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        Flexibility is the biggest selling point that we have over our larger rivals. We give our clients the freedom needed to thrive in today’s fast-paced business world, organisations say to us that they often see higher quality work from independent consultants like us, this reason is the primary motivator when choosing us over a big firm. This means that we have the same skills and experience as the big firms, with added freedom and flexibility to let us focus and resolve client requirements.

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        Future-focused predictions for 2025

        Although none of us can predict the future with certainty, it is our collective duty to consider the potential outcomes and make preparations for them. That involves putting the necessary people and technology in place now so that the financial function can benefit from the impending disruption. Without a clear financial vision and strategy in a digital environment, that is unlikely to occur. It's time to take a step back and make sure you have a clear plan for that future. Here are 3 predictions:


        1- Self-service becomes commonplace


        When it comes to fundamental procedures like business processes, many businesspeople don't require assistance. They would be delighted to have a digital voice on their smartphones respond to their inquiries. Report generation, budget queries, and other tasks will all be automated. As time goes on, intelligent agents will discover the kind of business data that each person requires and provide it in a proactive manner. Spreadsheet data will eventually give way to visually appealing, easily navigable, and intuitively accessible information.
        Getting self-service right is crucial since your company is expecting more and more responsiveness and quality. The last thing you want is for your consumers to be irritated or upset whenyou are responsible for taking care of themselves.

        2.Standardization will result from the proliferation of APIs
        Few businesses are putting in the effort required to integrate and harmonize data, which prevents them from reaping the benefits of digital transformation. Those looking for a magic solution to their data issues will be let down. The labour will still be difficult and time-consuming, but automation and cognitive processes will make it easier. What are we discussing? Data-entry fields, nomenclature, commas, and hundreds of other related elements. It's neither glitzy nor glamorous. However, it is significant.
        For many CFOs, data issues lurk beneath the surface, and some are unaware of the amount of work needed to fulfill their objectives. This is due in part to the technical nature of the problems and in part to the lack of incentive for personnel to bring them to the attention of the corner office. Nobody wants to be the one to deliver terrible news.

        3. AI Cloud Revolution will force enterprise to be multi cloud.

        Even if cloud providers are already incorporating digital technologies like blockchain, automation, and cognitive tools into their offerings, competition will still exist. As unique quantifiable internal business developments (with Copilot) enter the market with specialized applications and microservices that sit on top of—and interface with the cloud platforms, expect the landscape to change.

        Enterprise is about to enter a technological golden era. Applications, microservices, banking, and finance will all grow in popularity as multi cloud computing becomes the standard. You will be able to lower technology's cost , complexity without compromising its usefulness and vendor lockin.

         

         

         

         

        Sharing my favorite top 20 Mac shortcuts

         

        These shortcuts make me save more time at work. Try them out and see the difference they’ll make:

        1. Open the Spotlight Search Tool

        Command + Space bar

        This is perhaps the most helpful Mac shortcut of all. Anytime you search for a file on your Mac, use this keyboard shortcut and type the file’s name. The result is instant. Also, Spotlight will search through bookmarks, iMessages, and all the files on your hard drive. This shortcut also offers a quick way to find and open applications that aren’t on your dock.

        2. Quit Any Application

        Command + Q

        You can use this keyboard shortcut to shut down any application immediately. Remember, this Mac shortcut doesn’t just minimize applications – it completely shuts down the apps.

        3. Switch Between Different Windows in an Application

        Command key + ∼

        This Mac shortcut makes doing research a lot easier. For instance, if you have three documents open from the Apple Pages app, one with a research document, another with your draft, and the other with your notes. This shortcut lets you switch easily between the three documents. It is helpful, especially when you’re working on a MacBook with a small screen.

        4. Switch Quickly Between Active Applications

        Command + Tab

        When you press and hold the Command and then tap the Tab button, this opens the App Switcher, letting you switch between all active applications with the Tab button.

        5. Force-Quit an Application

        Command + Option + Q

        If an application is locked up, and the Command + Q shortcut isn’t working, you can use this Mac shortcut to force the application to quit.

