Access to Advanced Training

Before being allowed to drive a vehicle unaccompanied, we are required to undergo training on both the theory (stopping distances, speed restrictions, road signs, etc.) and practice (actually handling a car) of driving, as well as passing a number of tests.

However this will, for many people, be only the first stage. A newly qualified driver, particularly if they are young, will face an enormous insurance bill; in the UK they can get a discount if they undertake Pass Plus, which is a practical training course that takes at least 6 hours and is for drivers to improve their skills and drive more safely. If a driver wants to hone their skills even more, they could join the Institute of Advance Motorists in the UK, or organisations such as Advanced Drivers of America.

Beyond that there is further training for those who want to tow a caravan, or drive a public bus or a commercial heavy goods vehicle.

The availability of training at a number of levels applies in many areas from academic exams to the different coloured belts awarded in martial arts. Doesn’t everyone aspire to be a “black belt” in their chosen field? 

So what will you find if you look for training for SAP BPC?

SAP and a number of third party training organisations offer both BPC Administration and Reporting training. Typically these are held on the training company’s premises, although they are sometimes available on-site or in a virtual classroom. This, of course, ties you down to a particular time for the training, which may not be convenient. In addition to Virtual Classroom and On-Site Classroom delivery, Column5 has over 70 interactive online eLearning training courses, available 24/7, which include audio, video, animations, simulation exercises, quizzes, and training material to take away. This enables you to take the training in bite-size pieces when it suits you, at your own pace and with an opportunity to repeat until confident. If you would like to know more about eLearning and other training courses we offer, then let me know.

In addition to this training, however, Column5 is offering two Advanced Training Workshops in June; “black belt” level training in BPC for those who aspire to be the real BPC experts in their organisation. Over 20 hours of detailed instruction are offered in each of the two training workshops:

• BPC Logic: Three days looking at the different types of BPC logic and appropriate uses, tuning, and optimisation, with hands-on case studies for Dimension Formula Logic, Script Logic, and the Allocation Engine.
• BPC NetWeaver Technical Administration & Optimization: Three days looking at the BPC NetWeaver environment, configuration, sizing, scalability, testing, troubleshooting, performance monitoring, and infrastructure maintenance

These courses provide a unique opportunity to benefit from the many years of experience within Column5 on the development of logic solutions in BPC, and to hear from Column5’s Global Director of Technical Services who has performed hundreds of EPM product implementations and tuned up more badly configured BPC environments than he would care to imagine!

The advanced training workshops are being run on 15-17 June in Central London. These are being followed on 18 June by the Column5 EMEA EPM Leadership Summit. Featuring 15 in-person sessions delivered over the course of a full day, the EMEA EPM Leadership Summit has expert sessions for each of our content tracks: Business Functional, Technical, and Executive. Three client plenary presentations are also included that will detail their use and experience with SAP BPC, SAP BFC, and SAP EPM, as well as an expert from the EMEA SAP EPM Centre of Excellence looking at the future of SAP EPM. The expert sessions and networking opportunities make this the preeminent SAP BPC and SAP BFC user event of the year in EMEA.

If you would like to know more, register for the advanced training workshops, or attend the EMEA SAP EPM User Summit on 18 June just go to www.emeaepmsummit.com.