OraNA :: Oracle News Aggregator

Oracle Enterprise Performance Management 11.1.2.3 became available over the weekend, so let the rush of upgrading begin!

Here at Applied OLAP, we have already started our work with Essbase 11.1.2.3.  We have added the new version to our build list and have started testing (more...)

One of my friends at Oracle asked me to help get the word out about the Oracle Excellence Awards for Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation. These awards recognize customers for their cutting-edge solutions using Oracle Fusion Middleware and are featured in Oracle publications, videos and case studies. If you think you (more...)

One of our customers recently sent us a screenshot of a dashboard they developed in Dodeca. This application, which is deployed to over 1,000 Essbase users worldwide, allows users to easily analyze over 250,000 SKU-level products by customer and by business unit. The application, which was implemented to replace a (more...)

Last Monday, we reached a milestone at Applied OLAP as it was the 15th anniversary of our incorporation.  I founded Applied OLAP on March 18, 1998, because I was not satisfied with the status quo of Essbase reporting at the time which was, of course, the classic Excel add-in.  And, (more...)

We have always claimed that Essbase was better with Dodeca, but until now we had only anecdotal evidence about how our customers get more return on their Essbase investment using Dodeca.  Now we have something a bit more concrete.  Recently, the annual BI Survey, which bills itself as the “world's largest vendor-independent survey of Business Intelligence and Performance Management users”, published the results of their annual survey, The BI Survey 12.  As in past years, we asked our customers to participate in the survey and, as a result, we earned a mention in the survey.  More importantly, we are (more...)

I can’t believe it has been nearly a year and a half since I visited Sydney and spoke at the ODTUG EPM Seriously Practical Conference.    It seems just like yesterday and I can’t wait to get back to the Land of Oz, but I am not making the trip this time.  However, my good friend Cameron Lackpour is going to make the trip and is working on some great presentations for the ODTUG EPM Seriously Practical Conference coming up March 21 and 22 in Melbourne, Victoria. New Queensland (Note to self: Remember to google things like this (more...)

We are happy to announce that Applied OLAP and our flagship product, The Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System, have signed up as a Platinum Sponsor for the Kscope13 conference in New Orleans.  We believe that the conference, which runs from June 25 to June 28, is not only the best forum for Hyperion related content, but it is also the best place for Hyperion related vendors to show their products.

There are several events at Kscope13 that you should not miss.  The first event is the annual ODTUG Community Service Day on Saturday, June 24.  This year, ODTUG volunteers will (more...)

We have been very busy at work on a new version of Dodeca and were working so hard, in fact, that we missed our marketing opportunity of the century.  Of course, I am talking about December 12th or “12/12/12” which is also known as, of course, “Dodeca Day”.  Oh well, we have 99 years, 11 months to plan for the next one!

Not all is lost, however, because after months of hard work, we have released the Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System, version 6.3.0.3696.  The new version of Dodeca is very exciting as we have worked very hard (more...)

If you are a paid ODTUG member, you only have two weeks left to vote for the slate of candidates for the ODTUG Board of Directors.  The Board of Directors guides the business of the organization, including its largest event, the annual Kscope conference.

This year, there are 11 professionals, including me, running for 4 spots on the board.  The candidates include 1 Oracle Application Express specialist, 4 database tools specialists, and 6 Hyperion/EPM specialists.  I think I can speak for all of the candidates when I say we are all willing to volunteer many, many hours to help the (more...)

I have been working on the Dodeca data audit log to make sure changes to date and text measures are properly logged and, as a result, got some interesting insights into how date and text measures work at the API level.  I thought I would share my thoughts with you.  In my work, I created a very simple example for tracking satisfaction of marketing programs including the start date and end date of the promotion.  This may or may not be a realistic usage of date and text measures, but I am interested to look at how it works under (more...)

I was talking yesterday with a new customer who had an interesting comment about Dodeca. In her responsibilities at her company, she is not only the Dodeca administrator, but also handles all of the Essbase administration along with about 5 other major tasks. They are now deploying Dodeca to replace an aging VBA/Essbase application that had been created by a consulting firm several years ago but nobody knew how to maintain it. Here is the quote (used with permission):

“In Dodeca, I built my dynamic schedules very quickly on my own and they worked! I was a little intimidated at (more...)

I can’t believe it has been a month-and-a-half since Kscope12 in San Antonio wrapped up, and I haven’t had a chance to blog about it.  I finally have a chance to put together a quick review of my favorite, and not-so-favorite, things about the conference.

I arrived on Thursday as we had an ODTUG Board of Directors meeting all day Friday.  The hotel was a bit quiet while awaiting the arrival of Kscope attendees.   The pools and water park were, however, in full operation, which was not the case when I visited in January.

Conference activities kicked off on (more...)

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with a Dodeca customer that is in the grocery business and they were talking about their new Dodeca-based labor planning application.  During the testing of their new system, one of their planners found an error in the amount of time that each grocery store allocates daily for placing bananas on the shelves.  That doesn't seem like a big deal, right?  Well, it turns out that it is a big deal.

The excess labor being allocated to this task totals about 30 minutes per day per store.  This particular customer has around 2,500 (more...)

My friend Cameron Lackpour had asked to see this, so here it is..   Dodeca on iPad.  Dodeca provides extremely fast Essbase operations and the ability to return huge data sets.  Now you can take it with you.

Dodeca on an iPad showing a dynamically generated Essbase input form.

OK..  Our labs have been busy..  Here is a screenshot of Dodeca running on a Linux desktop.  Who is running a Linux desktop out there?

Over the past couple of years, we have been asked about the possibility of having Dodeca running on a Mac.  Well, here it is!  This is a screenshot of Dodeca running on a Mac in our labs.

Dodeca on a Mac (click to enlarge)

So, who is running a Mac but can't find how to get to Essbase data on it?  <BigGrin>

Today, we have made the Dodeca-Essbase server for Essbase 11.1.2.2 available to licensed customers.  Support for this version of Essbase comes just 6 days after Oracle made the 11.1.2.2 release and shows our dedication to support for Oracle Essbase.  In addition, the ability to support this new release so quickly validates the superior architecture of Dodeca.  With this release, Dodeca supports every version of Essbase between 6.5.3 and 11.1.2.2 and features the unique ability to query data from any supported Essbase version into a single Dodeca report.  This ability, (more...)

Recently, I did a presentation on the new Smart View 11.1.2.1.102 at the ODTUG Hyperion SIG event in Dallas.  In the presentation, I listed all of the technical innovations that brought this version of Smart View closer to the functionality of the classic Excel add-in for Essbase.  I also spent some time talking about the remaining differences between Smart View and the classic Excel add-in.  It was during this part of the presentation that I was asked a question I was completely unprepared for.  Someone asked me, “Why should we upgrade to Smart View over the (more...)

My friend Ron Moore over at Marketing Technologies Group send me a link to the recorded webcasts they have on their site and asked that I get the word out about their presence.  Ron and I go back many years and, in fact, I used to teach Essbase Excel VBA classes for him at his training room in New York.  Ron is also a great sponsor of the ODTUG Hyperion user group activities and these videos are a great contribution to the community.

Here is what the recorded library looks like.

There are currently 38 webcast videos in the library (more...)