Is that It?

They say that technology happens in waves. They being Gartner and the like.

You get early adopters, then rapid growth in popularity, a peak of excitment then a long decline. Drawn on a digram, representing, say, adoption, it's like a big wave.

Well, the OBIEE wave formed and a whole bunch of consulting firms have got there surfboards out. But has the wave already crashed onto the beach?

I tend to use the job market as an indicator of the projects and skills in demand.

Five years ago when we started our Analytics consultancy, there were 1-2 new jobs per week advertised for Siebel Analytics consultants (pre-runner to OBIEE). That grew over the next couple of years to approx 6 real jobs per day. Although there would be 20 adverts, lots were agencies fishing for CV's, others were two agencies with the same job. We knew most of the projects in the UK, as there were not that many. As the market grew so did our business, life was very busy.

The reason for our success was getting trained people onboard. This cost a fortune, as Siebel controlled the training closely, charged high prices, and refused to allow others to publish training material.

Then along came Oracle and bought Siebel, renaming the product and heavily marketing OBI (EE and others).

At first this killed the market off. Uncertainty over Oracle intentions, and re-organisations in the salesforce meant that new sales were low and new projects went to other products.

Momentum was returned to the Oracle Business Intelligence set of products and the wave got going again. Six months ago there were dozens of jobs on the internet and companies were snapping up OBIEE.

I also look at the competition in the marketplace. When we started the business there were two companies in the UK who offered Siebel Analytics consulting, us and Innoveer. Slowly this increased, but mainly in mainland Europe. The UK market was too small and specialised for major investment. Customer Systems, Rossett Stone, Abbusys, ClearPeaks, and a bunch of offshore other companies set about the our market. These were good small companies, run by hard working specialist who know the Siebel product well and added the Analytics skills. I know all these people having worked, with, for and in competition with, on dozens of projects. These people invested a great deal in the hope of a growing market - they joined the curve on the way up!

When Oracle finally got it's act together they completly opened the market up. Publishing deals were allowed, other companies could run training (Including us), the software was made freely available for development, marketing activity went through the roof -the last UKOUG Business Intelligence conference was wall to wall Oracle presentations (I hope we get some variety tomorrow).

This led to an enormous influx of consultancies suddenly interested in the OBI product set. Competition became fierce, but we kept winnning work based upon REAL experience, and due to the fact we stick to what we know, OBIEE and Siebel Analytics Applications. Rates droppped and every independent consultant was putting Oracle BI on their CV. Desperate for experience they were killing the normal rates for contractors and undermning the credibility of the product.

(There are still dozens of high profile firms out there pretending to be experts in OBIEE - ask them how many real projects they have done)

Then along came a market confidence knock.

Due to a credit crunch, fuel prices, or whatever, the floor dropped out of the market. Search today on Jobserve for OBIEE jobs and ONE comes back. It pays really bad and has been open for months, and is in Edinburgh (not too bad in the summer). Search for Siebel Analytics and you get 2 jobs, in Switzerland and France.

I have a good network with the other independent experienced Analytics consultants based in the UK. They are manily working overseas in Europe (thankfully a good Euro-GBP rate at the moment). I know of several individuals that are looking, and will be available soon. Is there an over supply of Analytics /OBIEE experts?

There are a couple of roles that have not been advertised recently but one is not paying enough for a an expert with the level of experience they need, and the other will probably be filled by the available consultants on the market without the need to advertise.

So, has the wave crashed on the beach??

One theory is that projects are on hold or cancelled.

One factor may be reduced Oracle sales (have to wait and see on that one).

I think a huge factor is the type of customer that would normally implement OBIEE. They're big, normally very big. OBI can be expensive to buy (unless you go for the cheaper packages) and be expensive to implement. Maybe the budgets are tight this year, but these companies normally have large outsourcing deals with the major IT/Consulting firms - IBM, Accenture, CSC, TCS, HP, CapGemini, Deloitte, etc, and most of these firms are begining to compete on price - get the work offshore and charge peanuts. Until now the skills have been in short supply. I have worked for every one of the above, filling a gap in their knowledge. But now they have set-up their Indian operations and the skills are getting there (not as good as ours abviously!). My last project manager at CSC has been sent to India to manage the operation.

So my conclusion is that the number of projects are down, the number of consultants available are up, and the offshore model is beginning to bite.

Time to stop surfing and get the Kite board out!!

Long Time no see...

Nearly four weeks in the Carribean really slows you down. You get used to the slow pace of life. Breakfast at the marina cafe takes until lunchtime, Lunch takes hours, and dinner takes all night. Sailing at 5 miles per hour from glorious beach to fabulous snorkling bay is a steady, casual affair, best done one hand on the wheel and a cool beer in the other.

Just as well really, because if I was in a hurry then downloading and installing the Oracle BI software would be driving me mad. I am on day three of night and day downloading. I have a fast broadband and a new laptop, but I have dozens of large files to get, unzip and install.

I started by getting VMware, installing a 50GB virtual machine, then setting up Windows Server 2003, including the updates, then downloading all the relevent Oracle files. There are hundreds of them. Database installs, BI platform (OBIEE, informatica, BI Publisher), EBS files, samples, and BI Apps. I'm mainly interested in the 7.9.5 Analytics for CRM plus HRM and Financials analytics. I'm not even sure if I will bother with the Essbase stuff.

One of the reasons for setting up a whole environment is for a client presentation next week, but the other is that there are rumours that the HR BI Apps repositories are in need of some improvement. This doesn't surprise me if it's true, we have had lots of interesting days with the CRM Analytics, but I would have thought that Oracle have had enough time to get these 'pre-packaged' apps sorted out. Trouble is, they still seem to be unsure what to do about ODI vs Informatica (and what about OWB). At the last UKOUG conference the product development people still had no clear direction on this.

I'm beginning to think that there is rooom for some competition on the pre-built Apps front. Question is, how much effort should I put into this, and should we try an Open Source model?
Then there is the choice of subject. Marketing and Forecasting needs some pre-built work (two clients I know wanted it), but now maybe HR.

Mind you, it'll be a few weeks before I get round to anything. Maybe I should jst start the downloads and head back to the beach!

Let me know what you think of the pre-built ETL, DAC and rpd's.

BI Conference Afternoon session

Hold that last thought. Apparently Excel is central to BI!

The roadmap for BI (including Hyperion) was actually very good at keeping me awake after lunch.

The 11g features of OBIEE are good, and should be out before May next year. There were hundreds of updates and improvements, which I will write about tomorrow when I have had time to digest them (and my dessert).

The conference was a sell out, with a huge number of end user companies, but what was interesting was the companies which were not there. No Big integrators - no IBM, o Accenture, no TCS, no EDS. and no Agencies. There were the usual small integrator, Eclectic, SolStone, Majendi, RittmanMead, etc. This just underlined my view that the little guys have all the knowledge, experience and capability and yet the big guys have the marketing clout.


For me it was a great success. I went with three objectives

1. Find out where the Analytics Applications are going
2. Find out what developments are being made in the OBIEE platform
3. Get on the beta program for 11g

The answer is that Informatica is still fully part of the Applications, as is DAC (for now). Development is being concentrated on the new Analytics.

The OBIEE platform is getting better and better and the new flash graphs are a bit of fun.

I have the email of the guy for the beta program :)

I also learnt more about the Data Mining tool. Something I will learn more about I think.

I will be off on Holiday for three weeks. Sailing around the Caribbean.

See you when I get back.

Hot news from th BI conference

Firstly, Lunch at the conference is excellent. Well done Radisson!

Secondly, Frank says that we should ditch Excel for BI, it's destructive!

Most importantly. Oracle now has true data mining capability. I've seen it here and it works. If you thought SAS was the only solution, think again.

BTW, Informatica and DAC are still going strng. They do have plans to have ODI run in parallel but nothing concrete out there yet.

more as I find out.

I'm off to get some pud

And Ross joins in

I have just noticed that Ross Goodman at Ecelectic is blogging, so I'll add him to the blogroll.

http://www.rossgoodman.com/2008/02/28/modelling-change-in-your-dimensions/

Not really my thing.. but ..

Just to show you I can be nice!.

A note from a friendly agent.

