Dynamic Slices vs. Active Forms vs. Spreadsheet Browser

[Toto]

Hello,

I am relatively new to TM1 and a little bit confused about the terms mentioned above.
My understanding is that Active Forms are the "never version" of dynamic slices, am I correct? So, I should always take active forms when I develop something new, or are there situations where a dynamic slice would be preferable?
Also, I can see all data with the spreadsheet browser. Should I use the spreadsheet browser for builduing spreadsheets as well or what is the main purpose (and also limitations) of it?

Thanks a lot!!

Regards,

Toto

[hittony]

Hi,

Interesting topic, here's two helpful pages:

• tm1up.com
• intellipaat.com

Still looking forward to more inputs here, especially on In-Spreadsheet Browser, which is not much explained through the links above.

Thanks

[declanr]

Active forms are just the same as slices but the rows can expand; so it can be based on your "all accounts" subset for example and if the subset gets an extra element then so does the active form but the slice would require you to manually add it in.

A slice is normally a bit more efficient as it does less work... so if the area of your data isnt going to change then you'd still use a slice (IMO.)

ISB officially became unsupported years ago but it was essentially a fully functioning cube viewer in excel - i dont know many people who use it (anyone actually.)

[RJ!]

Hopefully you also have access to CAFE (Cognos Analysis for Excel) as well to experiment with as that will be what is replacing the above at some stage...

[hittony]

Hopefully you also have access to CAFE (Cognos Analysis for Excel) as well to experiment with as that will be what is replacing the above at some stage...

I saw several times in the forum that CAFE is meant to replace Perspectives, and I believe it because it's true that IBM has put much effort on CAFE upgrade for its TM1 features in previous buildup versions. But is there some official announcement ?

Actually, I'm struggling to convince my colleagues that CAFE gonna replace Perspectives, and CAFE + Cognos Connection can do better or at least as well as Perspectives + TM1 Web.

Cheers

[Alan Kirk]

Hopefully you also have access to CAFE (Cognos Analysis for Excel) as well to experiment with as that will be what is replacing the above at some stage...

I saw several times in the forum that CAFE is meant to replace Perspectives, and I believe it because it's true that IBM has put much effort on CAFE upgrade for its TM1 features in previous buildup versions. But is there some official announcement ?

I don't know whether there is something that is written down anywhere, but there were reps from the IBM development team at the Sydney Cubewise conference last August (and doubtless at other conferences as well) who made it plain that the sun will eventually set on Perspectives.

However it isn't going to be in the next couple of versions and by the time it does CAFE will have a lot of Perspectives functionality migrated over (or that functionality will be elsewhere, and I don't mean the cluster frap that is Performance Muddler which is, thank the gods, also on borrowed time). IBM is aware (or certainly these guys were) that CAFE is not a viable direct replacement for Perspectives as it stands.

However there's one key thing that will eventually drive us away from Perspectives and that is... the cr@p WAN performance. IBM not unreasonably want to consolidate the TM1 clients and there's no point trying to reinvent a really ancient (if still very useful;, mostly) technology like Perspectives for the 21st Century.

Actually, I'm struggling to convince my colleagues that CAFE gonna replace Perspectives, and CAFE + Cognos Connection can do better or at least as well as Perspectives + TM1 Web.

That's because it won't do the first any time soon, because it can't (yet) do the second. But given time...

[jim wood]

ISB officially became unsupported years ago but it was essentially a fully functioning cube viewer in excel - i dont know many people who use it (anyone actually.)

Mr. Hobson was fan if memory serves. To give it some perspective, it was a direct competitor (when created) to the "old" Essbase excel addin. To be fair I used ISB quite a bit. It was great before version 7. Back then Excel was your only option so it was really the only cube viewer,

Jim.

[David Usherwood]

Actually, I'm struggling to convince my colleagues that CAFE gonna replace Perspectives, and CAFE + Cognos Connection can do better or at least as well as Perspectives + TM1 Web.

To clarify:
Cafe will (eventually) replace Perspectives for Excel consumption/writeback
PAW (Planning Analytics Workspace) (currently Cloud only) will (eventually) replace everything else, including Web consumption/writeback, workflow (Apps Web), development ('Architect' - forget Modeller) and Ops Console. It's not going to all be done very soon
I'm going to take the opportunity to put out a call to TM1ers who build frontends with Perspectives to look at CAFE, work out what is missing, and make sure IBM know and (I hope) build the functionality into CAFE. I am concerned that they think that all Excel-ers do with TM1 is explore cubes and create nice looking report slices. Now is the time to put them straight.

[RJ!]

I've already pointed out that Drill to Transactions is a big missing feature at the moment for us, otherwise our set up is so basic that CAFE & Perspectives are much of a muchness in terms of what you can do. The Boss likes TM1 formulas for DBRA to pull extra info when creating reports (i.e. Longer Descriptions or roll-ups etc.) which do seem to work as expected in CAFE.

The write-back to the server is a little scary if you have clumsy users but that should be able to be reduced with the smarter form design & Cube set up.