Practice run!

Today i had an official pre race practice run! The GP Lugano was called off just 30min before the start due to snow today so i had my first ever official pre race rehersal without actually getting on the start line. I am very dissapointed as after arriving in italy on thursday night todays race was meant to be a good cobweb blow out for my first major competition, paris-nice whch starts on march 3. Not only that but with the race being a relatively home race for me, just 30km from my european base in gavirate so i always enjoy racing on my adopted home training grounds. Added to this was the star studded cannondale team assembled for the event with Moreno Moser and my training buddy Ivan Basso set to steer the ship for the day meant a very exciting debut on european rds me in 2013 was something i was greatly anticipating. Anyways it is winter in europe after all so the risk of this type of thing occurring is always there at this time of year.

For me it was also a little frustrating. I was so excited about racing that I think I was the most organised I had been for a race in a long long time. I had eaten very well at dinner the night before, slept like a log and was up early bouncing out of my skin for race day. It felt like a saturday morning as a little kid heading off to nippers or soccer where I was always ready and rearing to go. I ate a good sized breaky as with the forecast rough weather I was not planning on eating much during the race so figured I would load up on perfectly cooked italian pasta and crostata (italian jam tart) and off course a few too many cafe's! I was one of the first on the big team bus which also never happens, usually I am the last, and off we went.

When we arrived and the race was cancelled all this excitement completely vanished. I felt like a big fat slob with a belly full of fuel and no way to burn it all off and basically felt very lethargic all off a sudden. This is stupid I know as its hardly the end of the world but my bubble had been burst and I was left to find some other way of filling in my 24th February for 2013! So with my tummy now really grumpy with me I headed home with my tail between my legs and tried to find some motivation to train. It was crazy feeling as only a few hrs before I was excited about doing 5hrs in the freezing northern winter on a push bike and all the obstacles that go with that and now I was moping around home seemingly incapable of getting on a push bike. I finally found the motivation to bang out a couple of hrs on the home trainer at about 4pm and then headed for the sauna to sweet out my grumpy mood and try and convince myself I had not wasted the day. Was a crazy few hrs of seeing how quickly your emotions and mood can change so fortunate race cancellations don't happen very often as obviously I am a bit of a cry baby when they do!

Anyways onwards and upwards and the most important thing in this sport is to forget a day once the calender ticks over for the next day and now I am excited and focused again on training hard in anticipation of my next race on sunday. One positive is I have all my bags packed from my practice run this past weekend so already I am all packed and ready to head to the airport on saturday!

Cjw       

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Stupid Planning queries #11 -- Where and what are my Smart Lists

Where oh where has my Smart List gone?

Smart Lists are a wonderful thing. Well, that may be slightly exaggerating their usefulness but if you want to create a drop down list in a Planning Account (or other dimension but I have never seen it) Smart Lists are the way to go. Come to think of it, they are a bit of a Hobson’s Choice (a truly fantastic movie) if you want dropdown lists in Planning forms.

Planning even gives you a great way to view the Smart Lists in your Planning application by simply going to the Administration->Manage->Smart Lists menu.

Here is a (rather short) list of Smart Lists in my sample Planning app:

Live and in person
This is a very silly and pointless form that nevertheless shows a Smart List with nothing selected.

Clicking on the down arrow:

Selected Yes


Saved to Essbase


FWIW, if I pulled the Account YesOrNo in Essbase using a Smart View adhoc analysis link, I would get a 1 in that cell as, bizarrely, Smart Lists do not resolve to Essbase Text Measures. I will try not to think about why that is the case as their functionality is the same. Different development groups is the best explanation I can think of but it is frustrating. Onwards, regardless.

So all of this is great, and more than a little basic
Yes, I know, what is there to query if you just created the Smart List? Well, in the case of this sample Planning application, there is no real reason to query much of anything as we know what the Smart List is and what member it’s tied to.

But what if you didn’t know what member the Smart List was assigned to? How would you know? As far as I can tell, there is no magic report in Planning that will give out this information.

A different story
And what if you were working on a Planning migration/modify project (ahem) and the Planning application had 31 Smart Lists, and somehow the association of Smart List to member got lost (oh, thank you accursed EPMA), and you had to go back to the original Planning app to figure out what goes where? What would you do then? Scream? Cry? Curse your bad luck? Or how about write a query that looks just like this?

