Learn About Hyperion & Oracle BI... 5 Minutes at a Time

Since early 2015, we've been trying to figure out how to help educate more people around the world on Oracle BI and Oracle EPM. Back in 2006, interRel launched a webcast series that started out once every two weeks and then rapidly progressed to 2-3 times per week. We presented over 125 webcasts last year to 5,000+ people from our customers, prospective customers, Oracle employees, and our competitors.

In 2007, we launched our first book and in the last 8 years, we've released over 10 books on Essbase, Planning, Smart View, Essbase Studio, and more. (We even wrote a few books we didn't get to publish on Financial Reporting and the dearly departed Web Analysis.) In 2009, we started doing free day-long, multi-track conferences across North America and participating in OTN tours around the world. We've also been trying to speak at as many user groups and conferences as we can possibly fit in. Side note, if you haven't signed up for Kscope16 yet, it's the greatest conference ever: go to kscope16.com and register (make sure you use code IRC at registration to take $100 off each person's costs).

We've been trying to innovate our education offerings since then to make sure there were as many happy Hyperion, OBIEE, and Essbase customers around the world as possible. Since we started webcasts, books, and free training days, others have started doing them too which is awesome in that it shares the Oracle Business Analytics message with even more people.

The problem is that the time we have for learning and the way we learn has changed. We can no longer take the time to sit and read an entire book. We can't schedule an hour a week at a specific time to watch an hour webcast when we might only be interested in a few minutes of the content. We can't always take days out of our lives to attend conferences no matter how good they are.  So in June 2015 at Kscope16, we launched the next evolution in training (epm.bi/videos):

#PlayItForward is our attempt to make it easier for people to learn by making it into a series of free videos.  Each one focuses on a single topic. Here's one I did that attempts to explain What Is Big Data? in under 12 minutes:

As you can see from the video, the goal is to teach you a specific topic with marketing kept to an absolute minimum (notice that there's not a single slide in there explaining what interRel is). We figure if we remove the marketing, people will not only be more likely to watch the videos but share them as well (competitors: please feel free to watch, learn, and share too). We wanted to get to the point and not teach multiple things in each video.

Various people from interRel have recorded videos in several different categories including What's New (new features in the new versions of various products), What Is? (introductions to various products), Tips & Tricks, deep-dive series (topics that take a few videos to cover completely), random things we think are interesting, and my personal pet project, the Essbase Technical Reference.

Essbase Technical Reference on Video

Yes, I'm trying to convert the Essbase Technical Reference into current, easy-to-use videos. This is a labor of love (there are hundreds of videos to be made on just Essbase calc functions alone) and I needed to start somewhere. For the most part, I'm focusing on Essbase Calc Script functions and commands first, because that's where I get the most questions (and where some of the examples in the TechRef are especially horrendous). I've done a few Essbase.CFG settings that are relevant to calculations and a few others I just find interesting.  I'm not the only one at interRel doing them, because if we waited for me to finish, well, we'd never finish. The good news is that there are lots of people at interRel who learned things and want to pass them on.

I started by doing the big ones (like CALC DIM and AGG) but then decided to tackle a specific function category: the @IS... boolean functions. I have one more of those to go and then I'm not sure what I'm tackling next. For the full ever-increasing list, go to http://bit.ly/EssTechRef, but here's the list as of this posting: 

• @ISACCTYPE
• @ISANCEST and @ISIANCEST
• @ISCHILD and @ISICHILD
• @ISDESC and @ISIDESC
• @ISGEN
• @ISLEV
• @ISMBR
• @ISMBRUDA
• @ISPARENT
• @ISSAMEGEN
• @ISSAMELEV
• @ISSIBLING and @ISISIBLING
• @ISUDA
• @RETURN
• @SUBSTRING
• AGG
• CALC ALL
• CALC DIM
• FIX and ENDFIX
• SET CalcParallel
• SET CalcTaskDims
• SET UpdateCalc
• SSPROCROWLIMIT

What's Next

To see all the videos we have at the moment, go to epm.bi/videos. I'm looking for advice on which TechRef videos I should record next. I'm trying to do a lot more calculation functions and Essbase.CFG settings before I move on to things like MDX functions and MaxL commands, but others may take up that mantle. If you have functions you'd like to see a video on, shoot an email over to epm.bi/videos, click on the discussion tab, and make a suggestion or two. If you like the videos and find them helpful (or you have suggestions on how to make them more helpful), please feel free to comment too.

I think I'm going to go start working on my video on FIXPARALLEL.

