Oracle Stuff for the Average Guy is Moving!

Oracle Stuff for the Average Guy is evolving and moving!  Over the last several months, I have come to realize that I would like to expand the site to be more than just Oracle.  In the future, it will be a space that can focus on Enterprise technology as well as an expanded emphasis on Podcasting.  Join me over at the new site and drop a comment.

http://theaverageguy.tv/

Heartland OAUG Mini Conference – May 20th, 2010 – Did You Miss Collaborate 2010?

If you missed Collaborate 2010, there is still a chance to get some quality training in before OpenWorld!  Registration is now open for the next Heartland OAUG Mini Conference on May 20th, 2010, hosted again by Gallup, here in Omaha.  Registration is again free for our users/members*. 

Register by May 14th to be eligible to win one of several $50 Visa Gift Cards.  (Must be present to win!)

 

Our last meeting on February 11th was a real success with well over 100 in attendance and 5 sponsor vendors.  Special thanks to these partners!

Oracle
Apps Associates
Lucidity
ReadSoft
Rolta TUSC

We are glad to welcome back some partners from last time, as well as some new faces this time.  Joining us:

Oracle	IBM	MarketSphere
ProKarma	Rolta TUSC	UC4

Here are some of the confirmed sessions.  More will be added as they become available.

MarketSphere	Kevin Cornett Brad Kwiatek	Achieving Integrated Business Planning with Oracle Hyperion Provide an overview of Business Planning with practical recommendations and real world integrated business planning examples using Oracle Enterprise Performance Management suite including Hyperion Planning.  Will discuss both process and technology components to consider with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management suite including Hyperion Planning implementations.
Gallup	Jim Collison	How Members of the Heartland OAUG can use OAUG CONNECT to Collectively Collaborate on Their R12 (or any Oracle Project) Upgrade. The Oracle Applications User Group (OAUG) recently launched a new social networking site named CONNECT.  Connect is a Facebook-like destination that will allow Oracle pros (or even novices) to combine our knowledge and experience in the interest of better communication around all things Oracle.  Users can post events, share blogs, participate in forum discussions, join Geo or SIG groups, keep up to date on the latest tweets as well as find links to all the best Oracle sites.  Best of all, it’s FREE!
New – Oracle	Bill Gardner	Oracle Advanced Customer Services – Building a strategic relationship for ongoing operational excellence. Advanced Customer Services (ACS) will be on hand to present and educate customers on the various support options available from Oracle. ACS provides specific performance and availability optimization, upgrade assistance and personalized support for your most critical environments. Learn about the capabilities providing faster problem and expert assistance spanning the Oracle stack.
New - Gallup	Stephanie Ransdell	Leveraging Oracle Workflow for Emails – Making Workflow Work For You.  This session is intended for those that want to learn more about how to create their own notifications in Oracle Workflow, as well as learn a little more about the tool overall.
Gallup	Swapan Golla Santosh Bangera	Oracle Spatial: A Technical Overview
Gallup	Swapan Golla	Text Mining using Oracle Data Miner
Your	Session	Here?
More	Still	To Come

Here is the schedule for the day:

8:00am – 8:30am	Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:30am – 9:30am	Introductions and Oracle Keynote
9:30am –9:45am	Break/Networking
9:45am – 10:30am	Session 1
10:30am –11:00am	Break/Networking - Snacks
11:00am- 11:45am	Session 2
11:45am –12:00pm	Break/Networking
12:00pm – 1:00pm	Session 3

Follow the Heartland OAUG on twitter at www.twitter.com/heartland_oaug

Please go to http://heartlandouag20100520.eventbrite.com/ for additional information and to register for this event.

Questions or concerns with either the registration process or membership fees can be addressed to heartland.oaug@live.com.  We look forward to seeing you at the meeting!!

If you are interested in volunteering for the 05/20/2009 event please contact Catherine Knabb (catherine.knabb@aciworldwide.com).

*If you are an Oracle Consultant or Partner can sponsor the user group and attend this meeting for a one event membership fee of $250 or for an annual membership fee of $500 which allows access to all Heartland OAUG meetings for the entire year.  Additional information is available at http://heartlandoaug.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!4B960D1C23B65658!143.entry.

