Cognos Insight - Printing

If you want to print  tab on your Cognos Insight dashboard then the best option is to right click on the workspace and select "Copy as Image to Clipboard". This image can then be pasted into any document

Flow Server Manager for TM1

Really liking the Flow Server Manager from http://flowolap.com/
As a consultant supporting many clients, its such a time save to have all the server starts managed and available in one simple place.
Time to try their other tools....

Rebuild a Corrupt Object Crashing FSR

Very useful post about how to recover a corrupt FSR object from the audit trail:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21601189&myns=swgimgmt&mynp=OCSSJSTG&mync=E

FSR Office Conversion Utility

Useful trick here to convert office files on FSR:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21592651&myns=swgimgmt&mynp=OCSSJSTG&mync=E

Cognos Insight Free Trial

Download your 30 day trial copy of Cognos Insight from:

https://www.analyticszone.com/homepage/web/download.action?showchatbuttonavailable

and also download the blueprints for examples

TM1 10 Tip #3

TM1 10 Tip #3

One of the features that people will want to explore first in TM1 10 is the ability to include tm1web sheets within a contributor application.

It may not be obvious but you cannot open these applications within Cognos Insight.

By default your application is set to use the client, tm1web, Cognos Insight - Connected and Cognos Insight - Distributed.

If you try to deploy your application with a websheet and have NOT changed these default client settings then your deploy will fail.

You have to select that application in modeller and on the properties you will need to deselect Cognos Insight - Connected and Cognos Insight - Distributed.

TM1 10 Tip #2

TM1 10 Tip #2

After installation of TM1 10, if you try TM1web and receive an xml error it its likely due to the "IBM Cognos TM1 Excel Service" being set to run under local system and not having the privelages to create documents.
Change this service to run under an administrator account and you should be fine.

TM1 10 Tip #1

I have helped 3 people out so far with exactly the same 3 issues when setting up TM1 10 so I wanted to take time to document them:

Tip #1

You are best adding the following parameters to your TM1 10 cfg file if not there already:


AllowSeparateNandCRules=T
DistributedPlanningOutputDir=tunit  

The first parameters is because of the new wizard functionality in modeller that helps rule creation and it needs this parameter set to help you write C: level rules.
The second parameter is a new one to do with Cognos Insight and the below explains it:

#DistributedPlanningOutputDir
# Type: Optional, Static
# Cognos Insight distributed clients need information called "tunits".
# This data is created when an application is deployed and is updated as the TM1 server runs.
# The location of the directory used for this purpose is set using this parameter.
# In order to deploy Cognos Insight distributed client applications using this database, uncomment or add this parameter as DistributedPlanningOutputDir=<location of the tunit directory>.
# The pathname specified can be absolute, or relative to the TM1 server data directory.
#
# Examples:
# DistributedPlanningOutputDir=tunit   creates a directory "tunit" under the TM1 server data directory
# DistributedPlanningOutputDir=..\tunit   creates a directory "tunit" as a sibling to the TM1 server data directory
# DistributedPlanningOutputDir=C:\Program Files\IBM\cognos\tm1\samples\tm1\GO_New_Stores\tunit   creates a directory "tunit"  at the specified location.
#DistributedPlanningOutputDir=.\tunit

IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.0 and 9.5.2 object names cannot contain the following reserved characters

Goes with the best practice guidelines for using underscores in model names:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27024713&myns=swgimgmt&mynp=OCSS9RXT&mync=E


Reserved Characters

The following characters are reserved. You cannot use these reserved characters when you name TM1 applications, cubes, views, dimensions, subsets, processes, and chores:

Character​	Description​
’​	apostrophe​
*​	asterisk​
@​	at sign​
\​	back-slash​
:​	colon​
,​	comma​
"​	double-quote​
>​	greater-than​
<​	less-than​
|​	pipe ​
?​	question-mark​
;​	semicolon​
/​	slash​

Note: The right curly brace (}) should not be the first character in any user-created TM1 object name. TM1 and control object names always begin with the right curly brace. If a user-created object name begins with a right curly brace, the object will be hidden to end-users if Display Control Objects is turned off.

