IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Errors in Non-writeable Cells

August 20, 2019

Did you know IBM Planning Analytics is smart enough to look at the write permissions of a cell before attempting to load values into a cube? Have you ever tried to run a load process and then receive errors stating that you cannot write data to a cell? While Planning Analytics is ensuring that your data load is properly working, the errors can be disconcerting and can make the load process appear unstable.

TurboIntegrator contains a command called CellIsUpdateable that can be used to check the write permissions of a cell before attempting to load data. The command uses the same parameters of the various CellGet functions and results in a value of 1 or 0 where 1 means the cell can be written to and 0 means the cell cannot be written to.

CellIsUpdateable(Cube, Dim1, Dim2, … )

This formula is often used in conjunction with an IF statement to determine whether a CellPut command should be used. Here is an example of using the commands within a Turbo Integrator script:

# Define cube name
strCube = ‘Finance’;
# Only load data if the cell is updateable
IF ( CELLISUPDATEABLE(strCube, ‘Budget’, ‘Company1’, ‘Jan 2019’, ‘Amount’) = 1);
CELLPUTN (vValue, strCube, ‘Budget’, ‘Company1’, ‘Jan 2019’, ‘Amount’);
ENDIF;

This concept can be extended to include error messages, ItemSkip commands, or other aspects of an ELSE component. But most importantly to your end user … no error will appear when trying to load data that should not be loaded.

Error messages are great for developers and great for data reconciliation, but it’s not always what you want your users to see. This approach helps limit the messages that appear to the user.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters!