Database Software

Hi,

First of all: this may be a very wrong place for posting these questions. However, I could not find a forum that seemed closer to the matter so I try it anyway.

With EPB close to hitting the streets, some questions starting popping up - especially now that Oracle has recommended one of my customers - who is just starting out with Business Intelligence and are not E-Business Suite users - to embark on the EPB course.

It is stated by Oracle that EPB - although it is an integrated component of the Oracle EBusiness Suite – can be used as stand-alone product. You can load data into interface tables. Questions:
Does EPB work on its own Data Warehouse and if so, is this DWH also available to other OLAP tools for Analysis? Or should organizations doing Analysis and Reporting apart from EPB have a separate DWH for those OLAP queries?

Does Oracle recommend loading data directly from operational sources into the FEM Interface Tables or does Oracle think it best for non-EBusiness Suite customers to set up a Data Warehouse independently of EPB and in a later stage implement processes to extract data from that DWH into the FEM Interface. Are the FEM Interfaces tables at the operational (fact) level or do they already have some sort of consolidation in them?

Can Oracle somehow convince us that while EPB does not provide hooks for customization it will offer reports desired by non-EBusiness Suite customers with potentially very varied businesses? How much of EPB benefits are you missing out on if you do not have the E-Business Suite? What is EPB then giving you that with OWB and BI Beans/Discoverer you can not easily build yourself?

The specific case of my customer: they have clear requirements for Management Information. Most of these are about analyzing histrical data (the classic slicing and dicing); forecasting and budgeting would be a nice to have in the longer run. They currently do not have a proper Data Warehouse. They have a consolidation point for some operational data. No dimensions have been defined, no data cleansing is performed and some data is not available at all. I am wondering whether EPB would be the proper tool for them to start with. Given their requirements as well as their lack of current experience with BI as well as the relative uncertain situation with regard to the data sources, I would feel more comfortable with a more down-to-earth approach: start designing a DWH and the processes to populate it as well as developing the most urgently needed reports. In that case, EPB would be brought in at a later stage – when the organization as well as the data management is ready for more advanced stuff.

Is there anyone, especially from Oracle, who would care to comment? Also on my feeling that Oracle’s recommendation to use EPB is perhaps somewhat influenced by Oracle’s desire to build up references and experience with this brand new tool – that, as I understand it, is not even generally available – only a “controller release” is available right now.

Thanks for anyone for your insights.

best regards,

Lucas