Dave's Adventures in Business Intelligence

So here’s how the rest of the “48 hours” went.

Friday

• 6:30 am: Wake up and groan. I’m starting to feel pain from the last few late nights.
• 7:00 am: Heading down to the office with the donuts Ginger picked up for me, and a container of cookies, and a lunch. Traffic was light so I made it there just fine.
• 7:30 am: After arriving I set out the donuts and unlock the doors, then open the training universe and try to figure out where the “incompatible combination of objects” message was coming from. Can’t recreate the issue. 👿
• 8:00 am: Students start to arrive, so I ask them about the error from the day before. They remember the same query objects that I do, but they’re working today without being fixed. Frustrating.
• 8:30 am: Class officially starts. We chat a bit about the day before, then start working on the chapter. This one is about more advanced prompts using sub-query techniques. So we build a condition, then build another as a correlated sub-query. The book has us do the correlated sub-query join with the client name, which is dumb. So I use the client_id instead. Guess what; the reason they use name is because there are duplicate names in the database. And when we try to pull the Client ID object into the report to verify this, we get a #MULTIVALUE error, because the training universe has Client ID as a detail object of Client Name. We have fun poking holes in the training universe design as a result. A good discussion of why you use detail objects in the first place takes place.
• 10:00 am: First break. I made sure I remembered to take a break earlier today since I made them wait too long the day before. Not many folks from Integra around today, so the donuts aren’t going nearly as fast. 😉
• 11:25 am: Break for lunch as I have a conference call soon.
• 11:30 am: Dial into the conference call for the initial GBN steering committee meeting.
• 12:15 pm: While on the call I’ve tried to pay attention and answer where appropriate, but now I get a bunch of emails in on my blackberry. I also get an IM from a client wanting to know about some updates to a universe so I can give them some SQL code. Arg. They had originally told me they didn’t need it until Monday. Now it’s a crisis. Or maybe not, it seems they’re okay with Monday after I reminded them.
• 12:33 pm: I have to duck out on the call because students are coming back. You’ll notice that I’ve not posted about eating lunch. I open the cookies and pass them out to the class, and eat one really fast for my lunch.
• 12:45 pm: Class starts up again.
• 1:30 pm: We start the fan / chasm trap chapter. I ask the class how many tables are required to have a fan trap (two) and most of them say three. I show them a two-table fan trap. Then I ask how many tables are required for a chasm trap, and they correctly say three. I draw a lot on the whiteboard, then we try to do the workshop in the chapter.
• 2:30 pm: The workshop universe is terrible. It doesn’t make sense, nobody in the class can figure out the data, and the examples are not appropriate at all. They made price a measure! 😯 We give up on the workshop because it doesn’t make sense and move on to the next chapter.
• 3:00 pm: First student leaves. It’s not unusual for students to leave early at the end of a multi-day class, especially on a Friday. Travel schedules and all that.
• 3:02 pm: As I’m handing out the rest of the course certificates I find out that one student has her name spelled wrong. Ack. Call to Pam, who logs into the network from Louisiana and prints a new certificate with the proper name. Crisis averted. Thanks, Pam!
• 3:15 pm: Another student leaves at 3:15, and the class basically is done by 3:30.
• 4:00 pm: Finish answering questions from the last student to leave, then I clean up (but don’t eat this time) the donuts, clean off the whiteboard, shutdown all of the training room computers except for the instructor machine.
• 4:30 pm: Finally eat my lunch (sandwhich) while checking in on BOB and answering a few emails.
• 4:45 pm: Log off of BOB, shut down the instructor computer. Lock up the room and head home. Carefully look for gum in the parking lot. (The paper is still on the floor mat, and I wonder what the 100+ degree heat did to it during the day today.)
• 5:30 pm: Arrive at the store to pick up milk, eggs, and bread. Oh, and some XBox games that were on sale. Don’t quite know why, as I haven’t had time to play in months. Oh well, I saved some money. 😉
• 6:00 pm: Arrived home, turned remaining cookies over to the kids (also the left-over donuts, which will probably be really nasty by tomorrow morning).
• 7:00 pm: Finished this blog post. 😛

So there you have it, 48 hours in the life of a Business Objects trainer. Now I have to get back to my universe work, which should be good because I haven’t cussed in a while and it has been good for that lately…