Cognos TM1 10.2.2 is now available for download...and review

Cognos TM1 10.2.2

With the release of Cognos TM1 10.2.2, there are a number of updates users should try out. Here is a quick look at some of the ones I recommend checking out.

CAFE (Cognos Analysis For Excel) 

This tool has been around for a while, but has some noticeable improvements in this release. For anyone trying to provide a better user experience right in Excel, this helps provide that. Yes, we have Xcelerator to navigate views, but CAFE provides some additional column drilling now that wasn't available before.

Scorecarding

Scorecarding is now native functionality in TM1. With this 10.2.2 release, they have further improved the experience by being able to convert a planning cube into a metrics cube... with one click!  Previously, we would need to create a separate metrics cube with the KPIs embedded. Now, the tool can generate the metrics cube from any planning cube...making scorecarding faster and easier.

Data Flow Diagrams in Performance Modeler

Performance Modeler is a good tool for designing cubes, links and processes. One challenge has always been graphically displaying the links between all models in an application. The folks at IBM have solved this one now. In Performance Modeler, we can now navigate a visual display showing all the cubes in our model, as well as the links (rules and TIs) between them. This is still not as powerful as the analysis provided by something like QubeDocs, but it will really help folks learn and maintain new models they encounter.

Download IBM Cognos TM1 10.2.2

IBM Cognos TM1 10.2.2 Fix List

Free Youtube Course on Building IBM Clarity7 Reports

  Building reports in ClarityStudio can be a bit challenging without some guidance. To help new folks along, we have developed a series of Youtube videos to walk you through the process of developing a complex report. This particular report that we build together is a validation report to compare two cubes. This is a very important part of any testing phase of a project. This gives us the visibility into the system to question any number in the cube, and reconcile it back to a source system. Instead of having to ask a DBA to verify numbers, the Finance team can verify numbers anytime they want ensuring they are comfortable and confident in the numbers they report.

  Starting from scratch, we talk about all these topics while building this validation report:

• Layout of a report
• Dimensions
• Connecting to datasources
• OLAP Member Lists - Selecting dimension members
• OLAP Maps - Setting up result sets for display on the Excel grid
• Page Options
• Calculating Variances
• Traffic Lighting
• Linked Documents
• Cascading
• Block Formatting
• Zooming (Zoom In / Zoom Out)
• Security Setup
• Audit Trail
• Archiving
• Dashboards in Visualizer

   A Youtube playlist has been setup to walk you through the sequence of videos. The idea is that you can follow along and build the same report in your own environment. It uses the demo cube that should be installed with every Clarity implementation, so you can use the exact same setup when you do it too.

   Here is a link to the Youtube playlist. Please send us your comments to info@clearinsight.ca or @clearinsightfpm on what other types of videos you would like to see in this new training series.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxQA2r8KTFErnLpp024_w_vKjkTEtpWr5 

Enjoy,

Bob