Benefits of a OneStream Application Review

Is your OneStream application ready to tackle the challenges of the coming year?

Your journey with OneStream Software most likely began some time ago and in the intervening period, the world around it has moved on. New sources of data have appeared, ledgers have spawned new line items, organisation structures may have changed, reporting requirements have evolved and users come and go. 

If maintenance of your application has not kept in step with change, the day-to-day use of your CPM solution may be dependent on unnecessary manual workarounds to meet business needs. Is data mapped and loaded without the benefit of in-system workflows and controls? Do consolidations employ available automation capabilities? Are reports out of date, necessitating ‘off-system’ underworlds of spreadsheets? Have users moved on, while their user id still occupies a license in OneStream? 

Or… maybe your administrator tackled adding that new division to your OneStream application having not realised how best to extend the platform to fully take advantage of its inherent scalability, and users are now griping about response times. 

Regular reviews of your OneStream application can deliver many benefits, such as optimising data model efficiency, preparing applications for extension and mitigating risk to your financial close and reporting.

‘An application review provides the groundwork for maintaining and developing a robust and scalable solution, especially if your vision is to use OneStream for wider business processes and analytics, such as People Planning, Account Reconciliations, Transaction Matching or ESG Reporting,’ says Lee Bown, a lead consultant at Concentric Solutions. ‘Reviewing aspects such as business rules, cube design, workflow processes and system documentation, helps ensure the readiness of your application and the use of best practices.’

Below we have considered areas of opportunity that may help administrators realise the full potential of OneStream. 

Maximise platform value

Are you utilising available functionality to free key resources to focus on value-add activities? The OneStream Solution Exchange offers a variety of productivity tools and starter kits that can extend the capabilities and value of the OneStream platform. The core solution provides an engine room of functionality, which can be extended with various Solution Exchange applications offering useful administrative tools and additional process-specific functionality. 

When implemented correctly, OneStream offers the scope to augment early-stage deployments of the platform with additional Solution Exchange offerings. These may include Task Manager, Guided Reporting, Account Reconciliations, Tax Provisioning, Specialty Planning models and Sensible Machine Learning for demand planning use cases. While your organisation may have already configured some of these extensions, it is important to evaluate the readiness of your core application before ‘bolting on’ extra solutions or functionality. Asking the right questions up front ensures scalability and efficiency in the long run.

Configure data model in line with best practice

Has the platform been configured in accordance with OneStream good practice? Does OneStream still align with changes in your business processes? As your company expands or undergoes structural changes, your financial close cycle may be impacted. It is imperative to ensure workflows are in sync with user needs, and that your data models can adapt to changes in structure. They should also offer the necessary level of reporting granularity and be configured to support increased data volumes that may arise as your business evolves. 

A comprehensive review is the key to assessing whether initial design choices made at the inception of your solution still meet the reporting requirements of the business today. OneStream can be configured to support varying levels of detail across different business processes while using common data structures. Intelligent use of this extensibility enables existing models to grow with business needs, future-proofing your applications in readiness for additional reporting capabilities and business processes across the platform.

Improve the flow of data

Are you using technology to facilitate an efficient process? Could OneStream integrate with source systems to minimise manual data manipulation? Timely access to financial and operational data is crucial for effective decision-making. Whether you aim to improve access to real-time data, or address challenges stemming from manual entry that impact financial reporting accuracy, ensuring the cleansing, validation and integration of source system data is vital for a faster close process. 

OneStream’s strength is the power of its data quality management capabilities, empowering users with in-built tools to help flag errors at their source. With configurable connectors supporting various data sources, workflows can guide users through submission cycles, offering seamless drill-through analysis from reports back to the data's origin. These building blocks in the close process can be re-used to surface data to other CPM processes in OneStream, such as Account Reconciliations or Transaction Matching, avoiding duplication in effort and significantly reducing further manual data entry.

By focusing on data integration, data quality, and automation, a systematic review identifies risks and weaknesses, proposes improvements to processes, and ensures a seamless flow of accurate data throughout the application.

Equip users with the right knowledge

A critical aspect of ensuring your OneStream solution’s success on or post go-live, is assessing the knowledge and proficiency of your user community. As your organisation evolves, it is natural for key OneStream users or administrators to change roles or depart the company. However, the loss of expertise can lead to operational delays, risk of inefficiencies when tasks that should be performed in OneStream become activities that are addressed outside of the system, and potential issues when changes are made to the OneStream application without proper design oversight and awareness. 

Concerns about the potential impact of staff changes to ongoing operations can be mitigated. In-application user guides and video tutorials can be embedded, ensuring new end-users have a basic level of understanding directly from the model and application. Additionally, system and user documentation should enable new administrative staff to fast-track their understanding of prior requirements and design decisions. 

Every organisation using OneStream should conduct a training needs assessment and a gap analysis to compare current user readiness with business expectations. This assessment can then serve as the basis of a blended education solution that comprises in-application self-service content, online e-learning and tutor-led training classes for more advanced topics. 

In larger deployments of OneStream, we encourage clients to set up finance user groups with ‘go-to’ contacts across divisions or geographies. These internal user groups meet periodically to address queries related to business processes, accounting, and systems. This proactive approach ensures that issues are addressed promptly and that user feedback is considered in the spirit of continuous improvement efforts led by central administrative staff responsible for the OneStream platform.

Book your OneStream Application Review

As the first OneStream partner in Europe, Concentric draws on more than 10 years of solution delivery experience. Our health-check is designed for organisations running OneStream’s CPM platform and provides clients with an independent report that includes: 

• a comprehensive review of your OneStream application;
• an assessment of data model design and its alignment with critical business processes; 
• a review of user readiness and system documentation; and 
• an evaluation of solution readiness to meet the expanding needs of your organisation.

Benefit from the expertise of our seasoned consultants and receive a roadmap to maintaining and developing a robust and scalable OneStream platform.  

Download more information about our Application Review Service: