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Category Archives: IBM Cognos TM1

InfoCube Spark – An Introduction

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Ben Hill

In 2005 Google Launched Google Analytics – a platform for analyzing website traffic by geography, source, keywords and 114 other dimensions. This free value-add platform is now used in 55% of the top 10,000 websites and used by 55% of fortune 500 companies who quickly realized that more timely insights which are more widely accessible drives greater response time and better ability to avoid problems before they occur.

Google Analytics

I’ve often wondered how much easier life could be by using a similar platform for managing IBM Cognos environments. Being able to review server and error logs without running through the hoops of a vast VPN system as well as being notified of capacity issues before the server crashes.

Introducing

Spark is a FREE Cloud-based IBM Cognos Products monitoring suite, which can holistically gauge the events, utilisation and performance of your Server Environments. Users can instantly see the Hard Drive, Memory and CPU utilisation, IBM Cognos TM1 or Express Server logs and utilisation on Login – from anywhere!

You can login now to see how it works using a tester account setup to monitor two InfoCube Consulting development servers.

Username: tester
Password: abc123
Login Here

Screenshots of Spark from the publicly accessible tester account:

InfoCube Spark - Physical/Virtual Servers

InfoCube Spark - TM1 Server Page

InfoCube Spark incorporates the following into an easy to understand workspace:

TM1 Top Data
TM1 Server Logs
TM1 Configuration
Server Hard Disk Capacity
Server Memory Capacity
Server CPU Utilisation
Server Performance Counters

Some of our clients have said that we could and should charge thousands of dollars per annum for this service in enterprise environments, but we want to give something back to our Cognos Community – so we’re doing it for free. Nada. Nuffin. Zippo.

Categories: CubeSpy TM1 Server Monitor, IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos Insight, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 pre 10.1 | Tags: IBM Cognos, IBM Cognos TM1, InfoCube Spark, Server Logs, Software, Spark, TM1 Top, TM1 Training

Woohoo! TM1 Tuts has cracked 100,000 visits!

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Ben Hill

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This is just a shout out to all the administrators, support teams and developers who have browsed or subscribed to the TM1 Tutorials blog over the last two years.

Thanks, your the best and we are so pleased to have the opportunity to share our time tested tips and tricks with you all

If you are new to TM1 Tutorials, take a moment to read through the topics we have covered about IBM Cognos TM1 Development over the last 5 years on this website.

If you have a slow or seemingly substandard solution on the IBM Cognos TM1 platform, please take heed – its not normal, it can be fixed – TM1 should never be slow!

The problem could be one or more of the following:

Over feeding.
Improper Data Staging / Staggering.
Wrong frontend for the purpose - (e.g. Perspectives for MS Excel over WAN).

As always, if you’re ever in a bind – feel free to call our Australian consultants who have been pouring their expertise into sharing best practice development for years. If in Australia I will personally attend our first meeting and configure a solution for you.

Kind Regards,
Ben Hill
Director & Principal Consultant
InfoCube Consulting (Australia) Pty Ltd

Categories: Bug Fix, Code Sample - Downloadable, IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos Insight, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 Contributor, TM1 pre 10.1, Training Material | Tags: Cognos TM1, Feeders, IBM Cognos TM1, Rule Feeders, Turbo Integrator

Your Lifeline, The TM1 Transaction Log

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Nova Hartanty

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Super-Undo – backing out transactions in TM1 is not at all difficult. First of all here is the view of the Salary cube with data:

And one after the data is accidentally flushed out:

There are 2 ways to navigate to the Transaction Log window through TM1 Perspectives:

Click on your Server name from the list and Click Server > View Transaction Log
Right click on your server name and click “View Transaction Log”

Either way, you’ll be presented with the “Transaction Log Query” popup window in which you can select the start time, end time, clients, and cubes transactions to be viewed.

Note: If you receive an error upon opening the transaction log have a look at this post about a issue on Windows Server and Windows 7 Onwards.

Click ok and you’ll see the “Transaction Log Query Results” window.

