COLLABORATE19: Pre-Day + Me!

Hi folks, I'mmmmmm baaaaack! It is time for another COLLABORATE conference, so that means it is time for me to blog again!

First off, the major news is that the OAUG has now become the OATUG (Oracle Applications and Technology User Group) as of a few hours ago! LOTS of talk about that happening! Learn more about the change here on the new OATUG website.

9:15 AM–10:15 AM - Hands-on Lab: Using Python with Oracle Database - Blaine Carter - @OraBlaineOS

While not exactly the same, but Blaine's blog post https://learncodeshare.net/2018/07/30/execute-pl-sql-calls-with-cx_oracle/ details most of what we were doing, including the linked documentation at the end of the page to the cx_Oracle module. Want to do something like this, a bit different, but still in the DevOps space? Check out another page he posted https://learncodeshare.net/2019/01/29/how-to-build-an-oracle-database-developer-toolbox/ and get your hands on Vagrant!

10:30 AM–11:30 AM - Hands-On Lab: Low-Code Development with Oracle Application Express (APEX) - David Peake - @orcl_dpeake

Go to https://apex.oracle.com and click on Get Started for Free to get the same experience we did!
This was pretty awesome to get my hands on this technology and actually get to do some development without touching ANY code!

12:30 PM–1:30 PM - Workflow SIG Panel: Current, Future, and Cloud - Me!

Shameless plug time, but this was a pretty exciting panel since Bill Burbage with Oracle Proactive Support was able to share a few ERs (Enhancement Requests) that are making their way through the development pipeline! He also showed a demo of a new Analyzer framework they are working on, to make it easier to do a lot of data gathering all in one place which does not take as much effort to download and add onto your Oracle SR (Service Request). Plus, never forget about MOS Note 432.1 to get the latest on ALL the latest from Proactive Support, including analyzer updates!!

I wanted to go to the Extend Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle SaaS Applications: Your Journey to the Cloud session, but due to the running around from Convention Center back to the Grand Hyatt room and setup, meant I did not get lunch, so I absolutely had to eat at this time and skip the session, but I am going to try and get my hands on the material Oracle presented so I can get up to speed on this subject! That is almost like attending, right? :}

3:00 PM–4:00 PM - OAUG SysAdmin SIG - James Morrow - @jjmorrow / @kansasdba

As the Vice Chair of this group, I felt I should go, and was looking to get out of the role as it is voted on every two years, and this was the year that role came up for renewal, but Michael Brown @MichaelBrownOrg re-nominated me, with nobody else volunteering, so I have graciously accepted the Vice Chair role yet again. :}

Besides the housekeeping, there was a BUNCH of stuff that came out of this like 12.2 DB support goes until 2030! (Look at MOS Note 742060.1)
MOS Note 2522948.1 shows you how to get a fee waiver for Extended Support fees for older DB versions up to 2020 ONLY IF USED FOR EBS.
The EBS application version 12.2 has Extended Support through March 2026, but you'll notice that EBS has not yet been certified on DB version 12.2. There are reasons for that, and apparently Oracle is SKIPPING certifying EBS on that version of the DB, and will go straight to certifying it with 19c (12.2.0.3) which is the terminal release of the DB 12.2 code line. It is important to note, that with the 19c release UTL files will no longer be supported, and it will only be certified in a single container setup.
Check out MOS Note 2409163.1 or patch 28574967 to get the latest about Enterprise Command Center, which is baselined on EBS 12.2.4, which gives you dashboard information about your EBS installation. It absolutely sounds and looks like something some customers might want to investigate, in order to be able to give your executives some very high level details very quickly!

4:00 PM - OAUG Popup Event - @OAUG1

OAUG becomes OATUG! This was an almost emergency meeting that was shared and posted about an hour it happened, and was not even in the conference app/website listing of sessions, but I was pretty glad I had an essentially front row seat to the event after James and Michael mentioned this was going on!

5:30 PM–7:00 PM - OAUG Welcome Reception - @OATUG1

The first ever OATUG event! Which also, was probably the best Welcoming meeting I have been to at COLLABORATE! An outdoor event with the Riverwalk running through it, wonderful Mexican food, and various musicians roaming around playing, was VERY festive!

