28 June 2017

Kscope17, day 2, part 1, and a happy annoucement

I am moved to song

It’s true, it’s really true.  But when something wonderful happens, I simply have a song in my heart.

And what, Cameron, what makes you write this?  What oh what oh what?

Because Gary Adashek is now an Oracle ACE!  

Does he deserve it?  Yes.  Does he deserve to be teased mercilessly about his strange love for the product that was key in his advancement (beyond his intelligence, hard work, conscientiousness, and general awesomeness)?  Even more yes.  Is he completely unafraid to look like a complete goof in his heartfelt approach to helping others?  Even more than more yes.  

And look at him.  And don’t laugh.  Too much.  Although I certainly am.  A lot.
C:\Tempdir\Blog\Image-11_GA.jpg
Where’s his choo-choo?

Ah, here it is.  

But what time is it?
1893?  19-ought-3?

The face of a dedicated man, and not incidentally, an Oracle ACE.

Time for that song

^^^Really, you need to listen to this old advertisement unless you’re over the age of 60 (I’m not, btw, no matter what you think).  It’s all good.

Once upon a time there was an Essbase-er,
Gary Ad-a-shek was his monik-er,
He oddly loved Smart View though we don’t know why,
He used enthus-iasm to make the rest of us cry

Gary says…“Hate the Essbase add-in”!
Gary says…“Love the new replacement”!
Gary says…”Smart View is the best”!
Gary says…”Now that I’m ACE, I’ll have to give it a rest”!

It’s with love, Gary, with love.  

For originalists

Choo-Choo Charlie was an engineer,
Choo-Choo Charlie had a train we hear,
He had an engine and it sure was fun,
He used good n plenty candy to make the train run.

Charlie says...”Love my Good ‘n Plenty”!
Charlie says...”Really rings my bell”!
Charlie says...”Love my Good ‘n Plenty”!
It’s Good ‘n Plenty candy that I love so well!

The best part

All kidding aside, and knowing that I’ll never work in Tin Pan Alley, this is a well deserved recognition.

Thank you, ACE program – you chose wisely.

Thank you , Gary, for all you do for the Oracle EPM community.

Be seeing you.

27 June 2017

Kscope 17, day 1, part 2

OMG, I’m already exhausted
I’m not sure anyone could tell the difference (or indeed, care) that after the first full day, I am already at 3 ½ hours of sleep.  It isn’t going to get better.  And yet, Gentle Reader, here is Yr. Obt., Fthl., & Most Hmbl. Svt. tip tapping away with my usual drivel.  Into every life some rain must fall on your (not mine) head.

So, Cameron, what did you do yesterday evening?

If I didn’t have Twitter, I’d never know, using the theory of “Pictures or it didn’t happen”.  Hoo-boy, it was busy.

Check out yesterday’s post for detail up the evening community entertainment.  I am semi-ashamed to admit that I went to the BI, not the EPM, event.  Why, Cameron, why?  ‘Cos I got to see this:

This isn’t the last surprising Gabby snap.  Read on…

Embarrassing photos aside, the event was fantastic and were just pipped to 1st place (it was a pub quiz with a Texas flavor) by those !@#$ing cowboys.  Bastards.

Cameron and Natalie’s EPM meetup

This is the 10th anniversary of my bestie Natalie Delamar.  ODTUG Madame President went all out as usual with a party.  It was amazing.  Thank you, Ride or Die Girl.  It’s been quite a trip, and one I wouldn’t have missed for anything.

Here’s a picture of the layout.  Amazing, Natalie.  I can’t figure out how you have time to do all that you do.

It was a hopping party.

Dan Keith, Amy Dailey, Tim German, Celvin Kattkooran’s forehead (I am not going to pursue a career as a photographer), and Tim German.

Here I am with my buds Amy Dailey and Natalie.

The real surprise.

Who knew that Gabby Rubin moonlights as a barman?  The drinks he made were amazing.  Incredble.  Awesome.  Thank you so much, Gabby.

All for now

I’ll try, maybe, to get today’s events in.  Follow my Twitter feed for up to date information.

Be seeing you.

26 June 2017

Kscope17, day 1

Here we go!

It is now the first true, real, honest to goodness day of the conference.  I’m so excited.  I’m also kind ofreally, really, really sad, so there is that.

I have five pictures; that means 5,000 words I don’t need to type

Here’s Danny Bryant, brand new Oracle ACE Director.  I was privileged to announce his enboblementappointment.  Seriously, I was happy to act as a reference and beyond happy to announce it.

