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"Once a partner migrates to FDM, we no longer have people filling out Excel spreadsheets, emailing them in and then people on our end checking for errors and loading them into Essbase," says Head. "FDM imports and transforms the data, but it also has a sophisticated account map so we can map our partner source accounts into our centralized chart of accounts." The software has also improved data quality because it has greatly reduced manual data entry.
In the old approach, it took partners two days to issue quarterly reports, but using FDM, about half of the charity's partners are now reporting on a monthly basis, and each report takes less than half a day. At headquarters, Opportunity has also moved to monthly reporting, and turnaround time has been cut from 45 days down to just 20 days.
"It used to be if something happened on July 1, we wouldn't have that reported to us until November 15," says Head. "Now we learn about that by August 20, so we can respond to shifts in local economies or problems emerging at partners or branches."
In 2008, Opportunity plans to move all remaining partners to Hyperion FDM, and it's also moving into predictive analysis. "As we've moved into taking deposits and lending that money back out, we have to be very aware of the patterns of when people might be withdrawing money," Head explains. "You have to be aware of season, agricultural cycles, so we're trying to model some of those patterns and predict cash flow."
Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion last year has had little impact on the customer-vendor relationship, according to the charity. "When we first started with Hyperion, much of this software was donated, and they also donated their time and consulting on an ongoing basis," says Ingle. "That has continued since the Oracle acquisition, which we have certainly appreciated."
In fact, Opportunity plans to expand its deployment to Hyperion Analyzer in 2008 so it can develop online dashboards, and Head says Oracle is donating the software and helping with training to ensure that the deployment is a success.