22 OCW Inoapps Oracle ME Award

My highlight of OCW22 was presenting our award winning My Contractor, a showcase of Oracle ME (My Experience).

Earlier this year Oracle launched Oracle ME, part of Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM, helps employers create supportive, tailored employee experiences that meet workers where they are and take them where they want to be.

Chris Leone launching Oracle ME

The platform has won several industry awards and Oracle are rightly proud of it and the difference it can make. If you missed the original launch you can see it here.

I'm not going to go into all the components, simply follow the Oracle link above, but I will comment on what I think it means for organisations using Oracle HCM.

Cloud Applications cannot be customised, and originally we felt that meant beyond configuration and personalisation you had to leave it alone.

#PaaS4Saas introduced the ability to extend the applications, build alongside the application and co-exist. More about this in the next post.

Oracle ME allows extensions for the application IN the application. It doesn't change the  security, but the way in which the end user interacts. A part of Oracle ME is Journeys that had been introduced a year before. Oracle asked me if I wanted to do a session for partners and I jumped at the idea. This was followed by a session for Customer Connect and several usergroup sessions.

So when the full platform was announced back in April and our own HRD said she wanted now! (Inoapps use Oracle SaaS) I issued a note of caution and gave a presentation internally about the maturity of the components and my excitement to use it. I love what I call 'mind the  Gap' , identifying where innovation is behind the marketing and how quickly are customers adopting. In on-premise days this could be years but with Cloud things happen much more quickly. Digital Assistants (another component of Oracle ME) being one of the  fastest I have seen.

So I started a proof of concept on Oracle ME and worked with our HCM practice especially Jen Mitchell who leads in the US on what we could do. We looked a few use cases and I presented at Breakthrough 4D and using the access to Product Development I have through the Oracle ACE program sat down and dug deep into the platform.

Then Oracle launched a partner competition, where the best partner showcases of Oracle ME would be promoted and presented at Oracle Cloud World. I have worked with oracle for 27 years and never seen a competition like this and I was in.

Inoapps saw the value, we wanted to use the capability and no doubt our customers would too. Digital Assistant, Journeys and HR Helpdesk are often included in projects so bringing them together with new functionality to give us this platform for extending the experience is a great opportunity. We brain stormed for our submission and decided on the Contractor Experience. Could the platform enable us to address some of the challenges we see with many customers who have a high reliance on Contractors?

The competition was based on the Dragons Den or Shark Tank model. We had to pitch initial idea to HCM Development and then to HCM Strategy. I knew we were on the right track when my 45 minute appointment during Breakthrough 4D with Nancy and Yvonne in Oracle Strategy latest almost 3 hours, discussing the use case and approach. The connection with product development continued as we worked on some of the  newer capabilities and slowly our solution came to life.

Now there was more to show we pitched to Oracle Field Sales group and then just six weeks before Cloud World we had a final pitch to a room full (or zoom screen full) of Oracle Execs across many disciplines. 

Then a few weeks later we were told we were a winner but to keep it quiet. I was so excited, whilst I led the project, Jen and her team of experts did the work and our marketing team worked on the assets. this was a real team effort. Now all we had to do was get ready for the big event.

I needed a short video for our booth, plus a walked through demo, and a 15 minute presentation. That doesn't sound a long time but it is actually more difficult to condense your message into a short presentation and even shorter video. But who doesn't like a deadline? I was in my element.

Oracle decided on 3 winners and we were acknowledged in Chris Leone's HCM keynote and received a lovely glass award. I got to present with Nancy in her session with almost 200 in the  room and streamed to an overflow room.

Our use case was to showcase our solution MyContractor but also the possibilities of the Oracle ME platform.

Then after presenting I worked with the Oracle UX team giving feedback on my use of the platform and my thoughts on adoption. This was followed up with a longer session with them when I got home.

Next we will give a full presentation for Customer Connect and produce content for the  Resource Centre.

Congratulations to the other winners.

22 OCW Inoapps on Tour

This was my first big event with Inoapps. They were Gold Sponsors of OCW and had a good stand near the  keynote room and amongst the big guys, so we stood out. 

On our stand we had a shoeshine, perhaps a nod to the past of professional services, how many people wear leather shoes today? But it was popular and many people said if they had known they would have worn them, they are bored of trainers and like how dressing properly makes them feel. Me I packed two pairs of boots and they look amazing.

