Visual Aides

[luirubio]

Does anyone have Visual Aides? or can provide their data structures of TM1 Cube-Dimension

If I'am modeling from a scratch what should I add first?

TIA!

[rmackenzie]

Does anyone have Visual Aides? or can provide their data structures of TM1 Cube-Dimension

Everyone's cubes are different - what works for one person isn't going to necessarily work for you. Commonly, people who are beginning a TM1 development may have some sample reports that they wish to replicate in TM1, or perhaps cubes from another reporting system. Do you have that material... ? If the sample report has accounts and business units, then you are going to need an Account dimension and a Business Unit dimension. If the sample report has the cost of fish on it then you may need a Cost of Fish element in your measure dimension.

If I'am modeling from a scratch what should I add first?

If you're at work, then you should add an e-mail to your manager to request attending the basic training course that outlines all the concepts. If you're not at work, then you should try and acquaint yourself with the basic concepts by following some of the many resources available online, principally the application documentation.

[Alan Kirk]

If I'am modeling from a scratch what should I add first?

A training course.

(And I mean that seriously.)



Edit: Ah, I see that Robin beat me to it.

[luirubio]

Hello rmackenzie ,
I Have that report and you're exactly right, I wish to replicate this reports to TM1 and create a Profitability Cube. But I don't know where to start or which task should begin first?. The Company is an Airline Industry. Also I'am not at work and trying to get answers for my question here.

Hi Alan Kirk,
I would love to have a Training Course.

[Alan Kirk]

Hello rmackenzie ,
I Have that report and you're exactly right, I wish to replicate this reports to TM1 and create a Profitability Cube. But I don't know where to start or which task should begin first?. The Company is an Airline Industry. Also I'am not at work and trying to get answers for my question here.

Hi Alan Kirk,
I would love to have a Training Course.

Ah... the training course is the task that you begin first. Otherwise it's rather like rocking up to a building site, finding a toolkit there, and asking the builders on the surrounding blocks "So, how do I build a house?"

There will almost certainly be some consultancies that provide training where you are, or most likely some of the IBM courses will be available as well.

In the interim you can start working through the user guides and manuals in conjunction with the sample databases. You need to get your head around:
- First, what a dimension is, and how it's built from elements of various types;
- Second, what a cube is, and how it's built from dimensions;
- Third, what rules are and how they're constructed.

There's a lot more to that, but you can't even begin to develop a solution until you have those concepts bedded down.

The people around here can help you when you run into specific issues, but can't teach you TM1 from scratch.

[luirubio]

I've been watching your videos about TM1 Bytes.Im on the process of uploading the reports to TM1 and I have only a excel file with lots of sheets and same data structure per aircraft.
Now, I want to upload the flight per aircraft then get the profitable flights. but TM1 wont let me upload all, same name issue.

Can you help me out?

Regards

[Alan Kirk]

I've been watching your videos about TM1 Bytes.Im on the process of uploading the reports to TM1 and I have only a excel file with lots of sheets and same data structure per aircraft.
Now, I want to upload the flight per aircraft then get the profitable flights. but TM1 wont let me upload all, same name issue.

Yeah, alas I should have long since done the one on uploading data but unfortunately a work project has gotten in the way. Since that's what pays the bills...

We'd need to know:
- The structure of your cube (which dimensions make it up, and probably some of the elements that you have in each one);
- The structure of your sheets (what you have in each column); and
- What formulas you're using.

[luirubio]

'

We'd need to know:
- The structure of your cube (which dimensions make it up, and probably some of the elements that you have in each one);
- The structure of your sheets (what you have in each column); and
- What formulas you're using.

-I'm sorry but I don't know the structure of the cube, how will I know how to design a cube?I've been reading the FAQ's.
-Here's the sample data from sheets



The Columns are the dimensions right? So I'm trying to replicate the Columns to TM1 as a Dimension. But then again when I try to replicate another Aircraft seems that TM1 wont allow the same name, what step am I missing? Im trying to upload the data on the TM1 Modeler First.

How will I upload the different sheets of aircrafts and make a profitability reports.

-I am not familiar with the formulas yet. I'am still learning

Thanks in Advance!

[rmackenzie]

The Columns are the dimensions right? So I'm trying to replicate the Columns to TM1 as a Dimension.

You should create a simple cube with 5 dimensions:
Day - with elements 1 through 31 and a consolidation of All Days
Flight - with elements TH900, TH901, TH902, TH903 etc and a consolidation of All Flights
Origin and Destination should be different dimensions with the same elements - Osaka, Bangkok, etc with consolidations for different countries and continents
Measures - this has elements such as Distance, Available Seats, Load Factors, Costs, Revenues etc

what step am I missing? Im trying to upload the data on the TM1 Modeler First.

