Dave's Adventures in Business Intelligence

Not too long ago I got (yet another) flowchart from SAP that attempts to help me decide when to use a particular tool. SAP has the rather unenviable position of having to complete the integration process started a few years back when BusinessObjects purchased Crystal, and then to also figure out how to integrate / update all of the legacy SAP tools as well. For customers the situation can be even worse, as they may or may not have access to all of these options based on what they’ve purchased over the years. Fellow SAP Mentor Ingo Hilgefort delivered a presentation to ASUG members last month that covered this same subject. Ingo’s presentation – like many I have seen – started by covering each of the primary products, discussing their major features, and talked about how they were suited for various business cases. It’s a good presentation, and if you’re an ASUG member I’ve included a link so you can download it. (He’s also doing it at the 2010 Annual Conference coming up in a few weeks.)

What I liked about slide I got was that it was based more on use rather than function. In other words, it didn’t focus on the features of the products but instead asked what was going to be done with the products. The first decision point in the flowchart was simple: is the user request for delivery or discovery?

What does that mean, and what products ended up on either side? Continue reading “Delivery Versus Discovery”

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.

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”

Whether you’re a Facebook user or not (I am not) it has been hard to avoid the furor recently over some of the changes the service is making. One article at Newsweek.com says:

The fear is that people are being lured into Facebook with the promise of a fun, free service, and don’t realize that they’re paying for it by giving up loads of personal information.

Why is Facebook in hot water now, when other Internet-based companies like Amazon have been collecting and using our personal data for years? Maybe it’s because Amazon doesn’t automatically add new apps to your profile if you browse other sites while logged into their service. (Facebook reportedly allows this, although some articles are now providing responses from Facebook that dispute exactly how this process is supposed to work.)

I’m not writing this post to bash Facebook (you can probably find plenty of that already). I’m writing this post because I wanted to share an interesting visualization that I found from an author named Matt McKeon. He shows how the privacy settings for Facebook have broadened over the years. He also admits that some of the data had to be “made up” because he does not have access to hard numbers from Facebook, so read the information with that in mind. Continue reading “Facebook: It’s All About the Data”

You can find articles about this all over the Internet, so I won’t bother linking directly to any particular one. Here’s a search link from Google that will help you get started.

Executive summary

SAP is going to be paying $65 / share for Sybase. They’ll pay some of it out of cash, and they are financing the rest. Kind of like buying a house.

Why are they buying?

SAP says they like Sybase because of their “mobile presence” and their in-memory database technology. Sybase IQ has offered in-memory column-oriented database architecture for years, and SAP makes use of the same concepts with their accelerated version of Explorer. So I can see where that part is coming from. I will admit that I am not completely up to speed on the mobile offerings from Sybase. In fact, I wasn’t even aware they had any. So I guess I have some research to do.

I have to imagine that one of the biggest “woots!” going on at SAP headquarters is coming from the folks that no longer have to sell Oracle database packages along with the SAP ERP. It’s probably hard to put a value on that.

The market has initially had a negative reaction to the news with SAP stock trading down in after-hours trading. Sybase is, of course, way up. Oracle is also down as this impacts them in a couple of ways.

I’m only skimming the surface of this, as I only found out a bit ago. My final thought: what does this do to or for Microsoft?

I got an email yesterday (May 11th, 2010) with the following information about a customer loyalty program coupon that I had earned:

Notice the date? The coupon is supposed to expire on April 12, 2010.

I got the email on May 11, 2010.

See the problem?

After a brief phone call with Best Buy, it turns out the coupon date is actually Dec 12th. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine what the actual report failure was. A clue: there is nothing wrong with the data. 😉

I got my reminder email from ASUG this morning about upcoming webcasts. There is one particular session that I have some interest in because I’m frequently asked the very same question. When do I use a particular tool?

I’m also pleased to say that earlier this week we integrated the ASUG event calendar with BOB. Twice a day the BOB server will poll the ASUG server and retrieve an updated listing of events and post them to the BOB calendar. So if you’re a visitor to BOB you can quickly and easily see what’s coming up with ASUG. The ASUG calendar is open for public viewing so you can get full details on the events that interest you. You will have to register (join) to be able to participate, but it does help being able to see the topics ahead of time and determine how valuable they are for you.

Continue reading “Upcoming ASUG Webcasts for April, 2010”

I spent last Sunday and Monday in Atlanta. I didn’t see much of the city as I was holed up in a downtown hotel with 250 of my closest friends 🙂 working on plans for ASUG’s coming year. There were a number of interesting things that came out of the meeting. I already posted about the location and dates for the fall conference. There are a few other tidbits that I wanted to share as well. In no particular order… Continue reading “ASUG Volunteer Summit”

Hi, folks, just wanted to let everyone know that I realize there are a number of comments or questions that have been piling up without responses. I’m a bit busy with work and preparing for the ASUG volunteer summit being held this weekend. I will catch up on comments and have some news about the GBN merger into ASUG and I hope some news about the fall Business Objects conference after this weekend.

It has been an interesting year. I got to attend more conferences this year than any other year before. I left one company and joined another. The GBN grew and then ultimately merged into ASUG. BOB grows ever closer to the next milestone (600,000 posts and 50,000 users). My BI blog (this site) has been running for eighteen months now, which some say is the average lifespan of a personal site or blog.

I’m not done yet. I’m done for this year, but I’ll see you again shortly. 😎

Best wishes to you and yours during this holiday season.