The query

/*

    Purpose:     Figure out what Smart Lists are assigned to which Members
    Modified:    23 February 2013, Cameron Lackpour
    Notes:       This is a nice and easy one, isn't it?
*/
SELECT
  O.OBJECT_NAME AS 'Member',
  E.ENUMERATION_ID AS 'SL #',
  E.NAME AS 'Smart List'
FROM
  HSP_MEMBER M
INNER JOIN
  HSP_ENUMERATION E ON M.ENUMERATION_ID = E.ENUMERATION_ID
INNER JOIN
  HSP_OBJECT O ON O.OBJECT_ID = M.MEMBER_ID


And that produces a result set like this:


That hypothetical Planning application I mentioned above? Would you believe 31 Smart Lists of which 14 were actually assigned? Yup, 17 dead Smart Lists. Isn’t application maintenance a stinker? Apparently so.

Everything you ever wanted to know about a Smart List
Above I joined HSP_ENUMERATION (why wasn’t the tabled called HSP_SMARTLIST?) to HSP_MEMBER to get the link between member (in any dimension) and Smart List. But what if you just wanted a quick review of everything that ever made up a Smart List?

Query the second

/*

    Purpose:     Smart List contents by name
    Modified:    23 February 2013, Cameron Lackpour
    Notes:       Another Nice 'N Easy one.
*/
SELECT
      E.NAME,
      EE.ENTRY_ID,
      EE.NAME,
      EE.LABEL
FROM
      HSP_ENUMERATION_ENTRY EE
INNER JOIN
      HSP_ENUMERATION E ON EE.ENUMERATION_ID = E.ENUMERATION_ID
And that produces a result set like this:


And that’s it
I have to say that I wrote this blog post because I needed to get that list of Smart List associations to members and simply couldn’t find it on the series of tubes that make up the world wide web.   I’m sure it exists, somewhere, or maybe it was just so easy no one bothered to post it. Regardless, now world+dog has it.

I will note again what an incredbily helpful thing it is to write these queries – I cannot imagine going through each one of the Accounts in the application I am talking about (over three thousand across multiple Plan Types) and try to find the silly things – I’d have completely gone off my rocker (although I will admit it might be hard to spot when that happens) and I would have spent a *long* time trying to figure out where the non-assigned 17 Smart Lists should have been. Which was nowhere, thanks to the query. SQL saves the day yet again.

Be seeing you.

The Great Train (Ticket) Robbery

If you had a contract with someone and paid them in advance to do a job, only to find they never provided that service, you should get your money back, right?  Otherwise, by keeping the money and not delivering on the bargain, that person would be committing fraud.

Well, that’s exactly what Metro-North does to weekly and monthly ticket holders when it sells those tickets but cancels train service.  The railroad refuses to give those riders a refund.  That’s wrong.

For years the CT Rail Commuter Council has asked Metro-North (and its boss, CDOT) to rethink that policy, but they have refused.  We even approached Attorney General Jepsen, making a consumerist’s argument, but he wasn’t interested in helping.

Clearly, it’s not Metro-North’s fault when tropical storm Sandy or winter storm Nemo leave the tracks buried.  In some cases they can attempt substitute bus service, in which case refunds shouldn’t be required.

When the Commuter Council last year pushed for a “Passenger Bill of Rights” we asked for refunds when service was out, but the railroad said “impossible”,  though they did allow refunds on one-way tickets, which is not the problem at all.

One-way tickets are good for sixty days.  If the train’s not running, you can use them next week.  But weekly tickets are only good for seven specific days, Saturday through Friday.  If the train doesn’t run, you’re out of luck.

Look at the Waterbury line during storm Nemo.  Train service was halted Friday night and wasn’t resumed until the following Wednesday… four days.  A commuter who’d bought a weekly ticket from Waterbury to GCT paid $125 but lost 4/7ths of the ticket’s value and was denied a refund.

This year we’re pleading our case for fairness to the state legislature with the help of State  Representative Gail Lavielle of Wilton.  At our behest she introduced HB 5127 which would require Metro-North and CDOT to offer credit for unusable tickets when service is cancelled for more than 48 hours.  That credit could be made by extending the validity of a ticket, offering replacement tickets or maybe even a refund.

Fifteen commuters submitted testimony in support of the bill, making a very simple argument:  if the railroad can’t provide train service (or buses), ticket holders should be made whole.

When the airlines cancelled thousands of flights due to the blizzard, they honored passengers’ tickets on later flights.  When Metro-North cancelled trains, they just kept the money.

In his testimony on the bill, the Commissioner of the Connecticut Dept of Transportation said the refund plan wasn’t feasible.  And weekly / monthly commuters already get a discount, so why are they complaining?

And Metro-North, in one of its more arrogant moves of late, thumbed its nose at the Connecticut Legislature saying that as a NY State agency it was immune from Connecticut law.  That, in New York, is what they call chutzpah.