OpenWorld 2010

I'm getting ready to leave for Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) and I'm mentally preparing myself the same way one would prepare oneself for, say, storming a beach under a steady barrage of heavy machine gun fire: by trying to pretend that my memories of the last time I survived this experience couldn't possibly be as bad as the real thing. No, I'm not a fan of Oracle OpenWorld. It's too many people spread across too many venues with too few hotels and buses to handle them all.

So that probably makes you wonder: why am I going? Because everyone else is, basically. Last year had something like 45,000 attendees and with the addition of the Java users, this year should be more like 50,000 to 55,000. A lot of Hyperion/EPM/BI attendees have stopped going to OOW, so I was hoping my schedule for this year would be lighter. We just finished putting together the interRel Customer Guide for this year (helping our customers with things they might want to see or do), and on the contrary, it actually seems to busier than in prior years. I'm giving four presentations and hosting a Hyperion day on Sunday. Glenn Schwartzberg is giving another 4 sessions, and Eduardo Quiroz (co-founder of interRel, among other things) is giving a session too.

About the only thing cut out from this year is that I'm doing a book signing. We had 2 of the Top 20 best selling books at the OOW bookstore last year, so they asked Tracy McMullen (Best. Co-author. Ever.) and I to do another booksigning. Since Tracy's not going this year due to some family obligations, I just didn't think it'd be the same signing books all by myself. There will still be lots of our books on sale, though.

Like last year, there will be a "Hyperion Pavilion" on the 5th floor of the Intercontinental hotel next to Moscone West. We will have a booth right by the entrance in case you want to come by and say hi to one of the members of the interRel team (Danielle White will be giving away an iPad, so make sure you find her and give her a business card).

In case you want to stalk me (what better way to show you really care?), here's my schedule for the next week:

Just Released - Look Smarter with Oracle Hyperion Planning: End User Guide

Planning End User Guide

In case anyone missed the press release, Tracy McMullen (Best.Coauthor.Ever.) and I released our newest book today. "Look Smarter Than You Are with Oracle Hyperion Planning: End User's Guide" came out this morning with a retail price of $29.95. If you're at OpenWorld, you can pick up a copy at the interRel kiosk in the Hyperion Pavilion at the Intercontinental Hotel. If you're off site,go to our publisher for a copy at LuLu.com:

http://stores.lulu.com/tracyamcmullen

If you've been waiting for this book to come out so you can buy copies for your entire user community, e-mail Danielle White, dwhite(at)interrel.com. She can arrange a bulk purchase for 30% off retail.

What's In The Book

We cover both the web and Smart View interfaces to Hyperion Planning. The screenshots are all from 11.1.1, but the book is usable by anyone on System 9 or 11x. The format of the book is a bit...different than your normal user manual. Here's the opening paragraph of the book:

Let’s face it: computer books are boring. So to make your job learning how to be an end user of Oracle Hyperion Planning a bit more interesting, we’ve decided to weave a musical comedy throughout this book. Bear with us, because we assure you that this will be far more entertaining than it sounds at the moment; however, if musicals “just aren’t your thing”, you can skip through the few scattered musical interludes and go straight for the Planning content. Don’t complain to us when it’s boring, though.

That's right: the world's first musical computer book. Yes, we're quirky. If you want the details of what's in the book, here's the complete table of contents:

SCENE 1: AN ORACLE PLANNING IMPLEMENTATION MUSICAL 1

• PROLOGUE 1
• A SEQUEL 2
• BIG NEWS 3

SCENE 2: INTRODUCTION TO ORACLE HYPERION PLANNING 5

• YOU GOT SERVED… WHAT’S A SERVER? 7
• APPLICATIONS AND PLAN TYPES DEFINED 8
• DIMENSIONS DEFINED 9
• STANDARD PLANNING DIMENSIONS 14
• THE PLANNING UNIT 21

SCENE 3: PLAN OVER THE WEB 22

• THE PLANNING WEB CLIENT 22
• WHAT IS THE WORKSPACE? 23
• ADVANCED MODE VS. BASIC MODE 27
• ENTER PLAN DATA 31
• USE TASK LISTS 37
• USE RIGHT CLICK MENUS 44
• ADJUST AND SPREAD 45
• ATTACH DOCUMENTS TO DATA FORMS 62
• ADD SUPPORTING DETAILS 67
• ADD CELL TEXT 70
• ADD ACCOUNT ANNOTATIONS 72
• PRINT AND EXPORT A DATA FORM 74
• MISCELLANOUS PLANNING FEATURES 77
• RUN A BUSINESS RULE 81

SCENE 4: PLAN IN EXCEL 88

• GET STARTED 89
• ENTER PLAN DATA IN SMART VIEW 98
• SMART VIEW OPTIONS 106
• BUILD MODELS IN SMART VIEW 108
• AD HOC ANALYSIS WITH IN A FORM 112
• SMART SLICES IN A DATA FORM 122
• REPORT DESIGNER 134
• OFFLINE PLANNING 151