Disneyworld is Kscope18’s destination!

My co-presenter on tomorrow’s Oracle Analytics Cloud/Essbase presentation, Tim German looking…interesting.

Celvin Kattookaran, my younger-smarter-taller brother from totally different parents about to boggle my mind about Groovy and Essbase calcs.  He did.

My other smarter-brother-from-totally-different parents, Glenn Schwartzberg, who is at least shorter and older than Yr. Obt. Svt., espousing the virtues of Essbase in Oracle Anayltics Cloud.

There will be more to come

It might not happen till tomorrow, but it’s coming.

Be seeing you.

25 June 2017

Kscope17, day 0

No, not Year 0, but the day before Kscope proper kicks off.
How I wish I could tell you what Oracle has told us.
But I can’t.  Seriously, Oracle embargoed us on Tweeting, blogging, etc. about what they discuss, reveal, and review.  Does that stop Yr. Obt. Svt.?  Yes.  Does it stop others?  No.  You’ll have to decide who is the wiser.

But what you can do is follow me on Twitter as I retweet others.  I think this means that I am an accomplice after the fact which, were this a court of law (I am an unbelievably huge fan of The Sweeny if you’re looking for a good police procedural), that would be enough to send me off to hard porridge.  As I’m not before the bar, I’m going to throw myself on the mercy of the Oracle court.

Follow me on @CameronLackpour to get the latest.  I’ll do my best to update this blog as the day goes on but it’s difficult to keep up.  Also, as I become more and more sleep deprived not only will the quality of these posts decrease but the delay between X happened and I report it even in the same day becomes more and more unlikely.

So that’s an incentive for you to follow these daily posts.  Or not.

So what have you managed to accomplish today?

Attend the Sunday symposiums.  How, how, how I’d like to be able to literally split myself between the Dodeca symposium, the EPM symposium, and the Essbase symposium and the room is packed.  As you can see, it's not just Standing Room Only but there are people sitting on the floor.
C:\Tempdir\Blog\DDL9OI3XUAIi97l.jpg.

The latter is where I am right now.  As Tim German and I are presenting on Essbase cloud on Tuesday, I am happy to see that we haven’t as yet (only halfway through Gabby Rubin’s session) gotten anything wrong.

Stick around

The best is yet to come.  I’ll update as possible.

Be seeing you,

23 June 2017

The Dodeca Symposium at Kscope17

Parallel Lines

One way or the other

Tim Tow, president, CEO, and general Applied OLAP grand visionary has wanted a Dodeca symposium for ages – Five years?  Seven?  A long time for sure. – and come this Kscope17 it has finally happened.  

That’s right – this Sunday, 25 June 2017, at Kscope17, you can see the best spreadsheet management tool – aka what Excel and Essbase should be – in its very own track running at the same time as Oracle's symposiums.  This is big news both for Applied OLAP and ODTUG as there has never been a parallel (or any kind of for that matter) non-Oracle symposium at any Kscope.  Congratulations are due to Tim and his team for making this finally happens.

Sunday Geek

Do Symposiums have roadmaps?  New product announcements?  Customer presentations?  Deep dives?  Q&A with product management and development?  Dodeca has that and more.

If you use Essbase and you’re not using Dodeca, you owe it to yourself to attend.

This is all taking place in the Peony room at the JW Marriott San Antonio hotel.

Picture this

Sunday isn’t the end of Dodeca content at Kscope for there are sessions throughout the week.  Note that these are almost exclusively by customers, not consultants aka The Wretched of the Earth.  NB – I am a consultant and I heartily encourage you to come to my sessions but there can be no greater recommendation than that of a satisfied buyer.  Ask the geek who owns one.

Applied OLAP: Dodeca Customer Panel - Dodeca Customers Make Essbase Their Secret Weapon
Tim Tow , Applied OLAP, Inc.
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Vendor Presentation, 9:45 am - 10:45 am
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Vendor Presentation - Subtopic: Vendor Presentation
Learn how Abbott, The Kroger Company, Wells Fargo, Williams Energy , and LinkedIn combine Dodeca and Essbase to solve their business needs. Like many companies, they have diverse requirements. Join this session to find out how they implemented and build upon their Essbase footprint with the Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System. Participate in the Q&A session and ask questions directly to the panel. Dodeca - not just for planning, reporting, and analysis.

