Unlocking EPM Power: Get User Variables with Oracle Planning REST APIs!

Retrieving User Variables in Oracle EPM Using REST APIs

If you’re building integrations with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), sooner or later you’ll run into User Variables. They are everywhere—driving form personalization, security filters, default selections, and even calculation behavior.

The good news? Oracle EPM provides powerful REST APIs that let you retrieve user variable values programmatically.

In this blog, we’ll break down two commonly used REST APIs:

• GetUserVariablesForUser
• GetUserVariablesForUserAndMember

You’ll learn:

• What user variables are and why they matter
• When to use each API
• How to call them
• What the response looks like
• Common real‑world use cases

All examples and explanations are provided with reference 

 

What Are User Variables in Oracle EPM?

User Variables are configurable placeholders that dynamically resolve to dimension members based on the logged‑in user. They are widely used across Planning, FreeForm, FCC, and other EPM modules to personalize the experience.

Typical use cases include:

• Default Entity, Version, or Scenario for a user
• Security‑driven data access
• Dynamic filtering in forms and dashboards
• Personalized calculations and rules

From a technical perspective, user variables help avoid hardcoding dimension members and allow applications to scale across users with different responsibilities. [docs.oracle.com]

 

Why Retrieve User Variables via REST APIs?

While user variables are usually set and managed through the UI, integrations often need them programmatically. Common scenarios include:

• External applications that need to respect EPM personalization
• AI agents or middleware dynamically resolving context
• Audit and validation of user setup
• Mass analysis of user configurations
• Integration testing and automation

Oracle addresses these needs through the User Variable Values REST APIs available in Planning REST API v3. [docs.oracle.com]

 

API #1 - What This API Does

This API retrieves ser variable values set for all users and for all user variables defined for the application.

 

REST Endpoint

GET {{BASE_URL}}/HyperionPlanning/rest/v3/applications/EPBCS/uservariablevalues

Response

API #2 - What This API Does

To retrieve user variable values set for all users for a user variable with a specific name.

REST Endpoint  

GET {{BASE_URL}}/ /HyperionPlanning/rest/v3/applications/EPBCS/uservariablevalues/Asset - Buy

API #3 - What This API Does

GET {{BASE_URL}}//HyperionPlanning/rest/v3/applications/EPBCS/uservariablevalues?q={"userName":"dayalan.example@example.com"}

to retrieve user variable values for one or more users.

Example Use Case

• An external planning portal needs to open with the same defaults as EPM
• A batch job validates that users have all mandatory variables assigned
• AI‑driven workflows resolve default dimension context before executing rules

 

 

Security and Access Considerations

• Service Administrators can retrieve variables for any user
• Regular users can retrieve only their own variables
• APIs follow standard EPM REST authentication (Basic Auth or OAuth2)

Oracle also enhanced these APIs in recent releases to allow retrieving multiple users’ variables in a single request, improving performance for administrative use cases. [docs.oracle.com]

 

Real‑World Integration Patterns

Here’s how these APIs are commonly used in modern EPM architectures:

• AI agents translating natural language into EPM actions
• Data pipelines aligning user context across systems
• Automated testing validating environment consistency

If you’re building an EPM Control Center, middleware, or AI‑driven workflow, user variables are often the first API call you make.

 

Final Thoughts

User variables may look simple on the surface, but they are foundational to personalization and security in Oracle EPM. Oracle’s REST APIs make it easy to retrieve them in a clean, scalable, and secure way.

 

If you’re building advanced integrations or AI‑powered solutions on Oracle EPM, mastering these APIs is a must.

 

 Happy days on the cloud!