What do IBM still have to do to replace Perspectives with PAW and PAX

[John Hammond]

Yoinks!

Just heard a rumour IBM plan to deprecate/not support Perspectives in 2022 Q3.

I don't think they can without, at the very least, replacing all of Perspective functionality with the same reliable features in PAW or PAX.

Off the top of my head, I made a list of features we simply don't have. I am sure there are more, and I would be interested to hear other forum members' views on this.

As always, Thank you

Unable to 'check feeders' in either PAX or PAW
Unable to see impact of re-order on memory prior to re-order
Cant start performance monitor
Unable to manage clients/groups especially Mode 5
unable to access transaction logs
unable to access logs directly
no replication
no ability to set remote TM1 data source
Security refresh
Transaction logging update and rollback
Audit log
Subset element locking

[MarenC]

Hi,

Just for clarification, are many of these Architect features and is that being deprecated?

Maren

[gtonkin]

Here is my current list:

Cubes
Cube Security options-Reserve, Lock, etc.
Create Cell Security Cube (Can use TI for these)
Export to CSV/confirm a view's associated sets/members
View statistics when re-ordering dimensions

Cube Views
Check Feeders
Check Cell Status

Dimensions
Set Element Order (Need TI)
Lock/Unlock/Reserve/Release an element
Export dimension (not worried about this one)

General
Assign Client to Group
Start Performance Monitor
Multi-select and deletion of object e.g. Views, Sets (Properties Window)
Right-click, Pick or select and Ctrl+C to copy object name

View and search Transaction Log
View and search Audit Log
Process Audit Log events
Broadcast a message

[Wim Gielis]

Hi,

Refresh security, isn't that just a right-mouse button click on the server name ?

Capture.PNG (8.64 KiB) Viewed 4078 times

[Alan Kirk]

Here is my current list:

With a couple of additions...

Cubes
No support for .xrus

Dimensions
No support for .xdis

Don't nobody say "no-one uses those any more". Just. Don't.

Granted I do most of my rule editing in Arc these days, but much as I love Arc to death there are NO solutions other than .xrus and .xdis that allow you to:

• Maintain extended metadata, colour coded metadata, and rule / dimension histories on multiple sheets;
• Generate rules and dimension element names using Excel formulas; and
• In the case of .xdis have a one stop shop of updating the dimensions AND the attributes in the same place by the use of formulas*.

(* Arc does allow attribute changes to be made in the dimension editing window, but not using formulas.)

Yoinks!

Just heard a rumour IBM plan to deprecate/not support Perspectives in 2022 Q3.

I don't think they can without, at the very least, replacing all of Perspective functionality with the same reliable features in PAW or PAX.

Three things:

• Even if they do, it doesn't mean that this software will immediately stop working.
• How, exactly, would that leave us any worse off given IBM's attitude of taking our maintenance money and not giving us robust, easy to use and reliable software in return, the server excepted? (For now.)
• I've seen no evidence that they regard the NameOfTheWeek Excel add-in as being a direct replacement for Perspectives / Client. They see PAW and that other spazzatura as their own things, and don't feel a need to replicate the functionality of Perspectives. You'll get what you're given, and that's less about what you want as a paying customer and more about what they think might be kewl to code. You want evidence of that; look at what I would regard as the "we couldn't give a stuff" response to a request to add the ability for mode 1 users to change their password in PAfE. It's a fundamental feature of Perspectives... hell, any client software, and the response was "Changed status to 'Not under consideration'. Our strategy is to detach authentication and password management from TM1 and Planning Analytics. No enhancements are planned for TM1 security modes 1-5." I don't give a flying fig about your "stwategee", IBM, this is a basic functionality need right now. Regardless of what IBM plans for the future, right now, right this minute, people have a need to do this. And this is the "quality" of the "support" that IBM provides. From where I sit they couldn't care less about ensuring that you have what you already have in Perspectives. So, yeah, I think it's more an academic than practical question.

What has IBM done for Perspectives for years?

• Have they updated it to use the new, fast API rather than the clunky old stop-for-a-chat-every-few-seconds Classic API? They have not. And they have made it clear that they will not.
• Have they updated it to support hierarchies? They have not. And they have made it clear that they will not.
• Have they updated it to fix the problem where .xru/.xdi sheets just don't work properly in 64 bit Excel? They have not. And they have made it clear that they will not.
• Have they provided hierarchy-aware DBRW formulas? But maybe that's not a fair question since they haven't done it for their own clunky, over-convoluted, unreliable client software either. They have not. And they have made it clear that... no, actually they haven't made anything clear on that, they just hand wave it away with "oh yeah, some day maybe" and think it's some kind of joke that people keep raising it in AMA meetings. Silly users, don't they realise that they are just there to pay us?

