TM1 Forum

Does the excel add in require architect to be installed to work properly? I've been asked to look into creating some excel templates and I noticed the slice and other functions seem to use architect so now I'm wondering if you have to have an architect license to use the excel add-in. . .

Not sure whether you are referring to Licencing or actual product installation here:

Architect is a TM1 Client, that allows interaction with all the TM1 objects (Dims, Cubes, Rules, TIs, Chores etc)

Perspectives is another way of interacting with TM1, it looks exactly like Architect but with the addition that it is an Excel Add in and therefore comes with the ability to create slices/active forms etc etc etc

You CAN NOT take data into excel from Architect, or at least you can not take data that is still linked to TM1.


If the question that you are asking refers to Licencing then it probably gets to a point where you need to ask someone with the ability (or magic powers) to understand IBM Licencing... I tried to understand it but in the process forgot how to use my other 5 senses...

I work on the assumption that any TM1 user is allowed the excel client to be installed, as it was once upon a time the standard way of interacting with TM1 but now that has shifted towards TM1Web.
I have heard certain salesmen state that perspectives can only be used if you have a modeller/admin licence but I believe/hope they might be mistaking the fact that you need the modeller/admin to use the more advanced features of Perspectives (and architect) e.g. interaction with rules and well "modelling."

I am assuming that you are not going to be using TM1 10.1 anytime soon and have as such intentionally avoided mentioning the abomination that is "Performance Modeler" since it has pained me greatly to even write that name with its gastly 1 L... although I do to some extent let that go due to the cultural/lingual overseas divide... I am much less forgiving of "Xcelerator"... if you are going to make up words; please please please at least try harder than that!

This is really not the correct place to ask licensing questions. Assuming your or your company owns TM1, the correct person to ask is your IBM rep. Architect and Perspectives (the Excel Add-in) are to separate products, even though the Server Explorer portion of Perspectives looks just like Architect. Neither one "requires" the other in order to work.

We are on 10.1 You answered my question though which was admittedly poorly worded. I was wondering if the TM1 excel add-on was something you had to pay an additional license for.

jcblough wrote:We are on 10.1 You answered my question though which was admittedly poorly worded. I was wondering if the TM1 excel add-on was something you had to pay an additional license for.

Not in its Client incarnation, no. But in its Perspectives incarnation, then yes, as far as I know you still have to pay an extra fee.

Client and Perspectives are the same add-in. The primary difference is that you need an licence file to unlock some extra functionality in Perpesctives such as the ability to run a Local server as well as some other functionality which is of use only to Admins. It is likely, not certain but likely, that you will have only a certain number of Perspectives licences, and those you probably do still have to pay extra for. However you don't for the Client incarnation of the add-in, as has been noted above. I have been given an indication (in vague, airy terms) that if we were to upgrade to 64 bit we'd also have to pay an additional fee for Slowformance Modeller, but that could be just us.

My apologies for excessive use of weasel words like "probably" and likely", but declanr's description of Iboglix licencing puts it rather well. They've done absolutely nothing to make licencing transparent or comprehensible, much less to make it uniform or equitable. Eventually when they're down to a declining handful of customers in the top levels of the Fortune 500 it may gradually dawn on them that "hey, do you think this policy is costing us some sales?"

I can tell you that in the past Perspectives licencing attracted an extra fee. I can tell you that in the present it still probably does because it's not like IBM ever goes out to make a product cheaper. CX is the closest it's come to going down that route.