ODTUG Kscope17 Social Media Lounge Interviews

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 Jorge Rimblas, Insum Solutions and Joel Kallman, Oracle Corporation
Jorge and Joel discuss an Oracle curriculum that enables educators to adopt APEX education and curriculum and teach it to students in college. The curriculum includes PowerPoint slides, hands-on labs, and instruction materials. Starting in February 2017, Joel worked hard to get the curriculum re-released, but with a more permissive use license. There is now a full course curriculum available with a Creative Commons license. This license permits anyone to take any portion of the curriculum, reuse it, and modify it, if they keep their teaching consistent with the material. The curriculum can be found here.
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Alex Leung, TGG and Richard Wilkie, Oracle Corporation
Alex and Rich discuss HFM (Hyperion Financial Management), and its future. Rich lets us know that 11.124 Support has been extended through December of 2020, with an extra two years of support added! Rich says, "On-Prem is alive!" Rich talks about Automatic Consolidation for HFM and how this takes consolidation a step further by ensuring that when there's background processing power available, consolidations will run automatically. Rich comments, "The secret sauce is that you might not ever have to run a consolidation again." 
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Alex Leung, TGG and Greg Beaton, TGG
In this interview, Greg and Alex discuss why ODTUG Kscope is the best week of the year. Greg says, "What I find is that what we all do for a living, not a lot of people understand what we do. But at Kscope, there's a lot of people that do what we do. They have the same challenges and they want to share knowledge." Greg hoped that his biggest takeaway from ODTUG Kscope17 would be to meet other people who have implemented Hybrid Essbase so he can learn more from them and their experiences.
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 Mike Riley, Hortica Insurance and Employee Benefits and Jennifer Nicholson, Oracle Corporation
Mike and Jennifer discuss the ODTUG Kscope17 Community Service Day and why the Oracle Technology Network chose to sponsor this event. Jennifer says, "It's all about the community, and that's what OTN is all about. It's about people in the community helping each other." They also talk about the new Oracle Developer Champion Program. This program is about rewarding developers who are in micro-services, DevOps, APIs, etc. The program was kicked off last month, and Jennifer and the team at OTN are looking forward to building up advocates within this program. Developer Champions are currently being hand selected, but in the future there will be a nomination program. 
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Natalie Delemar, EY and Matt Bradley, Oracle Corporation
Mike and Natalie discuss how Oracle has standardized across the board on an infrastructure level, and all products that operate On-Premise will be supported until 2030. Matt talks about how Oracle released FCCS last year, and they were very surprised with the uptake it had, which resulted in having over 700 customers live. The goal by the end of the summer 2017 is to add in things like extended dimensionality, capabilities to enable ownership percentages, and elements for calculation extensions. This year there is a new product from the cloud, which is a solution that addresses the needs for data relationship management. There is an updated version of this called Enterprise Data Relationship Management. 
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 Mike Riley, Hortica Insurance and Employee Benefits and Tim Tow, ACE Alumni, Applied OLAP
In this interview, Tim and Mike discuss the community aspect of ODTUG Kscope17 and the importance of submitting abstracts so you can come and share your knowledge with others to strengthen the ODTUG community and grow as a professional. Tim talks about his excitement of ODTUG Kscope17 being his 10th year attending! Tim comments on how great the sponsorship opportunity is for Applied OLAP. Tim says, "We've been a sponsor every year since it started, and for us, this is the best value for sponsorship. We do basically all of our sales activity here at Kscope." 
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 Martin D'Souza, Insum Solutions and Juergen Shuster, IT-Beratung
Juergen runs the popular APEX community site, apex.world. apex.world has been going on for over two years, and now they have a lot of content built up. Juergen said that he uses apex.world as a resource when he is asked a question he doesn't know the answer to. He can refer individuals to the apex.world website to do a quick search for a blog post, webinar, or podcast that has relevant information about that topic. Most recently, apex.world added a share button to all content, so you are able to share the news via email and Twitter. Download the apex.world podcasts here. You can also find the podcasts on iTunes by searching APEX Talk Show. Click here to follow @orclapexworld on Twitter. 