Essbase Does It, but Dodeca Makes It Easy! (The Sequel)
Stuart Yasukochi , Abbott (formerly St. Jude Medical, Inc.)
Co-presenter(s): Doug Pearce, Analysis Team
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Session 8 , 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Room: Grand Oaks G
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase-related technologies
St. Jude Medical identified three key technical hurdles to converting their worldwide planning applications to a single ASO database. Learn how Currency Translation, Workforce, and Supporting Details’ complex functionality was achieved using core Essbase functionality with Dodeca’s versatility. Seamless integration between relational input views and Essbase provided for employee-level workforce planning and generalized supporting details inputs. Simple operations in BSO are not so simple in ASO such as currency conversion. Join us to learn how SJM was able to surmount these obstacles with increased efficiency and reduced complexity.

Did You Know Your Local Grocer Uses Essbase?
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Session 9, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Room: Peony
Topic: EPM Business Content - Subtopic: EPM/BI Strategies
Kroger is scaling Oracle Hyperion Essbase to 25,000 users and putting timely data in the hands of the tactical resources in thousands of stores. Stores can drill through to invoices, write back their labor estimates, and manage allocation factors that are critical to corporate through the Dodeca interface.

Introduction to Java and the Essbase Java API
Tim Tow , Applied OLAP, Inc.
When: Jun 28, 2017, Wednesday Session 13, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Other Essbase
Many Essbase customers and partners have requirements that extend beyond the 'out-of-the-box' capabilities shipped with the product. Thankfully, Essbase is a platform that features a very robust Java API that provides nearly endless possibilities allowing customers the ability to leverage their Essbase investment. Attend this session to learn the basics of how to get started with the Java programming language and with the Essbase Java API.

We Make Energy Happen: Oracle EPM Client Success Story at Williams
David Wells , Williams
Co-presenter(s): Arijit Chanda, Williams
When: Jun 28, 2017, Wednesday Session 16 , 4:15 pm - 5:15 pm
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase-related technologies
After an enterprise-wide reorganization, the FP&A group was faced with growing business requirements, slow and outdated systems, missed deadlines, and frustrated users. Learn how Williams super-charged its EPM environment using Planning, Essbase ASO, and Dodeca to cut processing times from four hours to 15 minutes and increase data capacity by over 10 times. With the system bottlenecks removed, the finance organization is not only meeting deadlines, but performing more comprehensive analyses and other projects neglected previously due to system restraints.

That’s an unprecedented amount of content for a non-Oracle product and proof, if proof be needed, that Dodeca and Applied OLAP are leaders in the Oracle EPM space.

I know but I don’t know

The story of my life although I’m pretty sure I know that I don’t know.  But do you need to be in this perpetual state of barely self-aware ignorance when it comes to Essbase and spreadsheets?  No.  And how do you solve that?  Attend Kscope17 (natch) and the Dodeca sessions starting with this Sunday’s (just two short days from now) symposium.

Will anything happen?

You will learn how and why Dodeca customers love Dodeca.  

You will learn how you can Make Essbase Great Again.

Geek of Glass

In case it isn’t obvious I am a huge fan of Dodeca (I even wrote a book chapter about it).  Also, if you clicked on the links in this post you’ll have noticed that I am also quite a Blondie fan although even I can’t stretch a connection between the two.

Join me, the Applied OLAP team, and most of all Dodeca’s satisfied customers this Sunday, won’t you?

Be seeing you.

15 June 2017

Kscope17: The (mostly) good, the (not hardly) bad, and the ugly (have you seen geeks party?)

That’s taken care of that

The title of this post has managed to:  intrigue, titillate, and insult all of you, Gentle Readers, at the same time.  Unpossible!  And yet.  I do my best.

But beyond alienating my ever-diminishing group of followers, the purpose of this post is to suggest a few sessions that I – and you – Really Ought to See at Kscope.

ROtSaK?  Rucksack?  Nope, Really Ought to See at Kscope

Usually I painstakingly break this out by day and by track and by technology and some other obsessive selection criteria that drive you – and me – completely round the bend.  Nope, not gonna do that this time, mostly because I am – as has been pointed out to me with some force – lazy.  

I don’t want to disappoint my ardent detractorsfans so this is going to be my quick and dirty view by day.  

In reading this you will note that there are conflicting sessions.  This isn’t because I have finally been successful in cloning myself – Could the world take more than one Cameron?  I certainly couldn’t. – but because I am as always torn when it comes to choosing sessions.  I want to go here but I also want to go over there and at the same time I need to be there.  :(  Where I’ll end up won’t be determined until I actually am facing the decision.  See, I am both indecisive and lazy.

