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Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

  • 1.  Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Mon January 08, 2024 11:28 AM
    Edited by Michael McGeein Thu March 21, 2024 11:57 AM

    Summary

    Modeling, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and multidimensional analysis-there's a lot you can do with IBM Planning Analytics. Chances are you're just scratching the surface.  

    Join us live for our monthly "Ask me Anything" session designed to answer all of your burning Planning Analytics questions from product roadmap to upgrades, hosted by our product management team. 

    • Engage with the product management team
    • Learn about new features
    • Ask questions

    Please join us in this on-demand recording. Please share any questions by clicking on the Reply button. If you have not done so already, register to watch here and get your calendar invite.



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    Michael McGeein
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  • 2.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Wed March 20, 2024 01:06 PM

    Mike,

    Thanks for doing the AMA every month. I do have a few questions that I'll be asking:

    1. We get asked the following a lot: What type of CPU / Compute power is used for PA SaaS on AWS (specifically for TM1 Server instances) and how is that compute power allocated or assigned across instances? Customers want to know how it performs versus on-premise or PA Cloud.
    2. Is there a timeline for PA 2.1?  PAE on premises?
    3. Any updates on the Secure Gateway to Satellite process? How customers are being informed?

    Thanks.

     



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    Walter Coffen
    Technology Manager
    QueBIT Consulting, LLC
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 06:30 AM
    With IBM's classic SaaS offering PAoC you get dedicated exclusive resources (CPU, RAM, disk), at least for the data tier running TM1 Server and the web tier running TM1 Web. It does not matter if these resources are used or not, they are always there, dormant if not or only partially used.
     
    I think it is very different with the IBM's new containerized SaaS offering PAaaS on AWS:
    Regarding how the compute power is allocated or assigned across instances, I assume it boils down to dynamically adjusted to what is currently needed by an instance up to an upper limit which cannot be passed.
    Thus you may retrieve the amount of resources (CPU, RAM, disk) used by a container at a specific time stamp, or the minimum and maximum amount within a time period, but there is not really a value you can compare to the dedicated exclusive resources (CPU, RAM, disk) being assigned to IBM's classic SaaS offering PAoC. 
     
    PAaaS on AWS is running on top of Red Hat OpenShift on AWS (ROSA).
    Here, a container description includes information on the required resources, usually the maximum authorized resources per replica = node aka the resource limits a container may not pass, occasionally the minimum required resources per node = replica aka the requests. It also includes the information how many copies = replicas of a container shall run concurrently, every copy = replica on it's own worker node.  Two copies = replicas of the same container shall not share the same worker node.
    An Openshift cluster is aware of the free resources ( RAM, millicores = CPU, disk, ... ) per worker node. Depending on this information it deploys the containers it is tasked to run.
     
    I assume the containerized TM1 Server version 12 aka the Planning Analytics Engine (PAE) is working like PAW Distributed on OpenShift, which has a default configuration file ..\kubernetes\defaults.env with entries like
     
    # container cpu limits in millicores
    export PA_KUBE_ATLAS_CPU_LIMIT=1000
     
    # container memory limits in Mb
    export PA_KUBE_ATLAS_MEMORY_LIMIT=2048
     
    export PA_KUBE_ATLAS_REPLICAS=2
     
    So there is a container named Atlas.  
    The Atlas container is authorized for a maximum = an upper limit of 2 GB RAM and 1000 millicores = 1 CPU core. This is a maximum load value. It is not what this container is typically using.
    2 copies = replicas of the Atlas container shall run on 2 different worker nodes.
     
    Regards


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    Bernd Siebert
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 08:44 AM

    Yes. They are different. Thanks for the info.

    It would also be good to hear from IBM if PAaaS AWS is more performant, less performant, or about the same as PA Cloud or even as some generic, representative on-premises environment.

    An analogy I'm working on is that an old-school Mr. Coffee coffee maker can make ten cups of coffee faster than one more expensive, modern, containerized Keurig. But if you share twenty Keurigs with three other businesses, will there be enough coffee for all during the month-end accounting close? It is either an analogy in progress or I'm just thinking about getting more coffee and the one-cup per Keurig option is calling to me since my Mr. Coffee pot is empty. LOL.



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    Walter Coffen
    Technology Manager
    QueBIT Consulting, LLC
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 04:10 AM

    Hi,

    I noticed the notification regarding the "End of support for Planning Analytics Workspace Local on Windows Server 2016" and the fact that Mainstream support for Windows Server 2016 ended in January 2022. Currently, the only other Microsoft option is Windows Server 2019, but its Mainstream support also ended in January of this year.

    Given this, I'm curious about the status of Planning Analytics Workspace on Windows Server 2022 with Mirantis Container Runtime. When can we expect support for Windows Server 2022?

    Thanks! 
    Mario



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    Mario Hasler
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 04:40 AM

    Hi

    I am excited about the format manager for the cube viewer, along with the introduction of new functionalities in the coming releases, such as conditional formatting based on levels or attributes. 

    However, there's been one particular aspect that I have been wondering about for quite some time (same behaviour in the classic cube viewer). When "Show +/- on rows" is enabled, the width of the row header column dynamically adjusts when a consolidated element is expanded.

    Apart from creating more movement on the screen than necessary, this adjustment has an unintended consequence: if the cube view widget is set to a specific width - let's say wide enough to avoid a horizontal scrollbar and to maintain the vertical scrollbar just right after the last column - the expansion of a consolidation triggers the the width of the row header column to dynamically adjust which results in the appearance of a horizontal scrollbar.