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Juergen Shuster, IT-Beratung and Steven Feuerstein, ACE Alumni, Oracle Corporation
Juergen and Steven talk about the Oracle Dev Gym, which is essentially a quiz platform that offers expertise through exercise. Steven said, "There's a passive way of learning - you read books, you watch videos, and you go to presentations. And you can learn a lot, but you're still passively receiving the information. It's only when you actively engage with the technology that you really internalize it." With Oracle Dev Gym, you can increase your craft through taking quizzes. The Dev Gym recently added on a 12-week class called Databases for Developers
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Tiffany Briseno, Summit Materials and Al Marciante, Oracle Corporation\
Tiffany and Al discuss Oracle's top three new innovations from Oracle for the EPM space this year. Al talks about how Oracle recently released the Tax Reporting Cloud, which continues to enhance other areas of Oracle products. Al also talks about Enterprise Performance Reporting, which is Oracle's narrative-based reporting product. Oracle recently announced the coming of the Data Relationship Management technology in the cloud, which will be coming in the near future! 
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 Gary Crisci, General Electric and Gabby Rubin, Oracle Corporation
In this interview, Gary and Gabby discuss the new release of Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC). Gary asks, "You mentioned this is a platform as a service. How does OAC differ? What is the difference between PBCS and OAC?" Gabby responds by discussing two key things that differentiate PBCS and OAC. Gabby says, "The first key difference is in the content." PBCS is not a package application. It is mainly a tool kit that allows users to develop what they need. With OAC, you get a much higher view, because it allows you to connect to multiple applications and access analytics that go across all data sets. Gabby also says, "The other difference is how it is consumed in license. It is license-based in capacity. Within that capacity, you can have as many users or you can have as many objects or applications, as long as you have sufficient storage."
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 Edward Roske, interRel Consulting and Jonathon Eastman, Anthem
Edward and Jonathon talk about how Anthem is now the largest Oracle Analytics Cloud implementation since its release. Anthem recently moved from On-Prem to the cloud, and Jonathon discusses the journey of Anthem's huge shift to the cloud. Jonathan said, "For this instance right now, we are only looking to go to the cloud for financial data only." By shifting to OAC, Jonathon hopes that they can reduce the infrastructure costs and reduce the numbers of players in the game. 
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 Gary Crisci, General Electric and  Gary Adashek, General Electric
In this interview, Gary Adashek talks about the ribbon that he created. Gary Adashek said, "For me what I wanted to do was put together a tool bar that displayed in a nice logical way, with the functionality laid out, and expose functionality that wasn't exposed with the product itself." In Gary Adashek's ribbon, he added custom Excel features to make it easier for the end user. To download this ribbon, click here. The install is as simple as any other add-in you would add to Excel. 
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 Kevin McGinley, Red Pill Analytics Stewart Bryson, Red Pill Analytics and Mike Durran, Oracle Corporation
In this interview, Mike answers the question: What is data storytelling? Mike responds, "Data storytelling harkens back to the notion of humans always wanting to tell a story. It's that notion of being able to put together a story of your data. Data storytelling gets into the notion of bringing the elements of visual design into your analytics and reporting and how you can make subtle changes to your visualization."  In this interview, they also Dive into the Docker. "Docker is like a VM technology, except the entire architecture is virtual," comments Stewart. On the Oracle Container Store and Docker Store, there will be official Oracle Docker containers. You will be able to create your own containers using the OBI On-Premise software. 
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Danielle White, interRel Consulting and Tim Tow, ACE Alumni, Applied OLAP
Danielle and Tim discuss vendor opportunities at ODTUG Kscope. Danielle says, "It's just an amazing opportunity to see the community come together." Danielle talks about the magic that is behind the interRel booth in the exhibit hall. interRel starts the planning for the next year almost immediately following ODTUG Kscope. Tim and Danielle encourage everybody to get involved in the ODTUG community and give back to the user group. 