At the  other end of the scale we sponsors the DJ booth by registration. People walked past several times a day and had the chance to request music and many times we saw people dancing. Inoapps, caters for all.

As well as the stand we had a speaking session where our CEO and founder Andy Bird, along with board member Lyle Ekdahl and an amazing customer Tobie Engels from Equitrans Midstream. They talked about the reality of moving to the Cloud, and their Q&A session was moderated by Bob Evans of Cloud Wars (if you don't follow Cloud Wars you should).

The session was full, although I felt the rooms for the conference were quite small. 100 people is not a lot for this size of conference. That said, the questions flowed. Surprisingly the number one question was all about the update cadence. We see this all the time with customer before or just starting their journey, but half of our room said they had been on Cloud for a while.

Oracle had lots of customer stories and this is what people want to hear and I think this session was even more popular as it was unscripted and total driven by questions. I know it was appreciated by those who attended, Oracle scheduled the session after they opened the bar in the exhibition and being the last session there was no rush to leave the room and people asked questions way beyond the end time.

There is no better endorsement than a happy customer who will share their story. Thank you Tobie.

We had another presentation for our Oracle ME Award but that's in another post.

Like many partners we had a customer event on the Tuesday and held this at a cocktail bar in the hotel. We recently adopted Transform - Optimize - Innovate as a strap line and had 3 signature cocktails to celebrate. Lots of existing and hopefully new customers as well as Oracle people joined us for a fun evening.

Back to main post:

22 OCW Even The Travel

I have often written a travelogue alongside a blog post for an event, and after almost 3 years here is a new one.

Travel has NOT returned to normal, shortage of staff at all airports is causing my difficulties and in my main hub, Heathrow, it resulted in passenger number caps. In order to comply airlines have removed many flights from their schedules and for me living in N Ireland the cap means only 3 flights a day instead of the normal 7. That is bad enough but demand for those flights has seen prices rocket, and with flights almost twice the cost of last year it isn't the airlines that are suffering. For me this has meant either long lay overs in Heathrow or being forced to travel from Dublin with a 2 and half hour drive or taxi each way. I am getting used to it but it has taken much of the fun out of travel.

For OCW, I started on an early flight to Heathrow and settled into the British Airways lounge for my almost 7 hour wait. I was not travelling business class but since i have the status I did have lounge access. Luckily for me Abi Giles-Haigh was on the same flight to Vegas and when she arrived from her first leg, she joined me for the wait. 

It would have been rude not to make the most of it.

The flight to Vegas was non eventful, the plane was crowded and not particularly comfortable, I didn't get any sleep but I did watch the Top Gun sequel to while away some of the time. On arrival I was so pleased to have Global Entry and fly through immigration only to have to wait almost an hour for my bags.

For some reason Oracle housing said you had to check into the venetian at the Palazzo Tower which meant dragging two large suitcases (one full of company swag), across carpets and 2 casinos, only to be told when checking in that my room was in Venezia Tower, back where I started! And then I kid you not my room was as far away as possible from the  convention centre. No problem getting my steps in at this event.

That all said I had nice room and got myself settled for the  next week.

Fast forward a week and it was time to go home. I was flying out Saturday and had Sai Penumuru as my guest in the  lounge at Vegas. It sounds like I am proud of being a benefactor in this way, but actually I just love having someone to hang out with and get my moneys worth from the airlines.

The flight back to London was pretty good, and I slept for almost 2 thirds of it, so I was happy. We landed about 3pm on Sunday and I said goodbye to Sai as he ran through immigration and security to get his flight home, but I, true to form had a long layover till 7.30pm. So back to the lounge.

I didn't really notice the thunderstorm, I was so tired but another friend messaged me to say was i getting home? Of course I said, all on time, and it was at that point. The storms were followed by a beautiful sunset and then just as I was expecting the gate number to come up, they cancelled all short haul flights. As it was due to weather their only need was to give me a new flight, which I had to do online.

On leaving the lounge the queue to exit the terminal was horrendous, everyone having to be checked out by security. If you know Heathrow Terminal 5 the queue snaked around the entire area. I did however get a hint from a member of staff who told me to get a shuttle train out to the far gates and back again which would take me to main exit and bypass the queue. It was worth the  20 minute detour as I later heard people saying it took over 2 hours to get out.

Luckily I stay at Heathrow a lot and was able to book a hotel without much problem and got into my room 3 hours after the  flight was cancelled.

