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Budgeting Planning & Forecasting

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Convert to Driver-Based Planning

June 11, 2024 by Revelwood

This is the latest post in our blog series on how we solve problems. Each blog post focuses on a real-world client experience where Revelwood was presented with a unique or thorny problem.  We’ll explain our approach to how we solved it.

Revelwood Client: A private university with campuses throughout New York and New Jersey.  

Planning Environment: IBM Planning Analytics

Problem: The university was planning revenue using an Excel-based spreadsheet. The spreadsheet contained many repetitive sheets, had very complex formulas and had some erroneous calculations built into the file.

How We Helped: Revelwood reviewed their existing model and helped convert it into a driver-based planning approach that used a combination of headcounts with various lookup tables. The model accommodated various review sources such as tuition and other fees, while also calculating contra accounts such as tuition and bad debt. Users planned by semester. We converted the results into calendar months, taking into consideration both calendar years and school years. This simplified approach allowed the client to easily load and update data into the model and then make modifications for what-if analyses.

Do you have a challenge with your Planning Analytics environment? Let us tackle the problem! Send us a quick email!

Home » Budgeting Planning & Forecasting » Page 4

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Fixing Repetitive Scripts

May 28, 2024 by Revelwood

This post is the latest post in our new blog series: How We Solve Problems. Each blog post focuses on a real-world client experience where Revelwood was presented with a unique or thorny problem.  We’ll explain our approach to how we solved it.

Revelwood Client: A financial services company specializing in retirement and life insurance.

Planning Environment: IBM Planning Analytics

Problem: A review of their existing TurboIntegrator scripts found that many of their processes used pre-built source views. Each view differed only slightly. For example, one view would define subsets in approximately eight dimensions and focus on a single time period, while a second view would contain the same subsets and focus on a different time period. This approach led to more than 50 repetitive scripts that were run via chores.

How We Helped: We changed the approach to create a source view in the prolog. This allowed a single script to be run over and over via parameters that were defined during each iteration. This resulted in faster maintenance since changes only had to be coded once.  It also ensured that changes to public views and subsets would not impact these scripts.

Do you have a challenge with your Planning Analytics environment? Let us tackle the problem! Send us a quick email!

Home » Budgeting Planning & Forecasting » Page 4

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: How We Solve Problems

May 14, 2024 by Revelwood

This post is the first post in our new blog series: How We Solve Problems. Each blog post focuses on a real-world client experience where Revelwood was presented with a unique or thorny problem.  We’ll explain our approach to how we solved it.

Revelwood Client: A publicly traded television broadcasting company that owns and operates more than 175 stations across the United States.

Planning Environment: IBM Planning Analytics

Problem: The company’s budgeting process was very granular and plans down to the individual employee. The calculations in the model include detailed benefits and taxes, combined with multiple bonus calculations that depend on results from the core financial model. Due to the size and complexity of the process, “top of the house” reports took more than 10 minutes to properly refresh.

How We Helped: Revelwood analyzed the existing calculations and the interaction of the various models to determine an efficient order of processing. Due to the need for an order of operations, many of the live rules were converted into on-demand TurboIntegrator scripts. This approach shrunk an individual company’s refresh time from one minute down to a few seconds while also bringing the “top of the house” analysis down to under 20 seconds.

Do you have a challenge with your Planning Analytics environment? Let us tackle the problem!

Send us a quick email!

Home » Budgeting Planning & Forecasting » Page 4

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Planning Analytics, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Asymmetrical Expand in PAW

April 30, 2024 by Marc Assenza

Have you ever been in a situation where you have stacked dimensions in your view and only want to expand one section of it? In legacy Perspectives, an expansion of one area equates to an expansion of all areas. IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW), version 87, introduced functionality that allows you to expand just one piece at a time.

Here is an example of a simple view that shows Actual Finance expenses by Company.

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By default, an expansion of the Finance department would show an expansion for all three companies.

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A new icon has been added that will allow you to determine how you want to expand and collapse the elements within your view.  

When clicked, you will have two options: Symmetrical and Asymmetrical.  

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If we change the approach to Asymmetrical and then expand the departments within company 2, only a subset of the full view is expanded.

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This approach will allow you to tighten your analysis and let your users focus on a subsection of your view while still easily having the ability to see the big picture.

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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW “Spacers”

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s ROUND Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Switch Function

Home » Budgeting Planning & Forecasting » Page 4

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Greenbar

April 16, 2024 by Lee Lazarow

Have you ever generated an IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) exploration and struggled to read the values in the grid? For example, how easy is it to define the travel cost for department 55 in the screenshot below?

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A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about solving this in Excel by using formulas to shade every other row. This approach is built into PAW via an option called “Zebra strips.” You can enable this option within the Custom properties of an exploration:

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Once enabled, PAW will lightly shade every other row to allow you to quickly navigate through your exploration. Using the example from earlier, it is now much easier to define the travel cost for department 55.