Oracle Technology March events: WebCenter Suite Lunch Seminar and a hands on SOA workshop Omaha and Des Moines

Zirous SOA Workship on Tuesday March 9th in Omaha

For additional information;  http://www.opnevents.com/programs/ZirousSOA/

Join Zirous and Oracle for a free hands-on Oracle SOA Suite 11g workshop Attendees of this interactive event will hear how many Oracle customers have succeeded in deploying high-volume, mission-critical SOA Systems by leveraging the industry's best service bus, Oracle Service Bus, combined with Oracle's renowned extreme-scalability on a grid-computing infrastructure. During this workshop, you will focus on building out a Permit Application Composite scenario for receiving and handling permit requests. Labs focus on Web Services, External References, BPEL, Human Workflow, Rules, BAM and Policy management. Products and technologies to be covered: Oracle Weblogic Server SOA Suite 11g R1 JDeveloper 11.1.1 Agenda 8:30 a.m. Registration, Breakfast 9:15 a.m. Introduction & Set-Up 9:30 a.m. SOA Concepts and Oracle SOA Suite 11g 10:00 a.m. Accessing the Lab Environment 10:30 a.m. Break 10:45 a.m. Web Services Overview Lab 1: Create a Java Web Services 12:15 p.m. Working Lunch SOA Composite Editor Lab 2: Creating a SOA Composite with Adapters and Mediators 1:15 p.m. BPEL Lab 3: Creating a BPEL Process for Orchestration Oracle Business Rules Lab 4: Creating a Business Rule and BPEL Decision Service 2:15 p.m. Human Tasks Lab 5: Adding a Human Task Activity 3:15 p.m. Wrap-Up, Q&A 3:30 p.m. Workshop Close RSVP Required Please register online for this important event.

WebCenter Suite Lunch Seminar Wed. March 10th, Omaha Regency Marriott

WebCenter Suite Lunch Seminar Thurs. March 11th, Des Moines Embassy Suites

This is a great lunch session to understand Oracle strategy with Portal technology.  Oracle WebCenter Suite is the industry™s only complete, open, and manageable portal platform that integrates Enterprise 2.0 capabilities into business processes and custom and packaged enterprise applications to create richer connections and deliver faster time-to-value. Its unified, standards-based portal framework supports the creation of all types of portals, Web sites, and composite applications and is designed to enable business users to evolve these applications as their business requirements change.

March 10th, Omaha Regency Marriott 11:30 -1:00 PM  10220 Regency Circle, Omaha, NE  68144
March 11th, Des Moines, Embassy Suites   11:30 - 1:00 101 East Locust, Des Moines, IA 50309

To register: Contact Ajit Sherring at email ajit.sherring@oracle.com or call 800.363.3059 Ext 22090

Upcoming Oracle Technology Events for Nebraska and Iowa

I wanted to make you aware of some upcoming Oracle Technology events here in the Heartland.  I pulled these from an email from Bob Lankford, my local technology rep.  Thanks Bob!

 

Exadata Lunch Seminar Feb 10th in Omaha, Feb 11th in Des Moines
If you are using any database from any vendor in your organization, you should attend this lunch seminar.  The seminar will explain the architecture and benefits of the Oralcle Exadata Appliance.  The solution may not be a fit for every situation but it is a snapshot of what the future holds for computing and appliances.  Oracle Exadata Storage Servers combine smart storage software from Oracle and industry-standard hardware from Sun to deliver the industry's highest database storage performance. To overcome the limitations of conventional storage,

Oracle Exadata Storage Servers use a massively parallel architecture to dramatically increase data bandwidth between the database server and storage. In addition, smart storage software offloads data-intensive query processing from Oracle Database 11g servers and does the query processing closer to the data. The result is faster parallel data processing and less data movement through higher bandwidth connections. This massively parallel architecture also offers linear scalability and mission-critical reliability.

For Additional information on Exadata: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/database/exadata/index.htm

Feb 10^th, Omaha Regency Marriott          11:30 -1:00 PM  10220 Regency Circle, Omaha, NE  68144
Feb 11^th, Des Moines, Embassy Suites  11:30 - 1:00 PM 101 East Locust, Des Moines, IA 50309

To register: Contact Ajit Sherring at email ajit.sherring@oracle.com or call 800.363.3059 Ext 22090 

Heartland OAUG held at the Gallup Organization, Omaha NE Feb 11th, ( 8:00 - 1:00 )

We are within TWO weeks of registration for the next Heartland OAUG Mini Conference on February 11, 2010, hosted by Gallup here in Omaha.  New sessions have been added since 1/12/2010.