Luckily my status gave me priority and I got the first flight home in the morning, but that was delayed and as expected my luggage wasn't as lucky.  So I got home 36 hours after I left my Vegas Hotel and my luggage another 10. I wonder how long it will take for my claim?

Oh how I have missed travel.

Back to main post:

The Importance of Face to Face #JoelKallmanDay

I love this day - renamed to remember one of the best exponents of community ever - Joel Kallman.

In the Oracle world, user groups are the heart of community and they have had a hard time - not just during the pandemic, but even before, numbers were falling.

There is no one reason why but a big part in my opinion is generational. I'm old, I learnt from people, face to face, at school, my first programming language, consultancy skills, even when I finally tried post school education, I did that face to face.

My superstar graduate needed to learn something 15 years ago, I went off to look for a training course and he came back to me and said 'I've done it, I found something online'. That is great, but the theory he learnt was bolstered by working side by side with people in the office and with customers.

So as people looked more and more to the web for education, face to face events were less the obvious choice. User groups added online content but it is so difficult to provide content that has to be funded by membership fees when organisations simply push it out themselves for free.

Don't get me wrong, online is really important, and how would we have survived the pandemic without zoom, teams, etc - user groups had to switch to all virtual content, and with many relying on their annual events for funding, it has been hard.

I wrote about in-person events last year, but I have been thinking about it even more.

Events are back, some are still all virtual, some in person and many hybrid. Even Oracle's Cloud World is hybrid. 

But people are fighting back. We are social creatures and we want to see people, but being with people for the sake of it, or as in my case for the sake of a hug, is not enough of a reason. Many organizations are not back to being in an office full time and may never be, so at first glance along with a very difficult economy - sending people to in-person events may still be off the cards.

But go back to my graduate. He learnt on-line but needed the osmosis effect of working with people to solidify those skills. Many of us have changed jobs in the last few years, being onboarded remotely and doing so more from home. It works but we are missing that osmosis and actually spending time with peers and learning from what others are doing may be the 'top up' we all need. 

So talk to your boss, explain why you think being part of a community is so important, and make a special effort to be part of a user group community and if you can, attend in person, I promise you won't regret it.

Please Vote for ME - Give me a chance to make a difference

 

Last year I was elected to the board of ODTUG. I tried the year before but in such a popular and thriving community the choice of people to vote for is high.

Anyway, you voted for me, thank-you.

A few year's ago ODTUG changed their governance model so that board members had a term of 3 years, however it took a couple of years for that to filter in and so my initial term was only 12 months. That isn't a lot to make a difference, but I believe my fellow board members would say I bring board / user group experience and Oracle organization knowledge to the table.

This year KSCOPE happened, against the backdrop of coming out of Covid and the increasing costs at every turn. Did we get it right? Yes we did, everyone who attended got something out of KSCOPE.  

Every news bulletin talks about the cost of living and how people have to make tough choices, and we did, and it left us in the situation that we delivered KSCOPE and can continue to rebuild it. 

Could we have done better? Yes, we learnt tea and coffee were paramount and I promise whoever you vote for that is already sorted for next year. The conference committee and board are very clear on that. Members gave feedback and we have listened.

So I am asking for you to vote for me again. I want to continue to fulfil the pledges I gave last year and make a difference to ODTUG.

Again there are 6 good candidates, please look at them and decide who your valuable votes will go to. What is important to the the good running of the organisation; all the communities.

'C 'to the power of many - a quick look back at KSCOPE22

My June conference season is over. 3 weeks back to back, and it finished with KSCOPE22. The conference of ODTUG for whom I am a board member. My UKOUG board experience meant I knew what I was letting myself in for, and as expected is was non stop.

ODTUG Board 2021-22

As I made a list of things to include in this blog I realised most began or could begin with 'C', so as KSCOPE is all about empowering those attending, 'C' to the power of many seemed a good title.

Composition - ODTUG serves 4 communities - APEX , Database, EPM & Analytics - 

At first glance, what is in this for me? Well I dabble in solution architecture and need to know a bit more than just the applications I work with. Also extending around the applications, the development of these extensions is my dream for the Modern Apps Development Track within the Database, The OCI tools plus the APEX, EPM and Analytics we use.

At the last KSCOPE we had good content but very few attendees in this area. This year the sessions were  better attended. Not necessarily attending just for this, but crossing streams and that is something I really encourage.