So, a Zen riddle... if a software company provides "support" in a forest and nobody ever sees that support... did it ever provide support in the first place?

They have made it clear that On Prem customers can go and f-word ourselves (aside from our cash anyway), given that their "Cloud First!" "stwategy" sees them not only failing to update Perspectives, but also failing to upgrade PAW to work with a Windows server that correctly supports containerisation. (Hey, what do you expect, 2016 was only 6 years ago after all!)

Try raising an issue relating to Perspectives with them. I dare ya. I double dare ya. It'll be closed within 30 minutes with a note that "It's not our stwat-tegy to even look at a Perspectives issue." And they'll mark it as a "successful" support ticket closure.

"But what if they release a new server version and it doesn't work with Perspectives?", is a reasonable question. (Before server V12, I mean, which we know won't support the classic API and therefore Perspectives.)

First, that's improbable without them breaking massive amounts of workflows out there. The only way that could happen is if they break the classic API. Second, the only place that people update on IBM's laughingly described "long cadence" is in IBM's fevered little imagination. Or people who have a death wish; 2.0.9.8, anyone? We'd have plenty of notice to avoid the release that broke compatibility since in the real world, as opposed to IBM's one, people don't deploy software releases in a business without, oh, I dunno, going through a (time and resource consuming) test cycle first. Third, even if Perspectives was still in support when this theoretical event happened, I would bet you a nice, crisp $AU20 note ($US0.37, or thereabouts) that the response that you would get would be the same as above; "We're not doing any development of Perspectives, we recommend that you use PAW and the NameOfTheDay Excel add in".

So my reaction to the possibility pulling support for Perspectives? "{Shrug}, who cares? You don't (and won't) do anything for us anyway."

[John Hammond]

Hi,

Refresh security, isn't that just a right-mouse button click on the server name ?

Capture.PNG

Wim, I stand corrected.

Thanks all for your replies so far. Thanks Alan for your very comprehensive and entertaining response.

qq On top of my original, hearing good things about 3rd party development environments, like Arc, but do these likewise fulfill all of Architect's functions?

[Alan Kirk]

Hi,

Refresh security, isn't that just a right-mouse button click on the server name ?

Capture.PNG

Wim, I stand corrected.

Thanks all for your replies so far. Thanks Alan for your very comprehensive and entertaining response.

qq On top of my original, hearing good things about 3rd party development environments, like Arc, but do these likewise fulfill all of Architect's functions?

Arc is the developers' tool. Its cousin Slice, which shares the same code base, is shaping up as an excellent Client replacement. I have it on my work machine as we speak, though I still use Perspectives on the server boxes because Slice won't support .xdi/.xrus either. But it's one of the few things it doesn't do that Perspectives does, and of course it does far more than Perspectives (including Hierarchies).

[David Usherwood]

Just heard a rumour IBM plan to deprecate/not support Perspectives in 2022 Q3.

I think some knickers have become a little twisted here.
Based on IBM's monthly AMAs, the current release stream (11++) will continue to support the old, functional API and the old, functional client tools (known and loved by the old, functional developer community ).
The not_very_much anticipated NextGen server will not. Since that will only run on OpenShift as part of IBM's Cloud Pak for Data bouillabaisse of everything IBM have in their stockroom which does something with data (https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cloud-paks/ ... c=overview), unless that is what you really, really want, you can just carry on using Perspectives and TM1 (and PAW/PAFe/PASS) to do what they do so well. Saving the misdirection of product development effort, what's the problem?

[Alan Kirk]

Just heard a rumour IBM plan to deprecate/not support Perspectives in 2022 Q3.

I think some knickers have become a little twisted here.
Based on IBM's monthly AMAs, the current release stream (11++) will continue to support the old, functional API and the old, functional client tools (known and loved by the old, functional developer community ).

"Support" in what sense? In the sense that if something fails to function, they will fix it? And the evidence for that is what, exactly? The evidence against it is rather stronger, such as in the way they completely fobbed off the issue of XDIs / XRUs failing to work properly under 64 bit Excel. I paraphrase, "It is not our policy to do any further development work on Perspectives." That Perspectives and Client will continue to work (mostly, subject to certain breakages like the xdi issue) regardless of whether they are laughingly "supported" is I believe a point that I made earlier:

Three things:

• Even if they do, it doesn't mean that this software will immediately stop working.

