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Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

  • 1.  Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Fri October 01, 2021 05:06 PM
    Edited by System Fri January 20, 2023 04:23 PM
    Join us for our monthly "Ask me Anything" session in this on demand recording, designed to answer all of your burning IBM Planning Analytics questions from product roadmap to upgrades, hosted by a member of our Product Management team. Each month we'll feature different members of the IBM Planning Analytics team, from development, to quality assurance, to lab services.

    Share any of your questions below and register to watch here.  
    Thanks, 



    ------------------------------
    Jess Leitsch
    IBM Community Manager
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    #PlanningAnalyticswithWatson


  • 2.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Tue October 05, 2021 08:29 AM

    With Planning Analytics on Cloud, you typically get access to Cognos Command Center - I heard rumours of CCC being deprecated. Cannot see anything whatsoever on the IBM Offering information site.

    Any truth in this? Is it being removed from the offering?
    If so, when and what are the alternatives for orchestration?



    ------------------------------
    George Tonkin
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  • 3.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Tue October 05, 2021 09:40 AM
    Hi,

    in the September AMA (which I missed), Mario Hasler asked the following question

    "I don't know if this functionality is technically possible to develop in Workspace but it would be great being able to reference the selected element from a selection widget (when it's dragged outside the cube viewer) in a MDX statement in the same tab/book."

    The response was that IBM would meet Mario to discuss. Can I ask if there was a meeting and if so what was the outcome?

    It should be noted that I first raised this issue here:

    MDX dragged outside Cube View Issue

    Note Stuart King's comment in response to this:

    "Basically, we need the sync to be driven based on changes of data on the grid. This will be especially useful with picklist cells and the single cell widget in Workspace. We are going to determine the level of effort to make this happen."

    Has this level of effort been determined yet?

    regards,

    Mark

    ------------------------------
    Mark Wragg
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Wed October 06, 2021 04:15 AM
    Our challenges for Workspace remain:

    • Lack of text wrapping in string cells means adding interactive commentary to dashboards is not as straightforward as it should be.
    • Export functionality is incredibly limited.  This is required internally for a number of reasons - including an audit requirement to keep what was presented at key meetings. 


    ------------------------------
    James McCarthy
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Wed October 06, 2021 07:42 AM
    Hi James,

    re your first point, lack of text wrapping,

    I raised an enhancement request for this and IBM responded with "Not under Consideration".

    I presume it isn't technically feasible because if it was technically feasible then it would be a no brainer!
    Still, I find the current limitation rather baffling and slightly an embarrassment, especially when you have to explain this to customers!
    Be good if IBM could get the thinking caps on and come up with some sort of resolution.

    Mark


    ------------------------------
    Mark Wragg
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Thu October 07, 2021 04:48 AM
    Thanks Mark.

    I did see this enhancement request and upvoted!  From conversations with IBM, it is possible but expensive - more 'not under consideration at this time'.

    I added to the thread hoping others would agree that both are a priority for the roadmap.  Your point about explaining to customers is exactly right.


    ------------------------------
    James McCarthy
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Wed October 06, 2021 10:54 AM
    Questions for October AMA:
    1.  We are using websheets for a customer project due to the need for rather complex selection capabilities (forming INTERSECTS in MDX to filter cube views - in this case as Dynamic Reports - based upon user selections of one or more attributes in combination with dimension filters).  This is possible in Excel but not directly in PAW.  In TM1Web, when we navigate to another websheet via Action Button, a new tab is created - as expected since the "Replace current workbook" option in the Action Button properties is NOT checked.  This does not happen in PAW (websheet 2 replaces websheet 1 in the same tab) and there is no real way (except by adding more Action Buttons) to navigate back to the previous websheet in the same tab.  In TM1Web, new tabs are created.  The customer would prefer to use  PAW instead of TM1Web, but we cannot use PAW for this due to the issue mentioned above.  The customer currently has PA 2.0.8 and PAW 2.0.63 Local installed.  Is there any chance of changing this behavior in PAW?   
    2. Same question w/r/t TI processes returning custom messages (e.g. missing parameter values, etc.)?  This is a common, consistent and urgent customer request.

