Financial Performance Management

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s Camera Tool

July 11, 2023 by Ivan Cepero

The Linked Picture tool (aka Camera tool) is a little-known feature in Excel that you can use to give your dashboards and reports greater flexibility. In summary, the linked image is an image that is connected to the source data and updates automatically. You can resize and move the image without affecting the underlying source data.

To create a linked picture:

1 – Select the source area

Table

Description automatically generated

2 – Copy the area

3 – Select another empty cell (this will be where you will paste the image)

4 – Select Paste Special > Linked Picture

Graphical user interface, application

Description automatically generated

Excel will paste a picture that is linked to the original source area. You can verify the linkage by selecting the linked picture and looking at the formula bar, it will have the addresses of the source range.

Any changes applied to the source data will be reflected in the linked picture. This includes data updates, formatting changes, conditional formatting updates, objects (e.g., icons, charts, etc.) placed in the data source.

The linked image can be resized and moved into a report/dashboard for placement irrespective of column width or row height limitations.

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!

Professional Services Firms Need Future-Ready Forecasting

June 29, 2023 by Revelwood

This is an excerpt from a blog post from our partner Workday Adaptive Planning. It highlights some approaches for professional services firms to keep up with the breakneck pace of work.

Professional services firms don’t have the luxury of gradually adjusting to an evolving digital environment. For them, the digital future is pretty much here. More than one-third of professional services firms expect that at least 75% of their revenue will come from digital by 2025, according to a report by PwC and Workday.

As an additional sign of the changing times, a growing proportion of firms are investing more than $50 million in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and advanced analytics, according to the report. And with recent advances in generative AI, investments are likely to continue to grow. That’s further blurring the line between professional services and digital services—a distinction that will only get fuzzier in the future.

“Digital first is our new reality. That isn’t going to change,” shared Joe Golden, vice president of services, IBM, at a Workday event.

Yet, despite how adroitly many professional services firms adapted to wide-scale changes brought on by the pandemic, some lack visibility around past behavior and likely future outcomes. “Professional services organizations can be surprisingly opaque when it comes to insight,” IDC reports.

To succeed, firms must solve their data, talent, and technology challenges. But many have yet to embrace this new reality. Among professional services leaders, 57% say there’s a growing gap between where their business is and where it needs to be to compete, according to a recent Workday study on digital transformation. And only 23% say their digital strategy allows them to keep pace with or exceed the demands of the business.

Firms will need to bolster their access to high-quality, always-available data, along with having staff with the necessary data literacy skills to make sense of it all. Of companies with fully-accessible data, 76% say they are well-equipped digitally to ensure business continuity in times of crisis, Workday finds. Small wonder, then, that advanced analytics and data visualization are the skills most sought after by IT leaders (35%) and finance leaders (34%).

“Access to data is the crux of most technology issues in any company,” says Jennifer LaClair, CFO, Ally Financial.

To better understand what the future might hold for professional services firms, industry thought leaders shared their predictions for three of the biggest trends the industry will face. The following excerpt focuses on how professional services firms can benefit from more sophisticated forecasting.

Data Silos Disappear as Organizations Race to Future-Ready Forecasting and Adaptability

To drive productivity and profit and to forecast accurately, future-forward professional services firms will need more integration and less separation of their people and systems. “Today’s professional services organizations simply cannot operate with functional silos as the lines between sales, delivery, and finance become blurred,” SPI asserts.

Unfortunately, these organizations’ data too often sits trapped within silos. “The reason most companies can’t forecast their revenue more accurately is because they have different systems and data across their lines of businesses and services,” Joseph says. “And all those different systems mean that you have data that’s going to be wildly inconsistent.”

Almost half (49%) of business leaders—and almost two-thirds (62%) of professional services leaders—say their inability to connect operational, people, and financial data to business outcomes impairs the organization’s agility, according to a Workday survey of senior business executives.