It’snot too late for commuters to support this bill by calling their elected officials.  Because while Metro-North deserves credit for much improved, usually on-time service, it should not be allowed to pick our pockets by selling us tickets when it cannot run trains, for whatever reason, but then keeps our money.  That’s just unfair.

I cover the Antipodes

Okay, technically they’re only the Antipodes if you live in England. And, if you look at a globe, it’s easy to tell that this is just a figure of speech, not a direction for a Journey To The Center Of The Earth. In fact, near as I can tell, China fits for the States if I were to transfer the analogy to where I live. And that makes sense because that movie about Three Mile Island was called The China Syndrome and not The New Zealand Syndrome. (True story – I can remember as a kid my parents sitting at the kitchen table trying to figure out where to bug out if York, PA became a radioactive wasteland. Fun times, fun times. This stuff is safe, right? Riiiiight.) Have I lost everyone? Hopefully not, because there is good stuff to come.

Anyway, I am not in the nuclear power industry (and that is a good thing given my sometimes decided lack of attention and focus) nor am I going to China, but yr. obdnt. srvnt. is going to both New Zealand and Australia for two conferences. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment but I was asked and I said “Yes” before anyone could change his mind.

New Zealand
The New Zealand Oracle Users Group has its conference every 18 months. NZOUG 2013 is from 18 to 19 March 2013 in Te Papa, Wellington, NZ. In theory, I was the content chairman for the BI and EPM track at this conference but I have to admit that this really meant that I bugged, bothered, and pestered Erica Harris, Richard Philipson, and what seems like most of Oracle Australia/New Zealand (thanks to Kay Galbraith and Daniel O’Brien) with trying to figure out what would be appropriate content for NZ and who oh who would present. They did a great job identifying people to speak. NZOUG does quality work and their agenda is very strong. I plan on checking out the other tracks (something I never seem to be able to do at Kscope) while I am there as well as presenting two sessions, one on ODI and data quality (hey, come to NZ or buy my book and read my chapter on this) and the other, excitingly, on Dodeca. Now I just have to finish writing it.

Check out the agenda here.

Here’s what’s planned for BI and EPM:

• Exploring Oracle BI Apps: How does it work and what do I get ? - Richard Philipson
  James & Monroe
• The spreadsheet management system known as Dodeca - Cameron Lackpour
  CL Solve
• Oracle Business Intelligence: Model First, Build Later - Daniel O'Brien
  Oracle Corporation
• Slay the evil of bad data in Essbase with ODI - Cameron Lackpour
  CL Solve 
• Infrastructure Preparations for Hyperion EPM 11.1.2.2 - Charles Naslund
  Indigo New Zealand
• Oracle BI Apps - Recommendations for Effective Implementation - John Hooker
  Asparona
• EPM Case Study: Rank Group - Richard Philipson
  James & Monroe
• Closing BI/EPM Panel - Cameron Lackpour
  CL Solve

The important bits are: NZOUG 2013 is from 18 to 19 March in Te Papa, Wellington and costs a mere 795 +GST NZD if you are a member and register under the early bird scheme. Read the full agenda – there’s amazing value for money.

Australia
Ah, another country, and a slightly different group of people to exasperate, although in this case it’s fellow board member and Oracle ACE Bambi Price that I think I annoyed the most and of course Oracle Australia (hi, Kay, and yeah, I owe you). Again, I helped out with the agenda and yes, I have written about this before for the ODTUG blog where you can read all about it.

This is an ODTUG Seriously Practical conference (NZOUG is their own full Oracle product line show show, I am just there to present and help with the BI and EPM content selection) and as such will focus a deep dive into the technical end of the BI and EPM tools. Yes, I am presenting the same two sessions at this conference and no, there will not be many NZers (I just made that word up as “Kiwis” is a bit twee) in Melbourne so I don’t view this approach as a rerun. More like a keep-Cameron-on-the-ragged-edge-of-sanity-because-he-takes-too-much-on approach.

Check out the agenda here.

Here’s what’s planned for BI and EPM:

• Haleem Jan Babar, Oracle – What’s coming in BI and EPM
• Debra Lilley, Fujitsu – BI and EPM in Fusion
• Richard Philipson, James & Monroe – Exploring BI apps
• Christine Aird M-Power Solutions – HFM good practices
• Maneesh Disawal, James & Monroe – OBIEE dashboards
• Eman Seif M-Power Solutions – ASO Essbase
• Paul Anderson, Oracle – Proactive Support
• Yr. Obdnt. Svnt., CL Solve – ODI/Essbase/data quality and Dodeca

The important bits are: the ODTUG SP Australia is from 21 to 22 March in Melbourne and costs a mere 599 AUD. Read the full agenda – there’s amazing value for money. Again. 