If you would like to reverse one transaction only, you can click on that transaction and go to Edit > Select to select that transaction only. You can also use the Shift key to select a group of rows or the Ctrl key to select rows that are not next to each other.

However, if you have queried the exact time, clients, and cubes which transactions you would like to reverse (which is what we’ve done for this example), you can choose to simply Select All. If you have more than 5100 more, TM1 will let inform you that it might take a while to reverse this transactions through a pop-up window.

To undo these transactions, go to Edit and click “Back Out”

Once the process is done, the changes made to your cube would be reversed and your cube will once again looks like this:

If I have one bone to pick, it would be the user-friendliness of the Query Results windows. Rather than abusing the Edit button, perhaps it could have been simpler if we could select the entries by ticking the boxes or if we could use the right click button to select our options once the selection is made.

However, aside from that, Transaction Log is a simple and efficient way to reverse data changes in your cube.

If you would like assistance developing Turbo Integrator Processes or Cube Rules for your TM1 Solution, the friendly team of Consultants at InfoCube Consulting Australia can help. Enter your details in the contact form here.

Categories: IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 pre 10.1, Training Material | Tags: Architect, Backing Out Changes, IBM Cognos TM1, Perspectives, TM1, Transaction Log

Creating basic Top 10 reports using MDX expression

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Ivan Kulman

7 Comments

One of the most common requests for reports is to generate a list of top 10 for a dimension based on TM1 data. This makes sense considering level of data TM1 works best with; this could cover top 10 consumers, customers or top 30 SKUs at one particular outlet or within a brand.

There are several ways to achieve that within TM1, the simplest way to do this within a Excel report is to write a MDX query inside an active form.

How to write easily understood Turbo Integrator code

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Ivan Kulman

4 Comments

As many of TM1 consultants know, reading TI code always has the possibility of being a tricky task – especially if it is someone else’s code. This is mostly due to TM1 Perspectives Turbo Integrator lacking Syntax Highlighting (See our Notepad++ highlighter) but in part it is due to poor variable naming, indenting, casing or things simply not developed consistently throughout the model. Read more …

Categories: IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 pre 10.1, Training Material | Tags: IBM Cognos TM1, TI Process, Turbo Integrator, TurboIntegrator

Broken Transaction Log?

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Ben Hill

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With Windows Vista, 7 and many of the newer server editions of Windows a Microsoft security fix has removed a component which TM1 Perspectives & Architect use to display the Transaction Log browser. This component is called “MSMask32.ocx” which traditionally belongs in the System32 folder.

To get this working again on these machines:

Download the component here: msmask32.zip
Save these to the appropriate folder below:
- On a 32-bit computer save to C:\Windows\System32\
- On a 64-bit computer save to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\
Run the following command either from the command line or from the “Run” window:
- On a 32-bit computer run: “RegSvr32 MSMask.ocx”
- On a 64-bit computer run: “C:\Windows\SysWOW64\RegSvr32 MSMask.ocx”
This should (if all goes well and you have local administration access) immediately enable the Transaction Log window in Perspectives and Architect.

IBM Tech Note: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21469061

Categories: Bug Fix, IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 pre 10.1 | Tags: Bug, IBM Cognos TM1, Transaction, Transaction Log

Removing old TM1 Servers from “Services”

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Ben Hill

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When upgrading a clients environment to IBM Cognos TM1 10.1 I noticed a bunch of older TM1 Services. A quick google reveals that you can remove services by using the following command line:

sc delete “Service Name”

Note: If you have a TM1 Service setup as: “TM1 Server x64 / Production Server” you will use the following command

sc delete “Production Server”

Is it about time you cleaned up the NT Services on your adminhost?

Categories: TM1 10.1, TM1 pre 10.1 | Tags: IBM Cognos TM1, Install, Installation Guide, NT Service, TM1, TM1 Installation

Turbo Integrator Syntax Highlighter (Notepad++)

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Nova Hartanty

7 Comments

It is no secret that syntax highlighting script editors increase developer productivity. I regularly find myself staring at a chunk of TI processes (especially those written by someone else) for far too long. The combination of black and white text with small, crowded fonts in Turbo Integrator doesn’t help with the readability at all.

