This week was again on the slower side. Opal tried to make up for it all on her own…
Patches and Updates:
Notta…
New Blog Posts:
This week I continued my Essbase performance series with another set of baseline benchmarks. After Kscope I’ll be able to dedicate a lot more time to continuing this series. I also created a new page dedicated to providing a list of bloggers and blogs in the EPM community.
Gary shows us around the Essbase 12 docs. An interesting read, though I’m not sure I agree with all of his conclusions.
Jason talk about spreadsheet management. He has some great thoughts on how spreadsheets themselves are not necessarily the problem, but rather how we manage those spreadsheets. Planning helps in one way while Dodeca helps in another.
Dmitry has perhaps the longest blog post of all time. While it may be long, it is definitely worth the read as he describes how to use Essbase with a statistical application named R. Very, very interesting stuff.
Dayalan has an in-depth article on installing 11.1.2.4 on Windows 2012. He covers Planning, Essbase, R&A, and FDMEE. I get the impression he might be covering DRM next.
John Goodwin gives us part three of his DRM and FDMEE series. I know a lot of us have met him, but are we sure he is just one guy? Are there John Goodwin clones running around learning things for him? Seriously…
Cameron shares his “must see” sessions at Kscope16. One day I’ll make the list…oh who am I kidding.
Harry has yet another beta release of his web-based Essbase interface. This thing keeps getting cooler and cooler. This time has added ad-hoc grid creation and modification for end-users.
And now on to Opal, who decided to do a seven-day series on EPBCS. That’s seven blog posts in seven days…nice job Opal. Great content…and lots of it!
Other News:
Not that you could, but don’t forget about Kscope16! This time next week the EPM world will descend on Chicago. Watch out Chicago!
Happy Father’s Day to all you Dad’s out there!
Brian Marshall
June 19, 2016
This was a really, really slow week for blogging. It’s almost like something is happening that is occupying everyone’s time. Drop me a line if you know what’s going on.
Patches and Updates:
I mentioned last that Essbase 11.1.2.4.010 had been released. It finally made its way to the Proactive Support Blog.
HPCM 11.1.2.4.121 has been released. There appears to be a massive amount of new features, including a new REST API. Check out the readme.
Calc Manager 11.1.2.4.006 has been released. This appears to be general bug-fixes. Hopefully it fixes your bug! Check out the readme.
I’ve heard that the Planning 11.1.2.4.005 patch was due out in the next week or so…until they delayed it to add one more bug fix. That bug fix should only take a week or so to add according to my source, so we might get this patch prior to Kscope…we’ll just have to wait and see.
New Blog Posts:
This week (5 minutes ago), I posted part 2 of my Essbase performance series.
Cameron is a little survey-happy in advance of Kscope. He has a blog about the future of Planning (PBCS) and this survey. Be sure to take the survey!
Chris has a blog post showing off the new attribute functionality that was added to PBCS in the June July and then June again release. I’ve heard the 06 patch may be the 07 patch…but for those whose pods were purchased after the patch was actually ready. We’ll see what changes in 07…
Dayalan talks about the Outline Load Utility. He has a ton of code samples related to SQL with the utility. Good stuff.
Harry has yet another beta release of his web-based cubeSavvy UI. I wish Oracle could release updates this fast. This week he brings us the ability to execute calc scripts when you submit data!
John Goodwin has part 2 of his FDMEE and DRM integration series. I know I saw this every time he has a blog post, but…good stuff. Posts so detailed a caveman can do FDMEE and DRM integration.
Other News:
There’s a minor get-together of Oracle professionals in Chicago in a few weeks. Can’t wait to see everyone…and I mean everyone will be there. Even though its minor.
Brian Marshall
June 11, 2016
Patches and Updates:
Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System Version 7 has been released. The new Dodeca Excel Add-In comes long for the ride.
Smart View 11.1.2.5.600 is finally out! It has a long list of changes. If only the PBCS update was here to make the most of it…
New Blog Posts:
John Goodwin gives us a great post on FDMEE and DRM integration. This is Part 1…so more greatness to come!
Vijay writes about Groovy, REST, and HPCM. Groovy is pretty cool and now that HPCM has a REST API, this is a nice introduction to the combination.
Harry has another update to his web-based Essbase front-end. You can now have multiple Essbase environments!
Cameron has a blog post about Hybrid Essbase and interacting with our friends at Oracle. Check it out. You will also see a link below about the survey.