This is pretty exciting stuff
Okay, the flight in economy from home to NZ to Aus to NZ to LA to home is not exciting. At all. But helping out with BI and EPM geeks on the other side of the world is exciting. Yes, they have odd sounding accents (of course to them I’m the one with the weird way of pronouncing things and the incomprehensible slang) but their passion and commitment to technical knowledge, sharing, and evangelism is just like what you see here in the States with ODTUG’s events. I’m beyond happy and proud to help out and I’m hoping that both events will be a great success.

Thanks to the magic of Google Analytics, I know that both NZ and Australia read this blog. Australasians, if you have ever wondered what kind of idiot I am in person, now’s your chance. :) Seriously, they’re both good presentations and you can always go get a cup of tea (ah, real tea, I wonder what the NZ/Aus. version of Typhoo or PG Tips is) if I prattle on too much. I hope that you’ll be able to come to the conference that is closest – as you can see from the above there’s really some great content on offer.

Be seeing you.

One Of These Things (is Not Like The Others)

A different kind of blog
I’m sort of a boring guy (go on, just ask those who know me personally) and I’m definitely a busy geek (you will have to decide if that is because I do a lot, or try to do too much, or simply have lousy time management skills, I tend to think the last) and thus most of the blogs I read are 100% technical and informative -- how do I do this, why doesn’t this work, what’s the workaround for this, what are the concepts behind that.  You get the idea – boring + busy + always scrambling for ideas = technical blogs, not blogs that espouse philosophy, or a particular Weltanschauung.

But I think maybe I’m doing myself a disservice with this kind of focus.  Simply being technically proficient (you decide to what extent I fit that description) is not enough to make me a well-rounded consultant or even person.  I don’t write philosophical (opinionated yes, philosophical barely) blogs on the state of EPM, but is there someone who does?  Why yes there is.

It’s a secret

Well, I’m not 100% sure it is secret, but at least it isn’t a well-publicized blog.  What am I talking about?  The “hidden” counterpoint to The Travelling Consultant.  Take a gander at the url for that blog:  http://thetravelingconsultant2.wordpress.com/  Btw, I like this blog, a lot, strictly on technical grounds.  But moving on…

Do you see the “2”?  The number sort of implies that a predecessor exists (Thanks, John and no, he isn't the author, just more observant than I).  Try this url:
http://thetravelingconsultant.wordpress.com/

Ah, now we have something very different.  A personal blog but from a (mostly) EPM consulting perspective.  There is some very inside baseball, or industry specific stuff here (all names, places, and dates quite rightfully redacted but very interesting) and if you ever wanted to know what it’s like to be an EPM consultant, or what consultants are like, or the nature of EPM consultancy, I can’t think of another place to find it.  I would also recommend this for customers who want an insight into how a consulting practice works and what you might (for good or for ill) expect to see in EPM consultants.

Yes, these are told from a particular point of view (one that I mostly agree with).  You may not agree with everything written (that is sort of the point of a personal blog) but I think the articles ring very true.  I applaud the Travelling Consultant, whoever that is, on his honesty and candor.  And sense of humor.  :)  And no, I am not the writer.

Some of the more interesting posts

This is pretty straight stuff with little controversy:
Consulting 101: Project Roles
Consulting 101: Project Phases

I got a lot of pleasure out of these Profiles In Consultancy.  And yes, I have met every one of these types.  I try not to think too closely about which one I most nearly resemble.
Consultant Profiles: the “Great Guy/Gal”
Consultant Profiles: the “Flake”
Consultant Profiles: the “Diva”
Consultant Profiles: the “Talker”
Consultant Profiles: the “Over Biller”

Want to be a consultant?  How does it all work?  Read on.  I think every new hire to a consulting firm ought to get the links to these stories as part of their welcome package, especially if they are new to consulting.
Consultant Policies

These are good but I’ll bet the really good ones are Too Dangerous To Print.  
War Stories

So wrote it?

That’s a secret, too.  I think if you read it, you’ll understand why.  The posts aren’t negative in any way but some of the truths they speak are…uncomfortable.  In the interest of self-preservation aka continued employment the writer is anonymous.  Such is life.

Go on, broaden your horizons

Given the non-technical nature of the blog, the great thing is that you don’t need to rush through it.  I wish there were more EPM blogs like this.  I do try to bring at least a little philosophy (some call it idiocy) to my posts but I fall far short of the other The Traveling Consultant.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Be seeing you over on the non-technical side.