Happy to be back at COLLABORATE again, enjoying the company of some great people I have met over the years, excited to met new people, and get my hands on some new technology in the process to advance my career just THAT much further!! I will be seeing you in most blog posts over this week, and maybe I will even post after COLLABORATE is over too. :}

Kicking off OAUG's eLearning for 2017!

Hello everybody, I do exist!  Sorry I have been away, but I plan on returning on a more regular basis very soon!!

Anyways, the OAUG is having another great eLearning slate of sessions and none other than yours truly is going to kick it off next Tuesday with my Workflow purging presentation!!  If you are not already a member, make sure you sign up as an individual member or get your company to join and all employees get this amazing benefit.  This gets you ready to attend COLLABORATE17 in Las Vegas in April!!

COLLABORATE17: Accepted!

This year I had a lot going on at COLLABORATE16, and next year seems to be going the same way as my new presentation that was for the ConnectionPoint - Apps Tech conference was selected for COLLABORATE17!  OAUG's COLLABORATE conferences are always jam-packed with information and great networking opportunities so make sure to check out the registration page and sign up before the rates change!!

Register for OAUG's Connection Point - AppsTech conference today!

I may have mentioned that I am presenting at OAUG's Connection Point - AppsTech conference, and it is never too late to register for it!  This will be an online only conference so you do not need to travel at all, and you can check out the great lineup for the event too!!

Presenting again!! OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2016

Hi everybody!!  Have you been wondering what I have been up to lately?  Well, the cat is out of the bag now with the presenter list for the OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2016 conference now online and my brand new presentation "R12: Reducing the data footprint of Oracle E-Business Suite" is listed!!  This is a great honor as this was by invite only, and this project is the one I alluded too earlier in the year in my Happy New Years post which I have been doing work on for quite some time but now I feel confident that I have enough material for a new presentation!  Do not miss this opportunity to learn from a lot of experts in application technology by registering today!!

My COLLABORATE16 schedule!

Are you going to OAUG's COLLABORATE16?  Awesome, me too!!  Here is my schedule of events, and I'm sure you'll be able to find me at many other times and places too.  :}

Sunday

Meeting of the OAUG Members - 4:45 PM - South Seas F - Obviously this is something for all the OAUG members and I'll be there, so it might be a good chance to catch me today!

Monday

Arizona/New Mexico OAUG Kickoff Meeting - 3:15 PM - Mariners AB - I'm the Chairman of this brand new Geo, and tomorrow is our first real meeting (outside of the several phone planning meetings we've had over the past few months)!

Tuesday

Analyzing Oracle Workflow Data for Increased System Performance - 1:00 PM - South Seas A - This is the standard bearer, but the first time I'm bringing it to COLLABORATE!

E-Business Suite R12: Application Lessons Learned for Support and Implementers - 3:30 PM - Breakers B - A "Best of COLLABORATE" from last year makes a return, maybe with a few new surprises in store!

Wednesday

OAUG Upgrade SIG Meeting - 9:15 AM - Reef F - I'm a Board Member of this SIG and will be helping to moderate the panel discussion!

COLLABORATE 16: Accepted for MULTIPLE presentations!!

Last year I had a great experience at the COLLABORATE conference put on by OAUG so this year I was really excited to submit abstracts again and caught by complete surprise when I was accepted for TWO presentations with the third being accepted as an alternate as well!!  There is so much to do and see at a conference like this, from SIGs (Special Interest Groups), GEOs (Geographic regional groups), different ways to interface with Oracle, extra workshop sessions, not to mention all of the awesome presenters with so MUCH content out there!!

Make sure that you register for the conference today to take advantage of Early Bird Pricing through the end of February, and using up any leftover educational funds for the year to make plans for Vegas in April!!

Best of COLLABORATE 15: Me!

A few weeks ago I let you all know about getting selected for the Best of COLLABORATE 15 webinar series for OAUG, but I must tell you that I was kind of nervous with my previous (only) webinar experience being not that great!  This morning I woke up early, got to work really early, made sure nothing was pending so I could rehearse my presentation one last time (part of Tim Hall's presentation tips) so that at 7:45 I was ready for the webinar prep to begin but due to technical difficulties on the organizer's part they did not get online until around 7:55 so the prep was really rushed!  Fortunately, I have had to deal with a few issues while presenting so this really did not throw me for a loop and I was off and running!  Until I got to about slide 3 or 4 that is.  Unfortunately I got stopped by one of the organizers to let me know that the screen had went dead because it seems the person that started the webinar for us left and that caused my presentation to stop sharing out to the participants!  This lead to a few minutes while I scrambled to get my e-mail back open, log back into the webinar, then have to reshare and figure out where I was in the presentation.  It was only a few minutes, but it made me feel rushed through the whole presentation like I had to keep talking and talking without taking a breath, and I am thinking that showed through, but I really hope it did not!  Probably does not help a whole lot that I have felt like I am coming down with a fever the last few days and my throat was sore when I woke up this morning, but I had drank enough fluids this morning so I could get through the session without having to stop and drink at all.