Glenn talked about the DataExport command. This is a great reference for how the format of the export file is actually derived (from your outline) and can be modified (with data export options).
Gary has a great bit of information about a new feature in the 11.1.2.4.010 patch for Essbase. We can finally use MDX queries to pull data from Essbase in a usable format! I’ll be trying this out soon, I’m sure.
A different Gary broke the news that the 11.1.2.5.600 version of Smart View had been released. Thanks for the heads up!
Opal has a quick tip for those of us with multiple cloud instances. Since everything is labeled PBCS, this is definitely useful. Hopefully Oracle will fix this in the near future…maybe in the June July update.
Other News:
Jon Booth, Tim German, Mike Nader, and Cameron Lackpour are conducting an online survey about Essbase Hybrid. Be sure to head over here and fill it out.
Kscope16 Advance Registration Ends on June 9th!
Komal Goyal has been named the ODTUG 2016 Women in Technology Scholar. Congrate Komal!
Brian Marshall
June 4, 2016
Clearly people are finishing up their KScope content, because this was a pretty busy week.
Patches and Updates:
FCM 11.1.2.4.103 has been released.
The June update to PBCS appears to have been delayed until July. <Insert Angry Face Here> More on this as it becomes available.
New Blog Posts:
I finally got a blog post in! Not only that, but I’ll probably have another one next week! This week began the months-in-the-making Essbase Performance Series! You might be able to tell by the number of exclamation points used that I am excited about this series…
Jason shows us how to create drillable columns in Drillbridge. Great post…that was totally on my list to blog about! Granted, that list is a mile long and growing.
Amit shows us how to use FDMEE, Oracle EBS, and multiple Accounting Entity Groups. This makes for a cool combination.
Robert has a great post on FDMEE and Hybrid Cloud. I’ll be referencing this on occasion.
Celvin has a post about his new OTN article on configuring AD security with PBCS. This is a great article for those considering SSO with PBCS.
KScope16 symposiums have been announced. You can find the full EPM list here. I won’t be there Sunday, so I’ll be missing some great content.
Danny Some DBA (sorry…this is part of a blog hop, so I have no idea who this person is), posts about EPM Kscope content of interest. Danny is actually the Kscope conference chair.
Speaking of a blog hop…Cameron is posting about APEX. This is another of the many topics I wish I had more time to spend playing with.
KScope must be soon or something, because Gary has a blog post about it too! This one is specific to the previously mentioned symposiums.
Other News:
Kscope presentations must be uploaded by May 28th (TODAY!!!) or you will lose your free registration and your speaking slot. They mean it! Handy links:
Kscope16 Slide Template (PPT)
Instructions on Uploading Your Presentation (PDF)
Required Opening and Closing Slides (PNG)
As of this blog post, I have one uploaded…and one that I should totally consider starting (kidding…I think).
Brian Marshall
May 28, 2016
This week was a little slow, much like last week. Unfortunately, Oracle didn’t have any new product releases to keep things interesting.
Patches and Updates:
None!
New Blog Posts:
This week I STILL didn’t manage to get a post in. I promise that will change next week…i have one ready to go, I just want to add one more thing to it.
Vijay shows us how to use Dynamic SQL in ODI. I don’t know that anything in ODI is simple, as he suggests.
Opal has a quick tip for Oracle cloud users. Everything you ever wanted to know about changing your password.
Cameron gives us the last in his 15 part series on PBCS. This one covers batch automation and compares PBCS to on-prem.
Jason shows off a feature in Dodeca that we all hope one days makes it to Planning. Dependent Selectors! Come on Oracle, catch up to Tim Tow!
Gary shows us some screenshots of what he thinks might be a next iteration of EAS. I’ve heard rumors that we will see EAS in Essbase Cloud Servers…and that we won’t. Maybe we will…kind of? Who knows as I also hear it has been delayed yet again!
Other News:
Kscope presentations must be uploaded by May 28th or you will lose your free registration and your speaking slot. They mean it! Handy links:
Kscope16 Slide Template (PPT)
Instructions on Uploading Your Presentation (PDF)
Required Opening and Closing Slides (PNG)
Brian Marshall
May 21, 2016
This week we are a bit more timely! It does however seem that everyone is preparing their 1st drafts for Kscope, as it was a really slow blogging week. Luckily, Oracle offset that slowness with the release of two new products in the cloud.
