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IBM Cognos TM1

Introducing DataMaestro, the Data Orchestration Platform for IBM Planning Analytics / TM1

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We’ve just released a new product designed to make the lives of IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 systems administrators’ easier. DataMaestro is a solution for managing and moving data that saves Planning Analytics / TM1 users significant time and money by making it easier to manage data processing tasks with just a few simple steps. It reduces the need to create TurboIntegrator processes, which require developer-level scripting skills.

Previously DataMaestro was available only to Revelwood clients. We’re now offering it to any Planning Analytics / TM1 user. DataMaestro has earned many rave reviews from our clients.

“I have been an IBM Planning Analytics/TM1 user for many years and I wish DataMaesto was available years ago!” said Collin Duncan, senior director of FP&A, Extra Space Storage. “Moving data across all cubes is so efficient and makes my life so much easier. On a scale from 1-10, I give DataMaestro a 10.”

“DataMaestro has a great layout and is so intuitive,” added Theresa Alexopoulos, director of budgeting, Berkeley College. “It gives me a birds-eye view of what data movements need to be done. The Package History is easy to find, and I can see a complete list of processes – when they were run, how often and in what order. The email notification feature for scheduling Packages is one of my favorite features. I know immediately whether a Package ran successfully. Best of all, you can manage your data movements with just a few clicks. No more need for TI processes.”

Watch this short demo to see how DataMaestro enables you to:

  • Create a task (similar to a TurboIntegrator process)
  • Process data within a single cube or multiple cubes simultaneously via a single task
  • Make decisions about each dimension of cube data to process
  • Run tasks on the fly
  • Save tasks to reuse later, and more.

“For 27 years we have been offering best-in-class products and services for IBM Planning Analytics / TM1,” said Ken Wolf, CEO, Revelwood. “The original vision behind TM1 was to make the lives of financial analysts better and more enjoyable. Our vision for DataMaestro is to do the same for system administrators – reducing the time, cost and complexity involved in managing their Planning Analytics environments.”

DataMaestro is available for IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 in the cloud and on-premises.

Interested in learning more about DataMaestro? Join us for a 20-minute webinar on Wednesday, June 22, 2022, at 1pm ET. Register here: https://bit.ly/3FWMQgJ

Read the DataMaestro press release.

Home » IBM Cognos TM1 » Page 13

Optimize your Business Processes for Planning, Reporting and Analysis

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When was the last time you examined – and optimized – your planning processes? Have you made adjustments over the last few years to accommodate changing office habits, work from home environments and mergers and acquisitions?

If your business is like most, it handled the disruptions of the last several years on the fly, making small tweaks to your CFO tech stack and just getting the work done. Now is the time to take a step back, think about what can work better, and develop a wish list of what you’d like your planning environment to do for you.

Revelwood is here to help you! We have a new Customer Care offering. It’s similar to our Performance Tune-Up, but instead of focusing on the technology (your IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 environment),  we examine, assess and make recommendations on your business processes for planning, analysis and reporting.

Our team of experts will work with you and look into:

  • Recent changes in your planning approach
  • Different departments or companies that may have different processes and how to align them
  • The level of complexity
    • Does your budget/forecast take too long?
    • Do you have the right amount of detail in your budget/forecast?
  • Items and topics for your wish list, such as new models and tasks you “never got around to.”

As a team, we’ll also examine any recent changes in your business and how your processes need to evolve with those changes. This might include:

  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Changes to your ERP or Chart of Accounts (COA)
  • Management changes
  • Changes in your work environment – remove vs in the office
  • Changes to your revenue planning approach
    • Growth percent vs. driver based
    • Fixed time period vs. rolling time

Our new service helps you to focus on the “big picture” for your IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 environment, while also fixing the aspects that have been ignored.

Interested in learning more? Drop John Pra Sisto an email and he’ll give you more details.

Home » IBM Cognos TM1 » Page 13

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Mekko Chart

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IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) offers many visualization options to allow you to show and analyze your data in creative ways. This includes standard chart types such as bar, line and pie. But it also includes some reports that are not always understood. One of these report types is a Mekko chart. 

A Mekko chart (also sometimes called a Marimekko chart) is used to extend a stacked column chart by using the width of each column to show the overall importance of that section.

The following stacked bar chart shows Units by State by Item:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Mekko Chart

It’s easy to see that the total amount of units sold in NY is very large when compared to the total amount of units in ME. But what if we wanted to also visualize how much larger the total of NY is compared to the other columns? This is where a Mekko chart can help. 

Here is the same set of data via a Mekko chart:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Mekko Chart

The Mekko chart still shows the breakdown of units by kit and it still shows the values for each column, but it adds a new metric by expanding the width of each column proportional to the overall percentage. In essence, this report is merging the concepts of a stacked column chart with the concepts of a pie chart.

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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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Defining a Process Within Existing Chores

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There are times when you need to change a process within an existing chore in IBM Planning Analytics. The challenge is to understand what chores will be impacted by a change in a process. You could edit or remove and process and then manually look at each chore to determine if it will be impacted. But who has the time for that?

IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) offers an easier way to check which chores are affected by a specific process.

Watch this IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks video and our FP&A Technology Director, Lee Lazarow, will show you how easy it is to use PAW to see all the chores that can be impacted by a change.

