What this post is all about
Oh dear oh dear oh dear, Kscope14 is almost upon us. This year’s conference is fraught with desperate preparation on my part (this past weekend was spent up to my armpits writing my ASO Planning presentation – fun, fun, fun, kind of) as I desperately try to hit the conference date with everything done. Fingers crossed on this one but if I pull it off, the presentations will be good and there are one or two fairly awesome hacks to go along with it all. I am excited, if slightly frazzled, so business as usual.
But this post isn’t about my neuroses, instead its purpose is to highlight the sessions I am most looking forward to at Kscope14, aka other people’s sources of stress.
Schedule
There is simply too much to write about in one blog post so my look forward will have three parts:
- This week – individual sessions
- Next week – Thursday Deep Dives
- Week of 15 June – Sunday Symposiums and oh yes I am flying to Seattle
As always with Kscope, there are way more sessions than there is time to attend. Remember that many of these sessions are recorded so you can watch the screen and hear the presenters live and in person.
For instance, to help figure out a component of my ASO Planning session, I listened (and listened and listened) to Josie Manzano’s Kscope13 session Using Calculation Manager with Essbase ASO until I finally got it. This ability to go back and listen sessions when you need them is invaluable. There are many, many, many sessions available at ODTUG’s web site and I encourage you take advantage of this valuable resource. I have.
My top Kscope14 sessions
Essbase
Monday, 23 June 2014, 10:45 am to 11:45 am
Oh yes, I know, it works. And then bits of it don’t. I am doing a ton of stuff with this right now in ASO Planning and am super curious to see if Ludovic De Paz and Paul Hoch have gone down the same path I have or if they have figured out another way. Like anything, there’s a good, bad, and mediocre way to do something – I wonder where my work falls.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 8:30 am to 9:30 am
I was part of the beta team (a very bad member of the beta team; I like to think I have somewhat redeemed myself with post-release bug finding, but then again maybe not), and I have seen some of the improvements Tim has come up with whilst in the Tim Tow Reality Distortion Field (The one where I feel almost smart enough to be a Java, aka real, programmer. Alas, it goes up in a cloud of smoke as soon as the call ends.). I’m not sure how much of what I’ve seen is going to make it in this release. For sure it is a time of change for the tool, all for the better.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 11:15 pm to 12:15 pm
Kumar is the manager of Essbase development. That’s right, the guys that write Essbase. Do you suppose he might have some interesting insights into the future of Essbase? Could be.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Do I suffer when I write MDX? Oh yes I do. Hopefully Jennifer Hanks can make at least this part of my coding life not be a soup sandwich.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Yes, you read that right, two MDX sessions at the same time. And this one is by my colleague Gary Crisci who always does stellar work. Let’s hope Jennifer’s (or Gary’s or each) session is recorded.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Why, Glenn, why? Why am I not using it? Perhaps because I have yet to attend your session oh older-not-really-brother?
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 9:45 am to 10:45 am
Gabby Rubin will cover how Essbase and Exalytics are moving forward, sometimes in lockstep, other times in parallel. I am super interested in this and hope fervently that commodity hardware continues to be supported as I’m not likely to hit an Exalytics project any time soon.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 8:30 am to 9:30 am
Dan Pressman will be the moderator (buffer?) between you, the panel audience, and Kumar, the Essbase development manager. Ask your question, see if Kumar answers it. :)
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 11:15 am to 12:15 am
Yr. Obdt. Svt. is copresenting with Tim German, aided by Dan Pressman, and I think this session will be eye opening to say the least. We will cover the biggest advance to Essbase since ASO both in its currently available 11.1.2.3.500 release and some as yet unreleased functionality. You’ll see from this why Hybrid BSO Essbase will likely be the future of many of your projects. Yes, I am excited. :)
Planning
Monday, 23 June 2014, 10:45 am to 11:45 am
Movement, not balances, is what I think Amy Del Rosario will be presenting. This can be a difficult concept to grasp but is quite a bit more efficient. At least that’s what I think the session is about – of course the only way to know for sure is to attend.
