Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) Process Error Logs

September 26, 2023 by Lee Lazarow

Do you know how to use IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) to access error logs from your TurboIntegrator (TI) processes? It’s as simple as a single click!

To access your logs, right-click on the Processes node in the workbench and select the option for Error logs.

Once selected, a popup window will appear with a list of the existing logs. This window allows you to sort the list by process name or by date created.

There are two ways to view a log file:

Click on the box to the left of the process name
Click on the three vertical dots to the right of the date

Both methods will then let you view the log file or download the file.

This feature, when combined with PAW’s development tools, will allow you to fully develop and debug TurboIntegrator scripts using the PAW interface.

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!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Popular Posts, Part 1

May 16, 2023 by Revelwood

Revelwood’s IBM Planning Analytics team covers a wide range of topics in their weekly IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks posts. We’ve decided to share some of the most popular posts over the past 12 months.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Dynamic Subsets Based on a Cube

Did you know you can use MDX to create dynamic subsets based on cube values in IBM Planning Analytics? Read this post as we explain an example where we will only show companies with net sales greater than 30,000,000 in the selected year.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Garbage Memory

A client asked us why Windows was showing a much larger memory footprint than expected from their cube sizes. We analyzed the model and found a large amount of garbage memory. Which leads to the question “what is garbage memory?”

IBM Planning Analytics uses various approaches to minimize the amount of RAM needed for a model. Read this post to learn how much memory is being used by your cubes.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Adding and Editing Connection URLs in Planning Analytics for Excel

Read this post to learn how to add a new Connection URL or to edit an existing Connection URL in Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx).

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: On-Demand Webinars, Part 2

March 28, 2023 by Revelwood

Did you know we have a wide variety of IBM Planning Analytics webinars on-demand? We showcased two of our most popular webinars – Best Practices when Using Planning Analytics Workspace Charts and Creating PAW Charts Using the New Experience – in a recent blog post.

Here are two more of our popular IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 on-demand webinars.

Best Practices for Using TurboIntegrator

This webinar showcases some features of TurboIntegrator that you may not be using. We cover a series of functions and offer best practices for using them. We describe each function, explain how we use the function when creating models, and discuss the benefits you get by using these approaches.

Here are a few of the topics we review:

Making calls outside of a process
Modifying dimension structures
Creating views and subsets

Best Practices When Using Hierarchies in IBM Planning Analytics

In this webinar, we explain the concepts, the creation and the things to consider when using hierarchies within their existing models. We show examples of hierarchies that Revelwood clients use and how they create new reports and analyses.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Working with Two Time Zones in Google Calendar

October 4, 2022 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Do you regularly work with others that are in a different time zone? If so, how often have you heard your counterpart tell you to “just determine my time by adding X hours to yours.” And how often have you messed up that simple math by subtracting X or by adding Y?

If you use Google calendars, then you don’t have to do this math each time you attempt to schedule a meeting. Google’s calendar allows you to show two time zones in your sidebar.

To enable this setting, click on the settings icon and select the option for Time Zone. From there, enable the option to “Display secondary time zone” and then select the time zone.

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Once defined, you will see two time zones on the left side of your calendar.

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And Google also allows you to expand this further. If you don’t remember what time zone correlates with each GMT setting, you can also customize each header label.

This approach will help you quickly define time zones for your coworkers while also avoiding their jokes about your basic math skills!

Revelwood has worked with IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 for more than 27 years. We’ve partnered with hundreds of companies on the design, development, maintenance and updates of IBM Planning Analytics applications, across every industry. Have a challenge with Planning Analytics / TM1? We can help you!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Garbage Memory

August 23, 2022 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

I recently had a customer ask me why Windows was showing a much larger memory footprint than what was expected (based on their cube sizes). After further analyzing their model, we saw a large amount of garbage memory … which led to the question “what is garbage memory?”

As you know, IBM Planning Analytics uses various approaches to minimize the amount of RAM needed for a model. PA (Planning Analytics) is very good about only taking what it needs to support views, calculations, and processing. However, I sometimes like to compare PA to a small child – it is very good at only taking what it needs, but it’s not so good at giving it back when it’s done. This is does this on purpose since results are stored for future reference, thereby providing faster results for your users. The excess memory that was being and is no longer needed is called garbage memory.

You can determine how much memory is being used by enabling performance monitoring and reviewing the }StatsForServer control cube.

So how do you release (or reset) the amount of memory used by PA? You can do this by simply recycling your PA server. Revelwood recommends recycling your service at least once per week. Not only will this reset the amount of memory used on the machine, but it will also help with other basic maintenance tasks such as ensuring your transaction log data is properly written to disk.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Adding and Editing Connection URLs in Planning Analytics for Excel

August 2, 2022 by Marc Assenza Leave a Comment

Do you know how to add a new Connection URL or Edit an existing Connection URL in Planning Analytics for Excel? Here are the steps to follow:

Adding a Connection URL

Once Planning Analytics for Excel has been launched, go into the IBM Planning Analytics ribbon click on the “Connect” button. Click the “New Connection” button within the drop down menu.