    My point is, when I set the width of the row header column, I expect it to remain consistent regardless of whether consolidated elements are expanded or collapsed (the same principle should apply to the column header as well).

    Is this something which could be addressed? 



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    Mario Hasler
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 05:32 AM
    Edited by Mario Hasler Thu March 21, 2024 04:51 PM
    Hi @STUART KING.

    I've just finished listening to the AMA recording. Thanks for all the great answers!
    Regarding below question, I suspect you might not have had the opportunity to view the screenshot I shared. In your answer, you mentioned the possibility of selecting colors for the row and column headers. I'm aware of this functionality and have in fact customized the colors for both, as you can see in the screenshot.
    I am referring to the "headers" (for lack of a better term) of the row and column headers, which are highlighted in red in the screenshot.
    Would be great to get a comment from you regarding this. 
    -----------------------
    Hi!
     
    We've recently observed a fantastic enhancement in the cube view interface - the space in the upper left corner now adopts the selected background color of the cube view instead of always showing white. We're thrilled about this improvement, makes our books look much nicer and cleaner!
     
    However, it seems that the color of the "headers" for the row and column dimensions cannot be modified, correct? See the red marked area in the screenshot below. 
    Currently, they appear in a fixed grey color, which, to our knowledge, cannot be altered. Even if we adjust the background color of the row or column dimension, the headers remain in grey.
     
    We're wondering if there are any plans to introduce the ability to customize the color of these "headers" in the future. We think that the report displayed in the screenshot would greatly benefit from having this area adopt either the same green color as the columns or the same grey color as the rows, rather than presenting a third contrasting color.
    HeadersRowsColumns



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    Mario Hasler
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Wed March 27, 2024 11:03 AM

    Hi Mario,

    Happy to confirm we are tracking work items to customize those cells (set the color, border lines, etc).  I typically refer to these cell as headers for row and column headers, I've also heard them referred to as the cell tabs.  I think I might have mentioned the intent to configure the cube view to show the dimension, hierarchy, or set name in these cells.  These cells also contain a triangle that doesn't seem to do anything.  We will consider an option to remove that as well.  We probably also want an option to hide these cells all together. 



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

    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Wed March 27, 2024 11:33 AM

    Hi Stuart,

    Thank you for your response! Great, that sounds exactly like what we've been looking for. Hopefully, these features will make it into the product soon. :-)



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    Mario Hasler
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    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 11:58 AM

    Hi everyone,

    You can watch the on-demand recording here.

    Please share any of your questions below.



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    Michael McGeein
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    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 12:09 PM

    @Ted Phillips - Thanks for picking up my question on MDX formatting.
    Please could you share a link or point me to the CVS related information you made reference to.

    Thank you.



    ------------------------------
    George Tonkin
    Business Partner
    MCI Consultants
    Johannesburg
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    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 02:02 PM
    Edited by Ted Phillips Thu March 21, 2024 02:03 PM

    for oddly [historical] reasons which amuse me it's here, which you can navigate to if adept at clicking all the links in ibm's doc: https://ibm.github.io/paxapi/#common-view-specification-schema . PAfE and PAW can both 'talk' this format to various extents/purposes, and TM1 will tolerate it as an open type decoration of MDX system views.

    today, this extensible/validate-able json schema will let you do things like pre-determine display state of aliases (which can not be safely done with just DIMENSION PROPERTIES clause), expand directions, etc, as well as define the backing set expressions for your slicer selections. game to expand on it for use cases as needed.



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    Ted Phillips
    IBM
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    Original Message


  • 13.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 02:06 PM

    Thank you very much Ted - will do some reading.

    Leaving this link here for others: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/planning-analytics/2.0.0?topic=reports-common-view-specification



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    George Tonkin
    Business Partner
    MCI Consultants
    Johannesburg
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    Original Message


  • 14.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Thu March 21, 2024 03:01 PM
    Edited by Ted Phillips Thu March 21, 2024 03:03 PM

    ah catching up on other community threads, you may have meant white space formatting of the query text, not outcome formatting of the query result~


    [my remark there would be, if it's not changing out of band due to other gestures/activity, then preserving existing query string text formatting is feasible, i see the idea is marked under consideration]

    ------------------------------
    Ted Phillips
    IBM
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    Original Message


  • 15.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    IBM Champion
    Posted Fri March 22, 2024 03:01 AM

    Hi Ted, yes, the white space formatting of the query text is essentially what I would like to be able to keep intact after committing the code to the server.

    There are really two aspects to the request:

    1) Keep the format of the hand-crafted MDX code as written/pasted etc.

    2) When viewing system generated MDX i.e. from a PAW view or PAfE Exploration, the MDX should be formatted too, not a wall of text.

    Thanks again.



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    George Tonkin
    Business Partner
    MCI Consultants
    Johannesburg
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 16.  RE: Webinar: Ask Me Anything: IBM Planning Analytics with Watson - March Edition

    Posted Fri March 22, 2024 10:28 AM

    Hi Ted,

    reading through the documentation it seems that CVS is only usable with Quick Reports and Explorations. Is there a way to use them with Dynamic Reports and Universal Reports aswell?

    Thanks.



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    Matthias Mazaj
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    Original Message