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BARC Score Report Ranks IBM & Workday as Leaders in Integrated Planning & Analytics

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The 2022 BARC Score named IBM and Workday as leaders in Integrated Planning & Analytics. BARC (Business Analytics Research Center) is one of Europe’s leading analyst firms for business software, focusing on the areas of data, business intelligence (BI) and analytics, corporate performance management (CPM), enterprise content management (ECM), customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP).

This BARC Score report focuses on the market for integrated planning and analytics (IP&A) products and portfolios. 

“Today, the reality in many companies is that IP&A is an often proclaimed but seldom achieved goal. Reasons such as internal policies or difficulties with historically grown system landscapes could account for this … However, the lack of coherence of data and functionality resulting from using multiple tools for planning and analytics, and using Excel instead of specialized software tools, are frequently cited reasons for user dissatisfaction, inconsistencies and error susceptibility with planning and analytics in companies today,” writes BARC.

BARC Score – IBM

BARC assessed several components of IBM’s “comprehensive portfolio of on-premises and cloud analytics and performance management solutions,” which includes IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson and IBM Planning Analytics with Watson. The BARC Score states:

  • IBM Planning Analytics offers flexibility for business power users to create budgeting, planning and forecasting as well as analytics applications based on a high-performance in-memory database.
  • Comprehensive Excel-based functionality for preparing individual applications in IBM Planning Analytics (modeling, custom planning forms, etc.) and publishing them to the web.

BARC Score – Workday

This report focuses on Workday Analytics Planning, describing it as “a business-user-oriented CPM platform with functionality for various performance management processes.” BARC lists the following among the strengths for Workday Adaptive Planning:

  • Flexibility for a wide variety of planning approaches (centralized top-down, decentralized bottom-up) and planning topics (including operational planning and financial planning) aimed at companies of all sizes and industries.
  • According to feedback in BARC’s “The Planning Survey,” customers are very satisfied with Workday Adaptive Planning, its price to value and its planning and workflow functionality. 

BARC Score Inclusion Criteria

BARC has two categories for being included in this report: 

  • The vendor’s products and portfolios
  • Financial results relating to those products

Vendors included in the report must have functionality for planning, as well as:

  • Formatting reporting
  • Ad hoc query and reporting
  • Analysis 
  • Dashboards

All vendors must generate a minimum of 20 million EUR of software revenue per year, have a presence in Europe and in at least two additional geographies. The product must also have a significant number of implementations.Learn more about BARC’s assessment of IBM Planning Analytics and Workday Adaptive Planning. Download your copy today.

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips &Tricks: Rounded Buttons in Planning Analytics Workspace

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IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) allows you to easily create buttons that can be used for navigation and to run TurboIntegrator (TI) scripts. This is done by dragging the Action Button widget onto the sheet.

By default, the button appears as a rectangle.  

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You can make the button more rounded by using the property called “Corner Radius” (within the area called General, Appearance).  Here is the same button with a corner radius setting of 90:

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You can also update the height of the button to make it appear even more rounded:

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From there, you can further customize the formatting associated with colors, fonts, and text size.

This property will allow you to define various ways to incorporate simple “press this button to…” approaches within your PAW books.

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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

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

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: New Filter Option in Set Editor

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: 21/21/21

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Three Reasons You Need IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 Training

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Whether you are new to IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 or you consider yourself an all-star, you could still benefit from training. Over our 27+ years of designing, implementing and maintaining IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 applications and environments, we’ve found there are three primary reasons for investing in training. 

1. Staff Turnover in the Office of Finance

According to Gartner, the U.S. total annual turnover rate will jump by nearly 20% from the pre-pandemic average. Maybe your Planning Analytics administrator left your organization. Maybe your organization is growing rapidly and needs to add more TM1 developers and administrators. Regardless of the reasons, training is a smart move when you have new team members joining the organization or taking on new roles in your company.

People often give their employers two weeks’ notice that they are leaving their job. That does not leave enough time for a company to hire a new employee for the position. Even if you are temporarily assigning the role to a current employee, two weeks is still not enough time to get up and running on your Planning Analytics / TM1 implementation. 

There’s also an additional complication – how accurate and up-to-date is your Planning Analytics documentation? Old and out-of-date documentation makes it even more difficult for new TM1 administrators and developers to get up to speed. 

