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PAW new feature: Save View to Server

  • 1.  PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Wed July 22, 2020 04:20 PM
    With PAW release 2.0.54 we can now save views from within PAW or PAX cube viewer to the server instead of just the content store. I was expecting that after saving a view to the server, I'd be able to access to the view in TM1Web or see them in my private views in Architect/Perspectives/PAX but do not. I suspected perhaps they would appear after logging out and back in but still don't. Am I reading the new feature wrong or have I missed a step?

    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSD29G_2.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_nfg.2.0.0.doc/c_nf_save_view_TM1.html

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    Andrew Scheevel
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    #PlanningAnalyticswithWatson


  • 2.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Thu July 23, 2020 07:13 AM
    I suspect that PAW is saving the view as an MDX view. These have an XBV extension on the filesystem and are not available to Architect/Perspectives/TM1Web. They support the (unfinished) named hierarchies functionality. 
    Having said that you say they are not showing in PaX (PaFE). Can you check the server folder to see if my suggestion is correct?

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    David Usherwood
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  • 3.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Thu July 23, 2020 07:48 AM
    I can confirm that David has the correct answer. 

    TM1 Server has two different types of views, native views and MDX views.  Only native views are supported in Architect, Perspectives. TM1Web, and TM1 Applications.  Native views do no support the hierarchies feature of TM1 Server.  Workspace and Planning Analytics for Excel support both native views and MDX views.    Both native and MDX view types can be used as a data source in a TI process.   I believe that defining and using a MDX views as data sources for TI processes is probably the primary use case for this new save view option.   Workspace already supported saving and sharing views between users, and between Workspace and Planning Analytics for Excel.



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    Stuart King
    IBM Planning Analytics Offering Manager
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  • 4.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Thu July 23, 2020 09:34 AM
    Thanks for the responses David and Stuart. Yep, the views are saved as mdx with .xbv extension. Looking at the release notes again, I see that they only mention the view being used in TI process and never explicitly specify that the view can be opened as a native cube view.

    Yep, sharing views via the PAW content store is good, but my end user had a desire to create a view in PAW that they could then open as a private view in TM1Web. They're slowly transitioning to using PAW over TM1Web and I thought this might have been an option to help them. Thanks again.

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    Andrew Scheevel
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  • 5.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Thu July 23, 2020 10:00 AM
    Hi Andrew,

    The IBM Planning Analytics team is not planning any enhancements to the TM1Web cube viewer.  Support for MDX views and hierarchies is a good reason to use the Planning Analytics Workspace cube viewer widget instead of the TM1Web cube viewer.  

    As a side note, we are also working on enhancing Websheets to support hierarchies and use the TM1 Servers REST API.

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    Stuart King
    IBM Planning Analytics Offering Manager
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  • 6.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Thu July 23, 2020 10:19 AM
    Understood, thanks for the reply.

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    Andrew Scheevel
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  • 7.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Thu July 23, 2020 11:52 AM
    "As a side note, we are also working on enhancing Websheets to support hierarchies and use the TM1 Servers REST API."
    I am glad to hear it. I would like to think that IBM Product Management appreciate that the lack of support for named hierarchies in formula based reports, both in Excel/PaFe, and in Websheets, severely cripples the functionality of the highest quality and most usable input/output option for TM1 content. Many developers work hard to avoid using named hierarchies because this is not supported. PA has been available since December 2016 and this deficiency has not been given the priority it deserves.
    </rant> - apologies but this but it is very frustrating.
    For Andrew - you could write a TM1PY script to convert the MDX views to classic views.

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    David Usherwood
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  • 8.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Thu July 23, 2020 12:16 PM
    HI David, 

    I hear you!  The offering management team is aligned with putting other Planning Analytics for Excel enhancement requests on hold until Dynamic Quick Report (DQR) is delivered.  Development work to support for DQRs in TM1Web (using a REST API connection to TM1) is happening in parallel to the Excel work.  DQR is our new report mode that supports both named hierarchies and Excel & PA formals.  The DQR report type will also address some of the challenges with tradition Active Form type reports.  

    I'll see if we can get a video of DQR in action on a forum post or something similar.  



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    Stuart King
    IBM Planning Analytics Offering Manager
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  • 9.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Sat July 25, 2020 01:09 PM
    Hi Stuart

    Our system is still entirely based on TM1 Web because you cannot synchronise PAW selections with Action Buttons. That enhancement is still on your backlog - apparently near the top of the backlog but still not in development. (Rant over)

    We frequently use the TM1 Web URL API to launch the TM1 Web Cube Viewer often passing parameters to set the title elements. 

    If the TM1 Web Cube Viewer is not going to be enhanced to support Named Hierarchies (and I can understand the reasons for that), then is it going to be possible to launch the PAW Cube Viewer via the TM1 Web URL API? Will it be possible to do this for an MDX View as opposed to a Native View? If not, will it be possible via some other method? I guess that potentially this could be done via an Action Button but that will need to a change to our existing systems.

    As an aside, we have noticed that Native Views that don't have anything on columns will not render in PAX. Is this because they are internally being retrieved as MDX Views, and from what I have seen from my recent experiments with the Rest API, MDX Views in the Rest API need to have something on columns?

    Regards

    Paul SImon


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    Paul Simon
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  • 10.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Sat July 25, 2020 07:27 PM
    Hi Paul,

    On the column issue I believe that is caused by native views being converted to MDX for execution. MDX requires at least one axis and the column axis is the first one (axis 0), rows second (axis 1).

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    Tim Ryan - Cubewise
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  • 11.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Mon July 27, 2020 08:15 AM
    Hi Paul,

    Workspace has a URL API that can be used to access the Workspace cube viewer.  Please see: https://ibm.github.io/planninganalyticsapi/#planning-analytics-workspace-views.  I don't think we will make any enhancements to the TM1Web URL API.  Any URL API based enhancements we implement will be for Workspace.

    And yes, we do want to get to some important enhancements in the Workspace action button this year, including being able to sync TI parameter values with member selections in Workspace books.

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    Stuart King
    IBM Planning Analytics Offering Manager
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  • 12.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Mon July 27, 2020 06:12 PM
    Hi Stuart

    Thanks for that. It looks interesting.

    One minor point - the link on GitHub from Configure Parameters under Client Communication is broken.

    I get

    www-03preprod.ibm.com's server IP address could not be found.

    Regards

    Paul Simon

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    Paul Simon
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  • 13.  RE: PAW new feature: Save View to Server

    Posted Tue July 28, 2020 07:57 AM
    Still needs to be fixed but found it here if you need it Paul:
    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSD29G_2.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_inst.2.0.0.doc/c_paw_config_file.html

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    George Tonkin
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