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Karen Cannell, TH Technology and Jeff Smith, ACE Alumni, Oracle Corporation
Jeff and Karen discuss SQL Developer and SQL Data Modeler. Jeff said, "Oracle REST Data Services Version 3.0.10 was just released in the last two weeks, which has a nice new feature for PLSQL enthusiasts, which allows them to automatically enable the execution of store procedures over HTTP and HTTPs." Oracle is spending time building a version of SQL Developer that can run in your browser. A customer can use this new feature for all their cloud subscriptions, and it'll be able to reverse engineer existing database instance and give you really nice customized diagrams, all from your browser!
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 Danny Bryant, Accenture Enkitec Group and  Stewart Bryson, Red Pill Analytics
In this interview, Danny and Stewart discuss iOT and how Red Pill Analytics was the Analytics Sponsor at ODTUG Kscope17. Red Pill Analytics used OAC to report on all the attendee data from the conference. Every time an attendee approached a session or a session room, that data was being recorded. Danny and Stewart also talk about on-demand analytics and the options that Oracle offers for users wanting this. "Oracle has traditional On-Prem OBIEE, which has data visualization. They also have DV Desktop or the DV Cloud Service." With a cloud service, on-demand analytics is easy. 
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Alex Leung, TGG and Abhi Nerurkar, EPMware
Alex and Abhi talk about EPMware. Abhi said, "EPMware is a master-data management and data governance solution. It's different from your common master-data solutions, because we've customized the inbound and outbound size of your master data platform. You're getting master data and data governance all in one web-based package." Abhi also discusses how EPMware can help with the transition of On-Premise to the cloud.
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 Francis Mignault, Insum Solutions &  Galo Balda, State of Texas
Galo discusses his history working with Oracle products, and his transition from SQL and Oracle Reports to now working with the back-end database APIs and the overall design of the applications. Galo reminisces on his very first ODTUG Kscope which was in San Antonio 4 years prior. This year Galo was the Database Track lead for ODTUG Kscope17. "Can you tell us about how the selection process works?" asks Francis. "It's a challenging job because of the great submissions we had, with very limited space." Galo responds. Out of the hundreds of abstracts, only 50 database abstracts were selected to speak at ODTUG Kscope17. Galo and the Database content team played a huge role in deciding which content made it to ODTUG Kscope17.
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 Tracy McMullen, interRel Consulting & Bill Mowle, Children's Hospital Colorado
Tracy and Bill discuss Enterprise Planning Budgeting Cloud Service (EPBCS) and why Children's Hospital Colorado decided to implement in the cloud. Now that Children's Hospital Colorado has been live with EPBCS for a year now, Bill discusses the results of this migration. He said, "We trained our users right away, and we've been able to do a lot more analytics on our forecasting than ever before. The work shifted from data integrations to really analyzing our business and making good decisions for the future." 
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 Kevin McGinley, Red Pill Analytics & Becky Wagner, Rittman Mead America, Inc.
Becky Wagner is the new BI Community Lead for ODTUG. Kevin and Becky talk about how Becky first got involved with ODTUG through the ODTUG Leadership Program. The Leadership Program includes an application process, then a selection phase. You get to listen to webinars, talk to industry leaders, and do leadership building. The leadership team is assigned a project that the graduates execute throughout the year. The project is then released at ODTUG Kscope, which in turn helps the community. "You're working with these people for about a year, so you build some fantastic relationships with the other graduates. It's a great networking opportunity, great for building leadership skills, and it's a huge accomplishment. You feel complete support within the community!"
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 Tim German, Qubix and   Wayne Van Sluys, interRel Consulting
In this interview, Wayne and Tim discuss Wayne's volunteer rolls with the ODTUG community. Wayne has attended Community Service Day for seven years, helping out many organizations in need during his many years attending ODTUG Kscope. Wayne also volunteered his time to help with the BI track content selection. In 2015, Wayne was asked to lead the BI track, and he held this role through 2016. Wayne and Tim talk about interRel's Harry Potter-themed booth this year which was to celebrate ODTUG's 20th birthday, interRel's 20th anniversary, and the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter. Wayne talks about the fun he had dressing up as Mad-Eye Moody during the Welcome Fiesta on Monday night during ODTUG Kscope17.
