Displaying TM1 service status to end users

[garry cook]

Hey all, thought I'd open this up to the forum.

I'm currently working on a (very) sticky TM1 instance that I've inherited. Whilst I go through the usual archival / feeder tightening / useless logic removal / etc to try and improve performance, I'm once again looking at some easy to view way of informing the user base of the status of the TM1 server when it's locked up.

Main ways I've dealt with this in the past -

Given access to TM1Top

Found this often resulted in "What's Person x doing?" type responses. You know, those ones that are really popular in no-blame cultures.

Website linked in to TM1 / semaphore system

TI creates a file in prolog, removes in epilog and website draws a big arrow showing a free / TI running status whilst checking the TM1 instance is actually up every couple of mins. Went ok but doesn't do much for model locks and not realistic in the size of system I currently have.

Ignoring user base and getting random phonecalls

Sticking fingers in your ears and going "na na na na na" or putting a juniour developers phone number as a contact details is always an option!


I don't feel that gives many options and of the ones above, none of these are practically very useful in the current system so was just wondering if anyone had a better approach for this?

Open to suggestions

TIA

[tomok]

If the problem is TI's running you can do an ODBC insert in the Prolog of each TI and then ODBC delete in the Epilog. I don't see how that is going to cause any additional locks, other than whatever is already there due to the TI itself. Then you can query the table at any point in time to see which TI's are in the middle of running. However, this doesn't help you if the problem is users opening a massive view or Active Form report. There is absolutely nothing that I know of for this that wouldn't require the user to take some extra steps to "register" what they are doing in the system before they do it. I wouldn't even attempt anything as stupid as this, no one is EVER going to do it unless forced to and I can't think of any way to enforce it.

[PlanningDev]

I haven't checked but as of version 10 you have the operations console which is a java web based TM1 top like interface and might be able to be opened up to non admin users. The part I haven't looked into is non admin users.

[Harvey]

I recently looked at InfoCube Spark Monitor, and it is an excellent solution for exposing TM1 server status to users. You can read about it on the post here.