But firms with accessible data tell a different story, the Workday survey reveals. A towering 85% of leaders whose companies enjoy fully accessible data say the organization can embrace change readily. All of which points to the urgent need to overcome siloed data sources.

For ERPA, a consulting and enterprise application managed services firm, adopting professional services automation slashed the time needed to calculate revenue from a full day to just 15 minutes. And the firm gained a stronger forecasting ability in the process.

“From week to week, we’re able to get a really good sense of our forecasted revenue for projects in the next four to 12 weeks,” says Jon Milkovich, director of Workday financials at ERPA. “So it’s really provided a lot better real-time insight into what our forecasted revenue will be.”

That’s a need that best-in-class firms are meeting head-on. They’re 82% more likely than other firms to be able to share financial and operational data with the extended enterprise through a central repository, Aberdeen finds in its report: “Leverage Demand Planning and Forecasting for Best-in-Class Performance During Volatile Times.”

Learn more about how professional services firms can adapt and change in our recent webinar, Streamlining Professional Business Services with Workday Adaptive Planning.

Read the full blog post on the Workday blog.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

Enterprise Planning Helps Professional Services Firms Adapt to Changes

FP&A Done Right: Trends in Accounting and Finance

Leveraging IBM Planning Analytics for xP&A

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Headcount Analysis

June 27, 2023 by Revelwood

Did you miss our recent webinar on headcount analysis? Here’s a high-level recap of what we covered. In short, IBM Planning Analytics is a powerful, flexible tool for headcount analysis.

Headcount analysis is a critical component of any organization’s workforce planning and management strategy. Headcount analysis helps organizations understand their staffing requirements, analyze performance metrics, and identify areas of inefficiency that can be addressed through better HR practices. IBM Planning Analytics provides powerful capabilities for headcount analysis. In this blog post, we will explore headcount analysis with IBM Planning Analytics and discuss key features and benefits of this solution.

Watch the webinar here!

IBM Planning Analytics enables organizations to create sophisticated headcount models that can track a wide range of metrics related to employee performance, retention rate, demographics, compensation, and benefits. With Planning Analytics, organizations can analyze trends in headcounts, understand factors driving variations in headcounts, and identify opportunities to optimize their workforce. For example, you can use Planning Analytics to compare headcounts across different geographies or business units and to identify trends in staffing changes over time.

The solution provides a flexible and user-friendly interface that makes it easy for HR teams and other stakeholders to analyze headcount data. They do not need to be Planning Analytics power users. Planning Analytics includes a variety of pre-built dashboards, reports, and visualizations that enable users to explore and collaborate on data. Users can drill down into specific data points, filter data based on different criteria, and customize their views to suit their needs. The solution also includes a built-in report writer that enables users to create customized reports with ease.

IBM Planning Analytics integrates seamlessly with a variety of data sources, such as ERP and HR systems, to provide a holistic view of headcount data. This means that organizations can extract data from multiple sources and integrate it into a single model for analysis, without having to rely on complex data transformations or manual data entry. This integration capability also ensures that headcount data is accurate and up to date, which is essential for effective decision-making.

Additionally, IBM Planning Analytics provides advanced analytics features such as predictive analytics, what-if scenarios, and trend analysis that enable organizations to forecast future headcount requirements, costs, and risks. Predictive analytics models can use historical data and machine learning algorithms to predict future staffing demands and highlight areas of staffing volatility. What-if scenarios enable organizations to simulate the impact of different staffing strategies, such as hiring freezes or increased retention efforts. And trend analysis enables organizations to understand the impact of different factors on headcount, such as seasonality, economic trends, and business cycles.

The solution also provides robust collaboration and workflow capabilities that enable HR teams to work together effectively and efficiently. The solution includes a variety of collaboration features such as commenting, task assignment, and alerts that enable teams to share information and coordinate efforts. The solution also includes powerful workflow features that enable teams to automate routine tasks and streamline processes, such as approvals and reviews.

