On March 23, we were invited to give a presentation at Interrel’s 2020 virtual conference, Uncertainty Planning: Minimizing Recession Risk with EPM. We were represented by Bill Reddy and Gerry Villamil,who gave their 45 minute talk and workshop session, “Your Business is Moving Fast, So Plan Faster Using Groovy in EPBCS”. For us, “moving fast” means more than just rapid growth, but also adapting to the evolving economic landscape that brands and organizations of all sizes are experiencing on a daily basis. Tools like Groovy, a framework for Java, have a whole host of novel use cases that can dramatically improve performance within a business rule across many EPM applications. Whether it’s consolidating data at a rapid rate or moving data from one plan to another, the dynamic nature of writing in Groovy can add a brand new dimension to your toolkit and provide even better results for your client.


We’ve compiled some of the best resources for Groovy on the net for you to check out. We personally vouch for all of these, and our team has used or referred to all of them at least once. We’ll go so far as to say they have the Promethean seal of approval, if you will.

In2Hyperion –  Kyle Goodfriend’s In2Hyperion blog is a fantastic resource for PBCS / EPBCS knowledge. A veteran of the space, his expert knowledge of Essbase, Groovy, and EPM in general can help just about anyone, and guide remains one of the most consistent places to get great, in depth knowledge about Hyperion and Oracle. His regular “Adventures in Groovy” column (now up to 50 total entries) is both informative and easy to comprehend, a great way to explore the multitude of Groovy use cases, which range from the simple practical ones to absolutely clever. His Groovy training courses are highly recommended.

Oracle EPM Java API Documents – While maybe not the easiest guide to navigate, it’s tough to rival the sheer amount of information Oracle has provided in their Java docs for Groovy. For almost anyone in the business, this should be your “go to” for Groovy packages, classes and methods. If you need to start from the beginning, their introduction 15-minute tutorial is an invaluable walk through that can get you ready for the more advanced bits in their API reference documents, and if you need a visual guide, check out their YouTube series. Our recommendation – go through the tutorials first and then dive into their vast library of information after.

OrahyplabsCelvin Kattookaran has long been a source of knowledge in the EPM community, and his knowledge of EPM, Hyperion, and Essbase is superb. Celvin’s blogging has reached a prolific level, as evidenced from his new CPM blog, but his longtime blog, Orahyplabs, has plenty of information on it from a historical context and as a news aggregator. The site is loaded with examples and quick tips for Groovy, with some of his active scripts and a line by line explanation that answer the “what” just as much as they answer the “why”. Even without his active contributions, the amount of information he has sourced in his Popular EPM blogs section will keep you up to date with the latest developments in the space, keeping you on pace, if not ahead of, the learning curve.

We hope you find all these resources helpful as you up your knowledge on Groovy. For those of you who attended Interrel’s virtual conference and were looking for the code examples we used in our presentation, we’ve added the slides to the bottom of this post for you to use at your own convenience, and also here for you to download.

If you have any questions or need any more information, leave a comment below or reach out to us directly.

•Calculation Manager

Manage both Groovy and Business Rules

Basic Rule:

Groovy Rule:

CALC ONLY UPDATED DATA

CONSOLIDATE DATA FASTER