The MustGather!

If raising a PMR with IBM the following url outlines the MustGather information that you will need to collect:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=2307&uid=swg21456392

Cognos Proven Practices on Youtube

Check out the Cognos Proven Practices on Youtube, including some good BI report studio tips:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ibmbusinessanalytics

Active Form Calculation mode

I would recommend reading this article on IBM if you work with active forms on a regular basis:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?mynp=OCSS9RXT&mync=R&uid=swg21500429&myns=swgimgmt

Controlling the calculation mode will improve performance and prevent some screen flickering.

Some Active Form quirks in Cognos Express (9.0) TM1 (941)

-          In data validations, if you want to display a message make sure you have a title otherwise it will display null at the front of the message

-          If you have action buttons that navigate between sheets and leave the workbook name blank then the navigation will work but the workbook name will be lost from the tab bar. You can set the workbook name to be a named range if this is an issue

-          In the action button process options, don’t delete the messages, only untick them to not display anything

Active Form Top Ten Tips

In no particular order but hopefully a useful list for people to check through to ensure good performance:

1. Delete any Named references with #Ref in them, do an Excel find to see if there are any #Ref in cell formula, check for external links and change/delete
2. Delete any unused columns or rows. Use the slider as an indicator as to how many rows/columns are saved with the sheet
3. Keep SUBNM, ELCOMP formula to a minimum
4. Before publishing the Active Form delete all rows below the tm1rptrow formula
5. Any lookups to cube that are used in other formula’s need to be a DBR rather than DBRW
6. Workbooks perform best when uploaded to TM1 Server (copied to TM1 server through Add File route), subsequent navigation options via action buttons should then have “Look In: TM1 Applications” selected
7. Try to minimise the number of worksheets in a workbook. Definitely less than 8
8. Try not to use Action buttons formatted as hyperlinks
9. Don’t use dynamic named ranges e.g. ranges that are not visible to objects within the workbook
10. Use named ranges in action button properties rather than cell references e.g. =rngTM1Server not =’Sheet1’$A$1

EV Sizing

Proven Practice document for sizing executive viewer deployments:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/cognos/performance/cognos_specific/page560.html?ca=drs-

TM1 and virus scan software

Link to official recommendations:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?mynp=OCSS9RXT&mync=R&uid=swg21458762&myns=swgimgmt

Virus scan software can negatively impact the performance of TM1 and can cause corruption if it is checks TM1 files while TM1 is running. For that reason, virus scan software should be set to skip checking the following:

• The TM1 data directory
• The TM1 logging directory (if not in the data directory)
• The directory where the tm1s.cfg file is located (if not in the data directory)
• The directory where any Excel sheets (or other docs) are located and uploaded to the TM1 server as a reference
• The directory where any flat files may be written to (output from a TI process, for example) or pulled from (import into a TI process, for example)
• Any other databases being used by a TM1 process (Oracle, SQL Server, MSAS, etc.)
• The TM1Web/TM1WebEx files - by default located at: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\

Integrating Cognos Express into Sharepoint 2007

Step by step instructions found on proven practices:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/cognos/infrastructure/cognos_specific/page559.html?ca=drs-

What to do when you have a bug with Cognos/TM1

Use the following link for detailed instructions:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?mynp=OCSSPURP&mync=R&uid=swg21389775&myns=swgimgmt

TM1 Active Reports - Alternative Row shading

Alternative row shading is a good techniques for visual reporting.
With Active forms you can easily achieve it by using a formula in column A such as:

=IF(TM1RPTELISCONSOLIDATED($B$20,$B20),"C",MOD(ROW(),2))

This formula will then return a result of C, 1 or 0 and your format range just needs to cater for these with 1 and 0 being different shading.

Cognos Express 95 Online Mnauals

Useful to keep in your bookmarks:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/cx/v9r5m0/index.jsp