    ------------------------------
    Christopher Wolfe
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  • 8.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Wed October 06, 2021 06:38 PM
    Hello Chris,

    Hope you are well! 

    Is it possible to ask below questions?

    We have been trying to adopt PAW dashboards for our new projects but seems like there are few limitations. Some are very basics. I would like to highlight the basic limitations those have been bothering us and creating user adoption issues. See below links for ideas I posted on AI website but no answer at all.

    Totals on Stacked Column | IBM Data and AI Ideas Portal for Customers


    Displaying labels | IBM Data and AI Ideas Portal for Customers


    Is it possible to check with product team, if dashboards will be improved in future? E.g totals on stacked column chart is a very basic requirement!
    Also is it in IBM road map to add drill down functionality in charts? Means when we click on one chart element, it would change data on other charts? It's easy for users to use dashboards in that way. I believe cognos analytics have those functionalities ( I am not an expert of cognos at all).

    Please guide.
    regards
    Aman



    ------------------------------
    Amandeep Sharma
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  • 9.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Thu October 07, 2021 05:34 PM
    Hi,

    With the planned update to the Cube viewer/Exploration widget in PAW, will it address these frustrations with the current version:
    1. Default font too big - row and column headings can't be seen unless you make significant changes
    2. Row headings that auto resize e.g. when a new member appears on the rows it adjust for longer text if required. When it wraps currently the row height does not change and you need to manually adjust
    3. Column width resizing - can this be implemented in a similar way to Excel i.e. highlight the columns then double click to auto resize
    Other PAW changes I'd like to see:
    1. Data browser pane - again default font too big, means you have to keep adjusting the width
    2. Synchronisation/filter behaviour - it would be nice if you could single click on a row/column member (maybe just a portion of that cell) and it would then filter other widgets but leave that widget as is. Currently you need to double click on the member which will filter other widgets but then that leaves only that member in the source widget. It appears that Cognos Analytics synchronisation model has more flexibility?
    3. Will the map widget be upgraded from "legacy"


    ------------------------------
    Chris Sutton
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Tue November 02, 2021 09:00 AM
    Hi Chris,

    We can address the default font size in the new cube viewer widget.    I think auto resizing is also something we can look into.  Auto resizing isn't something we planned for the initial release of the new cube viewer, but we can add it to the 2022 roadmap for cube viewer enhancements.  

    The cube viewer stores information about column width for each members being displayed.  This is why changing the displayed members seems to reset the column widths.   If you were to resize a column for a specific member on the cube view, then remove that member, then later add the member back to the view, it would be added back with the resized column width, not the default width.   The change you are suggesting would not work with the current column sizing model.   It would also be problematic since the number of columns being displayed is not static.   

    Can you confirm exactly what you are referencing when you say 'data browser pane'?  Are you are talking about the cube viewer (data exploration widget) or the model tree ?.   A screenshot might help avoid any confusion.  Can you let us know what font size you would expect as the default.   We are currently working on templates for views and books.   Maybe we could consider setting a preconfigured font size for this object as part of a template.  

    Synchronization is a big part of our current roadmap.  Once synchronization groups are available we will start adding properties to control how synchronization actually works.  What you are describing sounds fairly similar to brushing in Cognos Analytics.  Brushing allows for the selection of a member in one widget to highlight the same member in other widgets.  This is something we want to adopt in Workspace.   It's also worth mentioning that the hierarchy\set selector widget already works the way you describe.  Selecting a single member from a set or the hierarchy will not change the list of members being displayed in the selector widget, but will only show the selected member in the in widgets that are synchronized with the selector widget.

    No plans to automatically upgrade map widgets from the legacy map.  These widgets are too different from each other and the automatic change might be too disruptive.   Given the limited use of the original maps widget we felt the best option was to have the book owners replace the map widget on their own schedule.  However, we will pick a release in the future to disable use of the old map widget.

    ------------------------------
    Stuart King
    IBM Planning Analytics Offering Manager
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Tue November 02, 2021 07:08 PM
    Thanks Stuart - appreciate the detailed response.

