Which view for End-Users?

[melvinleng]

Hi,

I am new to TM1 and understand that there are many views in TM1. Which views are typically rolled out for users to use, and what are their pros and cons?

- TM1 Architect (Perspective)
- TM1 Web (cube view)
- TM1 Web (Excel attachment)
- Excel with TM1 add-on (i.e. Thick-Client)
- TM1 Contributor

Thanks,
Melvin

[lotsaram]

I am unsure what you mean by "view" and I suspect you may also not be sure yourself. From a technical perspective a "cube view" has a distinct meaning being a defined query or flattened 2 dimensional cross-tab of a cube with defined title dimensions and elements (filters) and defined row and column dimensions and subsets. A view is a server object which is defined ONCE and applies to ALL user interfaces. That is a cube view will be available for users in architect, tm1 web, excel (via perspectives cube viewer or the in-spreadsheet browser) and contributor (assuming the view is part of a published application).

"Non-native" 3rd party TM1 user interfaces such as Cognos 8/10, arcplan, cubeware, or even executive viewer probably won't expose cube views and you have to start over and design cross-tabs from scratch for users to interact with.

However I suspect that by "user view" you might be really meaning "what user interfaces are commonly used in TM1 applications and what are the pros and cons of each?" This is of course an entirely different question and ultimatelly it all depends on the dature of the application and audience. If this is what you mean then confirm and I or someone else might be able to give you a meaningful 2c on the pros and cons of various interfaces.

[melvinleng]

Hi,

What I mean by view, is the various means/channel by which a user can view and analyse the data in the TM1 cubes.

I believe that the most basic way would be for a user to view the data directly via a cube view created in TM1 Architect/Perspective.
But there are also other ways of viewing this same set of data:

- Cube view via TM1 Web (no TM1 installation required)
- Attach an Excel (activeform or slice of the cube) to TM1 Web
- Activeform or slice of cube in Excel directly, using TM1 add-on (TM1 installation required)
- TM1 Contributor (web based)

The different means would probably have their own pros and cons, but too many options would typically confuse users. So what we are trying to do here is to recommend just 1-2 ways for users to access/view their data. And I would like to find out typically which is commonly used.

Thanks!

[Alan Kirk]

What I mean by view, is the various means/channel by which a user can view and analyse the data in the TM1 cubes.

I believe that the most basic way would be for a user to view the data directly via a cube view created in TM1 Architect/Perspective.
But there are also other ways of viewing this same set of data:

- Cube view via TM1 Web (no TM1 installation required)
- Attach an Excel (activeform or slice of the cube) to TM1 Web
- Activeform or slice of cube in Excel directly, using TM1 add-on (TM1 installation required)
- TM1 Contributor (web based)

The different means would probably have their own pros and cons, but too many options would typically confuse users. So what we are trying to do here is to recommend just 1-2 ways for users to access/view their data. And I would like to find out typically which is commonly used.

Just so that we're all on the same page, what you're really talking about is the "front end client". There are in fact others as well, such as Executive Viewer or Cognos BI (including Cognos Express for small to medium outfits).

I don't think it's a good idea to look at it the way you have in the last paragraph. As with most things, it's far better to work backwards; that is, start with "what is the outcome that we need", then "how do we get it". Deciding on the one or two front end clients is really making the decision of "how do we get it", and then trying to match what you need to that choice.

Some of the things that you need to consider:
- What type of users do you have? Do you have ones which have extensive ad hoc query needs, or do you have ones who just need a pre-prepared web dashboard? Or, as is more likely the case, do you have a mixture of users, some who fall into the first camp, some into the second, some in between.
- Do you need read only capability, or read/write? Again, you may well have a mixture of users, some in camp A and some in camp B.
- Where are they located in terms of your network? Do they have fast network access? Or are they in remote locations, where you may need to use Web or Excel/Perspectives running through Citrix.
- What kind of budget do you have? This will be important if you want to implement, say, a Citrix solution.

The only one from your original list that I'd really rule out is Architect. Architect can have its uses for Admins (I find it useful to be running two sessions on the one desktop, for instance) but for end users I don't really see the point of it. It has the Server Explorer / Cube Viewer interface which is, let's face it, pretty ugly by modern standards but lacks the big advantage that the SE/CV interface has on Excel; the ability to dump it into a worksheet. I'm not saying that Architect is useless, but IMHO it would be the least valuable choice for most end user clients.

What you've said about Web is kinda/sorta correct, but in truth it isn't either/or; you can use a mixture of standard views and websheets in Web. I'm not crazy about Web to be honest, but I haven't used it (operationally) since 9.1 and I'll reserve judgement until I've played with 9.5.2 more extensively.

When you said that installation is required if you use TM1 thick client that's partially true... unless you're running it via Citrix.

Now, it's true that if a single user had to use each one of the potential front end clients it would confuse them. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there are an awful lot of sites which use particular front end clients for particular groups of users, depending on the specific needs of those users as outlined above.