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Forum Discussion
Allocations in OS
Source: OneStream Champions Hi all! Do any of you run allocations in OS? Would you be able to share how you accomplish this? Currently we manually reallocate data that comes into our income statem...
Hi Nicole,
One key aspect of designing an allocation solution in OneStream is the ability to re-run the allocation process step. You have a source to get the allocation data, and you have a destination you want it to go. If it is based off of Sales or Revenue (or Expenses) and those source values change, you will need to re-run it.
A good setup for this would be a Dashboard view, with a title bar that has informative labels such as the last period loaded, the last time the allocation was ran, and by whom. A Cube View (or 2) to show the source (from) and destination allocation. Maybe even a balance check to show the source values equal the destination values.
If you’d like, there is a customer I worked with that does a multi-step allocation process that starts with UD2, then allocations UD2 to UD3, then UD3 to UD4, and lastly UD4 to UD5. It is progressive and can be re-ran if source values change. For this customer they have a Dashboard view with buttons to step through the allocations. We are leveraging the UD7 dimension for the Allocation In and Out values as sort of a staging area for the data.
This is a complex case study and not the norm, but the fundamental process of sourcing the values, matching the amount in the destination allocation members, and having a process that can be re-ran as source values change.
Lastly - a Confirmation Rule can be applied to make sure Source = Destination intersections.
Hope this helps! Let me know and I can reach out to that customer and see if they can talk to you.
Thank you,
Mike
Hi all - thanks so much for your replies!
Michael - it’s lovely to hear from you again!!
I appreciate the input and the suggestions, but I think those might be a bit more than what I need at the moment. The JE is run after the import channel is closed so I’d set this process up the same so the allocation need only be run once (unless we re-open ERP but that’s unusual). And because we currently have it set up as a JE, I’m comfortable loading the allocation balance at the O#Forms member in order to call out that it’s an allocation. We also have a UD3 that’s basically a more detailed Origin dimension so it will be called out there too, negating the need for a detailed allocations breakdown.
It looks like the Allocation JE type and the an allocation Form would mean I’d have to define every single account we’d like to pick up to allocate instead of a member filter so I’m looking into a business rule to get the work done.
Michelle, would you be willing (if you’re able) to look at your formula/business rule and tell me how it begins? Is it an api.Data.Allocate or an api.Data.Calculate? I’m struggling on how to begin the calc because there’s no real sample for the api.Data.Allocate and it would seem like I’d have to make an api.Data.Calculate for every single account I want calculated which also doesn’t feel right to me.
Thanks again for everyone’s feedback!! Great to be able to get some information from other customers.