https://www.jasonwjones.com/ software from the trenches en-US Wed, 28 Oct 2026 21:57:24 +0000 https://www.jasonwjones.com/2026/10/thriller-mdx-over-jdbc/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2026/10/thriller-mdx-over-jdbc/ Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Ten years ago this month, I wrote about running MDX queries through a JDBC driver, and the “(for fun?)” in that title was doing a lot of work. It started with a phone call from Brian Marshall while I was waiting at Boston Logan for my flight home, during which I said something like “you could… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2026/10/bring-your-own-context/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2026/10/bring-your-own-context/ Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Let me be upfront: on-premises Hyperion Planning is old software. It predates Oracle buying Hyperion, Oracle’s future for Planning is the cloud, and there isn’t really an on-prem product left to move to. I’m not under any illusion that it’s modern. But a customer still runs it, on 11.2, and… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2026/10/opting-into-simplicity/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2026/10/opting-into-simplicity/ Wed, 14 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000 This blog turns nineteen next month. Where did the time go?! https://www.jasonwjones.com/2026/09/essterm-now-open-source/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2026/09/essterm-now-open-source/ Thu, 24 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Back in 2017 I introduced Essterm, a terminal-based ad hoc client for Essbase, by asking whether you had ever wished you could do multi-dimensional analysis in a terminal, the way the Pilgrims did it. I also said I would probably release it as open source “sometime later this year.” https://www.jasonwjones.com/2025/04/the-fusion-of-essbase-and-ai/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2025/04/the-fusion-of-essbase-and-ai/ Thu, 03 Apr 2025 21:30:53 +0000 I will presenting at Kscope25 this year. Usually I present on an established technology or feature, such as how to use the Essbase REST API, advanced drill-through techniques, or containerizing Essbase with Docker. But this year I really wanted to look forward, not back, and what better way than to… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2022/09/the-complete-guide-to-essbase-21-on-docker/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2022/09/the-complete-guide-to-essbase-21-on-docker/ Fri, 23 Sep 2022 15:31:12 +0000 This post will be something of a followup to my Kscope22 presentation on creating an Essbase 21 Docker image. Back in June during the presentation, I mentioned that while the images I had created prior to the conference were working fine, when I went to rebuild them for purposes of confirming the… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/12/simple-docker-compose-file-for-essbase/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/12/simple-docker-compose-file-for-essbase/ Wed, 04 Dec 2019 06:04:32 +0000 I’m working on a few things and some future blog posts and as with many of the things I am doing these days, I am using a Dockerized Essbase server. If you or your company has successfully followed the steps as laid out in the docker-essbase GitHub repository, then you have a Docker image for […] https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/11/dodeca-hfm-connector-getting-started/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/11/dodeca-hfm-connector-getting-started/ Tue, 12 Nov 2019 17:57:00 +0000 Dodeca Spreadsheet Management System customers have been asking for HFM support for quite some time (some for years!) – and now we have it. For the last few months we have been testing out the new Dodeca HFM Connector with very compelling results. In order to understand how to use this new… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/10/drillbridge-3-4-6-token-enhancements-join-character-and-line-removal/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/10/drillbridge-3-4-6-token-enhancements-join-character-and-line-removal/ Wed, 23 Oct 2019 14:49:49 +0000 Drillbridge 3.4.6 will be publicly released soon. It contains a couple of enhancements to give developers even more control over the way their queries are generated. For each token, you can now optionally specify the “token join text” as well as certain “line removal members”. Token Join Text… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/10/so-im-running-for-the-odtug-board-please-vote/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/10/so-im-running-for-the-odtug-board-please-vote/ Tue, 22 Oct 2019 21:08:37 +0000 Hi all – I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like to lately (there’s a lot going on!) but I do want to write a quick note. I’m running for the ODTUG Board of Directors. You can check out my campaign statement, goals, and short biography over there along with the other fine […] https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/06/oracle-essbase-docker-june-update/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/06/oracle-essbase-docker-june-update/ Tue, 11 Jun 2019 16:57:29 +0000 The Oracle Essbase on Docker open source project continues to evolve and be refined. For some background, please check out the original announcement. Briefly, this open source project gives you the ability to combine Oracle’s Essbase installer files along with the Docker technology to build a lean,… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/05/simple-way-to-check-if-essbase-xmla-provider-is-working/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/05/simple-way-to-check-if-essbase-xmla-provider-is-working/ Fri, 03 May 2019 03:26:49 +0000 A colleague of mine (my favorite Oracle infrastructure specialist, Joe Malewicki of iArch Solutions) that specializes in infrastructure contacted me the other day with a somewhat unusual request. Is there an easy way to “prove” that the Essbase XMLA provider is indeed up and running? Sure – hit it… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/03/oracle-essbase-on-docker-what-how-why/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2019/03/oracle-essbase-on-docker-what-how-why/ Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:14:43 +0000 I am very pleased to announce the availability of the new open source docker-essbase project to use Essbase with Docker. I have been working with Docker over the last couple of years and have found it to be a very compelling technology. I gave a presentation on Docker & Essbase, and this year I… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/11/drillbridge-feature-advanced-date-formats/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/11/drillbridge-feature-advanced-date-formats/ Wed, 14 Nov 2018 20:02:51 +0000 The latest shipping version of Drillbridge Plus (3.4.2+) has a few new tricks up its sleeves for advanced handling of date values coming back from your SQL query. Generally when you retrieve a date value with a relational query, the “right thing” happens automatically – i.e., the date value is… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/05/a-rest-api-primer-for-epm-users-developers/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/05/a-rest-api-primer-for-epm-users-developers/ Mon, 14 May 2018 15:21:52 +0000 There’s a lot of excitement in the EPM world these days when it comes to REST APIs – and rightfully so. As a developer heavily invested in the EPM space I am excited about some of the possibilities these new APIs offer – and what they will offer in the future. But all of this great […] https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/04/drillbridge-plus-3-3-0-release-features/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/04/drillbridge-plus-3-3-0-release-features/ Mon, 09 Apr 2018 17:46:01 +0000 Drillbridge Plus (the licensed/supported version of Drillbridge) is officially released. This release introduces some great new features, enhancements, and bug fixes, including the following: User Parameters Download File Name Analytic Provider Services support Various drill report… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/02/dodeca-dynamic-build-example-walkthrough/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/02/dodeca-dynamic-build-example-walkthrough/ Fri, 23 Feb 2018 16:04:11 +0000 Today I’m going to walk through a multi-faceted Dodeca example that shows off several different concepts and techniques. We tend to conceptualize Dodeca applications and solutions in terms of making Essbase even better and today’s example is a perfect example of how we do that. Think about it this… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/02/pbcs-scripting-with-groovy-using-the-pbj-rest-api-library/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/02/pbcs-scripting-with-groovy-using-the-pbj-rest-api-library/ Mon, 05 Feb 2018 18:15:17 +0000 I was talking to a colleague the other day that wants to do some scripting with PBCS using Groovy. Of course, since PBCS has a REST API, we can do scripting with pretty much any modern language. There are even some excellent examples of scripting with PBCS using Groovy out there. However, since… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/01/happy-new-year-best-posts-of-2017/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2018/01/happy-new-year-best-posts-of-2017/ Wed, 03 Jan 2018 19:33:59 +0000 My goodness – has another year gone by already? 2017 was busy, to say the least: trips/presentations/booths at Kscope17, Collaborate, and Oracle Openworld, new releases of Dodeca, the Dodeca Essbase Add-in for Excel, Drillbridge, the Outline Extractor, an upgrade to Oracle ACE status, lots of… https://www.jasonwjones.com/2017/12/evolution-of-essbase-new-url-based-drill-through-showed-up-in-11-1-1-3/ https://www.jasonwjones.com/2017/12/evolution-of-essbase-new-url-based-drill-through-showed-up-in-11-1-1-3/ Thu, 14 Dec 2017 19:49:53 +0000 Continuing on with the idea of getting insight into the Essbase feature set over time, as viewed through the lens of its Essbase Java API evolution, you can quite clearly see that the open/URL-style drill-through (as opposed to classic LRO-based drill-through) showed up in version 11.1.1.3, which…