Ken Davenport, President of PerformanceG2
 
If your company is struggling to match the promise of BI and Performance Management (CPM) technologies with the reality of day-to-day work flow and implementation challenges, take heart: you are not alone. According to a recent Ventana Research study of BI and CPM, customer that examined the maturity and direction of technology adoption strategies, a significant percentage of customers face considerable obstacles.

• A mere 9 percent of research participants are very satisfied with their organization’s BI efforts. They have only basic BI capabilities, such as querying sources for specific data (74 percent), generating reports from data (74 percent) and accessing data from a spreadsheet for further analysis (70 percent).
• The capabilities organizations are currently working to deploy are only somewhat more sophisticated: communicating data in the right format (27 percent), searching for data (26 percent), presenting data effectively (25 percent) and creating measures and metrics (24 percent).
• The research also found a small but growing desire to provide mobile device support for BI and performance management as well as what-if scenario analysis and collaboration.

As Julie Langenkamp at Information Management Online notes in a post on the Ventana study, the findings “indicate that most organizations revealed they’re still in early stages of development, with only 15 percent at the highest innovation level of maturity in the Ventana Research Maturity Index. Size of the organization was a relevant factor, and organizations with 10,000 or more employees, or more than $10 billion in revenue, found to be more mature. There is growth in advancing BI into performance management in the areas of operations, finance and customer management in more than half of organizations, and a strong desire to improve in 41 percent of them.”

“The market for BI has been advancing for decades, but organizations have not achieved the value of deployments with lack of sophistication use of technologies and overuse of spreadsheets,” says Mark Smith, CEO and EVP Research of Ventana Research. “But making BI efficient is not sufficient, as helping organizations enable performance management is just as important. Both BI and performance management are not as mature as you think, as this research found that we are at an inflection point of improvement.”

More than anything, the Ventana study shows that effective performance management initiatives require a substantial investment in time and resources – beyond the capital invested to acquire the technology. At PerformanceG2, we have seen many customers make substantial investments in software and services, only to fail to grasp the challenges of user-adoption, change management and end-user training required to ensure long-term success. This is why all of our service engagements include a post-implementation training program that ensures that both administrative and business users are sufficiently trained to get the most out of the new technology. In our experience, effective user-adoption is ofter the key variable in the success or failure of any CPM or BI initiatives.

For more information on CPM and BI services and solutions that can help your organizations, connect with us at (877) 742-4276 or email us at info@performanceg2.com
 
Contact the Blogger

 
By Candace Taylor, Marketing Coordinator for PerformanceG2
 
Are you a Business Intelligence Admin looking for more transparency in your BI environment? This awesome app by Motio, MotioPI FREEware for IBM Cognos, allows you to investigate your BI environment’s components, users, content, report details, schedules, dependencies and more. It is the perfect tool to become familiar with a new environment, identify constraints, monitor usage behavior and ensure that your IBM Cognos BI environment is aligned with your resources and infrastructure for optimal performance.

The best part about this app, is that it is a free tool, designed with IBM Cognos BI admins in mind. Watch this short MotioPI demo to learn more about the app and what it can do. Or to start using the free tool, click here to download it.
 

Motio and PerformanceG2, together provide complete and comprehensive solutions and products for organizations to achieve maximum return on their BI and Financial Planning investments. For more information on the Motio and PerformanceG2 partnership, visit performanceg2.com/about/partners/
 
 
And if you are interested in learning how PerformanceG2 can help meet your needs with BI solutions, email us at info@performanceg2.com or call 877.742.4272. Or for complete access to BI, CPM and Cognos industry news, updates and tips and techniques, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, watch our YouTube Videos or connect with us on LinkedIn.
 
 
Contact the Blogger

 
Kirk Wiseman, VP of Training for PerformanceG2
 
For many organizations, TM1 is a critical application that must be maintained as a 24×7 enterprise application. In these cases, it is not acceptable to shutdown the TM1 server to perform a backup. TM1 provides organizations the ability to maintain 24×7 uptime, and also perform regular backups of the data directory. Several changes will need to be made to the default settings of the TM1 server configuration file (tm1s.cfg) in order to perform a live backup successfully.

The advantages of this method include ease of administration, 24×7 system uptime and automation which can be created within TM1 using Turbo Integrator and Chores. The disadvantages of this method include initial configuration that must be performed, and the possibility of lost data between “saves” if the data directory files become corrupt.

The following steps must be performed in order to run backups from a live TM1 server:

1) Modify the default TM1 server configuration file (tm1s.cfg)

• Point the log files to a location other than the data directory by inserting the “LoggingDirectory” parameter in the configuration file. By default, TM1 writes log files to the data directory. Since these files will be open and active while the TM1 server is running, any attempt to back them up will result in a file sharing violation and may cause a backup process to fail.
• Verify that the “AuditLogOn” parameter is set to ‘F’. This is the default setting, however if the “AuditLogOn” parameter is set to ‘T’, then as in the case above with the transaction logs, open and active files will be in the data directory. Attempting a backup will cause a file sharing violation which may result in a backup failure.

