Oracle announced the integration of its Hyperion Planning software with another Oracle product, Demantra Real-Time Sales and Operations Planning, and said the move will make it easier for customers to integrate demand and supply data into their financial planning.

Demantra, a product used mostly by manufacturers, collects all the information from a company's distribution channels, whether that's its sales force, retailers or distributors, and uses that for production planning. John O'Rourke, vice president of enterprise performance management and business intelligence product marketing at Oracle, says that prior to the integration, customers that used both the Hyperion and Demantra software might have employed spreadsheets to move data back and forth between the two systems.

"What we're doing with this integration is allowing a seamless integration between the two products, so financial data can flow out of Hyperion Planning into Demantra, and that becomes a starting point for operational planning," O'Rourke says. "And as Demantra gets updated demand and supply forecasts, that information can be integrated back into the financial planning process, so assumptions can be updated."