Use case: Move data between models (Model Manager)

This use case describes how to use Model Manager to pull data from one model into another. You can also accomplish this using Process Manager.

The business problem

Organizations often choose to report their financials (actual or budget) at the General Ledger level while performing their budgeting at a lower level of detail (by sales person, by product, by customer). Typically this data resides in separate cubes, making it difficult to consolidate data, to report the full budgetary picture, and to do an actual-versus-plan comparison.

 Example:  You are budgeting at the sales person and product level for one GL account in a Sales model, while also budgeting expenses at a higher, more "rolled up" level in the Finance model. The result is budget data by each sales person and by each product, in the Sales model, and expense budget data by company in the Finance model.

The solution

Link the two models, then link accounts from one model to the other, using the account's Calculation Method. The data updates occur automatically.

The benefits

The approach described in this use case has the following advantages:

  • You get a consolidated as well as a detailed view of your budget data, in two different models.
  • You can accurately forecast using either the consolidated budget or the detailed budget.
  • You can compare actual data to plan data at both the consolidated and the detailed level.

How it's done

  1. Make sure that dimensions shared between the models have identical names.
  2. In Model Manager, select the model that you want to copy data into.
  3. Select the Account dimension.

  4. For each member of Account that requires data, in the Calculation Definition drawer, from Calculation method, select Get data.

  5. From Source model, select the model that contains the account you want to retrieve data from.

  6. When prompted, select the model that you want to copy data from.

     Note:   Any shared dimensions are automatically selected, in order to ensure a 1:1 transfer of data. For example, if departments are shared, pulling data from an account/department combination in the source model causes that data to transfer to the matching account/department combination in the target model.

  7. For any dimensions that are not common or shared, to choose the specific member from Source Model Members, open Selector:

  8. Save.

From now on, when the specified account is referenced, it will always pull data from the source model. There is no need to run a process—this feature works just like a Standard Formula.