Finally, IBM Planning Analytics provides security features that ensure the confidentiality and privacy of headcount data. The solution includes granular access controls, data encryption, and other security measures that enable organizations to protect their sensitive data. The solution is also compliant with a variety of security and privacy regulations, such as GDPR and HIPAA.

In conclusion, headcount analysis is a critical component of any organization’s workforce planning and management strategy. IBM Planning Analytics is an advanced analytics solution that provides powerful capabilities for headcount analysis. The solution enables organizations to create sophisticated headcount models, analyze trends in headcounts, and forecast future headcount requirements, costs, and risks. The solution also provides a user-friendly interface, integrates seamlessly with a variety of data sources, provides advanced analytics features, enables robust collaboration and workflow, and includes security features that ensure the confidentiality and privacy of headcount data. If you’re looking to optimize your workforce and improve your HR practices, IBM Planning Analytics is a solution worth exploring. Interested in learning how to leverage your investment in Planning Analytics by adding headcount analysis into your environment? Let us know – we can help!

Enterprise Planning Helps Professional Services Firms Adapt to Changes

June 23, 2023 by Revelwood

Professional services firms make money based on the number of hours they service clients. These companies need to have many consultants with desirable skills as billable as possible. They also have to have enough resources available to start new projects as soon as the contracts are signed. In short, professional services firms need to make the best use of the people they have, understand the needs they will have in the future and then appropriately plan for changes in a dynamic market with a history of being a “lumpy” business.

This can present a big challenge. In fact, according to Workday, “Only 29% of professional services leaders say they are confident in their organization’s current financial and business plans.”

This is where enterprise planning can help. With enterprise planning, professional services firms can easily perform demand planning, which can then integrate with project revenue planning, financial forecasting and reporting. These models use the same data and provide the firm with consistent and accurate information.

Enterprise planning is a key resource for these firms. Professional services companies can perform ad-hoc analysis, asking questions of the data, such as:

How many consultants are available/currently “sitting on the bench,” not earning revenue?
What skill sets do our current consultants have and what skills are missing?
Which new projects are best served by onshore staffing and which new projects are best served by offshore staffing?
Do we have enough staff to take on this new project?
If a project ends unexpectedly, what existing projects can use those resources?
Are we optimizing our people in the most profitable way?

Learn why more and more professional services firms are embracing enterprise planning. Watch our latest webinar on Streamlining Professional Business Services with Workday Adaptive Planning here.

Intercompany Financial Management Benchmarks

June 15, 2023 by Revelwood

This is a guest post from our partner BlackLine, highlighting some results from their recent survey, Intercompany Financial Management: Benchmarks, Challenges and Expectations

For companies that transact intercompany business, intercompany operations have a big impact on the financial results. However, there are few surveys that focus on intercompany financial management.

The Intercompany Financial Management: Benchmarks, Challenges, Expectations survey was conducted in September 2022 to benchmark the challenges companies face in the arena of intercompany financial management, assess how companies are leveraging technology in managing intercompany operations, and offer a preview of how intercompany will look in 2023 relative to 2022 when the survey was conducted.

Our analysis of the survey data revealed that intercompany transactions and related reporting have meaningful impacts on business outcomes, finance and accounting operations, and finance and accounting team members.

Our analysis of intercompany (IC) begins with examining the magnitude of intercompany transactions relative to revenue. The results depicted in Figure 1 in and of themselves speak to the fact that intercompany matters and deserves the attention of CFOs at any company that has IC operations. Almost ninety percent (88%) of companies surveyed have IC interactions valued at least 1X more than revenue while sixty percent have transactions valued at least 3X more than revenue.

Our analysis of the magnitude of intercompany across the enterprise looked at the impacts of intercompany challenges on business outcomes, finance and accounting operations, and finance and accounting staff. Intercompany challenges have several impacts on business outcomes.

A few of these impacts are depicted in Figure 2 along with their relative prevalence among survey responses. Almost forty percent (39%) of companies face uncertainty relative to overdue or unsettled IC outcomes, increased probability of SEC investigations, and missed tax deduction opportunities that impact the bottom line.