You can look all of this up at Kscope17.com.

Read the below to see what’s going to be covered but the big things I’m interested in are product direction related although there is a good smattering of technique sessions as well.  And yes, this is a copy-and-paste from the conference website but:  I am lazy and the presenters, including Yr. Obt. & Fthl. Svt., spent an awful lot of time writing these abstracts during the submission process.  How could I do a better job?  Exactly.

Sunday

There isn’t as far as I can tell any official agenda for the Sunday symposium but it is definitely not something to miss.  You can read about the reaction to the announcement about the rebirth (delayed execution?) of what exactly is on-premises EPM 11.2 here.

From that Network54 thread, here’s Sunday’s schedule:
8:45 AM Keynote: Matt Bradley, Sr. VP of Business Analytics Product Development
9:30 AM On-Premise Update
11:00 AM Bridge to Cloud (Hybrid)
12:00 PM Lunch Cibolo Canyon 5/6/7
1:00 PM EPM Cloud
2:30 PM Special Preview from the Data Relationship Management Team
3:10 PM EPM Cloud (Continued)
4:30 PM BI Cloud Services for EPM

What will these product direction announcements, particularly the on-premises direction, result in?  Will there be a giant love-in?  An enormous sigh of disappointment?  A riot?  The only way to find out is to be there.  I will be.

Monday

I've Got an MDX Script for That
Gary Crisci , General Electric
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 2 , 11:45 am - 12:45 pm
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: MDX
With the release of Essbase 11.1.2.4.010, it is now possible to get clean MDX output from a MaxL script. This opens many doors and possibilities for developers and power users, and makes knowing how to write a solid MDX script - a must-have skill for Essbase professionals.

In this session, EPM Principal Technologist and Oracle ACE, Gary Crisci, will discuss the fundamentals of writing MDX scripts. He will introduce the new delimited output options and discuss different ways to leverage this new feature. Gary will show attendees how they can use their MDX scripts to create advanced reports for users and how to format data for ingestion to other systems. Gary will also discuss how to use the Query & Load (Q&L) method to leverage MDX scripts as an alternative to ASO calc scripts. Don’t miss this informative session from a noted MDX expert.

Shootout at the Public Cloud Corral: Oracle vs. Amazon vs. Google vs. Microsoft
John Booth , METAVERO
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 3 , 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Room: Cibolo Canyon 2/3/4
Topic: EPM Infrastructure - Subtopic: Cloud and Hybrid Infrastructure
How do these Infrastructure as a Service offerings stack up in terms of features, price, and performance? We will set up an all-in-one Hyperion environment including Planning and HFM on four major public cloud providers and discuss ease of use, management, and how a Hybrid cloud environment integrates with your on-premise systems.

Extreme Calc Manager
Ludovic De Paz , TopDown Consulting
Co-presenter(s): Ron Moore, TopDown Consulting
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 3 , 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Room: Grand Oaks A/B
Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Planning Optimization
Calc Manager is at the center of Oracle’s EPM suite. It’s the place to develop logic for Essbase, HFM, and Planning on-premise or in the cloud. It’s chock full of advanced features, and it’s quite a task to master all of them. That’s where we come in. Join Ludovic De Paz, TopDown Consulting senior manager, and Ron Moore, TopDown Consulting solutions architect, for a deep dive into some of the more advanced features of Calc Manager.

We will focus on features that save time and/or allow developers to do things they otherwise couldn’t do and explore:
• how to take advantage of Calc Manager’s modular nature to develop rules and rule sets quickly and benefit from reusability
• all types of variables and some advanced variable tricks
• how to troubleshoot using the debugger, error messages, and logs (especially with the cloud)
• how to use custom-defined templates to adapt your rules to different outlines and applications
• how to use custom-defined functions

This session promises to satisfy the most geeky of you, and with several real-life stories and demos you will be able to take your business rules to the next level.

What's New and Coming in Planning
Prasad Kulkarni , Oracle Corporation
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 3 , 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Room: Grand Oaks I
Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Other Planning
In this session you will hear Oracle's strategy for on-premise offering in the Planning domain.

Mother/King/Queen of All CDFs Has Arrived
Celvin Kattookaran , Intekgrate
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 3 , 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Room: Grand Oaks G
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase Calculation
The mother, the king, or the queen of all CDFs has arrived. This session talks about the latest CDF offering from Calc Manager, which can be used to write CDFs from calculation scripts itself. What if you want to execute a SQL procedure from calc script? What if you want to run a select statement?

