KScope 15 -- the Planning sessions I want to attend

Oh dear!  Oh dear!  I shall be too late!

Late, late, late, that’s what I am.  Why?  Cos I have been busy, busy, busy with both my presentations (ugh, procrastination is its own punishment) and because Developing Essbase Applications:  Hybrid Techniques and Practices is in its final proof step.  Want to read a 464 (57 more pages than the last) page deeply technical book in a week?  I’m doing it.  I think I get to sleep sometimes, but not all that much.  

The presentations you will be able to hear and quite possibly jeer in just over a week, the book now has an Official Release Date of 15 October 2015.  You’ll have to wait on the jeering (at least at my chapter)  until that oh happy day.  I am working, still, on the presentations although happily only the last bit of polishing.  With luck the anxiety dreams about the conference will at that point end.  I can but hope.  Note to self – would you please never, ever, ever, ever, ever procrastinate again?  Please?  Stay tuned to this blog approximately 365 days from now to see if I listened to my whining.

So off to Planning, finally

I like to say that while I lurv Essbase, and practice it as much as I can, I bought my house (And my bank account, and car, funded a at-this-point theoretical retirement plan that does not involve me dumpster diving for food, as well as a seemingly-ever-expanding-and-OMG-expensive collection of hiking and camping gear.  Apple Watch?  Piffle, try Suunto.  Get lost like me?  Then you’ll want a DeLorme inReach Explorer Satellite Messenger.  I’m still working on convincing myself that I need one of those for those times I apparently lose the ability to read a compass, so long as I get a new pair of boots.  It ain’t a hobby obsession till you go broke feeding it.)  In other words, Planning has been very, very good to me and I know which side my bread is buttered.

And with my bank account’s future in mind and also because I find torturing the life out of implementing creative solutions with Planning to be pretty interesting, here are the sessions I’m going to try to attend.

Monday, 23 June 2015

Gain Hands-On Experience with Oracle's Fastest-Growing Product: Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service

Matthew Forrester , Peloton

When: Jun 23, 2015, HOT- EPM 4, 8:30 am - 10:45 am

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Other Planning

Cloud, cloud, cloud.  Did I mention cloud?  It’s the future, and if you want to have one, it behooves you to attend this session.

No more unknown members! Smart data load validation for Hyperion Planning using ODI

Ricardo Giampaoli , TeraCorp

Co-presenter(s): Rodrigo Radtke de Souza, Dell

When: Jun 22, 2015, Session 3, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Optimization

Data quality.  Do you practice it?  Handle renegade data?  Rely on that accursed dataload.err?  I have a feeling R&R aka the Crazy Brazilians (They actually aren’t in the least, it’s just that I cannot tell Rodrigo from Ricardo and vice versa, hence the moniker.  Also, I am an idiot.) are going to bring a very innovative approach to this which will remind me why I am just an ODI dilettante..

Planning Panel

Chris Rothermel , Rothermel Consulting LLC

When: Jun 22, 2015, Session 3, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Other Planning

Chris is the ODI geek brave enough to take on Oracle Product Management and win and retain the Planning KMs in 11.1.2.4 and beyond.  How could this not be interesting?

Redesigning Hyperion Planning BSO to Hyperion Planning ASO

Cindy Eichner , Finit Solutions

When: Jun 23, 2015, Session 5, 8:30 am - 9:30 am

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Emerging Technologies

Tim German and I presented fairly exhaustively on this last year and given the limitations we found (along with ASO’s power) I have to wonder what the use case for ASO is, particularly in the light of Hybrid which does just about everything ASO does.  Actually, within Planning it can be argued Hybrid is a better fit, so I am really curious what the argument for ASO Planning is at this point.

Tuesday, 24 June 2015

Voiding Your Warranty: The Planning Repository Exposed

Brian Marshall , US-Analytics

When: Jun 23, 2015, Session 7, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Optimization

I have to say I am intrigued by this as I have written a ton of queries against the Planning repositories.  That isn’t to say that I’ve exhausted that vein so I am curious to see what Brian has come up with.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Assessing Your Hyperion Planning Application

Tracy McMullen , interRel Consulting

When: Jun 23, 2015, Session 9, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Optimization

I’ve recently started doing assessments.  I wonder if Tracy looks at the same things I do.