PLEASE CAN YOU HELP ME??? xxx

I am looking for an Application Developer (Middleware) consultant for a highly prestigious Dutch client based in The Netherlands. You will be working as a software specialist for customer, where Application Support is the main focus. Middleware and Applications as Oracle Application Server, Apache Tomcat, Oracle Portal Server, Siebel and Oracle E-Business Suite are the basic items that need to be supported on day to day bases. This will vary from incident-resolving to security, health checks and problem analysis until performance and tuning. In the role as a software specialist professional you work with a variety of people and skills in a team where you all support and back-up each other in case of escalation and where the pro-active job is to prevent these incidents and escalations. Adding value by developing tools of automation is highly appreciated. I am looking for someone who has strong in Oracle application server, Oracle E-Business and UNIX. You will be working in a large team of about 8 consultants where there will be an opportunity to learn new skills and techniques. Dutch speaking role -
please send CV for full details and immediate interviews.
Kind Regards
Jill Jill Lund
Senior Recruitment Consultant
Best People Ltd

Rate Card

I keep meaning to put the rate card on the Majendi website.

If anyone is interested this is what we charge. (all in GBP)


Senior Consultant - 800 plus expenses
Consultant - 750 (expenses included in home country, add on for Europe)
Junior Consultant- 250 plus expenses


What are the levels?

Senior Consultants have 4 years of Analytics / OBIEE expereince. They have at least 6 projects implementing new or upgrading systems. They can lead the reporting part of any Siebel Implementation and take personal responsibity to ensure the client is happy with the deployment. They will also have other skills, e.g. unix.

Consultants are qualified from Oracle University and have worked alongside the Senior consultants on large projects. They have been working on at least 3 projects and demonstrated a high skill level to the seniors.

Junior consultants are qualified from Oracle University but have only worked ont he internal Majendi project. They are not sent out alone, but always in an assisting role with a senior.

Where are we based?

UK -London
UK -Manchester
UK - Glasgow

Germany - Munich
Switzerland - Geneva

South Africa - All

We need more staff, more freelance consultants, and more partners with related skillsets, e.g. Senior Siebel experts, eBusiness Experts, etc.

What Projects do we work on?

The bigger the better. Leading Pharmaceuticals, National Telecoms providers, Military, National Transport Carriers, Global FMCG, National Postal Companies, Power Generator Providers, Very large Banks, Electronics manufacturers and many smaller companies and government organisations too.
Every single customer of ours will provide a positive reference.

Do we negotiate? Never. There is more work than we can shake a stick at. Maybe we should charge more.

If you are freelancing, make sure you are paid your worth. If not, come to Majendi. We are not an agency. Agencies have an important role in matching people to projects too, and we work with the best of them, e.g. SCOM, Aston Carter. We are specialist consultancy that knows OBIEE, and how companies can implement it.

More Groups Please

I have had lots of new members sign up to my OBIEE group on linked in, most of which have some relationship with the product.

I am rejecting anyone who is an agency recruiter or just a professional networker.

The next step will be to develop the OBI portal which will provide resources for OBIEE professionals. This is planned for mid March.

If you haven't joined us please go to http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/43109/526A0219C124


The main reason for networking is so that we can share useful information. It is amazing how many projects I have worked on where I needed staff and they come via an agency and yet i could have employeed people directly, for more money!! Use your network. If you are looking for OBIEE work just get in touch. I wont spread your details around, but I may know of a project that you may be suitable for. Do not leave your current job to go contracting without giving me a call. I can help. You know who you are!!


On the subject of groups, I think I should join the following groups

IOUG (International Oracle User Group)
OAUG (Oracle Applications User Group)
Oracle BIWA SIG
Oracle BI Network

If you have the link please send it on.

Need a loopback Adapter

This took me ages to find

If you need to install Oracle database on a Vista Machine then this may help.

1) start device manager
2) right-click top node
3) add legacy hardware
4) select Netwrok Adaptor
5) select Microsoft6) select Loopback adapter

This was from an original post at

http://davedotnet.blogspot.com/2006/06/installing-loopback-adaptor-in-windows.html

Also useful was

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2004/07/06/174576.aspx

Execute

Probably already covered elsewhere, but I had this lying around from my book notes (Many Thanks to ed Higgins)

These are the executables you can find in the bin directory.

Nb. Siebel support recommends the following executables are not used without prior knowledge or consulting technical support first.

JobManager.exe

Previously known as Analytics Scheduler, nothing much has changed, the Job Manager is used to schedule iBots for Oracle delivers and provides an interface to check progress of batches and records details of failures, it can also be used to schedule scripted jobs including triggering workflows in integrated applications, writing data to the database and triggering statistics updates in the database.

Prior to using the Job Manager, the user needs to run SAJOBS.oracle.sql from C:\OracleBI\server\Schema, this creates the tables for the scheduler, alternative versions are provided for most major databases.
Next one must create an entry in TNSNAMES.ora for the Data Source Name, launch the Job Manager from the Programs menu or Administration and add the connection details in Scheduler Configuration, for non-Oracle databases use windows ODBC and create a DSN.


nQcmd.exe

This command line tool executes SQL script on the database and can be used for Cache Seeding operations, it is not recommended that it be used directly as these jobs can be run through Job Manager, it is also recommended by Oracle that remote access tools such as TELNET or remote desktop are disabled on the server running presentation services as direct access to nQcmd.exe constitutes a security risk.

nQLogviewer.exe

nQLogViewer.exe is a utility and part of the analytics installation and resides in the 'Analytics install dir'/Bin directory. It's essentially a parsing tool that allows you to extract info from the NQQuery.log.

The particulars of the utility are:------------
Command: nQLogViewer -u -f -o

-s -r

where:
= Analytics user
= NQQuery.log to examine

= File to send results to
= ID of user logon session (unique per user logon/logoff session)
= ID of specific request from an Analytics Web Client sessionNQQuery.log

excerpt:+++administrator: 100: 101: ----2002/05/31 10:53:03 timestampExample to see only those entries under session ID 100:nQLogViewer -f c:\nquire\Log\NQQuery.log -o c:\nquire\Log\NQQuery_session100.log -s 100

nQQueryStatsFormatter.exe

No longer used in Oracle BI

NQSChangePassword.exe

This utility allows the changing of analytics user passwords from the command line.

NQSServer.exe

This is the Analytics Server process and must be running for analytics to function, it appears as a service in Windows (Siebel Analytics Server or Oracle BI Server), and is controlled by the Server Manager process in a UNIX environment.

NQSShutDown.exe

The executable can be called in a Unix script and stops the Analytics/BI server.

I'm not convinced these are still valid in the OBIEE world but are for Analytics 7.x

OC4J as a Service

Following the last post on stopping oc4j from automatic running, you may want to run oc4j as a service, so that is can be added to a batch file that starts all the analytics services.


So, to Run OC4J as a windows service

If you want to run oc4j as a windows service download the open source tool named JavaService.exe from http://javaservice.objectweb.org/ which can create Windows Services for Java Programs, adjust and execute the following command:
javaservice -install "Oracle BI: OC4J Service" "D:\jdk1.5.0_09\jre\bin\client\jvm.dll" -XX:MaxPermSize=128m -Xmx512m "-Djava.class.path=d:\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\oc4j.jar" -start oracle.oc4j.loader.boot.BootStrap -description "Oracle BI Oc4J Service"

Now you can add to your 'net start' commands batch file.

Credit to Andreass in the Majendi team for this.

UPDATE: Venkat has also blogged on this subject, including some screen shots.

Auto running OC4J

I kept meaning to do a brief note on the issue of OC4J automatcally running when you start windows. I'm sure you all know how to stop it, but just on case check out

http://knowledge.ciber.nl/weblog/?p=84

And another thing

You wait ages for a blog to come along, then three turn up at once.



I just had to mention the WHOPPING great rpd that I had to investigate the other day.



It was 50 MB.

Supplied by Oracle as part of the 7.9 Applications install.

It's not that it takes ages to load and edit in the Admin tool, it's just a nightmare to figure out which bits belong to which Licence option. I need to write some UDML scripts to deal with the different packs. Maybe one of you lot already have some to send me :)

Is the future here already?

Have a look at the Oracle whitepaper on OBIEE and SOA. It's the future you can read about while getting on with maintaining your 7.7 Siebel reporting (Actuate) system.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/rittman-biee-soa.html?rssid=rss_otn_articles


Don't let people tell you otherwise - Oracle Business Intelligence is the future - what? including OWB? are you mad. You wait, when Larry gets back from his next sailing trip someone will have written some SAS like functions - or maybe just bought SAS!!!

So are Informatica getting ready to be bought out. The rumours have started and speculation is rife. Just imagine what will happen if someone else buys Informatica and oracle have to re-write all those ETL applcations. Come to think about it, that's not a bad idea. Maybe this time they will do better.

Aaaargh

Thanks Bill. Thanks for the new windows system. not.

I bought a new laptop last week, it's a Vostro 1700 from Dell. Very good spec, loads of memory, fast cpu etc, but also including Vista.