All that and beyond is now possible with @CalcMgrGroovyString and @CalcMgrGroovyNumber functions. This session will include sample codes for all the topics covered above.

Programming (Flexible) Automation to Use Processing Cubes (and Other Automation Tricks)
William Bradstreet , ARC EPM
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 4 , 3:15 pm - 4:15 pm
Room: Grand Oaks I
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Other Essbase
Essbase must be automated, but most Essbase automation consists of a MaxL script within a .cmd/.sh file. But that’s crude, inconsistent, and a maintenance nightmare. A better approach is a parameter-driven automation framework that dynamically spawns batch streams, applies the same processes consistently, and – because the actual code base is small – centralizes maintenance. As a bonus, this ease of development streamlines the migration from development to quality to production. Join Bill Bradstreet as he describes, demonstrates, and dives into a programming methodology and the code behind it to show how you can bring the power and flexibility of this approach to your system today.

EssCS: The New Old Essbase
Glenn Schwartzberg , interRel Consulting
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 4 , 3:15 pm - 4:15 pm
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase-related technologies
Remember when Essbase could be installed from a floppy disk? You could get a cube up and running in a couple of days. Well, those days are back with the new Essbase Cloud Service (EssCS). Essbase in the cloud takes us back to simpler times where you can build an Essbase database with a simple Excel spreadsheet template. All you need is Excel and Essbase on the Cloud. Join us for the session where we will walk you through Essbase Cloud Service and how to build Essbase applications in the 21st century. Don't miss this chance to get to know (reacquainted with) the new-old Essbase.

Essbase Dashboard Smackdown!
John Booth , METAVERO
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 5 , 4:45 pm - 5:45 pm
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase-related technologies
Confused about which solution to pursue for Essbase visualization? We compare Web Analysis vs. Tableau vs. Oracle

Don't Worry, You Can Still Get Geeky with Planning Cloud
Joe Aultman , interRel Consulting
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 5 , 4:45 pm - 5:45 pm
Room: Grand Oaks I
Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Cloud Technologies - PBCS & EPBCS focused
As with all of their cloud products, Oracle wants EPBCS to be friendly to users and administrators in the business community, reducing the level of technical expertise required to implement and maintain the application. Techies everywhere are left to wonder what role is left for them. This session provides the answer. From new techniques for creating custom functions to tweaking the user interface to automating processes and data flows, you'll see there is still plenty for the geeky among us to do.

Elevating Your Workforce Planning Solution to the Cloud
Nicholas Blazosky , TopDown Consulting
Co-presenter(s): Ludovic Isaac De Paz, TopDown Consulting
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 5 , 4:45 pm - 5:45 pm
Room: Grand Oaks A/B
Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Cloud Technologies - PBCS & EPBCS focused
Thinking about elevating your organization’s workforce planning solution? Want to see a detailed demo of the capabilities of the latest version of Oracle Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS) SWP (Strategic Workforce Planning) and Workforce Planning modules? What has changed since the days of deployment in on-premise, and how can you be leveraging the enhanced functionality for your organization? Learn the differences between an on-premise deployment and strategies for getting you to the cloud in no time. The demo will have a unique San Antonio twist to get you in the spirit of being in the heart of South Texas. Join seasoned WFP architects and Kscope speakers Ludovic De Paz and San Antonio native Nicholas Blazosky for this informative deep dive into the newly enhanced world of Workforce. 

Tuesday

Essbase Development Team Panel
Tim German , Qubix
Co-presenter(s): Kumar Ramaiyer, Oracle Corporation
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Session 6 , 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Room: Grand Oaks I
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Other Essbase
Come put your questions to members of the team who build Essbase and Essbase Cloud Service. This panel discussion is co-presented by Kumar Ramaiyer and Mike Larimer, both of Oracle Corporation.

Essbase Cloud Service: Architectural Evolution
Kumar Ramaiyer , Oracle Corporation
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Session 7 , 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase Design
Essbase Cloud Service:  How did it come about?  What are its architectural foundations?  Why does that matter?

To think that EssCS is an evolution of the Essbase we've known and loved since 1992 is to vastly underestimate its power and importance. Moving to the cloud was an opportunity to completely remake Essbase from the ground up -- design, functionality, management, and hardware have all changed and for the better. Understanding the conceptual, architectural, and technical forces that drove this fundamental shift will enable you to extract the true value of this transformation in your current and new applications. 

