A Free Form Planning aka Essbase SaaS Journey — part 2, loading from LCM

Whoopsie

Whoopsie, that’s not right. Bugger. Why? ‘Cos my Younger Taller Smarter and Definitely Better Looking Brother From Totally Different Parents noted:

Whoopsie. That’s usage of that word three times (so far). Surely some kind of record in a technical blog?

It’s up to you decide which is the bigger whoopsie: me getting it wrong or Celvin reading LinkedIn on vacation. Celvin, buddy, if you’re commenting on my many technical (and otherwise, frankly) mistakes, errors, and own goals, surely that can wait for your return to the grindstone?

My mea culpas aside, let’s see what happens when I load Sample.Basic from an LCM file. I’m not going to do this step by step as you’ve already hopefully read that bit.

Let’s look at that LCM file again

Data

A screenshot of a computer

Description automatically generated

Ooooh, in addition the outline file, there’s something called Data. Let’s open that up:

A screenshot of a cell phone

Description automatically generated

Oooh, again. That’s all of the data. See the fourth row from the bottom and the “100”? That’s a product total. LCM doesn’t export the PAG/IND files (apparently at one time it did per Celvin and I sort of remember that) but instead text, I believe because it can be

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My take on OGB Appreciation Day: An Essbase Hacker’s POV

“Smart boy, doesn’t follow instructions, must try harder”

Pretty much every teacher I ~~tortured with my intransigence and folly~~ gladly received tutelage from as a wee lad noted that while I had a certain level of base intelligence, (note that I didn’t use words like, “overmuch”, “gratifyingly high”, or even just, “barely adequate for the purpose at hand”) I really, really, really wasn’t terribly good at following instructions. It’s a skill that alas seems to be forever beyond my reach. And still is, as you’ll soon see.

Tim Hall, aka OracleBase, (Oracle-Base? Dunno.) organizes OGB (Oracle Groundbreakers) Appreciation Day as a way to thank all of the people in the Oracle community that have helped others. In my (OMG, surely it isn’t possible if you follow the corporate ownership path of Essbase) 25 years in the Oracle space I have: helped some, been helped by many, and confounded and confused just about everyone I’ve crossed paths with.

Tim has suggested the following potential topics:

My favourite feature of {the Oracle-related tech you work on}.
What is the next thing on your list to learn.
Horror stories. My biggest screw up, and how I fixed it.
How the

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OpenWorld 2019, day 4, but in fact not even then

Why do I even bother?

At the beginning of conferences I am filled with fresh will and enthusiasm, sure that this time I really and truly will keep you, Gentle Reader, as informed as informed can be when it comes to this conference; any conference really. And I don’t. Ah, a man’s reach must exceed his grasp else what’s a heaven for?

Having firmly established the fact that I am either a fool (almost certainly), unreliable (the evidence speaks for itself), or simply unduly optimistic in my estimation of how hard I’m really going to try to do this (this is what I choose to believe although I think there’s something about the road to Hell and pavement in the form of good intentions), and before I get to the main plate of delicious geeky information, allow me to give you some impressions of what OpenWorld was like this year. And oh yeah, day four of the conference finds me on an aeroplane on the way back to the Right Coast, so all of the cool EPM stuff that Oracle cruelly scheduled for Thursday – missed the whole thing. Argh. Disirregardless of my poor timing (next year I’ll stay through

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OpenWorld 2019, live blog, part the zeroeth and first

Zero? One?

Every good(ish) geek knows the difference between zero and one based numbering systems. Said geek also knows that Powers That Be flip between them, seemingly arbitrarily. When I want to fool mathheads/real programmers, I use a zero-based convention. When I interact with normies, I use one.

Said geek also knows that different conversations and contexts seem to drive usage in a seemingly arbitrary way. I flip between the two contextually: when I want to fool mathheads/real programmers into thinking I have a brain, I use a zero-based convention. When I interact with normies, I use one as my starting point.

In this case, I’m using both. Unpossible! In fact all of this falderal means is that I’m combining yesterday’s pretty-much-arrive-in-San-Francisco-at-OpenWorld and EPM partner meeting with an ongoing live stream today and, with luck, every day.

I can’t tell you much (actually, nothing) about yesterday’s partner meeting, but I can share with you this list of sessions Oracle recommended to us. Also, as a bonus you get the top of someone’s head. Lucky whoever that may be.

Many of these sessions are already full, but if not and you’re at OOW, check them out.

I’ve got to go

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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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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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KScope 19 live blog, Day 1, Part 2

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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Think Small