TM1 has super easy functionality to build dimensions called XDI worksheets. Perhaps you need to use the simpler tools first to learn the concepts. When you've built a cube or two you can look at using Performance Modeller (I guess that's what you mean) as it has more advanced functions that might be challenging at first. Building a cube is easy - just a right-click in Architect - but it is getting the dimensions right that is most important. That's why Alan recommended that you start with the dimensions.

How will I upload the different sheets of aircrafts and make a profitability reports.

Once you've built the dimensions and the cube, you can look at merging all the different sheets together into one big file. The set of values in each row should correspond to an element in one of the five dimensions in your cube. But first build the dimensions...

[luirubio]

I've already created the 5 dimensions, thanks for the guide.
I want to know what do you mean about consolidation of All Days, consolidation of All Flight and consolidation different countries and continents, how will i put that as elements of each dimensions?



I do this by adding dimensions manually, later I will try XDI Worksheets as you said.
I also created the Cube and there are no datas yet. I'm getting the concepts now but I need to be cleared by that.

With these, I'm thinking of the process of,
1.)Build Dimension
2.)Create Cube
3.)Upload the Data
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I attached the excel file that i merge, please take a look if its correct,

Code: Select all

http://www.speedyshare.com/3qqcQ/download/TH-profitability.xls

Now what is the next step?

Thanks for the guide!

[Alan Kirk]

I've already created the 5 dimensions, thanks for the guide.
I want to know what do you mean about consolidation of All Days, consolidation of All Flight and consolidation different countries and continents, how will i put that as elements of each dimensions?

I don't wish to belabour the point, but this really does reflect how much you need a training course. Not some time in the future, but NOW, before you start building this model.

Creating dimensions is the TM1 equivalent of knowing the alphabet, and how to form words from it. What you're trying to do is the equivalent of writing an episode of Sherlock without understanding the difference between a consonant and a vowel. Much as a forum like this can help you overcome specific problems it can't get you completely off the ground from a standing start.

If you haven't used .xdi sheets as Robin suggested (and I'd recommend that as well, since they'll make your life easier while you're still in the learning phase) then I'd assume that you created the existing elements using the Dimension Editor. (Incidentally you can't mix and match; if you maintain dimensions with .xdis you must always maintain them with .xdis. If you create and maintain them with Dimension Editor or TurboIntegrator (the latter of which actually seems like the better long term solution, but you need to crawl before you can walk before you can run) then you must NEVER use .xdis to update them.

If you want to use .xdis see this link which includes telling you how to create consolidated elements such as "All Days", etc.

If you want to continue to use the dimension editor use this link.

With these, I'm thinking of the process of,
1.)Build Dimension
2.)Create Cube
3.)Upload the Data
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

That's essentially it.

Once you have the dimensions established then in the longer term you will probably want to upload data via TurboIntegrator. In the shorter term, since each row appears to be unique, you could use DBS formulas.

In relation to something that you mentioned earlier which you probably picked up from one of my videos...

The Columns are the dimensions right?

This is true if the data is a dump from a standard table, where there is a single value column and all of the rest of the columns describe what that value is.

That's not what you have here, though.

What you have here is some form of report where many of the columns are values.

So in your case as Robin indicated your dimension columns would be Day, Flight, Origin and Destination. All of the rest will be elements in your Measures dimension.

[luirubio]

If you want to use .xdis see this link which includes telling you how to create consolidated elements such as "All Days", etc.

If you want to continue to use the dimension editor use this link.

I tried to do the first one but I encountered an error.



So I tried doing the 2nd one, and I hope that I did it right



But I'am confused of that to choose whether it is a string or a simple?

And now that I think I'am done with creating the dimensions and cube,
How will I Upload my CSV file to the TM1?

TIA!

[BariAbdul]

Thanks Allan,Isn't it Dimension Worksheets are used by only TM1 veterans and not a common practice by current lot,I agree it is easy to main and scalable.Please Clarify.

[Alan Kirk]

Thanks Allan,Isn't it Dimension Worksheets are used by only TM1 veterans and not a common practice by current lot,I agree it is easy to main and scalable.Please Clarify.

Presumably you were told that by the same person who told you how to spell my name.

The information is just as accurate.

There is rarely "one right way" of doing things, but rather all have their advantages and disadvantages.

It's probably true that most training courses, especially Cognos training courses, would not emphasise (or even cover) .xdis. In part this would be because IBM is convinced that the shinier and glossier and GUIer the interface is, the better it must be (therefore in their world Dimension Editor > .xdi, notwithstanding evidence to the contrary), in part it's because it's simply physically impossible to cover every possible aspect of the user interface in a one to two day training course. Consequently a lot of newer users may not use them simply because they don't know about them in the first place.