A table with numbers and a number of sales

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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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW “Spacers”

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s ROUND Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Switch Function

Home » Budgeting Planning & Forecasting » Page 4

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips and Tricks: Excel’s ARRAYTOTEXT Function

April 2, 2024 by Ivan Cepero

Have you ever needed to export Excel data in a format that can be read by other systems?  Although csv files are widely accepted, many legacy systems expect data in an array format. This can be done using the ARRAYTOTEXT formula in Excel.

The syntax of the ARRAYTOTEXT formula is:

=ARRAYTOTEXT(array, format)

  • Array: the text to convert to an array
  • Format: the format to apply on conversion
    • The only valid values for this parameter are 0 and 1

A standard array format uses a set structure:

  • The array enclosed by curly braces. 
  • All items in the same row are separated by commas
  • The end of a row is indicated by a semicolon

For example, this data set …

A screenshot of a computer

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… would appear like this in array notation:

{“Row1Col1″,”Row1Col2″;”Row2Col1″,”Row2Col2”}

However, the function does not force you to use the standard array format.  Using the following table as an example:

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Format = 0 (also called the concise format) will join all the data into a single comma delimited list, similar to the TEXTJOIN formula.

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Format 1 (also called strict format) will convert the data into an array format.  Every item on the same row is separated by a comma and the end of a row is indicated by a semicolon.

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As an added feature, the ARRAYTOTEXT formula detects data types and does not convert the numbers to text (numbers are not enclosed by quotation marks).

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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW “Spacers”

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s ROUND Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Switch Function

Home » Budgeting Planning & Forecasting » Page 4

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Switch Function

February 20, 2024 by Ivan Cepero

The SWITCH function in Excel evaluates a condition and then provides a result based on that condition. This function is similar to a SQL CASE statement and allows for up to 126 potential results.

The syntax of the SWITCH function is:

=SWITCH(expression, value1, result1, value2, result2, …, no match value)

  • The Expression is the value to be analyzed. This can be any formula, including another Excel formula.
    • The resulting value can be a text string or a decimal.
  • Result1 is the value to be referenced/matched.  This is the result of the expression.
  • Value1 is the replacement (switch) value.  
  • The “no match value” is the result if no matches are found.

Here is an example of the formula:

Table, Excel

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This example returns the month short name for January and February but will return ‘Qtr1-End’ for March. If no match is found, the text value “No Match” will be returned.

This approach will allow you to merge IF statements and LOOKUP statements into a single command.

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!

Read more about visualizations in IBM Planning Analytics:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel TEXT Function

Top Three IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Posts – 2023

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using the Subset Editor in Planning Analytics Workspace

Home » Budgeting Planning & Forecasting » Page 4

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Excel, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Generated Statements

February 6, 2024 by Lee Lazarow

One of the great things about IBM Planning Analytics Perspective’s process editor is that the wizard can be used to create code within your scripts. The results of the wizard based statements are inserted within areas called “Generated Statements.”

However, there may be times when you want to change the code within the generated areas. Maybe you want to temporarily disable some lines from running or maybe you want to add a debugging line within the existing section. Perspectives does not allow you to perform this type of task, but Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) does!

A user preference is built into PAW’s modeling workbench that allows you to either lock or unlock generated statements. You can access this setting by clicking on the preferences icon on a workbench.

From there, you can toggle the Lock Generated Statements option within the Process editor area.

When unlocking, you will need to refresh the script before the system will allow you to make changes within the previously locked area. The following window will appear as a warning:

A screenshot of a computer screen

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This approach will allow you to quickly modify your generated statements while also providing the ability to easily reenable them for future development.

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!

Read more about visualizations in IBM Planning Analytics:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel TEXT Function

Top Three IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Posts – 2023

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using the Subset Editor in Planning Analytics Workspace

Home » Budgeting Planning & Forecasting » Page 4

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, Planning Analytics Workspace, TM1

Top Three IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Posts – 2023

December 19, 2023 by Revelwood

What were your favorite IBM Planning Analytics Tips and Tricks blog posts this year? We took a look at our website analytics and found the top three posts of 2023 are (drumroll, please!) …

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: DefineCalc

IBM Planning Analytics for Excel (PAfE) version 80 introduced a new function called “DefineCalc.” This function allows a user to create a custom calculation using TM1/Planning Analytics data via the use of MDX.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Expanding Sections of Stacked Dimensions

Have you ever been in a situation where you have stacked dimensions in your view and only want to expand one section of it? In legacy Perspectives, an expansion of one area equates to an expansion of all areas. IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW), version 87, introduced functionality that allows you to expand just one piece at a time.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks PAW Users and Groups

Do you know how to manage your users and groups in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW)? As of version 84, PAW now allows you to edit this information via a single click.

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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) Region Expansion

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: How to Determine when Users Logged in to Planning Analytics Workspace

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Substitute Function

Home » Budgeting Planning & Forecasting » Page 4

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, TM1

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