Patches and Updates:
Oracle has finally released Enterprise Planning Cloud (formerly ePBCS). This is PBCS with all of the modules that we’ve had on-prem for a long time. Except…it isn’t. They have taken all of our modules and attempted to wizardize them. More on this soon.
Oracle also released Financial Consolidation and Close Cloud (formerly FCCS). This is not HFM in the cloud, but an entirely new tool, based on Essbase that can be used for consolidations.
New Blog Posts:
I didn’t manage to get a post in this week as I’ve been heads down on both a metric ton of client work, and laying the foundation for a new blog series. More on this next week…
Gary has a pair of posts this week. First, a post on using VBA to get a member formula. Second, a look at the new Financial Reports patch that just release (.701).
Christian gives us some code to get rid of an orphaned EPMA application. I may use the code to delete EPMA applications out of principle, orphaned or not.
Speaking of new cloud releases from Oracle, Opal has some great thoughts about these releases.
Cameron has two posts, one by Cameron about LCM in PBCS and one by guest blogger Chris Rothermel about data loads in PBCS.
Like I said…slow week. Shoot me a note if I missed a post!
Other News:
This week, we had another North Texas Oracle EPM Lunch. We had nine people attend and we had a great time. We are going to try to make this a bi-monthly meet-up. Join the meet-up group to make sure that you hear about the next one!
http://www.meetup.com/Dallas-Oracle-EPM-Professionals-Lunch/
Brian Marshall
May 14, 2016
Patches and Updates:
Shared Services 11.1.2.4.003 has been released. Looks like a small patch that fixes an LCM issue and a task flow issue. Interestingly, this does not appear to be a cumulative patch as it specifies that it can only be applied to 11.1.2.4.002.
HFM 11.1.2.3.702 has been released. This one is cumulative to the 700 patch and has a metric ton of bug fixes.
New Blog Posts:
This week I posted about a bug in Planning that has finally been fixed.
Vijay gives us a refresher course on configuring OBDC connections for Essbase on *nix platforms.
Cameron is up to part 10 on his PBCS series. This time he dives into meta-data management in PBCS.
Justin gives us a quick reference guide for all of the consolidation operators for ASO cubes. This should be handy for future reference.
The Oracle CEAL team gives us a guide to best practices in BSO calculation performance.
Eric gives us a code sample for translations in HFM that “go against the grain”.
Dayalan covered both Planning Unit Hierarchy assignment and DRM/FDMEE integration this week.
John Goodwin brings us part 3 of his FDMEE Hybrid and REST series.
Other News:
There is a North Texas EPM Lunch schedule for Friday, May 16, 2016 at Seasons 52 in Plano. We’ll be there from 11AM to 1PM. Be sure to RSVP if you can make it out:
http://www.meetup.com/Dallas-Oracle-EPM-Professionals-Lunch/events/230687374/
Brian Marshall
April 30, 2016
This was a pretty busy week. Partly because I was out part of last week and missed several posts, but also because it was just a busy week.
Patches and Updates:
DRM 11.1.2.4.340 has been released. Looks like another pretty good update. DRM continues to be the most updated product in the EPM stack by far.
OBIEE 11.1.1.9.160419 gets the award for the longest patch number I’ve seen from Oracle in a while.
OBIEE 12.2.1.0.160419 ties the version 11 for patch length.
HFM 11.1.2.4.200.UnbrokenSecurity aka patch 23114734 has been released.
New Blog Posts:
This week I got back to the Planning Repository! I started down the path of the built-in dimensions. First up was the HSP_ACCOUNT table.
Opal gives us a review of the new iPad Pro 9.7 from a user’s perspective. Not exactly EPM, but hey…I want one. Though I’m not sure I’ll go for the pink model.
Tim gives us a rundown on the Crossjoin function. For those of us that have used Microsoft’s Analysis Services product, we often wonder why there’s not Crossjoin operator. It is so much better than this function that won’t even take more than two parameters.
John Goodwin has two excellent posts on the new hybrid functionality of FDMEE. You can check out part 1 and part 2.
Speaking of FDMEE and the cloud, Dayalan has a post about that patch itself and then another post about using the hybrid functionality.
Eric gives us a great view of what to expect over the coming months from Oracle in the EPM space.
Doug shows us how to push data to from Hyperion Planning to HFM using FDMEE.
Robert gives us his thoughts on the changing landscape of EPM as more and more of our world heads to the cloud.
