Kscope11 Lunch and Learn Session - EPM

Here is a link to the EPM Lunch and Learn session which was a panel discussion with a number of us Oracle ACE Directors.  This was one of my favorite sessions of the week though I am bias as I am on the panel.  I was so exhausted by this time of the week, I was just hoping I could put together my sentences without stumbling or degrading into gibberish.

One of my favorite sections of this session was my debate with OBIEE expert, fellow Oracle ACE Director and fellow ODTUG Board of Directors member Mark Rittman.  The debate starts somewhere around the 22:30 mark and, though Mark makes some good points about OBIEE and Essbase and OBIEE itself has some magic in flattening Essbase so data can be mixed/matched with relational data in a SQL query, I stand by my contention that Oracle doesn't get the magic that users see in Excel when they retrieve data from Essbase.

By the way, Mark and I get along quite well despite our debates over technology.

In any case, here is a link to the video:

http://www.livestream.com/odtug/video?clipId=pla_c4584e09-e206-46ef-ae33-ae47d3f9729d&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb

Kscope11 Hyperion Midnight Madness

I can't believe it has already been a couple of weeks since Kscope11; time just flies when you are having fun.  In my case, I managed to get a couple of days of summer skiing in at Mammoth Mountain before heading home to the heat of Alabama.  Since that time, I have been heads down catching up (and working hard on Dodeca 6).  I need to make a few posts to summarize some of the fun things that happened at Kscope11 and, within a few days, to post my slides/sample code from my Java API session.

First, I thought I would talk about one of the unique networking events we have at Kscope, the annual Midnight Madness networking event.  For the past couple of years, this event has featured a game show format and this year, it was Family Feud.   Fellow Oracle ACE Director Glenn Schwartzberg acted as the master of ceremonies and played brilliantly the Richard Dawson game show host character.  The funniest thing happened on one of the questions where Glenn totally lost it and literally couldn't get the words out because he was laughing so hard..

Another very funny thing happened during Family Feud.   The survey question was "Name an Oracle ACE or Oracle ACE Director in the EPM/BI Space".  Yes, I know, boring, right?  Guess who was the top answer?  Book author/Kscope Conference Chairman Edward Roske?  Nope.  He finished second to yours truly..  By the way, the screenshot below was sent to me by Edward..

So, in summary, my career is now officially a trivia answer!

Strange ASO Update Behavior

We recently had a customer report an issue when writing back to an ASO database through Dodeca.  The issue involved writing back #Missing to cells that previously had a value.  Whenever the data was retrieved, the cell did not have a missing value, but rather the cell returned 0.   They also reported that updating the same cells using the classic Excel add-in behaved exactly the same way.   As it misbehaved in the classic add-in as well, we recommended to the customer that they file a service request with Oracle.

Today we heard the result from Oracle Tech Support:

“This is the expected behavior when you load #Missing cells through Excel Add-In or SmartView into an ASO application. The load operations through Excel Add-In loads data into an incremental slice using override mode. In this mode when you load #Missing values into cells that already have a non-missing value, they will be replaced with 0 values.“

Not many companies are writing back to ASO at this time and I wasn't yet aware of this behavior, but now we now another one of the limitations of ASO writeback.

ODTUG Hyperion SIG Nominations Close Today

If you are interested in building the Hyperion user community, the ODTUG Hyperion Special Interest Group is a great place to start.  The Hyperion SIG Board did some great work over the past year to create the great KScope conference last week in Long Beach and will, I am sure, work hard to create an even better conference next June in San Antonio, TX.  Nominations are open through tomorrow (sorry for the late notice).  This is the info posted on Network 54 about a month ago:

The ODTUG Hyperion SIG is currently seeking nominations for its board. There are three (3) open seats. 1 of these seats can be filled by a vendor/partner.

The board’s responsibilities are:

• Enable communication with Oracle Corp on direction and strategy
• Share information and experiences among Oracle Hyperion developers and database administrators
• Facilitate training and education among the Oracle Hyperion developers and database administrators (DBAs)
• Provide representation for the Hyperion SIG at Kaleidoscope and Oracle Open World
• Develop the Hyperion tracks at Kaleidoscope
• Maintain Hyperion SIG’s web page on ODTUG.com with relevant and informative content to the development community

Board member requirements include: current paid member of ODTUG; regular participation in board conference calls; coordinating/contributing to meetings and conferences including ODTUG Kaleidoscope and Oracle Open World.

