TM1 Forum

Hi Experts,

I am able to write few simple rules, but I do not know the basics of rules and feeders , oer feeding under feeding , more than 1 cubes , consolidated level , N level . . I am ery comfortable at writing some TI process with some functions.

Any advice on where to start reading more about feeders and rules.I am very interested to learn , so any advice on a link or book to get started and practise will be very useful .

Thanks,

Hi Manu,

By no means am I an "expert". My years of experience with TM1 is significantly fewer compared to most of the individuals on here. I am nonetheless excited by this question as I can still vividly remember a time before TM1 and the path I took to learn. Therefore. I can certainly help point you in the right direction.

With regards to rules and feeders, what I will say is "you can do it"! Feeders upfront seems like a complex topic, but with practice, you will get the hang of it. Let me give you three solid references on the topic of rules / feeders. Work through the first one, once you have the hang of it, move on to the second document, etc.

• White Paper: A Best Practice Guide to Developing TM1 Rules -- Concise document by Cubewise on how to write rules in TM1. I read the document cover to cover multiple times when I was first going down this journey.: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/ ... _Rules.pdf

• IBM Cognos Proven Practices: IBM Cognos TM1 FEEDERS -- Document written by IBM a number of years ago. Although it's flagged as "advanced", it was pretty useful to me when I was brand new. I've gone through this document cover to cover multiple times as well: https://www.decisionsystems.com/wp-cont ... ctices.pdf

• 7 tips to writing faster IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics rules -- Once you really understand rules and feeders, this blog article by Cubewise is pretty useful: https://code.cubewise.com/blog/7-tips-t ... tics-rules

Beyond the above, I didn't really use any additional material. I did frequently (and still do) use the search function in TM1F. It's all about PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. There's definitely paid training courses you can take online, but if you spend the time, I'd venture to say you can pick it up.

Just a few additional pointers that I had on a sticky note to keep reminding myself when I was new in the space of rules/feeders:

• Practice, practice, practice. Write the business logic in Excel then translate it to TM1.

• For FEEDERS; ['X'] => ['Y'];
  • Y is most likely non-zero when X is non-zero. FEEDERS always build up from this fundamental principal.
  • Y can be substituted with DB() to point to another cube.

• FEEDERS serve two purposes:
  • Flag a cell to be consolidated.
  • Flag a cell to be not zero suppressed.

• When you write a rule that references:
  • A leaf-level cell (assuming sound logic): The answer will always be correct, meaning FEEDERS don't determine right/wrong answer when referencing leaf-level cells.
  • A consolidation: If that reference consolidation cell has unfed member cells, your answer will be wrong.

• Alan Kirk is always right.

Lots of luck!

Thanks a lot Adam for taking time to give some references and for being so supportive. I will look in to them one by one and start practising. Yes the members on this forum has been very supportive and i wanted to do some homework before getting to them in case of any issues.