TM1 Forum

Hi,

Have just stumbled across TM1 and was just wondering whether the product was capable of modelling a 'renewals' style business model (i.e. where you have services like cable TV, mobile phone contracts, that will expire at a certain point in time that may or may not go on to renew). Modellers are likely to know the % of people that are likely to renew and the amount they will pay on renewal.

Thanks in advance,

Will

Sounds quite suitable to me. (I'm writing quite a lot of insurance models at the moment and they have renewals, as well as lots of more complex calculations.) You need to work out the details yourself though.

David,

Thanks for the reply - sounds promising then...

Sorry to sound dumb, but can you expand on what you mean by 'you need to work out the details for yourself' - by this do you mean, effectively configuring the application to support the business rules involved?

TIA,

Will S-J

TM1 is a very powerful tool to build a system to do modelling, not an application which you configure. So you need to design the structures (dimensions, cubes, attributes) and write the calculations using TM1's rules language. It's very productive, but you need to know what you're doing. I may get bounced into the commercial subforum, but you should consider using experts to help you - like us.

TM1 can do pretty much any kind of modeling. You just have to get at least two people together: the person that really knows their business and someone that really knows TM1. Between the two, some pretty cool custom designs can be implemented in very short order. Good luck.

When I am explaining TM1 to prospective users I usually compare it to Excel. Most users understand Excel pretty well. I tell them that TM1 is like Excel on steroids. Instead of just having two dimensions (rows and columns) like in a spreadsheet, TM1 has multiple dimensions. Just like you can enter data in a cell, which is an intersection of a row and column, you can enter data in a TM1 cube in the intersection of each element. Also, just like you can write a formula in Excel that takes one or more cells and calculates a new value based on some mathemetical formula, so can TM1. If you are having trouble undestanding how to get started building a model in TM1 sometimes it helps to build a limited version in Excel. Then all you have to do is figure out how to make that model multi-dimensional and translate those formulas into the syntax required by TM1. BTW, money spent on hiring someone that does this kind of stuff for a living, at least to help you get started, is money well spent. You can end up spinning your wheels for a long time with TM1, it's not the easiest tool to learn. Good luck.

Thanks for all your input - I'm a user of traditional BI products (like Business Objects) and also have a reasoanable understanding of dimensional modelling techniques so this all makes some sense. I guess the key is it sounds like the tool is relatively flexible (provided you know what you are doing).