SCENE 5: REVIEW AND APPROVE THE PLAN 163

• INTRODUCTION TO WORKFLOW 163
• MANAGE WORKFLOW 166
• COPY VERSIONS 174
• ANNOTATE THE PLAN 177
• SCENE 6: PLANNING, MY WAY 180
• SET PREFERENCES 180
• SET USER VARIABLES 186
• EPILOGUE 189

APPENDIX I PREPARE FOR BOOK EXERCISES 191

• SET UP 191
• UPDATE FORM SETTINGS 193
• PROVIDE INFORMATION TO END USERS 196
• WHAT’S MISSING? 196
• MY PLANNING APPLICATION 197

APPENDIX II OTHER STUFF 200

• NOTE ON THIS BOOK 200
• NOTE ON PLANNING VERSIONS 200
• WHY IS THIS OPTION GRAYED OUT IN SMART VIEW? 200
• YOU HAVE BOTH EXCEL ADD-IN & SMART VIEW 201
• QUICK QUIDE TO SMART VIEW MENUS 202
• FINAL SONG 204

Planning Admin Guide

Originally, we were going to simultaneously release the Planning Admin and End User guides when Planning 11.1.2 came out some time in 2009. Now that the release date for 11.1.2 has slipped until February 2010 (or later), we've decided not to wait for it to release the End User guide. The goal for the Admin guide is to get it out sometime in the next 3 months. Publishing dates are notoriously fickle things, though, so keep watching here for updates on release dates.

Essbase 11 and Smart View Books On Amazon Kindle

Amazon Printed and On-Line

I mentioned back in June that you could get our Oracle Essbase 11 and Smart View 11 books from our publisher directly. At the time, many of you wondered when they'd be on Amazon.com. Wait no more:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords="essbase+11"&x=0&y=0

On a very cool note, our two newest 11x books are also available in an Amazon Kindle edition. So if you want to always have Essbase or Smart View material available at your fingertips or if you just love saving trees, get a Kindle copy here:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords="essbase+11"+kindle&x=0&y=0

Direct from interRel Press

Now, of course, I would still prefer you buy them from our publisher because we get to keep more of the revenue, but I understand why some prefer Amazon. If you want to help us starving authors get higher royalties (and get your shipment faster too, generally), please visit:

http://stores.lulu.com/tracyamcmullen

As always, if you want to buy 5 or more copies of one of our books, please e-mail dwhite(at)interrel.com and she'll be happy to arrange 30% off the list price. Now your entire finance department can afford a copy of the end user book!

Look Smarter Than You Are with Hyperion Planning

Finally, as an update, our next book will be released before OpenWorld. Stay tuned to this blog if you're a user of Hyperion Planning who's been waiting patiently for a book to refer to.

Essbase 11 and Smart View Books Are Now Available

I Can't Keep a Secret, Apparently

This was supposed to stay quiet until the press release came out in May, but so many people have already discovered it that I thought I might as well fess up. My (along with Tracy McMullen, the best co-author ever) two new Oracle/Hyperion/Essbase books are now available. At the moment, you can only get them directly from the publisher. If you're interested in Essbase 11 (now with more ASO!) or Smart View, you finally have a place to turn.

Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase 11: An Administrator's Guide

This book has over 300 pages of new content in it, but the book it self stays under 700 pages. How did we manage this, you ask? Well, with the exception of a very brief chapter on Smart View that's used to introduce Administrator's to dimensionality, we've removed all of the end user content from this book. Yes, that means that if you want end user information, you've got to buy a second book, but if we hadn't done this, the book would be close to 1,000 pages. Since we're not trying to re-write War & Peace (now with a new happier ending!), we made the decision to split the end user stuff out.

So how in the name of Thor did we come up with 300+ pages of new information? Well, some of it was due to the new Essbase 11 features like Varying Attributes and Text Lists. A lot more, though, is due to the new Essbase ASO (aggregate storage) content we wrote. In the last few Essbase books, we treated ASO as an after thought only to be considered if you wanted to build truly huge cubes. In the new book, we talk about ASO as your primary default options for new cubes. For the first 350+ pages of the new book, we just focus on building ASO cubes before we finally get to building BSO cubes.

Some of you Essbase people are cheering right now, "thank God, finally a good source for learning ASO!" A number of you are also wondering, "but shouldn't BSO be the default and ASO only used in certain specific cases?" In our opinion, not any more. With the 11x improvements to ASO, it should be the first place you go to build all new databases (even wee lil' ones). BSO (block storage) should only be used if you need sophisticated writeback or complex calculations. While we still cover BSO in the new book, we show ASO first and then eventually show how to do the equivalent things in ASO (and not the other way around, as our previous Essbase books have).

