TM1web export to pdf not working

Sometimes you may receive an error when installing TM1 that the pdfcamp did not install correctly or on an existing TM1web or contributor application you may find the "Export to PDF" button is not working.

You should then test this by going into the TM1\Bin\PDFCamp directory and running the appropriate setup.exe (32 bit or 64 bit depending on your OS).

If you receive a message such as:

"enummonitors_failed error (1722)"

then it's likely the your print spooler service has not been started and you need to manually start it as per the instructions here:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21439516&myns=swgimgmt&mynp=OCSS9RXT&mync=R

I think this same issue can happen when installing Cognos Express too

Cognos Express and VMware

Some useful tips on Cognos Express within a vmware environment here:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21413456

Rename TM1 Elements

One of the biggest time savers I have used recently is the SwapAliasWithPrincipalName Turbo Integrator command.


It isn't well documented but allows you to swap an alias with the element name, thus allowing you to rename TM1 elements.


binhints.com has an excellent tutorial here:


http://www.bihints.com/renaming_elements

Automaticalling Deleting Log Files

2 great posts here on olapforums for how to automatically delete old log files in TM1 or Cognos Express:

http://forums.olapforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4108

Cognos Express 95

With the launch of Cognos Express 95 last month there are a number of new features such as the new Planner module, new backup and restore capability etc.

The one I look forward to most though is the support for Windows 2008 64 bit

Cognos 10 Redbook

A good resource for anyone considering Cognos 10 is the redbook available here:

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247912.pdf

Scrolling through dimensions in TM1 Web / Contributor

Useful tip here on the IBM website about changing the default number of rows and columns that appear before paging takes affect:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21461148&myns=swgimgmt&mynp=OCSS9RXT&mync=R

Test COG-385: IBM Cognos TM1 Master Exam

There is a new TM1 exam available called COG-385: IBM Cognos TM1 Master Exam:

http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/tests/objCOG-385.shtml

TM1Web Timeouts

The defaults timeouts on tm1web normally need extending for deployments.
The best guide I have seen is here:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21408905

and extract below:

Resolving the problem

To prevent a TM1Web session from timing out configure your Timeout Parameter according to business requirements and “precedence of timeout settings” (best practice is not to change the default parameters). Check web.config and tm1s.cfg file timeout parameter information. Check if you have a setting in your tm1s.cfg as it could be impacting your timeout if you do (note that no entry = never timeout). IdleConnectionTimeOut Seconds specifies a timeout limit for idle client connections, in seconds.For example, if you include the line IdleConnectionTimeOutSeconds=900 in tm1s.cfg, the server disconnects idle client connections after 900 seconds. Timeout Parameter in TM1 & Microsoft IIS & TM1Web 0. Increase timeout IdleConnectionTimeOutSeconds (tm1s.cfg) from 900 sec to 7200 sec (= 120 min) 1. Increase timeout of IIS worker process from sec (=20 min) to 7200 sec (= 120 min) cscript %SystemDrive%\Inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil.vbs set W3SVC/AppPools/ApplicationPoolName n 2. Increase timeout DefaultAppPool from default 20 min to 120 min 3. Increase timeout TM1 Web Session (web.config) from default 20 min to 120 min 4. httpRuntime executionTimeout="7200" (web.config) 6. restart IIS after changing timeout settings Another category of Session Timeouts, the ones where immediately after logon (or a short time later) the Session Timeout hits the user, is due to the default setting in IIS Version 6 webserver of MS Windows Server 2003: Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools ->IIS Manager -> Application Pool -> Default Application Pool (DefaultAppPool) -> right mouse click to open context menu, selectProperties -> tab Performance -> Web Garden: Maximum number of worker processes -> Change from default value of 4 to 1.

IBM Cognos Solution Implementation Methodology

If you are about to implement a new cognos product or a new project within an existing install then its worth checking out the CSIM roadmaps available:

 http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/services/implementation-roadmaps.html


There are roadmaps for Cognos BI and TM1 available 

TM1 Contributor not liking an alias named Description

I quite commonly create a default alias on my dimensions with the name Description.

It would seem though that TM1 Contributor does not like this as a name for the alias on a nominated workflow hierarchy.

I could not understand why my alias was not displaying in Contributor but upon using a different name for my alias on the workflow dimension, suddenly everything came right again.

My suspicion is that there is some MDX call within Contributor that becomes invalid for some reason.

TM1 TI process SQL preview killing

If your TI process datasource consists of a sql statement that takes a long time to run then it will become annoying when you want to make changes to that TI and the sql executes every time you open the TI process.

There is though a simple workaround.

At the end of your sql add the to your WHERE condition “1” =’?pCondition?’

 Then in your Prolog tab at the very start add a line  pCondition = '1';

 By having the sql where clause not being populated until run time (execution of the TI) it means your TI will now open without running the SQL statement

Running multiple instances of Cognos BI on a machine

Having recently installed Cognos10 alongside Cognos8 on my laptop I found the following post by Ahmed Lashin to be vary helpful:

http://www.alashin.net/cognos-8-bi/multiple-instances-on-the-same-machine/

The main trick was ensuring unique ports for dispatcher, logging and shutdown in cognos configuration

How to enable browsing for Images in IBM Cognos Express Report Studio

By default you will not be able to browse for images in Cognos Express report studio.
To enable it you need to follow the instructions found here:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21421987

Running TM1 as Desktop application in Windows 2008

Obviously best practice would be to setup TM1 to run as a service but sometimes you need to setup a TM1 server to run as a desktop shortcut you can double click on to start.
In windows 2008 though the security setup is a bit more strict than previous versions. If you just double click the shortcut you will likely get errors about logging or missing files and the server won't start even though everything looks fine in the cfg file etc.
The trick is to right click the shortcut and select to "Run as Administrator" and everything will start as normal.

Ending of support for TM1 on IE6

TM1 9.5.x releases will be the last to support IE6 as a browser:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27020555

TM1 on Linux

There looks to be a new release of TM1 951 available for deployment of Red Hat Linux Enterprise.

See updated supported environments page:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27018895

Set sort order in tree prompts based on TM1 datasource

Nice little article available here on how to set a customized sort order in hierarchy prompts based off a TM1 datasource in report studio:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?mynp=OCSS9RTN&mync=R&uid=swg21457443&myns=swgimgmt

Using SQL Express as Content Store for Cognos BI

First thing to point out is SQL Express is NOT  supported environment but for testing purposes on my own laptop the following steps were needed:

- Start SQL Server Configuration Manager
- Go to Client Protocols and enable TCP/IP and Named Pipes
- Go to Protocols for SQLEXPRESS and enable TCP/IP and Named Pipes
- Then double click TCP/IP to go into its properties, click IP adresses tab, scroll to botton for IPAll group
- Make TCP dynamic ports setting to be blank
- Make TCP port to be 1433
- In cognos configuration you can then select SQL Server and localhost:1433 for database settings

Integrating TM1web with Cognos BI

When you have a distributed architecture for your Cognos BI install and then you want to integrate TM1web into the environment with CAM authentication, you may find you get an error message about a CAF rejection and you cannot access tm1web.

This is due to the internal cognos firewall rules and you need to edit the CAF settings within Cognos Configuration. Normally this just involves adding the tm1 adminhost name into the CAF exception rule.

e.g. If your TM1 server is running on a computer called "TM1WebAppServ", then you would add this to the CAF exception rule

I found these sites helpful in resolving this issue:

http://www.cogknowhow.com/index.php/knowledge-articles/30-cognos-8/305-can-not-add-a-url-in-cognos-connection-to-direct-users-to-other-server-or-website

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21410316