Jul 23 2010

October Conference Season Heats Up

Categories: 2010 SBOUC Dave Rathbun @ 2:09 pm

A few weeks back I got an acceptance notice for an abstract I had submitted to TechEd this year. TechEd is in Las Vegas and I will be speaking about universe design to SAP folks that want to learn more about how to use BusinessObjects tools outside of their ERP/BW environment. It should be fun.

Earlier today I got notified that I have also been accepted to speak at the ASUG fall conference in Orlando. This is the conference that replace the Insight conferences put on by BusinessObjects these past few years, which were then followed by the two GBN conferences in Dallas. Since GBN has been folded into ASUG now our fall conference is now under their umbrella. If you are a “classic” BusinessObjects customer who wants to continue to see new and exciting things that you can do with your tools, this is the conference to attend. There will be some great stuff coming from SAP employees about XI 4 that you won’t want to miss, as well as (I am sure) a number of “can’t miss” sessions related to XI 3.x (and perhaps even earlier versions) that will help you make the most of your current environment while we all wait for XI 4 to be generally available.

In a few days I will post more details about my abstracts. I look forward to seeing everyone in Las Vegas or Orlando or perhaps even Both. 🙂

5 Responses to “October Conference Season Heats Up”

  1. Comment by Alex

    Dave,
    our company is using BOE 3.1, out of box solutions (CR, WEBI, Universes), without any other SAP applications.
    Which conference would be a better choice to go for BO administrator?

    Thanks,
    Alex

  2. Comment by Dave Rathbun

    Hi, Alex, thanks for your comment. Based on what you have written it seems to me that the fall BusinessObjects conference is the most appropriate choice for you. SAP TechEd is an SAP conference which will have tons of great content related to the SAP integration kit, universes on top of BW, and so on. There will be some content on using BusinessObjects tools on top of non-SAP data, but I expect they will be in the minority.

    At the fall BusinessObjects conference in Orlando I expect the ratio to be reversed. There will be some topics talking about using tools on top of SAP data, but the majority will be for folks that are in the same configuration as you: no SAP applications, only the BusinessObjects suite.

    Hope this helps.

  3. Comment by Alex

    Thank you very much Dave for your input.
    I see your points, and most valuable is that Orlando is Only for BOE, vs Vegas for whole SAP suite. Another observation, some sessions I checked in Vegas’s conference are presented by SAP employees, does it make difference? Also some sessions are 2 hours so you do not have to rush through topic and multiple sessions are hands on.
    I know we only use out of box BOE, but we like to learn what else is out there, besides just WEBI, Crystal and Universe that we currently utilize. Examples would be enterprise archiving, enterprise scheduler …, how to post reports on SharePoint, monitor the BIOE environment, use BI Mobile.
    I kind of debating myself, with pros/cons, but I need your input as well.
    Plus Vegas will have live concert:)
    Thank you,
    Alex
    My email is kolsasha@gmail.com if you like to take this off line

  4. Comment by Dave Rathbun

    So you are correct in that many of the sessions at TechEd are given by SAP employees. However, we will have quite a few at “our” conference as well. For example, Frank Prabel is scheduled to deliver a talk about the new semantic layer, and Frank has been with BusinessObjects for longer than I have been working with the products. He knows what he’s talking about.

    The multi-hour sessions at TechEd can be nice. Some of them are even hands-on with the product. That’s an advantage. However, the universe session that I attended focused only on working with cubes, and did not cover working with non-SAP data at all.

    TechEd is bigger (more people and more sessions) and longer (more days) and also more expensive.

    Full disclosure: I am attending both. 🙂 I don’t think you can really go wrong attending either (or both) but given your description I answered with what I felt was the most appropriate answer. You will get value out of either, no matter which you attend.

  5. Comment by Alex

    Thank you so much Dave
    See you in at least one of these conferences