Groovy is becoming a hot topic these days, since EPBCS integrated Groovy into Calculation Manager in June 2017. Groovy business rules allow us to design sophisticated rules solve use cases that normal business rules cannot solve. I think it is good to start a new series to discuss about Groovy. Hope you will enjoy it.

 

1.Groovy Introduction

Let’s start with what Groovy is. Groovy is an object-oriented programming language for the Java platform. Groovy uses a Java-like curly-bracket syntax. Most Java code is also syntactically valid Groovy, although semantics may be different. A little bit history about Groovy. Groovy 1.0 was released on January 2, 2007. Currently, Groovy 2.4.14 is the latest stable version (March 2018).

 

We will discuss a lot more about the Groovy functionalities in EPM. But now if you know Java and you are interested to see Groovy. You can download the Groovy console from Apache Groovy.

 

The select the Windows installer.

 

Then install the Groovy console.

 

Once the Installation is finished, we will need to set up Environment Variables.

 

Remember this is running on Java platform, we need to have our Java Home set up already. If you haven’t set this up. Download Java and then go to System Properties to set up Java_Home.

 

Start Groovy console. Write and execute one simple Groovy script.

 

2.Groovy in EPM

You may wonder in the EPM world, what does Groovy mean for us. Oracle EPM cloud, specifically speaking, Enterprise Planning Cloud (EPBCS) integrated Groovy in June 2017. As we mentioned, we are able to create complex Groovy rules to solve certain situations that traditional calc script business rule cannot solve. For example, use Groovy rules to prevent users from saving data on forms if the data value is above a predefined threshold; business logic can be isolated to the changes in a webform; combine with Data Maps and Smart Push to provide a real-time consolidated report, etc.

 

Groovy rules are created in Calculation Manager, and then deployed, validated, and run in the application. If you have EPBCS or PBCS+1 module, you will be able to see the Groovy rules option in Calculation Manager. Currently, there are no plans to make Groovy available for standalone PBCS environment.

 

Log into EPBCS or PBCS+1 environment, and then select Rules.

 

Create a new rule. Change the view to Edit Script.

 

From the Script Type dropdown selection, we are able to select either Calc Script or Groovy Script.

 

Remember, in EPM, Groovy calculations are not Java-based calculations.  What it does is, it simply provides a way to interact with planning and then sent a string to Essbase as a calculation. Being said, the Groovy script does not connect to Essbase directly through Groovy rules. Groovy rules are powerful because, for example, it can interact with the data in a webform and build dynamic calculations. Then send this part of calculation script to Essbase.  There are a ton of benefit of using Groovy. But as of what we just discussed, what is one of the key benefits of Groovy?

 

Improving performance!

 

If your EPBCS or Hyperion applications have performance issues that related to complex calculation, large dimensions, or you would like to performance data input validation, real-time reporting, etc. Groovy rules should catch your attention.

 

Oracle provides us the Groovy Rules Java API Reference.

 

This document provides all the packages and classes that we can use.

 

In the future posts, I will discuss more real-life examples of Groovy rules. Hope you will enjoy them. See you next time.