We hope you'll like all the additional content (and we only had to up the price a mere $10 USD). Here's the link to buy your copy:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/look-smarter-than-you-are-with-essbase-11/6402010

Look Smarter Than You Are with Smart View and Essbase 11: An End User's Guide

If you're looking for instruction on how to use the old Essbase Excel Add-In, you'll want to buy our previous end user book, because this one is all about Smart View for over 250 pages. With all the new features in Smart View 11 (Smart Slices, Report Designer, and more), we had to abandon the Essbase Add-In content and just focus on Smart View.

You might notice that "Essbase" is in the title. Don't be mislead: this is primarily a Smart View book and can be used even if you're accessing HFM, Planning, OBIEE, or whatever; however, we had to pick a data source to use in our examples. Since the majority of people using Smart View have Essbase (even if it's just underlying Planning), we chose Essbase for our exercises in the book. So if you've been wanting a book on Smart View, this is the book for you. Best news, the price (for the moment) stays the exact same:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/look-smarter-than-you-are-with-smart-view-and-essbase-11-an-end-users-guide/5570907

Where can I buy a copy?

For the moment, the only place to get the books is direct from our publisher. They will be on Amazon.com in 6-10 weeks, because it takes a while to get new books through their system unless you're a major publishing house. If you're coming to Collaborate, the books will also be for sale at their bookstore, and Tracy and I are doing an official book signing there too. We'll also be bringing some copies of each book to sell at our booth at Kaleidoscope if you're going there instead. If you want to buy more than 5 copies (bulk discounts give you more fun for less money!), you can get them through interRel at 30% off: just e-mail info@interrel.com.

Go ahead and tell your friends that the books are available, but when you see the press release in early May announcing the official release of the books, please try to act surprised. In the meantime, don't say anything to interRel Press' marketing department.

Edward Roske is Personally Teaching an Essbase Class

And the question on everyone's mind is, does he still remember how to teach and more importantly, will anyone actually show up?

Normally, I don't teach training classes (so many students, so little time), but I'm going to be teaching one from April 22-24 at interRel's training center at the Rangers Ballpark in Dallas, TX. The class is about how to administer Essbase 11 (though we will be pointing out where System 9 and 11 differ) and it's designed for a technical audience. In other words, it's for people who won't be building cubes but will be maintaining them.

Why you might ask am I teaching this class? It's because I have a book coming out in the next couple of weeks on Essbase 11, and I want to try out some of the material in a live class environment. It's always nice to see in-person how people react to your exercises. If they literally throw the book at you, then you have to ease up on some of the more tedious sections.

There are a couple of spots available in this class (I think it's $750/day), so if you want to learn about Essbase administration from me directly, this is about your only chance for the foreseeable future. The last time I taught this class was in 2006, and I'm probably not doing it again until another major release of Essbase comes out. If you want to sign up, visit interRel's website.

Yes, I did say that the Essbase 11 book would be out shortly, so if you want to be the first to own a copy, keep checking lulu.com under keyword "Essbase" over the next few days.

#10. Shrinking of Oracle OpenWorld Hyperion Content

As many of you know from my past blog entries, I wasn't a huge fan of Oracle OpenWorld in 2007, and shockingly, I was even less of a fan in 2008.  The simple reason is that in 2007, there seemed to be at least an attempt to have some decent Hyperion content.  There were even designated Hyperion rooms over at the Marriott to separate the Hyperion attendees from the teeming masses.  While the 2007 content wasn't as good as Hyperion Solutions (more to come on that one in one of the following "Top 10" stories), it definitely was more than in 2008.

This doesn't make a lot of sense, really.  You'd think that they'd take 2007 and try to build on it.  While the Hyperion content from Oracle certainly decreased in quantity (and in some cases, quality), there were a few bright spots for Hyperion customers.  ODTUG and OAUG both sponsored significant Hyperion user group symposiums on the opening day of OpenWorld.  OAUG and Oracle co-hosted a great reception for Hyperion customers.  (The next sentence is not a shameless book plug.)  Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase System 9 was the 4th best selling book at the conference (out of over 500 titles on all Oracle products).  The last one, more than anything, tells me that people are dying for more Hyperion content (at least about Essbase), not less.

