Consolidate All vs Consolidate All with Data
One of the long running debates about HFM is the advantages of Consolidate All (CA) vs. Consolidate All With Data (CAWD). Some people say it doesn't matter. Some people say you should never, ever do CA. What's the difference, and when would you use one vs. the other? Let's take a look.
Assume we have a little entity hierarchy, with NC and VA rolling into TotCo. Only NC has data. If you do a CAWD on TotCo, NC and TotCo will get calculated; VA will not. If you do a CA on TotCo, then all three get calculated. The difference is whether VA gets calculated, and therein lies the debate: is that okay?
There are multiple things to consider. Once you calculate VA for the given scenario, year, and period, it will never go back to "NO DATA" and will always get included in subsequent consolidations (as HFM now thinks it has data). And you'll also see it getting calculated for the rest of the year. But, if you have rules that pull data from other places into the entity, then you need a CA to get the rules to run. Maybe VA just hasn't gotten it's data loaded yet, but then again maybe it's been an unused entity for years and is there just for the history.
My take on it: if you can avoid using CA, then do so. But, if you need it, then don't shy away from it.
Assume we have a little entity hierarchy, with NC and VA rolling into TotCo. Only NC has data. If you do a CAWD on TotCo, NC and TotCo will get calculated; VA will not. If you do a CA on TotCo, then all three get calculated. The difference is whether VA gets calculated, and therein lies the debate: is that okay?
There are multiple things to consider. Once you calculate VA for the given scenario, year, and period, it will never go back to "NO DATA" and will always get included in subsequent consolidations (as HFM now thinks it has data). And you'll also see it getting calculated for the rest of the year. But, if you have rules that pull data from other places into the entity, then you need a CA to get the rules to run. Maybe VA just hasn't gotten it's data loaded yet, but then again maybe it's been an unused entity for years and is there just for the history.
My take on it: if you can avoid using CA, then do so. But, if you need it, then don't shy away from it.