Kscope19 live blog, so many days after the conference it can’t really be called live

By cameronl | 10 July, 2019

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: late

I plead a vacation, freedom from technology, and a healthy-ish communion with dirt, or in other words: tent camping. It was great, thanks for asking. And oh yeah, I’m on doxycycline, thank you .

And with that mea culpa, let’s jump right into Kscope19 and its import

I’ve been out of the Oracle world for the last two years to it’s all been a bit overwhelming as I try to catch up with lo the many new announcements. To wit, Oracle really seem to have their act together for the first time in quite a while.

By that I mean that there’s been a concerted effort to take the multiple SaaS products that make up the Oracle EPM product suite and combine them into a single offering. I am by no means an expert in product pricing (There are those, perhaps quite rightly, who believe that I am by no means an expert in anything – who can argue with such logic given abundant supporting evidence?) but it seems to me that a move away from EPM a la carte pricing on a product by product basis to a broader enterprise license is

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Kscope19 live blog, Day 3 — Starts out with such promise, ends disappointing everyone

By cameronl | 26 June, 2019

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Hah! Gotcha!

That has to be the click-baitiest bit o’ nonsense I’ve ever written. Ever and for me with over 10 years of blogging that’s saying something. I’m not talking about Kscope or ODTUG or Oracle. Instead, I am (of course) talking about me. Totes obvs. Why disappointing? ‘Cos I said I would live blog and I seem to be sort of, kind of, completely not doing just that and am instead lagging a day behind. Whoops. You can always follow my insanity on Twitter where I can get stuff out much more quickly.

As an aside, it has been pointed out to me that all of this is available on the Kscope app and that’s absolutely true. Think of this as my way of getting the product roadmaps and announcements out to world+dog.

What Cameron, what are you doing and how are you going to do it? Beats me but if you figure it out, send me a comment care of this blog.

I am again going to post a series of screenshots that highlight the really important announcements Oracle have made at Kscope. (As an aside: really, if you can swing it in any way, manner, shape,

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Kscope19 live blog, Day 1 (final but then again I didn’t cover it), and Day 2, Part 1

By cameronl | 25 June, 2019

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Whoops

Did I live blog yesterday? Did I? Did I live Tweet? Did I? No and no. Sorry. But I have some valid-ish reasons.

Here Is The Excuse For Yesterday

I did what makes conferences like this so valuable – talking to other attendees. Tim German, Pete Nitchke, Natalie Delemar, and my younger-taller-smarter-better-looking-brother-from-totally-separate-parents were the unfortunate targets of my attempts to catch up on the last two years. Fun times, fun times.

Onwards into the Future With Essbase SaaS

If I’ve absorbed anything these last few overwhelmingly awesome days it’s this: go with Enterprise Planning. Why? Essbase SaaS. No, that’s not it’s proper name – that’s Free Form Planning. Yes, it’s a Planning app but not as we’ve known them. Dimensions? As many as you want? Managed environment ? Everything? This is HUGE. OMG, Essbase in Planning. Finally.

EPM Platform What’s New and Coming

Again, commentary is going to have to come afterwards. This is just screenshots. If you’re not following me on Twitter, you’re missing it truly live.

With that…

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More to come super-duper soon.

Be seeing you.

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KScope 19 live blog, Day 1, Part 3

By cameronl | 23 June, 2019

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EPM everywhere. And Dodeca which is EPM. So there you are.

Big news in Essbase-land, big news in EPM-Land. Again, if you’re not following me on @CameronLackpour you’re not getting this truly as it happens. Perhaps that sort of breathless reportage is not for you but I’m wearing my index finger down to the bone on my phone.

No matter, here’s the latest slides. Again, I have to think quite a bit about what I’ve seen. Put that down to ~~pronounced dullness~~ considered thought. As the conference continues I’ll do my best to reflect on what I hear.

For Oracle’s slides (and probably AppliedOLAP’s), remember: ALL OF THIS IS SAFE HARBORED. What does that mean?

The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features orfunctionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

With that out of the way, think about this: Freeform Planning cubes = Essbase SaaS.

Here

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KScope 19 live blog, Day 1, Part 2

By cameronl | 23 June, 2019

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OAC’s roadmap

ALL OF THIS IS SAFE HARBORED. What does that mean?

In your family, does “maybe” mean “yes” or does it mean “no”.? Maybe.

There. Have I made that clear? Whatever the Idiot Named Cameron posts, it’s all maybe, maybe not likely to happen. You have Been Warned.

With that, I’m going to try to give you a slide by slide take on what’s coming. Again, maybe.

Btw, you should really, really, really be here. It’s one thing to look at slides and entirely another to hear The Man In Charge to actually explain ‘cos there’s not a chance that I can. Being away for two years can do that.

