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Budgeting Planning & Forecasting

Revelwood Named Adaptive Insights Partner Rising Star of the Year

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Last week Revelwood was named Adaptive Insights Partner Rising Star of the Year at Adaptive’s Annual Partner Rally, which took place in Pleasanton, California. When presenting the award, Adaptive cited Revelwood’s determination, passion, thought leadership and overall knowledge and success in the space.

This is a tremendous honor for us as we officially began our partnership with Adaptive Insights last fall. Since then, we have been included in a number of Adaptive events. As part of these events, I’ve had the opportunity to speak to Adaptive clients and prospects about how the Office of Finance can be a value-add to the overall organization, and how FP&A encompasses people, process, and technology. Companies cannot simply think about an FP&A solution as just technology. The most successful FP&A solutions factor in the overall business, business goals, and long-term vision and plans – not just selecting and implementing a technology.

Revelwood CEO Ken Wolf receiving the award

Revelwood CEO, Ken Wolf, receives Adaptive Insights Partner Rising Star of the Year award from the Adaptive executive team. From left to right: Tom Bogan, Mary-Beth Yantz, Ken Wolf, Fred Gewant, Mel Zeledon.

“We’re very proud to have received the Adaptive Insights Partner Rising Star of the Year award for 2019. It is a testament to our deep commitment to our partnership with Adaptive and the value we can offer their customers and prospects,” said Ken Wolf, CEO, Revelwood. “Adaptive believes that our thought leadership and deep understanding of FP&A, coupled with our experience in implementing large-scale FP&A projects, puts us in an excellent position to partner with them as they scale to the enterprise marketplace.”

We’ve invested significantly in our partnership with Adaptive. We’re able to leverage our more than 20 years of experience designing, building and implementing FP&A solutions to the work we are doing with clients using Adaptive.

Additionally, on a personal note, I was very impressed with how Adaptive is building out its partner ecosystem. There is a shared understanding that FPM in the cloud is a very large opportunity for all of us. They have done a great job at eliminating the “channel conflicts” often seen with other software vendors.

Adaptive has made it very clear they are focused on the end user and delivering new, meaningful functionality. That focus aligns nicely with Revelwood and we bring our unique expertise into all client conversations. In some cases, we’ll even push back a bit to ensure that you are building a solution that is scalable and capable of flexing as your business changes in the future.  All in the name of partnering to deliver the best complete FP&A solutions – people, process and technology.

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Revelwood’s Top 15 IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks of 2018, Part 3

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Today’s post is the last in a series of three reviewing our top 15 most popular blog posts covering a number of  IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks and the benefits of migrating from TM1.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: TurboIntegrator Logging

Read this post to learn how to easily control your logs, while also making them easier to navigate.  Your TM1 server tracks data transactions made in the system. When a cube value is changed, TM1 records the change in a transaction log file named Tm1s.log. The values in the log can be used as an audit trail and can also be used as part of a data restoration approach in the event of a server crash. While logging is a great auditing tool and an excellent point of reference, these logs can quickly become large and hard to navigate. This post shows you various ways to control your logging approach and offers some recommendations on when to disable it.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Displaying Data in Maps

IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) allows you to visualize your data using a variety of charts and graphs, including the ability to display your results via a map.  The only requirement for mapping is to ensure that your geography dimension includes recognizable place names.  IBM defines “recognizable” to include items such as countries, states and provinces and offers a list of acceptable items on their website. Read this post to learn the three easy steps for creating a map in PAW.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Making Default Cube Views Dynamic with MDX

You can use MDX to easily update a cube value to control the period elements that will display in a subset used in views. This blog post details a scenario on why you may need to do this, and then how to do it.

Here’s the challenge: It’s the end of a quarter and the VP of Sales wants to look at the projected financials for her department. You’ve already built a view that she can open to see the financials, but you just remembered that you forgot to change the period subset to display this quarter’s results. You’ve also just received an email notification from an annoyed VP of Sales. Despite the quarterly reminders that you’ve set for yourself, you forgot to update the default views in various cubes to reflect the current quarter’s plan.

This blog will show you a solution that will allow you to simply update a cube value to control the period elements that will display in a subset used in views.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Performance Monitoring

There are easy ways to address resource issues in order to have a finely tuned IBM Planning Analytics environment. This is the second in a two-part series about monitoring the performance of your server to maintain a working TM1 system. In the first post, we reviewed several methods for monitoring the resources available on your system. Here, I’ll go over some ways to address resource issues you may see. Whether you notice a problem related to CPU, RAM, or disk space, there are short-term and long-term solutions for each.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Installing Samples with Cognos Analytics

There are many sample files available for Cognos Analytics. In order to better experience and understand new features in releases of Cognos Analytics, it is recommended that you install the sample databases, models, dashboards and reports.

Installing the samples involves the following four steps:

  1. Installing the samples
  2. Importing the sample content from its archive
  3. Restoring the sample databases from backups
  4. Creating data source connections in Cognos Analytics to the databases

In this blog post, we will setup the Go Sales and Go Sales Warehouse samples and restore the databases into Microsoft SQL Server.

Thanks for reading the final installment of our Top 15 IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks of 2018.  Missed the earlier posts on our Top 15 blogs? Click through to read the first in the series, covering posts 15 – 11 and the second, covering posts 10 – 6. We publish a new IBM Planning Analytics/TM1 tip every Tuesday morning so please come back an visit our Knowledge Center again.

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FP&A Done Right: Finance as the Conductor

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Music has been a large part of my life for many years now. I have played drums and percussion in multiple bands, orchestras and jazz ensembles, and I have sung in several choirs and barber shop quartets. The one constant through all of them has been a talented conductor or director at the helm. A band doesn’t simply get together and decide to play a famous concerto. The conductor chooses a piece that speaks to him or her, works with each section of the orchestra on their specific notes and rhythms and ensures that each part fits seamlessly together to make beautiful music. Your Finance department should be no different.

Finance should be at the center of your planning, analysis and reporting processes and solution. You need to direct the process so you can craft and tell your “story.” Picture a hub and spoke model which has Finance in the middle so all roads lead to FP&A. To be clear, every function (Sales, Marketing, IT, HR, Shared Services, Operations) needs to have a seat at the table so you all stay aligned and support the overall story while each group writes its own chapter. You need to make it a priority to reach out to all groups and understand what their needs are and learn how they operate. Ultimately, however, you own the overall three statement reporting (P&L, BS and CF) and you need to make sure that the functions support your story.

FP&A Done Right: Finance as the Conductor

As you become more sophisticated, your journey will take you into the other functions. Follow every number/metric back to its source and work with that group to create a better, more inclusive process.  If you make them part of the process, you will gain their buy-in and ownership. In the past, I have worked in an organization that had Finance Business Partners embedded in each function. Those resources reported directly to FP&A but had a dotted line to the functional leadership. You may not have the luxury of additional headcount so just make sure to create a structure that includes everyone in the process.

As each section (department or function) improves, you will be able to play increasingly more difficult compositions and songs. The end product will be more concise and accurate and your entire organization will be aligned. Good luck and enjoy the music!

Did you miss previous posts on FP&A Done Right? Check them out:

FP&A Done Right: Introduction

FP&A Done Right: You Can’t “System” Your Way out of This

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BPM Partners Predictions for Performance Management in 2019

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BPM Partners, a privately held advisory services firm with an exclusive focus on business performance management, recently released “Predictions for Performance Management in 2019.” Among those predictions are two that stand out to us.

Prediction: Many More Companies will be Upgrading from Legacy Systems

BPM Partners writes, “We have seen a recent surge of companies looking to replace their legacy on-premise performance management systems with a more modern version and this will continue to grow.” This is something we are certainly seeing as most TM1 users are upgrading to IBM Planning Analytics over the next few quarters. Much of this is due to support for TM1 10.2.2 ending on September 30, 2019.

As TM1 users upgrade to Planning Analytics, they are taking the time to evaluate their current environments, and assess if they want to remain with an on-premise version, move to the cloud, or select a hybrid environment.

Prediction: Company-wide Planning will Gain Traction

BPM Partners writes, “Integrated business planning has been a goal for many years. Most organizations have fallen short when it comes to achieving this goal because of two issues: difficulty in coordinating major cross-functional initiatives and lack of technology support.

“Who drives and oversees this cross-functional initiative (integrated business planning) and makes sure the company doesn’t end of up a collection of disconnected point solutions? … The consensus seems to be that it is the CFO who should oversee coordinated and connected company-wide planning.”

We’ve long seen performance management solutions such as TM1 be used for both financial and operational planning and analysis. Our partner, Adaptive Insights, offers a range of solutions for integrated planning throughout the enterprise. While we focus on Adaptive Insights for Finance, Adaptive Insights also provides Adaptive Insights for Sales and Adaptive Insights for Workforce Planning.

Regardless of whether a company is upgrading from TM1 to Planning Analytics, or looking to expand planning beyond finance, the picture looks bright. As BPM Partners says, “In 2019, there will be more reasons than ever for those that have remained on the sidelines to get on board with performance management.”

Read additional blog posts discussing industry analyst reports on performance management:

BPM Partners Vendor Landscape Matrix for Financial, Strategic, and Operational Business Performance Management

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Revelwood’s Top 15 IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks of 2018, Part 2

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Last week we published the first in a series of three blog posts highlighting our most widely read blogs of 2018. In today’s post, we showcase five more posts that were extremely popular with TM1 users & those Planning Analytics users who have already migrated from TM1.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Year-to-Date Hierarchies

Learn how to create a single hierarchy that contains all year-to-date-values within an entire year. As you know, TM1 is a consolidation tool which is designed to sum together a series of values.  There are many ways to create the consolidations using a combination of grand totals and sub totals.  This blog post specifically addresses the year-to-date (YTD) hierarchy associated with a time dimension.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: How to Make Action Button Messages Dynamic

Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx) and Perspectives allow you to customize action button messages. In fact, you can go further and make those messages dynamic. Read the full blog post to learn how to:

  • Set up cells in a PAx workbook for the custom messages
  • Edit an action button to use thee custom messages.
  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using MDX to Compare Dimension Hierarchies

Learn how to use MDX to compare dimension hierarchies. Planning Analytics dimensions often have multiple hierarchies that should all roll up to the same total. Said another way, these separate hierarchies should all contain the same set of n-level elements below them. For example, a customer dimension may have a hierarchy for rolling up the “All Customers – by Type” and another for “All Customers – by Region.” A TurboIntegrator process can be used to maintain the elements in the dimension and these two hierarchies, but sometimes the two hierarchies may become out of sync. MDX can be used to see if both hierarchies contain the exact same number of n-level customers and, if the two hierarchies are out of sync, identify the elements causing the problem.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) Chart Types

Charts and graphs are an excellent way to illustrate relationships in data and highlight trends. Planning Analytics Workspace allows end users to quickly analyze a large amount of data. To make the biggest impact, it is important to choose the right chart for the use case of the data. Read the full post to learn the different chart types available within Planning Analytics Workspace, and when one type might be better than another.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx) VBA API Calls

IBM Planning Analytics lets you make API calls through VBA in Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel (PAx)? You probably know that action buttons can be used to refresh or rebuild reports in PAx. But what if you want to refresh the data in your report as part of a VBA routine? Maybe there are more tasks you want to perform through VBA and then you want to refresh the data as the last step. IBM offers the ability to make API calls through VBA in PAx with just a few steps.

Check back next week for the last five most popular blog posts of 2018.

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Revelwood’s Top 15 IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks of 2018, Part 1

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Every Tuesday we publish a new IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks blog post. Today’s post is the first in a series of three highlighting our 15 most popular blog posts of 2018.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: The Ranked Report

IBM Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel (PAx) provides several tools to view, maintain, and report on your Planning Analytics data. Dynamic Reports, one of the PAx reporting tools, allows you to create flexible reports with personalized formatting. An example of this is a ranked report, which will display and sort the top set of rows. Read the full blog post to learn how to insert a TM1RPTFILTER formula into a cell on the Excel worksheet containing the Dynamic Report.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Asymmetrical Axis in PAx

IBM Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx) gives you the ability to use an asymmetrical approach that allows you to display combinations of elements without the repetition. IBM Cognos TM1 and IBM Planning Analytics gives you the ability to quickly create views of your existing data.  The views are symmetrical, which means that any rows or columns that contain multiple elements will include all possible combinations of the selected elements.  But sometimes you may not want to see all combinations.

Read the full blog post for an example of a symmetrical view that will be converted into an asymmetrical view.  The example will use a Financial GL cube.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: New Parameters for TurboIntegrator

IBM Planning Analytics enables you to create a temporary VIEW or SUBSET TurboIntegrator function. This blog post explains why you may need to, and how to do so. IBM has gone to great lengths to ensure that the transition to Planning Analytics is a seamless process and has added some new functionality to help make your system more efficient.

Two commonly used TurboIntegrator (TI) functions are SUBSETCREATE and VIEWCREATE.  These processes are used to create a new component in your process, but they sometimes can cause an issue.  If you create a new subset or view in the prolog but then have the process fail with the DATA tab then the process will end without removing the new components.  This is most likely because VIEWDESTROY and SUBSETDESTROY are most likely within the Epilog.

There are ways to code around this in the existing version of TM1, but Planning Analytics now offers the ability to create a temporary VIEW or SUBSET as of version 10.2.2 FP4.  This is done by adding a flag at the end of the command.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Ensuring Cube Logging is Reset in TM1

Did you know you can easily reset cube logging in TM1? A previous tech tip was written to discuss when to enable and disable logging. As stated in that posting, it is best practice to turn cube logging off while processing TurboIntegrator processes. Typically, logging is turned off in the Prolog and turned back on in the Epilog. But if an error occurs when the process is run, it never reaches the Epilog and logging never gets turned back on.

  1. IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: TM1 Web Write-back Protection

There are several ways to prevent data entry to TM1 in TM1 Web websheets. The first approach can be used for input templates. Use this approach when you want your users to be able to enter data for certain cells/columns, but not others. By default, every cell in an Excel worksheet has the ‘Locked’ property set. This property has no effect on the cell unless the sheet or workbook is protected. In this example, we can select certain cells of an input template to be enterable and certain cells to be locked down or protected. To unlock certain cells in the template, right click the cells and select Format Cells. In the Format Cells dialogue box, select the Protection tab, uncheck the Locked checkbox, and select OK. Read the full blog post to learn the details.

Come back next week to read about the next five most popular blog posts of 2018.

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FP&A Done Right: You Can’t “System” Your Way Out of This

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Are you preparing to move from Excel to a new planning and reporting solution? Perhaps you are changing to a new solution or simply upgrading the current one you have. Are you planning to implement your current process in the new system or are you going to take this opportunity to make changes and updates? I can help with that last one!

Avoid the dreaded “lift and shift.” It will always be easier to recreate the same processes, templates, schedules and reports in your new solution but you will be cheating yourself. When we do this, we often place a governor on the new software and we implement processes that make it impossible to get all the benefits from the latest system functionality. Opportunities to change the way we do things do not come up often and you need to take advantage of this while you can.

It’s all about People, Process and Technology. While very important, the Technology component is simply an enabler to support your People and Process. Technology does not create or drive process, you do. Implementing a “best in class” system is not a cure-all. You need “best in class” people following “best in class” processes to get the true benefit from your FP&A solution.

I challenge you to make the time to rethink your processes. If you are anything like I was during my FP&A days, you make constant “quick fixes” to your files so you don’t get burned in the immediate fire. Of course, I always planned on going back to update the file to include those changes. Sound familiar?  (I didn’t go back to make the changes either!) That pile of “fixes” on the corner of my desk continued to grow. Wait until the next person inherits that gem of an Excel file…good luck.

We continue to circumvent the process until the workaround becomes the process. Don’t carry that over to your new solution. Take a holistic look at your processes and decide what to keep, what to throw away, and what to improve. Spending the requisite time upfront to improve your processes will pay back a multi-fold dividend in the future. You can’t system your way out of this.

Read more blog posts about FP&A Done Right:

New Blog Series: FP&A Done Right

Are you Ready for your Finance Transformation?

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Revelwood’s Performance Tune-Up Is Live!

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Revelwood’s Customer Care offering is now complete! I am excited to announce that the third prong in our suite of Customer Care services, the Performance Tune-Up, is ready to go. Our Performance Tune-Up, along with the other two services, System Administration as a Service and Help Desk, will make sure your TM1 or IBM Planning Analytics system doesn’t fail when you need it most. It’s all about providing you with the peace of mind that Revelwood has your back when you need us. You choose the level of service that fits you best and we take care of the rest.

While our goal is to make you self-sufficient with respect to your solution and processes, we understand that there are times where a second set of hands is very important. Whether you want us to handle all or part of your system administration or you want to take advantage of our “phone a friend” option or if you want recurring check points to ensure your system is continually tweaked and updated so it changes with your business, Revelwood has you covered. Now I want to focus a bit on our final Customer Care offering, the Performance Tune-Up.

To maintain peak performance levels, Revelwood offers recurring, scheduled maintenance of your Planning Analytics application. This is accomplished through a combination of interviews and detailed technical reviews of your cube models, business processes and technical environment. The Tune-Up includes Annual and Quarterly components which cover general technical and business topics that may affect the health of your system.

Annual Tune-Up services are completed once per year and focus on general business concerns/changes and the technical health of your overall solution. Quarterly Tune-Up services provide a deep dive into one model per quarter and focus on five key components which are measured across five overarching categories. Revelwood will review your model’s performance, maintainability, integrity, usability and security for your TurboIntegrator processes, entry templates, rules, model structure and reports.

Everyone knows that proper maintenance is the key to maintaining overall good health and performance. You don’t think twice about going to a mechanic for scheduled tune-ups or heading to your doctor for routine well visits. So why would you assume that your TM1/Planning Analytics solution will simply take care of itself?

With constant changes to your processes and system usage, how can you afford NOT to include Revelwood’s Performance Tune-Up as part of your normal maintenance routine? Without proper care and feeding, your solution may not be ready when you need it most. Don’t let your investment suffer a slow decline. Let Revelwood’s Performance Tune-Up offering help you ensure continued success tomorrow.

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New Customer Care Offering: System Administration as a Service for TM1 Users

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As part of our expanded Customer Care program, we’ve recently launched a new System Administration as a Service (SAaaS) offering for TM1 users and IBM Planning Analytics users. This new program enables you to tap into our many years of experience, staff expertise and managed services infrastructure. We’ll free up your team from the labors of TM1 administration, while handling your general and cycle maintenance needs.

TM1 users and Planning Analytics users can chose from two options:

Fully Outsourced Coverage for TM1 Users

 We’ll take over your entire administration function. Our team will be fully responsible for ensuring your business cycles are managed from start to finish and that your TM1 environment or Planning Analytics environment is running in top condition. TM1 users will realize a number of benefits from this plan, including:

  • Reducing your SG&A expense
  • Allowing you to focus on your business and core competencies, rather than admin tasks
  • Eliminating the need for you to keep track of all the changes, patches, and updates from IBM
  • Providing uninterrupted service, freeing you from planning around vacations and unexpected absences

Backup/Supplemental Coverage for TM1 Users

We’ll serve as your extra set of hands when you need us. Whether its your busy season or you are taking vacation, we’re here so that your TM1 environment is always up and running. The benefits of this program include:

  • Access your expert technical staff when you need to
  • Augmenting your internal staff
  • Filling any skill or knowledge gaps
  • Ensuring continuity of business processes
  • Freeing your part-time admin to allow them to focus on their primary role
  • Gaining incremental assistance without adding incremental headcount

Our System Administration as a Service offering is one of several in our newly expanded Customer Care program. Our other Customer Care services include a Performance Tune-Up and a Help Desk offering.

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