You will learn how to:

  • Select a process
  • See an option to show all the chores where the process is used
  • Determine if you want to edit the chore or remove the process from the chore

Check back soon for new videos in our IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks series. Want to be notified of new videos? Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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!

Home » IBM Cognos TM1 » Page 13

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Explorations – Row & Column Headers

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Visualizations are used to provide an easy understanding of large data sets. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. However, what happens when you want to see the intricate details of your numbers? This is where IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) explorations come into the picture.

There are many formatting options for your numbers, but what about the headers? Do you want to simply see a set of rows and columns or do you want the ability to expand into the details? Do you want to differentiate values at different levels or do you want to use consistent formatting? Do you want your row headers to be defined differently than your column headers?

PAW makes it easy to create your preferred approach via some simple settings. The settings are found within the Exploration features of the Custom area. Within the area, settings exist for each of the four settings.

IBM Planning Analytics - PAW Explorations

Here is an example of an exploration that differentiates accounts levels and allows for drilling down to the base level accounts but does not allow for any differentiation or drilling into the time periods.

IBM Planning Analytics: PAW Explorations

This flexibility allows you to define both the look and usage of your explorations, thereby enhancing (and hopefully simplifying) the end 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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Columns and Sections of Stacked Columns

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Lines vs Area for Multiple Elements

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Code Char

Home » IBM Cognos TM1 » Page 13

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Allocations

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P&L planning models consist of a variety of inputs, including revenue planning and various forms of expense planning. In addition to these standard models, we are often asked to develop other planning components. One of these components entails an allocation process, which leads to the question: what is an allocation?

An allocation is defined as “the action or process of distributing something.” In business terms, this typically entails the movement of costs. This could include moving overhead costs to revenue centers or moving IT costs to other departments. The result of this process ensures that costs become associated with the areas where they “should be” recorded. This allows you to create P&L reports and profit analyses of sub-sections of your business. 

There are typically three components to the allocation process:

  • Source – the original value
  • Target – where the value is moved/spread to
  • Offset – a negative value associated with the target; this is usually the same intersection as the source

The calculation is relatively simple: take a number and divide it by a total to define a proration percent. This value is called a driver and is defined as a metric that can be used to determine how the costs are spread. Examples of drivers can include headcount (for HR expenses) or number of computers (for IT costs) or revenue dollars (for a sales manager’s expenses).

Once the allocation percentages are defined, the process is performed by simply spreading the source value to the targets using the percentages. The process also creates a negative entry as an offset. The offset ensures the ending value is not doubled while also providing an easy audit check by determining that the net result of the allocation is zero.

Within IBM Planning Analytics, we often use separate elements to separate the source value from the allocation details. This gives us the ability to view the pre-allocated values, the allocation amounts, and the post-allocated values.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Allocations

Want to learn more about allocation details or recommended best practices? Contact us.

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: Depreciation

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: 445

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Lines vs Area for Multiple Elements

Home » IBM Cognos TM1 » Page 13

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Columns and Sections of Stacked Columns

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Today’s IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks post is a new video demonstrating how to define the columns and the sections of a stacked column chart. You will learn an approach that allows you to quickly view your data in different formats by simply replicating your view.

Watch this Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks video to learn:

  • How to change views in an Exploration
  • How to do a quarter-by-quarter analysis by changing the order of the stacked columns
  • How to show both methods on the same book

Stay tuned for more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks videos!

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!

Learn more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Lines vs Area for Multiple Elements

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Code Char

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Depreciation

Home » IBM Cognos TM1 » Page 13

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel DATE Function Updated

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Some of you may remember an Excel feature that I posted about last year which explained how the DATE function will convert invalid dates into real ones. For example, DATE(2020,7,35) will be converted to August 4, 2020 since there are not 35 days in July.

Here is where the fun begins!

  • This week includes the 20th day of the month of August
  • August is the 8th month of this year, which is also the 20th month of last year
  • Last year was 2020

Put this all together and we have a special event happening this week …

On August 20, 2021,

the resulting date will be 20/20/2020

Excel Date Function Updated Aug 2021

And if we take it a step further …

At 8:20p and 20 seconds on 8/20/2021,

the resulting time will be 20:20:20 on 20/20/20

This is why we love Excel!

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 Excel tips from our IBM Planning Analytics team:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Manipulating Text in Excel

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel TYPE Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel Keyboard Navigation

Home » IBM Cognos TM1 » Page 13

What Does Revelwood Do?

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When you think of consumer companies, you might only think of them in terms of their flagship product or service. Coca-Cola sells soft drinks. McDonald’s sells hamburgers. Uber provides ride shares for people. Those companies actually do more than just what they are known for: Coca-Cola also offers Dasani, VitaminWater, Honest Kids, Gold Peak iced tea and more. McDonald’s is also known for its Filet-O-Fish and has now entered the competitive fried chicken market. In addition to offering ride shares, Uber’s services include food and goods delivery.

Many Revelwood clients think of us as their partner of choice to design and implement Office of Finance solutions based on IBM Planning Analytics and Workday Adaptive Planning. Like those consumer brands I mentioned, we do much more than that. We’ve recently added BlackLine to our best-of-breed portfolio and are looking forward to adding more world-class solutions for the Office of Finance.

We also deliver Customer Care solutions for managing and maintaining your Office of Finance systems.

Hear what our CEO, Ken Wolf, has to say about what Revelwood does and how we are enabling organizations to disrupt their companies, industries and the world.

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