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 Tim German, Qubix and  Glenn Schwartzburg, interRel Consulting
Glenn discusses his experience with the Oracle ACE Program and OTN's involvement with ODTUG Kscope. Glenn says, "The Oracle ACE Program is a program that recognizes people who give back to the community, who share information, and who evangelize the Oracle products." OTN recognizes people who give back. There were over 70 Oracle ACEs of all levels in attendance and giving presentations at ODTUG Kscope17. Tim comments, "There is no special level of expertise that has to be attained [to become an ACE], it's more about your willingness to share what you know with the community."
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 Monty Latiolais, Insum Solutions Mike Riley, Hortica Insurance and Employee Benefits and Juergen Shuster, IT-Beratung
Juergen asks Monty and Mike, "Why are you investing so much of your time in ODTUG and helping to grow this organization?" Mike responds by saying, "When I first got involved with ODTUG, I wanted to give back to an organization that I got a lot from. As I grew in my responsibilities with ODTUG, I had to let go of things. I had to teach people who were just starting out within the organization. I needed to give them the tools to succeed." Monty adds, "The people that you're able to come in contact with within Oracle and within the general ODTUG community, you can't put a price on it." Content is everywhere, but what's not everywhere are the opportunities to network with people like at ODTUG Kscope. 
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Juergen Shuster, IT-Beratung and  Vincent Morneau, Insum Solutions
While at ODTUG Kscope17, Vincent Morneau was named an Oracle ACE and he was named the 2017 ODTUG Innovation Award winner. Vincent discusses his journey to become an Oracle ACE. He said, "In my case I am less involved in forums, and more of a code guy. I share code a lot. I code things and share them with the community." Vincent gives back to the community because of his passion for coding, APEX, and web development. "It doesn't make sense to accumulate knowledge and not share it." Vincent also talks about his winning innovation, APEX Nitro. He said, "APEX Nitro helps by putting guidelines, automating a lot of the process, which deals with migrating the files from your computer to APEX, and automating how the code is being injected on the page."
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 Karen Cannell, TH Technology and  Jorge Rimblas, Insum Solutions
In this interview, Jorge shares his passion for CSS, JavaScript, and back-end development. "It's fun to make applications look pretty. If you have nice details, your applications look better, and people like them. Applications that don't look nice are harder to use."  Karen and Jorge also discuss Jorge's huge upcoming roll in ODTUG Kscope18 content selection. Jorge is stepping up to be the APEX and Database Content Chair.
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Greg Beaton, TGG and Shankar Viswanathan, Oracle Corporation
Shankar and Greg discuss Oracle's new features for Hyperion Planning. Shankar discusses Strategic Modeling, and he describes it as "a unique set of capabilities we have in the cloud," which allows users to model in many scenarios with various models. Shankar talks about the Integrated Business Process Flow which will be introduced in the next few months. Shankar said, "This should alleviate a concern for On-Prem customers." There's a lot of new features, but Shankar was particularly excited about these two new features. For current On-Prem customers who are hesitant to move to the cloud, Shankar comments, "I think people need to think about the cloud from a long-term investment standpoint."\
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 Mike Riley, Hortica Insurance and Employee Benefits and  Cary Millsap, Cintra Software and Services
Mike and Cary discuss Cary's passion for developing things that other people can use. "When I think about what I love to do at work, and what I love to do in my down time, it's the same thing. I love to create stuff!" said Cary. Mike and Cary discuss his memories from the past conferences and they reminisce about their favorite memories from ODTUG Kscope each year. Cary said, "The best times at a conference like this are when you connect with an audience, and the times you get to stand around and talk about whatever you need to talk about." 
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Bernard Ash, EPM Clarity and Joe Malewicki, iArch Solutions
In this funny interview, Bernard talks about EPM Clarity and what his top server solutions are. Bernard talks about how EPM Clarity has been doing Hyperion stuff for 15 years. Bernard said, "The simplest way to say it is that we do everything but HFM on an architecture level." Joe talks about iArch solutions about how they are all about EPM Infrastructure. "But really, we're here this week to show off our new digs," said Joe.
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