Wednesday, November 13, 2013

TM1 and CAM Failover

If you are using TM1 with CAM security and you have Cognos setup with multiple gateway dispatchers then I would recommend checking out this post on the IBM website:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21645974&myns=swgimgmt&mynp=OCSS9RXT&mync=E


You may set multiple ServerCAMURI as follow in tm1s.cfg

 ServerCAMURI=http://server1:9300/p2pd/servlet/dispatch
 ServerCAMURI=http://server2:9300/p2pd/servlet/dispatch
 ServerCAMURI=http://server3:9300/p2pd/servlet/dispatch
 ServerCAMURIRetryAttempts=5

Remarks:

ServerCAMURIRetryAttempts specify the retry count for access each dispatcher

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Powershell with TM1Server.log

The tm1server.log is not the easiest thing to extract information from but contains golden nuggets of information.

Ideally you want to timestamp the tm1server.log after any restarts and then you can analyze a clean single session of information.

One of the easiest things you can do is use Windows powershell to then extract just the messages you want.

e.g. if i just want to explore the cube dependencies the server is producing then I just the following line within powershell

Get-Content .\tm1server.log | Where-Object {$_ -match 'TM1.Cube.Dependency'} | Set-Content tm1server.log-out.txt

You can alter the above statement to do any filtering you need

Friday, November 08, 2013

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

New Releases and Product Notifications for November 2013

It was interesting to see this month the notice of withdrawal from IBM on Executive Viewer and FSR:

https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/basupportlink/entry/new_releases_and_product_notifications_for_november_2013?lang=en_us


Top 20 Developments in IBM TM1 in recent years

Just realised a presentation that Andrew Stephens and myself did for an IBM Cognos User Group is available for download from the IBM website.

In what will always be a controversial list we called out at the time the Rule function Continue as being a real game changer for TM1 developers.

Those who have been doing TM1 for 10+ years since the days of TM1 714SR2 will remember when there was no Continue function and constant nested Ifs made for ugly looking rule files.

Check it out here:

http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/au/downloads/Top_20_Developments_in_IBM_TM1_in_recent_years.pdf

Monday, November 04, 2013

TM1 CFG File - ViewConsolidationOptimizationMethod

I see a lot of client's cfg file and its amazing how many of them are out of date or contain the wrong settings for the version of TM1 they are on.
One of the parameters that I always suggest adding in is ViewConsolidationOptimizationMethod=TREE
The reason why is because of the documentation you can find here: http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/ctm1/v10r1m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_inst.10.1.0.doc%2Fc_viewconsolidation_optimizationmethod_1.html&path%3D0_1_21_2_93

Specifically its says "This setting provides the best performance in normal operations"

Cognos Report Studio RAVE - Visualization Customizer

There is now a utility available on AnalyticsZone where you can now edit the visualizations available within Cognos Report Studio:

https://www.analyticszone.com/homepage/web/displayMarketplacePage.action#search/-/:Utility

Saturday, November 02, 2013

Missing TM1 Subset Editor

If using dual screens you may occasionally move your machine to a projector or another monitor and then find you can't see your subset editor when it opens.

Somehow its thinking its still on the 2nd screen but you don't want to have to go back to your desk and plug everything back in to then move the subset editor back to the original single screen.

One quick way to get round it is to edit your tm1p.ini file but a quicker way that doesn't involve shutting down Excel is to press:

  1. ALT with Space Bar
  2. Then press M (which is the shortcut for Move)
  3. Then use your cursor keys to bring the subset editor back to your screen

TM1 10.1.1 FP2

TM1 10.1.1 FP2 has been released to IBM Fix Pack Central  for download:

www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/

Monday, September 30, 2013

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Thursday, September 26, 2013

TM1 10.2 and .xls

As of TM1 10.2 the tm1web will no longer support Excel 2003 .xls files.

Fear not though as there is a conversion tool available.

Just go into Architect/Perspectives and right click on your .xls file to find a conversion tool.

Mine converted all fine without error.