I went to install my copy of OBIEE and it refused, so it's not backwards compatable. So I tried the latest version 10.1.3.3.2 (download biee_windows_x86_101332_disk1) and it installed fine, except it didn't recognise my IIS, so i only got the oc4j.

Opening up the paint dashboard all looked fine so I prepared some data for a demo to my latest client. I created the demo data in Excell and Access, modified the paint rpd to include the new data. The demo was in an auditorium full of managers! (gulp)

Off to the site I went on a train from Copenhagen (at 5am!!). The journey was three hours so I thought I would walk through the steps I was going to give in the presentation. Opening the dashboard was fine, then clicking on the Answers link I was asked to log in again. Loggin in again I was then presented with a screen saying that I was not logged in!!
Clicking on the Admin link gave the same issue. In fact almost every link required you to log in again.


With 20 minutes to go before the presentation I had re-installed the software twice, searched google, IT Toolbox and the forums, and pulled out most of my hair.
Finally I gave up, thinking that if I ran for it I could just get back to the train before they realised I was gone :)

Luckily I still had the install disks for 10.1.3.2 and I borrowed someones laptop with XP on. I Installed the system and fired up OBI EE with 30 seconds to spare.

The presentatin went ahead without any problems.

Phew!

PS

Why Bother?

My next rant will be about Networking, Client Credit, Being in business, and Project Managment. Watch this space.

Happy New Year? ummm, we'll see.

A few random thoughts for OBIEE and life at the keyboard...

A few years ago we used to write javascript to refresh the screen, based upon an input value. In APEX we can put some code into the header " meta http-equiv="refresh" content="60"", so I thought why not put it in an OBIEE report. The issue is where? Has anyone had a go at this?

I saw this the other day from Ahmad Alkhmous

Restricting the Number of Rows returned in a request:-
Click on the filter icon on any column in answers
Click on Advanced-> Convert filter to SQL
Write "Rcount(1)< N" ... N is the number of rows you want to see

Whats this then?
http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/05-mar/o25xmlex.html

Not OBIEE but could help

Top 10 keyboard Shortcuts in Windows
CTRL N.................New window
CTRL Z.................Undo
CTRL Y.................Redo
ALT F4.................Close current application (if all are closed, will present shut down options)
WINDOWS D..............Show desktop (also WINDOWS M = minimise all)
CTRL A.................Select all
CTRL F.................Find
CTRL C.................Copy
CTRL V.................Paste
ALT TAB................Switch between windows
and a bonus one..
SHIFT F3...............(Word only) Toggle selected text between caps and lower case

A bit of fun..
I love this paper plane throwing game. Enjoy! http://flightsimx.archive.amnesia.com.au/


Want to keep the kids amused?

Word Searches
http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/WordSearchSetupForm.html



If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?


Adrian

"Living in America"

If that's you, and you know your rpd from armpit, then please get in touch. I may be able to put you in touch with some projects that need OBIEE consultants.

I recently commented that Finance departments can start considering how OBIEE can replace/ compliment their MS Access systems. In response to a question on this I replied with the following:

"A little background - I have been implementing MS Access systems for 10 years, and I think they are great. The speed to deliver, the power of the analysis, the very useful VBA make a great product for Finance departments. I came across OBIEE (in previous forms) 5 years ago and found that it solved the big problem of Access databases being restricted to a local team. Using them across the world was very difficult. We needed to report in Australia and USA using European data.

OBIEE can be very quick to develop in (if your IT and project team will let you) you can create reports based upon a standard definitions (i.e. measures created in the rpd), and you do not have to extract massive volumes out of one database to be able to combine with another - we had to put CRM data next to HR data, next to Finance data.

Any good product can be badly implemented, and IT departments can hold you back from doing the quick data analysis you need to do for your job, so using Access gives you freedom to develop what you want when you want - YOU are in control. Treat OBIEE in the same way. Get the IT dept to set up the infrastructure, YOU control the rpd and the reporting.

Best of all - you can put OBIEE on top of Access - best of both worlds."

Quiet Christmas

I had a few emails, texts and calls today from people who are available for work. Good Siebel Analytics / OBIEE consultants who may be having an extended xmas holiday!

If you have a need for someone for short or long term please get in touch and I'll forward their details on.

You may have noticed me being busy on LinkedIn recently. I have managed to build a good network of OBIEE consultants, and even started a group specifically for Oracle Business Intelligence consultants. This should benefit us all when it comes to project requirements.
Go to http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/43109/526A0219C124 and I'll add you in (I only add in OBI consultants and related workers).

I have also been busy on the Oracle OBIEE forum, reading the issues that people have. It annoys me when someone clearly hasn't read the manual or even tried to find the answer to something before posting a request.

Each day I always check out Venkats postings on his blog. He has a great job - he just gets to play with OBIEE all day and write about the new stuff.

Talking of new stuff, the new functionality in 10.1.3.3.xyz, which allows you to call Oracle functions will be a greta boost for the product. Up until now I have seriously wondered by you need a BLOB in an Analytics but now we get to put pictures from a database in you reports.

I was sceptical about the time series functions, particularly as they were causing some people problems, but I have now converted over completely and so far so good. Let me know what you think.

Have you noticed that when you use the functions editor you now get something more useful when you add the function - it actually now tells you what arguments it requires instead of <>. I tended to copy the contents of the edit box into TextPad but may start using the editor more now.

I notice there are more and more companies that are offering OBIEE and Siebel Analytics consultancy. Those of us that were using the product over 4 years ago are seeing others trying to muscle in. All I can say is How much do you really know?? There are so many stories at conference from clients that say their implementation failed due to the integrator not having the right skills. We ALL need to make sure the product is not undermined by consultants who frankly do not have a clue. If you are in a pitch to a client sell your real experience and don't let beginners run your project.

I am still building the OBIEE information website, if you would like to have a listing just let me know.

That's all for now Folks!

Trimming

One little 'feature' of OBIEE keeps popping up in my projects - Automatic Trimming.
If you have a field with data, or calculated field, that has a trailing space in then OBIEE can remove the space for you.
This can lead to some issues, particularly when drilling down.Lets say you have a report with :

DimA Top Level Fact 1.
ABC 123

and the true value of DimA is 'ABC ' - note the space
The value displayed in the report is ABC, clicking on the value will start the drill down, using a filter of 'WHERE DIMA = ABC'
Of course NO data is returned.

The solution is to either make sure none of the data has trailing spaces or add the TRIM function. TRIM ( BOTH ' ' FROM DIMA) will do the trick.

TO_CHAR

I noticed this first when using the TO_CHAR function.If you to_char a date into month name (usually using OBIEE Function MONTHNAME) then the answer you get back is always 9 characters, which means AUGUST has three trailing spaces.You therefore have to trim the answer.

Hide

Airport lounge again.

Why do people think that business travel is glamorous?



ANYway, I'm bored enough to finally figure out how people are hiding their contacts in LinkedIn. There is a setting you can change in the profile, but I'll let you find out how.

The big question is why you would hide your contacts.

The whole point of LinkedIn is to NETWORK, make contact with people in your business area and share information, ideas, recruit, learn.

I suspect it the recruit thing that puts people off. I do know that recruitment agencies will use the system to their advantage, but surely it is to your advantage too - you get to find out about roles.

Anyway, feel free to browse through my contacts, and if you see someone you may need - a fellow OBIEE consultant maybe - then get in touch with them.

Complete Blogger

Like all good bloggers I am finally able to sit in an airport lounge and write something about my day.

I'm off to a client in the North so am flying out of Southampton.
I may go to the pub tonight and may have a dinner with someone.

Whilst there, I will work on some issues with OBIEE 10.1.3.3.

There.
done it.

I am now a complete blogger !!!

New LinkedIn Group

If you are using the Networking tool LinkedIn, I have created a group for Oracle Business Intellegence professionals. Look out for the group on my profile, and join in if you think it is appropriate for you.
I will connect anyone who is working in OBIEE, Siebel Analytics, Oracle Business Intelgence (such as OWB).

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/43109/526A0219C124

OBI EE Consultants Needed

The OBIEE world is still going strong and demand is high. We need a couple more consultants - one experienced contractor for a project in Germany where we are the technical leaders, and one junior (on a decent salary).

If you are ready for a new project/consultancy then do get in touch.

Remembrance Day petition

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/remembermonday/

A petition has been launched requesting a new public holiday falling on the Monday after Rembrance Sunday in November each year.