2. Expanding use of Planning Analytics / TM1 to Extended Planning & Analysis (xP&A)

xP&A is an enterprise planning strategy that combines and extends financial and operational planning. Gartner describes it as “taking the F out of FP&A).” xP&A offers “cross-organization leaders an ‘extended,’ holistic view of their company’s operations so that they can pivot the business with greater agility and more rapidly model future business scenarios.” [Gartner].

This can mean using IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 for:

  • Human resources
  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Operations
  • Supply Chain
  • IT
  • Research and development

There are many benefits to xP&A. The business unit leaders in these functional areas may not be the Excel experts that the Office of Finance are. Before rolling out Planning Analytics applications to other areas, you should make sure new developers and end users receive training. It will make a significant positive impact on your roll out and eventual user adoption and satisfaction. 

3. Upgrading from TM1 to Planning Analytics

Migrating from TM1 to Planning Analytics is a big opportunity to modernize your planning environment. It’s not just a standard update or migration. You’ll learn a new, rich data exploration and visualization experience in Planning Analytics Workspace. You’ll have a new Excel add-in, Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx). And you’ll leverage hierarchies – the ability to turn attributes into dimensions for faster and more flexible data analysis.

Migrating to Planning Analytics requires training. Planning Analytics is powered by TM1 but delivers a whole new environment for your planning activities.

Revelwood’s Planning Analytics / TM1 Training Options

Revelwood has offered TM1 and Planning Analytics training for decades. We’ve refined our approach, expanded our best practices, and have the answers to all your TM1 and Planning Analytics questions. 

We offer several options for training, including: 

All training options are virtual, enabling your team members worldwide to participate in training. Take advantage of our Planning Analytics experts! Contact us about training options.

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: MDX Syntax Explained

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MDX enables you to query dimensions and cubes, lists of elements, data points, calculations, and more. 

The first step in learning MDX is to understand the syntax. Below is an example of an MDX expression that returns all elements of the product dimension sorted in ascending order. To understand the expression, we’ve color-coded the syntax below. 

Part1, the part that is associated with the TM1 structure and model, is in green. This defines cubes, dimensions, hierarchies, elements and more. 

Part 2, in blue, is the MDX Function.

Part 3 is in red. These are known as curly brackets or braces. These convert the results of the MDX Expression into a set. 

The Expression below lets you list all elements of the product dimension and sort the list in ascending order:

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Revelwood recently hosted a webinar on How to Use MDX in your IBM Planning Analytics Environment. Watch the recording to learn more about using MDX.

Interested in learning more about MDX? We have another MDX-specific webinar on Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 1pm ET. Attendees will learn advanced MDX functions and see real-life examples of how Revelwood used MDX to address complex reporting requirements and to solve client challenges. 

Have a question about MDX? Register for our upcoming webinar or reach out to us at info@revelwood.com

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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks on MDX:

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

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Making Default Cube Views Dynamic with MDX

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

Home » TM1 » Page 11

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Global Settings in Overview Area of Exploration

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Do you know how to define your global settings in the overview area of an IBM Planning Analytics Exploration? Revelwood’s FP&A Technology Director, Lee Lazarow, demonstrates how to manage and define these settings. 

Watch our latest IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks video to learn:

  • Locate the gear icon in the overview area of your Exploration
  • Identify the four different global settings you can define
    • Hierarchy name – shows details about each dimension
    • Iconography – gives details about each one of the dimensions, similar to the legacy version of Subset Editor
    • Context information – provides details about the database, which database it is references, which cube it is referencing
    • Section headers – shows within the area what is the context, or what was previously called titles or picks.

When you define your global settings in IBM Planning Analytics, you create a better experience for your end users. It enables end users to determine what they are looking at and what they are navigating through.

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!

Watch more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Videos:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Add Color to Multidimensional PAW Charts

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Shortcuts in PAW Models

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IBM Planning Analytics with Watson Named Value Index Leader by Ventana Research

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Ventana Research has named IBM Planning Analytics with Watson a Value Index Leader in the firm’s Business Planning Value Index: 2022 Vendor and Product Assessment. The firm evaluated IBM Planning Analytics with Watson, along with planning products from Anaplan, Board International, Infor, insightsoftware, OneStream Software, Oracle, Planful (formerly Host Analytics), Prophix, SAP, Unit4, Vena Solutions, Wolters Kluwer and Workday.

