Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Asymmetric Axis in PAW

December 1, 2020 by Thanh Chau Leave a Comment

One of the helpful features of IBM Planning Analytics is the ability to create explorations using asymmetric axes. This is useful when you have stacked column or row dimensions, and only want to display certain combinations of elements instead of all combinations of the stacked dimensions.

To do this in Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW), open a workbook in PAW and open an exploration. Click on the icon to make the row dimensions asymmetric or the icon for the column dimensions. Next, hold down the CTRL key and select the rows or columns you want to keep or hide.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Asymmetric axis in PAW

Right-click on one of the selected columns and select “Keep” or “Hide.”

If you need to revert back to the normal view, right-click on any row or column and select “Unhide All.”

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. You can also sign up to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks sent directly to your inbox.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Convert Existing View Directly to Reports

November 24, 2020 by Nina Inverso Leave a Comment

Did you know that Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx) provides the ability to convert an existing view directly to a report in Excel? Without opening the view as an Exploration, you can start building your report directly from the Task Pane.

Just right-click on the view in the Task Pane to display the available options.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Convert Existing View to Reports

You will see the following options by hovering over the Quick report, Dynamic report, and Custom report items:

How to convert existing views into reports in Planning Analytics

In this example, each of the items does the following:

On this sheet: This will open the existing Planning Analytics view as a Quick report on the current Excel sheet at cell $A$1.
On new sheet: This will open the view as a Quick report on a new sheet at cell $A$1.
At current location: This will open the view as a Quick report at the cell that is currently active.
At specified location: This will open a pop-up window that allows you to input the cell at which you would like the Quick report to appear. You can then enter the cell address and click OK to generate the Quick report, as shown in the following image.

Learn how to convert existing views to reports in Planning Analytics

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! You can also sign up to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks sent directly to your inbox!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAx Task Pane Workbook Tab

November 17, 2020 by Nina Inverso Leave a Comment

Did you know that Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx) automatically keeps track of the Planning Analytics objects you have open in an Excel workbook?

Simply click on the Workbook tab of your Task Pane to view the list of Dynamic reports, Action buttons, Explorations, and Quick reports that are currently in use.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAx Task Pane Workbook Tab

These folders will be populated as you work with your Planning Analytics environment. Whether you manually add these items to a worksheet, or they are included in an existing view or report, they will appear here.

For example, clicking the Exploration button in the PAx ribbon will create an Exploration on a new worksheet.

The PAx task pane workbook tab in IBM Planning Analytics

This will also add an item to the Explorations folder on the Workbook tab of the Task Pane. When you right-click on the name of the new Exploration, you will see the following options:

Learn about the PAx task pane workbook tab in IBM Planning Analytics

Similar options appear for Dynamic reports, Action buttons, and Quick reports.

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! You can also sign up to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks sent directly to your inbox!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Alternative Row Formats for Excel Reports

November 10, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

In the early days of computing, printers often used paper that had alternating white and green areas which allowed the reader to easily follow a line of text across the page. This was known as “green bar” paper. While we no longer use this type of paper, the concept is still applicable for situations where your output contains many columns that are hard to follow.

You can create this approach by using alternate row formats within your Excel reports. This is done by combining two Excel formulas:

The ROW formula returns the row number for a cell reference. For example, ROW(K5) returns the number 5 since the cell is in the 5^th row of the spreadsheet.
The MOD formula returns the remainder of two numbers after division. For example, MOD(9,2) returns the number 1.

When combined, the following formula will result in either a 1 or a 0:

=MOD(ROW(cell),2)

From there, you can use conditional formatting to define the fill colors. If you are doing this in standard Excel, then you can copy the formula throughout the applicable area. If you are doing this within a dynamic report, then you can use it within the formatting area.

This approach allows you to make your wide reports easier to read. This also means that you can recreate the green bar format while you pull out your dot matrix printer and watch classic movies such as Wargames!

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Minimizing the Subset Area

November 3, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Are your member names long and hard to see in the subset editor in IBM Planning Analytics? Does it get confusing to see both the available members and the current set at the same time? Both situations can be solved by hiding one side of the subset editor.

Here is an example of the subset editor which shows both the available members and the current set.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Minimizing the Subset Area

Each of the two sections has an option to minimize the area. This is done by clicking on the minus symbol at the top of the applicable section.

IBM Planning Analytics: Minimizing the Subset Area

Once clicked, the applicable area will compress and the other area will expand. Note that you can only minimize one side at a time. Below are examples of what each screen will look like when compressed.