Intercompany challenges also have meaningful impacts on finance and accounting operations and finance and accounting teams.

At least 50% of survey respondents face compliance and formal disputes about allocated costs and additional time needs for reconciliations that slow down the financial close process and create friction among those closing the books.

Sixty-five percent of companies report increased employee churn that results in the loss of institutional knowledge.

And over 30% face stress levels that can lead to potential mental health issues and demotivation. The impacts of intercompany operations on finance and accounting teams are more important than ever given the current market conditions for acquiring finance and accounting talent and the increased appetite for workers in today’s world to change jobs relative to years past.

Intercompany operations can have meaningful impacts on the productivity of accounting and finance professionals and the value of a company’s brand—these are just a few ways that intercompany gone wrong can impact a company’s bottom line. Intercompany financial management matters.

This blog post was originally published on the BlackLine blog.

Revelwood Expands Best-in-Class Solution Portfolio to Include Incorta

June 14, 2023 by Revelwood

We’re expanding our best-in-class solution portfolio to include Incorta’s open data delivery platform, giving our clients an analytics hub for the Office of Finance. Incorta’s technology simplifies the data ingestion and delivery approach, giving clients unrivaled data access to deliver fast, accurate insights.

“Savvy financial management can be hard to achieve,” said Tom McCrory, senior vice president, sales, Incorta. “It requires a rock-solid foundation of comprehensive data and ad-hoc, self-service analytics. Together, Revelwood and Incorta will help our join clients in the Office of Finance take the next step in providing strategic guidance to business operations.”

Incorta was recently included in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence (ABI) platforms. It was one of 20 vendors assessed in the report. Incorta directly maps to data sources, eliminating the need for data transformation, reshaping and aggregation required by other platforms.

“The Office of Finance has become a strategic asset for industry-leading organizations,” said Robert Gordy, CTO, Revelwood. “It’s no longer about managing the budget or performing basic accounting activities. Instead, the Office of Finance has evolved into managing all the disparate pieces of data to provide forward-thinking insights for the business. We’re partnering with Incorta to help CFOs and their teams move toward unlimited, active analysis.”

Additionally, Incorta has existing integrations with two of Revelwood’s technology partners – BlackLine and Workday Adaptive Planning.

Incorta and BlackLine

Incorta’s integration with BlackLine enables accounting teams to instantly drill-through to transaction details with a single click. It provides users the ability to access data from multiple ERPs and other source systems with easy, instant access to transaction-level details down to the subledger. By using BlackLine and Incorta together, clients benefit from:

A single source for all data
Transaction-level detail
Streamlined data flows

Incorta and Workday Adaptive Planning

Incorta’s integration with Workday Adaptive Planning accelerates and improves forecasting and planning with access to near real-time transaction-level data. The integration enables:

Automating operational analytics
Delivering transaction-level detail
Unifying enterprise data
Streamlining data flows

Learn more about our new partnership with Incorta!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: HTTPPORTNUMBER

June 6, 2023 by Marc Assenza

Did you know that when you create a new TM1 / IBM Planning Analytics instance that the HTTPPORTNUMBER parameter is required? This setting is placed within the TM1S.cfg file for your model.

Some things to note when defining the HTTPPORTNUMBER parameter:

1. The valid port values are between 5000 and 49151.
2. The configuration like will look something like this:

HTTPPORTNUMBER=5005

3. The port used must be unique on the server for any service, not just TM1 / PA database services.

4. If you forget to assign a value within the TM1S.cfg file, then Port 5001 is automatically assigned to the model. This is important for multiple reasons:

a. Port 5001 may already be being utilized by another service which will prevent the TM1 / PA server instance from starting

b. If you have multiple TM1/PA models on the server and none of the TM1S.cfg files have the HTTPPORTNUMBER parameter defined, then the first server instance will start (if port 5001 is not currently being utilized). Every other TM1 /PA instance will then fail because each will also try to use Port 5001, but the port is already used.

