By Candace Taylor, Marketing Coordinator for PerformanceG2
 
Join PerformanceG2 Cognos expert and Senior Consultant, Sanjeev Datta, for a complimentary, one-day IBM Cognos TM1 Workshop in Portland on February 18, 2010. You know you need a better solution for financial performance management – planning, budgeting, forecasting, consolidations, analytics and reporting. But during the current economic downturn, cost-cutting measures and making the most of existing resources have become the order of the day. This workshop will provide a pragmatic approach to embracing and transforming the use of spreadsheets for more effective financial and operational performance management.

Experience a real-time approach to consolidating, viewing and editing enormous volumes of multi-dimensional data. With patented, 64-bit, in-memory OLAP server, IBM Cognos TM1 is the fastest way to deliver immediate value to your organization. In this workshop you’ll learn the key concepts and functionality of IBM Cognos TM1 and build a simple, easy-to-use application for expense management.

The seminar will include:

• Understanding OLAP and multi-dimensional databases
• Creating dimensions and cubes
• Loading and managing data
• Defining business rules
• Building powerful end user applications

Register here for this free Workshop.
 
 
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By Candace Taylor, Marketing Coordinator for PerformanceG2
 
It’s simple, IBM’s Cognos Express is a cost and time efficient solution for those companies who have thought about integrating BI and Corporate Performance Management into their business plans, but couldn’t invest the time or money. Just ask Nucleus Research, global provider of research and advisory services. Their recent report on Cognos Express’s bottom line concludes that IBM’s “first and only integrated, one-stop BI and planning solution purpose-built to meet the needs of mid-size companies”, AKA a technology that minimizes time and costs.

So, what is “The Bottom Line” from Nucleus Research regarding their Cognos Express studies? “Senior managers who have balked at the cost and complexity of adopting technology such as business intelligence (BI) and performance management (PM) should consider IBM Cognos Express as a way to adopt these technologies while minimizing time to benefit, deployment costs, and support costs.”

Read the report here: IBM Cognos Express Notes and Reports.

Interested? Talk to one of our Cognos Express experts today, and we will let you play with Cognos Express for free for 30 days. And, we will give you 10% off the purchase of the software. Call us at 877-742-4276 or email us at info@performanceg2.com
 
 

 
 
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By Craig Harding, Consultant for PerformanceG2
 
 
Conditional Blocks

The goal of this report is to prompt users on which display they would prefer, a list or a chart.

To start, create a simple list report in Report Studio. Using the Cognos sample data, product line, order method and revenue are added to the list. From the toolbox, drag and place a pie chart below the list. Select the chart and in the properties pane, attach this chart to query 1:
 

 
 
Now the chart can be populated from the data items tab.
 

 
 
The consumers of this report need the ability to choose between the displays they want to see. To accomplish this, build a blank prompt page allowing them to select from a drop down list either list or chart. Drag a value prompt to the prompt page with the following settings:
 

 
At this point hit ‘Finish”. The dropdown list has to be populated manually though the static choices property of the value prompt. The two choices added are list and chart.
 

 

 
*You can leave the display value blank. If you do so, Report Studio is smart enough that it will take the use value for the display value.

Now that my prompt page is set, return to the Report Page. In order to conditionally display an object, use the conditional blocks object in the toolbox. Drag this to the bottom of the report.
 

 
 
The next step is to attach the variable to the conditional blocks block variable property. This variable is a Boolean variable that either equals a list or doesn’t.
 

 

 

 
 
We need to test if our parameter is equal to the value ‘List’. If the user selected List this expression will evaluate to true, if the user selected ‘Chart’ from the prompt, then this will evaluate to false.

After this step is completed there is a new property on the conditional blocks object that tell us which block we are currently looking at. First, drag the chart into the ‘No’ block.
 

 

 
Now, select the conditional block again, and switch the current block property to ‘Yes’. The conditional blocks object appears empty because there is currently nothing in the ‘Yes’ block.
 

 
The final step is to drag the entire list inside the ‘Yes’ block.
 

 
Now when the report is run, the user will be prompted for their display of choice.
 
 
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By Sanjeev Datta, Consultant for PerformanceG2
 
There are multiple ways of enhancing the performance of TM1 using tools and techniques. This week for my 3-part blog series, I will be discussing Database Techniques.

 
Database Techniques

TM1′s in-memory or “on-demand” architecture is made possible with the way it handles memory management. TM1 uses algorithms which efficiently compress data to allow large data sets to fit in relatively small amounts of RAM which result in reduced storage and improved performance. This sparse memory management scheme allows the server to hold very large cubes in much less space compared to the same amount of data stored in a relational database.

