Dave's Adventures in Business Intelligence

ASUG CEO Bridgette Chambers just announced (in her keynote) that BusinessObjects users who are not SAP ERP users can receive a complimentary membership through 2011. 5,000 members can join under the Valueship program. We played with this idea for a while during the GBN days, but the GBN folks never really got to see the full breadth of services offered at asug.com. By opening the site up for the next year and a half BusinessObjects only customers (the target for GBN) will now be able to see the real flavor and benefits from membership.

That membership will include full access to the online community at asug.com, the ability to attend all regional chapter meetings throughout the U.S. and Canada, and access to education and Influence activities specific to the non-ERP BusinessObjects customer. These are the primary services available via paid memberships, and the test drive through the end of 2011 should help prove what the true value is. I am guessing the reason they went to the end of 2011 was to show a full cycle of Influence Council meetings. The free membership is only for legacy BusinessObjects customers; it will not be offered to SAP ERP customers. That makes sense.

What happens for existing BusinessObjects customers that have already joined and paid for their membership? Bridgette covered that too. Those members will be recognized as “founding members” and will receive special benefits, including credit towards the upcoming BusinessObjects User Conference. There will be more details later, but I am very encouraged by this development. This is what we (the former GBN steering committee) and others were asking for. Obviously ASUG listened.

The keynotes have been quite interesting. The first part was a Q/A session with Sir Richard Branson. Some of the tweets were complaining about the Q/A format, but I still found it interesting. I finally gave up on watching the twitter stream and just watched him speak.

Former VP Al Gore is now speaking from Orlando. Whether you agree with his positions or not, I find him to be an excellent speaker. He started off talking about global warming but has segued into talking about how sustainability is good not just for the environment but for business. I believe he just used the phrase “functionally insane” to describe businesses who don’t recognize that sustainability is a critical requirement for business success. Higher efficiency + lower waste = win/win situation for all. Fascinating speech, I hope it’s being captured and will be available online to view again later.

I was just given a link to the BI Agenda at the ASUG Annual Conference.

http://jive.asug.com/docs/DOC-25177

I printed this out prior to heading down to Orlando. If you’re here, it’s a great reference showing all of the ASUG BI sessions at a glance rather than having to plow through the entire SAPPHIRE agenda to find them.

SAP Mentorship has its privileges; I’m posting this from a wired connection in the reserved seating at the keynote. Wireless at the convention center is very much over subscribed…

I got to go to an ASUG reception last night where they introduced a new feature. They’re going to offer a demo platform for SAP online. If folks are interested in some specific SAP modules (for example HCM is one that is available) they can sign on and work with the tool right away. They don’t have to wait for their own internal IT folks to set up test server and install the software. Think OnDemand.com but for SAP modules. The ASUG demonstration platform also includes Explorer, by the way.

This morning I’m listening in to the SAP press conference. The questions are not surprisingly related to the Sybase acquisition. The response from SAP is focused on the in-memory synergies between the existing technology from Sybase and the TREX engine from SAP. They’re also very bullish on the impact of the mobile expertise that Sybase has developed. They took a nice dig at Oracle in answering another question… where they say that the companies are merging to grow, not to merge and cut 21,000 jobs. 😉

As a side note, if the rumor I am hearing is correct, there will be something exciting to report from the ASUG side of the house this afternoon. Stay tuned for further updates…

I know, I know… everybody is getting ready to fly out to Annual Conference / SAPPHIRE which starts tomorrow. But don’t forget that the call for papers for the fall Business Objects conference is open through the end of this month (May). What I would really like is to get my hands on XI 4.0 before submitting my abstracts this year. Unfortunately, I don’t think that is going to happen before the call for papers closes (on May 30^th). SAP folks are going to have most of the fun this year since they’ll be able to present new stuff. 🙂

The tracks this year include:

• Business Intelligence Strategy
• BusinessObjects Data Management
• Crystal Reports
• Dashboarding
• Enterprise Performance Management
• Explorer
• Governance, Risk & Compliance
• Infrastructure
• Universe
• Xcelsius
• WebI/DeskI

There are fewer tracks this year; last year there were two Xcelsius tracks which resulted in a lot of Xcelsius content. I think some folks thought there was too much, as it was not really possible to see everything. Hopefully this year will be more focused.

I have had the opportunity (and good fortune) to present at quite a few conferences over the years. It’s a little known fact that my very first presentation back in the 90’s was an unmitigated disaster. 😆 Despite that terrible beginning I have been allowed to inflict my horrible sense of humor and hopefully some bits of knowledge on conference attendees for over a decade. Because of the recent successes (certainly not for my first effort) I am often asked a couple of questions.

How do I get selected?
What if I don’t have anything to say, why should I consider presenting?
Any tips for a successful presentation?

In this post I would like to share a couple of tips for getting your abstract selected without resorting to slipping a $20 bill to everyone on the selection committee. 😉 Continue reading “We Want You to Speak at Our Fall Conference”

I am confirmed for the ASUG Annual Conference / SAPPHIRE next month in Orlando. It’s such a small conference, if you’re going I’m sure I will see you there. 😉

There have been quite a few questions about shortcut joins on BOB recently. I’ve finished a post on how and when to use that technique (and when not to) and it should be out shortly.

I’m going to be attending (and speaking at) the next North Texas/Oklahoma Chapter ASUG quarterly meeting later this month (April 16^th to be exact). A couple of interesting and/or exciting things will be happening there that I want to preview. I don’t count myself as part of the “exciting” part; I will be reprising my session from the GBN conference last fall on recursive data models for universes. I hope to have everything updated to XI 3.1 prior to the session so I will at least be on the current release.

What is exciting is that this meeting will serve as the formal launch for the SAP BusinessObjects Ambassador program. Continue reading “North Texas/Oklahoma ASUG Chapter Meeting April 16”

On April 5 we can start submitting ideas (abstracts) for the fall conference. This year we’re not going to Dallas! 😀 The conference this year is October 4th through 7th and is located in Orlando, Florida. The host hotel is the Dolphin Hotel which is very near Walt Disney World. I have stayed at other hotels nearby, but never at the Dolphin (or the sister hotel the Swan). I’m looking forward to the opportunity to go.

The tracks topics this year are probably fairly predictable… there will once again be a track on Xcelsius, on Explorer, as well as old standards like Universe Design, Crystal, and Web Intelligence.

I hope to see a lot more about XI 4.0 too. 😎

Related Links

• ASUG Fall Conference
• Dolphin Hotel

I’m in Atlanta for the 2010 volunteer summit meeting for ASUG. One of the early announcements was the location and dates for the 2010 fall Business Objects conference. It will run from October 4 – 7 and will be hosted at the Dolphin Resort (near Walt Disney World) in Orlando, Florida.

Save the date. 😎

In the first post in this series I defined what time-sliced measures are and why they can be useful in a universe. In the second post I described a special calendar table that was designed and built to support the requirements for this solution. I also showed how the join logic worked in conjunction with the table design. This post completes the implementation. I am finally going to work on the measure objects that a user will see.

In any universe design project I strive for the following goals:

• Deliver the correct result
  In my opinion, this is always the number one goal in any universe design.
• User friendly
  This is quite important but secondary to correctness
• Easy to maintain
  Universe maintenance is always allowed to suffer in order to provide the first two attributes on this list, but it is a worthwhile goal to strive for nonetheless

In this post I will show how all three of these goals are ultimately met by this implementation. When I am done I will have a completed universe. This post will cover slides 26 through 30 from my 2008 GBN Conference presentation. There is a link to download the file at the end of this post. Continue reading “Time Sliced Measures Part III: Making Measures”