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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Changes to Eight Planning Analytics Server Configuration Parameters

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This is a guest post from Revelwood’s Jay Apwah.

Did you know that since IBM Planning Analytics was released on the cloud, there have been changes to IBM Planning Analytics server configuration parameters? New parameters have been introduced, existing ones have had their default values changed, and the behavior upon changing has changed for some others. This blog post briefly describes the eight changes.

New Parameters:

There are a handful of new parameters that have been introduced. Here is one:

UseExcelSerialDate

Setting this parameter to T causes Planning Analytics functions to use Jan 1, 1900 as the initial serial date instead of Jan 1, 1960. Jan 1, 1900 is also the initial serial date that Microsoft Excel uses. The default value for this parameter is F. Set UseExcelSerialDate = T for Planning Analytics functions to use the Excel serial date scheme.

Changes to default value:

MTQ

In previous releases, the default value was F. The default value is now ALL. This parameter allows Planning Analytics to take advantage of multiple processor cores in order to split calculations into multiple parallel threads.

MDXSelectCalculatedMemberInputs

In previous releases, the default value was F. The default value is now T.  This parameter protects against unintended suppression of calculated members when the calculation components are not requested in the query results.

Changed from static to dynamic:

Some parameters are now dynamic, which means parameter values can be edited while the Planning Analytics server is running. It takes 60 seconds for the changed parameter value to take effect.

AuditLogOn

This is an optional parameter that enables and disables audit logging. To enable, set AuditLogOn = T

IntegratedSecurityMode

Although this parameter is dynamic, each user must be logged out of all Planning Analytics components it to take effect.

UseLocalCopiesforPublicDynamicSubsets

This parameter improves performance of public dynamic subsets by using local copies of the public subset instead of the public subset itself.

No longer used:

AuditLogMaxTempFileSize

A similar parameter still exists: AuditLogMaxFileSize. Use it to indicate the maximum audit log file size before a new one is created.

ParallelInteraction

This parameter was used for allowing read/write concurrency on the same cube object.

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!

Read additional blog posts on IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Top 5 IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using Attributes

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Upgrading from TM1

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New Performance Tune-Up Service for TM1 & IBM Planning Analytics Users

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In response to customer requests, we’ve been expanding our Customer Care program. The newest option is a Performance Tune-Up. Proper maintenance of your TM1/Planning Analytics environment is the key to overall good health and performance. Think of our team as your “mechanics” for your solution. You take your car to the auto shop for regular tune-ups. Why not do the same for TM1/Planning Analytics?

We’ve designed this service to make sure your system is running at its best. It is a recurring, scheduled maintenance program consisting of annual tune-ups and quarterly tune-ups. We’ll conduct interviews with your users and detailed technical reviews of your cube models, reports, business processes and the overall environment.

The Performance Tune-Up accomplishes many things, including:

  • Verifying that your TM1/Planning Analytics solution is maintaining peak performance levels and meeting your business and technical requirements
  • Confirming you are up-to-date with the latest IBM technology and leveraging new features and capabilities
  • Ensuring a positive end-user experience

We also offer other services for customer care. These include a subscription-based dedicated TM1/Planning Analytics Help Desk and a System Administration as a Service (SAaaS) offering. Our dedicated TM1 Planning Analytics Help Desk helps you diagnose, troubleshoot and resolve bugs and other issues related to your entire TM1/Planning Analytics environment – including all of your customizations and configurations. Our SAaaS solution is designed to free up your team from the labors of TM1 administration and comes in two options: fully out-sourced coverage and backup/supplemental coverage.

Let our expert team at Revelwood free up your time by taking advantage of our Customer Care program today!

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Synchronizing Selectors with Planning Analytics Workspace

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Did you know that you can easily synchronize your selectors with your IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) components?

PAW allows you to synchronize your widgets to a selector or set of selectors. This ensures that a change in your selected elements impacts all of the widgets on your page. Synchronization is defined by clicking on the dashboard properties and selecting the option for “Synchronization scope.”

Synchronizing selectors in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace

You will be given the option to synchronize items for the selected sheet or throughout the entire book.

How to synchronize selectors in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace

Once selected, you can now define the dimensions you want to synchronize throughout the sheet or the book. This approach allows you to create powerful dashboards with live data that can be changed via a single selector.

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!

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Revelwood Launches Adaptive Insights Practice

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Since our founding in 1995, Revelwood has been fiercely committed to working with what we believe to be the absolute best-in-class analytics technologies on the market. Despite overtures from many vendors in the space, we’ve always held to certain principles that dictate the vendors we choose to work with.