To be known as the National Remembrance Holiday, it's purpose is threefold:

1. To emphasise the remembrance of those servicemen and women who have given, and continue to give, their lives for Britain.
2. To remind people of the importance of protecting our Nation and what it stands for.
3. To break that 3 month period between the August Public Holiday and Christmas when there are currently no long weekends, especially as the UK has fewer public holidays than most European Countries.

If you are in agreement, please sign up to the petition
- it only takes a few moments - and it would be great if you were minded to forward the link to other people as well.


Thank you for your time.

Using Catalog Manager

If you want to have a consistent Header or Footer on each page of your dashboards then you can add the default settings to your custom messages file and all NEW reports will have the same settings. You can edit these settings per page afterwards. However, if you have built loads of pages on various dashboards and the Business Analyst comes along and says, 'oh I forgot to say we need a confidentiallity clause at the bottom of each page' you smile through gritted teeth and are faced with a large task of opening each page and editing the print formatting. If you have lots of formats to make this can take some time. The alternative is to dig into the Catalog manager and edit the xml for each page directly. This takes half the time to go through each page. Open the Catalog Manager and navigate to the _portals folder.







Now select the properties for the page (make sure you don't pick the dashboard layout).























Edit the page xml.





The trick here is not to write your own xml!! Copy the xml from one you set up manually in the dashboard editor.

Here I copied in a message about the system being restricted and a nice green message!

The tag added is saw:pageProps

notice saw:pageHeader show="false" / and saw:showFooter showondashboard="true" show="true"

simple really.

UI Messages

The most popular customisation for OBIEE is the colour scheme, which you will know is done by Skin/Schema.
This is great but you then come to change the wording and it is not done by skin/schema.
You can update the file uimessages.xml to change the links on the menu, so for example Dashboards could be replaced with 'Sailing' and the link can be changed (in the controlmessages.xml file), but this covers all skins being presented. On of the forum responses recently suggested that the javascript can be altered on a skin by skin basis but I can't find any reference to the messages being presented. I'll keep looking but if you know send a quick reply :)

The normal method for updating messages is to create an entry in your custom messages file, but htis requires you to know which message table the message relates to. This would be fine but this area is not fully documented (in the public domain at least:).

I'll experiment and let you know if I can find the relevent massage table setting to use. In the meantime this type of message customisation has to take place in the original files (which you hopfully have a backup of!)

New Version of OBIEE

Version 10.1.3.3.3.1..3.1.1.2..3.1..3. of OBI Enterprise Edition is now released.

It's got some new stuff in.

How exciting!

Ex-Oracle

NOT quite sure why it exists, but I just found a forum for ex-Oracle employees. Probably useful for networking with people who left to earn a decent wage contracting.
It was listed in the LinkedIn groups section.
Have a look at http://www.ex-oracle.org/html/index.php

Act as

Nicholas De Brabanter has a good article on this.

http://www.be-ice.eu/2007/10/04/how-enabling-and-configuring-the-obiee-proxy-act-as-functionality

I found this link the other day. It lists the average rate for OBI consultants in the USA.

http://www.hotgigs.com/rates/skill/Oracle-Business-Intelligence-hourly-consultant-bill-rates/

At 137 dollars for an average consultant and on a straight conversion these look slightly lower than the UK, but the cost of living over there is lower.

Foreign Travel

So lets recap....


Ireland - Two OBI/Analytics required
Amsterdam - One senior OBIEE
Midlands - One OBIEE expert
France - 2 month contract for Siebel Analytics
London - Training x 2

then along comes Australia !!!! Anyone fancy going to Sydney for the winter?

Where's my suitcase.

Seriously, there is more work than I can handle, but rates are still tight. If you fancy trying out contracting then get in touch and I'll point you in the right direction

- Adrian
adrian.ward@majendi.com

Sign up for the Arrows

Speechless...

"Organisers of the event say that the Arrows military background might be "offensive" to other countries taking part in the Games. The display team have performed at more than 4000 events worldwide, but the Department of Culture, Media and Sport have deemed the display team "too militaristically British". Red Arrows pilots were said to be "outraged", as they had hoped to put on a truly world class display for the Games, something which had never been seen before. Being axed from a British-based event for being "too British" is an insult - the Arrows are a symbol of Britain .

The Red Arrows have been excellent ambassadors for British overseas trade, as they display their British-built Hawk aircraft all over the world.

The Arrows performed a short flypast in 2005 when the winning bid was announced, but their flypast at the Games was to have been truly spectacular.

It is to be hoped that common sense prevails"

If you disagree with this decision, sign the petition on the link
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/RedArrows2012/?ref=redArrows2012

Amsterdam anyone?

There is a contract in Amsterdam that is looking for an experienced analytics consultant. Please get in touch with me if you are interested. I can put you in direct contact with the manager there.

Role of Honour

I received lots of good feedback on my recent rantings about the market, so have decided to set-up a role of honour for OBI specialists. We know who the major players are, so I'll set-up a webpage listing consultants, companies, projects, agents and general information.

If you would like to be included just let me know, and send me a profile. If there is anything you specifically want to have included, let me know. If you want, I'll put a link on your profile, so people can make direct contact (via LinkedIn, Xing, facebook, etc).

I don't think I can put it on a page here (can I?) so may hvae to host it on Majendi.com or majendi.net.

Supply and Demand

Spain just called
so did Switzerland
and Sweden
London too (twice)
oh, so did Amsterdam
and of Course there's Munich
not forgetting Wiltshire

There's lot's of work out there

And there's not that many OBI / Siebel Analytics specialists either. A few are catching up, but I know of about 5 truely experienced consultants in the market.

So why, oh why do companies think they can get someone who is skilled for 800 Euros per day??? If you have the skills it's because you have invested in a risky market (come on Oracle SELL MORE), and you have some intelligence.
I am actually beginning to think that companies prefer a cheap rubbish job. Come on prove me wrong.

If you are a consultant. Don't take a low rate, don't let the agency take a huge cut and do Learn the product inside out. The success of OBIEE depends upon succesful implmentations.

If you are a company (or consultancy) looking for someone, let me know and I'll put you in touch with good consultants. I'm not an agency but I can probably give you some good advice and screen out the bluffers.

I know most of the companies that are installing OBIEE so if you are looking for your next contract, let me know and I'll put you in touch with project managers.

In fact, I think I'll put the details of projects in my BizIntel yahoo group. Come on, lets get this market working properly.


and the bad news...
We just had a second rejection for a Work Permit application to bring in a skilled worker from South Africa. Seems the government is happy for our work to disappear offshore, and let the skills shortage in the UK continue to hold back small copanies like ours.

If you know how I can get hold of more decent staff I would love to know!!

Is there a way to get people legally working in this country? How does IBM, Accenture and the offshore copanies do it?

or

Does anyone have any idea how some people are able to buy HSMP tickets?!!!

Cluster ....

It appears that there is a significant change that I had overlooked in the new OBI 10.1.3.2, compared to the Analytics 7.8 version.

I had noticed that there was a new webcat structure, that was easy, but one of our contacts spotted that there is a new way of clustering the new Webcat.

Previously, each Webcat server (BI Presentation server) had it's own copy of the webcat file, held within the Data folder.
If you had two or more webcat servers they would syncronise the contents of the webcat using a utility - something that did not work very well.

Now you have one webcat, irrespective of how many web servers you use. They all point to the same webcat.
This neatly solves the problems you get with Syncoronisation, but introduces one significant flaw - a Single Point of Failure.

What do you do? Put your webcat on a SAN, which has all the RAID you can get. Back up the whole webcat folder every night - obviously!
Now take snapshots of the webcat throughout the day, but be very careful how many you take. Too many will slow the system down.

One thing I have always felt though is that you should cluster for Customers' High Availability requirements NOT for performance.

The majority of performance issues should be dealt with by database design, prudent Caching (with seeding), adequate memory, and ETL design. Only when these have been worked through should you look for that extra 5% from clustered servers.

Long live the King

Siebel Analytics is Dead, long live Analytics.

Actually it's not, it's still a damn good product, but the son of Analytics, OBIEE, is the new King.

Why?

Because I'm now having fun without Siebel ;-)

The new world looks like this:

An Apex application is the portal.
Identity management is by OIM (OID), managed by the Apex aplplication.
SSO uses OID to authenticate users.
Links on the portal, to your dashboards and Answer subject areas.
ETL by OWB
Database design by YOU, customise as you like.

Is the grass greener, oh yes.



Of course, Elvis is still the real King

Mad Cowes

All quiet here due to me being on holiday.

We're having a fantastic week in Cowes.

Best of all we are leading the fleet going into the last day.

Overall Results

Help!

Help!, we need somebody, Help, not just anybody, Heelp!!

Can you tell I've been listening to the Beatles tonight?

Anyway, we really do need more Analytics people. We have OBI and Analytics work coming out of our ears, so if you are looking, or know someone with Analytics then please get in touch. Now.

We need all levels, experts who want to contract through to juniors with one project who want to work as a permanent in the UK. (Work permits can be arranged).

Hardly enough time to work on the book. But don't worry it is progressing.

By the way, do you know how how the get totals working in a report that has TopN (or BottomN) in? Just go to the function dialogue for the field and set Totals to 'None'

adrian.ward@majendi.com

Catching up

As I have been in hiding on a secret client site (with no access to the internet) for a while, I thought that I would go for a large blog today.


To start with, there is some new functionality in 10.1 that you should know about. One feature is called a Presentation Variable. Like repository based variables but it is created in the BI Presentation system.

Bascially you set it up from a prompt. Once set it can be used all over the place, but my favorite is the Title of a prompted report, or column of a prompted report.

Try this

On the prompt, set a variable, which can then be accessed in the Title of the report.
For example, if you select a County of 'Wiltshire in a prompt, you set a variable name called VAR_COUNTY,
then in the Title you can display 'Details for Wiltshire' by changing the title to: Details for @{VAR_COUNTY}{All Counties}.

Neat eh?

In the good old days (last year!) we had to rely heavily on False Titles to perform the above. These may still be useful today. These use Narratives in reports to create what loks like a title. The report uses the same dashboard prompt as the report it is presented with. Using the @1 syntax you can present the value in the column, the there have a title which says something like 'Sheep in Wiltshire'. Formatted properly it will look like a title. Place it above the query in the same section. Viola.
Now I just tend to use the Section names as the titles.






I started using some Oracle dev tools this week, and I'm actually beginning to like them. Call me fickle but I have to say that I may be throwing out TOAD and starting to use Oracle SQL Developer instead. The main reason is that it is free!!






Having a quick look through my emails the other day I came across this message.

Someone asked the following question


Hi,
We have a requirement to switch between the DBs based on the user login. We have two identical/similar dbs. But based on the users, the connection should switch.
Ex: user1 should see the data fram DB1 and user2 should see the data from DB2. Our plan is to keep a single stream of Physical, BMM ,Presentation catalogs and Webcat. Is this possible through Session variables. If yes, how?


Puna replied with this excellent answer


1) Create a table "db_details" in any db with the following details:
Login_Name dbname dblogin dbpassword

2) Populate this table as per your requirements. Create a connection pool in Physical layer which connects to this table (via database)

3) Create three Non-System Session Variables: dbname,dblogin,dbpassword. Create an initialization block with the following SQL Query:
select dbname,dbuser,dbpassword from db_details where Login_Name=':User' and polplute the the above created variables.
Set the connection pool of the initialization block which was created in step 2.

4) Now for the connection pool for which dynamicity is required as per the logged in user, in connection pool of that database in physical layer set the the following properties to:
Data Source Name: VALUEOF(NQ_SESSION.dbname)
User Name: VALUEOF(NQ_SESSION.dbuser)
Password:VALUEOF(NQ_SESSION.dbpassword)

Make sure if you are using ODBC or DSN's then DSN's with the name "VALUEOF(NQ_SESSION.dbname)" already exist in the system.
So now you will be able to switch DB's based on the Login_Name.
Hope this helps.


Nice one Puna.

If you read this (or know them) please send me your details and I'll invite you to our OBI Developers Forum.

Urgent Requirement

We need a Siebel Analytics consultant for a contract in the UK - not in the North :)

As usual, we have more work than people. If you are an Analytics consultant (i.e. know all about rpd development) then please get in touch.

There will be a technical interview, so please don't try bluffing me!

For the right candidate we'll pay £550 per day initially, rising to £600 after three months.


Start in mid July

If you know anyone who may be interested please get in touch.

Adrian
07801 480900
adrian.ward@majendi.com

SE One is here

Oracle have officially launched SE One - Like Siebel Analytics only cheaper.

This is the pricing package we have all been waiting for. There is no excuse for any company to not buy Analytics. This can be used for what Analytics is good at => RAD (DSDM) warehouse projects. Finance departments should take a really good look at replacing their Access Databases with this.

You'd think I had shares in Oracle (I Don't)!

http://searchoracle.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid41_gci1262237,00.html

Freedom of the City

I had a great day today. I had to go to the Camberlains court and swear allegiance to the Queen and to the Lord Mayor. We (my wife and I) were then granted the Freedom of the city of London.
I can now drive sheep over tower bridge.

Interesting Note from Oracle

This note was published today. It may explain the questions I have been getting.

"The Standard Cost General table (W_STANDARD_COST_G) and the Exchange Rate General table (W_EXCH_RATE_G) are general reference tables.

Both tables have surrogate keys (ROW_WID). But unlike dimension surrogate keys, these surrogate keys are not referenced as foreign keys by any fact tables. Therefore the general tables do not participate in the star schema. They are not designed for use in reports and queries.

The general tables are intended for use as lookups during Extract-Transform-Load (ETL). For example, the Standard Cost General table provides cost information for a particular product in a particular inventory. The cost information will then be stored in the fact table directly. Similarly, the Exchange Rate General table provides the exchange rate between a pair of currencies for a specific day, given the exchange rate type.

The following are some WIDs in the general tables. They are not necessarily populated and they are not intended for use. These columns are:

W_STANDARD_COST_G.PRODUCT_WID
W_STANDARD_COST_G.CREATED_BY_WID
W_STANDARD_COST_G.CHANGED_BY_WID
W_EXCH_RATE_G.CREATED_BY_WID
W_EXCH_RATE_G.CHANGED_BY_WID

If you need to have a cost dimension, you need to design a different table. It is not recommended that you alter the Standard Cost General table for this purpose. "

Professional Indemnity Schedule

Just so I can point people to the evidence, here is our insurance certificate.

Professional Indemnity Schedule

Oracle Warehouse Builder Documentation

Today was spent installing Oracle databases and Warehouse tools onto one of the Majendi Laptops. It's good to keep doing these to keep your eye in.

A valuable resource if you cannot memorise everything is :

Oracle Warehouse Builder Documentation

A typical question

Please keep sending in your questions, it's interesting to see what challenges you guys (and Girls - Vicky!) face.


Here's a recent one


Hello Adrian,

I need little help.

Our company is implementing Oracle BI 10.x. We don't have much experience in Siebel Analytics/OBI.

We have few fact tables e.g. W_SALES_PICK_LINE_F, which we need/wish to extend. We are not sure about which methodology we should implement.
When we talked with few SA experts they mentioned we need to extend based on ROW_WID. Well, this column doesn't exists anymore in many fact tables, so currently we are thinking of creating ROW_WID on this F table manually and then create WC_SALES_PICK_LINE_FX and take these two tables in physical layer of RPD.

Additially, we need to create few Informatica mappings, again SA experts pointed out to use Image tables. Our data source is Oracle Applications, I don't have much idea about Image tables, but clearly there is not S_ETL_I_IMGAGe or so tables in Oracle Apps

Please guide us as how to proceed on these two issues.

Thanks in advance


and my answer

I am surprised to hear that ROW_WID has been removed from standard vanilla tables. I don't think your system will work without the ROW_WID field. Add the field back in quick! :)

My advice is to extend an existing table, not to create _FX tables. Providing you keep good control on your alter table scripts there are no issues with extending vanilla tables.

Take a copy of the vanilla mappings and customise these in your custom mappings folders. Do not update the vanilla mappings in place - they will be over written in an upgrade.

You can create your own image tables in the oracle db. The alternative is to use a last modified field in the table being imported.

You only need to create immage tables where there is lots of data, typically more than one million rows


Please can you send me more details on the project. It's good to understand where you are coming from, if you send me your rpd I can provide some feedback


Adrian
-------------------------------------------------------
Mobile: 07801 480900

Analytics Projects - Who wants one?

Whilst looking around for my next client I realise that we, as Analytics consultants, need to talk to each other more. Whats more, the consultancies and clients really need a place to go for reliable, experienced Analytics specialists.

I was discussing one new project with Haider and it turns out he worked on it before. It's a small world, and Siebel Analytics has a relatively small client base (my wild guess is 400-500 UK clients, half of which are active).
I know about 75 Analytics consultants. There are probably another 100 out there, perm employees, that may one day become freelance and pop up in the Majendi radar.

At the moment the Agencies have a good control on the Market. There are some that put out adverts for non existant jobs. They are useful to the liquidity of the market and some work hard for their cut of you pay. Just be careful they are not taking too much, the best ones have a fixed percentage with their clients. More than 15% is excessive.

