Whatever Happened to Edward Roske?

Where have I been for 8 months?

Answering that could take a while.  Suffice to say, it's been a busy year.  The largest amount of time beyond my normal job was spent being Conference Chair for the last two years for ODTUG's Kscope conference.  If anyone ever offers to let you chair a conference and then tells you "it's mostly a symbolic position that doesn't require much work," they're lying.  Run away quickly.  Chairing these things is a lot of work, and I am happy to say that my replacement as Conference Chair, Mike Riley, will doubtless put my conference chairing to shame as he carries on the good I did and takes it up a notch from good to great.

While running Kscope was an amazing lot of work, it was definitely worth it.  I encourage every one of you to make it to Kscope13 in New Orleans, LA from June 23-27 in 2013.  Kscope13 will continue to be the home for Hyperion, Essbase, Oracle EPM & BI (in addition to ApEx, Oracle RDBMS, Fusion, and lots more) and it's adding content in those areas including entirely new tracks around EPM.  Side note: abstract submission is open through October 15, so if you want to get a free pass to Kscope13, now's your chance: http://bit.ly/Content13.

Kscope kept me busy from early in 2010 until the summer of 2012.  I then took a month off to recuperate (in other words, focus on my actual duties at interRel which apparently include CEO: who knew?) and now I'm back to blogging.  I'm sure you're shedding a single tear right now and I'm choosing to believe it's because you're so choked up with emotion.

The next few weeks are going to be filled with a great deal of travel as I'm presenting at several conferences.  I'm hoping to be able to blog from a few of these conferences.  If you're at any of them, be sure to find me either up on stage somewhere speaking or at our booth.  If you want to know more about any of these conferences, you can always send an e-mail over to the intelligent, beautiful, and obscenely overworked Danielle White at info@interrel.com.

September 11
Hyperion Solutions Road Trip to Denver

Oracle and interRel put on a series of free, multi-track training days around North America each year.  We have one on September 11 at the Grand Hyatt in Denver and like most of the Roadshows we do, it's open to both current and prospective customers of Oracle EPM & BI.  I'm giving three sessions at this conference including the keynote on the future of Oracle EPM (11.1.2.2 and beyond).  If you're anywhere near Denver (or could fly there easily), there's a great half-day agenda followed by free tickets to a Colorado Rockies game afterwards (they're playing the San Francisco Giants).  My good buddy, Glenn Schwartzberg, will also be presenting along with a few Oracle speakers talking in detail about 11.1.2.2.

September 30 to October 4

Oracle OpenWorld
San Francisco, California

If you don't want to miss your annual chance to hear Oracle talk about Oracle, you'll want to come to a city vaguely resembling San Francisco during the first week of quarter close for most companies.  That's right: in what is, I'm sure, not a big "sod off" to finance and accounting users everywhere, Oracle has decided to hold their annual Oracle awesomeness conference during the first week of October.

To be completely honest, I actually like being able to hear once per year directly from Oracle their stance on recent releases and future plans. While it's huge, overcrowded, 90%+ marketing, and expensive, there are great networking and educational opportunities to be found if you know where to look.  Word of advice, though: don't ever try to stand in a cab line; you'll be there for 2 hours and it's probably quicker to just walk wherever you're headed.

I've got 3 or 4 sessions at this year's conference including a non-Hyperion one on the Fusion User Experience.  Most of my sessions will be part of the ODTUG's EPM Symposium at Moscone West in room 2008 on Sunday afternoon.  interRel also has a kiosk in the Hyperion Pavilion on the 5th floor of the Intercontinental Hotel.  Make sure you stop by and see us at one of those locations.

Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon will be performing at the Wednesday night party on Treasure Island, so bare minimum, you can get in touch with your alternative side.  There's also free booze, so ya, you got that going for you.

October 16

Hyperion Solutions Road Trip to Seattle

This conference is similar to the one in Denver except for three important differences:

1. It's in Bellevue, Washington on a different date.
2. The keynote speaker is the VP of Oracle EPM Development, Matt Bradley.  He's a great speaker and this is an excellent opportunity to hear from development themselves about all the great things they have planned for the next year.
3. The after event is at Lucky Strike instead of at a baseball park, because let's face it: there's no way in Hell that the Seattle Mariners will still be playing baseball in mid-October.

This event, like the other road trips, is free.  You just have to get yourself to Seattle (and not be a competitor, obviously).

