Oracle Excellence Awards 2013 - Nominations Open

One of my friends at Oracle asked me to help get the word out about the Oracle Excellence Awards for Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation. These awards recognize customers for their cutting-edge solutions using Oracle Fusion Middleware and are featured in Oracle publications, videos and case studies. If you think you have a cutting-edge solution and would like to compete for a free pass to Oracle OpenWorld 2013, this is your chance to shine! Here is a more information on how to enter.

The deadline for your nomination is Tuesday, June 18th, 2013. Good luck and, if you win, let me know so I can see your application at Open World!

Dodeca Dashboard Screenshot

One of our customers recently sent us a screenshot of a dashboard they developed in Dodeca. This application, which is deployed to over 1,000 Essbase users worldwide, allows users to easily analyze over 250,000 SKU-level products by customer and by business unit. The application, which was implemented to replace a failed attempt at forecasting within SAP, uses Essbase and went live in less than 20% of the time that was put into the SAP system.

We think it looks great.  How about you?

Happy Birthday Applied OLAP

Last Monday, we reached a milestone at Applied OLAP as it was the 15th anniversary of our incorporation.  I founded Applied OLAP on March 18, 1998, because I was not satisfied with the status quo of Essbase reporting at the time which was, of course, the classic Excel add-in.  And, despite the fact that I was one of the original five Microsoft Excel MVP's in the world, I was frustrated by inherent limitations in the add-in which meant limitations to what users could do with the spreadsheet.   So, being the totally unreasonable* person that I am, I quit my job in order to start a company focused on making it easier for users to leverage Essbase.  Flash forward 15 years and now we have Dodeca!

*One of my favorite quotes is from the playwright, George Bernard Shaw:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." 

Am I unreasonable?  Why yes.  Yes I am!

We Don't Make Essbase, We Make Essbase Better!

We have always claimed that Essbase was better with Dodeca, but until now we had only anecdotal evidence about how our customers get more return on their Essbase investment using Dodeca.  Now we have something a bit more concrete.  Recently, the annual BI Survey, which bills itself as the “world's largest vendor-independent survey of Business Intelligence and Performance Management users”, published the results of their annual survey, The BI Survey 12.  As in past years, we asked our customers to participate in the survey and, as a result, we earned a mention in the survey.  More importantly, we are thrilled by how we were mentioned.

One particular question in the survey asks customers how well they achieved their goals with their selected product.  In the past, Essbase has not scored well on this metric but, this year, for the first time ever, Essbase attained the highest score in goal achievement among all the products in the BI Survey.

• Better than Microsoft Analysis Services?  Yes!  
• Better than SAP BW?  Yes!  
• Better than Cognos?  Yes!   
• Better than Microstrategy?  Yes!  
• Better than TM1 / Tableau / QlikTech???   Yes! Yes! Yes!   
• Even better than OBIEE?   Yep!  

The analysis provided in the survey provides clues as to why the Goal Achievement Index for Essbase was the highest of all 25 products reviewed:

"This year for the first time we have a BI Giant with the highest goal achievement level. Oracle Essbase which has had quite low goal achievement scores in previous years, performs very well this year.  The sample includes more answers this year from companies that use Essbase in conjunction with front-end tools like Dodeca. These seem to increase the ratings for Essbase compared to ratings from users that only use the Excel Add-in."

That’s right.  Dodeca appears to be the reason that more customers achieve their goals with Essbase than with any other product.  If you are still using one of the Excel add-ins as your interface to Essbase, what are you missing?  Contact us today to learn more about how you can make Essbase better at your company using Dodeca and don't forget to ask about our no-cost evaluation program!

We have just released some exciting innovations in our most recent release.  Click here to read about the newest innovations inside the Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System.

ODTUG/EPM Coming to Australia!

I can’t believe it has been nearly a year and a half since I visited Sydney and spoke at the ODTUG EPM Seriously Practical Conference.    It seems just like yesterday and I can’t wait to get back to the Land of Oz, but I am not making the trip this time.  However, my good friend Cameron Lackpour is going to make the trip and is working on some great presentations for the ODTUG EPM Seriously Practical Conference coming up March 21 and 22 in Melbourne, Victoria. New Queensland (Note to self: Remember to google things like this before you post your blog).  Cameron brings some great experience to share at this conference and, in fact, when I have an Essbase or Planning question, who do I call? I call Cameron.