The not_very_much anticipated NextGen server will not.

I believe I made that point as well:

(Before server V12, I mean, which we know won't support the classic API and therefore Perspectives.)

Yes, I know that they hate it being described as V12. All the more reason to do it.

Since that will only run on OpenShift as part of IBM's Cloud Pak for Data bouillabaisse of everything IBM have in their stockroom which does something with data (https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cloud-paks/ ... c=overview),

I cannot help but agree that Server V12 is not very much anticipated these days. Not because of the server itself - I'm sure that the server team will do its usual exceptional work - but if PAW is testament to IBM's ability to deploy in a containerised environment, then in my view anyone who's thinking of deploying that train wreck on prem - ESPECIALLY in a Windows environment - is likely to think that they have taken up residence in one of the inner suburbs of Hell in a west facing apartment with no blinds.

That and the fact that they are tossing out all of the advantages of traditional TM1 - a quick to deploy, robust, powerful and flexible solution that does one set of things well - and Borging the product into a collective hive of IBM's absolutely sh1t products that barely anybody needs or wants. (I suppose that I should say that the aforementioned description is merely my genuinely held personal opinion. I leave it to others to interview someone who has used Lotus Notes, or who wants to look at IBM's whopping 4% of cloud revenue (behind AWS at 33%, Azure at 21%, Google at 10% and Alibaba at 6%) and wonder... gee, why so low?)

Like Watson! From the company that couldn't even get medical imaging right - medical imaging, FFS, one of the most AI-friendly fields of endeavour - and IBM flushed billions of dollars into it, still couldn't get it to work, and flogged it off. But hey, don't worry, the remainder of Watson will deliver you Great! Performance! Insights!, trust us! And we can store all of our data in DB2, which had one of the highest rankings in the last Stack Overflow developer Survey. For one metric, anyway.

DB2.png (60.27 KiB) Viewed 3919 times

So yes, I can see NextGen sales doing really, really well. I can see it being a huge success. And yes, I have a PhD in sarcasm. But these are different conversations.

unless that is what you really, really want, you can just carry on using Perspectives and TM1 (and PAW/PAFe/PASS) to do what they do so well.

Perspectives DOESN'T do it that well, though, not any more. It's slow, and it fails to support hierarchies. Nor does PAW, nor does PAfe (do it well, that is), especially in an all- Windows environment. But with regard to Perspectives, it is what it is. It should have been replaced by something better and faster. Instead... no, let's cut to the chase.

Saving the misdirection of product development effort, what's the problem?

Really? because I thought I made the point about what the problem is pretty clear. Your perspective (no pun intended) as a consultant may be different to mine as an end user, in the sense that the obscene annual maintenance costs are coming out of my departmental operating budget. No, it may not be my personal money but the reality is that IBM is taking that money, and doing NOTHING for on prem customers like me. Not now, and emphatically not in the future with its cloud paks which will not just ram the TM1 product into an iceberg, but be like backing the metaphorical ship up and taking another run at it.

They are NOT developing software that will readily deploy on prem in a Windows environment, and they are using MY money to do that.

But hey, at least they give us point upgrades to client software that I have never been able to get fully functional in a Windows environment, and which seem to introduce as many bugs and security issues as they fix. That there is real value for money.

And certainly I suppose that I should be more than happy at the way they notionally "support" products that they will do NOTHING to rectify basic functionality issues in. And as I pointed out in my previous post, this isn't just with Perspectives, it also applies to PAfE.

And one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that if they were to pull support for Perspectives in the PA2 / V11 world, there would doubtless be risk assessors in many companies running around screaming that if "unsupported" software is run for even a single day, the sky will fall. That would force the admins in those companies to dump Perspectives, switch to supposedly supported software, and... look, I'm not going to go down that path any further because I don't believe that IBM will do that. Why would they? They're getting handsomely paid for providing an illusion of "support" that doesn't exist and that they won't lift a single finger to assist with. There is no upside to them doing that. They may, potentially, declare that "PA2 will be the last version that supports Perspectives" similar to what they have with some past products. That would be the biggest "Well Duh" announcement in IBM history... no, I can't prove that it would be, but it would have to make the top 10.