October 23

Hyperion Solutions Road Trip to Phoenix

This time, we're heading down South to Phoenix, Arizona.  The agenda will be very similar to the Denver event above and there will be great fun in the evening after, so join us for education and networking all for free.  Just to prove that geography is not our strong suit, in this exact same week, we'll be traveling to:

October 25

Hyperion Solutions Road Trip to Calgary

I'm told that Canadians are very scary and intimidating, but I'm hoping they'll be nice as we take our first road trip North of the border.  Expect a similar agenda to the others but with a dash of vegetarian back bacon.  I'm looking forward to the Calgary Flames game after the day's education is complete because apparently hockey is trying to become a major sport, and this is my one chance to learn something about it (red line? blue line? icing?).  Jenny, our business coordinator at interRel, is from Canada and she assures me that if hockey doesn't take off, at least curling will.

October 30

Hyperion Solutions Road Trip to Los Angeles

The agenda for this event is quite different.  Among other things, it's a full-day instead of a half-day and it has 3 full tracks instead of 2.  It's basically a one-day, free Hyperion conference.  This year, it'll be at the Hilton inside Universal Studios and our after event will be at Jillian's on the Universal City Walk.  Here's the complete agenda:

Hyperion Solutions Road Trip to Southern California
8:30 AM	Check In & Registration
9:00 AM	Keynote: Analytics-Led Business Innovation, Matt Bradley, Oracle
	Experience the Future of Oracle EPM 11.1.2.2 Live Demos Included!	The World of Hyperion Applications	The Foundations of Business Intelligence: Oracle Essbase & OBIEE
10:00 AM	Taking Control of Your Hierarchies with DRM 11.1.2.2	Introduction to Integrated Business Planning	BI Foundation Suite: Integrating Oracle Essbase & The New OBIEE 11.1.1.6
11:00 AM	The Next Evolution in Forecasting: Hyperion Planning 11.1.2.2	Reducing Your Close Cycle: Financial Close & Account Reconciliation Management	Oracle Essbase Worst Practices: Lessons from a Moron
11:50 PM	Lunch
12:20 PM	Ask a Guru Panel Session
1:30 PM	Managing Your Project Budgets: Introduction to the New Hyperion Planning Project Module	Best Practices for Your Strategic Oracle EPM Road Map: Building Your 3 Year Plan	Extending the Value of Oracle eBusiness Suite with Oracle EPM
2:30 PM	Hyperion Financial Management 11.1.2.2: Unlimited Dimensionality & Financial Management Analytics	Optimizing Your Oracle Hyperion Planning & Oracle Essbase Outlines	Exalytics: In-Memory Business Intelligence for Oracle Essbase & OBIEE
3:20 PM	Break
3:50 PM	Breaking Away from the Excel Add-In: Welcome to Smart View 11.1.2.2	Integrating Hyperion Financial Management & Hyperion Planning	What’s New in OBIEE 11.1.1.6: Oracle on Your iPhone & Other Cool Things
4:40 PM	Drawings / Networking
5:30 PM	Dinner/Drinks/Entertainment at Jillian’s at Universal Studios City Walk

November 5-6

OAUG Connection Point - EPM&BI
Orlando, Florida

Each year, OAUG puts on a 2-day Oracle EPM&BI focused conference.  It has nowhere near as many sessions on Hyperion as Kscope, but it's by far the second-best conference out there.  It has around 50 sessions and this year, interRel is giving 6 of them.  I'm giving a session on Exalytics and other interRel speakers will include Glenn Schwartzberg on Smart View 11.1.2.2, Tracy McMullen on multiple topics, and  Dr. Troy Seguin talking on Predictive Analytics.  We will also have a booth there with our newest 11.1.2.2 books.

Unlike the Road Trips mentioned above, this conference isn't free.  That said, it's a lot cheaper than OpenWorld with far better targeted content.  If you're in the Southeastern United States, I strongly encourage you to make it to Connection Point at the Peabody Hotel.

November 15-16

ODTUG Seriously Practical - EPM&BI
Auckland, New Zealand

ODTUG is putting on two 2-day conferences in Australia and New Zealand in November.  This is the first of those conferences.  There's a charge for them, but it's minimal for the content you get over 2 days. Cameron Lackpour (ACE Director and all-around decent human being) and I are the featured speakers.