When it comes to FP&A solutions, factors like ease-of-use, performance, breadth of functionality, scalability, vendor strength and product vision are paramount. We’re passionate about working with great products and want to share that enthusiasm with our clients. Your success in managing the FP&A process of your enterprise is our #1 objective.

Earlier this year Revelwood was invited to join the Adaptive Insights partner channel in North America. Adaptive Insights is a cloud-based FP&A solution with over 4,000 customers worldwide spanning just about every industry. After nearly a year of vetting a variety of vendors in the space, we excitedly accepted their invitation and are off to a fantastic start.

According to Mel Zeledon, VP of Global Channels and Alliances for Adaptive Insights…

“I am very proud to have Revelwood as part of the Adaptive Insights partner ecosystem. I have personally worked with Revelwood for over a decade, and they were the first prospective partner that I turned to when I joined the company. Revelwood’s reputation in the market is impeccable, driven by their passion to drive absolute customer success in every one of their engagements. Revelwood is not like any other consulting company – they truly focus on business strategy and business outcomes from the very beginning of the engagement. Every company that engages with Revelwood just becomes better. Grounded in very well-established company core values, they provide deep business knowledge, technological prowess and the ability to run large and complex projects. They are accountable, reliable and a partner for the long haul.”

Although Adaptive Insights is probably best known for its market-leading presence in the small and mid-market space (allowing Revelwood to address the below $100M market), it has steadily expanded its footprint in large enterprises, as well, with clients like Boston Scientific, P.F. Chang’s, Siemens, Domo, Papyrus, Harry’s and Toyota. Their development team has put a tremendous focus on scalability and performance to allow the product to support much larger models and user volumes. Perhaps most significantly, they were recently acquired by Workday for $25 billion as the cornerstone of Workday’s Business Planning suite.

While we continue to maintain our great partnership with IBM and support new and existing clients on its Planning Analytics and Cognos Analytics platforms, we’re equally excited to expand our portfolio and reach new markets and customers with Adaptive Insights and Workday.

If you have any questions about either of these market leaders (both of whom appear in Gartner’s upper right “Leaders” Quadrant in the July 2018 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions), please give us a call. Our success is predicated on your success.

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Workarounds for Unsupported Excel Functions in TM1 Web

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Did you know there are a number of workarounds available for Excel functions that are not supported by TM1 Web? This blog post is the second in a series discussing these workarounds. Below, I’ll describe ways to accomplish the same results using functions that are compatible online.

Function: CELL

Description: Returns information about the formatting, location, or contents of a cell

Please note that workarounds only exist for some of the information supported by the CELL function.

 ABCD
1InputOriginalResultCompatible with TM1 Web
21CELL(“address”,A2)$A$2ADDRESS(2,1)
3 CELL(“col”,A2)1COLUMN(A2)
11 CELL(“row”,A2)2ROW(A2)

Function: ISLOGICAL

Description: Returns TRUE if the value is a logical value

 ABCD
1InputOriginalResultCompatible with TM1 Web
21ISLOGICAL(A2)FALSEIF(OR(A2=TRUE,TEXT(A2,””)=”FALSE”),TRUE,FALSE)

Function: N

Description: Returns a value converted to a number

 ABCD
1InputOriginalResultCompatible with TM1 Web
21/1/2018N(A2)43101VALUE(A2)
3   NUMBERVALUE(A2)

Function: QUOTIENT

Description: Returns the integer portion of a division

 ABCD
1InputOriginalResultCompatible with TM1 Web
25QUOTIENT(A1/A2)2FLOOR.MATH(A1/A2)
32   

Function: SQRTPI

Description: Returns the square root of (number * pi)

 ABCD
1InputOriginalResultCompatible with TM1 Web
24SQRTPI(A2)3.544907702SQRT(A2*PI())

IBM’s documentation on Excel functions that are not supported by TM1 Web can be found here.

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!

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Creating Selectors in Planning Analytics Workspace

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Did you know that there are different ways to create selectors in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW)?

TM1 Perspectives allows you to create selectors via the SUBNM formula. This approach offers an easy way to create a selectable list on a report or input template, but it requires some training to learn how to create and manipulate the formula.

PAW allows users to more easily create selectors by simply dragging items onto the screen via a “selector widget.” This is done by right clicking on a dimension and then selecting the option for “Add as selector widget.”

Creating selectors in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace

The selection initially appears as a list, but the appearance can be changed by clicking the option to “Change visualization.”

