EPM Conversations – Episode No. 3, a conversation with Abhi Nerurkar, co-founder of EPMware

One out of three ain’t bad

We were lucky enough to land Abhi Nerurkar, one of the three co-founders of EPMware, a software company specializing in Master Data Management (MDM) and Workflow, for our very first vendor conversation.

A note: we didn’t speak with Abhi’s partners, Tony Kiratsous and Deven Shah, as we’re simply not set up/not experienced enough to manage a six way conversation. We have to work on that but I hope that Deven and Tony understand/are deeply appreciative of not being bored to death/annoyed beyond endurance as I fear such a large group would produce.

Just what don’t you know about software development? Well, if you’re like us: everything.

We – you, me, Tim, Celvin, The Man in the Moon (probably not) – we all use software as part of our job, else why listen to this podcast? But do we know anything about writing, managing, and selling software on a commercial basis? Unless you work for a vendor and are at the coal face at that, I can answer this one for you: no, not at all. It’s fascinating. Listen for the term “wireframe” and be as astonished as Abhi was when

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EPM Conversations – Episode No. 2, Part 1 & 2, a conversation with Essbase Lady, Natalie Delemar

Two (actually four) for the price of one (which incidentally happens to be free)

Our freewheeling conversation with Natalie Delemar continues apace. The conversation was so chock full o’ content (or, arguably, nuts) that we simply couldn’t make it just the one episode.

It was quite the free ranging conversation with really no holds barred. If you were looking for a wee bit of controversy (nicely put and argued – we are an antidote to negativity), here are your episodes. Our podcast hosting service has this option for each episode:

I was tempted. <grin> Seriously, no bad words, nothing NSFW, just opinion with compelling arguments for and against with a fantastic guest.

As always, there are a plethora of ways of hearing us: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Buzzsprout (our provider), Stitcher, iHeart Radio, TuneIn, Deezer, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, and Castbox. Celvin adds these and he is a podcasting madman – there are probably others that I’m not aware of.

And of course you can listen directly on www.epmconversations.com.

As noted, there are two episodes. Here’s the first, EPM Conversation – Episode No.

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EPM Conversations – TWTWTW

That Was The Week That Was, it’s over let it go, 52 times a year the week is done and over with before you know

Launched on the 30^th of September, as of the 8^th of October (there is your week) EPM Conversations had 155 downloads across lo our many podcast aggregators:

Let me note that, totes obvs, none of this could have ever happened without an audience – that’s you. If you haven’t listened to us, please do so – it’ll be worth your while. If you have, thank you for a podcast is nothing without listeners. EPM Conversations can be a valuable part of our professional EPM world, but only with your participation.

Our first week’s global audience seems to be shaping up nicely with a not-everyone-in-the-world-is-a-North-American cast:

While there is understandable disappointment that neither McMurdo Station nor Dakshin Gangotri nor Halley Research Station are yet among our audience, we are patient. We may need to be.

South America? I actually lived in there as a child although I have to confess there was no internet or (gasp) Celvin or (gasp, again) Tim for that matter when I lived there. There wasn’t even any

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Introducing EPM Conversations

The New Frontier

No, not a song about the anxieties of Gen Xers in the 1980s (although if you’d like to discuss that I’m always ready to share my teenage-and-beyond neuroses), nor is it an experimental recording of just-about-where-I-grew-up, but is instead something that I’ve (and two of my besties Tim German and Celvin Kattookaran of whom more anon) never tried before: the spoken word.

I’ve presented sessions, moderated discussions, and acted as a panelist at conferences, given webinars, written articles for magazines, written blog posts (OMG they go on and on), posted to technical messageboards official and otherwise, and even written books. A small amount of observation will point out that if there’s one thing I like to do, to better or poorer effect, it is to communicate. My father always told (and continues to, actually) me, “Your big mouth will get you into trouble” and I fear that Dear Old Dad was and is right. Such is life.

Most of this has been prescriptive — Cameron the Expert (ahem) tells you, Gentle Reader, how to do this and why it should be done. Wonderful on the rare occasions that Yr. Obt. Svt. is right but I fear

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A Free Form Planning aka Essbase SaaS Journey — part 7, I didn’t know what (DTS) time it was

I didn’t know what (DTS) time it was, Then I met you

What is Dynamic Time Series (DTS)? I am ever so glad you asked ‘cos if you didn’t, there wouldn’t be much to this post, would there? To quote (and illustrate) from the Essbase Database Administrator’s Guide (oooooh, the very latest 19c one out in the cloud). Note that it is not entirely accurate.

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Just what is DTS? Again, per the DBAG:

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What this means is that you can calculate all sorts of period-to-date members in BSO without having to write code or do math in Excel or a standard report. Lovely.

