Two days down, two to go.

Monday was a very busy and rewarding day. Attended "XML Publisher and FSG for Beginners" given by Susan Behn and Alyssa Johnson from Solution Beacon. It was packed, standing room only ... even though it was at 8:00 am.

Later in the afternoon, despite being at the same time and in conflict with other Publisher related sessions, Noelle's session, "The Reporting Platform for Applications: Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher" and my session, "Introduction to Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher" were both very well attended.

Immediately following our presentations we ran the BI Publisher Hands On Lab which was great fun. The turnout was so large that unfortunately we could not accommodate everyone who came to the lab. There were as many as 5 people huddled around each of the 20 machines. All the the groups completed the 2 main exercises. Some groups even took the product for an off-road test drive. Look at all the fun we had ...

For those who could not attend or want the Hands On Lab document:

Hands On Lab Oracle BI Publisher Collaborate 2010.pdf

Note that these lab instructions assume a specific set up and files that you may not have in your environment. You can download and install a trial license version of BI Publisher from the download page. Highly recommend taking a look at the additional Tutorials available on OTN.

Big thanks to Dan Vlamis and Jonathan Clark from Vlamis Software Solutions and to the Oracle BIWA SIG for setting up these machines and getting the time and space to run this lab. It was inspiring to see all of the attendees successfully creating reports.

On Tuesday morning we were up early again for a rousing session of BI Publisher Best Practices that was also, very well attended especially considering the 8 am start.

Later that morning saw Ben Bruno from STR Software and two of his customers speak on the additional functionality and ROI they have achieved by using Publisher within EBS and AventX to FAX and Email Publisher generated documents.

Spent the afternoon staffing the BI Technology demo pod and had a steady flow of people dropping by with questions.

Having a great conference so far and looking forward to the rest of it.