Which TM1 versions are supported with Excel 2007?

[Solanna]

Hi Everyone,

It's been about 4 years since I've posted a TM1 question so apologies in advance for asking a question that everybody may already know besides me

I've been living on the dark side the past 4 years working with OutlookSoft that sadly was eaten up by SAP a couple of years ago

Anyhow, I've gotten very tired of the SAP world so I've quit my job to take a few months off to figure out what I want to be when I grow up

In the meantime, one of my long time TM1 customers contacted me to help with some template issues they seem to be having with Excel 2007...

I have read a few threads that seem to state that 9.4 is the only supported version for Excel 2007
I know my customer was on a version 9 from last year but I doubt they have upgraded to 9.4
I plan to visit the customer next Monday but was hoping that someone out there knows the facts regarding Excel 2007 compatibility

Now that I'm free from the SAP clutches it's nice to be back in the TM1 world...

Cheers!

Solanna

[Alan Kirk]

Hi Everyone,

It's been about 4 years since I've posted a TM1 question so apologies in advance for asking a question that everybody may already know besides me

I've been living on the dark side the past 4 years working with OutlookSoft that sadly was eaten up by SAP a couple of years ago

Anyhow, I've gotten very tired of the SAP world so I've quit my job to take a few months off to figure out what I want to be when I grow up

In the meantime, one of my long time TM1 customers contacted me to help with some template issues they seem to be having with Excel 2007...

I have read a few threads that seem to state that 9.4 is the only supported version for Excel 2007
I know my customer was on a version 9 from last year but I doubt they have upgraded to 9.4
I plan to visit the customer next Monday but was hoping that someone out there knows the facts regarding Excel 2007 compatibility

Now that I'm free from the SAP clutches it's nice to be back in the TM1 world...

Welcome back into the sun!

I'll give you the short and sweet answer:
- 9.1 officially provides "limited support" for Excel 2007. This is what the 9.1 SP3 Support Matrix has to say about the Excel versions that are supported for Perspectives:

1. Requires Excel 2000, 2002 (XP), 2003 or 2007. Note: Excel 2000 and Excel XP (2002) are in Microsoft extended support. Cognos will make a best effort to address any issues but may be limited by the support available through Microsoft. Excel 2007 support is limited; Documents to be viewed via TM1 Web must be saved in 2003 format; ODBO support via Excel 2007 Pivot tables is not supported.

- 9.4 is the first version to provide kinda-sorta full support, as per the New Features Guide:

Excel 2007 Support
TM1 9.4 supports Perspectives and Client in Excel 2007.
TM1 Ribbon
A new TM1 ribbon is available when running TM1 Client or TM1 Perspectives in Excel 2007,
replacing the TM1 menu that is available in other versions of Excel.
TM1 Web
• .xlsx files can be opened in TM1 Web if Excel 2007 is installed on the web server used to
deliver TM1 Web.
• New features introduced in Excel 2007, such as enhanced conditional formatting, are not
supported in TM1 Websheets.

In reality, I have, more than once, run a perspectives session of 9.0 SP3 in Excel 2007 under Vista Ultimate. However, (a) this is not a production environment, so it doesn't matter if it crashes in a screaming heap; and (b) were anything to go pear shaped, the amount of support that I'd get from Iboglix would be 0 since it's not in any way a supported version.

[David Usherwood]

Solanna, welcome back! You should come over to the UK sometime and catch up with your friends here. Think Raj's take is quite close to yours.
So far, I would say, IBM are shaping up well as owners. The main issue is the bureaucracy and especially the price list - a PhD in the Late Byzantine Empire comes in handy to puzzle it out.
Anyway, to your question.
Alan has the tale - in fact, UK support are harsher - 9.4 is supported, forget the rest. _But_ I have a client in the Middle East who didn't tell me they used every possible combo of XP/Vista/XL2003/XL2007, and I'd only brought 9.0 (we aren't that happy with the later ones). So I installed it and they are using it with no _real_ issues. Some 2007 clients give nasty error messages and then work, some just work. 4 months now. Not a big system, but plenty of - how do I put it - 'challenges'.