Wednesday, 24 June 2015

What's New and Coming in Calculation Manager

Mark Rinaldi , Oracle Corporation

Co-presenter(s): Sreekumar Menon, Oracle Corporation

When: Jun 24, 2015, Session 12, 9:45 am - 10:45 am

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Other Planning

As I note in Celvin’s session, the Calc Man team are doing all kinds of really cool and innovative things.  Calc Man is definitely the future.  Dear Oracle, so long as I can continue to write code, I will be your biggest fan.

Oracle's Hyperion Planning & Strategic Finance: What's New and What's Coming

Shankar Viswanathan , Oracle Corporation

When: Jun 24, 2015, Session 12, 9:45 am - 10:45 am

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Other Planning

As noted, given that I largely making a living on Planning, I would be more-than-usually insane not to attend this. 

Cf. my point above about How Can I Use the New CDF Functions in Calc Manager?

Celvin Kattookaran , Huron Consulting Group

When: Jun 24, 2015, Session 14, 1:45 pm - 2:45 pm

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Design

Celvin, my younger but definitely smarter brother from a completely different set of parents, and I seem to be in a race to see who can identify Calc Man CDFs.  The Calc Man team are seemingly tireless in this and are expanding Planning, and btw, Essbase with all sorts of cool stuff.  And oh yes, Celvin seems to be winning the race.

What's New and Coming in Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service

Shankar Viswanathan , Oracle Corporation

Co-presenter(s): Marc Seewald, Oracle

When: Jun 24, 2015, Session 14, 1:45 pm - 2:45 pm

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Emerging Technologies

Cloud, cloud, cloud and Planning.  Now if I could just afford the monthly partner tariff….

Thursday, 25 June 2015

Thursday Deep Dive: Planning

Shankar Viswanathan , Oracle Corporation

Co-presenter(s): Prasad Kulkarni, Oracle Corporation

When: Jun 25, 2015, Deep Dive Session , 9:00 am - 11:00 am

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Other Planning

I moderated this last year and thought it was excellent.  Having said that, I note Shankar is running this himself this year, so perhaps it was not as excellent as I thought.

Planning 11.1.2.4 Hands On Tour

Rudy Zucca , 123OLAP

When: Jun 25, 2015, HOT- EPM 10, 9:00 am - 11:00 am

Topic: Planning - Subtopic: Other Planning

Rudy is a gifted instructor; his firm is my standard recommendation to clients when it comes to training.  ‘Nuff said.

That ought to be enough Planning for one conference

As I noted in my Essbase Kscope15 post, I’m not going to make most of these, no matter how I try.  This is frustrating as I want to attend every possible session.  Happily I will be able to download and watch the sessions post the conference.  Did you know that there will be limited livecasting as well?  Alas, no Planning, but at least there’s HFM on offer.

Now I’m off to finish those presentations…

Be seeing you.

Deep Dive Thursday at Kscope14

Choices, choices, choices

I already wrote about the Planning deep dive I am hosting on Thursday, 26 June 2014 at Kscope14, two weeks ago and I encourage you to keep on sending deeply embarrassing and probing (not regarding me, regarding Oracle thankyouverymuch) Tweets using the hashtag #PlanningDeepDive.   This is your chance to, metaphorically at least, put Essbase and Planning Oracle product management on the spot.  Let’s not have all the questions come out of my not terribly imaginative mind lest the next release of Planning look like this:

Yes, that is somewhat unlikely, but there are many who would applaud the return of AppMan, or at least something that behaves like it for both Essbase and Planning.  So mark that down as one of my questions to Shankar and Gabby.

But the Planning Deep Dive is not the only Deep Dive happening on the last day of the conference.  Oh no, you are to be spoilt for choice as there are nine different Deep Dives happening at the same time.  In other words, the competition is on, and the competition is fierce, but that only means that you win as there will be great content no matter what session you attend.  I only point out that the Planning session that yr. obdt. svt. is likely to be the most interesting, entertaining, and generally awesome of the bunch.  Ahem.