    Data Browser = Model Tree, see screenshot - it's an issue especially with Process names (which are usually longer), you can't see all of the text, just the beginning & the end. Architect screenshot attached for comparison. Could be this changed in the Workbench view only?


    Cube viewer/exploration defaults to size 14 - see series of screenshots comparing to TM1Web - which just works without any adjustments. To get my view onto 1 PAW screen - I need to change font (12), change row heading widths and columns widths. This just need to be easier for the "average" user etc.



    Synchronisation - using the exploration widget i.e. crosstab rows to filter other widgets is the most important use case (without changing the focus of the exploration). We had a client use a 3rd party product instead of PAW, due to the "poor" synchronisation model.

    Thanks

    ------------------------------
    Chris Sutton
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Fri October 08, 2021 02:03 AM
    Many of our models have Word and PDF documents uploaded to the Applications folders to guide users, share information etc.

    These cannot be uploaded to Applications via PAW or PAfE - will content other than Excel books be catered for in future?
    If not, why and what alternatives are being considered to allow Customers to share these assets?

    ------------------------------
    George Tonkin
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Thu October 21, 2021 04:17 AM
    Hi 

    We also use Application Folders in Perspectives to organise other types of TM1 Objects including

    • Processes
    • Views
    • Subsets
    • Dimensions (to allow easy location for editing)
    • Cubes (which then open with the default view - something that doesn't currently happen in the newer tools
    At present, the Application Folders in PAW are limited to Web Sheets. Are there plans to re-introduce the full functionality that is available in Perspectives?

    ------------------------------
    Paul Simon
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Thu October 21, 2021 04:31 AM
    PAW Global Synchronisation

    I tried to built a report in PAW which has three separate grids, showing Month, YTD and Full Year. These must be separate grids as the other things that the grids show are different. There is a selector at the top allowing the user to choose the month. What is shown in the Month, YTD, and Full Year Grid then needs to change according to the month.

    This is a very common requirement, but is incredibly difficult to achieve in PAW. This should be made a lot easier.

    I tried to do this using a web sheet using formula to derive the YTD and Full Year according to the selected Month. However, Synchronisation in PAW is not granular enough and any attempt to turn on Sync resulted in the SUBNMs on the Web sheet being corrupted eg the Month SUBNM got set to a Year. I tried arranging things so that the Month, YTD and Year all came from different Named Hierarchies but the Month SUBNM was still getting corrupted with a year.

    The only option that appears to work is to use a SUBNM on a web sheet to let the user select the month and to then DBS this into a cube dimensioned by }Clients and Measures, and to derive the YTD and Full Year in Rules and then reference that in MDX subsets, which are then used in the YTD and Full Year Grids. This is far too complex a solution to a common problem

    It should be possible to achieve this without using Web Sheets.

    Apparently there are some plans to address this. What functionality is going to be provided and when will it be available?

    Some suggestions which seem to have been lost from IBM Ideas include:

    1. The ability to draw lines between grids and selectors to specify exactly what should sync with what.
    2. The ability to introduce names for selectors so that it is possible to specify which named selection a grid should sync with. Even if that name still has to be eg a Range Name on a Web Sheet that would be useful.
    3. The ability to introduce new calculation capabilities so that the related member on the grid could be calculated, eg adding '_YTD' to the monthly Period would work for this scenario. However, there would also be other more complex scenarios, eg they select a sub group but want to derive the parent group and show a grid for that. At present calculated members can only be used for numeric calcs and cannot be used as selectors.



    ------------------------------
    Paul Simon
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  • 15.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Thu October 21, 2021 04:34 AM
    There are a lot of rumours about changes in v12. We have tried to book a meeting with our Account Manager to discuss them but have so far not been successful. Is there a list anywhere of what changes will be made in v12?

    ------------------------------
    Paul Simon
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Fri October 08, 2021 02:35 AM
    Please can some explain how to use Themes - after upgrading to the new experience, all our colours from Legacy cannot be applied to new PAW objects.
    If Palettes replaced themes, they cannot be used other than in graphs and does not help with styles and colours in text boxes, titles etc.