As a board member, one needs to support and promote the Hyperion SIG goals by taking an enthusiastic role in the activities that help continually provide value to the technical community. Giving a presentation at ODTUG’s annual conferences, assisting with membership and awareness campaigns, mentoring new members and encouraging other developers/DBAs to participate in the Hyperion SIG are just a few ways that board members can display leadership and contribute to the SIG's growth and success.

If you would like to help shape the future direction of the Hyperion SIG by joining the board, please submit the following information to doug_burke@paramount.com:


Name
Company
Title
Address
Email
Phone Number
Head Shot (Photo)
Four to five sentence bio


Please be aware of the following rules/guidelines:

• Candidates must be a current paid member of the Oracle Development Tools Users Group (ODTUG).
• Elections are for individual volunteers, not the companies that employ them. The person elected will be a board member. It is recommended that individuals seek approval to run before submission as a candidate.
• Board will consist of nine members with no more than 50% from employees of Oracle Vendors (50% vendor rule).
• A board member’s term will last three years. At the end of their term, former members may choose to run for re-election after one year.
• On any given year, there will be 3 open positions on the board.
• If positions become open on the board during the year, board members may appoint members at their discretion as long as it does not violate the 50% vendor rule.
• Nominations will be open now until July 8th.
• Voting will be from July 11-25th on the ODTUG website.
• Results will be published July 29th.

Volunteer and get involved!

Essbase Java API - Group Names When Using Shared Services

One of our Dodeca customers had a question about support for Essbase group names when using Shared Services security.  We did a bit of testing and found some interesting results to share.

One of the configuration settings in Dodeca allows Dodeca administrators to limit the sets of views/reports a user can see based on their assigned roles.   The roles can be sourced from a number of places including the Essbase group names.  That being said, with the advent of Shared Services, there is some confusion with the availability, to the Essbase Java API, of certain pieces of security information.  Dodeca uses the following Essbase Java API code to get the group names:

// get the olap user object
IEssOlapUser user = olapServer.getOlapUser(username);


// get the groups for the user
IEssIterator groups = user.getGroups();


// loop the groups
for (int i = 0; i < groups.getCount(); i++) {
  // get the group
  IEssOlapGroup group = (IEssOlapGroup)groups.getAt(i);


  // serialization code removed...
}

In testing this code in 11.1.2, we found that the group names are returned, but also have an '@' sign and the directory appended as well.  Of course, Dodeca communicates via web services, so the XML stream we saw coming out of Dodeca looked like this:

So, the information is available to the Essbase Java API with the caveat that the group name is postpended with the directory (which makes sense).

Dodeca KScope Session - Extending Analytics Beyond Essbase at Wells Fargo with Dodeca

If you are at KScope, make sure you attend our 'vendor session' Tuesday at 9:45 am in Room 101A.  Wells Fargo has a large investment in Essbase and other Oracle technologies with a 14,000+ user community. Attend this session and learn how Wells Fargo turned financial data into integrated business processes using Dodeca.


The presenter, Jeff Barnes, is manager of the Essbase Development Group at Wells Fargo.  Jeff and his team utilize a wide array of Oracle/Hyperion tools including, DRM, Essbase, and Financial Reporting as well as Applied OLAP’s Dodeca to meet the accounting and management reporting needs of the bank.

KScope Super Ambassadors

If you are attending KScope and want an easy way to volunteer, sign up to be a Super Ambassador.  Here is what a Super Ambassador does:

• Commit to being present in the same presentation room for a half day (either morning or afternoon). You can pick the room where the sessions you were already planning on attending will be held. 



Ambassador Shirt

• Assist the speaker, if needed, remind the participants to fill out session evaluations, and complete the session information form for each session.
• Report any problems/concerns to the conference staff.
• Ask the presenter if the slides he/she is using are the same as what is loaded on the Web site. If not, copy them on to the Super Ambassador flash drive. If the presenter has not loaded the slides, copy them on to the flash drive and tell him/her that we will load the slides.

Login to the Attendee Portal to sign up as a Super Ambassador.  As a reward for your hard work, you will receive a special T-shirt denoting your VIP status, will be invited to volunteer parties and receptions, and will have VIP access at the Grand Event on the Queen Mary.

 

If you are not registered for KScope, not only will you not be able to volunteer as a Super Ambassador, but you will also miss out on the most intensive Hyperion/Essbase technical gathering of the year.  You can still sign up at http://www.kscope11.com/.