The Outline Load Utility (OLU) is a command-line tool included with Oracle Essbase and Hyperion Planning that loads dimension metadata — member names, parent-child hierarchy relationships, alias names, data storage type, consolidation operators, UDAs, and member formulas — from structured flat files (typically tab-delimited or comma-delimited) into an Essbase or Hyperion Planning application. OLU is the standard mechanism for bulk dimension maintenance in on-premise Hyperion environments: instead of adding or modifying dimension members through the Essbase Administration Services or Hyperion Planning UI (which is practical only for small numbers of changes), OLU loads hundreds or thousands of member updates from a source file in a single automated operation. It is the equivalent function to Oracle EPM Cloud’s importDimensionMetadata EPM Automate command.
OLU Operation Modes
| Mode | Function | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Merge | Adds new members; updates existing members; does not remove members not in the file | Incremental dimension maintenance — adding new cost centres from HR system |
| Replace | Replaces the specified hierarchy section with the file contents; removes members not in file | Full dimension refresh — replacing a sub-hierarchy with a revised version |
| Remove | Removes specified members from the outline | Retiring obsolete members — must be untagged from data first |
The OLU input file format uses a specific column structure: the first column is the parent member name, the second is the child member name, and subsequent columns are properties (alias, data storage, consolidation operator, UDA, formula). The column mapping is defined in a properties file that accompanies the data file. Column ordering errors produce member properties applied to the wrong fields — a formula loaded as an alias or a consolidation operator applied as a UDA — which do not trigger an obvious error but produce incorrect application behaviour.
OLU for Arabic-Language Alias Loading
In GCC Hyperion environments where dimension members have Arabic aliases — entity names, account descriptions, and cost centre titles in Arabic — the OLU input file must be encoded as UTF-8 to preserve Arabic characters through the load process. OLU’s default file encoding depends on the operating system locale of the server where OLU is run; on Windows servers with English system locale, the default may not be UTF-8. An OLU load run with incorrect encoding produces Arabic aliases that appear as corrupted character sequences in Hyperion Planning forms and Smart View retrievals. The encoding parameter in the OLU properties file must be explicitly set to UTF-8 for every Arabic-language dimension load.
OLU in the Context of EPM Cloud
OLU is an on-premise Hyperion tool — it is not available in Oracle EPM Cloud. In EPM Cloud, dimension metadata loading is performed through Oracle Data Integration (formerly FDMEE) dimension import jobs or through EPM Automate’s importDimensionMetadata command, which accepts the same flat-file format that OLU uses. Organisations migrating from on-premise Hyperion to EPM Cloud can typically reuse their existing OLU input files with minor format adjustments for the EPM Automate import mechanism — the file structure is compatible, and the transformation is a straightforward format mapping exercise rather than a complete rebuild.
What Goes Wrong in Practice
The specific OLU failure that most commonly causes production outline corruption is a Replace mode load on a dimension that contains members referenced by active business rules or Smart View reports. Replace mode removes members not present in the input file — if the input file inadvertently omits active members (because a source system extract was incomplete), those members are removed from the outline, their data becomes inaccessible, and any business rule referencing them fails at next execution. OLU in Replace mode on production dimensions should always be preceded by a member count comparison between the input file and the current outline, to confirm that the input file contains the expected member population before executing the replace.
How Loop Wise Solutions Uses OLU
In on-premise Hyperion maintenance and migration engagements, we version-control all OLU input files and properties files in a code repository — treating them as the authoritative dimension metadata source rather than the application’s current outline state. Every production OLU run is preceded by a pre-run validation that checks input file completeness and encoding, and followed by a post-run verification that confirms the expected members exist in the outline with the expected properties.
