Dave’s Adventures in Business Objects

As per this comment here is the recipe for my famous “Dave Cookies” … enjoy.

Continue reading “By Popular Request: Cookies!”

I am probably not following proper blog “netiquette” as I don’t offer a “blog roll” here. A blog roll is a standard feature of Wordpress and it allows a blogger to link to other blogs of interest, whether they’re on the same topic or just from friends or family or… well, you probably get the idea. Despite the lack of a formal blog roll I do read a few other folks (when I have time). One of those on my short list is Timo Elliott’s blog.

Continue reading “Technology Needs People Too”

A few days ago I posted about the new GBN (Global BusinessObjects Network) organization. They’re going to be responsible for the user conference this fall that is replacing the “Insight” conferences run by Business Objects in the past. One of the questions posted as a comment to that post was this:

Will the Global BO Network be organising the conferences around the world?

We over here in the Asia-Pac haven’t had one for awhile…

I did some digging and asking around and some guessing, and at this point I have some rumors to share. From what I can tell, the intent is to sponsor several conferences a year. If that is the case, then the Asia-Pacific Rim area should be on the short list of options to consider. I suspect that we will see plans for GBN-sponsored events in both Europe and Asia-Pac in 2009 along with at least one large “Insight-style” event in the US. Part of the reason for me guessing this is they will want to put their best foot forward in order to secure long-term support and interest for their program, and the best way to do that will be to get out in front of the users. By doing that, they can share their vision and mission with the largest group of people… which should ultimately prove beneficial for both parties if they can deliver. And from our first conference call (in my earlier post I mentioned that I was selected to the steering committee for the GBN) one of the focal points was the “G” or “Global” nature of the program.

Getting global events running would be the best way to reinforce that concept, yes?

The EU-Insight from earlier this year was in Berlin along with the SAPPHIRE conference. Given that the GBN wants to emphasize the independence from the product company I would expect that future conferences will not be held in conjunction with SAPPHIRE but will instead be a separate venue. Most of this is guess-work at this point as the new organization is just getting off of the ground. If I learn anything concrete I will be sure to share it when I can.

I got a comment from someone new recently who said:

Sigh. There is so much about Business Objects that makes me scream “WHY??? Who designed this thing? Nobody who has ever used it in the real world, that’s for sure!”

First it made me laugh. But then it made me think. At various points Business Objects has done things that made their users extremely frustrated, and it seems that sometimes it’s because they don’t know what people are doing with their products. The best example that I can think of happened a very long time ago, but it was a “biggie” as they say. It happened during the update from 3.1 to 4.0. Anyone else remember those exciting times?

Continue reading “What We Do Without Business Objects Knowing About It…”

The Business Objects Community Alliance is going to be rebranded as the Global Business Objects Network. There are various reasons for the change, some of which have to do with naming conflicts but mostly having to do with the desire to emphasize the independence from anything run by SAP. The new organization is going to be launched in a more formal fashion at the upcoming fall conference in October, but work has already started.

The new organization is going to exist along with but separate from the existing ASUG (Americas SAP User Group). Unlike ASUG, which is focused on the US, our goal is to attempt from the start to become a truly global organization. Thus, the name. Over the coming months I will probably be posting more about this as I have the honor to have been selected as one of the initial steering committee members. We had our first conference call on Friday and will be talking regularly over the coming weeks in order to best prepare for the more formal launch at the fall conference this October.

In keeping with my belief in being “open” (whether it is using and supporting open source software or open organizations like BOB) I plan to post updates on the process here on my blog. If anyone has questions or input, do please post a comment. I ask that you do this rather than email me directly so that my responses can also be in the open and any interested party can follow the conversation.

So here’s how the rest of the “48 hours” went.

Friday Continue reading “48 Hours in the Life of a Business Objects Trainer Part II”

As I write this I am just getting ready to welcome my students back for day 2 of the Advanced Designer course. How did I get here? It’s an interesting story. Or maybe it’s not, you get to decide.

Continue reading “48 Hours in the Life of a Business Objects Trainer”

In the first post on designing universe prompts I talked about the idea of having a default date value present in a prompt. In case you don’t want to read the entire post, here is the executive summary:

You can’t do it, sorry.

At the end of that post I mentioned something called a “magic date” that I frequently use in my universes to get past this limitation. That’s my subject for today.

Problem Definition

I have a date prompt in my universe. I would like to be able to provide a default value of today’s date. This would allow my users to click-n-go on the report without having to update the date value each time. It is also essential for scheduled reports, which is something I didn’t really touch on last time. When I schedule a report, I have to provide values for every prompt. I have a long series of posts on how to create some dynamic date objects that can be used for scheduling, but those were not prompts.

In a nutshell: I need a way to accept a prompt value and convert it to today’s date for user convenience and for scheduling. Can I make that happen?

Continue reading “Using a “Magic Date” Value in Prompts”

I apologize for deviating from my normal content, but I had to share this. Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly) is going to release a new musical… online! If you are a Buffy fan and remember the musical number (from season 4, I think) then you have to see this. It looks great… they have Neil Patrick Harris as the mad scientist, and Nathon Fillion as the superhero.

The teaser goes something like this:

For every day… there is a night.
For every world… there is an underworld
And for every hero… there is…. this guy?

This should be great!

I made it a personal goal when I started this blog to have at least two posts a month. Here it is, May 15th, and there are no posts yet. The main reason is that I am trying to get projects wrapped up or at least to a point where I can be gone for a week, since the SAPPHIRE conference in Berlin starts next week.

I have lots of things started. Maybe I’ll get some finished on the plane.