While Oracle didn't announce official numbers for Hyperion attendees for 2008 - since Hyperion officially is now an Oracle brand and not a company, how could they? -  my personal experience was that attendance was down from the estimated 1,000 Hyperion-driven attendees of OpenWorld 2007.  My advice to Oracle: realize that EPM is one of the few growing areas of technology right now.  The more you talk about it, the more people will listen (and the more they'll come to your conference).  The worst thing that can happen to your product is that people forget about it, like, say, Express.  Now whatever happened to that product once Oracle bought them?  I can't seem to recall...

Collaborate 08 Hyperion Track - Tuesday

Remember how I went a bit "off the rails" about the horribleness of Monday's lunch? I was told by someone later that there were actually decent desserts during the afternoon snack hour. I was busy then, so I didn't personally see the desserts in question, but I'm willing to stipulate to their existence. Still, chocolaty goodness in no way makes up for the gruel (cold) that they served for lunch. Note that I kept my eye out for tasty snackage today and saw nothing. If there was sugary heaven to be found, someone was hiding it from me.

This was the busiest day I've ever experienced at a convention. I was supposed to go to John Kopcke's presentation at 9:45AM on the "EPM Vision," but I cancelled (in favor of catching up on e-mail) when I heard that it was going to be shockingly similar to the presentation Fred Richards gave at the Hyperion SIG. I sometimes get a kick out of hearing Kopcke speak, but I forced myself to miss this session.

At 11:00AM, I delivered a presentation called "Essbase for Non-Financial Applications." The room was about half full (or was it half empty?). Roughly, there were about 100 people there. I enjoy giving this presentation, because it gives concrete examples of how Essbase is not just for the financial analysts and accountants at a company.

I talked about the many applications Michaels (the arts & crafts stores) has built that were non-financial and I went into exhaustive detail about their marketing/advertising analysis application. It's interesting not only because it's primarily operational statistics, but also because it has a newspaper dimension that lists over 1,300 newspapers around North America. I think it's probably the only "newspaper dimension" I've ever seen.

Immediately after the presentation, Tracy and I rushed to a book signing at the Collaborate bookstore for our two new books. While people have asked us for autographs before, I've never been a part of an actual book signing. I really enjoyed myself. Some people stayed to chat while others just presented their books. I had fun making up pithy comments to write in the books along with the signature although being tired, some of the comments were only semi-pithy.

The only problem with the book signing was that it occurred during lunch. Oh, wait. They served box lunches again. God was smiling on me this day by saving me from the dreaded boxes of bread.

I stopped by the booth briefly. Traffic was extremely light, so I was able to walk around and talk to some friends from other consulting companies. I heard a few rumors about the implosion of some of our major competitors. I'd like to repeat them here, but I'm not the gossipping type. ("Say, did you see Acme Solutions kissing AAA Consulting behind the projector screen?") I also heard (again, rumor) about the impending demise of a couple of Hyperion products that will be replaced by Answers Plus. I'll have to verify this before I post it, but since a lot of people use these products, I'm not sure who I can convince to go on the record.

Today's exhibit hall (at least at around 2:00PM) was devoid of food. I may starve to death at this convention.

Two presentations after lunch: Real World Optimization and Power of 64-Bit Essbase. The Optimization present had around 140, but the 64-bit presentation was surprisingly light (50 people, tops). Maybe it's because it ended around 5:45PM and a lot of people were tired.

I did cause quite a stir in the 64-bit session when I broke the news about the upcoming release of 128-bit Essbase. Supposedly (I believe it when I see it), it can handle outlines with up to 2^1024 members in a single dimension. Theoretically, a single cube can grow to 274,877,906,944 YB (yottabytes) in size. In the lab, the Essbase developers have built a cube that stores the entire current contents of the internet. I'm hoping that they used Aggregate Storage. While Oracle is pretty inspecific about their release dates, one of the developers told me (off-the record) that "they won't even have this in beta until after this year" so don't hold your breath.

Consider that last paragraph to be a delayed April Fools Joke. Back to the serious.

After the presentations, I raced back to the Hyatt Regency to catch one of the limos we rented to a client appreciation event we were hosting at the Denver Chophouse. We rented three limos. The one I was in was called an "REO Speedwagon" and looked like an armored car on the outside. Some of the other people got in a party bus that looks like the "heavily armed recreational vehicle" in Stripes. I kid you not.

We had about 60 people show up at the event. Dinner was tasty (I had the 4-cheese Penne) and after the meal, we had an amazing mentalist named Chris Carter perform. We started off by introducing him as "Chris Carter, interRel's new Director of Human Resources." He actually sat and ate dinner with us doing periodic tricks: "I learned these to help break the ice in my HR role." It eventually became obvious that he was not an HR Director.

