Analytics Software

Hi Guys,
We have been implementing Hyperion DRM to our existing Oracle Environment for managing the company's sales data which comes from multiple data sources. In my experience and research, I feel DRM is an excellent tool but there are some questions I have in our mind. The following are the few questions that I\we have.

a) How does the Import and Export of data functionality works in DRM? In this forum, I have found some one saying we can only import the data through flat files, in other words, "text file" with the delimiters [ ] seperated by comma. My question is, Is there any other possible way to import the data, Such as getting the data directly from the database tables? To get the data, Do we need to have any integration points or do we need to use SOAP APIs (& programming)?

b) While we exporting the data, can we export it directly to the Oracle database tables? What are the integration points needed for this kind of export?

c) Is there any sample guide or design document available for creating the hierarchy and nodes. I just want to know how the attributes that we have "is transformed" into the hierarchies and nodes in DRM? In the past, I used Essbase, which is integrated with DRM and that process was straight forward since we imported and exported data directly from DRM to Essbase.

I would appreciate any suggestion offered to me regarding the questions posted above.

Thanks in advance,
Leo