[George Regateiro]

the amount of support that I'd get from Iboglix would be 0 since it's not in any way a supported version.

To Alan's point they will give you a big zero unless you can prove to them 2007 is not the cause. We were having an issue with TM1Web (9.1 SP2) and they tried to blame it on 2007 because they saw it on the machine we were doing the webex from. I had to prove to them that the server was at 2003 and that I was developing templates on a development machine that only had 2003 before they would even continue the call. I dont blame them for it, but it was a serious hassle the moment they saw 2007 in an unsupported environment.

[Solanna]

Thanks guys for your prompt replies...

It is much appreciated and I will use this information on Monday when I spend the day in Phoenix

David, now that I don't have a ball and chain around me I will be heading to the UK sometime within the next few months
I typically go in early October due to cheaper tickets but I may pop over sooner... I always spend time with Raj so I will see if we can meet up with you and the rest of the old gang

All the best!

Solanna

[David Usherwood]

I'm _quite_ interested by your ball and chain comment

[Jeroen Eynikel]

We tested a migration from 9.0SP2/Off 2K to 9.1sp4 Off2K7 without any problems so far.

We are not using TM1 web though, just perspectives and a number of preformatted excel sheets.

[belair22]

Jeroen - You should see an issue where using any TM1/Excel based formula (e.g DBRW) in any range greater than supported by Excel 2003 (eg. rows > 65536).

[Alan Kirk]

Jeroen - You should see an issue where using any TM1/Excel based formula (e.g DBRW) in any range greater than supported by Excel 2003 (eg. rows > 65536).

Yes, I should have recalled that thread in my reply:
http://forums.olapforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=977

If the DBRW formulas are manually created or copied, they'll generate Key Errors IF they refer to any cells in rows greater than 65536. (If the formulas are further down than 65536 but refer only to cells above that row, or are entirely hard coded with no cell references, they'll calculate correctly.) Similarly any DBRW formulas which are above row 65536 will generate a key error if they refer to a cell in a row greater than 65536. Changing the formulas to DBR doesn't help.

However functions like DimNM, DBRA, DNext and a couple of others don't seem to care; they'll happily calculate down below row 1 million even if they have cell references down there with them.

Not that that helps you over-much if the DBRW's don't work...

(Tested in 9.0 SP3 / Excel 2007.)

[Jeroen Eynikel]

Belair,

thanks for the warning. We do not foresee any sheets with more than 65K rows but it is nice to be aware of this.

Jeroen

[Solanna]

Hi Everyone,

I'm back from the customer and I wanted to give an update...

The customer did upgrade to 9.4 MR1 a few months ago so there doesn't seem to be any issues with compatability
But thanks again to everyone for their input... it was very helpful

The customer has been using TM1 for almost 10 years now and I've been doing their development for almost 9 years
Unfortunately, they have never really taken full advantage of the product but hopefully now that I have some "spare" time I will encourage them to be a bit more adventurous

Anyhow, I developed their budgeting system over 7 years ago and its gotten a bit archaic but they still want to use it
I had written a bunch of VBA to create a Budget drop down menu in Excel as well as some VBA to do allocations

My biggest complaint with Excel 2007 is the new concept of the Budget Menu now going into the Add-Ins tab
The customer doesn't seem to care but I personally don't like it from a developer's perspective

One nice thing was that I was able to get up to speed with some of the new features within 9.4
I found the Active Forms to be quite interesting and I spent about an hour playing with the concepts
I will hold off on an opinion until I can really test the capabilities

However, the concepts are somewhat similar (but possibly not as robust) as using EVDRE formatting within SAP BPC (Outlooksoft)... so I definitely have something to compare it to

Another feature within TM1 that I still need to play with is Drill-Through... definitely something that is requested by many customers that I have implemented within SAP BPC as well

Anyhow, all is well on this side of the pond... Have a great rest of the week!

Solanna