    ------------------------------
    George Tonkin
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Fri October 08, 2021 07:38 AM
    Regarding Applications & Plans (well, specifically Plans) in PAW: 

    1) can you describe major new features in the works and timelines for when we could expect to see them?
    2) do you have any case studies or customer success stories around using Plans (specifically looking for lessons learned / points to consider when rolling out this functionality)?
    3) will the ability to communicate or generate notifications from a Plan be made available?  For instance - I've opened the plan and want all members of groups in the Plan to be notified that its open.  Will PAW eventually have that feature?

    Thanks,
    Kizzy

    ------------------------------
    Kizzy Kaye
    ------------------------------



  • 18.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Tue October 12, 2021 12:02 PM

    In some of our existing templates used with Perspectives, we use functions like E_PICK to allow users to double-click on a cell, choose an element and have the value inserted into the cell.

    How are this and other "legacy" functions catered for in PAfE?



    ------------------------------
    George Tonkin
    ------------------------------



  • 19.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Wed October 13, 2021 11:06 AM
    How do you put TM1 into a Single user mode whilst doing maintenance?
    Any Global setting in PAW on the cards or will we always need update IsDisabled in }ClientProperties?

    ------------------------------
    George Tonkin
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Fri October 22, 2021 04:17 AM
    Edited by System Fri January 20, 2023 04:14 PM

    Hello,

    When pushing data back to SQL databases from TM1, ODBCOpen command requires password to be passed in an unencripyted format. This prohibits us using this method in our TM1 projects with banking clients where there are strict password policies. Having the option to pass password in encrypted format should be considered as a must have feature for such an enterprise product by IBM. It is really very hard to explain to the clients that IBM does not provide this feature in such a strategic analytic product. It is possible to use encrypted password when loading from SQL table, but not possible when pushing data back to SQL table from TM1. Could you please prioritize adding this feature in TM1? Once we have this feature, in such banking projects where strict password policies are in place, we will not need to export to text file from TM1 and import from text file to SQL table using third party tools, rather we will be able to directly push data to SQL table from TM1, avoiding many GBs of text files.

    Regards,



    ------------------------------
    Mucahit Erdal
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Mon October 25, 2021 12:13 PM
    Hi everyone, 
    You can watch the on demand recording here and share any additional questions below. 

    Thanks,

    ------------------------------
    Michael McGeein
    ------------------------------



  • 22.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Wed October 27, 2021 10:12 AM
    HI @Michael McGeein, in the AMA, I think it was Leo that gave us an idea of PAW licensing and specifically the requirements when upgrading from V10.2 etc. to PA with PAW and what is included etc.

    Is there a document that you can point us to to clarify these points officially?

    Thank you.


    ------------------------------
    George Tonkin
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    Posted Wed October 27, 2021 11:51 AM
    Hello George,

    Let me try again. All Planning Analytics Local user entitlements (Modeler, User, Explorer) include access to Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW). There are a few legacy (10.2) user entitlements, namely Performance Management User and Enterprise Planning TM1 Explorer, that do not include PAW. Customers who own those two user entitlements and wish to use PAW can purchase PAW Addon license entitlements which will then grant them access to PAW.

    I should also note that all customers must own a Planning Analytics Local Modeler license entitlement - the administration role. That entitlement grants access to PAW. So even if the customer owns the legacy parts, their administrators, via the Modeler entitlement, can still access PAW.

    As for documentation, you will find that PAW is listed as a Prohibited Component in both the Performance Management User and Enterprise Planning TM1 Explorer License Information documents:

    I hope that clarifies. If you need more information, please contact me directly and I'll be happy to explain further.

    Leo



    ------------------------------
    Leo Comunale
    ------------------------------



  • 24.  RE: Ask Me Anything: Planning Analytics with Watson - October Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Wed October 27, 2021 12:19 PM
    Hi Leo, thank you very much for the feedback and information. I will review the above against some of our clients' POE's.

    ------------------------------
    George Tonkin
    ------------------------------