After the food and mentalist, we went downstairs to Sing Sing, a dueling piano bar. We rented out the place from 8-9:30PM for our "private interRel party." It was more fun than humans should be allowed to have without serving jail time. I attribute a large portion of the fun to the open bar we had during the event. They let us keep the tab open until 10:30PM (though they started letting other people in) which just added to the fun, frankly.

I rode the Urban Assault Vehicle back to the Hyatt at 10:30PM, staggered up to my room, and collapsed. Conventions are exhausting. I really need to get myself a Segway.

Advanced Copies of New Essbase Books

I mentioned before that Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase: An End User's Guide was going to come out soon. While it's not officially available yet (the big launch event is going to be at a book signing at Collaborate), you can buy a copy now direct from our publisher for $29.95:
http://www.lulu.com/content/2192220

This book focuses just on the end user-side of things like the Essbase Excel Add-In and the Hyperion Smart View Office Add-In. If you're interested in buying 5 or more copies (enough for every one of your end users!), you can e-mail info@interrel.com and we'll give you a 30% bulk discount.

Speaking of books, we've gotten a number of requests recently for a 'System 9' edition of Look Smarter Than You Are with Hyperion Essbase. Bowing to the voracious demands of the book-buying public, we have an updated version of our last book which focuses entirely on System 9 content. We have also added more than 40 pages of additional content, because we noticed some areas (like security in Shared Services) warranted an entire new chapter in the updated book. The price point is the same (screw you, inflation) at $49.95 and like the "End User Guide", it's right now only available directly from our publisher. Here's the link for Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase System 9: The Complete Guide:
http://www.lulu.com/content/2192328

If you want a signed copy of either of the two new books, come to Collaborate (there, now you finally have a good reason!), and attend one of the book signings. Tracy McMullen (my wonderful and irreplaceable co-author) and I will be signing copies on Tuesday and Wednesday from 12:30-1:30 at the bookstore. It's not that I think our signatures will actually add value, it's just that this gives you a chance to heckle/question Tracy and me directly while we smile and make illegible scribbles on the front page of your brand-new, pristine book.

Also at Collaborate, you'll be able to browse preview copies of three more books Tracy and I are releasing before the end of 2008 (if God, our families, and most importantly, our interRel editors allow). I don't want to spoil the surprise about the exact three titles, but suffice to say they're all about Hyperion and none of them are about Essbase (since we've now officially done that topic to death).

Collaborate 2008 Has 1,000+ Hyperion Attendees

I'm tempted to rename this blog from "Look Smarter" to "Updates on All the Hyperion Conferences and User Groups" because it seems like that's all there is to write about these days. I just found out today that the number of people registered for the Hyperion track at Collaborate 08 has surpassed 1,000, so it seemed like a great opportunity to give an update on the conference. Though Collaborate as a whole attracts over 7,500 people, I'm amazed that they have over 1,000 Hyperion registrants. 1,000 was their goal and the conference is still weeks away.

If you haven't registered yet, make sure you do it by April 3. After that, the price goes up from $1,495 to $1,695 (and you're basically paying the on-site rate). The easiest way to register is here: http://collaborate08.com/COLLABORATE08/Hyperion.htm.

It will give you two options. If you're a member of OAUG, IOUG, or Quest, it will direct you to register through their links. If you're just a common Hyperion user who doesn't belong to one of them fancy "citified" user groups, you'll be instructed to click here: https://www.questdirect.org/registration/default.aspx?ec=103.

No matter which route you take, please use discount code INTERREL08 when you register (we get credit for pointing you in the right direction).

There's a tremendous amount of information available on-line about the conference. There's an overall agenda for the conference in a nicely printable PDF. If you prefer a PDF just listing the Hyperion presentations there's one of those too. There's a search page pre-filtered for Hyperion sessions if you're looking to find specific presentations. OAUG also offers a personal agenda builder to create a schedule of just what you want to see.

As far as Hyperion presentations go, they were originally hoping to offer 100-150 Hyperion sessions. (I mentioned this on a blog posting back in February.) Due to the lack of quality presentations to choose from, they only ended up selecting a little over 80 presentations (hey, quality is better than quantity). Of those ~80 presentations, ~30 are being delivered by Oracle staffers (mostly the high-level intro presentations or the product direction presentations). interRel is delivering (either alone or with interRel clients) 25 or 26 presentations. That leaves around 25 sessions that non-interRel clients and other partners of Oracle are presenting. I'm wondering if the Collaborate folks should say "The Hyperion Track is brought to you by Oracle and the good folks at interRel"...

Since they spread the ~80 presentations over 19 timeslots, a couple of the timeslots are pretty sparse. Some hours have as few as 2 presentations while other slots have up to 7 presentations. There are a few time slots where interRel isn't presenting anything and then there are weird times like 2:15PM on Monday when 3 OUT OF 4 presentations are by interRel.