Cameron will be stopping by New Zealand on his way to the Australia and speaking March 18 and 19 at the NZOUG Conference in Wellington.  If you are in either Australia or New Zealand, make sure to catch Cameron on this trip.

As a side note, I really wish I could be in Wellington for a couple of reasons.  First, the NZOUG Conference was really fun when I was there last year.  The other reason is more personal in that my wife’s grandfather spent significant time near Wellington, in Paekakariki, during World War 2.  Many Marines were there on the ground staging and training for the major beach invasions of the islands of the South Pacific.  He stormed the beach in four of the bloodiest battles of the war including Tawara where his unit lost nearly 90% of their men on the first day.  He remembers every detail to this day.  Many local New Zealand communities have organizations called the RSA (Returned Services Association) that operate to, among other things, welcome military personnel back to New Zealand.  I hope to visit the RSA in Paekakariki sometime in the future.

Announcing Kscope13 Platinum Sponsor – Applied OLAP and Dodeca!

We are happy to announce that Applied OLAP and our flagship product, The Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System, have signed up as a Platinum Sponsor for the Kscope13 conference in New Orleans.  We believe that the conference, which runs from June 25 to June 28, is not only the best forum for Hyperion related content, but it is also the best place for Hyperion related vendors to show their products.

There are several events at Kscope13 that you should not miss.  The first event is the annual ODTUG Community Service Day on Saturday, June 24.  This year, ODTUG volunteers will be working to improve a school with a new coat of paint, landscaping and playground improvements.  The community service project is also a good time to meet others who share your interests.  I have made a number of new friends at these projects over the years.

The next can’t miss event is the Sunday Symposium.  The Symposiums are one of the only times during the year that you can get direct contact with the Oracle development team.   One of the cool things about the symposium is that Oracle not only talks about the new things they are working on over the next year, but they also spend a lot of time listening to the wishes of customers.

Last week, ODTUG announced the identity of the keynote speaker and, frankly, there have been many conferences where the keynote just didn’t interest me.  This conference will be different.  The story of the Kscope13 keynote speaker, Doc Hendley, is amazing and inspirational.  Doc is the founder of Wine To Water, an organization who is working to bring sustainable, clean fresh water to parts of the world that desperately need water.  I watched his TEDx Asheville presentation on YouTube and all I can say is this..  WOW!.  I can’t wait to meet Doc in New Orleans.

Finally, last time Kscope was in New Orleans, there was a Wednesday night Hyperion social event that wound its way down Bourbon Street.  There were about 22 of us that made that journey; this year I expect that number to be in the hundreds (and that is *after* the traditional Wednesday night Kscope “special event”, the just announced party at Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World.

As a vendor, I hope you get to spend time in the vendor hall and visit all of the vendors to learn about their products and services.  As a self-funded user group, ODTUG relies on these vendors help provide the funding to put on a great conference plus you may find some tools to help you in your job.  If your company uses spreadsheets, I would be especially happy to tell you about the benefits our customers realize using The Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System.
 
As a Platinum Sponsor, we can also help you save money on your Kscope13 registration.  Use the special code AOLAP when you register for Kscope13 and save $100 on your registration.  You can learn more about Kscope13 and register for the conference at www.kscope13.com.

See you there!

The Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System, Version 6.3, Has Been Released!

We have been very busy at work on a new version of Dodeca and were working so hard, in fact, that we missed our marketing opportunity of the century.  Of course, I am talking about December 12th or “12/12/12” which is also known as, of course, “Dodeca Day”.  Oh well, we have 99 years, 11 months to plan for the next one!

Not all is lost, however, because after months of hard work, we have released the Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System, version 6.3.0.3696.  The new version of Dodeca is very exciting as we have worked very hard to make it easier and faster to create and publish dynamic spreadsheet content.  This new capability is provided by the new Dodeca View Wizard and the new View Designer.  First, let’s take a look at the View Wizard.

