This article was originally published on OneStreamSoftware.com by John O’Rourke
OneStream Splashes Down in San Antonio
On May 23, 2022, nearly 1800 customers, prospective customers, partners, employees, and other guests from the OneStream ecosystem began to descend upon San Antonio, TX for the Splash User Conference and Partner Summit. This event was several years in the making, given the last live Splash conference we had in North America was in New Orleans in 2019.
Day 1 – Workshops, Partner Summit, and Opening Reception
Day 1 at Splash is always somewhat of a warm-up for the event, with most of the guests arriving throughout the day, while the early birds attended hands-on workshops, drop-in demos, and the partner summit.
Live certification testingalso took place, giving OneStream consultants, partners, and customers the opportunity to become a member of the elite OneStream Certified community by successfully completing the OneStream Certified Professional (OCP) – Lead Architect exam. This year, the virtual Splash program kicked off on Day 1 as well.
But the conference really got into high gear at the Splash Welcome Reception which was held in the lower level of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, which runs right along the San Antonio Riverwalk. Here, attendees were treated to a number of refreshments, food stations, live entertainment, and even a live Texas Longhorn cattle for pictures!
Day 2 – Keynote, Partner Expo, Breakout Sessions, Drop-in Demos, and More!
Day 2 at Splash San Antonio kicked off with the grand opening of the Partner Expo followed by the opening keynote session.
This year’s keynote was kicked off by OneStream Chief Revenue Officer Ken Hohenstein, who welcomed everyone to San Antonio and highlighted the tremendous growth we’ve seen in the OneStream community since the last live Splash event in 2019. This includes growing our global customer base from 300 to over 950+ customers in 35 countries around the globe in 2022.
Mr. Hohenstein gave a shout-out to our 37 partner sponsors, then introduced OneStream President Craig Colby for his keynote address with the theme of “Driving Exponential Value.” The concept he emphasized here is that the more you do – the more you can do, and the more value you get from your OneStream investment as a customer. So as organizations extend their OneStream implementations and deploy additional solutions that build on their initial work, they drive exponential value to their businesses. And the journey never ends!
He supported this concept with some customer video testimonials as well as previews of several customer success stories that would be featured at Splash and the value they have derived to date. One of these is Arch Capital who saw a 65% improvement in time spent on the financial close and 50% improvement in account reconciliations – freeing up its Finance team to spend more time on value-added activities to support the business.
Mr. Colby then highlighted some of the new innovations OneStream is driving to ensure customers continue to get exponential value from their investment. This included the Browser UX initiative, Sensible Machine Learning solution, CPM Blueprint, and new offerings being launched by OneStream Global Education Services.
After Mr. Colby’s address, Ken Hohenstein returned to the stage to kick off the Splash customer panel. The panel included Erica Musgrove from Asurion, Kristen Fisher from Oshkosh Corporation, Jan de Leeuw from Ingram Micro, and Robert Bixler from United States Coast Guard who shared stories about their OneStream journeys and the value our platform and solutions are delivering to their business.
When the keynote session ended, the audience was unleashed to attend breakout sessions, visit the partner expo and drop-in demos, participate in certification testing, and connect with other members of the OneStream community. Key Day 1 breakout sessions included What’s New and What’s Coming in the OneStream Platform, several sessions on Sensible Machine Learning, Aligning ESG Reporting with Financial Reporting, customer success stories, tips & tricks, and many other topics.
Day 3 – More Breakout Sessions and Some Laughs
Day 3 at Splash San Antonio kicked off with the annual Splash Fun Run at 7 AM, followed by the Women in Finance Breakfast and Panel, featuring several customers and OneStream executives discussing how modern leaders use intelligence finance for organizational collaboration, building bridges, and career development.
Day 2 continued with more breakout sessions throughout the day, certification testing, the partner expo, drop-in demos, and lots of networking. In fact, during the course of the conference, a wide variety of use cases for the OneStream platform were highlighted, as indicated in the keynote slide above.
The highlight of the day was the afternoon keynote session featuring comedian Kathleen Madigan. In her 32-year comedy career, Ms. Madigan has been touring 250 nights a year on the road and has risen from performing in comedy clubs to performing in marquee theaters with sold-out shows, over 40 appearances on late-night talk shows, and multiple comedy specials airing on Netflix, Comedy Central, and HBO. After enduring the past two years of the pandemic, we were all ready for a laugh and Ms. Madigan delivered – in a non-stop monologue of commentary and stories that had the audience in stitches and primed for the Splash Night Out celebration Wednesday evening.
The fiesta-themed Splash Night Out was held at the Witte Museum, one of San Antonio’s main cultural attractions. With ample indoor and outdoor space to handle the crowd, we had a beautiful night that included Mexican-themed food and drinks, multiple performing groups, and even a couple of alpacas for picture-taking. A great night was had by all!
Day 4 – Closing Session and 2023 Location Reveal
Although the attendance was a little lighter on Thursday morning following the big party, Splash Day 4 wrapped up with several breakout sessions followed by a closing awards session and the reveal of the conference location for 2023. Wait for it……………………….the location is National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington DC and the dates are April 17 – 20, 2023. Mark your calendars, and if you can’t wait that long there’s always Splash Paris, which is happening September 14 – 16, 2022. More details to come on that.
Learn More
In case you missed some sessions or the entire event, there is an opportunity for registered attendees to relive Splash San Antonio via the virtual platform, which you can find at this link. Many thanks to all who attended and made Splash San Antonio a huge success, especially the OneStream employees and partners who worked so hard in planning and executing this year’s conference. See y’all next year in Washington DC, or at Splash Paris!
