TM1 V10.1 Release; New features And issues

[rollo19]

performance modeler rules editor, hit return and it automatically terminates it with ; when I have oh so much more to type.

[rollo19]

Followed by auto-expanding of rule regions..

[rollo19]

and how it jumps to the top of the rule page on save

[rollo19]

oh I wish I could use control objects in my applications e.g. control cube views of Time attributes, or Version security settings..

[tosca1978]

Hi all,

Yesterday our company was shown a demo of 10.1 and all of it's new features and I wanted to ask your thoughts on Cognos Insight. It was marketed to us as a "desktop playground" where users can quickly build there own cubes, analyse data, create glossy dashboards and share with other users. However, the feature that caught my attention was the ability to "contribute". My question to you is...do you see Cognos Insight as another input mechanism alongside Contributor and TM1 Web?

If a .cdd file (this is the file created by Congos Insight) was saved as an application on the TM1 server and you set this up with workflow for approval and security, end users could then contribute to their budgets/forecasts. At the same time they get a richer environment that Contributor with glossy dashboards and graphs that would update as they edited data.

This is the kind of solution that the end users at my company would like in place. We are currently trying to achieve this through a hybrid of BI sitting on top of TM1 cubes for all reporting and rich TM1 web input sheets (active forms plus graphs etc).

When I asked the people who did the demo they said that IBM were not presently pushing this as another "contributor" tool, but, that it should do what I have asked above.

I would be grateful to hear your thoughts, maybe I'm missing something obvious which means Cognos Insight is not really fit for this purpose.

Cheers

[mce]

My question to you is...do you see Cognos Insight as another input mechanism alongside Contributor and TM1 Web?

I consider Cognos insight as the new contribution tool. It supports functionalities of Contributor, plus it has capabilities to setup multiple tabs and navigation between them like a web site (similar to Cognos Planning Manager). Moreover it has capability to trigger processes by users. It also supports distributed mode which is similar to online (not offline) mode of Cognos Planning Contributor. All of these make me think Cognos Insight as the new rich contribution interface for TM1 based planning and budgeting applications.

[rollo19]

Most definitely a rich TM1 contribution client. Benefits of centralised, managed data model under workflow with the capabilities of the client. Cognos Insight allows you to open the model in distributed mode which means the number crunching is done client side - fantastic on server load if you have many users or if you have poor network latency. You can use Cognos Insight in connected mode also (everything is done server side).
Www.Analyticszone.com has a few TM1 blueprints stuffed into Cognos Insight .cdd files so you can see how slick your planning apps could look.

[tosca1978]

It also supports distributed mode which is similar to offline mode of Cognos Planning Contributor.

[/quote]

This was clearly a selling point yesterday. However, what do you mean by offline? I asked the demonstrator to open the local desktop .cdd file when logged off the TM1 server (she admitted that she did not know what would happen). When she attempted to open the file she was prompted to log on to the TM1 server, and was unable to proceed unless she did.

[rollo19]

Cognos Insight has 32bit TM1 server embedded in it. The .cdd file contains the tm1 server files if any and some xml etc. for the app to render things for you. The .cdd's on analyticszone.com have been pre-loaded with TM1 models/accelerators.

So when you use the Cognos Insight you are either using it:
Stand-alone (no security) where data you pull in is automatically loaded into a local TM1 cube contained in the .cdd for your ad-hoc analysis needs/data discovery or even prototyping purposes.
Connected where you log in to a managed TM1 server using Cognos Insight to contribute/explore, live on the central TM1 server.
Distributed where a slice of the governed model and data is downloaded to your local Cognos Insight app, number crunching etc. is done on the machine until you commit.

So if she had gone into the Cognos portal and opened a managed planning application using Cognos Insight, it would have downloaded/opened a local .cdd in CI which refers to the secure server. So you can't open that .cdd again on your desktop without being authenticated.

[mce]

It also supports distributed mode which is similar to offline mode of Cognos Planning Contributor.

This was clearly a selling point yesterday. However, what do you mean by offline? I asked the demonstrator to open the local desktop .cdd file when logged off the TM1 server (she admitted that she did not know what would happen). When she attempted to open the file she was prompted to log on to the TM1 server, and was unable to proceed unless she did.

Sorry for misleading. I should have said "It also supports distributed mode which is similar to online mode of Cognos Planning Contributor." Online mode of Cognos Planning Contributor requires being connected to the server but all calculations and number crunching happens in client side. In Offile mode of Cognos Planning Contributor, it does not require to be connected to server. It does not need even being connected to any network or Intranet until you want to save your changes to server. It looks this feature is not yet supported in TM1.

