Top 5 OneStream MarketPlace admin solutions – part one

In my previous blog ‘The 7 must haves in the OneStream Market Place’, I’ve shared the solutions that should be used in every OneStream platform. Today, it’s time to delve into solutions for system administrators. In a series of 2 blogs, I’ll go into the top 5 MarketPlace admin solutions for OneStream.

This first post will describe the following 3 solutions:

• Log Cleaner (LCR) – PV430-SV100
• Snippet Editor (SNE) – PV500-SV100
• Dimension Comparison Utility (DCU) – PV410-SV100

Since there are another two must-have admin utilities available in the MarketPlace, there will be a second part of this blog describing these two solutions.

1. Log Cleaner

OneStream provides sophisticated and detailed audit trail capabilities using various types of logging. The logging functionality is distributed over the system and the Log Cleaner MarketPlace solution provides a single interface to manage the log files in your OneStream platform. It is even possible to automate the log deletion via a Data Management Job in the background.

As administrator you can select the types of log to clean, the application(s) and/ or users and even filter on a specific error description. The best feature is the ability to select a number of days the log should be retained:

There is also a dashboard available to analyze the log by Type/ Size, User, Application and date:

Pros and cons of the Log Cleaner:

Pros:
+ Operational in under 2 minutes
+ Manage your logs over all your applications from 1 central place
+ Can be scheduled
+ Dashboard with insight into your logs

Cons:
– None found

The setup is described in detail in the documentation and there is no scripting required. This add-in is literally running in under 2 minutes. Therefore, I classify this solution as plug and play (see my earlier post The OneStream MarketPlace in real life about classifications).

2. Snippet Editor

The second MarketPlace solution that should be in your application as an administrator is the Snippet Editor. OneStream is built on VB.net and has many system specific functions to allow the system to fulfill all your wishes (system-capability wise).

When writing a formula or a script, there is already a library with functions and descriptions included in OneStream. The Snippet Editor will give you an additional number of sample scripts. Also, there is a dashboard to maintain your snippets and to categorize or store your own snippets to be re-used.

The snippet editor requires access to Ancillary tables, so that needs to be setup by your (technical) administrator or installation partner if that has not yet been done.

After that, you just import the zip file, open the dashboard where you can create the tables, and launch the solution.

In the dashboard there are three parts:

• The Editor, where you can filter on Type and (sub)Category to find and edit your snippets.
• The Category editor, where you can maintain your sub (Categories).
• The Pivot, where you can browse your scripts in a different way.

Strangely, the default categories available in the Pivot view are not created by default; the Editor will be empty after installation. After adding the (already existing) Categories and SubCategory to the Category screen, the scripts can be edited in the editor.

Within the editor, there is also an option to download an Excel template and import your snippets via that Excel template. This helps you to migrate the solution migrate easily to another application. Unfortunately, this does not include the Category table setup.

The selected module determines where the snippet is available in the system. The table below shows an overview:

So, a snippet created in the Finance Module can be accessed directly when creating a finance business rule:

Imported snippets are available for all the applications in your OneStream environment.

Pros and cons of the Snippet Editor

So, how does the solution perform? The pros and cons that I’m experiencing are:

Pros:
+ Standard set of snippets available
+ Manage all your own snippets in one place to be re-used
+ Based on the category, the script can be accessed directly from the matching location in OneStream.

Cons:
– The categories are not default filled so standard scripts are only available in pivot after you create the categories

The setup is described in detail in the documentation and there is no scripting required. This add-in requires some adjustments, but they are not technically complex or time consuming. Therefore, I classify this solution as admin configurable (see my earlier post The OneStream MarketPlace in real life about classifications).

3. Dimension Comparison Utility

This MarketPlace solution actually runs outside of OneStream itself. It contains an executable file to be installed on your local machine. The tool allows you to import 2 valid OneStream Dimension XML extracts to compare them in detail. All differences (also property changes) are highlighted.

This enables you as an administrator to do a check before you load your updated dimensions from dev to prod.

The differences are shown in highlighted colors: yellow is a parent with a changed descendant, orange means a property change of an immediate child has changed, red means the member is removed and green that it is added.

The tool shows the members in a hierarchical way and when selected, the bottom of the screen shows the differences in properties.

Pros and cons of the Dimension Comparison Utility

Pros
+ Easy to use
+ Quick overview of differences with clear colors

Cons
– The utility doesn’t automatically appear in your windows start menu so needs to be added manually (really minor con)
– The export should contain only 1 dimension

The setup is described in detail in the documentation and is nothing more than ‘next-next-finish’. Therefore, I classify this solution as plug and play (see my earlier post about classifications of the MarketPlace solutions).

In this first part of the blog, we’ve looked at 3 of the top 5 admin solutions. In the second part of this blog, we’ll look at two more must have admin solutions: Sample Import Templates and Diagnostics 123.

Let’s discover the OneStream MarketPlace together

Want to know more about the OneStream MarketPlace? In a series of blogs, we’ll delve into the details of the MarketPlace and the solutions available. In the blog ‘The One Stream MarketPlace in real life’ you’ll find more details about the basics of the MarketPlace. And in the blog ‘How to install Task Manager (UTM) in OneStream’, we discussed the most important settings and tips for the configuration of UTM.

Any questions or suggestions for a MarketPlace solution you would like to read about? Don’t hesitate to contact me!