
Latest episode
Constancia, an EPM consultancy, runs a OneStream (EPM software) application after go-live: releases, model changes, month-end cover and upgrades. The scope is written to fall as your team takes each job over.


OneStream managed services keep a live application running after go-live, through the platform's releases, the group's own model changes and the month-end run. Constancia sells the service on a scope that falls each year, because a scope that grows is paying for runbooks nobody wrote.
OneStream managed services cover the running of a live application for a finance team that has gone live and has no second administrator yet. Releases, model changes and month-end cover are routine, and new work is the fourth kind. A release lands on OneStream's calendar and an acquisition on the board's, and the service covers both.
Constancia has done 58 OneStream implementations over 35 years, and the managed service after each one is scoped by the job. Each job carries a date for the group's team to take it over, and a job the team runs comes off at the next review.
Where the group controller phones the implementer on day 3 of each close to rerun the same load, a runbook is missing. The managed service writes that runbook first and then hands the job back. The controller keeps the runbook, and the job comes off the scope at the next review.
The routine jobs are the ones a trained administrator takes over, and each has a date in the scope. New work stays with the service, because an acquisition is design work with its own survey.
Each OneStream release is tested against the group's own model in a copy before it reaches the live application.
New entities, accounts and hierarchy members are added under change control, with the reason for each written next to it.
A consultant is on call through the close calendar until the group's administrator has run 3 closes without a call.
The platform upgrade is planned around the group's close calendar, so the year-end never lands on a new version.
Failed loads, slow consolidations and broken reports are found by the service before an entity accountant reports them.
New work has no handover date, because an acquisition, a new report or a new plan is design work and is priced after a survey.
The scope is reviewed each year, and every job the group's team now runs comes off it. The review is a written document, and the CFO signs it.
The 4 positions share 1 feature, which is that the group's own team cannot yet run every job on the list.
The application went live this year and the group's administrator is still learning the release cycle.
The group has 1 person who can run the system, and a holiday or a resignation would stop the close.
An acquisition a year, a new ERP or a divestment means the model changes more often than the team can absorb.
The CFO wants a written date for when the finance team runs the system alone, and the scope carries one.
A group with 2 trained administrators and a stable estate needs cover for new work and nothing more.
The written scope names the stage the group is in and the date it moves to the next. The move happens when the administrator has run the job, and never on a calendar alone.
The service runs releases, model changes and month-end cover, and the group's administrator sits in on each one.
The administrator runs the routine jobs and the service checks each one, on call through the close.
The group runs the application, and the service covers new work and the questions that arrive with an acquisition.
Each of the 3 sits 1 step before or after this service in the life of the application.
The 6 jobs the finance team learns, which is what lets the managed service shrink.
Read about trainingThe build before go-live, with the runbooks written while the work happened.
Read about implementationThe reconciliations and the calendar that a managed service watches each month.
Read about the closeEvery Sunday, 6am
Our weekly newsletter on AI in finance.
Yours to enjoy with your Sunday morning coffee.
The people who would do the work read every message and reply inside 2 working days.
Free guide
Get our AI in finance predictions for 2027
Enter your details below and we will send a free copy to your inbox right now.
Check your inbox for your copy of the predictions.
We use cookies to improve the site and measure our adverts.Read the cookie notice
Strictly necessary
Keeps the site working and remembers these choices. Always on.
Statistics
Counts visits and the pages read, so we can improve the site. Never used for adverts.
Advertising
Lets Google and LinkedIn measure our adverts and show them to people who have visited.