Easy questions

[ITgrad001]

Hello TM1 experts,

I just joined this forum but don't understand any of the topics or questions. Please be humble
I am a Masters of IT student and got a really good grade in my Databases unit first and then Datawarehouse and Mining. Our practicals were entirely on MS SQL and I believe I have a good understanding in this field.

I had not heard about TM1 until I came on this forum. I was searching for BI tools and somehow landed here. I did my research and now I am so keen on learning this. Its now become an obsession.Luckily, my uni holidays start from this week and I've just ordered the official TM1 Book By K.Oehler and group and will soon join the TM1 family. My holidays are for 3 months and I will be spending it in Dubai with the family. I looked up IBM in Dubai and have also sent them am an email asking if they could take me as an intern and teach me Cognos.(anything related- sales etc) But I havent got a reply from them yet.

I have a few questions and hoping someone will help me:

If I don't get an internship at IBM, I will start learning from the book. Do you think the book is good enough for beginners with no knowledge?

Whats the best way to learn this tool?

Why is this tool not famous? Sorry if that offended anybody but when i asked my lecturers they had no idea about it. I thought that was very strange.

Thank You for taking your time to read my post.

[Alan Kirk]

If I don't get an internship at IBM, I will start learning from the book. Do you think the book is good enough for beginners with no knowledge?

No. You need to have hands on experience to get an understanding of it. It's the old "I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand" principle of training. It also applies to reading. Reading doesn't give you the context to make the connections the way actual practical experience does. You might get the general idea from the book, but with no "framework" to hang that knowledge on there would have to be a question mark over how much you'd retain. Also, since TM1 is such a flexible application, really learning how to create a model with it is as much art as science (probably more) and art takes practice.

Whats the best way to learn this tool?

Hands on experience.

Why is this tool not famous? Sorry if that offended anybody but when i asked my lecturers they had no idea about it. I thought that was very strange.

IMHO? Poor marketing on the part of Applix, the company that sold it for most of its life. I was saying in the old forum yeeeears ago that if Applix had been prepared to sell a "commodity priced" light version of TM1 to small and medium businesses, it would have been snapped up. The people who moved through those businesses would learn it, like it, and champion it in the new businesses that they moved on to. However they preferred aiming for larger firms with a higher price, which means that fewer people know about it, which makes it still a niche product. (Though probably less so than in the Applix days since it's now being bundled with Cognos. Still, it's really only a question of a small niche becoming a somewhat larger niche.) Nonetheless IBM is not known for its reasonable prices so it is likely to remain less well known and much more narrowly used than it might have been.

[ITgrad001]

Thanks Alan. I really appreciate your advice.

You are right about getting hands on experience. There is nothing better than getting practical experience.

I have a question but I feel dumb asking this:

How can i get my hands on TM1?

Thanks.

[qml]

There is an evaluation version of Cognos Express, which is in essence repackaged TM1 with some additional modules:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downl ... /index.htm
Xclererator is the rebranded TM1 inside and all the TM1 principles apply, so I would advise you to start by installing this and playing around with it.

[ITgrad001]

Thanks qml. Although that link doesnt work in Australia, i found the Downloads for it.

I keep admiring the job prospects in this field and I am pretty surprised I must say. I work as IT Help Desk Support Level 2 at my uni and I am so excited to take this step. I am not a big fan of MS SQL.

Thanks.

[qml]

If you're in Australia then there are quite a few decent IBM partners there. Maybe you can get in touch with them and see if they have any jobs for someone like you. This really is the sort of tool that you ultimately need to learn on site. Typically, you will also need to learn some basic finance terms and principles, not just the IT side of it.
I myself come from the IT background, unlike probably most TM1 developers, who are often accountants, and I can tell you that it's definitely an interesting and rather satisfying carreer path. It helps to know data warehousing and databases in general, even though MOLAP is quite different from the relational DB world.