Overall, I think I would score myself around 8.5-9 out of 10 for the webinar because I was able to get through the difficulties and run through all of my information so I feel like the people that joined were able to really get something out of the 50 minutes (even if nobody asked questions afterwards).  I am looking forward to getting into another webinar so I can take the lessons I learned previously and combine it with a chance to run through a presentation without any technical difficulties at all!

Selected for Best of COLLABORATE 15!!

While this week may have started off with the disappointing news about not being selected for Oracle OpenWorld this year, it sure as heck is not ending with disappointment!  Are you an OAUG member?  Did you leave COLLABORATE this year thinking you missed something, or wished that you could have had just a little more learning packed into your conference?  Well look no further than the "Best of COLLABORATE 15" webinar series with about 40 FREE sessions for OAUG members!!  Not only is there that great news, but also I was selected to be part of this awesome assembly to re-present my COLLABORATE 15 session "E-Business Suite R12: Application Lessons Learned for Support and Implementers" via webinar early (for me in Phoenix) Monday morning August 17th at 11:00 ET!!

I look forward to hearing from you about the content I share, what you may have wanted to see instead/also, AND helping me with some pointers if you think there are some things I could do differently the next time I present this (materials, or manner of presentation, etc).

Presenting at COLLABORATE 15 in just two weeks!

Have I mentioned that I will be presenting at COLLABORATE 15 in two weeks!?!  The conference starts on Sunday the 12th and you should start building your schedule now with the app for your phone then check out the new hotel rooms that have been added to the available block for attendees!!  I hope to see you at my session (ID 10174)  "E-Business Suite R12: Application Lessons Learned for Support and Implementers" on Thursday morning at 9:45 in case you are looking for some good content early on the last day!

RMOUG Advanced Pricing ends 1/13

Having been selected to present at the RMOUG Training Days 2015 conference this year, I wanted to remind you that their best pricing rate ends in just a few days!  Do not miss out on this incredible value for two and a half days of conference material from some of the best and brightest in the industry!!

COLLABORATE 15: Accepted!!!

A few months ago I wrote about submitting abstracts for OAUG's COLLABORATE 15 conference and today I received notification for one of my abstracts being accepted!!  Now the clock is ticking for me to flesh out my presentation and start work on the whitepaper, but I have a whole three months to get it done so I will be seeing you in April at the Mandalay Bay!  Get in on the early bird pricing for the conference and the hotels as well!

RMOUG 2015: Presenting!

Last month I let you know about the RMOUG abstracts being open and today I received news that I was accepted to speak there as my first event of 2015!  You can check out the presentations that will be at the event and after that visit the registration page to sign up now to save over $100 on early bird pricing.  Where else can you get two and a half days of premium Oracle technical content for less than $600, and if you sign up now it's just over $400 for a real steal!

I hope to see you there in February!

OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2014: Day 2 - All me!

As expected, today's focus during the OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech conference was giving my presentation but after I gave my presentation I really wanted to see 3 other sessions!  Unfortunately, I learned that a drawback of a virtual conference is being available at work so I was sidetracked from the conference and did not get to attend ANY of the other sessions today!  What else did I learn today?

I learned that depending on technology can let you down when you least expect it.  I practiced my presentation with my Bluetooth earpiece for my phone, and while I made sure to charge it last night, it must have been switched on then or in my pocket on the way to work this morning so it started beeping as soon as the recording started today.  You would think the beeping in my ear would have clued me in to a problem, but the moderator said I would hear a beep when the recording started so I thought the constant beeping was the GoToWebinar product telling me it was recording instead of the battery dying on the earpiece.  Not only was this distracting me a few times every minutes taking me out of my stride, but about 10-15 minutes into the presentation the earpiece totally died so I had to switch to putting my phone on speaker after taking about 30 seconds to realize what just happened.  Also at the beginning of the presentation when the beeping started, I lost another 20-30 seconds trying to figure out what was going on and when the moderator told me that she could hear me I did not give the beeping a second thought.  What a mistake that was!