Join Kumar Ramaiyer, vice president of development at Oracle, as he explains how the confluence of development innovations and Essbase resulted in a database unlike any you've seen before.

Introduction to Essbase
Martin Neuliep , General Electric
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Session 8 , 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Room: Grand Oaks I
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Other Essbase
In this session you will get an overview of why and how we use Essbase. You will learn about the business problems the product solves and how, what’s involved in implementing an Essbase solution, and how it fits into a typical enterprise architecture.

Essbase Cloud is Here. Now What?
Cameron Lackpour , ARC EPM
Co-presenter(s): Tim German, Qubix
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Session 9, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Other Essbase
Essbase Cloud is finally among us. But what does that really mean? How does it fit into our existing EPM environments? What does Essbase Cloud actually do that’s better than before? What paths are not taken? In short, does Essbase Cloud live up to its promise? Join Tim German and Cameron Lackpour as they explore and explain Essbase Cloud’s’: architecture, functionality, use cases, cost, and performance. This comprehensive review of the essence of Essbase in the cloud gives you the answers and direction you need to go forward with Essbase now and in the future.

Oracle Analytics Cloud - Essbase New Capabilities
Kumar Ramaiyer , Oracle Corporation
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Session 10 , 4:45 pm - 5:45 pm
Room: Grand Oaks I
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase-related technologies
Learn about new and upcoming Essbase capabilities with Oracle Analytics Cloud. Explore the new ways to create and manage Essbase applications, new scripting options, and more.

Cloudy with a Chance of PBCS: Tips and Tricks for Migrating On-Premise Oracle Hyperion Planning to Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS)
Chuck Persky , Performance Architects
When: Jun 26, 2017, Monday Session 1 , 10:30 am - 11:30 am
Room: Grand Oaks I
Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Cloud Technologies - PBCS & EPBCS focused
Many organizations have made the switch from an on-premise Oracle Hyperion Planning solution to Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS). This move allows them to take advantage of the benefits that exist in an Oracle SaaS model and some of the newer features available in PBCS. However, many other organizations, while very interested, are hesitant to make this leap, in fear of the unknown and the potential process involved in migrating to this model. In this session, you will learn from industry experts about a variety of considerations, tips, and methodologies utilized in planning and executing this type of change. Specifically, this session will explore the dynamics of this migration through real-life examples, including the steps for assessing the current application(s), decisions surrounding a "lift and shift" versus a "rebuild" approach, the process for executing the migration, and how to acclimate system administrators and users to a PBCS (cloud) methodology and interface. Additionally, this session will explore the facets of data integration and security; how these capabilities may be the same or different than the current on-premise model; and how to build a strategy to successfully create these capabilities in PBCS. Please join us in navigating from the ground to the cloud.

A Deep Dive into All Things Planning from On-Premise to PBCS to EPBCS
Mark Rinaldi , Oracle Corporation
When: Jun 29, 2017, Deep-Dive Session, 9:00 am - 11:00 am
Room: Cibolo Canyon 2/3/4
Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Cloud Technologies - PBCS & EPBCS focused
Join Mark Rinaldi, Shankar Viswanathan, and Prasad Kulkarni as we take a deep dive into all things Planning from on-premise to PBCS to EPBCS.
· Roadmaps
· Functionality differences between on-premise Planning, PBCS, and EPBCS
· Migration from on-premise to cloud
· Simplified user interface
· Excel-based application creation
· Q&A with Oracle regarding product strategy and roadmap

What’s New, What’s Next: Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service
Shankar Viswanathan , Oracle Corporation
Co-presenter(s): Prasad Kulkarni, Oracle Corporation
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Session 9, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Room: Grand Oaks I
Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Cloud Technologies - PBCS & EPBCS focused
Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) is one of Oracle’s broad selection of enterprise-grade cloud solutions delivered via software as a service. This session provides an overview of this solution and an update on new and planned functionality.

Dave Collins , The Hackett Group
When: Jun 27, 2017, Tuesday Session 10 , 4:45 pm - 5:45 pm
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Other Essbase
Visualization provides a means by which you can gain insight into your data. For some, visualization can be a report that appears in their e-mail inbox or on a web page. For others, it could be a grid of numbers with a chart in Excel. The key is to provide the correct, most efficient approach to users. It is far easier to spot trends, patterns, anomalies, etc., when you can examine the data, in its entirety in a single view. If the data set is so large that you find yourself scrolling up and down and side to side, your analysis will suffer. To meet the challenge posed by larger data sets, software vendors have created new ways to query data that promote better visualization. In this session, we will introduce you to Tableau, formerly available in Smart View as Hyperion Visual Explorer, as visualization option against Essbase.