There are actually two tracks: one is focused on Hyperion and Oracle EPM.  The other track is focused on Oracle BI.  I'm giving sessions in both rooms as well as some excellent local speakers and Oracle luminaries.  Make sure you visit the ODTUG website closer to the date for more details.

November 19-20

ODTUG Seriously Practical - EPM&BI
Melbourne, Australia

This is basically the same 2-day, 2-room itinerary as the event in Auckland.  I have presented at the InSync conference in Melbourne before and I love the city.  If you can't make it to Auckland, I'm hoping you can fly down to Melbourne.  They have koalas.

After this, I hope to return back to the good ole US-of-A with a month to spare before TEOTWAWKI.  I have some final things I need to take care of before December 21.  Among other things, I'm hoping to clean out my Inbox, because my mother always told me that you don't want to face an apocalypse unless you have a clean Inbox.

Oh, is that all?

Seriously?!?  That's the busiest conference schedule I've ever had with the exception of the 3-week multi-continent trip last year with some of the Oracle ACE Directors from the Oracle Technology Network.  I'm hoping that with all those travel dates over the next 2 months, I'll run into some of you in-person.  If you're anywhere near, please try to stop by.  I'm also hoping that all this travel will give me time to blog on airplanes.

It's good to be back.

ODTUG and OAUG - New Board Members

Over the summer, the two major Hyperion SIG (Special Interest Groups) held elections to their Boards of Directors (I think I got that pluralization right). Since it's sometimes hard to find out about these elections (making it difficult to congratulate the winners), I thought I'd compile them all here.

ODTUG Hyperion SIG

This is the SIG associated with ODTUG and the Kscope conference. This SIG has 9+ members of their board but there are only two named positions on their board. Their newest members are:

- Joe Aultman, AutoTrader.com

- Alice Lawrence, LSG Sky Chefs

- Glenn Schwartzberg, interRel Consulting

- Brian Suter, Dell Inc.

Glenn is a founding member of the SIG who went away for a year, missed us, and came back to the fold. The other three members are new. As for why 3 of the 4 new people are from customers of Hyperion and not partners, it's actually written into the ODTUG Hyperion SIG bylaws that over half of the members of the board must not be from vendors, partners, or suppliers. It keeps the consulting companies from overrunning what should be fundamentally a user group.

As for those two named positions, Angie Wilcox (from JCPenney) is the new SIG President and Alice Lawrence is the new SIG Secretary. Angie replaces the well-respected, highly regarded, and never duplicated Gary Crisci (though Gary will be staying on the SIG Board). Alice takes Angie in the Secretary role as Angie steps up to wield the Grand Poobah's gavel.

OAUG Hyperion SIG

This is the SIG that basically took over the regional HUGs (Hyperion User Groups). It's closely aligned with Collaborate though as that conference has turned out not to be a good home for the Hyperion community, this SIG has become the driving force behind the regional EPM Connection Point conferences. The winners of their summer elections are:

- SIG President: Andy Jorgenson

- Geo/SIG Liaison: Suzanne Hoffman, Simba Technologies

- Partner Liaison: Darren Grogan, Guidant

- Communication Coordinator: Colleen Pietrobono

Andy Jorgenson (co-founder of Pinnacle who is at the moment enjoying his retirement by skiing damned near every run on planet Earth) is taking over as SIG President from Kristin Newman. We'll all miss Kristin who accomplished a great deal during her tenure including organizing the first of the OAUG Connection Point EPM (AKA "EPM Connection") conferences in New Jersey in early 2010. Andy will fill her shoes well as he is a long-time friend to the Hyperion community and he is also an Oracle ACE for Hyperion.

The OAUG Hyperion SIG has two major organizational differences from the ODTUG Hyperion SIG. First, people run for specific positions on their SIG board. That's why each of the people listed above is listed with a specific position they won. The other difference is that the OAUG Hyperion SIG board doesn't limit their ratio of customers-to-vendors, so they tend to be a bit more partner-heavy.

As of the date of this posting, the Leadership page for the OAUG Hyperion SIG isn't updated with these new positions, but I assume it will be as soon as they appoint a new person to watch over their website.

Send your congratulations over to all the new board members of both groups. I'm extremely glad that there are people who take time out of personal lives to help better educate the rest of us. Thank you!