        6. Record the Screen or Take Screenshots

        • Command + Shift + 4: This Mac shortcut screenshots a particular area of your screen with the help of the rectangular cropping tool. This shortcut is ideal for sharing snippets of text or images with your target audience on social media.
        • Command + Shift + 5: Starting with macOS Mojave, Apple makes it easy to view all the screenshot tools at once using this keyboard shortcut. When you press this shortcut, you’ll see a toolbar that gives you the options for capturing your entire screen, capturing a particular portion of a window, or capturing a specific window. 

        7. Address or Search Bar (on Safari)

        Command + L

        Reaching for the mouse to activate Safari’s address or search bar wastes a ton of time. But when you use this keyboard shortcut in Safari, your cursor will jump up to your search bar, where you can type a URL or a search term. 

        Safari has some other brilliant keyboard shortcuts, including the Command + T shortcut, which opens a new tab, and the Command + Z keyboard shortcut, which reopens the last tab you accidentally closed. 

        8. Instantly Lock Your Mac Device

        Command + Control + Q

        If you want to step away from your desk at the office or home office and you don’t want anyone snooping around on your Mac device, use this shortcut to immediately lock your screen. This is a lot faster than switching to a lock screen using the menu bar. 

        9. Move Files to a Folder

        Command + Control + N

        If you have a lot of files saved on your desktop and you want to move them to a new folder, this Mac shortcut can help you out. You just need to select all the files you want to move and then press Command + Control + N to move the selected files to a new folder.

        10. Preview Files Using Quick Look

        Click + Space bar

        If you wish to see what a file looks like but don’t want to waste a ton of time opening the associated application, select the file in the Finder folder. Then, press and hold the spacebar. Also, this works with files saved on the desktop. A Full-page preview will appear alongside Markup options. This works perfectly with everything from Microsoft Excel files and images to PDFs.

        11. Display Sleep

        Control + Shift + Power button

        Use this shortcut to turn off your Mac’s display without shutting down the entire system. It’s your best bet when you need to preserve privacy, save energy, or take a short break without disrupting ongoing processes like downloads or active applications. The system will continue to run in the background.

        12. Show/Hide the Dock

        Option + Command + D

        This shortcut allows you to show or hide the Dock, providing more screen real estate when needed. It’s particularly helpful when working in applications that benefit from a larger display area or when aiming to reduce on-screen distractions.

        13. Create Duplicate Files

        Command + D

        Need a backup of that important file? Or maybe you’re experimenting with different versions of a document? This shortcut lets you quickly create a copy to save the hassle of manual copying and pasting.

        14. Get File Information

        Command + I

        Get detailed information about files or folders, like size, type, and modification date, quickly and without the need to open additional windows or applications.

        15. Open Recents Folder

        Shift + Command + R

        Navigating back to your recently accessed files can often be a hassle, especially when working on multiple projects.

        The Shift + Command + R shortcut simplifies this by instantly opening the Recents folder on your Mac. This folder is a dynamic space that automatically updates with the files and documents you’ve worked on recently to save the time and effort of manually searching through your directories.

        16. App Switcher

        Command + Tab

        Do you need to switch between applications quickly? The Command + Tab shortcut activates the App Switcher, which displays all your active applications, allowing you to navigate between them seamlessly. This shortcut is especially useful for multitaskers who frequently alternate between different programs.

        17. Paste Without Formatting

        Command + Shift + V

        This shortcut is for Paste and Match Style (or Paste and Match Formatting).

        It pastes the copied content (text, for example) into a new location while matching the formatting of the destination. For instance, if you copy text from a web page (which may have specific fonts, sizes, and colors) and use this shortcut in a word processor, the pasted text will adopt the formatting of the rest of the document in the word processor, rather than retaining its original web formatting.

        18. Dictionary Lookup

        Control + Command + D

        This shortcut is used for looking up the definition of a word. When you hover your cursor over a word in a text and press these keys, a small popup appears, providing the definition, synonyms, and sometimes even Wikipedia excerpts related to that word.

        It is incredibly useful for quickly accessing dictionary information without interrupting your workflow. The shortcut enhances productivity, especially for writers, researchers, or users who frequently work with text and need to understand or clarify terminology efficiently.

        19. Select All Items

        Command + A

        This Mac shortcut selects all the items or text in the current window or application. It is so handy when you want to quickly select everything in a document, a webpage, or a list of files in a folder.