For more details see: http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/cbi/v10r2m1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_op.10.2.0.doc%2Fc_tm1_web_converting.xlsworksheets.html

Sunday, September 22, 2013

TM1 Server Monitoring

as of TM1 10.2 you no longer get tm1top available to you.
On the bright side though there has been massive improvements to OperationsConsole.
This of course gives you monitoring on your TM1 service but not the whole box.
A really useful and not expensive option is to use a complete monitoring tool like http://www.mobilepcmonitor.com/
This way you can even log onto the box via your iphone to restart any service.

TM1 in Cognos Workspace

Not many people realise that Cognos Workspace can be setup to see the TM1 Application folder and Cubeviews. This means that users can drag/drop websheets and cubeviews onto their workspace and combine them with BI reports.

Essentially this is an evolution of the tm1 portlets capability.

To set this up on your server you need to modify 2 files.

Tm1_contribution.atom = This is to add the Tm1 instance to workspace
Tm1_en.properties = this is to give the instance proper name

Be aware the 10.2 requires you to edit some further files but its all explained in the documents. Cognos BI will also require a restart to kick in the new settings

TM1 Setup in Cafe

When you open the new Cafe 10.2 interface and want to connect to a TM1 server then in the options you need to set the url to be:

http://ServerName:9510/

i.e don't try putting pmpsvc at the end which is the url for your applications server

CDM and TM1 Aliases

I have been doing quite a bit with CDM (Cognos Disclosure Management) and integrating TM1 as a datasource.
A key thing for people to be aware of is CDM requires an Alias set in TM1 called MEMBER_CAPTION.
The easiest thing to do is create the alias and then use a rule to dynamically populate the value from an existing Alias

TM1 10.2 TM1Web

TM1web  10.2 dramatically changed TM1web for the better.
A really good summary of the changes and differences can be found here:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27039576&myns=swgimgmt&mynp=OCSS9RXT&mync=E#toggle

TM1 10.2 with Excel 2013

The release of TM1 10.2 is very exciting.
Here are some points people may have missed like TM1 now supporting Excel 2013:

http://www.tridant.com.au/blog/tm1-10-2-release-but-wait-theres-more/

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Transactional Reporting in TM1 – Some Guidelines


Can TM1 report transactional data?
Yes but further questions need to be asked on business process, volumes and dimensionality

What Volume limitations are there?
You will always be limited by the amount of physical RAM within the box but a key consideration will always be the dimensionality required. Does a table field become a measure or a dimension will need to be carefully thought through. Does that field become a prompt in a report or a filter? Does it have multi-level hierarchies on it?

How can I reduce Volume?
Think about only storing a certain time period of transactional data e.g. a rolling 12 months or maybe just the current financial year.
Does the transactional data need to be physically stored in TM1. Can you instead do drill through to transactions from balance. Always question the business process and whether they can do exception inquiries vs data dumps
Transactional cubes should hopefully not contain any rules.

What Dimensionality limitations are there?
You can build a 256 dimension cube in TM1 but why would you if you can never find the data you want.
Cubes within TM1 should always be built to a business purpose. Mega cubes are never an answer. Think about the prompts and filters that users require.
If the cubes requires multiple date dimensions (date created, date sold, date invoiced etc) then your sparsity in the cube will naturally increase. In memory cubes will struggle to compete with ROLAP cubes in this regard.

How can I reduce dimensionality?
Can a dimension become a measure.
Can you merge 2 or 3 dimension into 1 by concatenation e.g. CostCentre-Project-Employee

What is the appropriate tool to display the results in?
TM1 Active Forms – Easiest and most flexible since you can report from multiple cubes, pass MDX queries etc. Issue is acceptance in BI deployment
Report Studio – Possible but long time to get right. Need to remember cross tabs don’t do strings only lists. Querying multiple cubes will require prompt macros
Analysis Studio – Will struggle with  multiple dimensions on rows and wont display strings
Don’t forget strings will only appear typically at the lowest level of the cube i.e. all N levels