The heart of the matter

As I wrote, there are nine Deep Dives in total, and I will not be crushed (a bit hurt, mind, but not crushed) if your interests do not revolve around Planning and Essbase.  ODTUG is catholic in its scope, and there is quite literally something for everyone.  What do I mean?  Cast your eyes down the page and gasp in wonder.

Application Express

Scott Spendolini of Enkitec will be leading a two hour session covering APEX security including instance and application level settings, architecture reviews, and eliminating coding vulnerabilities.  This is Important Stuff.

ADF & Fusion Development

Don’t know what Application Development Framework (I think I have that right) is?  Take a look at EPM 11.1.2.3.500 on the web.  ADF all the way.  So it is an important part of the EPM architecture and really the way forward for all of Oracle’s web-based development.

Luc Bors of AMIS Services will be showing how to go far beyond the documentation (almost always a good thing and that is sort of why you come to Kscope, right?) by showing the undocumented and not taught tips and tricks that make a mobile ADF application fly.

Developer’s Toolkit & The Database

I have to preface this summary by saying most of what Cary Milsap of Method R says about the Oracle database flees far, far, far over my head.  Having said that, Cary is a fantastic speaker and he has some very interesting takes on what it means to be a good programmer.  

Let me try putting it this way – often when I attend a session at Kscope I learn new technical features, knowledge about a product, or a way to fix something that doesn’t work.  That is all great, in fact better than great, but Cary explains how to think about problems.  That’s a very different proposition and one that I find fascinating.

His session on the Oracle database is all about finding slow code, timing it, and fixing it.  I daresay he will throw in a mix of why you should think about performance and how to think about it.  Powerful stuff indeed.

Business Intelligence

Kevin McGinley of Accenture and Stewart Bryson of Rittman Mead are two physically opposite geeks who think with one mind.  And apparently that mind is fixated on Late Night With David Letterman if only Dave did BI.  

Inquiring minds want to know:  do they do Stupid BI Tricks?  Join them and find out.

Essbase

Tim German of Qubix is trying something really ambitious – a very different and in depth approach to the content a panel covers.  Normally, a panel presentation takes questions from the audience during the session and the panelists respond.  There’s not a thing wrong with that approach and there are several such panels on Essbase and Planning during Kscope14.

What Tim is doing that is exciting and different is that he is asking you, oh Kscope14 attendee, to submit questions during the week that will hopefully stump, confuse, and inspire in-depth responses from the panelists.  I think of this as a way for you to propose mini-presentations (they may be minus fancy Powerpoint slides, but the quality of response should be there) to the panelists.  With luck, they will disagree with one another, sparks will fly, and good time will be had by all.  At the very least it ought to be entertaining.

I should mention that the panelists will be:

• Tim Tow
• Mark Rittman
• Glenn Schwartzberg
• Carol Crider
• Sarah Zumbrum
• Steve Liebermensch

So yeah, some interesting people. :)

Here’s how you can submit questions to Tim:

• Via the Twitter hashtag #EssbaseDeepDive
• Directly to Tim’s Twitter account at @CubeCodeDotCom
• Via email to EssbaseDeepDive@gmail.com

Planning

As I wrote at the end of May, I am moderating the Planning Deep Dive and I think it is as unorthodox as the Essbase session.  Both the Planning and the Essbase product managers, Shankar Viswanathan and Gabby Rubin, will be on stage, ready to take your questions.  It has been one of my frustrations that Essbase and Planning have their road maps discussed separately as Planning is so reliant on Essbase for its features and Essbase is equally driven by Planning’s requirements.  The two are symbiotically joined and finally we have the ability to quiz both of them on where the products are and where they are going.  Send in your questions either via this blog or on the Twitter hashtag #PlanningDeepDive.  Apparently I am an underachiever compared to Tim as I have only two ways to contact me – Twitter and of course this blog’s comment section.  