While Notepad++ is a great tool for text and script editing, unfortunately it doesn’t support TM1 development. Therefore, we’ve created a TM1 add-on for Notepad++ which includes syntax highlighting and code folding for bothTI process syntax and cube rules (especially great if the advanced rules editor doesn’t work for you).

TM1.zip (xml file in a archive)

To install this, start Notepad++. Go to View > User Defined Dialogue.

User Defined Dialogue - Notepad++

Click Import. Select the TM1.xml file attached above and click Open, then restart Notepad++.

To use the add-on, go to Language and select TM1 from the list.

This will then transform your TI processes and Cube Rules to look like these:

TI Process - Notepad++

Cube Rules - Notepad++

We’ve also added the syntax to enable users to use capitalisation, upper or lower case, which means that this add on would be able to highlight the syntax whether it is written as “AttrInsert”, “ATTRINSERT” or “attrinsert”.

Categories: Code Sample - Downloadable, IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 pre 10.1, Training Material | Tags: IBM Cognos TM1, Notepad++, Syntax Highlighter, TM1 Development, Turbo Integrator

Messaging users of IBM Cognos TM1

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Ben Hill

1 Comment

Did you know that you can send messages to your users through TM1? You would be surprised how many people don’t realise that its possible – and easy!!!

1. Open TM1 Server Explorer (Perspectives)

2. Right click on your server and select “Server Manager”. From here you can actually do a few things like:

Disconnecting Users and
Shutting down (but not restarting) the server

3. Tick the box “Broadcast a Message” and enter your message. Ensure “Do Nothing” is selected at the top of this form.

4. Click “Select Clients” and chose the users you want to send your message to. Note that if you send the message to your username, the session you are sending from will not get the message but if you are also logged in elsewhere you will receive the message there.

5. Press OK on the “Server Manager” Screen to send you message.

This is how it will appear to your users:

If you have any questions about this or any other TM1 features please contact us by commenting below. We would love to help.

Categories: IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1 | Tags: Cognos, IBM Cognos, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1, TM1 Messaging

Back to Basics – Regions in Rules

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Ben Hill

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If there is one basic technical best practise which makes TM1 Solutions more straight-forward thus sustainable which is most often not utilised it is #Regions in cube rules. Regions work the same way as grouping rows within Microsoft Excel, except the grouping is done automatically around a set of key words. This is actually a feature in many scripting environments and is called code folding, it is added to a rule like so:

#Region *The title of this region goes here*
*Rules go here*
#EndRegion

You can even add regions within regions. Like so:

#Region 1. Sales Rules
	#Region 1.1 Revenue
		['Revenue'] = N: ['Units'] * ['Price'];
	#EndRegion
	#Region 1.2 COGS
		['COGS'] = N: ['Units'] * ['Standard Cost'];
	#EndRegion
#EndRegion

This example could also extend to showing the corresponding feeders with the same format: “#Region 1. Sales Feeders”.

Check out the gallery below to see just how much more readable this rule is:

: TM1 Cube rule with regions collapsed

: TM1 Cube rule with regions partially expanded

: TM1 Cube rule with regions expanded

Categories: Code Sample - Downloadable, IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos Insight, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 pre 10.1, Training Material | Tags: Code Folding, Cube Rules, IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos TM1, Region, Sales Calculations, TM1 Best Practise, TM1 Cube Rules, TM1 Development

TM1 Tutorials.com

InfoCube Spark – An Introduction

Woohoo! TM1 Tuts has cracked 100,000 visits!

Your Lifeline, The TM1 Transaction Log

Creating basic Top 10 reports using MDX expression

How to write easily understood Turbo Integrator code

Broken Transaction Log?

Removing old TM1 Servers from “Services”

Turbo Integrator Syntax Highlighter (Notepad++)

Messaging users of IBM Cognos TM1

Back to Basics – Regions in Rules

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