So... IBM taking obscene amounts of money for alleged "support" that you never get. If you don't think that's a problem, if you see that as "knickers (becoming) twisted"... that's fine. I don't. I see it as IBM P1ssing me off. And even though not many people are prepared to say that in a public forum, and some have good reason for not doing so, I know damn well that I'm not the only one.

[paulsimon]

Hi

In my last contract I decided to try working exclusively with PAW Modeler and PAX for a month. In the course of that month I compiled a 50 page document of things that I could not do, of things that did not work, of things that could be improved. That got send across to IBM. Instead of appreciating the effort it had taken to compile that, they wanted us to raise individual tickets for each item. I had left by then but I suspect we only bothered to raise a few as it was just too much work. Especially as you then get contacted about ticket number TSnnnnnnn with no description as to what that ticket was about and have to open the ticket to find out.

I suggested that IBM take a look at Arc if they wanted to improve PAW Modeler, which probably went down well. For example even simple things like Find and Replace are a pain in PAW as it is a two step process of enter what you want to find then another dialog box comes up for you to enter what you want to replace it with. Both the venerable Perspectives and Arc have a proper dialog box. Even ancient Architect as a proper Find and Replace dialog.

I now have access to Arc, albeit only the web version. However, I still largely use Perspectives, because although Arc is good for Rules and Processes, and the TI debugger is excellent, it is not so good for the typical scenario where you have lots of windows open with views of various cubes showing attributes, etc, that you want to refer to while working on a process or rule. Of course, I could use Arc for processes and rules, and Perspectives for the cube viewer. However, the problem I have is that I am currently working on the Cloud, and if I code away in Arc, by the time I come back to Perspectives in an RDP session, the RDP session has timed out, as IBM set the time out to only half an hour. It is then a fiddly process to log back in. For that reason unless I am working on a particular complicated TI, I tend to keep working in Perspectives to stop the time out issue.

Arc has probably mostly sensibly re-ordered things eg control objects second instead of first. Unfortunately when you are swapping back and forth between Perspectives and Arc that gets confusing. The way control objects have been separated in PAW modeler is even more confusing.

I still find the Subset Editor in Perspectives far easier to use than any alternative. One particularly useful feature is the ability to insert a subset into a subset. I don't use it so much as a way of creating adhoc consolidations, but more as a way to add elements that I need to build the subset I want. By comparison the two pane approach in PAW or PAX just does not work as well

Sorry Alan but I have not used XRUs in more than 15 years and XDIs for more than 5 years. The last thing I used XDIs for were period dimensions but I now have my VBA generator for those. It also generates named hierarchies which you can't do in an XDI. I think XDIs might still have a place in a sales demo as a quick way to convert some client data to a dimension, but I would probably still reach for TI for that. When it comes to a history of dimension changes, the approach I use writes the changes to a SQL database which can be queried. The thing that scares me about an XDI is the risk of accidentally deleting a populated element. I will admit that I sometimes use an Excel sheet to generate rules, but I then paste them in to the rule editor. I can still save the Excel sheet if I think I might need the formula again. However it is not an XRU.

I think for a developer a FAT client is always going to give a better development environment than a web based one.

The recent ability in PAW Modeler to drag off windows has helped a bit but it is still too cumbersome.

Regards

Paul Simon

[Wim Gielis]

In Architect we can see what chores are active (scheduled) or not.
in PAW the icon is the same, regardless of that property. Not very useful.
Or do I miss something ?

1 is on, 1 is off:

Capture.PNG (3.37 KiB) Viewed 3696 times

I am not going to right-click every chore to read "Enable chore schedule" or "Disable chore schedule".
I do like it in PAW that even scheduled chores can be deleted, without disabling the schedule first. Saves a couple of seconds.

[Alan Kirk]

In Architect we can see what chores are active (scheduled) or not.
in PAW the icon is the same, regardless of that property. Not very useful.
Or do I miss something ?

1 is on, 1 is off:

This doesn't surprise me.

Let's not forget that IBM screwed THAT in Perspectives in its own inimitable, cack-handed way which utterly fails to understand end user usage of the product too.

In 9.5 we had chore icons which were differently coloured to have the active chores stand out from the inactive ones like dogs'... er, tongues.

By PA2... actually from memory this may have come in in 10.1... someone who presumably has a "Fresh! New! Look!" style fetish and no discernible UX skills that I can detect changed that to... this:

Chores1.jpg (13.42 KiB) Viewed 3686 times

Oh yes, it's REEEEEAAAALLLY easy to discern those two icons on a very high resolution screen.

