The Versa Shore team was out in full force last week at Oracle Open World. We had a great time meeting new faces and reconnecting with familiar ones.

Here are some photos of the highlights.

We launched a new website to better represent our brand and our focus on business value.  As a savvy, engaging, and results oriented company with expertise in BI services, Oracle software, and staff augmentation, we felt that we should make some changes to our site that would make our company more accessible to our clients.  Below are the top 5 new features that you can find with our new site.

Downloadable Content:

We now offer an extensive amount of downloadable content including: white papers, data sheets, rapid deployment packages, and client success stories.  We want our web users to have all of this knowledge at their fingertips, and if there are still questions we continue to have the most responsive team in the industry.

Business Value Delivered: Real Time Blog:

Every company learns more as time goes forward.  In our new blog we want to share all the things we have learned rather than keep them secret. We will be revealing our tips, solutions, and helpful hints that we acquire in the industry.  We will also be including basic ‘how-tos’ and ‘step by steps’ to save all of our users time.

Versa Shore University:

We now are offering Versa Shore University, an Oracle software-training platform. Our training program is perfect for both first-time Oracle BI users and BI experts. We are including: train the trainer programs, web driven training modules, best practice trainings, and much more.

Social Media Integration:

Versa Shore is now represented on several social media platforms including LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.  We want to be completely accessible to all users and social media allows us to better harness our biggest values: responsiveness and accessibility.

Solution Focused:

Last but not least, our site is solution focused.  Through our downloadable content,site, blog, and our social media, we want to show you that we focus on solutions for our clients.  Our solutions tab shows several success stories, innovative and savvy implementations, and best-case practices for a range of information management challenges.

• Install the latest version of OBIEE 11g (11.1.5), the older version 11.1.3 has a few bugs with installation on a 64 bit machine. Also the connectors to Essbase do not work as mentioned in the documentation.
• Set the Essbase path and the Arborpath variables correctly under User and System Variables.
• Add the Essbase path to the Path variable under System Variables. This is an important step and this is not mentioned in the documentation. The tool will not connect to Essbase if this step is not performed.
• Set the Essbase path correctly in the OPMN.XML and bi-init.cmd, User.cmd files. This part is mentioned in the documentation but has to be done correctly for the connectivity to work.

Updating Essbase Information in opmn.xml

To enable connectivity, on each computer running the Oracle BI Server, you need to verify that information in opmn.xml is correct for your Essbase client version and installed location.

To include the location of the Essbase client libraries in opmn.xml:

• Open opmn.xml for editing. You can find opmn.xml at:

ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/OPMN/opmn/opmn.xml

• Locate the ias-component tag for the Oracle BI Server process. For example:

<ias-component id=”coreapplication_obis1″ inherit-environment=”true”>

• Under the Oracle BI Server ias-component tag, locate the line that identifies the variable ESSBASEPATH. For example:

<variable id=”ESSBASEPATH” value=”$ORACLE_HOME/products/Essbase/EssbaseServer” />

• If necessary, update the value to point to the appropriate location for your installed client libraries. Change the variable name to ARBORPATH if necessary, depending on your client version.
• Locate the line that identifies the variable PATH. For example:

<variable id=”PATH” value=”$ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/server/bin$:$ORACLE_

HOME/bifoundation/web/bin$:$ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/odbc/lib$:$ORACLE_

INSTANCE$:$ORACLE_HOME/lib$:$ESSBASEPATH/bin$:$PATH$:$/bin” append=”true”/>

• Locate the portion of the entry that shows the location of the Essbase client libraries (shown in bold in the preceding example), and update the location if appropriate for your installation. Change the variable used in the path from ESSBASEPATH to ARBORPATH if necessary, depending on your client version.
• Save and close the file.
• Restart OPMN.
• Repeat these steps on each computer that runs the Oracle BI Server process. If you are running multiple Oracle BI Server instances on the same computer, be sure to update the ias-component tag appropriately for each instance in opmn.xml (for example, ias-component id=”coreapplication_obis1″, ias-component id=”coreapplication_obis2″, and so on).

Adding Essbase Information to bi-init.cmd

On Windows systems, to enable connectivity, you need to update bi-init.cmd on each computer running the Administration Tool.

To add Essbase environment variables to bi-init.cmd:

• Open the bi-init.cmd file for editing. You can find bi-init.cmd at:
• Add a line setting the ESSBASEPATH or ARBORPATH environment variable, as appropriate for your version and installed location of the Essbase client libraries. For example:
• Locate the line that sets the PATH environment variable, and add the location of the Essbase client binaries. For example:
• Save and close the file.

ORACLE_INSTANCE/bifoundation/OracleBIApplication/coreapplication/setup

set ORACLE_INSTANCE=C:\mw_home\instances\instance1

set ORACLE_BI_APPLICATION=coreapplication

set ESSBASEPATH=C:\products\Essbase\EssbaseClient

call %ORACLE_INSTANCE%\bifoundation\OracleBIApplication
\%ORACLE_BI_APPLICATION%\setup\user.cmd

set PATH=%ORACLE_HOME%\bifoundation\server\bin;%ORACLE_HOME%
\bifoundation\web\bin;%ORACLE_HOME%\bin;%ESSSBASEPATH%\bin;%PATH%

A robust business process forms the very foundation of a successful IT project.  A common misconception is that the latest and greatest technology from any given vendor can make up for weak, illogical and inadequate business processes.

In discussions with clients, I have discovered that companies tend to keep the same report (canned) for 10+ years when their industry and their competition has undergone a sea of change.  If one cannot adapt to the changing environment, obsolescence is inevitable.  The whole purpose of an effective BI reporting platform is to take the guesswork out of the equation and allow management to make robust decisions that are backed by solid business facts and numbers.  But in order to get there, one needs a common sense approach to simplified business processes that are embraced by the whole organization.

A well thought out business process not only makes it easy to conduct business, but allows for critical data points to be captured and harnessed as a part of the day to day business.  This can then be put through an effective ETL process and captured into a data warehouse.  This sets the foundation to doing effective business analysis based on:

• Historical data
• Current data
• Future anticipated trends/predictive analysis

Lack of proper business process means having to go back to square one and redoing it until you get it right.  While this is the frustrating reality, it amazes me how many people overlook its earth shattering importance.

Startups and large companies alike, struggle with optimally staffing their IT teams.  As enabling organizations, IT departments are typical cost centers and there is tremendous pressure to cut costs and keep a lean team.  At the same time end users expect quick response times and a phenomenal level of service.  In a down economy, the IT department is one of the first departments to be cut and in an up economy they tend to add team members rather slowly.

IT Staffing can quickly become the lynchpin of a company’s success based on how well it is leveraged.  Staffing can become the strategic tool in an IT manager’s toolset that can allow management to ramp up or down with skillset and head count as needed.

Given this conundrum, IT managers have no choice but to leverage the extra horse-power on demand with the ability to turn it on or off as needed.  This is essentially the global “on-tap” model that assists companies perform better without having a huge workforce on their payroll and keeps the bean counters happy.