The following window will appear.

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Datasource type – This is a dropdown containing two selections: IBM Planning Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics. For this example, we are connecting to IBM Planning Analytics.

Connection URL – The connection URL connects Planning Analytics for Excel to a Planning Analytics Workspace server. If you are connecting to a local installation of Planning Analytics Workspace, this will contain either the IP address of your Planning Analytics Workspace server or the machine name of your Planning Analytics Workspace server, examples could look as follows:

http://12.345.77.89
http://mypawserver.mycompany.com

If you are connecting to an IBM Cloud Planning Analytics Workspace Server, the connection URL would look something like this:

https://mycompanyname.planning-analytics.ibmcloud.com/

Friendly name – The friendly name is a user defined setting in the sense that you give it a name that people within the organization would recognize, and it would be something meaningful to them, an example could be:

mycompanyname DEV Server

Once the information is entered, press the Test Connection button to confirm your connection. A successful connection will result in the following message:

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Once completed, click the “Save” button.

Editing a Connection URL

Occasionally you may need to edit an existing connection URL. This may entail a change to your internal “Friendly name” or a change to the IP address of the server. Here are the steps to follow:

Once Planning Analytics for Excel has been launched, go into the IBM Planning Analytics ribbon click on the “Options” button.

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Click on the option for “IBM” on the left-hand side of the window.

You will see a list of all your existing connections. Select the connection you want to edit and click the “Edit” button at the bottom of the screen. You can then make the necessary adjustments and retest the connection.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Chart Show Totals

July 19, 2022 by Dillon Rossman Leave a Comment

One of IBM Planning Analytics’ purposes is to serve as an aggregation tool. As a result, many of your explorations consist of a series of base level elements plus a total. Here is an example of a simple exploration that shows details of a list of companies plus a total:

This exploration can easily be converted into a pie chart by simply changing the visualization to a pie chart. Here is what the pie chart will look like:

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However, the concept of aggregations has now shifted into a detriment since the total will always appear as 50% of the chart! Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) allows you to hide the totals by defining properties within each field of your chart. You can do this via the following steps:

While in Edit mode, single click on your pie chart widget.

Select the option for “Fields” at the top, right corner. Not all visualizations use fields, so this may appear blank if you have not yet converted your widget to a pie chart.

Click the three vertical dots associated with the dimension that should not include totals. In my example, the segment is associated with the company dimension.

Select the option to Hide Totals.

Once selected, the same pie chart will look like this:

This approach will allow you to properly define when you want a total to appear, thereby making your chart results beneficial to the user.

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Displaying Percentages on a Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) Pie Chart

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Pie Percent or Value?

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

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel MAXIFS and MINIFS

July 12, 2022 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Many of you know that Excel’s MAX function will define the largest value within a range. And many of you also know that Excel’s SUMIFS function will allow you to merge IF checks into your sum formulas. But did you know that Excel has a function called MAXIFS which merges these two concepts together?

The MAXIFS function is used to determine the largest number within a range that satisfies one or more conditions.

The syntax of the function is:

=MAXIFS (max_range, criteria_range1, criteria1 [,criteria_range2, criteria2] [..])

Max_range
- This is required
- This defines the range to search
Criteria_range1
- This is required
- This defines the range to perform the IF check
Criteria1
- This is required
- This defines the criteria of the IF check
Criteria_range2 and Criteria2
- These are optional
- These allow you to have multiple IF checks
- You can have more than 2 criteria

The following example shows how to define the maximum value for Lee.

Other iterations of this formula include MINIFS, AVERAGEIFS and COUNTIFS.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel CubeDimensionCountGet Function

June 21, 2022 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Have you ever written a TurboIntegrator process and needed to know how many dimensions are in a specific cube? Maybe you want to loop through each dimension to create a zero out view. You can do this by using the TABDIM function and searching for the first blank result, or you can simply use the CubeDimensionCountGet function.

The syntax of the function is:

CubeDimensionCountGet (CubeName)

This function will result in a numeric value that tells the number of dimensions within the cube.

Other uses of this code will allow you to define the number of arguments needed for a CELLPUT command, compare the number of dimensions between multiple cubes, or replicate an existing cube.

This approach will simplify your code by eliminating the need to create a loop.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) Process Error Logs

There are two ways to view a log file:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Popular Posts, Part 1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Dynamic Subsets Based on a Cube

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Garbage Memory

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Adding and Editing Connection URLs in Planning Analytics for Excel

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: On-Demand Webinars, Part 2

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Working with Two Time Zones in Google Calendar

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Garbage Memory

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Adding and Editing Connection URLs in Planning Analytics for Excel

Adding a Connection URL

Editing a Connection URL

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Chart Show Totals

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel MAXIFS and MINIFS

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel CubeDimensionCountGet Function

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

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