Allocations are used in the budgeting process to distribute revenues or costs.
The allocations feature allows you to allocate a given source amount to a target range of cells in an aggregate storage database. The source amount can be allocated to the target proportionately, based on a given basis, or the source amount can be spread evenly to the target.
You can perform aggregate storage allocations using the MaxL execute allocation statement.
You can also perform aggregate storage allocations by using the EssPerformAllocationAso API function and providing the information about the allocation in the ESS_PERF_ALLOC_T API structure.
A single allocation, which corresponds to a single call to the EssPerformAllocationAso API, has its own POV (point of view), range, amount, basis, target, and, optionally, offset. To perform allocations with different sets of values for these parameters, you must make a sequence of individual API calls.
Allocations are performed in the allocation engine and then written back to the aggregate storage database using temporary data load buffers that Essbase creates. For general information about data load buffers, see Loading Data into Aggregate Storage Databases. For information specific to allocations and custom calculations, see Understanding Data Load Buffers for Custom Calculations and Allocations.