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

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

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

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

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

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. 3 — OneStream XF Relational Blending 101, part 1

Introduction

This post is proof that my quite meager salesmanship skills are sometimes successful in convincing others to do my work. This time round, that means that my colleague Mike Gialanella agreed to write a guest post on XF’s relational blending. Thanks, Mike, for giving me the week off. And oh yeah, Gentle Reader, you too should thank Mike for writing about a really exciting and unique tool bit of functionality.

And with that, heeeeeerrrreeee’s Mike.

XF Relational Blending 101

When Cameron Lackpour asks you to write a guest blog post, the answer is yes. It is one of those things that you just can’t say no to. If Santa Claus asked you to deliver Christmas presents to kids-in-need, you would need an incredibly good reason to decline such a request.

XF networking event Nov 2017. Me on the right, Santa on the left.

So, for all you technical and finance experts that are attracted to ~~Cameron’s wit and wisdom~~ this blog, here’s my best-most-humble effort to deliver, by request of ~~the man~~ Cameron himself…. here you go:

OneStream XF is a unified SmartCPM^TM platform solution, it is not a siloed set of solutions that are fused together.

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