EPM Connection - Dallas in November

Per Doreen Fox-Dwyer from the OAUG Hyperion SIG, the dates (and location) have been announced for the next EPM Connection conference. It's going to be November 16 & 17 in Frisco, Texas at the Westin Stonebriar.

While I'm thrilled to see it's going to be in the DFW area (where I live), I'm not thrilled to see it will be held in Frisco. It's more than 20 miles from either DFW international airport or Dallas Love Field airport. Basically, it's up in the upper-Northeast corner of the Dallas area, so it's not really close to most people living in Dallas. That said, I think most people will be planning on staying at the hotel overnight (it has 300+ rooms), so I guess commute doesn't matter. On a personal note, it's really close to my house (I live in the middle of nowhere), so I'll be happy and bright-eyed during the conference! The Westin Stonebriar is a nice new property (with an attached 18-hole golf course).

I think that the event will go quite well. There's a vibrant user community in North Texas (though they're used to getting their Hyperion content at user groups for free) and it's cheap for people to fly into DFW. If they add an Essbase track (maybe replacing some of the Enterprise and Strategic Finance presentations), they'll have attendance mirroring what they saw at the well-organized event in New Jersey (thank you, Kristin Newman!).

Keep an eye out here and I'll announce as they put out their call for papers and start allowing registrations.

UPDATE:

Papers are being accepted through July 30, 2011 at:

http://connectionpoint.oaug.org/conferencesandeducation/conferences/2010/cpepmnov/callforpres.php

Also, registrations are now being accepted on the EPM Connection (also known as OAUG Connection Point EPM) website. Prices vary wildly depending on when you register, whether you're staying for both days, and if you're an OAUG member. The lowest price of $275 is for a one-day, OAUG member who signs up by October 9th. If you're not an OAUG member and you wait to sign up for both days on-site, the price skyrockets to $695. In other words, if you plan on going, don't wait. Go here now and don't forget to use interRel's promo code (interrelclient) if you want to be invited to our client appreciation event on Tuesday night:

http://connectionpoint.oaug.org/conferencesandeducation/conferences/2010/cpepmnov/registration.php

Collaborate 2010 - OAUG Presentations

The next Collaborate conference is April 18-22, 2010 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. This is a joint conference of three large Oracle user groups: OAUG, IOUG, and Quest.

There were some people (I was one of them) who were wondering if Collaborate would be the successor to the Hyperion Solutions conference just with a lot of other Oracle products thrown in. The Hyperion attendance fell from 2008 to 2009, so it wasn't surprising when the Collaborate organizers decided to cut the Hyperion/EPM presentations at Collaborate 2010.

While IOUG historically has some Essbase and OBIEE presentations (and in 2009, Quest had a couple of general EPM sessions), the main Oracle EPM/Hyperion/Essbase group at Collaborate is OAUG since they inherited the mantle of the old HUGs (Hyperion User Groups). Everyone was curious as to how many presentations OAUG would allot to Hyperion in 2010.

Looks Like About 35 Sessions from OAUG

Not including the ones from IOUG and Quest (because it's way too hard to figure out from their sites which ones are Oracle EPM specific), OAUG has approximately 35 sessions devoted to Oracle EPM (Hyperion and Essbase). I got this number by going to the OAUG Presentation Search and selecting "Hyperion EPM" (which doesn't make a lot of sense product naming wise, but whatever). It gave me the following list:

1. "How Workforce Planning and Oracle Data Integrator restored sanity" by AdvancedEPM Consulting, Inc.
2. "Sub Ledger Accounting in Release 12 Technical Perspective" by AST Corporation
3. "Creating a Hyperion Planning Solution with Full PeopleSoft Integration in Under 90 days" by Berlin Packaging
4. "Soaring through Economic Turbulence with Oracle's Strategic Finance and Crystal Ball" by Blue Stone International, LLC
5. "Product Cost Modeling Using Oracle Business Intelligence and Hyperion Planning" by Calix Networks, Inc.
6. "Becoming The Cube Whisperer" by Catholic Health Initiatives
7. "Implementation of Hyperion EPM Systems Integrated to Oracle EBS" by Coherent, Inc.
8. "Consolidate Oracle EBS, Hyperion EPM and other Apps onto one set of hardware by virtulization" by Cricket Communications
9. "Integrated Business Planning" by Emerson
10. "Hyperion Financial Management(HFM): Design Considerations in HFM for External & Management Reporting" by Hess Corporation
11. "Using the Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) API to Create Custom Solutions" by Interpublic Group of Companies
12. "Best Practices in Consolidations" by interRel Consulting
13. "Introduction to Hyperion Financial Management and FDM" by interRel Consulting
14. "Finding Profitability in 8 Weeks: An Introduction to Hyperion Profitability & Cost Managemen" by interRel Consulting
15. "Using Essbase Outside of Finance: Challenging Requirements for Performance Accountability" by interRel Consulting
16. "Oracle Hyperion Smart View For Office New Features & Integration Points" by Kerdock Consulting
17. "Revenue Planning: When is detail it appropriate and how will it impact my Planning implementation" by Kerdock Consulting
18. "What's New for Version 11: Hyperion Financial Management" by Kerdock Consulting
19. "Hyperion Planning for Higher Ed: Business Considerations at Rice University" by Kerdock Consulting
20. "Advanced Financial Master Data Management with Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management" by Key Performance Ideas, Inc.
21. "Cash Flow Reporting Within Hyperion Financial Management" by Laureate Education Inc
22. "Leveraging Your Hyperion Investment for Non-Financial Operations" by Linium
23. "Enterprise to Hyperion Financial Management: Improving efficiencies and reporting at TSYS" by MarketSphere Consulting
24. "Security in Hyperion Fusion 11" by MindStream Analytics
25. "Be "Productive Day One and Ensure User Adoption with Oracle User Productivity Kit and Oracle Tutor" by Oracle
26. "Oracle's Strategy and Roadmap for Oracle's Hyperion Performance Management Applications" by Oracle
27. "Integrating Risk and Compliance Strategies The Latest in Oracle GRC Applications" by Oracle
28. "Introduction to Hyperion Enterprise Planning Solutions" by Oracle Corp Inc., Boston
29. "Integrated Operational Planning - Bridging The Gaps Between Finance, Operations, And Sales" by P3 Solutions
30. "Key Success Criteria for Oracle Hyperion Planning and Oracle HFM Integration" by Ranzal
31. "Mission Critical! Implementing Highly Available Global Oracle-Hyperion EPM Installations." by The Hackett Group
32. "Strategies for Helping Government Agencies Optimize Oracle BI Tools and Processes" by The IRUS Group, Inc.
33. "Optimally Leverage your Oracle Hyperion Investment" by TUSC
34. "Essbase Tuning & Optimization at USADrug" by USADrug
35. "Financial Reconciliation to Reporting (RTR) Town Hall Meeting" by VeriSign Inc

Now the reason I'm saying that there are "about 35 sessions" is that some of the ones listed don't really seem like EPM presentations (like #2, #25, and #35 above). Keep checking http://oaug.collaborate10.com/agenda/search because I'm sure they'll reclass everything correctly at some point.

There is a major scarcity of Essbase presentations. There are two that mention Essbase in the title and judging by the abstract, #6 is also an Essbase presentation. That means OAUG will have just 3 Essbase presentations. Of course, you can't really expect all the products to be covered well with only 35 presentation slots.

I also find it really interesting that Oracle was only given 3 presentations and that's 3 if you include #25 above which really isn't related to EPM. That puts interRel in the peculiar spot of having more Oracle EPM presentations than Oracle does. If anyone from Oracle would like to co-present one of the interRel ones with us, send me an e-mail and I'll be happy to split the presenting workload with you.

Should I Bother Going?

It's quite clear that Collaborate is no longer trying to be a national conference for Hyperion. Even once you add in the content from IOUG and Quest, it's clear that Collaborate seems to be aiming to provide just enough Hyperion content so that people going to Collaborate for other products can feel happy if they also own Hyperion. If you are primarily interested in learning about Hyperion, skip Collaborate in 2010 and go to either one of the regional OAUG EPM Connection conferences or the national ODTUG Kaleidoscope conference. It's not worth it to spend between $1,385 and $2,125 on Collaborate for this little content.

Is there any reason to go to Collaborate 2010 if you only care about Hyperion and Oracle EPM? Well, it is in Vegas, and for some of us, that's the only reason we need.