Minimized Available Members:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips: Minimizing the Subsea Area

Minimized Current Set:

Minimizing the subset area in IBM Planning Analytics

This approach will allow you to further customize your subset editor screen to allow you to focus only on the area you want to see.

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Maintaining Subset-Drive Consolidations

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Sort Elements within a Subset

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Subset Control Dimension

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Show Members

October 27, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Did you know that while you are doing dimension maintenance, you can quickly view an element’s parents or children in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) via a single click? Here’s how you can do this:

Step 1: Select the dimension to be edited. This is done by either right clicking on a dimension and selecting the option to “Edit Dimension” or by dragging the dimension onto a sheet.

Step 2: Right click on an element and select the option to “Show Member.” You will then see two sub-options: one for Parents and one for Children.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Show Members

If you select the option for Parents then you will see all of the parents associated with the selected element. In this example, there is only one parent within the dimension structure.

If you select the option for Children then you will see all of the children associated with the selected element. In this example, there are three elements in the consolidation.

How to show members in IBM Planning Analytics

Once defined, you can then perform dimension maintenance to each of the elements on your screen.

This approach allows you to easily traverse up or down your dimension while minimizing the amount of extra elements on the screen.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: An Approach to Strengthening your MDX Skills

October 20, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Are you new to IBM Planning Analytics and looking for a good way to learn about the various commands associated with MDX? The Planning Analytics subset editor offers a great way to teach you about MDX expressions that can be used to define elements within a dimension.

The example below shows the results of a subset that includes all descendants of Total Department. The subset was created by simply dragging Total Departments into the current set while having the member insertion defined as descendants.

Once created, I can see the MDX expression that is used by clicking the MDX button at the top, right corner of the screen. The resulting expression is:

However, this button is not only used to view your newly created MDX expressions. The button also allows you to edit the expression. In this case, I can change the root element to be Sales and Marketing by simply typing over the existing MDX expression.

After clicking the OK button, the elements in the current set are updated.

This approach can help you to learn the fundamentals of MDX expressions, which are helpful for many different components of Planning Analytics.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: The Aggregate Function

October 13, 2020 by Lisa Minneci Leave a Comment

Watch our latest IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks video to learn about the aggregate function. Lee Lazarow, Revelwood’s FP&A Technology director, demonstrates this new function that allows you to summarize values that cannot be added up or averaged.

You’ll see Lee create a simple view of net income, examining some of the details associated with opex. He looks at it for multiple companies and for a total. Lee explains how one set of data is from the original numbers that your planners input into Planning Analytics. That data is doing a standard roll-up.

The second set of data is for a calculation of the percentage of net income. Lee demonstrates what you should do if you don’t want to look at the pre-built consolidation, but instead want to look at only some of the companies. He walks you through how to create your own calculation.

You’ll learn how to make sure this calculation is not a sum calculation, but instead how to leverage the aggregate function to summarize values such as percentages or ratios.

Watch more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks videos:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: Drag & Drop Functionality

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: Formatting Views in Planning Analytics Workspace

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: Creating Multi-Level Dimensions

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Sort Elements within a Subset

October 6, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Did you know that there are two different ways to sort elements within a subset in IBM Planning Analytics?

Below is an example of a subset which shows a standard time dimension:

Subset sort options in IBM Planning Analytics

One approach sorts all elements either ascending or descending, regardless of level. These are done via the following icons:

The result of this type of ascending sort will put all elements in alphabetical order, regardless of level:

Understanding subset sort options in IBM Planning Analytics

The other approach also sorts elements either ascending or descending, but this approach takes levels into consideration. These are done via the following icons:

The result of this type of ascending sort will put all elements in alphabetical order while keeping the levels intact:

Learn subset sort options in IBM Planning Analytics

This approach will allow you to sort your list of elements in various ways, which offers different opportunities based on the elements within the dimension.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Asymmetric Axis in PAW

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Convert Existing View Directly to Reports

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks posts:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAx Task Pane Workbook Tab

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Alternative Row Formats for Excel Reports

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks posts:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Minimizing the Subset Area

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Show Members

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: An Approach to Strengthening your MDX Skills

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: The Aggregate Function

Watch more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks videos:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Sort Elements within a Subset

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Revelwood Overview

EXPERTISE

ABOUT

CONNECT

Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks posts:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks posts:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Watch more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks videos:

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

Footer

Revelwood Overview

EXPERTISE

ABOUT

CONNECT