TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

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declanr
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TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by declanr »

I finally decided that I might have a few spare minutes over the christmas period to go and sit the TM1 Master Exam (COG-385) and when looking to book it found that it was discontinued at the end of November.

I have had a scan and can't see a replacement... is this just me being blind and does anyone know of a replacement v10 exam? Or if not would anyone "in the know" happen to be aware of a planned replacement?... Or have IBM finally acknowledged that we are all just chancers anyway and no such thing as a master exists?
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by Alan Kirk »

declanr wrote:I finally decided that I might have a few spare minutes over the christmas period to go and sit the TM1 Master Exam (COG-385) and when looking to book it found that it was discontinued at the end of November.

I have had a scan and can't see a replacement... is this just me being blind and does anyone know of a replacement v10 exam? Or if not would anyone "in the know" happen to be aware of a planned replacement?... Or have IBM finally acknowledged that we are all just chancers anyway and no such thing as a master exists?
I'm not sure which page you were looking on, but the possibility that it was one of a thousand different ones relating to the subject, none of which contains all of the relevant information in itself, would not surprise me. As we know, IBM's "master" web site designers got their certifications from the back of a Corn Flakes box. However this page indicates that it's been replaced by two qualifications:
.

Apparently there is also the IBM Certified Advanced Solution Expert - Cognos TM1 which requires you to take three tests. The two above and, waaait for iiiit...
This certification requires 3 test(s).
Test(s) required:
Click on the link(s) below to see test details, test objectives, suggested training and sample tests.

Any 1 of the following tests:
Test COG-300 - IBM Cognos TM1 Analyst
Test COG-701 - IBM Cognos TM1 10.1 Analyst

Any 1 of the following tests:
Test COG-310 - IBM Cognos TM1 Developer
Test COG-702 - IBM Cognos TM1 10.1 Developer

Test COG-385 - IBM Cognos TM1 Master Exam
Yeah, the discontinued COG-385.

So Master is gone, and therefore the "Certified Advanced Solution Expert" option is out the window, but I suppose you could always see if there's a course that requires you to know all there is to know about in Performance Muddler, Infight and the Applications Portaloo.

You may not end up Certified but the frustration involved should leave you at least certifiable, in the Casanova Frankenstein "so the madman blew up the madhouse" sense. Throw in any attempt to interpret Iboglix's training course structure in a coherent fashion, and the last of your sanity should be fluttering away like a psychedelic butterfly by the time you answer the last question.
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declanr
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by declanr »

Alan Kirk wrote:
declanr wrote:I finally decided that I might have a few spare minutes over the christmas period to go and sit the TM1 Master Exam (COG-385) and when looking to book it found that it was discontinued at the end of November.

I have had a scan and can't see a replacement... is this just me being blind and does anyone know of a replacement v10 exam? Or if not would anyone "in the know" happen to be aware of a planned replacement?... Or have IBM finally acknowledged that we are all just chancers anyway and no such thing as a master exists?
I'm not sure which page you were looking on, but the possibility that it was one of a thousand different ones relating to the subject, none of which contains all of the relevant information in itself, would not surprise me. As we know, IBM's "master" web site designers got their certifications from the back of a Corn Flakes box. However this page indicates that it's been replaced by two qualifications:
.

Apparently there is also the IBM Certified Advanced Solution Expert - Cognos TM1 which requires you to take three tests. The two above and, waaait for iiiit...
This certification requires 3 test(s).
Test(s) required:
Click on the link(s) below to see test details, test objectives, suggested training and sample tests.

Any 1 of the following tests:
Test COG-300 - IBM Cognos TM1 Analyst
Test COG-701 - IBM Cognos TM1 10.1 Analyst

Any 1 of the following tests:
Test COG-310 - IBM Cognos TM1 Developer
Test COG-702 - IBM Cognos TM1 10.1 Developer

Test COG-385 - IBM Cognos TM1 Master Exam
Yeah, the discontinued COG-385.

So Master is gone, and therefore the "Certified Advanced Solution Expert" option is out the window, but I suppose you could always see if there's a course that requires you to know all there is to know about in Performance Muddler, Infight and the Applications Portaloo.

You may not end up Certified but the frustration involved should leave you at least certifiable, in the Casanova Frankenstein "so the madman blew up the madhouse" sense. Throw in any attempt to interpret Iboglix's training course structure in a coherent fashion, and the last of your sanity should be fluttering away like a psychedelic butterfly by the time you answer the last question.

Yes I was going more along the lines of requiring it in order to get the "Solution Expert" status but it seemed a bit of a circle, as I understand it the old Master exam used to cover the arguably lesser discussed topics such as how to avoid locking - can't say I'm entirely bothered about not being able to get it anymore but I thought if it was there I may as well.