To my mind (and other people's mileages may vary) the advantages and disadvantages are as follows:

.xdis
Advantages
- Can be formatted which allows you to easily distinguish various hierarchies or element groups by font, colour, etc.
- Can use formulas to create hierarchies. Before anyone says "Hardly anyone does that", that's their problem, not mine. I find it useful, especially but not exclusively with date hierarchies.
- You have absolute control over the arrangement of hierarchies.
- That includes copying large areas of the dimension from one place to another which may be some way away from your starting point. You can use side by side windows to do this. You can freeze panes to do this. You can use GoTo to do this. You can use any part of Excel's functionality to do this.
- You can create formulas to the elements' attributes cube on the .xdi sheet giving you "one stop shop" maintenance for your dimensions.
- And the big one: You can store metadata about your metadata. Who requested a hierarchy change, when, why etc, etc. The other methods offer no convenient way of doing this.

Disdvantages
- Manually intensive and therefore not well-suited to dimensions that change frequently.
- No easy or elegant way of automating the process of adding new elements stemming from an interface. (You can kludge one with VBA but it's not usually pretty.)
- Can get unwieldy if the dimension is very large. I'm not sure whether it works if the dimension exceeds the 65,536 rows of legacy Excel and am not sure that I want to find out.

TurboIntegrator
Advantages
- Can automatically create and maintain elements and a hierarchy from a data interface.
- Capable of creating elements and structures from programming loops. To some extent. If you're good at coding it.
- Fast.
- Once you've invested time in writing the code it largely runs in a "hands off" manner.

Disdvantages
- Need to structure the data source (or a data source) so that you have a feed which shows not only the N level elements but also their parent so that you can create the hierarchy.
- Fiddly to create unstructured custom analysis consolidations; rather than creating them by copying and pasting the way you do with an .xdi you need to write the code to do it.
- You need to visualise the structures in your head as you write the code; you don't have a graphical layout to guide you the way you can have with an .xdi. Not such a problem with simple hierarchies, more of a problem with complex ones.

Dimension Editor
Advantages
- Ummmm.... Errrrrr... Lemmie see now.... it'll come to me eventually....
- Oh yeah, I know! If you have a dimension which is normally created and maintained by TI, it's relatively easy to create a quick and dirty custom analysis consolidation as long as it doesn't have too many levels.
- You can add multiple elements relatively quickly. As long as they're all N/ "simple" ones. And as long as you create the list outside of Dimension Editor and paste them in. In which case, why not just do the sodding list in an .xdi?
- It looks like a GUI, therefore it must be good. Oh wait, that's from the IBM Design Department guidelines.

Disadvantages
- I find maintaining anything other than a very short dimension with a very simple hierarchy to be a pain in the rectal region.
- Multiply that by a factor of a thousand for a long dimension with multiple hierarchies.

I'm sure that some people like the Dimension Editor. Other people enjoy being tied up and whipped as well, so I suppose it's important to cater for a range of tastes. But personally I regard the keyboard as the shortest way of getting from A to B when it comes to doing serious work rather than just viewing You Tube videos. The Dimension Editor, on the other hand, strikes me as having been born of that curious mindset that the more you have to use a mouse to click and point and drag and click some more (or in the more modern paradigm, fingers to swipe and swoosh), the better. For the type of work that's done in running a TM1 server, it's the kind of interface that I find gets in my way more often than it helps me. (See also, the (ef)fluent user interface (a.k.a. "the ribbon") in Office 2007 and later.)

So no, .xdis are not just for veterans. They're for anyone who understands when they will (and won't) give them an advantage over the alternative methods.

(And don't get me started on training courses that teach you only how to get TIs to write the code for you...)

[rmackenzie]

There is rarely "one right way" of doing things, but rather all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Reading BariAbdul's comment reminded me of the expression 'a bad workman always blames his tools'. The origin of this saying (according to the internet) dates from 13th century old French:

Mauves ovriers ne trovera ja bon hostill

Which means

A bad workman will never find a good tool

I think that idiom is a bit more pertinent in light of the comments about XDIs.

[Alan Kirk]

A bad workman will never find a good tool

I think that idiom is a bit more pertinent in light of the comments about XDIs.

True, though I think we may make an exception when it comes to the TI editor including its purported replacement in Performance Muddler (which has just caused the Jojo song "Too Little, Too Late" to become embedded in my engrams). There it just comes down to cr@p tools which require good workmen (workpeople) to overcome their many (oh so very many...) shortcomings.

(I'm not counting Vizier's TI editor in this since that's quite a good one, but that's third party and extra cost. I'm not optimistic about seeing a decent one out of Iboglix any time soon.)

Come to think of it, we'd best avoid the subject of built in Rules editors too.