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Analytics

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using Words Instead of Numbers

March 3, 2020 by Lisa Minneci Leave a Comment

Video

In today’s IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks video, our FP&A Technology Director, Lee Lazarow, demonstrates how you can use words to input data in Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) instead of numbers. In the old TM1-world, you had the ability to put numbers into your system as part of your normal planning approach. Now, you can use words. Let’s explain …

Watch our Planning Analytics video and you’ll learn how to:

  • Enter words such as 2k to indicate 2,000
  • Enter 2.5K for 2,500
  • Use the “greater than” sign to spread values into other cells and reconsolidate them
  • Have Planning Analytics Workspace do the math for you by typing in common phrases such as “add 100” or “increase by 10%”

This approach gives you a great deal of flexibility when using PAW. You can use your number keypad, your standard keyboard, or even voice commands to enter data into Planning Analytics.

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!

Want to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks delivered to your inbox every Tuesday? Sign up to get our weekly email of just the week’s tip! And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Planning Analytics videos.

Watch more Planning Analytics video tutorials:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: Reordering TM1 Cubes

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: Filtering in Planning Analytics

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: Creating Buttons in Planning Analytics

Home » Analytics » Page 7

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, Videos Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, planning analytics tips & tricks video, Planning Analytics video, TM1

Adaptive Insights Scores Highest in Gartner 2019 Critical Capabilities Report in Three Use Cases

March 2, 2020 by Lisa Minneci Leave a Comment

News & Events

Adaptive Insights earned the highest scores in the Gartner 2019 Critical Capabilities for Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions report for lower midsize organization use cases, upper midsize use cases and for business unit use cases.

Gartner’s Critical Capabilities for Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions report examines the strengths of different vendors offering financial planning and analysis solutions as it relates to specific use cases. The goal of the research is to help organizations assess products and compare products that most closely meet their business needs. Overall Gartner found that many of the vendors covered in the research “improved year-over-year scores in critical capabilities.” The report continues, “this indicates that maturity levels and satisfaction associated with cloud offerings in this market are rapidly improving.”

Gartner’s assessment of Adaptive Insights includes the following highlights:

  • Top quartile scores for ease of implementation
  • Top quartile scores for ease of use and maintenance
  • Top quartile scores for financial budgets and plans

Additionally, Gartner writes “Adaptive Insights improved its scores across all capabilities this year, with financial budgets and plans and IFP/modeling showing the largest improvements.”

Adaptive Insights Scores 4.40 out of 5.0 in Lower Midsize Organization Use Case

Gartner defines “lower midsize organization” as “small public or private organizations between $50 million and $250 million in annual revenue.”

Adaptive Insights Scores Highest in Gartner 2019 Critical Capabilities Report in Three Use Cases

Adaptive Scores 4.32 out of 5.0 for Upper Midsize Organization Use Case

An “upper midsize organization” is defined as “midsize public or private organizations with $250 million to $1 billion in annual revenue.”

Adaptive Scores 4.32 out of 5.0 for Upper Midsize Organization Use Case

Adaptive Insights Scores 4.34 out of 5.0 in Business Unit use case

This category is for business units in large organizations.

Adaptive Insights Scores 4.34 out of 5.0 in Business Unit use case

According to Gartner, the research “analyzes how successfully the selected vendors support FP&A processes, as well as the successes of their respective solutions in terms of use and adoption.” In addition to Adaptive Insights, the report includes Anaplan, BOARD International, CCH Tagetik, Host Analytics (now Planful), IBM, Jedox, Kaufman Hall (Axiom Software), Kepion, OneStream Software, Oracle, Prophix, SAP, and Vena Solutions.

Home » Analytics » Page 7

Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, Analytics, Budgeting, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting

FP&A Done Right: The Path to Great Reporting

February 28, 2020 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

FP&A Done Right

This is a guest blog post from our partner Workday Planning, written by Gary Cokins. Cokins discusses some of the challenges with traditional financial reporting processes.  

For FP&A, financial reporting is a tricky balancing act.

If you share too many reports, business leaders may give up reading them all together. They are saturated. In a study by the American Institute of CPAs and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, 32% of C-level executives said more data has made things worse, not better, for decision-making.

But if you offer bare-bones financial reporting, stakeholders scream for more relevant data and timely information. Case in point: That same survey found 70% of C-level executives saying at least one strategic initiative failed in the last three years due to delays in strategic decision-making. So how do you find the balance of not overwhelming your business partners while still getting them the information they need?

They need facts because in the absence of facts, anybody’s opinion is a good one. And usually the biggest opinion wins, which is likely managers at the top of the org chart. So to the degree they are making decisions on gut feel, intuition, flawed and misleading information, or office politics, an organization is at risk.

Here are three proven steps:

Step #1: Survey users

Your CEO needs access to different data than the manager of HR. Yet there’s also a good chance that they may be interested in some of the same information. And even within the same departments, managers may seek different information. Managers have varying requirements and goals; some prefer a very high-level overview, while others want specific information and a lot of granular details.

So what’s a finance team to do?

It sounds simple, but it begins with good communication. Talk to users and find out what they want and why they want it. Ask what types of decisions they will make with better information. Delve into how they would like reports presented and how often they need them. From time to time, follow up with a brief meeting or a simple survey to ensure that managers are using reports and if there is any new information that would be useful.

Of course, it’s essential to continue to make ongoing investments in technology that ensure you can deliver the reports that business partners are looking for in user-friendly formats. Technology investments not only save FP&A time—which allows for a more thoughtful and strategic approach to generating relevant reports—they also have a measurable impact on the bottom line. A study conducted by Nucleus Research found the average return from each dollar spent on analytics technology was $13.01.

Step #2: Customize dashboards

A key strength of technology investments is dashboard technology. Dashboards have revolutionized reporting, dramatically reducing the mountains of spreadsheets with racked-and-stacked tables that find their way to managers and department heads via email or hard copy. So make sure you are making the most of the technology by working with users to customize dashboards so they can access the reports they want and in a format that is most useful to them.

A customized dashboard allows managers to do a better job by measuring and monitoring performance as well as proactively shaping business outcomes through real-time awareness of financial and sales data. Dashboards are also a powerful tool to track your company’s actual broader performance against your planned expectations and goals, year to date.

When it comes to dashboards, a quick demo can go a long way. You can show users the power of data visualization presented in a range of formats from standard bar, column, or doughnut charts to more engaging funnel, waterfall, and bubble graphics. And you can demonstrate how they can generate their own reports to gain even further insight into their team’s performance and how it impacts the entire organization.

These visualization tools have proven to be game-changers in terms of making reports accessible and understandable to a wide range of users. As a TechTarget writer recently pointed out: “Without (data visualizations), analytics teams are engaging in a nearly impossible task that’s tantamount to flying an airplane while blindfolded.”

Step #3: Track results

It’s often said that what gets measured gets done. It’s also often said that if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it, and if you cannot manage it, you cannot improve it. With that in mind, one way to ensure that relevant reports are being generated is to assess whether they are leading to measurable results.

Have reports resulted in greater efficiency, changes in behavior, or an uptick in sales and profits? Internally, are the reports helping drive collaboration and more insightful conversations? If not, why? You may need a deeper dive into whether the right information is getting into the right hands at the right time.

Opening lines of communication with business partners is key. Discuss targeted outcomes and then identify the reporting—or tweaks to reporting—that will provide the real-time data and insights to drive better results. Adaptive Insights customer Cumulus Media successfully applied this approach, instituting self-service reporting so users across the organization can create and run reports on demand. The result: It now takes just seconds—not days—to access and analyze business performance data relevant to each manager.

Finally, celebrate and highlight success. If a certain department is delivering big wins by leveraging insights from the reports it is receiving and generating, then promote and broadcast that throughout the organization. Success will breed success.

Good reporting leads to better results

Of course, it’s important to remember that when it comes to reports, finance should be a facilitator and strategic partner, not a hand-holder. Managers need to be self-sufficient. But it’s important to put the relevant information in their hands so they don’t have to track down finance every time they have a question.

Ultimately, good reporting leads to better results. By identifying and delivering the reports that leaders and managers throughout your organization need, FP&A can make a big impact and solidify its role as a strategic business partner. Finance has the opportunity to expand from bean counters to bean growers.

Gary Cokins is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author in enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM/CPM) systems. He is the founder of Analytics-Based Performance Management LLC. Gary can be reached at gcokins@garycokins.com

This blog post was originally published on the Workday Adaptive Planning blog.

Home » Analytics » Page 7

Filed Under: FP&A Done Right Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, Analytics, Budgeting, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, dashboards, Financial Performance Management, financial reporting, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Admin Alerts

February 25, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

In your existing TM1 world, much of the administration is done via your computer’s operating system. Planning Analytics brings much of the administration into your environment via a web-based interface.  One of the tasks you can do in this interface is to create and define email alerts.

Planning Analytics offers the ability to notify you about aspects of your server such as “Alert me when memory usage on the machine exceeds 50%”.  This is done within the administration screen.

To access the administration screen, click on the Administration option at the top right corner of your screen (note that this will only appear if you have Admin permissions).

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Admin Alerts

Once inside the administration portal, select the option for Databases, Configuration.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips: Admin Alerts

Within the configuration settings window you can then select Alerts, expand the Databases section, and select a database.

IBM Planning Analytics Tricks: Admin Alerts

Once selected, you will have a series of options such as memory usage and thread information. Each option offers threshold definitions and an option to send a notification. The bottom of the screen defines the email addresses that will be used when notifications are sent.

This approach within Planning Analytics allows system administration to be performed by PA administrators without the need to learn operating system techniques or advanced coding methods.

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! You can also sign up to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks sent directly to your inbox!

Learn more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks to make your admin tasks easier!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: The New Planning Analytics Admin Approach

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Simplifying Dimension Maintenance

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Planning Analytics Administration

Home » Analytics » Page 7

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, lee lazarow, Planning analytics administration, Revelwood, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: How to Reorder TM1 Cubes in Planning Analytics Workspace

February 18, 2020 by Lisa Minneci Leave a Comment

Videos

In today’s IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks video, our PF&A Technology Director, Lee Lazarow, demonstrates a new feature in Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) version 2.0.44, that enables you to reorder TM1 cubes. Your TM1 cubes were likely designed for a specific reason. Over the course of years, the data has been changed and added to. TM1 would let you optimize the system by reordering the dimensions and re-indexing the database.

Watch this Planning Analytics video to see how this new feature lets you optimize your cubes by reordering them. When you reorder your cubes, PAW gives you information about the optimization, including if there will be an increase or decrease in performance, and what the impact on RAM will be.

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!

Want to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks delivered to your inbox every Tuesday? Sign up to get our weekly email of just the week’s tip! And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Planning Analytics videos.

Watch more Planning Analytics video tutorials:

Filtering in Planning Analytics

Creating Buttons in Planning Analytics

Planning Analytics Admin

Home » Analytics » Page 7

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, Videos Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, lee lazarow, planing analytics video, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, planning analytics tips & tricks video, Revelwood, TM1

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks: Trigger for a Cube Calculated Account

February 12, 2020 by Michelle Song Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

When you try to use the “actuals overlay” function in a cube calculated account to display actuals data from a modeled sheet, but you keep receiving a formula error that says “Cube Calculation Formulas must evaluate to zero when the cube’s other accounts are zero”, what do you do?

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks: Trigger for a Cube Calculated Account

The reason for this is that cube sheets are intended to use for data input with multi-dimensions and calculations within the current cube, but not as a way to display data from other areas in the instance. To solve this problem, you have to condition the account based on another account in the current cube sheet.

For example, you can create a “Trigger Account” and assigned a value of 1 to the account for all intersections and periods that you want to display the data.

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks

Then, in the formula section of the cube calculation account, write

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks

Note: If you do not need the actual overlay function, you can use a Cube Metric account. Cube metric accounts can reference accounts from other sheets and do not need “trigger” accounts.

The team at Revelwood has been recognized by Adaptive for its thought leadership in the space, commitment to its Adaptive Insights practice, and its rapid achievements of milestones. Visit Revelwood’s Knowledge Center for our Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks or sign up here to get our Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks delivered directly to your inbox. Not sure where to start with Adaptive Insights? Our team here at Revelwood can help! Contact us info@revelwood.com for more information.

Read more Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks from the Revelwood team:

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks: Alternate Time Tree

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks: Assumption Sheets

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks: Finding Missing Formulas

Home » Analytics » Page 7

Filed Under: Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, adaptive insights tips & tricks, Analytics, Revelwood

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: Filtering in Planning Analytics

February 11, 2020 by Lisa Minneci Leave a Comment

Video

In today’s IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks video, our FP&A Technology Director, Lee Lazarow, demonstrates how to do filtering in Planning Analytics. Filtering in Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) will make it easy for your users to select the data they want to see, thereby giving them a good user experience.

The new PAW interface works much like Windows Server does – you can do various searches (wildcard searches, level searches, attribute searches) and thereby take a giant list of elements and filter it down to a smaller subset. The PAW interface even takes it a step further by enabling you to make your search criteria much more structured and user-friendly.

When you master the ability to do filtering in PAW, you’ll enable your users to easily select the data they need.

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!

Want to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks delivered to your inbox every week? Sign up to get our weekly email of just the week’s tip! And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Planning Analytics videos.

Watch more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks videos:

Reviewing Chores in Planning Analytics

Creating Buttons in Planning Analytics

Planning Analytics Admin

Home » Analytics » Page 7

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, lee lazarow, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, planning analytics tips & tricks video, Planning Analytics video, Planning Analytics Workspace, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s CONCAT and TEXTJOIN Functions

February 4, 2020 by Nina Inverso Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

Microsoft Excel has recently introduced a new version of the CONCATENATE function called CONCAT. The purpose is similar in that the new function still combines text from multiple ranges and/or strings. CONCAT will eventually replace CONCATENATE, but Microsoft has not released plans to sunset the original function to ensure compatibility with older versions of Excel.

The CONCAT function expects at least one text parameter value, with a maximum of 253 arguments. For example:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: CONCAT and TEXTJOIN Functions
=CONCAT(A1,B1,C1,D1,A2,B2,C2,D2)

returns “Tobeornottobe.” The new function also allows you to combine text ranges. For example:

=CONCAT(A1:D2)

returns a string consisting of the values in cells A1, B1, C1, D1, A2, B2, C2, and D2. In this case, “Tobeornottobe” will once again be returned.

Similarly, the TEXTJOIN function joins text from multiple ranges and/or strings but includes two additional parameters. These parameters allow you to specify the delimiter and determine if empty cells are ignored. For example:

=TEXTJOIN(“ ”, TRUE, A1:D2)

returns “To be or not to be,” whereas

=TEXTJOIN(“ ”, FALSE, A1:D2)

returns “To   be or not  to be.” In the last example, the spaces have been doubled wherever there are empty cells because the second parameter has been set to FALSE.

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!

Want to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks delivered to your inbox every Tuesday? Sign up to get our weekly email of just the week’s tip!

Read related posts with Excel Tips & Tricks and using Excel with Planning Analytics:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: New Excel Feature – XLOOKUP

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Learn the Excel CELL Formula

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Recalculating Excel Worksheets

Home » Analytics » Page 7

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Excel, Excel tips & tricks, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, Nina Gordy, Revelwood, TM1

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks: Alternate Time Tree

January 29, 2020 by Michelle Song Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

Have you ever wanted to have an alternate time tree/ stratum rollup in Adaptive Insights? The current Adaptive Insight system only supports one stratum rollup and there is no “Time Attribute” available in the current system to group the different time periods together. Here are some workarounds for you.

For example, the screenshot below is your current time tree setup in Adaptive Insights. Week is the lowest time stratum in the time tree. It has a stratum rollup of Week – Month – Quarter – Year.

Alternate time tree in Adaptive Insights

This is the main time tree that you used in your company for planning. However, you also have an alternate time tree that you used for your in store calendar, which has a stratum rollup of Week – Cycle – Year. Weeks are the same in both time trees, but Cycles do not roll up into Month and Quarter, so you couldn’t include Cycle in the current time tree.

Here are two methods to achieve an “alternate time tree”:

  1. If the alternate time tree is only used for reporting purposes, plan at the Week (lowest) time stratum and use Report/OfficeConnect to sum up the weeks for each Cycle.
Understanding alternate time trees in Adaptive Insights

In this case, Cycle1-2019 is a subtotal calculation of WK1 to WK4-2019.

2. If the alternate time tree is used for planning purposes, create a dimension for Cycle and use it in the sheet. An example is shown in the screenshot below of a modeled sheet. The timespan is used to input expense for each week. Week 1 to week 4 is Cycle 1, so the values for Cycle 1 are only entered in those periods.

stratum rollup in Adaptive Insights

Here’s a report to show the results.

Understanding stratum rollup in Adaptive Insights

Hope you find this helpful and feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions!

The team at Revelwood has been recognized by Adaptive for its thought leadership in the space, commitment to its Adaptive Insights practice, and its rapid achievements of milestones. Visit Revelwood’s Knowledge Center for our Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks or sign up here to get our Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks delivered directly to your inbox. Not sure where to start with Adaptive Insights? Our team here at Revelwood can help! Contact us info@revelwood.com for more information.

Read more Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks:

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks: How to Override Default Lookups

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks: Leveraging your Testing Model

Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks: Finding Missing Formulas

Home » Analytics » Page 7

Filed Under: Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, adaptive insights tips & tricks, Analytics, Financial Performance Management, Revelwood

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