Budgeting Planning & Forecasting

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: The Data Hold Feature in Planning Analytics Workspace

May 8, 2018 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

This is a guest post from Revelwood’s Shane Bethea.

Did you know that you can hold (e.g. lock) a data point in a view in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace simply by typing the word ‘hold’ into a cell? To do this, create a view to do data entry. The below view has the first 4 months locked, allowing entry into May through December.

Next, enter a value into the consolidated year to spread evenly. I have entered 800 into the year 2016. This spreads 100 to May through December.

To place a hold on a particular month, type the word HOLD into the cell (I chose May) and you will see a symbol next to the data point.

Now change the consolidated year to a different value and the hold month will not change.

You can release the hold by right clicking on the cell and selecting ‘release hold’ or by simply typing the word RELEASE into the cell. The hold symbol will no longer be visible.

IBM Planning Analytics 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!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: GMT vs Local Time

May 1, 2018 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Did you know that TM1 offers an easy way for you to convert GMT times to local times? Do you get tired of seeing your message log records in GMT? Are you frustrated that you have to convert times from GMT to local time? Does the concept of daylight savings time annoy you? Well, there’s not much that TM1 can do about that last question, but it does offer a solution to the first two.

TM1 contains many of your configuration settings within a file called tm1s.cfg, but there is also a second file called tm1s-log.properties. The properties file is designed to control message levels that are logged by TM1, but it also contains a configuration option to define the TimeZone.

One of the parameters in the tm1s-log.properties file is:

log4j.appender.S1.TimeZone=Zone

where Zone can be set to either GMT or Local.

If the parameter is set to Local, the log messages will have timestamps based on the local time of the machine where the TM1 server is running.
If the parameter is set to GMT, the log messages will have timestamps based on Greenwich Mean Time.
If the parameter is set to something other than GMT or Local (or if the parameter is not set at all), it defaults to GMT.

The properties file must be located in the same folder as the tm1s.cfg file and you must restart your TM1 server after changing this setting.

This setting will help you make your log files easier to read when looking at time stamps within the various lines of the log.

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

April 24, 2018 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

This is a guest post from Revelwood’s Susan Musselman.

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.

Initially, logging is set by right-clicking on cubes and placing a check in the logging box for each cube that needs logging turned on.

Learn how to ensure cube logging is reset in TM1

When logging is turned off via TI process, the checkbox is turned off.

One way to ensure that settings aren’t permanently “lost” is to reset logging in a chore that runs on a regular schedule (nightly or more frequently, if desired). To do this, set up an attribute in the }Cubes dimension to define which cubes should have logging turned on and manually populate the attribute with “YES” for each cube that should be turned on for logging. In the following example, the attribute is called “LogChore” and two cubes are defined to have logging enabled.

Then create a process with “None” as the source that will loop through the cubes and set log changes to 1 when the attribute is populated. Here is the code to put in the Prolog tab.

iCount = 0 ;

iSize = DIMSIZ ( ‘}Cubes’ ) ;

WHILE ( iCount < iSize ) ;

iCount = iCount + 1 ;

strElement = DIMNM ( ‘}Cubes’ , iCount ) ;

IF ( SUBST ( ATTRS ( ‘}Cubes’ , strElement , ‘LogChore’ ) , 1 , 1 ) @= ‘Y’ ) ;

CUBESETLOGCHANGES ( strElement , 1 ) ;

ENDIF ;

END ;

The final step is to set the process up as a chore and schedule it to run nightly. Any cubes that may have accidentally had Logging turned off will be turned back on.

IBM Planning Tips & Tricks: Asymmetrical Axis in PAx

February 6, 2018 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

This is a guest blog post by Revelwood’s Nicole Frigo.

Did you know that 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.

The following is an example of a symmetrical view that will be converted into an asymmetrical view. This example will use a Financial GL cube.

Connect to an environment in PAx and created an exploration. We will arrange our view in the following way:

Accounts will be on the rows.
Scenario and Period will be on the columns (using multiple periods and a single scenario)
All other dimensions will be in the context area.

Here are the results of our example:

It may not make sense to show Actuals for all 4 quarters since there are no actuals for Q3 or Q4. It may make more sense to show Plan values in those months. A symmetrical view would require 8 columns to appear (4 Actuals plus 4 Plan), but an asymmetrical view allows the columns to be merged together.

Right click in the column drop zone area and select the option to “Convert Axis to asymmetric”.

Once converted, you will see that each column now has its own scenario header, each of which now shows Actuals (which was the value of the original exploration).

Asymmetrical Axis in IBM Planning Analytics for Excel

Expand the scenario dimension in the navigation tree to display all of the members.

Navigation tree in IBM Planning Analytics for Excel

Select the Plan element and drag this onto the cell for Actuals of Q4 (cell F13 in this example). Release the cursor when you see an outline around the cell. You will notice that Q4 is now showing the Plan values while the prior 3 quarters are still showing Actuals.

Plan element in IBM Planning Analytics for Excel

A stacked square icon appears in the left corner of any axis where asymmetry is applied.

You can convert the exploration back to a symmetrical version by double clicking on the icon.

Asymmetric analyses are one of many new features in PAx that enhance the overall functionality and reporting capabilities of 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!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: The Data Hold Feature in Planning Analytics Workspace

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: GMT vs Local Time

Read more blog posts with TM1 and IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

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

Read more blog posts detailing IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Tips & Tricks: Asymmetrical Axis in PAx

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