So how do we help consultants? We probably should look at the networking capabilty that's out there, linkedIn, Xing, ecademy, Yahoo, etc, and perhaps set-up an OBIEE/Analytics forum. There we could share thoughts on prices to charge, new projects, help needed, technical stuff, etc. I have started one group on Yahoo, if you fancy joining in, let me know - it's invite only. I'm not sure if this helps the clients though.


Any thoughts?

On the subject of rate. You are what you charge. If you charge a cheap rate, your will be percieved as local quality, if you charge a premium rate you should deliver a premium level of service.
What are those rates? My view is that a certified consultant with 2 years (min 3 projects) Analytics consultant should be charging a minimum of 600 GBP per day. Lead consultants, with 7+ project should be GBP 750 per day. The consultancies will obviously need to charge clients a higher level. Some of the cheaper ones are charging 6-700 euro per day, the better ones, with good experience and efficient work, will be charging 900 plus.
One client I saw recently had a greatdeal with a low cost provider, the problem was they didn;t trust the work, and the estimate for time was nearly double what was really required. The client ends up paying nearly the same for inferior work. Somehow we need to educate that quality is very important to them, not cheapness.

Insurance time

I just had to renew the Professional Indemnity insurance, which this years comes to over 1,300 pounds!

We use Trafalgar, seem to provide good cover, but not sure if they are the cheapest. However, you can do it all online which saves a huge amount of time.

Use the link to get a quote.





Dear *NAME*,

This mail has been sent to you by *YOUR FRIEND* from *YOUR COMPANY* through our website.

Since 1995, Trafalgar Risk Management has focused on providing computer contractors with specialist insurance cover – Professional Indemnity; Tax & VAT Investigation; Employers’ & Public Liability.

Using state of the art computer systems we can provide quotes; accept applications; accept premium payment and allow you to print out all your relevant documentation out online – within minutes!

Furthermore, by streamlining our purchase & renewal procedures, the reduction in administration costs can be passed back to you, as can be seen in the extremely competitive premiums we offer.

We hope the above will be of interest to you and for further information please visit our website through the following link:

http://www.trafalgar.uk.com/index.asp?r=12692

Regards,

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Trafalgar Risk Management
The Lloyds Building
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Tel: 0845 685 2610
Fax: 0845 685 2611

Trafalgar Risk Management Limited is authorised and regulated by The Financial Services Authority under registration number 311662.

Trafalgar Risk Management Limited is a member of the British Insurance Brokers Association

FAQ 2289: How Do You Customize Default Header Links in the Oracle BI Presentation Services Interface?

This supportweb note came out today. It's well worth looking at if you need to customize the links in your BI Publisher.

FAQ 2289: How Do You Customize Default Header Links in the Oracle BI Presentation Services Interface?

Majendi Day out pics

The team went for a day out on the Company Yacht!

Skype

Some say "SCIPE" others "SkyPee"

Whichever you say, it's worth getting it. Free calls. We use it for conferencing.

you can find me on the system as username 'adyward'

www.skype.com

Link to Me!

Come on you lot. Let get networking!

The 'WebCatalogServiceSOAPKPI' Outbound Service Web Port

Here's a techie from Justin Townsend. We're working on some interesting ideas and clients (and client bids), where this is relevent.


Using the integrated application (Core Oracle/Siebel modules combined with Analytics & Marketing functionality) relies quiet heavily on the use of web services. These services are invoked in a 'traditional' SOAP interface, providing the communication links between the applications.

In a standard installation of the integrated application, web services are used for: pass-through authentication, execution of Marketing jobs and serving up of Analytics and Marketing resources within the integrated environment.

WebCatalogServiceSOAPKPI, as the name may suggest, serves up resources from the Analytics application which are stored in the web catalog file. Using this service you can access: dashboards, requests, iBots, segments, segment trees and list format definitions.

This WebCatalogServiceSOAPKPI is particularly important where the business has many pre-defined reports (visible on dashboards or via requests). In combination with the definition of a symbolic URL, the web service serves up these pages to the user when they access dashboards related screens in the integrated application.

Symbolic URLs are defined in the core Siebel application; when the application's services are started up, the definitions for these symbolic URLs are stored in the web server cache.

When making changes to symbolic URLs, you need to ensure the cache is cleared to make sure the amended definitions are used by the web service.

Symbolic URLs are defined in:

Administration - Integration > Symbolic URL Administration;

the cache is cleared in:

Administration - Marketing > Servers, Outbound Web Service Port (hyperlink) > Outbound Web Services

What Does Metadata mean

I'm i the middle of writing the book (along with Mark) and I was using the word Metadta alot. Then something happened on a client project which made me realise that few people probably understand what this word actually means.

The OraFaq makes a good start
"Data that is used to describe other data"

But does that clear it up?

How about
"Metadata is information about a particular data set which may describe, for example, how, when, and by whom it was received, created, accessed, and/or modified and how it is formatted. Some metadata, such as file dates and sizes, can easily be seen by users; other metadata can be hidden or embedded and unavailable to computer users who are not technically adept"

Every other definition I see just says "Data about data"

So that clears it up then!

More from Oracle

I have been to two Oracle partner events recently, where I am mainly trying to ge tot he bottom of what their ETL tool strategy is.

The issue is on of platform AND application choice.

The fight is between Informatica, OWB and Data Integrator.

Informatica has a huge head start in the Siebel OLTP to warehouse ETL. The process is built and up-and-runnning in many companies.

However, Oracle just bought Sunopsis (and their Data Integrator tool). They also have OWB.

At one event the salesman assured me that Informatica was still the number one choice for CRM ETL, and there are no plans to replace it - it would just cost them too much money to rewrite everything.

At another event I saw this :

Oracle Only •OBI – Standard Edition •Oracle Warehouse Builder •Oracle Fusion Intelligence (Requires OBI-EE) •. . . . . . . . . . .

Heterogeneous •OBI – Enterprise Edition •Oracle Data Integrator •Oracle BI Applications •. . . . . . .

No mention of Informatica!

I'm off to build a new databae and ETL using Data Integrator...

Away day

Just got back from our away day. Great fun, talking shop, eating good food, going sailing and meeting up with the lads.

Revealing photos to follow!

Loyalty Anyone?

Has anyone seen an Analytics repository which connects to the Loyalty vertical? We may be able to come to a commercial agreement with anyone has already built one.

My New Yahoo group

I'm going group crazy

Just added a fourth Yahoo group. They're great to share stuff with your mates. We have some club messages and information that needs sharing, so we put this is the group and hey presto everyone is up-to-date. No excuses!





Click to join papercourt

The Future of CRM

I attended one of Oracle's 'Ask the Experts' seminars on CRM strategy last week, not some thing we often have the time to do, but worth doing for an insight into what makes Oracle tick, and more importantly to meet some real people, many of whom at this particular event were not existing Oracle customers.

The first speaker was a research VP from Gartner, he offered some interesting feedback from their research, most of which should cheer up those of us in the business of configuring CRM apps. Generally speaking they have found there are still plenty of sizable organisations who have still to invest in a CRM solution providing a Single Customer View (the holy grail of CRM).
Their headline statement 'CRM is back in a big way' underlines this, however he went on to say that the majority of current projects are upgrades or reviews adding additional functionality or enhancing existing capabilities.

Marketing, sales and customer service are top of the list of areas perceived most likely to benefit from CRM investment, but it's clear that there are still reservations amongst top level management about the tangible benefits of this investment, and how to measure this. Thankfully, on average Analytics is rated third priority across all three of these areas, usually behind increasing customer satisfaction and improving cross selling opportunities. So more good news for those of us in the analytics business.

However, the flip side to all this optimism is that Gartner predict that by 2009 50% of new investment in this area will be in SaaS, or Software as a Service, also very interesting was the observation that some projects may be delayed until 2008, as purchasers wait for the current round of new releases to settle down and prove themselves.

Next up was Oracle's Sales Consulting Director who had a huge number of slides in his presentation explaining Oracle's current CRM strategy, I got the impression from questions asked by the floor, that this is what prospective purchasers, and some who bought Oracle CRM products pre the Siebel merger, were really interested in. The huge amount of information delivered was quite overwhelming as they tried to encompass JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Siebel users to make all feel welcome, without making existing Oracle customers feel they might now have a second tier product. In practice the future is Oracle Fusion, a suite of middleware apps to link together all the products now in the Oracle stable, this should allow relatively seem less integration of for example analytics, with any of the CRM/ERP apps offered, with Oracle undertaking to develop these apps in parallel and not force upgrades or conversions on any customer, for Siebel the future 8.1 and 8.2 releases are said to be in the pipeline already.
As reassurance for Siebel users Oracle are using Siebel internally now, with Siebel Contact Centre underpinning the Oracle support team.