Wednesday

Eliminating the Eliminations Problem in Essbase
Martin Neuliep , General Electric
When: Jun 28, 2017, Wednesday Session 11, 8:30 am - 9:30 am
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase Calculation
For as long as there has been Essbase, people building financial applications have wanted to perform intercompany elimination calculations. Unlike HFM, Essbase up to now has not had this capability built in. So what to do, especially if eliminations are a key part of your reporting or planning requirements? Various approaches have been taken over the years and interestingly, there may be no one ideal solution even today.
This session will compare four techniques for calculating eliminations: three purely within Essbase and a fourth using an adjunct relational database. We’ll examine each according to these criteria, so you can choose an approach best suited to your needs:
- Ease of implementation
- Amount of ongoing maintenance required
- Flexibility
- Performance

Understanding EPM Cloud Infrastructure: What's New?
Bill Fox , Oracle Corporation
When: Jun 28, 2017, Wednesday Session 12 , 9:45 am - 10:45 am
Room: Grand Oaks E/F
Topic: EPM Infrastructure - Subtopic: Cloud and Hybrid Infrastructure
New to EPM Cloud and want to know the ins and outs of managing your service? Then this is the session for you. Topics include service provisioning, backup and restore, security and user management, and service maintenance. This is the one-stop destination to orient you with everything you need to know about the operational aspects of working with EPM Cloud.

Advanced Calculation Techniques: Going Beyond the Calc Dim
When: Jun 28, 2017, Wednesday Session 12 , 9:45 am - 10:45 am
Room: Grand Oaks H
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase Calculation
Join us as we take a deep dive into some of the ways the Essbase calculation engine can be used to solve complex business problems, all derived from real-life examples learned from the school of hard knocks. Techniques include combining spreadsheets and calc scripts to compute variances for hundreds of member combinations, designing recursive calculations to analyze a product’s components, and building a structure that allows user input to any level of a hierarchy. We’ll review the different methods of writing allocations, ways to optimize your parallel calculations, and block creation techniques and calculation features you are told “never to use” but might want to use anyway. This presentation is intended for intermediate Essbase developers, but all are welcome.

Extreme Essbase Calculations: New Frontiers in What-If, Goal-Seeking, and Sensitivity Analysis
Ron Moore , TopDown Consulting
Co-presenter(s): Ludovic Isaac De Paz, TopDown Consulting
When: Jun 28, 2017, Wednesday Session 14 , 1:45 pm - 2:45 pm
Room: Grand Oaks G
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase Calculation
Doing what-if isn’t new. As long as I can remember everyone talked about it and the goal-seeking functionality using LOOP has been around for decades. But do most of our calculations use causal drivers or are they “type it in and agg it up” type databases? And how much "what-if-ing" can you really do if the database takes an hour to aggregate?

Today more and more companies are using driver-based designs and recent improvements such as hybrid aggregation, new calculation functions, and bigger hardware mean that there are new possibilities. Profit opportunities don’t usually follow simple linear patterns. Well-designed driver-based models capture complex patterns and help identify risks and opportunities that would otherwise be missed. Goal-seeking can significantly reduce the time it takes to set and distribute targets. Sensitivity analysis can help set priorities by identifying the most important drivers. It can also help compare a range of options to identify sweet spots.

First we will examine the business logic behind some useful what-if calculations that help uncover financial dynamics that make a difference in business results. Then we will examine the outline and business rule considerations and options. Then we will dig into the code.
We will show examples of outlines and business rule code for:
• Pushing down top-side budget adjustments
• Driver based what-if calculations
• Goal-seeking for target setting
• Prioritization and range comparison with sensitivity analysis

Last we will show some examples of using these techniques in real-world applications.

Break the Shackles of Planning with Hybrid Essbase
Peter Nitschke , Mpower Solutions
Co-presenter(s): Cameron Lackpour, ARC EPM
When: Jun 28, 2017, Wednesday Session 15 , 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Room: Grand Oaks G
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase Design
Planning is Essbase, Essbase is Planning. This powerhouse multi-dimension database enables Planning but then shackles it with BSO’s long aggregation time and ASO’s poor procedural calculations. Hybrid Essbase breaks these architectural constraints by combining the calculation power of BSO with the aggregation performance of ASO and as a result fundamentally transforms how we design Planning applications.