Regardless of my laziness, I am counting on your difficult and interesting questions to make Oracle inadvertently tell us all kinds of cool things that maybe they would have withheld.  Of course Gabby and Shankar may never come back, but one can at least hope for an interesting session this Kscope.  Next year is someone else’s problem.  ;)

Financial Close

Chris Barbieri of Ranzal is continuing his “What would happen if I did…in Hyperion Financial Management” series.  Will he:  split the atom, discover a cure for the common cold, or merely come up with something super cool in HFM?

My guess is on the last as from the description I see both hacks of HFM (what fun is it if the tool isn’t twisted into a pretzel?) and how to actually test if the hack works (Test? Why do that?  Oh yeah, the destruction of the earth is a possibility.)  All of this is to help you, HFMers, to understanding how the tool works at the lowest level.  Cool stuff and I should add that Chris is a very entertaining speaker.

EPM Foundations

Those of you foolish enough to read this blog on an ongoing basis know that I am somewhat challenged when it comes to infrastructure.  That is in fact a fiction, I am an infrastructure idiot – it is simply beyond me and my skill set.  Sigh.

The guy that I call when I am absolutely and positively stuck (and the guy that I unreservedly recommend to clients) is none other than the moderator of this session – John Booth of Huron Consulting.  John is kind enough to take pity on me and once in a while I sort of, kind of, barely repay him.  So basically it’s all giving on his side and all taking on mine.  

John continues his generosity with all of you by  heading up a three man panel (John, Rob Donahue of Rolta, and Eric Helmer) giving you 90 minutes of their combined knowledge and infrastructure good practices.  That is simply amazing and if you are responsible for your implementation’s trouble-free running, this session is for you.

Reporting

Tracy McMullen of interRel is heading a mix of EPM and BI reporting experts.  If her abstract can be believed, restaurant paper napkins are one of the media.  I think that might be tounge in cheek.

In fact what Tracy has on offer is a you-ask-‘em, they-answer-them panel that interestingly covers both sides of the Business Intelligence/Enterprise Performance Management divide.  Smart View, OBIEE, and Financial Reports are to be covered, and if you ask, maybe, just maybe those paper napkins could be in play.

And there you have it

As always, Kscope suffers from too much good content all at the same time.  What a conference, what a problem to have.  

Thursday’s Deep Dives continue that tradition and I know you will all be there for what promises to be a very interesting and innovative series of events.  If I wasn’t moderating, I would be flitting from room to room, trying to get all of the geeky wisdom I could into my brain.  You might just be able to do that.

See you in Seattle.

I need your help to put Oracle EPM on the spot at Kscope14

Why help out?  

This year, Thursday at Kscope14 is going to be different than years past.   What do I mean by that?  Simply that instead of the normal fare of technical session after technical session, ODTUG is trying something different this year on the last (sob) day of the conference – deep dives into technology.  These are longer and different in focus sessions that allow you, the Kscope14 attendee, to really get to the very heart of whatever tool or track tickles your geek fancy.

What that means is that there are sessions on:

• Application Express
• ADF & Fusion Development
• Developer’s Toolkit
• Business Intelligence
• Essbase
• Financial Close
• EPM Foundations
• BI/EPM Reporting

And a panel session on Good ‘Ol Planning consisting of the Planning and Essbase product managers, hosted by none other than yr. obt. svt.

What’s it all about, Cameron?

I am so glad you asked – the Planning Deep Dive is your chance to ask direct, possibly slightly painful, and definitely interesting questions to both Gabby Rubin, Essbase product manager, and Shankar Viswanathan, Planning product manager.  

Huh, you say (you do say this, right?), what’s the Essbase product manager doing at a Planning deep dive session?  Remember, Essbase is at the heart of Planning, so asking why Planning does this or that without asking why and how Essbase does the same thing is all a bit pointless.

Gabby and Shankar graciously accepted the chance to be mercilessly grilled by you.  What I mean is that this is a panel of two (Gabby and Shankar) with me as moderator, and you get to lob questions, hopefully difficult and maybe a little painful, directly to them.  Oracle of course has the option to grin or grimace at you and then refuse to answer your question but I have found that typically Oracle are quite open.  It at least ought to be entertaining.