Next, a very nice lady from Irish Life, Ireland's biggest life assurance company, gave an interesting presentation on their experiences implementing Siebel, originally a very customised version 6, and currently an upgrade to 7.8, which will now be around 90% vanilla Siebel. The message being that they learned their lesson, and some times less really is more.

So finally we got to the demonstration of Siebel 8, unfortunately time was against us and rumbling tums could be heard, new features include Full System Search, Embedded Analytics, Electronic Signature Capture for mobile clients, task based UIs and a plain English rules engine to aid workflow and control data input.
Then there was a stampeed to the buffet!

Init Blocks, init.

That's repository variable Initialization Blocks to you. Init blocks as they are more commomnly known retrieve the data that is held in memory by the Session and Repository variables associated with them. They are of course accessed through Manage>Variables in the Administration console, and this is another area where subtle changes have been made for Oracle BIEE, to add a new init block open the Variable Manager, click Initialization Blocks and then right click in the righ pane or choose Action>New>Repository>Initialization Block.




Then the configuration itself, no more tabs, one form with buttons.






Edit Data Source button gives access
to further options.

Edit Data Target launches what used to be on the Variables tab, click here to name your variables.

Anyway, enough pictures, click on Edit Data Source to reveal the Init Block form where you will compose the initialization String, aka the SQL. You can now select db specific SQL if you wish, and now is also the time to Browse for your connection pool.

Oracle has two functions for returning the current date, SYSDATE and CURRENT_DATE, both should be selected from system dummy table DUAL, as this will always return only one row, sysdate returns the current date on the server.

You can convert to and from datetime types using the following functions;
TO_CHAR ({datetime| interval}, format)
TO_DATE (string, format)
TO_TIMESTAMP (string, format) (Oracle 10g onwards)

To return a specific element of the current date use the EXTRACT function;

SELECT EXTRACT({Second|Minute|Hour|Day|Month|Year} FROM SYSDATE) FROM DUAL;

CAST(value as datatype) If value is a string it must match the default text representation of the datatype, so for example

CAST (’27-Mar-2007’ AS DATE) may work where
CAST(’27-03-2007’ AS DATE

In the following example note how the case format applied to the format part of the TO_CHAR function is used to format the results ‘TUESDAY’ and ‘March’, this could of course have a crucial effect if the value is used in a filter.
Thanks to Oracle’s built in LAST_DAY function, the formula to find the last day of the month, 3 months hence, is simple.



As an alternative method you could of course W_DAY_D as the source for the majority of your dates, pre-calculated columns such as cal_month, cal_week and week_ago_dt will make function statements shorter and easier to read. The SQL below extracts much the same as the previous one with addition of two Julian dates at the end, note also that you can use comments in these statements, always a good idea.

SELECT

CURRENT_DATE,
TO_CHAR(CALENDAR_DATE, 'DD/MM/YYYY'),
TO_NUMBER(DAY_OF_MONTH,'99'),
DAY_NAME,
TO_CHAR(WEEK_AGO_DT, 'DD/MM/YYYY'),
CAL_MONTH,
CAL_WEEK,
MONTH_NAME,
TO_CHAR(ADD_MONTHS(SYSDATE,-1),'MONTH'),
CAL_YEAR,
EXTRACT (YEAR FROM (ADD_MONTHS(CURRENT_DATE, -12))),
EXTRACT (YEAR FROM (ADD_MONTHS(CURRENT_DATE, -24))),
EXTRACT (YEAR FROM (ADD_MONTHS(CURRENT_DATE, -36))),
LAST_DAY(DAY_DT),
'01'||SUBSTR(TO_CHAR(DAY_DT,'DD/MM/YYYY'),3,8),
TO_CHAR(ADD_MONTHS(LAST_DAY(DAY_DT),2),'DD/MM/YYYY'),
ADD_MONTHS((CAST(DAY_DT AS DATE) - EXTRACT(DAY FROM CAST(DAY_DT AS DATE))+1),1)-1, /* Last day of previous month */
JULIAN_DAY_NUM,
JULIAN_MONTH_NUM

FROM
W_DAY_D
WHERE
CAST(SUBSTR(SYSDATE,1,10) AS DATE)=DAY_DT

Naughty 7.9

Apparently there is a little buggette

"Customers installing Oracle BI Applications Version 7.9 must first install Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 10g Release 3 version 10.1.3.2.0 with Quick Fix 150. "

tut tut

7.9 Is here, Huh?

So you thought that OBI EE was the new Analytics. Think again. Siebel analytics has jsut gone into version 7.9, but so far I have only seen Applications 7.9, so it looks like platform is either 7.8 or OBI EE :

There new names though:

Siebel Analytics Application now becomes

Oracle® Business Intelligence Applications (OBIA)

Siebel Analytics Repository now becomes

Oracle Business Intelligence Applications repository (OBIAR?)

Spotted the trend yet!!


This is from the documentation.
Changes to Oracle BI Repository
The Siebel Analytics repository (SiebelAnalytics.rpd) was renamed to the Oracle Business
Intelligence Applications repository (OracleBIApplicationsApps.rpd).
The Oracle BI repository contains the following changes:
■ Naming conventions. Logical tables have been renamed to start either with "Dim," to indicate
dimension tables, or "Fact," to indicate fact tables.
■ Data security. The position security design was modified to use the new table W_POSITION_DH instead of W_PARTY_LOGIN. For more information about data security, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Installation and Configuration Guide.
■ Presentation layer. Some old catalogs have been replaced with new catalogs. The catalogs that
have been replaced are designated with a STOP icon in the presentation layer; these catalogs
will be deleted in a future release. It is highly recommended that you migrate your reports to the corresponding new catalogs.
■ Time dimension. A common time dimension is used in all new catalogs to indicate a unified time dimension across all facts. Some secondary date dimensions are still exposed when necessary, but they are not conformed to all facts, and, thus, should be used cautiously.

I never did trust using the W_PARTY_LOGIN so I'm glad it has gone. I'll let you knwo what I think of the replacement when I have tested it.
Good to see a common time dimension, but how does it work? Again mre testing will tell.

Connecting People

Is there a clear winner in the war for Networking platforms?

I started using LinkedIn a while back and have developed a great network of business contacts, but then I realised that wasn't the first one I had signe dup to. Friends Reunited was the leader originally and everyone flocked onto the system - until they started charging for it - I was quickly out of there but not before they had made their millions. I wonder if they would have made more money by not charging but by going down the free model with extra paid services?



Next came Xing (was previously OpenBC). This is exactly the same as Linked in but based in Europe (Linked In is avery American).



But now I see that IT Toolbox is getting in on the act. Do I really have to maintain a profile and network there too?

Then I get an email from someone who has a neat business card attached, from Plaxo. Looks like I should have that too.

Of course there's messaging too, obviously I went for MSN - everyone did, now Yahoo looks pretty good and half my contacts on on that, but along comes Skype and it's another list to maintain.

In the end I think I'll be spending all day working on my online presence and not actually talking to people. Why can't I just get one system that talks to every other system (hey isn't that what customers were asking for 20 years ago out of IT).

Come on Microsoft, help me out here - use your dominacne to buy all these companies and shut them down - I only want one system.

All gone

Just 4 hours later and the snow is gone

Snow wave

Last week i was in t.shirt s now i need some skis to get to work.

Make the most of your repository

Quick and Easy Mail Merge

Why not make the most of your repository, as well providing the backbone of your reports it is also a great source of clean organised data that is easily accessible by other programs. Here’s one way to address envelopes or letters using MS Access and Word.

Create a new blank database in Access.

Create a new query in design mode, close the Show Table dialogue and go to Query>SQL Specific>Pass-Through.

Now click on the Properties icon on the toolbar and click the ellipsis next to ODBC Connect Str, this will open the Select Data Source dialogue.

Click the Machine Data Source tab and click New and follow the instructions to create a Data Source Name based on Oracle BI Server from the drivers list, follow the instructions and enter appropriate user names and passwords to suit your systems configuration. Enter your repository user name and password and answer yes to save this information in the connection string.

Type your SQL query. Click the icon to run the query and test you SQL.

Now create another new query in design view, click the queries tab in the Show Table dialogue and select your pass through query, add the columns to the new query.

Click the drop down arrow next to the Query Type icon and select Make-Table Query, save the query with an appropriate name, and click the Run Query icon.