        For example, if you’re working in a word processor and press Command + A, it will highlight all the text in your document. This makes it easy to apply changes to the entire content or to copy and paste everything into another document.

        20. Find Misspelled Words

        Command + semi-colon (;)

        You can use this shortcut in word processing programs like Microsoft Word and Apple Pages to cycle through misspelled words in a document. When you press this key combination, the cursor jumps to the next word that the program’s spell check function has flagged as potentially incorrect.

        This way, you can quickly review and correct spelling errors in your document and streamline the editing process and ensuring your work is free from common spelling mistakes.

        Got early access Alpha to GPT4

        Chatgpt moving well , search is getting better, Google still being the leader in AI, should be very careful, the new version will hurt them:

        Here is why Google should be careful , 4 reasons

        1- With Alpha mode, Web Browsing with GPT-4 is OpenAI's most advanced model, gives ChatGPT real-time data access to the web.

        2- Provides stock analysis

        3- You can ask it for reviews for products you planned to purchase or you want to buy

        4- Cites sources

        Have a great Sunday

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        Business & Technology Consulting

        We offer clients specialised consulting in areas that we deeply understand. Our services include:

        • - Skills To Envision, Design And Develop Enterprise Apps
        • - Talent For SaaS/PaaS/IaaS In The Cloud
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  • Business Intelligence should not be Hype, use it to answer these 4 golden rules, I included an explanation of the OBIEE Design Architecture with step by step approach to building Reports.

Business Intelligence should not be Hype, use it to answer these 4 golden rules, I included an explanation of the OBIEE Design Architecture with step by step approach to building Reports.

by Alex Antonatos
on 19 October 2018

BI should provide users the data and tools to answer questions that are important to running the part of the business you are responsible for

  1. Determine if the business is on track
  2. Identify where things are going wrong
  3. Take and monitor corrective actions
  4. Spot trends

Below is the OBIEE Standalone Architecture and an overview of its components

 OBIEE Architecture

  • Data Source --Contain the business data, users want to analyze. OBI supports Relational Database, OLAP databases, Flat Files, Spreadsheets, XML files etc .
  • OBI Web Server-- Provides the processing to visualize the information for client consumption.
  • Clients
    • Answers--Provides a self-service analysis platform for analytical needs.
    • Dashboards—Provides a way to organize related information for easy access.
    • Delivers---Used to create Ibots. Delivers alerts to subscribed users. It is integrated with dashboards and answers.
    • BI Analytical Server--- Provides efficient processing , generates dynamic SQL to query data base iin the data sources, structures results to satisfy requests.
    • BI Scheduler---Manages and executes jobs requesting data analytics. Schedules reports to be delivered to users at specified times.

Last week received the following support email

From: **********************************
Sent: March 25, 2013 2:29 PM
To: Alex Antonatos
Subject: OBIEE reports with Answers

Hi Alex,

I am a regular reader of your blog, great website and thank you for sharing your experiences.

We have installed OBIEE and new to BI Answers trying to understand how to create reports with Answers. Can you help us understand the steps required in deploying procurement spent report with Oracle Answers.                                                    

Sincerely,

*******************

*******************

Step by Step approach in building BI reports using Answers

Oracle BI Answers is the Oracle BI interface used to query the organization’s data. They provide answers to business questions. It allows you to explore and interact with information, and present and visualize information using different views.

Answers can be accessed by using URL default area http://OBIServer/analytics/saw.dll?Answers

Step 1: Arrow mark indicates the subject areas accessed by the current user. In my current example I am using Purchasing to respond to the support email above.

 Step 1- BI Answers

Step 2: Once click on the subject area displays the related tables and columns in left side pane

 Step 2- Bi Answers

Step 3: Select the columns from the left side pane.

Step 3- Bi Answers

Step 4: Select the columns from the left side pane.

 Step 4- Bi Answers

Step 5: Save the results in the required folders

 Step 5 - Bi Answers

Then you can view reports in various formats. By selecting the type of report from the drop down, then it will generate the report in that view.

 Sample BI Output

Like always, don’t hesitate to share your experiences/tips with me and the website readers on OBIEE

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