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hila platform
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Conversational Finance
VIANAI
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Conversational Finance

    Release notes

    hila v4.0 release notes

    New features in hila v4.0

    • Selectable chart types

      hila chooses the best type of chart for the data by default, but you can select any alternate chart hila generates.

      chart-type

    • New chart types

      hila supports new chart types to better represent data. The new chart types are:

      • Combo chart — a combination of line and bar charts that helps to visualize actuals, budget, and forecast across a period of time.

        Example questions:

        • Show actuals, budget, and forecast for the past three years.
        • Show actuals and budget for each quarter of FY24.

        combo chart

      • Horizontal stacked bar chart — shows revenue or expense data broken down by specific dimensions. This chart provides a clear breakdown of financial data, highlighting the largest contributors while grouping smaller segments for simplicity.

        Example questions:

        • Show revenue by account categories for the past three years.
        • Show quarterly sales for all products in product group Baby Care PG0001 for FY24.
        • Show revenue shares of each product in Product Group PG0001 for each year from 2022 to 2024.

        horizontal stacked bar chart

      For up-to-date information on hila charts, see Conversational Finance charts.

    • Disambiguation support

      hila accounts for two types of ambiguity: incomplete information and unfamiliar words or phrases.

      • If you ask a question with incomplete dimension information, hila gives a ‘More information needed’ message and suggests ways to clarify your question.

        disambiguation

      • If you ask a question where hila needs to interpret a word or phrase, hila gives an answer and reports which word or phrase it interpreted (see 1 in the following image).

        • Click the arrow icon (2) to ask a follow-up questions based on hila’s interpretation.
        • Click the book icon (3) to add hila’s phrase to your custom lexicon (admins only).

        disambiguation

    • Preloaded conversations (admins only)

      You can set up a conversation to be preloaded for any new user you add to hila. This is useful for onboarding new users or for providing a consistent experience for all users.

      See Preload conversations for more information.

    • Favorites

      You can mark a conversation as a favorite by clicking the star icon in the conversation pane. This makes it easier to find and access conversations you use frequently.

      • You can toggle a conversation to show only favorites. If you mark a follow-up question as a favorite, the parent question also appears when you list only favorites.

        favorites

      • In the conversation pane, each conversation shows the number of favorite questions in that conversation.
        favorites

      See Manage Conversations and Questions for more information.

    Known problems for hila v4.0

    • Setting object permissions is available at the folder level only. You cannot set permissions at the file level.

    hila v3.3 release notes

    New features in hila v3.3

    • Sales analysis: budget, forecasting, and actuals

      You can ask questions related to your sales/revenue performance, using key financial data such as budget information, actuals, and prior period historical data. Use this to gain insights on how your company is performing currently comparing to the prior year or how the sales number look comparing to your estimation.

      Notes:

      • This analysis is currently available for only sales/revenue, not expenses.
      • This feature currently covers one entity and one currency.
      • This feature helps you analyze the performance of your sales/revenue against the budget and forecast. It does not create a budget or forecast.

      See Sales analysis - budget, forecast, and actuals for more information.

    • Manage conversations

      • You can rerun a conversation against the latest data.
      • In the conversation pane, you can pin a conversation to the top of the conversation list.
      • You can also delete and rename a conversation in the conversation pane.
      • For each of the above items, see Manage Conversations and Questions.

    • Multi-currency and multi-entity support

      You can provide data now for multiple entities and multiple currencies, and users can ask questions across these entities and currencies.

      For this release, you need to provide your professional services or IT contact a list of entities with their company and global currencies in the following format:

      {
  "entity_1_name": {
      "parent_company_name": "NAME",
      "company_name": "NAME",
      "company_code": "CODE",
      "company_country": "COUNTRY",
      "company_currency": "CURRENCY CODE",
      "global_currency": "CURRENCY CODE"
    },
  "entity_2_name": {
      "parent_company_name": "NAME",
      "company_name": "NAME",
      "company_code": "CODE",
      "company_country": "COUNTRY",
      "company_currency": "CURRENCY CODE",
      "global_currency": "CURRENCY CODE"
    }
}

    • Japanese language support

      hila now supports Japanese language for asking questions in either English or Japanese and receiving answers in Japanese.

      See Japanese language support for more information.

    • Custom lexicon and jargon recognition (admins only)

      You can map custom keywords, jargon, and phrases to a definition hila can understand. This feature allows you to use domain-specific terms that are not in the hila lexicon.

      See Custom lexicon and jargon recognition for more information.

    Known problems for hila v3.3

    • Fuzzy search works for some variations but may give a no data found error for others. Variations can be minor changes like different use of upper/lower case or adding/removing small words. If you get this error, rephrase the question with a variant.
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