You will be presented with a warning about the number of records to be pasted into the table, dependent on your needs you may decide to set some selection criteria to break the list into more manageable chunks, this may depend on whether you are merging to a letter, labels or envelopes. You could create multiple Make- Table queries to populate appropriately named tables based on select by County, State, City or Name beginning with…... They can all be based on the one pass through query.


If you have the coding skills you can automate the running of these queries and refreshing of the tables.

Once the make table query has run, click Tables in the objects list and you will see the table you have created, select it navigate to the Tools>Office Links>Merge it with Microsoft Office Word, or click the down arrow next to the Office Links icon, follow the instructions in the dialogue, simple.

My friend Carol

Nice new top

An MI Strategy for ….?

I was doing some research today and decided I needed to reference some work I did TEN years ago.
This is not such a big deal, I keep everything. Absolutely everything.

All my emails, texts, databases, spreadsheets, code – the lot. With storage technology so cheap this is not such a difficult thing to do.

The only hurdle is to remember old passwords. I don’t have a password repository (keep meaning to get one though) so sometimes have to resort to OfficeKey – It tells me what the passwords are on my Office files.

Whilst looking I came across an article which amused me, it’s not funny, it’s just that it’s still relevant today, 10 years later.




Her are some extracts
“This document lays out some ideas on how to manage the gathering and assimilation of the necessary information to help run the Claims function of XYZ.

There are three main areas to consider for capturing information

• Claims,
• Telephones and
• People/Costs.

For each I have laid out some ideas on principles and methods that could be adopted.

The second part of the document looks at who and specifically what is needed for effective Information Management(IM).”

So, XYZ had some Information needs, and I’ll bet they still do!!


"Claims

Efforts should be made to get the <> data onto an OPEN platform in a full Data Warehouse.
I would recommend SQL Server, Oracle, DB2 or similar package.

Specific application development should be limited to 'must have for operational effectiveness’ systems.

If the data is on an open platform then user friendly packages such as Crystal reports, Access and Ms Query can extract quickly and cheaply the information required. The added benefit of this method is that there is a transfer of skills from IT to the Claims department.

Whilst the IT department is the guardian of the data they should not be the owners. Keeping the data on the mainframe and developing small but expensive solutions to use the data only serves the IT department not the users."


IT not the owners of data, heresy!



"Telephone Activity

All Aspect related data is already kept in a data warehouse on an Open platform. The data is available to view and download using Crystal Reports.
Relevant extracts should be taken from the warehouse and put into a Claims Information System.

Only one system should be used for reporting Claims Telephone activity to all users within the department, and outside of it. All reporting activity undertaken by Team leaders and others within the Claims dept. should stop and be given to one person/team.

Now why did I say this bit? All users should stop creating reports – Sounds mad but actually when you see HOW they are doing it, then they should stop – everyone was downloading some data into Access or Excel and creating their own reports. No-one managed with the same set of consistent KPI’s.


People/Cost Management

There is now more focus on individual, team, section and department performance. To aid this process Claims are currently using Workware. Having searched the market on several occasions I have not found a better product than Workware for planning and monitoring workloads. The alternative would be to use spreadsheets which I have seen in action but they become unstable and difficult to manage very quickly. I understand that Workware is in constant development and therefore I would recommend that the software is used after the initial period.

The normal Absent, sickness and holiday planning and monitoring should be integrated with roster production and performance tracking. This integration can be developed further by including training plans/actual courses, skills matrices and PPP production. The main aim must be to reduce the re-keying of staff lists and the elimination ‘re-inventing of the wheel’


With the advent of section managers taking responsibility for the cost centres representing their span of control it is more important than ever that cost information is captured, verified and analysed.

There are two main sources to aid cost centre management;
Finance reports
Personnel Databases

Each month the cost centre reports need to be checked for their accuracy, i.e. people salaries in the right cost centre.

All costs should be tracked over time and used in ratio analysis, such as cost per Claim Closed.

All costs that are incurred in a month should be shown in the cost centre reports. It has been common practice for the temp staff costs and other invoices to be shown in the accounts 2-3 months after they were incurred. This gives a false picture as to what is going on and can lead to poor decisions being made with regards to expenditure.

The budgeting process within claims should not be a huge exercise, which is separate from normal business planning. Re-forecasting the next 12-16 months should be a regular exercise, perhaps linked to the overall plans within Workware.

An understanding of settlement cost behavior must be developed in order to determine where resources are best deployed. This is best achieved by tapping into the skills of the actuarial department.

For all new projects and tactical/strategic decision making there should be an understanding of the impact from a cost point of view. Models must be developed to add weight to the decision or prevent mistakes."

WOW, Is Workware really that good. Can you run a large number of teams using it? I thought so at the time, and I still think so.


Now this is the good bit….


"Information Management

As a general rule all information should be available to all (with a few exceptions)
Ideally all information users should be identified before solving their needs for them!
Data should only be captured and information created if it aids decision making, such that the decision is influenced by having the data. For example keeping sickness records allows for changes to pay if the threshold is reached.

A small team 2/3 FTE should be created within claims. These people can be the local 'IT' experts but with a good knowledge of claims Dept. processes. They can facilitate the routine information needs and provide detailed analysis on Claims activity, individual performance and other ad-hoc. They can also be used to help improve the PC skills across the department, but should not be used as a 'Help desk'.

Any data capture and report production currently undertaken elsewhere within the Claims dept. should be brought within the control of the MI team. This includes all reports supplied by Secretaries, Team Leaders, Section managers and support areas.

The MI team should also be capable of supporting the use of Workware (or whatever system is used for work management)

The MI team should make full use of the latest available technology and not be held back by XYZ Co. mass standard PC policies, i.e. Use Crystal Reports and Intranet technology and NOT the current standard Office95.

To capture, analyse and report data a Claims Information System(CIS) should be developed using Ms Office technology. This is not an all singing-all dancing solution to all information needs but an integrated set of databases and spreadsheets that minimise the effort required and reduce errors in keying. The creation and maintenance of the system should be the sole responsibility of the members of the MI team.

To deliver information to end users the ideal solution is by the use of an intranet. This is a cost effective method of getting data to the desktop of the users. This can be introduced quickly and cheaply and used for all department information and not just for activity reports e.g. Working Practices can be kept online and updated easily. This solution is available now to all those with a PC.

The profile of information in general needs to be raised across the whole dept. For example; use can be made of notice boards to show graphs of output, service and quality. The whole dept should know what the MI team are producing and what data they hold so that tasks are not duplicated.

The Claims management should fully support the work of the MI team, especially in the data capture and processes they introduce. The MI team should be able to supply information directly to the Claims manager, or any manager without fear, i.e. do not shoot the messenger if the results are not favorable.


Summary

To enable a better decision making process more information is required by all members of the Claims department. This can be enabled in a cost-effective manner by Claims staff using their own skill and knowledge. The specialists’ within the IT department or elsewhere should not dictate when and how the Claims staff get the information they require, and expensive development work is not always the answer (Just think about what has been delivered to date!). A small team with skills in communication, claims and IT within the claims dept can deliver when and how YOU want them to.


Powerful stuff. Information available to all, using Web technology. I wish I had seen Siebel Analytics back then (when did NQuire start up?)

Obviously the tools are now there to reduce the need for Office applications (Access Db’s for reporting), specifically Oracle BI (ex Siebel Analytics), Essbase, Microstrategy and dozens of others.

I wonder if XYZ Co ever put a reporting system in?

Sarah

Just showing off the new phone:-)

Unreal

I'm sending this from my mobile. We're at reading watching the kids enjoying their sailing

Oracle to buy Hyperion!

Ha. Good for Oracle.

Essbase is a horrible tool in my view but the accoutants love it, so Oracle have taken on a popular product, and have a foothold in hundreds more companies.

Trouble is, now I'm stumped as to how they are going to integrate Essbase into the new Oracle BI strategy, can and should Analytics work alongside (or on top of) Essbase cubes?

Also, I thought that the majority of Essbase systems were based on other database technologies.

Who next? Cognos? Business Objects themselves! SAS!!!

News item here

Bad News

Just heard that the Keel is still not attached to the bottom of our boat, and there's no mast either!

Looks like we're going to miss the first race of the season. Damn.

New Phone

Just a quck update to say that I ended up stayng with O2 but got a new phone, the Sony w880i

I just phoned them up to say I was going to switch and they haggled a bit, I pointed out better deals on Three and they matched them.

Now I'm due to pay £17.50 per month for a year for 600 minutes and 500 texts. Thats still only 20 minutes per day but it does work out at 2.9 pence per minute.

The phone looks really cool too

.