Registration is free for our users/members.  Please feel free to pass this email along to coworkers or friends who could benefit from this conference!

We have added a new track for Users!  - EBS R12.1 Financials: Centralized accounting through SLA, tax capabilities & payment processing.  Finance Integrations:  Integration technologies specific to the finance organization (credit card, ach, lock box, pcard, etc.).  Finance Insight to Action:  Continuing on the discussion by Joe Thomas, a demonstration of the finance dashboard capabilities.  If you are upgrading or thinking of up grading to R12, this might be a helpful session for both your technical and user community!

When:   8:00 am - 1:00 pm Thursday, February 11^th 2010
Where:  Gallup, 1001 Gallup Drive.  Omaha NE 68102

Register by January 31st and be entered into a drawing to win and iPod Nano!

Joe Thomas, Oracle Senior Director, BI Application will be in Omaha as our keynote speaker and for a series of special presentations on Oracle BI.

We will also have sessions covering the topics of Database, Middleware, Applications and Business Intelligence.  Check the links below for the most current speakers.

More info at:  http://heartlandoaug.spaces.live.com
Register at:  http://heartlandoaug20100211.eventbrite.com
Our site: http://heartlandoaug.spaces.live.com/
At OAUG: http://ne.oaug.org/
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/heartland_oaug

Oracle Analytic Applications and BI Workshop, Feb 23rd, Omaha Regency Marriott

Oracle Invites You To A Free 1-Day Hands-on Analytic Applications & Business Intelligence Workshop. You are invited to a 1-day Oracle Business Intelligence workshop which will allow you to get hands-on experience with Oracle Analytic Applications building ad-hoc reports, creating dashboards and providing access to Oracle and non-Oracle data sources using Oracle BI Enterprise Edition. Tuesday, February 23, 2010 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Omaha Regency Marriott 10220 Regency Circle, Omaha, NE  68144 Registration To reserve your space for this hands-on event please call 1.800.820.5592, ext.7231. Workshop Requirements (Mandatory): Laptop computer with network card Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Mozilla 1.7x During the workshop participants will explore: The relationships between business intelligence and data warehousing How to pull data from multiple sources into a consolidated view When should data be brought into the Analytic Applications Data Warehouse How to quickly create dashboards for your entire organization How to proactively alert end-users using exception based reporting Introduction and Overview of BI Server Administration Integration with BI Publisher for enterprise pixel perfect reporting Integration with Essbase Understand the value of Oracle's Integrated Business Intelligence Solution Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) is the most comprehensive portfolio of technology and applications for enabling the insight-driven organization, including leading BI applications, BI platform technology, and data warehousing. With the #1 market share in business analytics, Oracle BI enables organizations to gain complete and timely insight, distribute intelligence pervasively, and drive more effective actions and processes. Oracle BI is hot-pluggable with Oracle and non-Oracle environments so customers can fully leverage existing data sources, systems and applications. At the same time, by offering comprehensive, integrated solutions that are optimized and pre-integrated with Oracle database, middleware, and applications, organizations can benefit from reduced cost and complexity, as well as a unified BI infrastructure. Please join us for an interactive hands-on workshop that will enable you to start providing actionable Business Intelligence to anyone in your organization.

Agenda 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. Registration, Continental Breakfast 9:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m. Welcome, Introductions, Roles & Responsibilities 9:15 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Oracle Business Intelligence Overview & Best Practices 10:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Oracle Business Intelligence Workshop Demo 10:45 a.m. - 12:00 noon Workshop - Creating Reports and Dashboards & Essbase Integration 12:00 noon -1:00 p.m. Lunch 1:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Workshop - Creating Reports and Dashboards & Essbase Integration 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Q&A and Wrap Up

WebCenter Suite Lunch Seminar  March 10th, Omaha  March 11thh Des Moines

This is a great lunch session to understand Oracle strategy with Portal technology.  Oracle WebCenter Suite is the industry™s only complete, open, and manageable portal platform that integrates Enterprise 2.0 capabilities into business processes and custom and packaged enterprise applications to create richer connections and deliver faster time-to-value. Its unified, standards-based portal framework supports the creation of all types of portals, Web sites, and composite applications and is designed to enable business users to evolve these applications as their business requirements change.