IBM was categorized as an Exemplary Vendor, ranking first overall in the Value Index. Additional rankings by IBM Planning Analytics include:

  • Ranking second in Product Experience
  • Ranking Second in Customer Experience
  • Named as a Value Index Leader in TCO/ROI
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The purpose of the report is to “evaluate the maturity of software vendors and products and their value for enterprise use in business planning.” It is designed to provide a “balanced perspective of vendors and products that is rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs.” Ventana uses research-based analytics and methodology to generate the Value Index ratings. The firm then “builds to a set of indicators it presents in both analytic and graphic form, each depicting the value of a specific vendor’s offering in terms of what it can deliver relevant to business planning needs.”

According to Ventana, “Technology is essential to making planning and budgeting more strategic, more strategic, more productive and more consequential to an organization’s success.”

Download your complimentary report!

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Join The Best IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 Consulting Firm!

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Do you love working with IBM Planning Analytics / TM1? Do you thrive on solving complex business problems? Do you enjoy working with a top-notch team? Then you should apply to work at Revelwood!

Who We’re Looking For

Revelwood is hiring full-time consultants to join our IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 systems implementation team. We’re looking for team leaders who understand the financial planning and reporting process and demonstrate effective self-management. Previous experience with IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 is required.

Our IBM Planning Analytics Practice

We are fully committed to our IBM Planning Analytics practice and invest in our team members to be 100% certified on the technology. Our team members become experts in the latest versions of IBM Planning Analytics while also mastering all aspects of the TM1 legacy tool. We enable our team to develop a knowledge base of best practices and to work with a wide range of companies. You’ll learn how different companies approach budgeting, planning, reporting and analytics while developing friendly relationships with our clients. 

What would you be doing at Revelwood? Some recent examples of the work our team has done includes:

  • Creating a complex allocation model for a healthcare / insurance organization
  • Helping a technology leader in the design and manufacturing of trucks update a system that enables them to analyze different engine types
  • Simplifying the overall planning and reporting process for a financial services firm
  • Redesigning a model to accommodate a new chart of accounts structure for a medical technology company

Finding the right career opportunity is not just about what you’ll be doing – it’s also about who you’ll be working with …

Why Revelwood

Revelwood is an award-winning, Gold Business Partner of IBM. We’ve worked with TM1 for nearly 30 years, building best practices across all industries. We speak business first, delivering best-in-class solutions for the Office of Finance. In addition to IBM, we partner with Workday Adaptive Planning, BlackLine and Fluence Technologies.

Revelwood is a team of passionate problem solvers and trusted partners. We embrace our core values:

  • Be passionate
  • It’s about the team
  • Do the right thing
  • Take pride in your work
  • Take initiative
  • We care

Most importantly, our team members enjoy working at Revelwood. Here’s what some of them have to say:

“Revelwood has the best culture of any company I’ve ever worked at. The degree of honesty, openness and genuine caring by management and colleagues is bar none.” – Ken DiSessa, account executive

“Every once in a while, you come across a company where teamwork comes totally naturally. No one has to work at it, there is just total confidence in the abilities of each team member, knowing that not one person is out for themselves and it’s all about the team.” – Chris Sherman, senior business development associate

Come join a team where we will celebrate your knowledge, celebrate your victories, and provide a fun but focused working environment. 

Learn more and apply today!

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

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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.

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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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Visualization Value Labels

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Correctly Sum Rounded Numbers in Excel

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Planning Analytics Workspace Process Editor Function Help

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: New Filter Option in Set Editor

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Did you know IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) update 76 introduced a new filter option in the set editor? Previously, you could create a filter or multiple filters and the set would show the members that meet the criteria for every filter. Now you can have the set show any member that matches any of the filters. 

Within the set editor, when you click filter you will now see two options, “Match all of the following” and “Match any of the following”.

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“Match all of the following” is the equivalent of what previously existed. “Match any of the following” is new functionality. For a simple example, I will try to filter this set to show months containing “Jan” or “Feb”. 

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Using the “Match all of the following” functionality this will return nothing because no month will contain “Jan” AND “Feb. 

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However, if I use the new “Match any of the following” functionality to search for members that contain “Jan” OR “Feb” I will get the results I am looking for.

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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!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel DELET Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Chart Show Totals

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel MAXIFS and MINIFS

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