Coming Together - the week started for me with a full day board meeting. Planning for 2023 has already started, and there is more than that to plan and strategise on. Being all together gives us the chance to spend a full day in person.

Carpet - the location was the Gaylord Resort at Grapevine Texas, and there was no forgetting where you were with a bright colour carpet to remind you. in the conference centre. 

Community Service Day - it makes the week long, but many people give up their weekend and start Saturday with giving back. This year we helped at the thrift store process for GRACE, a local organisation supporting those in need. It was very hot and although we only worked for a couple of hours we got a lot done. Michelle Hardwick and I priced more Christmas decorations than I ever want to see again.

Conference Keynote - after the board said their bit , Tim Tow, a great friend but also Chief Geek of AppliedOLAP who where the Titanium sponsor spoke and then introduced the motivational speaker - Miral Kotb - ILuminate wow, she never gives up and almost uses setbacks to refuel her ambition. Simply amazing. She talked about us all 'being artists of code' a term I heard repeated many times during the week, but all those of us who are adopting it. Here is another link if you are interested.

Congratulations - during the keynote Karen Cannell, VP and Conference Chair announced that the Oracle Contributor Award from ODTUG would be renamed to Joel Kallman Oracle Contributor Award in honour of Joel, and that Jennifer Nicholson , who manages the Oracle ACE Program and some of the many user groups would be the first recipient. Jen and not yet arrived so Karen asked everyone to keep the secret. Despite a couple of almost slip ups, the secret held and Jen was presented her award at the ACE reception.

Community within a Community - The ACE program in the early days got together at KSCOPE and it has always been seen as a home for us. This was our first get together since OOW 2019, and it was just amazing to hug everyone and catch up. IT was also good to have some alumni, great ACE Directors who are now at Oracle like Connor, Doug, Scott & Michelle. 

Can't Eat it All - I also attended a Texan BBQ with some of the ACES and Jen, and learnt that whilst portions may be bigger in Texas, my capacity to eat more is not!

Can't Dance - Later in the week we would be Celebrating 25 years of ODTUG, and as this is Texas there would be dancing. They had 2 step lessons on Monday evening and a fair group (mainly us from overseas) took part. It was great fun but not sure I moved from useless along the scale very much.

Contributors - the sponsors and exhibitors are what makes the event possible, it was great to talk to them about their products and services, and for me several conversations about how that might add value in my world of the apps.

Content - Sunday is Symposium Day, each community has an in depth look at what is coming from Oracle or community speakers. 

Then 3 days of full program finishing with Hands On Labs or special Sessions on Thursday. I couldn't attend as many as I wanted as I had board duties but learnt so much from those I did,

The speakers were amazing, I can't highlight them all but I do want to call out Abi who stepped in to run a Thursday deep dive at the last minute and Ruben who agreed to do a Digital Assistant session in the MAD track.

Challenge Coin - I was presented with an APEX challenge coin, this is an amazing honour. I do not know who sponsored me but thank you. Adrian Png who runs the program said it was to do with blogs supporting the community as use of APEX.

Celebrating Diversity - The Women in IT lunch was a great opportunity to talk with other attendees and had a good sprinkling of men. I think there needs to be more but we can work on that. My group talked about how Covid may have changed the dynamics, in many different ways.

My WIT Table ladies

Celebrating our Silver Anniversary - the party, so we dressed in silver and I loved it. The dance lessons didn't help but never mind.

Connor McDonald and I in our best silver

Collaboration - One of the biggest values of ODTUG is how close they are to Oracle Product Managers and the board and community leads had meetings with each group to understand how that can grow even more in the future. The list of those attending from Oracle was unbelievable and all of them presented to their communities. These are the people who build the products, not salesmen or marketing.

Controversial? - The APEX v Visual Builder question was explored again. I talked more to product management and I started (will finish) an Oracle Live Lab on Visual Builder. As my colleague Dermot says, time for another look. I speak on the value of VB for extending SaaS and need to update that presentation. My talk at this conference was on what Inoapps have learnt extend at scale, creating SaaS products to extend Oracle's.

Cary Millsap - Cary gave an in-depth look at performance, based on his book FASTER. I knew there was a story from me in the book, he had my permission and I had read the pdf last year. The book contains > 100 quick stories that explain how to improve system performance. What I didn't know was that the book cover was a simple picture explaining the problem depicted in my story. 

