Essbase 21c its the little things in life that make me happy

 As I go through looking at my recently installed Essbase 21c instance, I am noticing a lot of differences. Some are major and the product team has posted some pretty good videos HERE,, but there are a lot of little things that are not mentioned.  Here are a few things I've found. I might add to this list as I discover more.

First, In prior versions, if you wanted to rename an application or database, you had to either:

1. Copy the application to the new name then delete the old one. 
2. Use MaxL to do the rename
3. Use the REST  API to do the rename

Now Oraclehas added the rename to the drop downs for the application and database

 

Speaking of the drop downs, now in the database drop down is a new item, Unlock Outline.  

 

 

Its funny I was doing a webcast the other day and saw this and my first though was "Oh crud, I must have left the outline locked" , so I clicked on it to unlock it. and I got the message

 

so I guess it is there as a "Just in case" 

 

Next, I think because some large customers complained, they brought back currency conversion

 

I only know of one or two companies that use this, and there are other ways to accomplish it, but for now it is back. 

Report scripts are back. We can create them in the Web UI (although there is not a good editor like Calc scripts). we can now manage existing scripts and run the from the JOB card. You can't select a file name for the output. It seems to name it the same as the name of the report script with a .txt extension

 

When we run it as a job, you can download the output. we can download the output. 

 

Interestingly enough, I can't find the file anywhere. I would have expected it to be in the database directory, but it is not there. I looked in the shared folder and my personal folder as well, nope not there either. At some point I'll get on the server and search for it. If I find it I might update the blog with where it is. Of course, if you run the report script from MaxL from a local machine, the output can be directed there.

 

The last item I'll talk about today is the MDX editor. There actually is one and it is similar to the calc script editor with functions ad all. Like the Calc script editor, we can execute the script right from the editor. I also like that there is validation. Too often lately, I've spend a lot of time looking for little issues by having to run the MDX to see how it fails.

 

 

This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but just a few niceties that I have found. If you   have found anything and want to share, please add it to the comments.