Cool free stuff from Oracle and how to get more of it

Introduction

Do ginormous multinationals just give away valuable information?  Apparently, if their name is Oracle, and the department is Oracle Global Support, the answer is, “Yes.”  Pretty amazing as you’ll see in a moment, and the quality is good.

What is the free stuff?

How about every new version installation note, release note, mandatory patch list, supported platform matrix, troubleshooting, general knowledge, and tool tip Oracle Support can come up with, by product?  

As an example, the Essbase (my very favorite database in the whole wide world) Master Note Index [ID 1105886.1] covers, in the very first Troubleshooting article (there are seven articles in total as listed below this table):

Article	Sub-topic	Note
Document 1291202.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and Aggregate Storage (ASO)	How to archives	Doc ID 584534.1 How To Create an Aggregate Storage (ASO) Database
		Doc ID 584913.1 How To Find The Size Of An Aggregate Storage (ASO) Database in Essbase?
		Doc ID 584585.1 How To Set The Aggregate Storage (ASO) Pending Cache Size Limit?
		Doc ID 980315.1 How To Automate The Aggregation Process On An Aggregate Storage (ASO) Database?
		Doc ID 980377.1 How To Assign Expense Reporting Tag in an Aggregate Storage (ASO) Database?
	Unable to Compact ASO Outline	Doc ID 1291128.1 Unable to Compact an Aggregate Storage (ASO) Outline
	Cannot Load Outline into Memory	Doc ID 947934.1 Error "1250053 Cannot load outline into memory" When Editing an ASO Outline After Upgrading to Essbase 9.3.1.4
	Sort Operation Ran Out of Memory	Doc ID 596566.1 Error: "Sort operation ran out of memory. Please increase the size of aggregate storage cache."
	Error Updating ASO Outline	Doc ID 800076.1 Error Updating ASO Outline "Hierarchy [DimensionName] is too complex: maximal width member number exceeds 64 bits. See application log for details."
	Data Load Takes Longer	Doc ID 816703.1 ASO Data Load Takes Longer in Essbase 9.3.1 Compared To Essbase 9.2
	Failed to Open File	Doc ID 888642.1 When Creating Aggregate Storage (ASO) Database Error "1270076 Failed to open file [%s]: a system file error occurred. Please see application log for details"
	Migrating ASO Outline Crashes EAS	Doc ID 1223357.1 Migrating an Aggregate Storage (ASO) Outline Crashes the Essbase Administration Services Server (EAS) When Using 64 bit Installation
	Outline Restructure Takes Longer	Doc ID 755871.1 Restructure of an Aggregate Storage (ASO) Database Takes a Long Time When Outline Change Logging is Enabled

There are also these articles:

Article

Document 1089114.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and ODI

Document 1089108.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and Shared Services

Document 1090635.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and 64 Bit

Document 1105799.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and API Scripting

Document 1082973.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and SmartView

Document 1105876.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and EIS

Document 1090680.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and Partitioning

Document 1105830.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and SQL Interface

Document 1105831.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and Unicode

Document 1105894.1 Oracle Hyperion Essbase and Product/Technical Issues

Each one of those articles has individual notes.  Amazing stuff, eh?  This is just for Essbase.  There’s a lot more out there.

Let’s define “free”

Okay, a qualification – this really cool stuff is free if you are a customer who has a valid maintenance contract or an up to date Gold partner (I’m pretty sure below that level it’s no soap, radio, although if a Silver or below partner logs in a gets this stuff, let me know and I’ll amend this post ) or above.  Meet those requirements, and all this is yours.

But wait, there’s more

You say you love an Oracle EPM product other than Essbase?  Hard to believe, but true.  Apparently Oracle shares the love, because there are guides for all of the products (okay, I didn't search for Close Management or Profitability but I'm willing to bet they're out there -- first one to comment on this post with the link wins a mention and I'll revise accordingly) in the form of pdf files.  That means there are many, many notes chock full of good information.  More than you can imagine and if you can log onto http://support.oracle.com, you can have them for the asking.  

Planning

Did you know there was also a Planning version of this, at
Oracle Hyperion Planning Master Notes Index [ID 1083483.1]

Essbase

Yes, I covered this before, but for the sake of completeness:
Oracle Hyperion Essbase Master Note Index [ID 1105886.1]

Financial Data Quality Management

And of course one for FDM:
Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management Master Note [ID 1126261.1]

Hyperion Financial Management

I can’t imagine there are too many green-shaded geeks at Cameron’s Blog For Essbase Hackers, but in case you care:
Oracle Hyperion Financial Management Master Note Index [ID 1083469.1]

But wait, there’s even more than there’s more

Did you know about the Notes Indexes?  As Alfie Elkins would say, “Not a lot of people know that”.

Do you want to know how to more effectively use Oracle Global Support?  If so, ODTUG KScope11 is the place to be.  

Is this an idle promise?  Nope.  On Wednesday, 28 June 2011, at 3:00 pm (that would be getting towards the end of the Greatest Oracle EPM Conference Ever, aka ODTUG KScope11), I’m hosting the Tech Support panel session where we will focus on good support practices – these Master Notes Index articles are but one example.

I used the word “we”.  I exaggerated -- pay no attention to me as I’m just the idiot kicking off the session and running around the room with a microphone taking your questions.  It’s Oracle’s support organization that is up on the dais and they’re the ones to whom you should ask all of your support process questions.  

More stars than there are in the heavens

No, this isn’t MGM circa 1939, but the fantastic group of Oracle Support staff that will be at this symposium.

Name	Title	Technical area
Carol Crider	Sr. Principal Tech Support Engineer	Essbase
Larry Geraghty	Principal Tech Support Engineer	HFM
Matthew Hendricks	Principal Tech Support Engineer	Support/development relationship
Kamila Pavlaskova	Principal Tech Support Engineer	Foundation/infrastructure
John Kellogg	Sr. Mgr. Customer Support - EPM/BI	Kibitzing from the crowd
David Valociek	Sr. Dir. Customer Support - EPM/BI	Kibitzing from the crowd

These are some of the most best support people Oracle has – I know one fellow blogger (Hi, Glenn) who had this to say about Carol, “I am thrilled that Carol Criter will be there, I really admire her.  She has been around forever [and] is like a super support tech. She works with people on really big problems.  I worked with her on [Client X’s] issues”.    Dear readers, you may not believe this, but Glenn really did IM the above to me this evening, completely unprompted.  If Glenn’s excited, I’m excited, and you should be as well.

Would you believe even more than even more than there’s more?

Last one, I swear – did you know that KScope11 is going to have a Support area at the conference itself so you can go directly to Support and interact directly with Global Support superstars?

Tim Tow is owed a big round of applause for this – he’s championed it from the beginning and Oracle, in the forms of Al Marciante and David Valociek, more than stepped up to the plate with resources and people.

I’m happy just to bring you the news.

See you in Long Beach.