Technology Blueprints & Strategy with Gary Crisci

I am very pleased to announce that the Hyperion SIG board has finalized the 2010 Kaliedoscope Hyperion schedule . (Please click the link to view) Keep in mind some minor changes could be made in the cases where speakers are unable to attend and stuff like that. This schedule is one of the best we have had and shows that Kaliedoscope is THE national conference for Hyperion users and developers. Please check out the schedule and consider making plans to attend. I would like to thank the entire board for there efforts in putting together such an awesome schedule and thanks to ODTUG for providing us with the forum to host such an event. Special thanks to Edward Roske for being the content coordinator. although we are taking a short break for the holidays, the board will be reconvening in January to continue our planning sessions to ensure this year's conference exceeds attendee's expectations. Looking forward to seeing all of you there. Please check out ODTUG Kaliedoscope for ...

Recently I answered a post on the user forum regarding a way to test if a member is a Descendent of another member using MDX member formula's in an ASO database. It took me a little while to figure it out. I think it's a little hard for Essbase people to understand because of the way we used to do it in BSO using the function @ISDESC. Below was my response and I thought it was worth posting on the blog. --In calc script language you are saying @ISDESC("C009") meaning you want hierarchical members below "C2009". Now in Calc script we also have @ISANCEST and if we said @ISANCEST("C009") we would be looking for all members that are hierarchically above "C2009". MDX does not have ISDESC, MDX only has IsAncestor. The parameters are member1 and member2. Now depending on which way you ask the question, you get a different answer. IsAncestor([C009], [Dimension].CurrentMember) is really saying "Is "C009" an ancestor of the cu...

A while back, I was asked to do a book review for Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide by Sarma Anantapantula and Joseph Gomez by the publisher, Packt Publishing. Despite terrible flashbacks of grade school book reports, I agreed and was shipped a copy of the book. When I first heard this book existed, I rolled my eyes and thought, “this probably won’t be very good”. Then I thought about it a bit, gave some thought to what goes into writing a book, and realized I was being unfair to prejudge. Despite the fact there has historically been very little published content on Essbase, maybe these people got it right and as an active member of the Essbase community, I should embrace the idea of our little world getting more notoriety. It was with this open mind that I began reading the book and hoped to write a positive review. As I began reading the book, I was encouraged by what I saw. Aside from some minor misstatements in the preface (things like products called ‘Essbase Planning’ a...

So I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again (that sounds familiar). Anyway, KScope (that's what the cool kids call it) was excellent this year, a worthy follow up to last year's conference and a great inspiration for next year's conference. I wanted to say thanks to the people who voted me back onto the board of directors, I will be sure to work with the rest of the board to pack as much great content into next year as we can. Of course that is partly based on what all of you send us, so please come up with some interesting abstracts for presentations and submit them when we make the call. I'm also hoping to get more hands on labs next year. there is no teaching experience like when you actually get to do it and the labs were a big success this year. Have to run to the airport so I'll have to try and post some more at a later time after I settle back in and go through all the presentations. Speaking of hands on labs I am worki...

So I finally have a chance to get in a little blog time. I rolled into Monterey for Kaleidoscope on Saturday, overall not a terrible trip although they did "misplace" my luggage. you'd think if United Airlines was going to charge me extra to check a bag, they might do a better job of not losing it, perhaps I'm asking too much. At least my bags showed up later that evening, so not too bad. K-Scope is at the Hyatt Regency in Monterey CA this year. The hotel is pretty nice. My first room was a little weird, very clean and nice, but it was at the farthest end of the property and outside my door was a highway. The door had a gap under it that a small animal could sneak in and you could see people's feet as they walked by. Then on Sunday morning I had a visitor. I'm not going to say it was definitely a black Widow spider in the bathroom, because I didn't get close enough to check, but I'm told there in this area and it sure looked like one, at least i...

I'm not going to post a whole lot about the content being delivered this year at the ODTUG Kaleidoscope conference June 21-25 in Monterey, CA (http://www.odtugkaleidoscope.com/), my fellow Oracle Ace's, Ed Roske, Tim Tow, and Glenn Schwartzberg have each devoted a substantial amount of time on their respective blogs to what is going to be presented at this years conference. Simply put, there is no other conference this year that will match the quality and quantity of content being presented. Check out the blogs and the Kaleidoscope website to get an idea. Instead, I have decided to post something I believe a lot of people need help with this year in order to attend the conference, which is justifying the cost to their employers. I am hearing a lot of people say they doubt they will be able to get the funds to go this year due to the economy. Therefore, I thought I would put together a list of items you should talk about with your manager/employer to help you build your case...