Financial Performance Management

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!

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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!

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Did you know that you don’t have to show all of your dimensions during an ad-hoc query in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW)?

TM1 cube views and formulas require a reference to every dimension within the cube. While all of these dimensions have a use within your cube, they are not always needed for your reports, templates and ad-hoc querying. PAW books allow you to hide dimensions during ad-hoc browses. This is done by simply dragging the dimension off the screen.

The following view was originally created to show all dimensions:

However, if this view is going to be used as a planning template and will only utilize the scenario called “Plan” then the dimension can be hidden by simply dragging it onto the three dots at the top right corner of the screen.

The dimension no longer appears on the screen.

This easy approach can be used to minimize the selections on your PAW screens and thereby creating a simpler user experience.

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!

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

Did you know that the IBM Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx) Set Editor has a new, simplified way of selecting dimension elements for a view? As of PAx version 2.0.34, this can be done with a new feature called ‘Replace and Close’.

This new feature is available in the newer report types in PAx (Explorations and Quick Reports), as well as in the PAx cube viewer.

The following Exploration view originally showed the year 2017 and quarterly detail:

To quickly and easily change the month, right click the bpmPeriod dimension (or click the drop down arrow by the dimension name) and choose Edit Set.

In the PAx Set Editor, select the elements you would like to use in the view and then click the ‘Replace and Close’ button at the bottom.

The view will automatically be updated with the elements selected.

This simplified approach can be used to minimize the number of steps to change a PAx view, creating a more streamlined user experience.

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!

Did you know that you can bookmark items for quick navigation in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW)?

PAW’s navigation menu allows you to scroll through your entire system which includes cubes, dimensions, views and other aspects of your model. This ability to access your models within a single list is very powerful, but it can also become very large. PAW offers an easy way to quickly navigate to important components of your model that via the use of bookmarks.

To create a bookmark on a view, simply right click on the view and select the option to “Bookmark this.”

Once saved, the Bookmarks icon at the top of your screen can quickly help you navigate to your saved locations:

This quick and easy approach can be used to speed up your system navigation and improve your user experience.

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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How to use IBM Planning Analytics Workspace

Did you know that element attributes in TM1 and IBM Planning Analytics can be used for more than just making report aliases? They can be utilized by the system itself to better manage data flow, and to make it easier to trace where your data is coming from without having to use calculation tracer so often.

Let’s imagine that we have 2 cubes – detailed and high-level. The detailed cube has the same dimensionality as the high-level cube, but it also has expenses by vendor.

How can we tell the system when to pull from the detailed cube vs. the high-level cube, while simultaneously restricting the ability to enter into the detailed cube?

By setting an attribute on the account dimension, maybe something like “use detailed,” we can not only easily turn this on and off, but we can also visually see where our data is coming from. With this set up, here’s what our rules look like:

High-Level:

Detailed:

There’s a problem with that feeder, though. It is overfeeding. Tune in next time to see how to set up a “conditional feeder.”

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: String Feeders

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Did you know feeding based on string values can be tricky?  Anyone that has developed in TM1/IBM Planning Analytics before knows full well the importance of a well-written feeder statement.

An example of this is when we have a cube with string measures that are dimensions in another cube.  The pull side is quite simple:

The issue, however, is how Planning Analytics registers feeders:

Numeric feeders only trigger once…  during the first time the string in the cube “Input” is filled in.  Therefore, the feeder above will initially work perfectly well.  However, if that string ever changes, the new value will not be fed since TM1 doesn’t reprocess the feeder.

We need to instead have the string value feed the cell.  We can do this by altering our feeders:

By adding the second feeder statement, it ensures that any changes in the string-based “Location” measure will trigger the new location.  Don’t forget to include a FEEDSTRINGS command at the top of your rule!

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: Customizing PAW Directory Installation on Windows 2016

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

Did you know you can create a new path to an existing Windows folder without breaking the original path when working in IBM Planning Analytics and TM1? An example of this is when you have a TurboIntegrator (TI) process that writes log files to a path that is several folders deep, but you want to simplify the path.

Windows allows you to create something called a directory junction that points to the original path. This works similar to a shortcut, but Windows and Planning Analytics/TM1 treat it like a regular folder.

Let’s say I have a log folder within C:\Clients\Lightspeed\TM1Server\Logs and I want to create a directory junction directly under the C:\ drive which points to that path. This can be done by using the mklink command within a Command Prompt.  The format of the command is:

mklink /J <Directory Junction Name> <Path to Reference>

I can create a directory junction called LightspeedLogs that references the file path via the following command:

mklink /J LightspeedLogs “C:\Clients\Lightspeed\TM1Server\Logs”

The result is a directory junction called LightspeedLogs that is located directly under the C:\ drive.  The junction points to the full path of the Logs folder.

Now your TI processes can write log files to C:\LightspeedLogs and they will be written to the same path as any other log files within C:\Clients\Lightspeed\TM1Server\Logs.

If you need to remove the directory junction, you can use the remove directory (rd) command below.

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 with IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

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