Join Peter Nitschke and Cameron Lackpour as they demonstrate the value of Hybrid Essbase through its impact on real-world Planning design. You’ll see multiple plan type applications collapsed into one, plan types literally small enough to fit on a USB stick, real-world performance benefits, and calculation techniques that take best advantage of Hybrid while working around its current limitations. The best use case of Hybrid Essbase is Planning and if you’re a Planning practitioner you should be using Hybrid Essbase. To do that, you need to attend this session and bring our real-world Hybrid Essbase experience to your application today.

How to Get the Most Out of Essbase in the Cloud
John Maloney , TopDown Consulting
Co-presenter(s): Paul B Hoch, TopDown Consulting
When: Jun 28, 2017, Wednesday Session 16 , 4:15 pm - 5:15 pm
Room: Grand Oaks G
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase-related technologies
Essbase in the Cloud has been eagerly anticipated and now that it is finally here we will explore how Essbase in the Cloud can replace, enhance or serve the same role as your current on-premise Essbase environment. This session is a thorough look at Essbase in the Cloud, including a look at the differences between on-premise Essbase and the Cloud offering, what you’re getting and what you’re giving up, best practices for working with Essbase in the Cloud, particularly if you are running a Hybrid EPM Solution, plus tips and tricks for how to make the most of Essbase in the Cloud. This session will also include a review of features like calculations, currency conversions, sandboxes, and other key things you need to know to get started. It will also include real-world examples. You will leave with a solid understanding on how to work with Essbase in the Cloud so that you can start taking advantage of all it has to offer.

Cloud2Cloud – IoT and EPM: Connecting GE’s Predix Industrial Internet Cloud Platform to Oracle’s Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS)
Gary Crisci , General Electric
Co-presenter(s): Venkatesan Kailasam, GE
When: Jun 28, 2017, Wednesday Session 15 , 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Room: Grand Oaks I
Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Cloud Technologies - PBCS & EPBCS focused
The Internet of Things (IoT), also known as the Industrial Internet, is changing the way industries work. By combining machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, industrial big data analytics, technology, cybersecurity, and automation, it’s driving new levels of efficiency and productivity.

What if you could predict events before they happened? By connecting machines, gaining operational visibility, and leveraging analytics, you can drive operations to their fullest potential and predict what will happen before it occurs.

GE’s Predix platform is a cloud-based solution that can capture industrial data. Now that you have this valuable information, how do you get it in the hands of the people who need it and in a tool that allows them to use the information to make better decisions?

In this presentation, Gary Crisci, principal data and information architect, Shyam Nath, partner account director, and Venkat Kailasam, senior data and information architect, will walk you through the Internet of things (IoT). We will illustrate how we capture industrial data from sensors using GE’s Asset Performance Management SaaS cloud solution to determine leading indicators of when large maintenance events are likely to be due and what the nature of the maintenance required will be. Lastly, we will demonstrate how to transfer the data into an Oracle PBCS cloud application for planning and budgeting purposes.

Come learn about the next great frontier in information technology and how we are leveraging EPM and IoT to drive better business decisions. 

Thursday

The last day of the conference is the day when most of us take a deep breath (or sleep in and miss the entire day after the debauchery of the Wednesday night Special Event).

For those of us (un)lucky enough to be part of the Thursday deep dives – two hours of somewhat excruciatingly-yet-wonderfully detailed examination into what makes Oracle EPM tick – we know that the end of the conference is in many ways the best.  Attendees have had a chance to listen to sessions, talk to their peers, party (cf. that comment at the beginning about geeks socializing however awkwardly), and finally synthesize the whole shebang in these capstone sessions.  

Tim German, Kumar Ramaiyer, and I are running the Essbase deep dive.  We’re going to do this a little differently this year.  We will not be sitting on the dais trying to pontificate (well, Kumar and Tim actually could; I can only fake it) but instead will be working through use cases explaining as we go and then hold a Q&A session after each demo.  The idea is that you see for real how things work and then you pepper us with question after question after question and see if we can in fact answer those questions.  As noted, Kumar and Tim likely can and I will fake it.  It should be a lot of fun.

The week that was or will be

Kscope is the highlight of my professional year as I know it is for many others.  It’s exhilarating, educational, fun, and ultimately exhausting.  I love it.

Be seeing you.