So if you're correct, and I don't doubt that you are, the PAW icons would just be the natural evolution of this. It would be another reflection of the "quality" of the products that the IBM client software group are producing.

In the meantime, and in response to the change in version 10, I created THIS with some VBA code and the classic API:

ChoresActive.jpg (75.67 KiB) Viewed 3686 times

And gee lookie... I know which chores are active at a glance. I know when they will next run. I know how long until they run. And this was with VBA and the clunky ancient API so my question to you, IBM, is this... Is. It. Really. So. F***ING. HARD for you to provide useful client software?

I'm guessing that's a "yes".

Turning back to a previous post that I should have responded to earlier:

In my last contract I decided to try working exclusively with PAW Modeler and PAX for a month. In the course of that month I compiled a 50 page document of things that I could not do, of things that did not work, of things that could be improved. That got send across to IBM. Instead of appreciating the effort it had taken to compile that, they wanted us to raise individual tickets for each item.

This sounds about right. "He's just an end user, what would he know about it?"

I suggested that IBM take a look at Arc if they wanted to improve PAW Modeler, which probably went down well. For example even simple things like Find and Replace are a pain in PAW as it is a two step process of enter what you want to find then another dialog box comes up for you to enter what you want to replace it with. Both the venerable Perspectives and Arc have a proper dialog box. Even ancient Architect as a proper Find and Replace dialog.

For Rules at least, not for the Editorsaurus. That was one of my bugbears about that. Now I only use the Editorsaurus to set up some ODBC connections that Arc idiopathically has trouble with, but unless it's a couple of lines I then switch over to Arc for the actual code editing so I don't miss the presence of a Find option in the Editorsaurus.

I now have access to Arc, albeit only the web version. However, I still largely use Perspectives, because although Arc is good for Rules and Processes, and the TI debugger is excellent, it is not so good for the typical scenario where you have lots of windows open with views of various cubes showing attributes, etc, that you want to refer to while working on a process or rule.

I'm pretty sure that you can download the desktop version even under a 90 day trial licence, but I agree that the problem does still exist in that it's a tabbed environment rather than a multi-window environment. You CAN open multiple windows, but then you need to be REAAAALY careful that you don't have a rules or TI opened in multiple windows lest you overwrite the copy you have in the other window. I can't think of an easy way that they can get around that. I do usually separate views (using Slice or Perspectives) and TI/Rules (Arc) to be able to see multiple objects at the one time.

Sorry Alan but I have not used XRUs in more than 15 years and XDIs for more than 5 years.

Not a problem; I didn't say that everyone had to be using them or even should be using them, just that IMHO there are still advantages to using them.

The thing that scares me about an XDI is the risk of accidentally deleting a populated element.

I have formulas at the top of my .xdi sheet that count the dimension size vs the number of elements in the sheet. They tell me whether they match, whether there are new elements, or whether there are missing elements in the sheet.

When it comes to a history of dimension changes, the approach I use writes the changes to a SQL database which can be queried.

I also use Pulse, which theoretically tracks metadata changes in the model. It's an impressive product though I'll readily admit that it's not one that I've ever really developed an affinity for, unlike say Arc. If it's accurately tracking the changes then I suppose you could reassemble the dimension as it was at a given time. I'm not sure I would rely on it for that, though. It also tracks rule changes. We had an odd event a couple of months back where my offsider was saving rules in Perspectives and Perspectives blew the rules away. I have NEVER seen that happen before, but it happened to him. All he did was hit "save" and the size of the rule file just dropped to zero. We tried to recover the rules from Pulse, buuuuuut... it was only tracking the first 255 characters of each line of rules. We still lost a chunk. (EDIT, Mar 2022: I've been advised that this should not in fact be a limitation in Pulse. I need to see if I can dig out the changes in question to get some more information about this.) This makes me more inclined to trust worksheets; what I have is what I see, and what I see is what I have. (Though that said, I have had workbooks corrupt on me too, but not for a very long time.

I think for a developer a FAT client is always going to give a better development environment than a web based one.

I thought that too for quite a long time, now I'm less sure. Granted the use of a tabbed rather than a windowed interface is not always ideal as discussed above, but in truth although I have both I tend to use Arc in a browser more often than the fat client these days. Similarly I prefer the Pulse web dashboard to the fat client one, though that's really a monitoring rather than a development environment.