There have been a lot of changes in EPM in recent years, particularly in the means and methods of integrating data and metadata. All this change has caused a lot of confusion and in many cases left clients with more questions than answers. A quick overview of the integration sessions being offered this year at Kscope19, show just how varied the toolkit is. In any case, this post will attempt to identify some key sessions that you might want to attend.

Monday

The first integration session of the day (30-Minute Session: Become a RESTful Iron Man with ARC (the Application, Not the Reactor)) is a short one, only 30 minutes but it should be more than enough for a quick deep dive. A lot has moved to REST API's including EPM the last couple years and this talk should be interesting for those that haven't seen it before (Here are a few EPM specific). In any case, if you can grasp JSON, you're half-way there and the REST is just figuring out what endpoints and methods are available. Developers can probably skip this one, but if you have zero exposure to REST this could be a really good session for you.

Next, is a dilemma, two sessions starting at the same time, I'm leaning towards Best Practices for Designing and Building Integrations. My primary motivation would be because I did the EDMCS hands-on last year and I would like to see what kind of stuff others are doing with similar integration challenges.

If you haven't played with EDMCS yet, this could be a great introduction. Peloton did a great job with the EDMCS hands-on last year. Also, although we've heard some grumblings from clients about EDMCS not being enterprise ready yet, it's a pretty neat tool and a drastic departure from DRM.

Tuesday

You are going to have to make a choice, do you want to find out about the future roadmap of data integration or are you just looking to simplify day to day management of your environment. If you're anything like me, you want to see what's coming next, so I would highly recommend Oracle Data Management Update and Roadmap. This is supposed to be an interactive session so if you have feature suggestions with regards to any of the data integration tools or maybe even the REST API this probably the best time to voice them.

It looks like Francisco has brewed up something as follow up his black-belt techniques from last year. Based on its description it's hard to get an idea of what's new in OMG! That's Not in the Books: The Dark Arts of FDMEE & DM but he mentions something called "Data Integration SUI" which I have never heard of. If I had to guess, maybe some kind of data integration management interface but there aren't many details on the KScope site or his blog. In any case, this should be one you don't want to miss, it will probably be one of the more technical integration sessions of the week and he generally shares everything he presents.

Wednesday

This is hard decision, on one hand you have Hands-On Lab: Data Management Hacks to Turn You into a FDMEE Cloud Ninja! with Doug Correa which I am sure will be great. On the other hand Vijay has A Case for a Well Integrated EPM Cloud Solution with Oracle Integration Cloud Services (OICS) which is followed by Kate with EDMCS Application Adapters: Out of the Box and How to Create your Own! Why are these at the same time? :( I generally prefer a hands-on session since I definitely learn by doing but I also feel like I know FDMEE extremely well so I would probably attend more sessions on OICS and EDMCS.

Unless you have a burning question, I would skip the panel, I went the previous two years and I can see where it would have value if you had a specific question but otherwise it seemed to lack value. I would love to see KScope do something similar to NG-Conf where they had a room dedicated to Q&A where attendees could ask questions of speakers who were in the room at that time.

The last integration session of the day is Data Governance in the Cloud: EDMCS vs. DRM. Personally I find Data Governance interesting but I realize there aren't a lot of clients that have DRM let alone DRG and probably even fewer with EDMCS.

Thursday

It is the only integration session of the day, so if you can manage to get out of bed after Wednesday night (not judging), you will want to be at the Deep Dive: EPM Data Integration. This one promises to send you home with tips and tricks you can use when you get back to the office. Looking at the ensemble cast it should not disappoint.

If you are attending and would like to speak to someone from Tevpro, please reach out to Faraz or Cortney. Also you may want to take a look at the Kscope 2019 Preview of Essbase. Well that's it for me, I will miss you all this year but hope to be back next year. Have fun.