Why I created a blog

Its been many years since I first created this blog. It has remained true to Essbase and related information over those years. Hopefully it has answered questions and given you insight over those years. I will continue to provide my observations and comments on the ever changing world of EPM. Don't be surprised if the scope of the blog changes and brings in other Hyperion topics.


Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Kscope 11 Abstract submissions open and quiz answer

I got in my email today that the kaleidoscope 11 submissions are open. (they have actually been open since the conference). This is the most awesome conference and if your submission gets accepted you can go for free. The tracks for Hyperion content have been expanded and there will be a more diverse set of topics. In the past three years the presentations have all be very technical. The conference is broadening its scope and will have some case studies and more business related topics as well. This means you don’t have to be a technical guru in order to present. In fact, the conference is looking for a lot more customer (versus consultant) presentations.

If you want to look at the topic categories to choose from you can find them at: Kscope 11 Abstract page.

If you want to submit a presentation, there is a link on that page or you can go directly to Kscope Abstract submission .

The deadline for submissions is October 26, 2010 so you don’t have a lot of time. Put on your thinking caps and come up with an interesting topic. If there is something you would like to see presented at the conference but don’t feel you are the right person to present it, send me a comment and I’ll get the abstract added to the list and help to find a presenter. Or better yet find a friend, co-worker, friendly neighborhood consultant that you like and admire (no not me) and get him/her to submit it.

A few weeks ago, I put out what I thought was a pretty easy quiz. Perhaps it was too easy as I only got three responses to it. The first response was to my faithful Man in Philadelphia Cameron Lackpour who got almost all of the quiz answers correct. At least the answers I was looking for.

The first question was list two ways to display numeric zeros in SmartView retrieves. Cameron correctly answered #NumericZero and (0) (note in System 9 just entering a zero worked in some versions. I don’t know when that changed).


The first bonus question asked “How he can take non-numeric data in Excel and show it in formulas as a zero without using an "IF" statement” The answer is to use the syntax N(cell reference) like N(A3). This takes and turns the value into a numeric. Unlike Value() which Cameron described. The N() syntax turns non-numeric data into zeros so you don’t get #values in your formulaic cells. This is not a Smartview or Add-in solution, but an Excel solution. I amaze even the most prodigious Excel users with this one when I show them it.

The second bonus question asked “How can you have the classic Add-in return numeric zeros?” The answer is the same as part of the SmartView answer using the syntax (0) will bring back real zeros from the classic add-in.

Finally the last bonus question was “Why can this be a bad thing?” In the classic add-in and some versions of SmartView, numeric zeros will be sent to the database replacing your #missing with zeros. This will bloat your database, especially BSO databases and make your calculations run longer and the database consume a lot more disk space.

1 comment:

Sean V said...

The N() excel function is cool. Didn't know that one.