RMOUG Training Days 2014

If you are a reader and live in/near to/like to visit Denver, make it a point to attend RMOUG’s Training Days 2014.  This is my first year participating and attending the conference and I have been nothing but impressed by the level of professionalism, sessions offered and leadership of this user group.

The conference runs from Wednesday, February 5-7 at the Denver Convention Center in downtown Denver.

For the Hyperion crew – yes, you are wanted and will have sessions geared towards you!  At some conferences, I feel Hyperion gets left out as the red-headed stepchild.  Not here.  They have sought out skilled Hyperion presenters and the lineup should not disappoint.

Below is from their website.  Also, be sure to check out the Women in Technology panel with your’s truly.  If you are able to come, please introduce yourself to me.  Would love to meet new Hyperion developers/users!

Oracle EPM/Hyperion – What Are All These Products and What Do They All Do? Presenter:  Greg Barrett, Partner, Finit Solutions Over the years, the Oracle EPM/Hyperion world has become much more evolved. Oracle has provided us with many differnt tools, but what do they all do? In this session, we dig into ALL the various products to provide detailed use cases so you know what products are right/wrong for your organization.

Hyperion Financial Management 11.1.2: Using Enterprise Performance Management Architect Utilities to Manage Metadata Like a Pro! Presenter:  Aaron Bolshoun, Consultant, Finit Solutions Hyperion Financial Management consultants have been warned since the first release of Enterprise Performance Management that the Windows HFM client would eventually be retired. For years, the HFM Client has remained intact as part of the installation, packaged for new versions of EPM. However, in the current version its functionality has finally been slimmed down significantly. Instead, there are a variety of new tools that can be used to create, modify, extract, and load metadata. This presentation will explain the basics of those utilities usage and functionality, address the most frequently asked questions about them, and suggest considerations for selecting a method for managing metadata.

Utility Planning – Budgeting and Planning for the Generation and Transmission Enterprise  Presenter:  Chris Chase, Managing Partner, The Bean Consulting Group The business of electricity generation and transmission is by its nature complex and multi-dimensional. The modern utility enterprise buys and sells electricity through a network of assets, members, and partners. The budgeting and planning process involves operation planning, risk management, and capital and cash flow planning across dispersed assets and multiple participants. This session will discuss how Hyperion Planning and Essbase have been used to streamline budgeting, planning, and forecasting activities for an electricity enterprise. We will review the business case and discuss how Planning was used to meet immediate enterprise needs while building out an overall master design. We will discuss how Planning was used to model and provide reporting for rate cases and allocate revenues, costs, and capital over multiple members and partners. We will review improvements in performance, efficiency, and reductions in time, expense, and risk.

A Calculation Manager that Works for You: Empower End Users of Your Hyperion Planning Application Presenter:  Craig Halle, Senior Consultant, The Bean Consulting Group Decentralizing responsibility from a budget or finance office to individual administrators is often a goal of a Hyperion Planning implementation. However, what if control defined by a set of rules is a requirement for certain processes? The built-in workflow approvals feature is an option, yes, but does not offer much in terms of flexibility nor may it suit an organization’s needs. Customized business rules, run-time variables, and menus, on the other hand, can empower end users while maintaining control and transparency to ensure integrity of the budget. Calculation Manager, meanwhile, offers the necessary rule sets and components to simplify the administration and maintenance surrounding such rules. During the session, we will discuss the benefits of using Calculation Manager to create, deploy, and administer business rules that will maximize the flexibility in Hyperion Planning applications and solve any related business problems.

Reducing Cost and Risk: The Critical Value of IT Planning in EPM/BI Presenter:    Eric Helmer, VP IT Services, Linium The Oracle EPM and BI Fusion suites have dramatically changed financial and operational reporting strategy for organizations. Modern technologies allow CFOs to deliver better analytics, not only to corporate advisors, but also to staff in the field. However, many CFOs and CIOs fall short in understanding all the considerations for providing a solid infrastructure enterprise that is needed to leverage the software capabilities. IT design and methodology can have significant impact on functional productivity and efficiency. Oracle Ace Director Eric Helmer covers considerations in your next implementation or upgrade that can significantly affect cost, reliability, availability, and security vulnerability.

Upgrade-A-Palooza: Best Practices for Upgrading and Migrating to EPM 11.1.2.x Fusion Presenter:    Eric Helmer, VP IT Services, Linium Oracle ACE Director Eric Helmer walks you through what you need to know before considering upgrading to 11.1.2.x. Technical considerations are covered along with best practices and proven methodology to ensure you know what you can expect with your transition to Oracle’s newest version. Whether it is Oracle Cloud, SaaS, Exalytics, or in-house systems, Oracle ACE Director Eric Helmer walks though best practices and considerations to make your journey to Fusion painless by choosing the right deployment scenario for you.

Making Workflow Work – Tips & Tricks on Leveraging Workflow to Manage Approvals Presenter:  Joe Monteith, Consultant, The Bean Consulting Group This session contains tips & tricks on building planning unit hierarchies that use best practices to reduce data mistakes, improve accountability, expedite forecasting, streamline compliance, and increase data integrity using the workflow process. The session is designed around individuals who support the application data entry process, including application administrators, interactive users, business users, and systems administrators. At the end of the session, you will understand the significance of Workflow in data management, how to manage multiple end users through the approvals process, how to build a bottom-up, free-form, and distributed planning unit hierarchy; how to create an annotation report; and how to leverage the approvals process for checks and balances.

Introduction to Java and the Essbase Java API + Next Generation Essbase Outline Extractor Tips and Tricks Presenter:    Tim Tow, Applied OLAP Double your knowledge during this two-hour session. Over the years, many Essbase customers and partners have customized their applications with the Essbase Visual Basic, or “VB” API. As Microsoft support for VB ended over eight years ago, the writing is on the wall for those customers still running applications written using the VB API. The logical choice for building modern applications on the Essbase platform is Java and the Essbase Java API. Learn the basics of how to get started with the Java programming language and the Essbase Java API. Once you have a basic understanding of what the Essbase Java API can do, see how it has been used to provide new capabilities in the Next Generation Outline Extractor. The free Next Generation Outline Extractor utility is the follow-up to the classic OlapUnderground Essbase Outline Extractor used by thousands of Essbase customers.

Automating EPMA Presenter:  Sarah Craynon Zumbrum, Financial IT Consultant, Finit Solutions As many already know, learning EPMA for Essbase and Planning can be tricky—like trying to teach an old dog new tricks. One of the key concerns for new users is how to automate the EPMA steps and processes. Oracle offers many utilities to facilitate automation…but how do you use them? When do you use them? How do you create a seamless outline update from load file to multiple cubes? This session will review utilities and options available to you as well as best practice advice for automation implementation.

Switching from Excel Add-In to Smart View – the VBA Edition Presenter:  Sarah Craynon Zumbrum, Financial IT Consultant, Finit Solutions Recently, there has been an increase in the number of organizations inquiring about migrating to Smart View from Essbase Excel Add-In in regards to usage and VBA code migration. When describing the process to them, I tell them that it is similar to basic training: The process is hard and difficult at first, but the growing pains will pay off in the end. There will be new features to learn, old features to let die, and some powerful new options and tools that could revolutionize your company’s reporting capabilities.