Using the selector widget in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace

You will then be given the option to change the visualization to a slider, which allows users to create an automated loop through the available selections.

Learn how to use the selector widget in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace

Users can now create an easy to use report without having to learn any formulas or parameters.

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 blog posts containing tips and tricks on TM1 and IBM Planning Analytics:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Creating Dynamic, Attractive Views and Dashboards

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Visualizing Data into Pie Charts

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Displaying Data in Maps

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Creating Dynamic Sets in the PAx Set Editor

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

Did you know that you can use the IBM Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx) Set Editor to create dynamic sets to be used in a view?

This can be accomplished by using the ‘Search available members’ bar in the set editor. I will use the bpmAccount dimension in this example.

Start by opening the set editor in PAx. Right click the bpmAccount dimension (or click the drop down arrow by the dimension name) and choose Edit Set.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using the PAx Set Editor

In the PAx Set Editor, enter your search criteria into the ‘Search available members’ bar and click the search button. If you have multiple criteria, such as a certain naming convention or attribute values, you can add to your search by clicking the drop down arrow to the left of the search bar. For this example, I will search for all accounts that have ‘COGS’ in the name.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Working with the PAx Set Editor

The results of the search display all elements with ‘COGS’ in the name.  Look closely and you’ll notice the very first node of the results is an entry that says ‘Search – (Name Contains COGS)’. If I select that node and choose the ‘Replace set with new insertion’ button, the MDX query that makes up that search will be moved into the Current Set section. Once ‘Apply and close’ is selected, the set will be a dynamic set. Anytime a new element is added with ‘COGS’ in the name, it will automatically be added to the set.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Learn to use the PAx Set Editor

This approach of defining criteria and creating a dynamic set will ensure that your report will always contain the correct set of elements.

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!

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

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAx VBA API Calls

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Asymmetrical Axis in PAx

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Converting Reports to PAx

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Writing Rules

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Did you know that that way you write your rule could impact the performance of the model in IBM Planning Analytics?

There are three parts to a rule. The area definition describes the section of the cube to which the rule will apply. The qualifier allows formulas to be restricted to base level numbers, consolidated, numbers or string values. And the formula defines how the components will be calculated.

Sometimes I am asked about the best approach to use when creating a rule for a single intersection. For example, assume that I want to create a rule that populates January’s Actual value for account 40000 to the number 99. One approach that will perform this calculation is:

[‘Actual’, ‘40000’] = N: IF (Month = ‘January’, 99, CONTINUE)

This rule defines the Actual scenario and account within the area definition and then uses an IF statement to check the month. While functional, this rule requires the model to look at every month to determine when to populate the number 99 into the cube. This means that the rule is checking at least 12 values to simply populate one of them.

Another way to write the same rule is:

[‘Actual’, ‘40000’, ‘January’] = N: 99

This approach performs the same calculation but doesn’t require the system to look at all of the months since January is defined in the area definition. This is a more efficient way to perform the same calculation.

Proper use of the area definition can make your rules more efficient and can therefore optimize your existing models and calculations.

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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Cleaning up Your TM1 Environment

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Regions with Planning Analytics Rules

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: False Options within an IF Statement

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Recalculating Excel Worksheets

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Did you know there are various shortcuts to force calculations in Excel, and that there is a shortcut that does this for TM1 Perspectives and Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx) as well? Rather than searching for a button in the Excel ribbon, it’s often easier and more efficient to use keyboard shortcuts to refresh calculations. This post describes the various shortcuts available to force calculations in Excel for Windows, including one shortcut that performs this functionality specifically with TM1 Perspectives or Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx).

F9: This shortcut calculates all new, changed, or volatile functions in worksheets for all open workbooks. A few examples of volatile functions include NOW(), RAND(), and TODAY().

Shift+F9: This shortcut calculates only the active worksheet. This includes dependencies that are located within the active worksheet.

Ctrl+Alt+F9: This shortcut calculates all worksheets in all open workbooks, regardless of whether they have changed since the last calculation. If you have multiple workbooks open and each has several tabs, this option can take longer to complete.

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F9: This shortcut checks dependent formulas and then calculates all cells in all open workbooks, including cells not marked as needing to be calculated.

Alt+F9: This shortcut rebuilds all Active Forms (Perspectives) or Dynamic Reports (PAx) on the current worksheet.

Microsoft’s documentation on keyboard shortcuts in Excel for Windows can be found here. IBM’s documentation on recalculating an Active Form can be found here, and their full documentation on keyboard navigation in PAx can be found here.

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!

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

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Converting Reports to PAx

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAx VBA API Calls

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