[chadnz]

Totally agree that the change of all the icons was unnecessary but presume it is for a reason such as it being identical to web versions... who knows?!

[qml]

So I have finally had the chance to install and deploy and play with 10.1.1. My findings below.

As to Performance Modeler, I can't even consider it seriously at the present stage of its (im)maturity. Sure, it's flashy, but also slow, does not have half of the essential functionalities of Architect/Perspectives, keeps throwing random java.lang.NullPointerExceptions, doesn't work at all for a lot of existing models and you have to run it from TM1 Applications portal. I'll steer clear of it for now, thank you very much.

The main thing I wanted to say though is in reference to the previous posts on Cognos Insight. I was actually quite pleased with this tool when I first ran it, and was especially keen to try it out as a front end to TM1 in 'Connected' mode. I was, up until I realised that using Cognos Insight works with TM1 only for users who are members of the ADMIN security group. Yes, you heard me right.

IBM has confirmed it: "Currently there is no way with which Nonadmin users can connect to TM1 server to see the views as this is how the product is designed. Only those users of TM1 who are part of Admin group can connect to the server".

I could not believe my eyes. This effectively means (unless I am missing something) that Cognos Insight is utterly useless as a contribution/reporting front end in an enterprise environment, full stop.

[David Usherwood]

@qml, I've just tried this myself and yes, it seems that non-admins using CI can't browse the server for views. I really don't know what IBM are thinking of here
I do, however, believe, that if you publish an application it will be available through CI. But I'd need some more time to confirm this.

[rollo19]

that would be reasonable wouldn't it? Your contributor (non admin) users should only be working with pre-set views/layout.

[upali]

Actually I was very thrilled with CI when it was first shown. But soon I found the non-admin user issue. I thought it must be a setting I'm missing, but after several reads and posts on http://www.analyticszone.com things were clear. CI at the current state is not much of use for our users, as they can't even see a planning server without admin access, not even from a CDD file an admin creates. Bummer!

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/ ... ge627.html


Plus to make things worse, CI will not even connect to TM1 when you have Integrated Login enabled!
https://www.analyticszone.com/forums/ht ... acadd08a63

[Andy Key]

you have to run it from TM1 Applications portal

Unless you create your own shortcut to "C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\IBM\Cognos Performance Modeler\cognosrcp.exe"

Don't all reputable software companies install programs into your profile, so if three people use the same machine the same thing gets installed three times? But it's alright, if you have Cognos Insight and Performance Muddler installed, it's only 800MB per user...

I think IBM have finally listened to Alan's perfectly valid point that Program Files isn't a sensible place to have user data. They've just taken it to the other extreme.

[jameswebber]

Glad I'm not the only one that thinks installing the whole insight to your roaming profile is not good application practise.

[Tilo]

Hello,

I have installed successfully TM1 10.1.1. on one machine (WS 2008 R2) and besides this KB-Link (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.w ... wg21459266) all was fine.
Whenever I want to start Cognos Insight or the TM1 Modeler the IE always asks me to open or save provagent.cogrcp_modeler / provagent.cogrcp_insight.
Is there a way to get rid of this?
I guess some IE setting?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Tilo

[Mems]

Hey All,

I have been using Tm1 10.1.1 for about a month now and I am trying to use CI as a front end for my TM1, although I know it is only for Admin users (hahahahah - that's ridiculous ) I have a more serious problem.
When I open the Explore pane TM1 crashes.
When dubble click on a dimension TM1 crashes.
When a swap dimensions to 'vigorously' TM1 crashes...

Any suggestions

[Trevor MacPherson]

Hmm... should have joined a long time ago - was a long time before anyone reported the rumor that CI needs admin rights to work with TM1.
CI does NOT require admin rights to work with TM1 - have posted more details in the analyticzone, but would rather not have the rumour float around.
The administrator just needs to set up and application, and the users entering via the application portal will be able to author their own workspaces (Central application), or be restricted to the admin's view of the world in the case of Reponsibility & Approval apps.
A Central application should only take a few moments to deploy for the admin, after which, only user rights are necessary, and their permissions are respected in the client - they just need to launch from the portal.
Also, the admin could just send them a .cdd file to connect from. The idea is generally that the admin has a level of oversight on what is consumed by the users before they go at it, in the same way you might point users to a package to build reports from, rather than given them a connection string to the database...

For more, see https://www.analyticszone.com/forums/ht ... 3529ad0b75

For Mems - Try TM1 10.1.1 FP1 with CI 10.2 FP1 - and if you don't need it, turn of "Show Related Members" as well - this could cause pain in ExplorePoints, the Explor pane, etc...