That’s it! Just something to keep in mind when creating new TM1 / PA models on your server!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Tips, Part 4

April 25, 2023 by Revelwood

Revelwood’s IBM Planning Analytics team has created numerous tips & tricks focused on helping people use Excel. For the past few weeks, we’ve been highlighting some of the most popular and interesting posts on Excel. If you’ve missed our earlier posts, read part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Here are some other Excel tips and tricks from our team of experts.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel YEARFRAC

Some Revelwood clients often build models that define the fraction of a year for a given month. For example, January is approximately 8.5% of a calendar year (31/365) and September is approximately 11.5% of a working day’s calendar (30/260). What happens in situations where you want to calculate the percentage of a year where the days are not the first or last day of the month? This is where Excel’s YEARFRAC formula can help.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Unhide Multiple Excel Sheets

As you know, an Excel workbook can consist of multiple sheets. There are many instances where you may want to hide some of the sheets. It’s very fast and easy to hide sheets, but Excel historically allowed you to unhide only one sheet at a time. Microsoft changed that approach and now allows you to unhide multiple sheets at once.

Learn how to unhide multiple Excel sheets.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Learn the Excel CELL Formula

Excel is, and always will be, a powerful tool for the finance team. With so much power, there are many great Excel formulas that are rarely used. Here’s a situation – imagine you wanted to easily replicate a sheet and have each sheet use an MDX expression that referenced a different dimension name. You want to use a formula to determine the sheet name.Excel’s CELL function returns information about a specific cell within an Excel file. Read more to learn the syntax of that function.

Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 below:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Tips, Part 1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Tips, Part 2

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Tips, Part 3

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Users and Groups

April 18, 2023 by Lee Lazarow

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.

To open the users and groups editor, right-click on a database within your modeling workbench and select the option for Manage users and groups.

Once selected, a grid showing the users on the rows and the groups on the columns will appear. This layout mimics the approach used in Perspectives.

The following functions are available to maintain your user security:

To assign or remove a user to a group, right-click at the intersection of a user and group name, then click Assign user to group or Remove user from group.
To assign all users to a group, right-click the group name, then click Assign group.
To remove all users from a group, right-click the group name, then click Remove group.
To assign a user to all groups, right-click the user name and then click Assign user.
To remove a user from all groups, right-click the user name and then click Assign user.
To remove a group from the database, right-click the group name and then click Remove group.
To remove a user from the database, right-click the user name and then click Remove user.

You can also use the editor to import users and groups from Planning Analytics Workspace or to create a new group on the Planning Analytics database.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel’s Camera Tool

To create a linked picture:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Professional Services Firms Need Future-Ready Forecasting

Data Silos Disappear as Organizations Race to Future-Ready Forecasting and Adaptability

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Headcount Analysis

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Enterprise Planning Helps Professional Services Firms Adapt to Changes

Intercompany Financial Management Benchmarks

Read more about Financial Close & Consolidation:

Revelwood Expands Best-in-Class Solution Portfolio to Include Incorta

Incorta and BlackLine

Incorta and Workday Adaptive Planning

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: HTTPPORTNUMBER

Some things to note when defining the HTTPPORTNUMBER parameter:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Tips, Part 4

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Unhide Multiple Excel Sheets

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Learn the Excel CELL Formula

Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 below:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Users and Groups

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Revelwood Overview

EXPERTISE

ABOUT

CONNECT

Financial Performance Management

To create a linked picture:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Data Silos Disappear as Organizations Race to Future-Ready Forecasting and Adaptability

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Read more about Financial Close & Consolidation:

Incorta and BlackLine

Incorta and Workday Adaptive Planning

Some things to note when defining the HTTPPORTNUMBER parameter:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Unhide Multiple Excel Sheets

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Learn the Excel CELL Formula

Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 below:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Footer

Revelwood Overview

EXPERTISE

ABOUT

CONNECT