Of the interRel presentations, I'm delivering 9 or 10 of them. Tracy McMullen is doing another 8 or 9 and we have another 13 people coming to the conference to help deliver the remainder. Oh, and they're staffing the booth too. If you want to come by and visit us at Collaborate, we're in booth 963. You can also visit Tracy and me at our book signings. Apparently, there will a bookstore at Collaborate selling books on Oracle topics (including copies of all of the different Look Smarter books we've written). On Tuesday and Wednesday from 12:30-1:30, they've asked us to come by the bookstore and sign copies of our books for our adoring fans (if any actually exist). If you wish for me to deface your book with my signature, please free to stop by.

I'm looking forward to seeing you in Denver!

Look Smarter Than You Are With Essbase: An End User's Guide

Tracy McMullen and I co-wrote a book on Essbase almost exactly one year ago. At the time, it was called Essbase for Mere Mortals until our trademark attorney identified some issues with the title which just goes to show you that trademark attorneys are worth every penny. We went through 6 or 7 different titles only to have every single one of them rejected by our trademark attorney on infringement grounds which just goes to show you that trademark attorneys are very frustrating. We finally got approval for the name Look Smarter Than You Are with Hyperion Essbase.

Sales in the first year have been phenomenal. At last check, we were one of the top 25 best selling books of all-time on lulu.com (our publisher) and they publish over 10,000 titles. Normally a computer book has big sales shortly after the release but then sales die down over the lifetime of the book. Our sales last quarter were the biggest yet. Instead of an overnight bestseller, does that make us an overyear bestseller?

Feedback on the book has been mostly positive. People tend to like the humor and the step-by-step approach (as opposed to the more "look up specific stuff" method that the Essbase Database Administrator's Guide follows). My mother complained that the book cost too much, but she was the only one I heard that voiced that concern (Mom's exact quote was, "do I really have to spend $49.95 just to prove I love you?"). The only recurrent complaints were that the index page numbering was slightly off (fixed in the newest release) and that the book was too administrator-oriented to give to, say, an entire finance department.

Frankly, that last criticism was correct. While we built the first third of the book to be geared towards end users, it was immediately followed by a few hundred pages of material about building and administering cubes. While the information wouldn't harm an end user, it seemed silly to make people pay $49.95 for a book and then tell them not to read two-thirds of it. In a fit of (retail) inspiration, Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase: An End User's Guide was born. It's primarily the same content as the full-blown guide, but with the administrative content removed (and with a new retail price of $29.95 to entice companies to buy in bulk for entire departments).

The book is in the final proofing stages and should be available on our publisher's site by end of March and it'll be on Amazon.com in late April or early May. The point of the book is to give end users of Essbase everything they need to know to slice and dice Essbase cubes from Excel, Word, PowerPoint, or whatever.

The last part of the book to be written was, oddly, chapter one. As readers of our other book can attest, chapter one is the story that sets the tone for the entire book: this won't be your average, boring computer manual. In my last book, the first chapter was the completely true story of how I blacked out the entire city of New Orleans using only the power of Essbase (or so I thought). I finished chapter one of "An End User's Guide" at three o'clock this morning, so I thought I'd share it with you. It's humorous in a dark, dry sort of way (or at least I think it is after staying up until 3AM writing it). Subject to proofing revisions, here's Chapter One of Look Smarter Than You Are With Essbase: An End User's Guide:

Chapter 1:
How I Almost Killed a Man

In the worst of times, desperate men can be driven to commit acts of desperation. Case in point, I'm sitting in my cubicle at this moment, trying to figure out how to kill my boss with only the power of my thoughts. I've come to the conclusion that it would be much easier to kill him if 1) he was here at the office with me instead of home asleep in his bed; and 2) my brainwaves weren't reduced to brainripples since it's 3AM and budgets are due in six hours. I'll have to abandon the mental murder idea. On to Plan B: how to kill my boss using a luke warm Starbucks venti vanilla latte.

This isn't getting me anywhere. Murder probably isn't appropriate in a business situation and normally I wouldn't attack any of my coworkers with cold, milk-based drinks. How in the name of Odin did I end up like this? As best as my sleep-derived memory can recall, it started with a phone call from my boss, Mr. Deadman. The phone rang; my heart sank.

"Sorry to bother you on such a lovely day," he said. I knew he was looking out his window at the sunset as I stared at my graying, windowless cubicle wall. At least I have a picture of a kitten clinging to a branch with the inspirational quote "Hang on... help is coming" to keep my morale up.

