We all involved in Apptio data uploads and during the initial data upload you have to select the correct Data Refresh Cycle for future uploads of the data. The Data Refresh Cycles are clear (name en description). However, the behaviour of two of the options (see below) are not in line with our expectation and generating EXPIRED warnings on the Data Quality > Summary > 2nd table > tab Data Expiration report.

In the following table we show you a couple of EXPIRED data loads examples which we do not understand.

1. What is the reason Apptio still returns EXPIRED warnings even when the data is loaded (see Raw Data Last Updated)? OK, maybe too late but still, the data is loaded...
2. How do we prevent these EXPIRED warnings. OK, we expect an answer like: "Load your data in this case on 1-1-2019" but then, is Apptio really so strict or do we have some days to load our data in case of these two Data Freshness Rules?
3. If we do not change anything in these cases, how long does these errors stay during 2019?

Update 12 July 2019: It seems that we have the same issue with the following Data Refresh Option (next to the two reported already) as we load the date for the particular month correctly and in time but the systems reports EXPIRED

Yearly versions; Update every month

A year's worth of data is uploaded every month covering the last 12 months. The new data will be added to a different period and will not overwrite the existing data. On the Cost Transparency data quality report, the data expiration checks will show the data as expired if it has not been updated within the last month.

Hello Apptio Support, @Apptio UserAssistance, Apptio Q&A Forum, Product Central, Apptio User Groups, Apptio Functionality, do you have the answer?

Hi Menno do you have a support ticket on this?

If not can you file a ticket on this and we can look into it in more detail.

Thanks.

Richard.

Of course I can raise a ticket but this question is more a general one for the community to share knowledge and information. This is why we have a Community isn't it? However, no reactions till now so it looks like nobody can deliver the clarification or answer...

Note: It is always a doubt, should I raise a ticket or shall I use the TBM Apptio community. For this one I prefer the community.

That is fine. Yes community is where we share information.

However if this is a genuine issue then this is not the right forum (for now) as we need to understand what is the issue that you are seeing. 

You can then post an answer on what was done to resolve it.

Hope this makes sense.

I will wait for a reaction in the Community for a couple of days more. When there is no or not a clear answer, I will follow your advice and raise a support ticket. The final answer or updates about this subject will be shared in the Community.

Hi Menno,

I'll try to clarify the refresh options first. This should help answer your questions 2 and 3.

To answer your question #1, we'll need more information than you included in your expiration table, e.g. dataset names, time period selected for view, checkin history, etc. So as not to share any proprietary data, it would be best to open a support case and let Apptio Support examine this in your own environment.

Hi John, thank you so much for your additional information. Very helpful and a nice addition to the existing description of the Data Refresh Options. I will raise a support ticked for Apptio Support and ask them to check our project as we do see issues for all of them as Copy Forward is enabled. To share the information/knowledge I will reply the information/solution when the investigation has been completed.

Apptio replied on the issue raised:

Looking into this further it appears this is a bug that is known at the moment. We have an engineering ticket out on this and we'll update you on the findings as we get more information. For now just know that this is a known issue.

Note: I asked them an estimate when this will be fixed. Any updates will be posted.

Apptio replied the following after one month waiting and the question this morning "Any updates to report?"

Apologies but no, this is in the hands of our engineering team at this point, once they provide an update I can give you an update. I'll ping them on the ticket just to see if we can get some more movement.

And another month has gone...

• In the last period I contacted Apptio Support twice by email (will update the call in their system) to receive an update on the progress they made regarding this general issue (all their Customer are involved). No reaction at all.
• Last Friday I called Apptio Support and finally received the following reaction by email:

Hi Menno, This is still open and pending Engineering. I have reached out to that team to communicate that you are looking for an update though. Case #: 00149893

Best Regards, Jeremy Jellum Technical Support Engineer For Urgent Requests Call Apptio Customer Support: https://support.apptio.com/s/support-global-telephone-numbers Apptio Support

After this email silence again... -

Silence, silence and still silence

Not very Customer focussed from Apptio Support until now.

Every time WE have to contact them instead of the other way around.

The below message has been sent as a reply on the support ticket today. Let's see...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Jeremy,

Unfortunately I didn’t receive an update of the progress/planning till now.

Can you please ask Engineering again to inform us or actually the whole Apptio User Group as this is a general annoying issue that is still not solved.

Thanks for your cooperation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Support replied last Saturday with the following:

Hi Menno, Apologies on behalf of our engineering team for the silence. I have sent them a message again that we are looking for an update on this. If this is a priority for your team, I would recommend reaching out to your CSM and seeing if they can get more eyes on this issue. Case #: 00149893.

Best Regards, Jeremy Jellum Technical Support Engineer

I will wait for a couple of days more and will contact our CSM when the silence continues.

Hi Menno, I know you're on Holiday but I wanted to make sure you don't come back to silence on this. Following up on our conversation about this on another thread...I was able to connect with Engineering at Apptio HQ this week. After that conversation, my sense is, since the issue isn't wide-spread and there's a workaround in place, we won't see this on the stack for any near term releases. I'm sorry I don't have better news and I also apologize for the number of follow-ups you've had to do on this. I can't fix this directly but will look for ways to make it up to you Community. I always appreciate the feature requests you take the time to document and your partnership to help us continuously improve.  

Hi @Rhonda Keller, thank you for the information. Much appreciated. Are you able to inform us about the workaround as we are not aware of a workaround or do you refer to way we have to treat this message by ignoring the 'error' as Apptio is using the uploaded data correctly if we upload the data in the correct manner/period?

Hi @Menno Wittebol, I'm not sure they just told me a "workaround" was in place. It could be that the error message is false so the workaround is to ignore it, but I'll double check.

RK  

Hi @Rhonda Keller, any news on the 'workaround' and/or the progress of the bug fix? Ignoring an error is an option for a short period but not a permanent solution. Because it is a general issue for all Apptio customer, the expectation will be from an Apptio service point of view that a solution and a trustful error mechanism will be in place soon. Beware that a correct and trustful data load process is key for our Apptio projects and their outcome. Can you give us a more clear estimate when the fix will be in place? Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Hi @Menno Wittebol, I actually checked back in with @Jeremy Jellum yesterday. He's been on out of the office but dropped me a note last night saying that he'd check in with you today. 

Thanks @Rhonda Keller.

@Jeremy Jellum, beware that my holiday will start in an hour and that I will return in the office on 16 September 2019.

It seems that the issue has been solved as of Apptio version r12.8.2. See also the additional red notification in the table below.

Introduction

When you create a new table by uploading a data file, you have to select the correct refresh cycle from the field at the top of the screen that describes the frequency you will update the dataset. Below you find the options and beware that this is descriptive only. It does not execute uploads.

Data refresh cycles description