
interRel Consulting
of the calculation functions contain examples showing you how to use them. While they’re not in depth, they’re plentiful, so
maybe that makes up for it.
Conclusion
www.interrel.com
All types of calculations are possible with Essbase (block storage option databases) using calc scripts. While there is a
learning curve, even mere mortals can perform complex allocations across multiple dimensions or calculate the financial
impact of changes to key drivers and metrics. This whitepaper has introduced you to the basic concepts of calc scripts and
your next step is to get into Essbase and start calculating!

(972) 735-8716

Essbase Calc Script

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Essbase Calc Script

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Essbase Calc Script

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What is a calc script?

What is a calc script?

What are some reasons to use a calc script?

What are some reasons to use a calc script?

Think of interRel as the Australian Sheepdogs of

Enterprise Performance Management.

Essbase Calc Scripts for Mere Mortals

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

What is a Calc Script?

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 1

Create a Calc Script

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 2

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 3

1. End every statement with a semicolon.

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

/* Increase Opening Inventory */

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 4

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 5

Budget = Actual * 1.5;

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

SET UPDATECALC Off;

CALC DIM (Product);

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 6

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

CALC ALL EXCEPT MBR (Actual);

CALC ALL EXCEPT DIM (Measures);

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 7

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

FIX (“New York”, “Texas”)

FIX (“New York”, “Texas”, NY)

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 8

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

FIX (Net_Rev, Op_Expense)

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 9

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

SET UpdateCalc Off;

FIX (Budget) http://looksmarter.blogspot.com/

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 10

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

FIX (Actual, Budget)

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 11

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

DATACOPY Jan TO Feb; http://looksmarter.blogspot.com/

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 12

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 13

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 14

1000 Ballpark Way, Suite 304, Arlington, TX 76011

Copyright ©2009 by interRel Consulting 15

You might also like