Certifications - Michelle Malcher held exam krams and I am pleased to say I passed the Data Management Associate exam this morning.

I also worked my way through a hands on lab for Fusion Analytics Warehouse, so the training was pretty intense at times.

Catching Up with Friends - I can't list them all but it was so fantastic to meet old friends, catch up and meet new friends. 

Clap, Clap Hard - thanks to everyone who attended, the sponsors, exhibitors, presenters and attendees. Thanks for all the learning and conversation and thanks to YCC the team behind the logistics who pulled off another amazing conference. 

Continues - Next year KSCOPE is in Aurora, Colorado 25th June 2023 - see you there.

 

As KSCOPE Kicks Off A quick look back at Blueprint4D & ASCEND 2022

 In an earlier post I talked about my busy conference season. Almost done, but I've kept the best for last - KSCOPE (I am on the board of ODTUG and my interest is the technology we use to extend SaaS, VBCS, APEX, OCI, ODA etc etc.). 

Actually that is an unfair claim, user groups have a specific audience and which one is right for you is your choice, but do be a member of at least one. Just yesterday a friend posted this on twitter - I don't know the context but boy do I agree.

So let's look at the other two I have just attended, Blueprint4D and ASCEND, both in Vegas.

First up was Blueprint4D, the QUEST event at the MGM Grand.

I have always loved QUEST and this event did not disappoint. There were a lot of sessions on Fusion that I attended and learnt from. Learning more direct from Oracle Development on HCM My Experience, which is timely as I was preventing on my take of this exciting new area. I spent many hours discussing our thoughts and plans for ME with HCM strategy.

QUEST represents JDE, PeopleSoft and Fusion plus the technology previously covered by IOUG. The JDE lead, Gary Grieshaber also has responsibility for some industries in Fusion JDE, so it was really interesting to hear his take on JDE & PeopleSoft customers who want to make the move.

For years I have had the pleasure of sharing time and sometimes lodgings with other former female usergroup leaders (and more importantly such friends), and this year was no different, apart from the amount of catch up required. 

Sue Shaw led a workshop on the Stairway to Cloud, well attended and great questions. Sue uses a decision chart (with my permission) on what to consider when deciding your next move and that chart is part of my still most popular presentation, exploring whether to stay on premise, use OCI, move to Fusion or a hybrid approach.

Michelle Malcher is also at all 3 conferences, holding exam cram sessions for various OCI and Database exams. 

At the end of the event the 3 of us had a tiny girly weekend and had the chance to go see Sting, which was excellent.

Then a quick move to the ARIA for ASCEND. OATUG & OHUG event. This covers EBS and Fusion as well as some PeopleSoft and EPM. There is a fair bit of AppsTech which is great as I love this.

A couple of months ago at UKOUG Scotland, I rekindled my EBS knowledge, spending a lot of time with Nadia Bendjedou and I shared that in an earlier post. I was able to follow up with Nadia, meet with her boss Cliff Godwin and spend time with Jeanne Lowell, talking all things EBS and when it does make sense for an org to move to Fusion Cloud. I really wished I could get my session mentioned above included in this conference it was so relevant to the whole audience, but competition was so high and I never got any paper accepted. I did offer to step in for onsite drop outs but it never happened. Perhaps next year.

I kicked off my ASCEND by attending one of Michelle's exam krams and if I ever find time may give Data Management a go, it is a new certification.

ASCEND had a motivational speaker who talked about being your own rockstar. It was high energy and thought provoking the key to a good motivational talk. I love this picture as if you weren't there you have no idea what he is talking about. But Marvellous Mark was great and you can get some of it on his website

On the Fusion side, my awesome friend Floyd Teter (Customer Connect fame) was there, talking more about journeys and I learnt so much more. Floyd included me in his sessions and allowed me to talk about my experience and thoughts. I met again with strategy including Prabu Iyer were we discussed APEX v VBCS. The answer I think will be hybrid as both give value depending on customer preference, skills and use case.

I also stepped up and gave a partner comment on the Rapid4Cloud session. We use this tool in our implementations it saves so much time and opportunity for error. 

All too soon it was time to say goodbye to so many friends and new contacts and time to join the travel chaos and make my way to Dallas for KSCOPE.

Amazing was meeting up with so many friends and making new ones, and meeting on the dance floor an old colleague I had no idea would be there. Awesome.

Lucia Jarrett, what an awesome surprise