A Word to Hyperion Vendors

And some free advice to Hyperion-centric consulting firms: if your company primarily does Oracle EPM, I'd save the money you were going to spend on a Collaborate booth and exhibit at Kaleidoscope and EPM Connection. There just won't be enough Hyperion attendees to make the ROI worth it to have a major presence at Collaborate. Ignore this advice if you want, but don't complain when the majority of the Hyperion attendees at Collaborate are other Hyperion partners who made the same mistake.

EPM Connection New Jersey - Update

This is an update to my posting from last month on the first of the EPM Connection regional conferences (also known by the easy to remember name "OAUG Connection Point - Enterprise Performance Management" regional conferences). It looks like this conference will definitely be

February 23-24, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency

The dates are definite now (there was some slight confusion before). It's definitely Feb. 23-24 in Jersey City, NJ. The host hotel is the Hyatt Regency in Jersey City. Right now, rooms are blocked at the conference rate for $139/night until the room block is filled. To find more about the conference lodging, visit http://oaug.org/conferencesandeducation/conferences/2010/cpepm/travel.php.

Educational Content

Some of the sessions are already approved and posted on the EPM Connection website. (No, I'm not one of the pre-approved speakers, Mom.) Here is the presentation list as of December 19, 2009:

• "Upgrading HFM to Fusion 11.x — Introduction to New Functionality and Upgrade Considerations" by Rob Cybulski from Finit
• Converting from Hyperion Enterprise to HFM: Design Considerations and Best Practices" by Rob Cybulski from Finit
• "Global insurer, Marsh and McLennan, moves Long-Range Strategic Plan to Hyperion Strategic Finance from spreadsheet models" by Tom Gibbons from Marsh & McLennan with Hanyul Lee from Bluestone
• "I Know How to Spell HSF … Now What? The Hyperion Product You Never Realized You Always Needed and Probably Already Own" by Jay Laabs from Bluestone
• "Oracle EPM 11 system administration — under the covers!" by Eric Helmer from Hackett
• "Achieving a Common Goal: Creating an Oracle EPM Center of Excellence" by Laura Gregor from Pearson
• Validating Your Financial Information Using Financial Data Quality Management (FDM)" by Laura Gregor from Pearson

It's interesting to note that of the 7 presentations selected so far, 2 are on HFM, 2 are on HSF, 1 is on FDM, 1 is high-level on EPM, and 1 is very techie-level on EPM. What we don't see are any presentations on Hyperion Planning or Essbase, the two best selling Oracle EPM products. I'm somewhat surprised they didn't preselect any in these categories.

There will eventually be 35+ presentations (not sure if this includes the vendor presentations or not) so I'm guessing this is just a temporary scheduling quirk. The deadline for abstract submission was December 15, and when the rest of the presentations are selected, we'll have a better idea of the product coverage of the conference.

With the exception of Eric's (which really doesn't seem to fit with the above sessions), all of the above also seem to be very introductory presentations. Again, I'm not sure if this is a temporary quirk or if it's the aim of the conference to have more beginner-level content.

Registration

We only have 2 months to the conference, and since the schedule's not posted yet, time is rapidly running out for people to determine if they want to go and then register to do so. To help make it easier to get approval in this short time frame, the nice people at OAUG have made the cost of the conference an affordable $495 (if you register by February 16). After that date, the rate goes up to $595 for what is basically an on-site registration rate.

You'll notice that the rate of $495 doesn't go up until a week before the conference. In my opinion, this is bad for the conference organizers, because they really won't have any idea of the expected conference attendance until a week or two before the conference. People will procrastinate until February, because they really don't have any incentive to sign up early.

Because people will be signing up at nearly the last moment, I expect attendance numbers to be minimal until February. Correspondingly, don't be surprised if the conference organizers get spooked when they see those very low pre-enrollment numbers and start doing things like offering discounts. Note that I have no actual knowledge that this will happen (I'm no longer involved with the OAUG Hyperion SIG), it makes logical sense.

If you want to be a kind soul and sign up now to give them a better idea of their conference size, stop procrastinating and visit this link:

http://oaug.org/conferencesandeducation/conferences/2010/cpepm/registration.php

More Information

If you want to stay abreast about the conference, bookmark the following link:

http://oaug.org/conferencesandeducation/conferences/2010/cpepm/

They seem to be updating it very regularly. It's actually changed since the beginning of this week, so make sure you check it frequently. Assuming I get a presentation selected, I will be at "EPM Connection NJ," so if you're going, I'll see you there.