Harry has implemented data submission in his very impressive web-based interface for Essbase, giving me even more reason to finally get around to playing with this tool.
Gary has a new blog! Go check it out. Bring on the blogging Gary!
Brian Marshall
April 23, 2016
This was a shorter week for me (vacation), so I may have missed some things. If so, let me know so that I can update this post!
Patches and Updates:
The 11.1.2.4.102 Tax Governance Patch has arrived. This one is totally out of my wheelhouse, so good luck!
Speaking of things out of my wheelhouse, the 11.1.2.3.817 Disclosure Management patch is out as well this week. Again…good luck.
Now back to my wheelhouse. Less than a week following the 11.1.2.4.008 patch, the Essbase 11.1.2.4.009 patch has dropped. This looks to be pretty straight forward. The version reporting seems to be the most consistent thing across the various readme’s. I guess I’ll skip .008 in my lab as I didn’t even have time to deploy it yet.
New Blog Posts:
This week I blogged about nothing! Gasp…we’ll see if I can fix this before the week is over.
Jake shows us an awesome way to set up PBCS test accounts. I didn’t know that gmail could do that!
I mentioned Harry’s web-based interface for Essbase last week. This week he is opening the product up for beta users. E-mail him to get your copy for testing. I know I will.
Summer actually received useful assistance from Oracle Support. Check out her post about run-time prompts and calculate form options. Next up…pink unicorns with rainbows…sorry Oracle. Just kidding. I get help from Oracle Support all the time.
Christian shows us how to install EPM Maestro. I’m not an HFM guy, outside of extracting data from it for nefarious Planning and Essbase purposes, but the post is thorough and well-written. So if HFM is your thing, check it out!
Vinjay shows us how to use external sources for a lookup property in DRM. Because not everything has to exist in DRM.
Tim shows us a method for generating test hierarchies of a certain size. I generally use my handy-dandy SQL data generator for something like this, but this is a cool free way to get there.
Keith explains a method for parallel ODI execution. Cool stuff if ODI is your cup of tea.
The Baroness PM talks a bit about the new ODTUG careers initiative. Check it out if you are interested in a career in EPM (or already have one).
Other News:
Collaborate 16 happened this week. I’ve never actually been, but as a ODTUG member, I believe KScope to be superior. 😉
Opal just published her first book: Look Smarter Than You Are with Oracle Enterprise Planning Cloud. Normally I wouldn’t post a competitor’s website, but since it happens to be Opal…I’ll make an exception. Congrats Opal!
Brian Marshall
April 16, 2016
This was a big week for patch releases and as always, a lot of a great blogging.
Patches and Updates:
The Essbase 11.1.2.4.008 patch finally hit the Proactive Support blog along. Last week we were missing EAS, Studio, and APS. This week we have them! Sadly, this patch does not fix my client’s issue. Oracle just updated my ticket says, and I quote…”sorry”.
More importantly, Oracle’s cloud and on-premises worlds have finally collided! The FDMEE 11.1.2.4.200 patch has finally arrived. This added cloud integration along with a ton of other important bug fixes (including a lot of unmentioned one’s).
New Blog Posts:
This week I blogged about loading SQL data into ASO in parallel.
Harry is working on a pretty awesome web-based Excel-like interface for Essbase. I’ll be installing this when he makes it available.
Christian shows us how to change the supervisor password in ODI. Good article, though I fear that I will have to ask clients for their supervisor password in the future instead of just knowing what it is.
Ricardo and Rodrigo published a great article on OTN exploring Planning Security with ODI.
Glenn explains an undocumented change to the way that Essbase interfaces with SQL Server in 11.1.2.4.
If you’ve ever been fighting your co-workers for RDP access, check out Pete’s guide on enabling multiple users.
The DEVEPM crew shows us how to compress remote files into a ZIP file using ODI.
Sarah shows us how to install OBIEE 12c. Handy for those of us in the EPM space that like to cross-over.
Missing your search-icon’s in the FDMEE POV selection dialog? Terry shows you where to find them.
The Oracle CEAL team has posted a new PDF on integrating OBIEE 12c with HFM. This goes through the entire install process for the drivers and configuring the ADM data source.
Kate shows us around the 11.1.2.4.330 patch for DRM. She pays particular attention to the newly introduced DRM Analytics.
Other News:
Collaborate 16 starts tomorrow in Las Vegas! You can still register on-site here.
Brian Marshall
April 9, 2016