Top 5 OneStream MarketPlace admin solutions - part 1

In my previous blog, "The 7 Must Haves in the OneStream Market Place," I shared the solutions that should be used in every OneStream platform. Today it's time to dig deeper into solutions for system administrators. In a series of 2 blogs, I will discuss the top 5 MarketPlace admin solutions for OneStream.

This first post describes the following 3 solutions:

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

Since there are two other indispensable management tools available in the MarketPlace, there will be a second part of this blog describing these two solutions.

1. Log Cleaner

OneStream provides advanced and detailed audit trail capabilities using different types of logging. The logging functionality is distributed across 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 deletion of log files via a Data Management Job in the background. As the administrator, you can select the log types to be cleaned, the application(s) and/or users and even filter by a specific error description. The best feature is the ability to select a number of days to keep the log:

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A dashboard is also available to analyze the log by type/size, user, application and date:

Advantages and disadvantages of the Log Cleaner:

Advantages:
+ Operational in less than 2 minutes

+ Manage your logs across all your applications from 1 central place

+ Can be scheduled

+ Dashboard with insight into your logs

Cons:
- none found

Installation is detailed in the documentation and no scripting is required. This add-in literally runs in less than 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 you should have in your application as an administrator is the Snippet Editor. OneStream is built on VB.net and has many system-specific features to make the system meet all your needs (in terms of system capabilities). When you write a formula or script, a library of functions and descriptions is already included in OneStream. The Snippet Editor gives you some additional sample scripts. There is also a dashboard to maintain your snippets and to categorize or save your own snippets for reuse.The Snippet Editor requires access to additional tables, so that needs to be set up by your (technical) administrator or installation partner if that has not already been done.After that, all you have to do is import the zip file, open the dashboard where you can create the tables and start the solution.

In the dashboard, there are three sections:

• The editor, where you can filter by type and (sub)category to find and edit your clippings.
• 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 is empty after installation. After the (pre-existing) categories and subcategories are added to the categories 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 through that Excel template. This helps you easily migrate the solution to another application. The selected module determines where the clipping is available in the system. The table below provides an overview:

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

Imported snippets are available to all applications in your OneStream environment.

Advantages and disadvantages of the Snippet Editor

So, how does the solution perform? The advantages and disadvantages I experience are:

Advantages:
+ Standard set of snippets available
+ Manage all your own snippets in one place for reuse
+ Category-based script can be accessed directly from the corresponding location in OneStream.

Cons:
- Categories are not populated by default, so default scripts are only available in pivot after you create the categories.

Installation is described in detail in the documentation and no scripting is required. This add-in requires some customizations, 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. Utility for Dimension comparison Utility

This MarketPlace solution actually runs outside of OneStream itself. It contains an executable file that must be installed on your local machine. The tool allows you to import 2 valid OneStream Dimension XML extracts and compare them in detail. The differences are shown in highlighted colors: yellow is a parent with a modified descendant, orange means a property of a direct child has been modified, red means the member has been removed and green means it has been added. The tool displays the members in a hierarchical fashion and when selected, the bottom of the screen shows the differences in properties.

Advantages and disadvantages of the Dimension Comparison Utility

advantages
+ easy to use
+ Quick overview of differences with clear colors

Cons
- The utility does not automatically appear in the Windows start menu, so you have to add it manually (really a minor drawback)

- Exports may 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 The OneStream MarketPlace in real life about classifications).

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

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