Monday, 23 June 2014, 1:15 pm to 2:15 pm
Yr. Obdt. Svt. is copresenting with Tim German, aided by Dan Pressman, and this is a subject near and dear to my heart (and my wallet as almost all of my implementations contain at least a component of Planning). I think we have some really great good practices for ASO Planning that aren’t discussed anywhere else, a hack or two that ought to make your eyes pop, and of course all of the things that will only bring Pain and Agony so they are best avoided.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 8:30 am to 9:30 am
I was never a fan of Planning’s Capital Expenditures application, finding it was easier and more flexible to roll my own. Oracle must have heard my whining as they have released Project Financial Planning (PFP). Matt Ward’s customer success story should be interesting.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 9:45 am to 10:45 am
Ricardo Giampaoli and Rodrigo Radtke de Souza are both huge fans of ODI (as am I) and really understand and hack it to pieces (as alas, I do not at their deep level). I have however been known to twist Planning into a pretzel for fun and profit and I do have at least a basic appreciation of ODI. Hopefully that all means I will be able to keep up. Hopefully.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 11:15 am to 12:15 am
As I am (as noted above) hip deep in a competing presentation, I am beyond interested to see how Jake Turrell has approached ASO Planning and what he has on offer. Jake does good stuff and will be sure to have at least a somewhat different take on the tool. Unfortunately, I am going to be presenting my Hybrid Essbase session at the same time so I do hope this is a session ODTUG records.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 3:15 pm to 4:15 pm
Brian Marshall is going to catalogue Things That Planning Cannot Do, And How To Do Them. This ought to be fun.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Shankar Viswanathan is the Planning product manager, so if he speaks about the functionality of Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) I daresay he will lay down the definitive word. I just hope he keeps his energy levels up, because he’s 50% of the Thursday Planning Deep Dive panel session.
EPM Business Content
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 11:15 am to 12:15 pm
Elizabeth Ferrell will be covering one of my favorite tools, AppliedOLAP’s Dodeca, works as a budgeting tool in an environment of 500 (!) Essbase cubes. This ought to be fascinating stuff.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 9:45 am to 10:45 am
Juan Porter will cover the business and functional side of moving from yearly to rolling forecasts. Important stuff, and important for customers (and EPM geeks, come to think of it) to understand.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Did Charles Beyer wrap Smart View in many layers of Kevlar? Shelter it behind armor as thick as a King George V class battleship? Sometimes I am blown away by the awesomeness of Smart View, other times I have a visceral desire to blow it away. Hopefully Charles can make it all better for me and everyone else.
Reporting
Monday, 23 June 2014, 1:15 pm to 2:15 pm
Matt Milella and Toufic Wkim, both of Oracle Corp, will show how to exploit Smart View to the fullest extent with every data source imaginable. Matt and Toufic are excellent and entertaining speakers.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 8:30 am to 9:30 am
Gary Adashek will cover how he managed the transition from the Excel Essbase add-in to Smart View. I imagine he has a few new gray hairs because of that but I also he also has more than a few tips to help all of us make the transition.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Celvin Kattookaran dives deep into the Workspace API to manage reports like never before.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm
If you build rolling forecasts in Planning you must build rolling reports. Come to Scott LeBeau’s session to find out how.
Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 8:30 am to 9:30 am
Glenn Schwartzberg, older-not-really-brother will be presenting on Smart View. His session is short on details but Glenn always does excellent work.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Sarah Zumbrum will cover the transition for functional users of Smart View. I hear the transition is a bit akin to chopping one’s hand off with an axe held in that same hand. In other words, a difficult and frustrating task, so this should be a session worth attending.
Is that enough?
Yes, that isn’t every hour of every day (you will note that Saturday’s volunteer event, Sunday’s symposium, and Thursday’s Deep Dives are all not, yet, covered), but it sure is an awful lot. Will I get to attend all of these sessions? Given my role(s) behind the scenes at the conference, probably not, but I am as always hopeful.
I’m sure you have your favorites – what are they? Send ‘em in to the comments section of this blog.
Be seeing you.