"No, no bother. Any questions on the consolidated budget? They're due tomorrow, so there better not be any questions. You know how I like to leave every day by 5." Since I hadn't left before 6 in this millennium, I laughed at my own semi-joke until I noticed that I was the only one laughing. He didn't say a word.

The silence stretched on like... something that stretches on for a really long time. As I stared at my kitten poster for salvation, he said, "That's actually why I'm calling. I just need you to increase the IT hardware budget by 10%. Rising cost of servers, don't you know? No hurry, because I'm leaving for the day in just a couple of minutes. I won't even be able to look at the revised numbers until morning."

I could feel the anger rising as my morale deflated. I threw a pencil at the stupid kitten picture. Through gritted teeth, I managed to stammer, "Sure... no... problem..." and in my head I continued 'you jerk.'

With the perky voice of someone about to leave at 5:05PM, he said, "excellent, and since it's no problem, can you do me a favor and analyze the IT budget growth since last year? I'd do it myself but I have a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning and I won't be in until right before the budget review meeting."

I imagined that I was the one hanging from that kitten's little tree branch. He took my moment of wondering in entirely the wrong way. "Oh, don't worry, it's nothing serious. It's just a routine check up but I figured I'd do it before year end when things are going to get really hectic. Well, have a great one. Don't work too hard."

He chuckled as he hung up the phone. Yes, he actually chuckled. I ripped the kitten poster off the wall and got to work.

Updating the IT budget itself wasn't what took forever: it was consolidating all of our spreadsheets together. With over 200 Excel spreadsheets, I have to open up each one off the network share drive in exactly the right order, press F9, and then on to the next worksheet.

I ran into a frustrating situation around 11PM. After the initial submission of the budget sheets, someone had opened up his sheet and decided that things would be a bit prettier with one fewer column, so he deleted it. My summary workbook, of course, wasn't smart enough to pick up on this change, so my formulas were adding in the wrong column. I noticed around 11, but it took me until 3AM to find the problem and correct it.

Now we're back to where our story began. Budgets have been consolidated, all errant formulas have been corrected, and I haven't even started on the analysis my boss requested. It's at this point that I realize that there's virtually no way to kill someone with a latte (even a really tasty and worth every dollar Starbucks latte) so I'd need find a better plan. My eyes search my cubicle for implements of destruction.

My eyes wander past my red Swingline stapler and to my monitor where Excel is staring at me: mercilessly mocking me with its unnaturally straight gridlines. The numbers seem to be running across the screen and that's when I realize that I really need to take a nap. Wait. What is this menu item I see between Window and Help? Is this some form of salvation in the form of Essbase or is it just a mirage in the desert that is my existence?

Choirs begin to sing as I realize that the key to my getting a few hours of sleep lies in the hands of a little Excel add-in and its good friend, Essbase. No, they aren't real choirs but rather my iPod playing Beethoven's Ninth, but surely this must be a sign. Remembering everything I learned in that best-selling Essbase book I read, I raced to the Essbase menu and within minutes had resubmitted my budgets, consolidated them, and performed some pretty amazing analysis. I finished everything just in time to sing along with Ode to Joy in gleeful gibberish German.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, my boss was standing at the entrance to my cubicle wearing golf attire. Doctor's appointment, my ass. He spoke as I wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth.

"Wow, that outfit looks great on you. It looks even better on you today than it did yesterday. Say, what happened to your cat poster?"

It was balled up in my trash can at the moment, but I knew just where he should stuff it. I started to suggest it when he said, "I got the analysis you sent me at 4AM. I don't know how you got it done in time. It was wonderful."

Clearing thoughts of relocating my poster into one of his orifices from my head, I managed to eke out, "thank you?"

He smiled and put his hand warmly on my shoulder. I didn't immediately try to break his wrist which meant that my thoughts of death by mind/coffee were gone only to be replaced (momentarily) with thoughts of a sexual harassment lawsuit.

"While I'd love to take the credit, Mr. Deadman, I have to say that I couldn't have done it without Essbase. It saved my life last night" and yours to, I didn't add out loud.

He smiled from sunburned ear to sunburned ear. "Well, I always knew that buying Essbase was a good idea. I guess this proves it. You owe me one!"

He skipped off as I grabbed my copy of Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase: An End User's Guide and threw it at his head.

Note that the authors of this book do not condone in any way killing people with your thoughts, your venti latte, or your copy of this book. While the story above is false, similar situations occur all the time. We hope that you learn from this book so that you don't do something you might regret after 5-10 years of hard labor. Don't wait until 3AM to recall your Essbase teachings. Read this book, learn how to use Essbase to your advantage, and please, get a good night's sleep.