TM1

This is a guest blog post by Revelwood’s Susan Musselman.

Did you know you can not only set up a landing page for IBM Cognos TM1 Web, but you can also set up custom landing pages for different groups of users? Here’s a quick step-by-step guide to do this.

The landing page for users is set up in the }ClientSettings cube:

In the above example, George Washington will see the Main Portal when he logs in and Al Capone will see Portal-2.  There are 3 easy steps to set this up:

Create elements in the Control Cube and populate control cube to define the path of the portal pages: the }ClientSettings cube:

Create a WebPortal attribute in the }Client dimension and populate for your users:

Create a rule in the }ClientSettings cube to determine which websheet to use for each }Client based on the attribute in the }ElementAttributes_}Clients cube:

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 blog posts with Tips & Tricks for IBM Planning Analytics:

Tips & Tricks for using IBM Planning Analytics: Creating URLs for TM1 Websheets

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Creating Dynamic, Attractive Views and Dashboards

Tips & Tricks for using IBM Planning Analytics: Creating TM1/Planning Analytics Picklist Cubes

Did you know IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) allows you to visualize your data using a variety of charts and graphs, including the ability to display your results via a pie chart?  In order to create a pie chart, you must follow one simple rule: ensure that you have only one “measure” element on either the row or the column.

You can create a pie chart in PAW with three easy steps:

1. Ensure that a dimension is defined as the measure by right clicking on the cube name within Server Explorer and then selecting the option for properties.

2. Create a view in PAW with either the rows or the columns displaying a single element from the measure dimension.

3. Set your visualization type to be a pie.

The resulting display will appear as a pie chart:

Once the pie chart is created, you can use PAW to change the appearance of the colors, the legend and other details.

IBM Planning Analytics 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!

This is a guest blog post by Revelwood’s Susan Musselman.

Did you know many companies find it beneficial to do a variance analysis to identify differences between the planned financial outcomes and the actual financial outcomes? Many clients prefer to store account balances in IBM Cognos TM1 using positive values unless the value is contra to the account. For example: even though revenue is a credit value in the General Ledger, it is shown as a positive number on a P&L report. Costs are also shown as positive and then subtracted from Revenue to get Gross Profit.

To get a variance amount, Budget is subtracted from Actual. This results in a correct variance for Revenue. For example: if budgeted revenue is $15,000 and actual Revenue is $20,000 then the variance would be a positive $5,000, which is correct because higher revenue is a good thing. However, if we use the same calculation for cost then the variance is backwards. For example:  if budgeted cost is $5,000 and actual cost is $8,000 then the difference calculates to positive $3,000. However, a higher cost is not good so the number should be displayed as a negative.

One solution would be to use a different formula for every row on every variance report that is created. However, this solution would require a lot of manually created rules that will slow down your overall TM1 application. A better solution would be to create a generic rule that can calculate the correct variance based on an attribute. To do this, first create an attribute in the Account dimension and populate the value with a 1 or -1 for every account. You can populate the attribute via rule to avoid future maintenance to the model.

Here is an example of some attributes values (please note that the attribute is populated for all levels of elements, including consolidations):

Next, create an element in your version dimension called “variance”. You can then create a rule for the new version to calculate the variance.

This gives the correct results:

Now the variance element can be used in any report!

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 blog posts on Tips & Tricks for IBM Planning Analytics and IBM Cognos TM1:

Tips & Tricks for IBM Planning Analytics: Creating URLs for TM1 Websheets

Tips & Tricks for IBM Planning Analytics: Creating TM1/Planning Analytics Picklist Cubes

IBM Planning Analytics: Using the Full Power of MDX

This is a guest blog post by Revelwood’s Shane Bethea.

Did you know Picklists can be used in TM1/Planning Analytics to allow your users to pick values from a predefined, non-changing list of values?  These can be setup as a static list of values, a subset of values from a specific dimension, or all elements within a specific dimension.

Picklists can be associated with a dimension in situations where the definition is always the same.  An example of this would be a Payroll model where you want users to assign each employee to a pre-defined list of job titles.

Picklists can also be created with more flexibility for situations where you want a fluctuating set of definitions.  For example, you may want to have a list of pay period start dates based on the pay method selected for that employee.  If the pay method is monthly then your list can include one set of dates whereas a bi-weekly pay method would entail a second set of dates.  This approach can be created with a Picklist cube.

To create a Picklist cube in TM1/Planning Analytics, simply right click on a cube where you want to have the Picklist and choose “Create Pick List Cube”.

The resulting Picklist cube is created with the name ‘}PickList_<CUBENAME>’.  The new cube will have the same dimensionality of the existing cube plus one extra dimension called }PickList.

Once created, rules can be written for the Picklist cube to determine what values are available in the list.  The example rule below will populate the Picklist value with one of three definitions based on the selected pay method.

Once the Picklist cube and rules have been set up in TM1/Planning Analytics, users will see a different set of dates for the Pay Period Start Date measure based on the method selected for each employee.  This is one example of creating a dynamic Picklist using Picklist cubes, but the possibilities are endless.

IBM Planning Analytics 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!

Interested in more tech tips for TM1 & IBM Planning Analytics? Check out these blog posts:

IBM Planning Analytics: Using the Full Power of MDX

Creating URLs for TM1 Websheets