The View Wizard is used to create or modify a Dodeca View which is the Dodeca version of a report or input form.  In all previous versions of Dodeca, the system administrators used a three step process to create and deploy a view:

1. Create a report template in Excel and import it into Dodeca using the Binary Artifacts Metadata Editor form.
2. Create a View object to link together the Excel template with Essbase and/or SQL Connection objects, and set Essbase properties and other settings.  These settings were set in the View Metadata Editor form.
3. Deploy the new View on a View Hierarchy object in the View Hierarchy Metadata Editor form.

When we originally had the vision for the View Wizard, our intent was that it would help developers who wanted to learn Dodeca as they wouldn’t have to learn these three separate forms just to publish a simple report.  We also thought that, once someone learned the ins and outs of the product, they would return to using the metadata editor forms.  What we have found, however, is that the View Wizard makes it so much easier that, even for me, *I* haven’t created a new view using the old ‘3-step process’ since I first had the View Wizard available to me in alpha form.

The View Wizard takes a step-by-step approach to creating the new view.  The first step is to choose the type of view that you would like to create.  Dodeca supports creating static views from Excel files or dynamic, data-driven views from Essbase and/or SQL data sources.

Choosing a specific wizard determines which properties are available on the view object.   Once you choose the type of view, the wizard then walks you through the steps.  The first step lets you assign a name to the new View.

Next, you specify the Excel file you would like to use or specify if you would like to create a view using a new Excel file.

In my example, I have selected a file from my desktop to bring into, and publish with, Dodeca.

The next step is to choose the member selectors you would like to filter the view.

The member selectors are highly configurable in Dodeca, but for this example I will let Dodeca use the default selectors, which use the Essbase hierarchy tree from which users can make selections.
Next, I will choose user interface settings including the toolbars and whether or not Dodeca displays the Excel formula bar.

In my case, I let Dodeca choose the default toolbars for this view type, and then I selected the checkbox that tells Dodeca to display the formula bar.
Next, I will skip the AutoBuild on Open step and jump to the Essbase Connection Settings.  When I initialized my Dodeca environment, I ran the Dodeca Essbase Connection wizard and chose the Essbase databases I wanted to include in my application.  In this step, I will choose which Essbase connection to use for this specific view.

In the next step, I will specify that Dodeca retrieve data into a specified range and will specify the format for #Missing and #NoAccess labels.   Dodeca has the ability to use a specified range name where the data will be retrieved.  This capability uses normal Excel range names which can be created dynamically within the spreadsheet.

My next step is to specify that this view be associated with a workbook script.  Workbook script is the typical way that customers customize and tailor view creation or behavior based on their unique requirements.   It works using a paradigm of events and related actions, or methods, which dynamically change either the spreadsheet or the Dodeca environment.  In my case, I don’t plan to do anything with the workbook script, yet, but I decided to add one just in case I want it later.

Finally, I am just going to press the Finish button in the navigation panel on the left and all of the necessary objects will be created behind the scenes and stored in the Dodeca server.   At this point, I have several options.

I need to make a couple of modifications to my Excel template.  Remember that I had picked three member selectors in an earlier step in the View Wizard, so I need to tell Dodeca where on the spreadsheet to place the member values selected by the user.   I also had specified that the data will be retrieved based on a named range, so I need to create that named range.   In all previous releases of Dodeca, this work would be done in Excel but that is no longer the case.  The new View Designer allows you to edit the Excel template directly within Dodeca.  First I will place the tokens that indicate where the selector values will be placed.

Next, I will specify the range where I want to limit the Essbase retrieve.

Finally, I saved the template back to the Dodeca server and tested the output by opening the view in preview mode directly from the wizard.

Since I liked how the view looked in preview mode, I decided to go ahead and deploy the view by placing the view in a view hierarchy and, using drag and drop, I dropped the new view on the hierarchy.

Once I placed the view in the hierarchy and committed it to the server, the view was now deployed and available to users on my server.

So, now you have seen an introduction to some very useful things in the new version of Dodeca and I hope you have the chance to use them soon. Soon, I will do a deeper dive post on the View Designer and explore the savings in both time and effort our customers are seeing when using this new component.

If you are not currently a Dodeca customer and would like to try it out, go to our Contact Us page on the Applied OLAP website and ask about an evaluation copy of Dodeca.