I must admit when I did the 10.1 Dev Exam it had a worryingly large amount of Performance Modeler questions and not a single one of them had the possibility of answering "I wouldn't use it to do that"... and then all of the "old school" questions seemed to have incorrect syntax or just be plain old fashioned wrong.
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by lotsaram »

for people who work for IBM partners there's absolutely no point taking COG-385 since it doesn't count from a support points perspective. The only certs which are counted for partner accreditation are Developer and Analyst. Doesn't make sense, but that's IBM for you.
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by jim wood »

Lotsa you forgot Admin. There are 3 that give you points towards your partner status not 2: TM1 10.1 Analyst, TM1 10.1 Developer and TM1 10.1 administrator. :D
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by declanr »

To be honest (despite working for a business partner) I wasn't thinking of partner points rather than just liking the idea of doing it.

I was hoping that there may be a real exam or certification out there for TM1 as the other exams are completely awful and meaningless IMHO.
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by Alan Kirk »

declanr wrote:To be honest (despite working for a business partner) I wasn't thinking of partner points rather than just liking the idea of doing it.

I was hoping that there may be a real exam or certification out there for TM1 as the other exams are completely awful and meaningless IMHO.
What, surely you can't be unimpressed by the first sample question in the Developer's test being the infamous amphibian one, or the second question being:
You need the current month as a number. Which function delivers the desired result?
A. TIMEST(NOW, '\m')
B. MONTH (NOW)
C. TIMVL(NOW, 'M')
D.TIME(NOW, 'M')
I mean after all, the rote-memorising of functions (and such consistently named functions!) that you might use every few months or (even every couple of years) is certainly the best way to test understanding, is it not? (I wrote the metaphorical book on date and time functions, and even I don't carry them all around in my head. That's what the Reference Guide and the crib in my post are for.)

And speaking of understanding, I trust that the person who wrote the third question:
3. You need to export data from a TM1 cube including the column headers. Where do you put the ASCIIOutput command for the column headers?
A. in the PROLOG section without condition
B. in the METADATA section with condition to execute it only for the first record
C. in the DATA section with condition to execute it only for the first record
D. in the EPILOG section without condition
does understand that although C is the conventional answer, then assuming that there is no metadata and/or data updating involved in the process (ah, complete questions, who needs 'em?) then B would technically work just as well, even though I'd never recommend it purely from a housekeeping perspective.

Then we can go to the first question of the sample Analyst test:
A user needs to create a report where zero s are suppressed. Which two interfaces will allow you to do this? (Choose two)
A. Active Forms
B. Cube Viewer
C. Excel Slice
D. Snapshot
Wow. I'm glad that they didn't ask something really hard like "How many sides does the server explorer window have?".

But unfortunately I think you'll be hard pressed to find any exams that are not IBM-based, much less any which are worth the parchment that they're laser printed on. The market just isn't large enough.
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by declanr »

My favourite question when I did the Dev test was:


Q - In which TI tab should a cube be created?

A/ Parameters
B/ Metadata
C/ Data
D/ Epilog


Now don't get me wrong, I have created cubes on the metadata tab when I have been created multiple cubes on the fly based of a country code SQL data source (for example) but I would hazard a guess at approx 99% of TI built cubes not originating on the metadata tab.


There was also one (can't remember exactly what it was) where all 4 answers were showing incorrect syntax and would have failed outright... you could work out which one they believed was the correct answer but it was just shocking.



At the end you get the comments box and I wrote quite a number of paragraphs, the girl behind the desk came into the exam room when I hadn't emerged after some time clearly showing that no one has ever bothered to write feedback before... let alone quite so much. After all that (AND ticking the "yes IBM can contact me" box) did anyone get in touch?... I will leave you guys to guess that one :roll:
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by declanr »

For anyone else who would have had interest in doing the mastery exam; I asked IBM whether it is still (or will become) possible to achieve the exam and therefore the solution expert status and got this response:
Thank you for contacting the IBM Professional Certification Program. To receive a certification, you must meet the test requirements as specified on the website. If you haven't already taken test COG-385, you will not be able to achieve this certification.
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by Edward Stuart »

Pearson Vue, who have taken over the IBM testing program from Prometric as of 18th December 2013 (in the UK at least) are still offering the TM1 Master Exam
2014-01-03 10_34_09-Pearson VUE - Exam Details.jpg
2014-01-03 10_34_09-Pearson VUE - Exam Details.jpg (30.46 KiB) Viewed 16216 times
declanr
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by declanr »

Cheers for that Edward, will have to try and find time to sit it before they realise it's supposed to be shelved... silly me thinking IBM would have actually known what they did and didn't offer :roll:
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Re: TM1 Master Exam COG - 385

Post by declanr »

Thought i'd put an update on this in case anyone else is/was interested in sitting it themselves.

I half expected to get the exam cancelled or to sit it and find IBM unwilling to associate a certification with the dead exam but it all went through as if it was any exam on their site that they didn't list as having been withdrawn in Nov-2013.

Even managed to book it one evening and sit it the next morning with Pearson Vue, I used to find with prometric I had to wait about a week to get a sitting. So on a side note it looks like in my neck of the woods at least there is more availability with the new provider... or maybe it was just by pure chance.

Anyway if anyone else fancied getting it sorted out I'd suggest you go ahead before IBM realise they are allowing people to sit an exam and achieve certifications that they no longer offer!
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