Help! - Manual hierarchy maintenance

[Misty]

Hi there,

My users want to use TM1 (presumably Perspectives or TM1 Web?) to manually update a hierarchy when it changes (i.e. when a child moves to a different parent). More importantly, though, they may need to create new children/parents.

Does anyone have ideas on how this could be achieved? Essentially there is no 'measure', therefore it's not really suited to using cubes for this purpose, but they want to use TM1.

Thanks so much!

[Martin Ryan]

Hi Misty,

This is a pretty fundamental part of TM1 - creating and updating dimensions is essential to any model. As such you'll find it very clearly covered off in the manuals that come with TM1.

Cheers,
Martin

[Misty]

Thanks Martin but the users don't want to use Architect - they want a 'friendly' tool like Perspectives.

I actually just figured it out. (I'm VERY new to TM1!). I just created one dimension (the lowest level of the hierarchy) and a 'String'-type measure for each level of the hierarchy, that the users can enter free text into in Excel to write-back. A bit of a hack but that's what they want!

I think I'll try to write a TI process to at least populate the lowest level of the hierarchy from proper data, but if they mistype one of the levels, it's their problem.

Thanks

[Alan Kirk]

Thanks Martin but the users don't want to use Architect - they want a 'friendly' tool like Perspectives.

I actually just figured it out. (I'm VERY new to TM1!). I just created one dimension (the lowest level of the hierarchy) and a 'String'-type measure for each level of the hierarchy, that the users can enter free text into in Excel to write-back. A bit of a hack but that's what they want!

I think I'll try to write a TI process to at least populate the lowest level of the hierarchy from proper data, but if they mistype one of the levels, it's their problem.

That's... not maintaining a hierarchy, that's just storing a string in a cube. A hierarchy is a series of consolidation elements which will (usually) add lower level elements together to give totals. What you're doing won't achieve that.

[Misty]

I know! It's very silly! But we're simply going to export out the 'parents' to import into a proper relational database that will do the aggregations. The users just want a friendly tool to deal with if/when they decide parents change.

Thanks again.

[Alan Kirk]

I know! It's very silly! But we're simply going to export out the 'parents' to import into a proper relational database that will do the aggregations. The users just want a friendly tool to deal with if/when they decide parents change.

I don't actually encourage this, and I've never done it operationally, but it is in fact possible to assign Admin permissions for a dimension to a non-Admin group. That means that it is possible for the users in that group to use either .xdis or the Dimension Editor to manually make their own changes to the dimension hierarchy.

Unfortunately it also means that they can accidentally delete elements (and therefore the associated data). Accordingly even if I ever did grant such permissions, it would be to a "dummy" dimension (one which is not used in any cube) that I would use a TI process to read the hierarchy from and assign to the "real" dimension.

TM1 is the far more effective place to be doing aggregations than a relational database is. (Even moreso if it's the painfully slow Access.) But even if it's not, TM1 will still (generally speaking) be far faster at aggregating data than a relational database will be.

[Michel Zijlema]

Hi,

You could set up an Excel sheet with an action button linked to a TI process.
In the Excel sheet (accessible through Perspectives or TM1Web) users can enter new or select existing child and parent elements depending on whether you want to rearrange the hierarchy or add new elements (selecting can be done using subnm formula's on the regarding dimension). After this they can click the action button that executes the TI process that picks up the parent and child elements from the sheet and updates the hierarchy.
The good thing of this approach is that the users don't need Admin rights on the dimension and you can build in checks in the process to avoid big mistakes.

Michel