Regional EPM Connection Conferences - Update

OAUG Connection Point - Enterprise Performance Management

Back on October 30, I wrote about what little information I had on the upcoming regional OAUG conferences on Hyperion and EPM. The name that OAUG is giving to these conferences is way too long and way too hard to remember, so I'm going to start calling them "EPM Connection" conferences. If OAUG doesn't like it, they should come up with a shorter, catchier, more marketable name (like Dimensions, Solutions, Collaborate, Kaleidoscope, or OpenWorld).

I have some new information to impart compliments of the OAUG eNews from November (scroll way to the bottom):

http://www.oaug.org/communications/publications/enews/2009/2009-11.htm

Date Change: February 22-23

Contrary to earlier information that put the dates slightly later, the conference is now going to be held on Monday and Tuesday (Feb. 22-23) in Jersey City, NJ.

Tracks Revealed

There are going to be 5 tracks at the first EPM Connection conference:

• Budget, Forecasting & Planning
• Financial Consolidations & Reporting
• Business Intelligence & Analytics
• The Office of the CFO
• EPM Product Roadmap

The non-product orientation of the tracks seems to imply that this will be more of a business-oriented rather than technical conference. Considering that this is put on by OAUG, we sort of expected that though. To drive this point home, OAUG had this to say about their desired audience:

This event is ideal for accounting and finance professionals of all experience levels, internal audit staff with a focus on external and compliance reporting areas, and IT professionals who need to understand what the accounting and finance groups need to achieve.

I don't like how EPM is getting pigeonholed as only applicable to finance/accounting types, but you can't win 'em all.

More Information

OAUG is telling people that more information will be coming soon to this website:

http://oaug.org/conferencesandeducation/conferences/2010/connectionpoint/

At the moment, there is less at that link than I just discussed in this blog posting, but I'm sure more will be posted soon since EPM Connection is now just 3 months away. They'd better hurry with their call for papers (if they're even going to have one).

Collaborate Regional Conferences - First is Feb. 23-24 in NJ

OAUG Connection Point - EPM Regional Conferences

There is apparently a name for the 3 regional 2-day conferences on Hyperion/EPM/BI that OAUG is putting on in 2010. It's "Oracle Connection Point - Enterprise Performance Management" regional conferences. The first one of these (per Kerdock Consulting's blog) is going to be held February 23-24, 2010 in Jersey City, NJ at the Grand Hyatt.

I don't know any details yet on when the call for speakers is going out nor when they'll have more details on vendor information. As soon as I know it, I'll do an update. It can't be far off, because the conference is less than 4 months away.

There are supposed to be 2 more of these regional conferences in 2010, but I have no details at present on where or when these will be. I get the impression that OAUG is waiting to see how well the first one goes before making a commitment to the others.

OAUG Hyperion SIG - Leadership Update

Board of Directors

While I was taking a break from blogging, the OAUG Hyperion SIG held elections for its board of directors. Some of them have been previously announced here, but congratulations go out to the following full list of people:

• SIG Coordinator, Kristin Newman
• Programs and Education Coordinator, Doreen Fox-Dwyer from Hess
• Marketing Coordinator, Julie Jacobs from Titan-Pinnacle
• Communications Coordinator, Todd Rebner from AdvancedEPM
• Secretary, Todd Randolph from Optimum
• HUG Coordinators, Angela Slayton from HealthMarkets & Mark West from P3
• Partner Liaison, Suzanne Hoffman
• Domain Lead Coordinator, Cathy McCain from Lockheed

I still think the OAUG Hyperion SIG Board of Directors has too many partners/vendors and not enough customers, but with Doreen, Angela, and Cathy, they're making strides in the right direction.

Domain Leads

I'd congratulate the Domain Leads, but most of their terms expire at OpenWorld in a couple of days. So if you'd like to be a domain lead, now's your chance. The OAUG Hyperion SIG is soliciting leads for the following areas:

• Essbase
• Hyperion Planning
• Strategic Finance
• Crystal Ball
• HFM & Enterprise
• Financial Data Quality Management
• Data Relationship Management (formerly MDM)
• Infrastructure
• Data Integration (HAL, DIM, ODI, EPMA, etc.)

They'll be taking nominations until October 19 and they're really looking for customer experts in those areas. If you want to do your part to help the Hyperion and Oracle EPM community, e-mail cathy.l.mccain (at) lmco.com to request a nomination form.