2) The administrator must perform, or must set up automation to perform, a “Save Data All” command. This command should be executed immediately prior to backing up the TM1 server. This command takes all changed data in RAM and saves it to the TM1 data directory files, where it is then able to be captured in the back up process.

3) Backup all files in the TM1 data directory

• Create a batch file called tm1back.bat that has the following script: “C:\program files\winzip\winzip32.exe” -a -p -r c:\backup\tm1backup.zip “C:\<tm1data folder>\*.*”

4) This process can easily be automated through the use of Turbo Integrator calling the batch file and scheduling the Turbo Integrator job via the TM1 Chores.

• Expand the TM1 sever and click on “Processes”;
• Click on the “Advanced” tab;
• Click on the “Epilog” tab;
• Below the “#****End: Generated Statements****” line, type the following:
  SaveDataAll;
  ExecuteCommand(‘C:\<folder where you saved the batch file>\TM1backup.bat’,0);
• Click on the “Save” icon or choose from the menu, “File” > “Save As…”
• Enter a name for the process, for example Backup
• Next, click on the “Schedule” tab;
• Check the box “Schedule this process as a chore named:”;
• Enter a name for the new Chore, for example Backup Chore
• Choose a start date and a frequency and then click “Save”

There you have it – a scheduled backup procedure that will create a backup of your TM1 server without having to shutdown the server!
 
Contact the Blogger

 
Ken Davenport, President of PerformanceG2
 
Last week’s $5.8 billion purchase of Sybase by SAP, sent shockwaves through the industry, and made smaller by one of the few truly “independent” technology providers in the market. The acquisition of Sybase follows the 2007 purchase of Business Objects by SAP, and comes on the heels of a 24 month consolidation spree that saw Cognos swallowed up by IBM and Hyperion becoming part of Oracle.

So what will the impact of the SAP/BO/Sybase mashup be?

An interesting take can be found on Boris Evelson’s blog at Information Management. Boris is a principal analyst at Forrester Research, and is a leading expert in the BI marketplace. Here’s a snippet of his take on the Sybase deal:

“The Obvious:

• SAP Gets its own relational (Sybase ASE) and analytical (Sybase IQ) DBMS. Why is this a positive since SAP already has tight partnerships with major DBMS and DW vendors such as: Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Teradata and HP? Simple. First, SAP can now control the code. Second, SAP can now potentially reduce reliance on DBMS partners, most of whom (Oracle, IBM, Microsoft) have their own full software stacks and therefore compete, often putting a strain on partnership relationships.
• SAP also gets highly relevant (for low latency BI) and currently missing CEP technology from the Sybase Aleri acquisition and on OEM version of Coral8.
• Sybase gets badly needed BI front end on top of its Sybase IQ analytical DBMS. While Sybase is leading the market in the columnar DBMS, it is somewhat challenged selling and positioning the products with the business buyers, since they can’t really see, feel or touch it.

The Not-So Obvious:

• Will SAP BW be now certified on ASE, IQ or both? IQ is probably a better choice, since BW is mostly analytical and not transactional. But first, that would require giving IQ an MDX interface which it does not have…”

To read Boris’ full-blog on the deal, click here.

Contact the Blogger

 
By Candace Taylor, Marketing Coordinator for PerformanceG2
 

Clark County Nevada, the United States’ 15th largest county and home to the world-famous Las Vegas Strip, provides regional services to its more than 2 million residents and employs more than 8,000 people in 38 departments. Clark County Family Services Department is the local public agency whose role is to help keep children safe, as required by the Federal Adoption and Safe Families Act. The department runs numerous services – from child protective services to foster care services to adoption services – all of which require a large amount of data input and access via a case management system. Executive management, BI analysts and child welfare staff all use the system frequently to run ad hoc and daily reports.

Clark County Family Services Department needed to implement a BI solution that would not only streamline reporting, but also help comply with new state regulations. IBM Cognos 8 BI worked with the statewide system to improve the department’s reporting process, benchmark new services and measure business performance.

“In light of a fast-growing state population and struggling economic climate, we were able to not only boost our quality of service, but also generate about $4 million in new revenue. The IBM Cognos solution, with its ability to help identify bottlenecks and improve business processes, was instrumental in these successes – so much so that other county departments are now implementing the solution and mirroring our BI infrastructure.” – Eboni Washington, QA/QI Supervisor, Family Services Department, Clark County
 

 
To read more on this client success story and how IBM Cognos and PerformanceG2 were able to help Clark County, click here.

And if you are interested in learning how PerformanceG2 can help meet your needs with BI solutions, email us at info@performanceg2.com or call 877.742.4272.
 
 
Contact the Blogger