March 10th, Omaha Regency Marriott 11:30 -1:00 PM  10220 Regency Circle, Omaha, NE  68144
March 11th, Des Moines, Embassy Suites   11:30 - 1:00 101 East Locust, Des Moines, IA 50309

To register: Contact Ajit Sherring at email ajit.sherring@oracle.com or call 800.363.3059 Ext 22090

Enterprise Content Management Lunch Seminar April 20th, Des Moines, April 21st Omaha

This lunch seminar will focus on Oracle’s Content Management solutions, what it is, how it compares with its competitors and how it can provide value to your organization.  Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is comprised of Document Management, Web Content Management, and Digital Asset Management in a unified application that enables users to interact with documents, web content and digital assets and provides organizations with the ability to provide the right content, at the right time, and in the right format to employees, customers, vendors, and partners. Core ECM controls and manages the lifecycle of all types of unstructured content, while maintaining the integrity of the content and controlling access to it within or beyond the organization. The solutions lower risk and streamline business operations by: helping prevent problems arising from hard to find, lost or mislaid unstructured content; bringing it into the context of business processes; and allowing content to be distributed more quickly, more conveniently, and more securely.

April 21st, Omaha Regency Marriott  11:30 - 1:00 PM  10220 Regency Circle, Omaha, NE  68144
April 20th, Des Moines, Embassy Suites  11:30 - 1:00 PM  101 East Locust, Des Moines, IA 50309

To register: Contact Ajit Sherring at email ajit.sherring@oracle.com or call 800.363.3059 Ext 22090

Sun Oracle Acquisition cocktail reception coming soon!

Coming soon after the official acquisition closure: Oracle Acquisition of Sun Social Mixer.  I will be hosting a social mixer at a local establishment with drinks and appetizers.  This will provide a  chance to understand what the acquisition means as well as the resources from both Sun and Oracle that are your points of contact.  Stay tuned for the official announcement and dates and location of this event.

 

Remember, I search so you don’t have to!

Oracle Customer SuccessCast – Business Intelligence Innovation at Gallup

I sat down with Mark Conway at the Oracle studios (not really, we did it over the phone)  recently and discussed the BI success Gallup has  had using Oracle’s OBIEE with BI Publisher for an Oracle Customer SuccessCast. 

SuccessCasts are podcasts (or a recorded mp3) that outline and promote success stories that customers are having with Oracle products.  This one is just 12 minutes in length, so if you are interested, click on the links below and have a listen. 

Oracle Customer Cafe
http://feeds.feedburner.com/OracleCustomerCafeSuccesscasts

Direct Download
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OracleCustomerCafeSuccesscasts/~5/WzmTnpOgAQI/8338560_Jim_Collison_121209.mp3

Remember, I search (and Podcast) so you don’t have to!

Heartland OAUG February 11, 2010 Meeting Registration Now Open

Registration is now open for the Heartland OAUG Meeting that will be held on February 11, 2010 at Ag Processing Inc. in Omaha.

Please go to http://heartlandoaug20100211.eventbrite.com for additional information and to register for this event.

Registration is free for our users/members.

Consultants and third party tool developers can purchase admission for this meeting for a one event membership fee of $250 or for an annual membership fee of $500 which allows access to all Heartland OAUG meetings for the entire year.  Additional information is available at

http://heartlandoaug.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!4B960D1C23B65658!143.entry.

Questions or concerns with either the registration process or membership fees can be addressed to heartland.oaug@live.com.  We look forward to seeing you at the meeting!!!

OBIEE Configuration Management – Rittman Mead

Our friends over at Rittman Mead (mostly Mark Rittman) have posted an incredible 3 part series on OBIEE Configuration Management.  Mark just keeps bringing the hits!  Nice work Mark.

The series can be found at their site http://www.rittmanmead.com/ or at the links below.

http://www.rittmanmead.com/2009/11/30/obiee-software-configuration-management-part-1-initial-deployment-from-dev-to-prod/

http://www.rittmanmead.com/2009/11/30/obiee-software-configuration-management-part-2-subsequent-deployments-from-dev-to-prod/

http://www.rittmanmead.com/2009/12/02/obiee-software-configuration-management-part-3-version-controlling-the-project/

Remember, I search so you don’t have to!