Hey Good Lookin'

Hey, hey, good lookin',
Whatcha got cookin'?
How's about cookin' somethin' up with me?
Hey, sweet baby,
Don't you think maybe
We could find us a brand new recipe?
-----from "Hey, Good Lookin'" by Hank Williams-----

When I check out a web app, I immediately check on two factors: appeal to the eye and ease of use. If these two elements of the user experience are well-designed and well-implemented, I'm likely to like the app. If either of the two factors is...well...not so good, then I'm done with the app.

I seriously like the Oracle public cloud. First, it's appealing to the eye. Simple graphics and menus, colors on the cooler end of the spectrum (a personal preference for me), clean graphics; a great instance of "less is more." Second, it's easy to use. Navigation is simple and consistent across all pages, and the messages on each page are kept very simple.

Of course, I am also very happy to see elements of Fusion Applications (HCM and CRM) offered up as part of Oracle's Public Cloud offering. It's a great way for small and medium sized organizations to amortize the cost of getting into Fusion Apps over a longer period of time, and removes the complexity of maintaining a relatively complex technology stack. Definitely a move in the right direction.

Here's hoping Oracle continues to develop that recipe.

Fusion Applications - A Gift On Boxing Day!

It's the evening of Boxing Day, so it seems appropriate to give the gift of a little Fusion Applications tip...

When using Functional Setup Manager, users can import setup lists in an HTML, PDF, or Excel format. The Excel export is actually an XML file. Those of us who have been around long enough know that the Microsoft Excel product development team has a love/hate relationship with XML; sometimes Excel can import XML files and sometimes it can't, depending on the version and the patch level. At the moment, we're in a "hate XML" phase with the later versions and patch set levels in Excel.

So the upshot is that you may attempt to export in an Excel file format from FSM and Excel won't be able to read the file. If you hit this little speed bump, the trick is to open that exported XML file in Microsoft Word. It will read the XML file just fine - the result will be a table in MS Word. And from the table in MS Word, you can copy it over to Excel. Issue resolved; game, set, match.

Happy Boxing Day!