Oh, what a (non)lovely time it was, How (un)sublime it was too

I’m here to tell you a (small) secret. This functionality wasn’t always there in Essbase SaaS. In the very early days of this supercalifragilisticexpialidocious product, It Wasn’t There. Ugh. But that is the past.

I didn’t know what day it was, You held my hand, Warm like the month of May it was, And I’ll say it was grand

The present is rather different – DTS is fully supported and it’s super easy to set up just as it is in the on-premises Essbase

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The ODTUG Learn From Home Series, Free Form Planning aka Essbase SaaS, The Changing Landscape of EPM, and Yr. Obt. Svt.

A plague is upon us. Shall we make a virtue out of necessity?

Snark is, next to laziness and general incompetence, my stock in trade, cf. this blog (and the previous one) in post after post after post. But there’s not really all that much to mock or deprecate or even gently poke fun at in the face of a global pandemic and the unknown economic cost to come.

Better then to celebrate grit and determination and optimism in the face of adversity, which is exactly what ODTUG has done with a brilliant concept: the ODTUG Learn From Home Series. If the world+dog cannot come to Kscope20, then Kscope20 will come to you. For free. Really.

Click on the below graphic that I shamelessly stole from ODTUG’s website to begin your registration:

A screenshot of a cell phone

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I can’t write this better than ODTUG (cf. laziness).

We are excited to announce the Free ODTUG Learn from Home Series taking place May 19 – May 22. Get ready for four days packed with over 90 sessions plus mini Oracle symposiums—all covering a range of Oracle-related topics to keep you on the cutting edge of the latest technology.

The ODTUG Learn from Home Series

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A Free Form Planning aka Essbase SaaS Journey — part 6, the Mac Smart View Revolution

A point fully stretched to the breaking point

Essbase on Macintosh has always been a poor relation. But it was not always thus. There was a time when ~~Apple~~ Power Computing really was Thinking Different and that difference was revolutionary. I was a (small) part of it. The emotions invoked were strong, to wit:

This is (I think) Bill Gates being tortured by Mean Girls; you can substitute Essbase on Mac for Mr. Bill. Ouch. Was Yr. Obt., Lyl., Fthfyl., & Hmbl. Svt. ever treated thus at a birthday party? If so, he cannot remember, but probably.

The last time I used Essbase and a Macintosh that wasn’t also running a VM, was in – gasp! – something like 1994, just about when I started with Essbase. Yes, there really was an Essbase add-in for Mac and I used it on my Macintosh IIfx.

Given that Macs now run Intel, this poster isn’t totally accurate but is too cool to not include:

Supposedly there’s a version around with Sluggo Smith punching Mr. I-used-to-be-the-richest-man-in-the-world-but-I’m-not-doing-too-badly-thanks-for-asking in the face but I’ve never actually seen it. This is good enough.

Evangelizing Macintosh aka being a Mac fanboi

Why, when Windows

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A Free Form Planning aka Essbase SaaS Journey — part 4, Gonna Build An Outline

Gonna build an outline, from a little file

I’ve shown how easy it is to build an Essbase SaaS database from an existing outline .otl file. Read about my glorious experiences doing just that (and using LCM as well) here.

That’s all well and good but what if I want to do something other than migrating an outline? I thought at first that I’d have to create the smallest Essbase outline in the world ever and then import that, adding dimensions as required. Ugh. Regardless of the ugh, the ick, and the yuck, I wrote about just that approach.

I should have been more patient, because now Essbase SaaS (Have you noted that I call this product what it is – Essbase as a Service? You should.) can load from dimension files. Patience is a virtue but he who hesitates (or wants to write about something most ricky tick) is lost. I suppose that means that I am without virtue because I don’t hesitate to act before knowledge mysteriously comes my way. It was ever thus with Yr. Obt. Svt. But no matter, onwards.

Gonna build an outline, at least I hope I will

I have a

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Stupid Programming Tricks No. 31 — Have you ever created a Unicode Planning application?

Don’t. Don’t do it.

Or at least don’t if you work in a Latin character country like the Good Ol’ U-S-of-A. And it ain’t Unicode, not really, but instead it’s UTF-8. Yr. Obt. Svt. is not going to try to even attempt to explain what UTF-8 is and instead suggests that you enjoy Joel On Software’s explanation. I encourage you to Read The Whole Thing.™ as any blog post that goes into high- and low-endian byte orders has to be good. At least I think so but perhaps I need to get a life. Don’t be intimidated (or bored beyond description) – he really did write an excellent article and I think I almost understand it. Almost.

A note: Planning cloud applications are all Unicode but this is an on-premises tale, even in 2020.

Safely ensconced in the on-premises world (which isn’t going away any time soon I might note), why shouldn’t you create a (not-really) Unicode application? Because this when one tries to import Essbase data (this is on-premises) from a not-really Unicode application to a plain old “normal” one. Bugger. But why?

Test was created in Unicode, Development and Production were not. Of course. So when it

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