GULP Profil: Business Objects, Visual Basic, VBA and Excel development

01/2011 – 10/2011 - BIT GmbH, Berlin, Frankfurt and Brussels (IT Consultancy)

I returned to this small independent to consult on Business Objects architectures for two financial clients. On-site at a separate high-profile financial client from May, I developed advanced Excel-based reporting solutions and advised on creating development standards.

• Analysis of data warehouse designs and reporting requirements, proposing Business Objects architectures
• Business Objects installation and configuration consultancy, including automation design and security
• Advanced Microsoft Excel and Access development, with a strong focus on VBA and automated reporting

07/2007 – 12/2010 - European Central Bank, Frankfurt (Central Banking)

As the organisation’s key Business Objects consultant, I designed, developed and oversaw the deployment of several Business Objects systems. I also developed Universes and reports, provided customised training courses on reporting for end-users and consulted across the ECB on Universe and reporting best practice, together with system administration.

With a positive attitude and excellent team skills, I was the technical lead on several projects concurrently; mentored junior staff; managed small projects; and supervised user testing. With strong development and Microsoft experience, I wrote enhancements to Business Objects; consulted on application integration; created Visual Basic/VBA applications; automated system checks, backups and testing. With a strong process orientation, I ensured good processes and documentation were in place.

• Designed and developed an ECB-wide shared XI R3 platform, promoting the use of Business Intelligence, a standard security approach allowing projects to co-exist securely and a workable approach for smaller projects that may have chosen non-standard reporting rather than implement Business Objects
• Designed the XI R3 architecture for a critical trading platform and managed the development of a reporting system, including migration from XI R2 and a number of key Business Objects customisations
• For this critical trading system, designed an approach to universes based on stored procedures, saving three man months’ development time and two months of user testing
• Designed and implemented XI R2 for a critical risk management tool, including migration from 6.5 Desktop Intelligence to WebIntelligence, Universe and report development, together with key customisations including code allowing users to write to the database, seamlessly from within reports
• Developed a platform-independent Java tool to automate XI R2 installation, Universe and report deployment,  security and group configuration, across ECB projects
• Managed full multi-lateral testing of several applications, across all Central Banks of the Eurosystem

Business Objects XI R2, R3 Desktop Intelligence, WebIntelligence, CMC, Tomcat (Solaris, Windows)

BO SDK, Visual Basic, VBA, Java, Javascript, Windows batch, Solaris .pkg, Unix shell scripts

Oracle 10g, 11g, PL/SQL

03/2007 – 07/2007 - European Central Bank, Frankfurt (Central Banking)

With previous experience of Microsoft strategy and deep knowledge of the environment, I was invited to become the technical lead for the project upgrading all workstations to XP Service Pack 2.  I also provided part-time Business Objects consultancy for my previous projects at this client.

• Upgraded strategy, group policy and desktop security consultancy
• Shared business area negotiations with the project manager and guidance of junior resources
• Inventory and project tracking database, custom-coded integration between MS Project and MS Access
• Upgraded schedules derived automatically from MS Project plan, automated progress dashboard
• Automated workstation and application inventory including pre-upgrade hardware check
• Automated workstation and user account OU moves for relocation in Active Directory

12/2005 - 01/2007 - European Central Bank, Frankfurt  (Central Banking)

The Currency Information System, a web application providing statistics on cash within the Eurozone, had to be upgraded for new Eurozone countries. At the same time Business Objects was introduced to provide flexible reporting. My tasks were the design of the Business Objects system and reports, updating the J2EE application for new countries and integration with Business Objects, managing multi-lateral testing across all Eurozone countries, documentation and final deployment into production.

• Business Objects 6.5 Universe design and complex WebIntelligence reports
• Custom code to view BO reports within the Java web application and single-click bundling of a set of reports into a single PDF document for distribution
• Java/J2EE development, migration of source code to PVCS and deployment on WebLogic
• XML/XSD design and development for automated monthly population of data from Eurozone countries
• Microsoft Excel/VBA tool to automate creating, sending and receiving messages for new member states with no direct network connectivity

Business Objects 6.5, Tomcat 5 and Apache 2, WebLogic 8.1, Oracle 9i (all components on Solaris)

Eclipse, PVCS, Microsoft Excel, VBA, BO SDK

10/2005 - 12/2005 - NHS Lothian Trust, Edinburgh (Healthcare)

I was engaged to review a failing Business Objects 5.1 system, including a thorough assessment of security and administration, along with troubleshooting system instability. In addition to the remedial work I amended existing Universes for a database migration and created reports to meet new UK Government requirements on patient waiting list information, and created a tool to document Universes.

Business Objects 5.1 full client, MS SQL Server 2000, Intersystems Cache

Microsoft Access, VBA, BO SDK

05/2005 – 08/2005 - European Central Bank, Frankfurt (Central Banking)

The Counterfeit Monitoring System, a Java-based intranet application, was being upgraded to the latest versions of all underlying components to maintain support. My responsibility was an upgrade process for the Business Objects system, together with the underlying Oracle databases.

• Business Objects 5 WebIntelligence and full client reports upgrade to Business Objects 6.5
• Oracle 8.1.7 on Solaris 8 to Oracle 10g on Solaris 9 automated migration, subsequently adopted as the standard Oracle migration process, Business Objects repository migrated to Oracle 10g
• Development of Visual Basic-based automated Business Objects reports migration tool
• Full, detailed documentation of all migration processes

Business Objects 5, 6.5.1, BO SDK, Unix Shell scripting (Solaris)

Oracle 8, 10g, WebLogic 8

12/2004 – 05/2005 - BIT GmbH, Berlin (IT Consultancy)

Tasks and Highlights

I designed a Business Objects 6.5 reporting proof of concept on both Windows and Solaris, on behalf of a financial institution, navigating and reporting on Oracle data warehouse. I was also tasked with providing proof of concept ETL jobs to load data from separate database instances, flat files and XML files.

Business Objects 6.5,  Business Objects Data Integrator, Tomcat (Solaris 10 and Windows Server 2003)

Java, BO SDK, JDBC