With that, slides galore. Yeah, this is a huge post. I’m not going try to comment for several reasons: 1) I have

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Kscope 19 Live Blog, Day, Part 1

By cameronl | 23 June, 2019

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Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

Yup, it’s Yr. Obt. Svt.’s patented Kscope19 live blog. I’m going to do my best to keep this going as long as I can aka until my laptop runs out of battery. I will attempt to keep this going until I run out of human battery.

With that, we’re sitting in the pretty much full Analytics and Essbase Sunday Symposium. It’s exciting stuff. The meat of the session is already beginning. Once I (barely) understand, I’ll do my best to set out my take on Gabby Rubin’s Safe Harbored, i.e., don’t hold Oracle to one single thing. You Have Been Warned.

With that, some snapshots for your enjoyment and edification

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Here’s ODTUG board member Teal Sexton and Oracle’s Gabby Rubin kicking it all off.

And the audience.

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Stick around for more

Kscope 19 Live Blog, Day, Part 1

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

With that,

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A Change In The Weather

By cameronl | 22 June, 2019

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There’ll be a change in the weather and a change in the sea, From now on there’ll be a change in me

Some of you have heard the rumor and reacted with delight (scarcely believable but possible), others have heard and recoiled in horror (arguably correctly), and the vast majority of the 42 or so people who read this blog haven’t heard and if they did wouldn’t care (definitely the right reaction) but regardless the change is upon us. Or me.

What Cameron, what oh what oh what is the change?

I’m gonna change my way of livin ’, And if that ain’t enough, I’m gonna change the way I strut my stuff

The change is I’ll no longer work (and write and present and whatever else I do – send letters care of this address if you’ve figured that out ‘cos I haven’t) with just one technology. It’s a multiproduct CPM (or EPM if you prefer) world and for me at least to stick with just one approach to solving problems simply isn’t enough.

In the past it was Arbor-Hyperion-Oracle, then OneStream, and it will now be about both. And there may be more.

Some would argue that

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A n00b’s OneStream Journey No.6 — Instant Gratification

By cameronl | 14 September, 2018

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Instant

Everyone likes fast except when it comes to slow cooking or taking a nap or when pursuing a hobby or simply enjoying oneself. Of course, instant is even better than fast. No, not instant coffee (I can only drink it while camping – I think I somehow enjoy straining out bits of dirt from the tin mug), nor instant pot noodles (a staple of my university life, never to be repeated), but instead instant aggregations. I’m a busy geek; you are too. And I want it all. Now. Instantly.

Generally, in OneStream that’s not an issue as most dimensions are dynamically aggregated with the exception – till now – of Entity. By that I mean: input data at an Account, Time, Custom Dimension (and the other required dimensions – see my previous post for an overview of them in all of their glory) intersection and a single Entity and the numbers at an aggregate level are instantly available across all of those dimensions. That’s lovely in the non-ironic sense. However, that Entity dimension, the spine of every OneStream app, is a stored dimension, i.e. the upper level members must have materialized aggregate views. To get those aggregated –

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A n00b’s OneStream Journey No. 5 — A Very Basic Sample

By cameronl | 8 June, 2018

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It’s Basic. It’s a Sample. It’s A Very Basic Sample.

Some people understand how to perform complex tasks or understand involved theory simply by reading some kind of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious documentation; I am not one of those people. Yes, I read the docs, yes, I think – insofar as I am able – quite a bit about what I’ve read, yes, I am capable of abstract thought (I hope, in an abstract way.), but at the end of the day, I learn best by doing. I’ve got to kick the tires, squeeze the apple (these are my favorite ones by a country mile), or employ whatever experiential learning metaphor you like best to truly understand.

Please try to put aside the irony of the above as the introduction to a blog post that attempts to explain how OneStream works as you, Gentle Reader, and Yr. Most Hmbl. & Obt. Svt. are about to go on a journey that illustrates our beloved CPM platform in as a practical manner as I can manage. In OneStream-land, I need to build a sample application.

But you say, (Do you? Do you? Really? Thought you did. Sad, but I’m glad you’re still here.),

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A n00b’s OneStream Journey No. 4 — Deleting and reloading an application

By cameronl | 11 April, 2018

2 Comments

Moving an application tither and yon

Moving applications across environments is part and parcel of practically any CPM vendor’s tools. It’s here in production and I want it to be there migrated back into development. Or the other way around. Or across servers. Or to a laptop (for we consultants). Whether your team does the moving, or your IT department does it, or your managed service provider does it, or if indeed your software vendor’s cloud team does it, the key bit is that someone does it. Also, it could be you who does the moving.

If you think this is hard, or requires many hours, or is fraught with the potential for error (erm, except for the self-harm Yr. Obt. Svt. inflicts upon himself as I stumbled through this), you’re wrong. It’s dead easy with OneStream.

Let’s do this in steps.

Step the first, extract the application for migration

Just a note – the process I’m going to illustrate below will be for metadata (dimensions, CubeViews, security, dashboards, etc.) only. There’s a separate step that extracts data and I’ll cover that in some later post.

Just another note – this is from an honest to goodness customer application and

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