What I plan on asking them

As you will see, I am not exactly pulling my punches.  These are items of intense interest to me, and I suspect many in the Hyperion Planning world:

1. When will Hybrid Essbase be certified for Planning?
2. Why can’t we report on attribute dimensions via Planning data connections; this is especially puzzling in the light of ASO Planning and ASO Essbase’s superior attribute performance.
3. Why is ASO Planning not an Essbase data source?  Again, attribute dimensions work so much better in ASO than BSO – it is very puzzling.
4. Planning seems to be the engine that drives Essbase sales, yet Essbase functionality appears to be influenced by OBIEE.  Why?  How is Planning impacting Essbase’s future direction?  What about other tools?  Will Essbase retain its EPM focus or become just another component of the Oracle database?
5. ASO Planning allows (by Planning standards) huge databases, yet Planning’s administrative performance cannot keep place, e.g., extraordinarily long dimension build (and even longer delete) times, slow refreshes, and poor form execution.  How will Planning’s performance improve?  When?
6. Planning and Essbase have at least seven (EPMA, EAS, Studio, Classic Planning, Outlineload, ODI, BIFS, and I’ve likely forgot a few) ways to build dimensionality and load data.  Each method has its merits, each has its weaknesses.  Why isn’t there a single optimized metadata and data management tool?  Or at least fewer ones.
7. Documentation for the EPM schemas stopped with 11.1.2.1.  Are there any plans for releasing new schema maps or is that someone’s KScope15 session?
8. When, when, when will SQL be used to read and write Essbase data and metadata aka when do Load Rules die?
9. When will BSO Essbase perform the following using the Hybrid engine:  Attributes, Time Balance, Cross dimensional references, and add all of the Calc Script functions?
10. It appears as though many aspects of Essbase (Exalytics-only functions) and Planning (tied more and more closely to EBS and Fusion) are losing their technology-agnostic nature, historically one of the benefits of the Oracle Hyperion EPM technology stack.  Are we looking at a future in which the EPM suite only works on Oracle hardware and with Oracle back-end software?

But those are just my questions.  I don’t actually expect to get answers to all of the above (I think they alone could fill our two allotted hours but I am a firm believer in over-preparing), but you now have an insight of the EPM Mind of Cameron.  It’s not too scary, is it?

Shankar and Gabby didn’t actually agree to me as Privy Councilor for a Planning-themed Star Chamber.  The Planning Deep Dive is your opportunity to ask your questions to the very people who define the future of Planning and Essbase.  

How you will ask questions before and during the Deep Dive

I have a sneaking suspicion that you will have many, many, many questions and I want to give everyone a fair chance at them.

While I will be taking questions in the normal way during the session, i.e., you raise your hand, ask the question, I repeat it, and maybe Oracle answer it, that approach single threads the Q&A process and doesn’t necessarily let the best ones bubble to the surface.  

To try to get round that, I am asking that you send your questions now, yes right now, to the following Twitter hashtag:  #PlanningDeepDive.  Before the conference, I will monitor that tag for your oh so valuable questions.  During the Deep Dive session I (or more likely a “lucky” volunteer as I cannot walk and chew gum at the same time) will monitor the same.  I (we?  confusing isn’t it?) will see if they share common themes and guide the discussion around those lines.

And that’s it

I think this will be a lot of fun, perhaps even for two very brave (and very generous) Oracle EPM product managers.

Yes, there are lots of other cool things going on at the same time (as always, I wish there was a way to attend, oh, the Planning, Essbase, Business Intelligence, EPM Foundations, and BI/EPM Reporting Deep Dive sessions all at the same time but of course that just can’t be) but I think what the Planning track has on offer simply isn’t matched anywhere else on Thursday.  

If you don’t show up, I will of course be crushed, but then again I will have two rather hard to reach Oracle PMs at my mercy to ask, whine, and beseech about the future of the two tools that have come to define my (and very likely your) career.

This will of course be more meaningful if you do attend – you will have insights, concerns, and questions that I could never come up with.  Your participation is key to the success of this session.

In case you can’t tell, I am tremendously excited by this opportunity as I think this will be a dynamic, exciting, and educational session like no other at Kscope and one that will be driven by you, the audience member.

Join us, won’t you?