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Woohoo! TM1 Tuts has cracked 100,000 visits!

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Ben Hill

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

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

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

Cognos Insight – Aligning using the Grid

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Ben Hill

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Just found a cool little trick when organising widgets on a Cognos Insight Dashboard thanks to the team at IBM. You can hold shift while dragging or resizing widgets in Cognos Express to bring up the positioning grid. This makes alignment ridiculously easy.

: Cognos Insight – Olympic Medals – Australia – Swimming

Click here for a 30-Day Free Trial of IBM Cognos Insight

Categories: IBM Cognos Insight, Training Material | Tags: Cognos Insight, IBM Cognos Insight, Olympics Data, Tips & Tricks

Automating Data Transfers between TM1 Servers

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Ben Hill

4 Comments

Replicating a Cube from a one TM1 Server into another has never been easier. Follow the steps below to copy a cube from one server to another (this includes synchronising TM1 Dimensions). This process uses the ODBO Provider for TM1 and generated MDX.

I was going to show how to create an MDX Query for the desired cube but as it turns out you can select ODBO Cube as the data type and TurboIntegrator will work out all the other details.

To begin:

1. Open TM1 Server Explorer and login to the destination server, from here we will create a Turbo Integrator Process which imports the cube from the source server.

2. Create a new TI Process by right clicking on “Processes” and “Create New Process”. Save this empty process as “Data Import – *CubeName* from *Source Server Name*”. e.g. “Data Import SalesCube from Planning Sample”.

3. From the Datasource list on the left of the screen select “ODBO” and “Cube”.

4. Select the “IBM Cognos TM1 OLE DB MD Provider” and enter your source TM1 Server’s details as in the screenshot below.

ODBO Field Definitions:

- ODBO Datasource – TM1 Adminhost
- ODBO Catalog – TM1 Server Name
- ODBO UserID – TM1 Username
- ODBO Password – TM1 Password

4. Press the “Connect” button to test that the source TM1 server can be reached and that we do not have any network problems between the servers.

5. From the options select the obvious choices, for simply moving data between cubes use the “Update Cube” Option. If the cube doesn’t presently exist in the destination server use the “Create Cube” Option and change it later to “Update Cube”. Otherwise mirror the settings below for a basic transfer into an existing cube with the same dimensionality.

6. Save and Execute the Turbo Integrator Process to start the initial transfer.

Note: Depending on the size of the source cube this may take a while but you should see a record count upon execution.

If you want to have the exact same data in both servers you need to remember to manually copy the rules from the Source server also as a once off task. This is not managed by this data transfer operation.

Categories: IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos Insight, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 pre 10.1, Training Material | Tags: ETL, ExecuteProcess, IBM Cognos, IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos TM1, TI Process, TM1 Training, Turbo Integrator

TM1 Contributor – Single Security Hierarchy

Posted on July 13, 2012 by David Payten

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Currently on-site at client installing TM1 Cognos Express. The client wishes to use the contributor application to utilize workflow in the forecast. Doing so can creates a number of limitations, namely security and secondly cube design. Within TM1 Contributor/Cognos Express Planner you apply security based on a single dimension hierarchy for the application you have created, however the elements within the entire security dimension cannot share more than one top level member! If not caught early this can create a chain of painful flow on effects throughout the model, TM1 developers be mindful of the following technote:

Unable to define an Approval Hierarchy in TM1 Contributor/Cognos Express Planner: The hierarchy has more than one top level member (IBM Technote 1497495):

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21497495

So to get around this issue, a TI process was written to duplicate a hierarchy in one dimension and rebuild it in another. Since the dimension may have more than one top level member ancestor, you will need to select only one of the sub hierarchies you want to use for your security dimension. To get around this issue a TI process was written which will pick only 1 of the Top level parents that you will use for the security hierarchy in the other dimension. The process is broken into 3 separate TI processes. The first and second processes, create and loops through the Top level node expanded tree, and output this to a text file with a parent child relationship. The third process builds off this flat file, using the parent child relationship to build a duplicate dimension. This has been bundled up into a master process. Here is a screen shot of parameters below:

Per above screenshot, the list of parameter above will be required:

vFilePath: is the flat file path that is required when running the process. Please specify this on your server.
vDimName: Name of the dimension you want to duplicate
vElementTopLevelParent: Name of existing Top Level Parent within dimension (essentially this is the sub hierarchy you want to duplicate, screenshot below)
vDestDimName: Name of new dimension that you want to build new sub hierarchy

Screenshot, example of Top Level Parent:

In the next article I will talk about challenges faced with cube design when building within a contributor application. Please see attached for full download:

Meta CopyDimensionSubset Hierarchy.zip

Categories: Code Sample - Downloadable, IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 Contributor, TM1 pre 10.1, Training Material | Tags: Contributor, David Payten, ETL, Fluffy Mittens, IBM Cognos TM1, Sample Code, TI Process, TM1 Process, TM1 Tutorial

Rolling Forecast in IBM Cognos TM1

Posted on July 10, 2012 by David Payten

1 Comment

Recently, a client has asked to implement a rolling forecast model to move towards a more dynamic way of forecasting so as the periods move forward so does your forecast so you are always forecasting 12 / 18 months out in to the future.

With a rolling forecast the number of periods remain the same so as each period is traded it drops out of the forecast and another period is added. This is best shown with a diagram:

In TM1, this can be easily achieved using a period slider rule. To enable this functionality the user simply updates the current month string in a global assumptions cube to start the forecast, this in turn updates a rule attached to a period slider dimension which updates the attribute values for those months within the period dimension. The business rule attached to Cube B then pulls data from “Cube A” Actual’s based on the attribute values for those periods and populates values in Cube B for Current Forecast Periods. Note that Actual’s are against real periods in Cube A ( i.e. Dec 2011 instead of m-1, the rule translates real month Dec 2011 into an “m-x’ month and updates the period description using an alias mask being the real period name ). See Ouput below:

Turning on the Alias for the Period Description below for Cube B below:

How the slider rule works (translate sliding period i.e Dec 2011 into sliding period i.e m-1 ). See embedded pseudo code in rule below:

Output in Period_slider attribute cube:

Now that you have an idea of the workings, the only real challenge that remains is to encourage/influence management to think outside the box and adopt a different way of thinking when approaching the forecast, one that I imagine is a mere walk in the park.

Enjoy! See attached for full download of above including cubes and rules.

Data PeriodSlider.zip

Categories: Code Sample - Downloadable, IBM Cognos Express, IBM Cognos TM1, TM1 10.1, TM1 pre 10.1, Training Material, Uncategorized | Tags: Corporate Planning, Forecasting in TM1, IBM Cognos TM1, Rolling Forecasts, TM1 Cube Rules

TM1 Tutorials.com

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

Turbo Integrator Syntax Highlighter (Notepad++)

Back to Basics – Regions in Rules

Cognos Insight – Aligning using the Grid

Automating Data Transfers between TM1 Servers

TM1 Contributor – Single Security Hierarchy

Rolling Forecast in IBM Cognos TM1

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