I also learned that having a presentation with constant bullet points moving in to view leads to a lot of clicking and that can be a problem with a remote presentation tool where it seemed like the first click would just wake up the tool so that my second click would actually advance the slide.  This also helped to take me off stride since at the start of the presentation I never had control until a few bullet points advanced all at once and we were on slide 3 suddenly.  I had a few other times when I had to go back when the first click actually did what I wanted it to!  Options are to get control on my computer locally to avoid this, or modify the presentation to remove the transitions so all of the bullet points show up when I switch to the next slide.

The biggest take away for me is I have to learn how to deal with adversity so I do not let it fluster me.  The beeping, the lack of response from the virtual audience, the change in having to hold my phone halfway during the presentation, and the time I lost dealing with the technical difficulties all contributed to me speeding up my talk and even dropping a few bits of information (intentionally or not) so instead of the 45-50 minutes I rehearsed yesterday became 38 minutes today.

What would I give myself today in terms of a rating?  I would be generous in saying 5.5 out of 10 because of pretty much everything I detailed above!  I was happy to receive a few direct responses letting me know that the performance was not as horrible as I think it was, but I am really determined to up my personal score for the next presentation because it is not anywhere near where I think I should be.  I was really glad that we had about 10 minutes of Q&A because I would have felt really bad for the attendees (around 50 were scheduled) if they had paid for an hour and they only got 2/3 of that.

OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2014: Last Chance!

I have talked about how great of a deal the E-Learning format for the OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2014 is, and I have told you that I am presenting for them (now on Tuesday morning), but this is pretty much your last chance to register for the conference.  Tomorrow at 7 AM PDT/10 AM EDT the first sessions kick off and I really cannot wait to hear some of the presentations!  I hope to "see" you tomorrow, and hear some of your questions during my session's Q&A on Tuesday!

Presentation preparation

Today my post will be not so technical in nature, but I feel it is just as important!  As I have mentioned a few times, I am presenting for OAUG on July 21st and to brush up a bit on my skills I visited Tim Hall's series of posts on presenting today!  I shared something about this before, and I have spotlighted several of Tim's 12c posts before, but I wanted to spotlight this series directly after having a chance to use them to refresh myself.  The best part about these posts by Tim?  You do not need to have a presentation lined up already as several of them are tips about how to get involved or perfect your pitch to get selected!

Celebrate your independence from bad Oracle education!

I said that I would update you when I found out more information about the OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech conference going online, and I just found out that this conference is only going to cost $95 for members, and $135 for non-members, which includes all 18 of the sessions!  With a group rate, you can get training for less than $5 a session, while the regular rate is JUST above $5 a session!  Register now!

OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2014: Back Presenting!

Just a few days ago I told you that the OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2014 was now going to be presented via E-Learning, and that the schedule was full so I would not be able to present.  Well it looks like there have been some changes, as I have heard back from the organizers and I am back on the schedule!  That means that I will get to share my Workflow presentation again on July 21st!

OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2014: Now Online!

I let you know last month that I was selected for the OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech conference in Pittsburgh for the second year in a row, but unfortunately the level of registrations were not near last year's level so the conference has been modified so it is now online only.  As a consequence, the list of presenters has been trimmed down to fit an E-Learning model so I will not be presenting at the conference this year.  I have been told that there will be a fee for the conference, but it has not yet been announced what it is, and when I get more information I will be sure to pass it on to you.

If you were hoping to see me in Pittsburgh, I am sorry about this turn of events but I am sure we will have many more opportunities in the future to meet!

Conference Update: OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech 2014

Last year I was lucky enough to be selected to speak at the inaugural OAUG Connection Point - AppsTech conference in Pittsburgh.  This year?  I submitted several abstracts and it's déjà vu all over again, as I've been selected to speak at the conference this year!!  I hope to see you there in July, for what is sure to be another great line up of speakers and information for the attendees!  I'll continue to share with you about the conference as we get closer to the date, but right now I'm on Cloud 9.  :}

5/6 EDIT:  Added links and labels to the post and minor change to the conference name as "Connection Point" is correct but "ConnectionPoint" is not.  I'm picky, sue me!