EPM Conversations — Episode 11, A Conversation With Peter Fugere, OneStream Software’s Chief Strategic Services Officer

Riding a rocket to the heavens

OneStream’s rise has been meteoric: from a startup in a very small office in the not-particularly-well-known-tech-incubator Rochester, Michigan, to international powerhouse in the performance management space in less than a decade.

Peter Fugere has been there from almost the very beginning and has an insider’s perspective on what makes OneStream tick, the product’s genesis, current initiatives (Peter is involved in more than one), and its exciting future. From consolidations to planning to relational to analytics to machine learning to the certification program to the recently announced OneCommunity to OneStream Press, it’s all there in just an hour. Rocket ship as sobriquet is scarcely sufficient and this episode reflects that break neck speed and excitement.

Hear the conversation

As always, you can listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Buzzsprout (our provider), Stitcher, iHeart Radio, TuneIn, Deezer, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, and Castbox.

We hope you like the episode as much as we do. If you do enjoy it, please give us a good rating on the provider of your choice as it both bathes our ever-needy egos and

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EPM Conversations — Episode No. 8, A Conversation with Tom Shea, CEO of OneStream Software

From Enterprise administrator to CEO, from market disruptor to Magic Quadrant leader

We at EPM (or should that be CPM?) Conversations are – unsurprisingly – pleased beyond belief to have OneStream Software CEO Tom Shea as our very special guest. We think you’ll be pleased as well.

OneStream is in the moment and of the future. How did that happen? Who made that happen? What is its genesis? Where is OneStream right now and where will it be in the future? Why is it such a success? This podcast answers all and throws in more than a few surprises.

OneStream as a rocket ship

Certainly its rise has been meteoric. What has enabled OneStream to evolve so quickly from an industry insurgent to a market visionary? I could opine (those of you who have had the misfortune to cross Yr. Obt. Svt.’s path have long known that I have many opinions, performance management and otherwise, some of which are even correct) on why that is but ultimately that’s just a geek’s take on a force somewhat larger than him.

Better instead to listen to the man himself as he takes us all on a journey from CPA to

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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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An easy peasy no big deasy update of the OneStream license key

It’s expired, and not your parking meter

There I was, dreaming about this and that when I decided to go into Good Old OneStream to take a looky-loo at AVBS on my laptop install and I WAS SURPRISED BY THE FOOM!

Actually, nothing so dramatic. It was more like this:

What, you mean these things expire? Yes, Cameron, yes, they do. Bummer.

No matter, as I am a consultant at a OneStream partner, all I need do is ask for a valid key and update away. Putting aside the fact that I’ve done this in the past and also putting aside the fact that I’ve completely forgotten how to perform said license key update, it was easy to do. On the chance that you share the same colossal memory/aversion to work/are generally as clueless as Yr. Obt. Svt. (surely not), I present to you the handful of steps required to do this.

NB – I am doing this on my consultant laptop. No (sane) OneStream customer would use something like this. Maybe, and I do mean maybe, this might be something for an on-premises customer; if you’ve a OneStream Azure hosted customer, OneStream Support will handle it all. I

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OneStream Security Remover or how I learnt to love MarketPlace

Will no one rid me of this turbulent security?

No Archbishop of Canterbury will be put to sword in this blog post but what will be expunged is security that no one wants (heh, sort of like the TSA).

I recently imported an application into my local copy of OneStream and…

A picture containing book, text Description automatically generated

What went FOOM!?

A screenshot of a cell phone Description automatically generated

And in a little more detail:

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Bugger, there’s a security group named “S_ACT_READ” assigned to a member on a dimension as a read data group and I don’t have said group on my install of OneStream. I could add it as a security group but that would almost certainly be repeated many times as the import process hit the rows in the dimension import file that have security – not my idea of fun or I imagine anyone else. I could also go into the dimension XML and find it, figure out the open and close of the XML node, and then delete the security assignment it but I’d have to do that across all dimensions, Cube Views, etc. that have any kind of security – also not my idea of fun. Bummer.

Marketplace

Or, I could remember that OneStream has a nifty utility that

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How hard could this possibly be or upgrading to 5.2

How hard could this possibly be?

Those who know me – a vanishingly small group, becoming smaller day by day – know that I can barely spell “infrastructure”. It simply isn’t my métier and because of that, I dread any shape, manner, or form of installation. Also, I suck at it.

But, needs must when the Devil drives and as noted by Yr. Obt. Svt., OneStream 5.2 is upon us. As I have 5.1 (installed, yes, but with my Younger Taller and OMG Smarter And Subjectively (eh, quite likely) Better Looking Brother From Completely Different Parents as guide), it is time to grasp the nettle and upgrade my instance all by my lonesome.

Join me, won’t you?

NB – This is not any kind of install a customer should do. Ever. And you could really just read the docs (how on earth do you think I’m doing this?) but if an infrastructure incompetent can do it, surely you can too so enjoy the madness.

It’s just one page, so really how could this possibly be hard?

Yep, just the one page in the install doc:

Install Application Servers
Install Web Servers
Create Database Schemas and Connection Strings
Configure

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OneStream 5.2’s big tenth

Yr. Obt. Svt.’s Take

OneStream XF 5.2 (henceforth plain old 5.2) is both awesome and odd.

Let’s get the odd out of the way as it’s just my opinion: this should have been version 6.0, not 5.2; there’s an awful lot of stuff here, much of it a huge extension of the product. Why something with roughly five new and frankly huge features isn’t worthy of a more exciting description than a dot release is beyond this geek’s ken and is a mystery best answered by inscrutable marketers and product managers.

Whatever the reason – possibly because it’s the product of Midwestern modesty – what 5.2 brings to the table is just enormous. Here are the highlights:

BI Blend
BI Viewer and Dashboards
Pivot Grid (Standard and Large)
Table Views
REST API

We’re talking new UI components (big ones including a new dashboarding feature), new engines (Merciful Creator, again, how can this be a dot release?), new connections, a new API, and a bunch of other features. This is a big, big, big release. This blog post can only cover the highlights – subsequent posts will try to review each feature in turn.

With that, let’s begin looking at these

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A n00b’s OneStream Journey No.7 — I’ve Got Your Number

Stunning and maybe in a good way. Or not.

It’s all about numbers and – quite honestly, 98% of the reason I write this blog – I have the best, best, best (or perhaps the worst, worst, worst) antediluvian not-at-all-relevant-to-anyone-but-your-grandparents pop culture reference. Please, click on it and pinky promise you’ll watch the whole thing– it’s that good. And yes, it is actually germane to this post.

All done?

Do you ever think you’ll be the same? No. Will you ever click on one of those links? No. Again. Until next time at least. But really, there’s a point other than the searing of your eyes and a reminder that not everything from before-you-were-born is…like that.

How will you feel when you use the Excel add-in to retrieve a number from your super-duper OneStream application and get the wrong number? How is that possible? OneStream doesn’t do bad data. But it can happen. And then it’s bad, right? And you’re frustrated, gobsmacked, fearful, , and even blue? Fired is more like it. Mr. Twimble has the right idea although the mail room might not be the ultimate expression of your ambition.

I’ve Not Got Your Number

Good-Bye

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