Below are the Database Techniques you could use to improve performance:
 
1. ReadersBypassWriters: This is a manual addition that needs to be made to the configuration file (TM1s.cgf). When this value is st to TRUE, it causes a write to the TM1 database to wait until all prior read requests are executed. Any writing requests to the database only begin when no incoming read requests are detected.
 
2. Locking: This prevents other users from reading or writing to the server while a TI process is executing. This is done within Turbo Integrator (TI) so as not to corrupt memory or cause a server crash when updating server objects at the same time that users are trying to read from the server.
 
3. Batch Updates: A best practice, batch updates allow you to improve the performance of input-intensive applications by holding changes to cube data and saving those changes to cubes in a single batch. This would hold all edits to cubes residing on a selected server in a temporary storage structure until the batch update is saved. After the batch is sent, all edits are committed to the target server and the temp storage structure is destroyed. This process minimizes the impact on users who need to access the server when the TI process is running. Typically performance by a TM1 Administrator or a process creator and can be scheduled to run as a chore in TM1. All edits that are held in batch updates are not written to the servers log file until you save the batch updates. NOTE: If you lose connection to your TM1 server, or if the server shuts down abruptly, all changes/edits would be lost.
 
Check back next week for part 3 of Performance Enhancements to the TM1 Environment blog series where I will be discussing spreadsheets.
 
 
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By Sanjeev Datta, Consultant for PerformanceG2
 
There are multiple ways of enhancing the performance of TM1 using tools and techniques. In my new, 3-part, weekly blog series, I will be discussing performance enhancements to the TM1 environment.

Performance in TM1 can be increased within 3 areas: the server, the database and spreadsheets. For part 1 of my series this week, I will be discussing the server.

 
Server Techniques

The various techniques available for performance tuning TM1 under the server category are: Stargate Views (SGV), using the control cube “}CubeProperties” and tuning RAM.
 
Stargate Views (SGV): Stargate Views (SGV) are calculated and stored subsections of TM1 cubes that are created when you browse a cube with the cube viewer or create a slice using the slice button in the cube viewer. SGV’s contain only the data for a defined section of a cube and do not contain the formatting and/or browser setting information. This allows the views to be smaller than an entire cube, hence, requires much less server storage memory allowing it to be queried and manipulated much more efficiently because the dimensions occupying the title position of a view are limited to the single elements. SGV’s not only allow quicker access to cube data, they also persist in memory only as long as the browser view from which it originates remains unchanged. The TM1 engine creates and purges these views dynamically when necessary. In an instance when there are multiple views available, the oldest view is dropped from the temporary memory to allow room for the newer view. SGV’s could be best described as “sub-cubes” created in memory, based on title, row and column dimensions of a specific user view. SGV’s can also be setup by Turbo Integrator (TI) functions like the “View Construct”. This function is valid only in TI processes. It constructs, pre-calculates and stores the result in ofa SGV memory of a TM1 server. This function is useful for pre-calculating and storing large views so they can be quickly accessed after a data load or update.

Example:
ViewConstruct(CubeName, ViewName);
Where “ViewName” is a publicly share view
 
SGV’s with Excel Slices: When working with slices, a “view” function is created in Excel worksheets. The syntax for these “views” contains cube name and its elements (rows, dimensions, titles). The SGV created in this environment helps in performance tuning – but developers must be made aware that deleting or incorrectly modifying the “view” function may have profoundly negative effects on the worksheet recalculation times, server memory consumption and server stability if the cube you are referencing by the DB formula, is very large.

The above changes are manually added to the tm1s.cfg (TM1 configuration file). These changes can significantly improve performance as they are related to the use of stargate views.

The above screen shot represents the 2 manual changes made to the “tm1s.cgf” configuration file.

1. DisableWorkSheetViews set to TRUE
This addition disables any “view” functions contained in slice worksheets. Although, any worksheet containing a “view” function may still be functional but the function does not generate a stargate view (SGV).

2. UseStargateForRules set to TRUE
When set to TRUE, this manual addition to the configuration file allows TM1 to retrieve, by default, a calculated value from a SGV stored in memory. This can significantly improve performance since it is more efficient to retrieve a calculated value from memory than to request and retrieve a calculation from the server.
 
Using Control Cubes: There are various control cubes in a TM1 environment. Their uses range from Security, Administration, Performance Monitoring, Object Attribute and Property.

}CubeProperties- falls under the property category of TM1 system cubes and can be viewed in the Server Explorer: View->Display Control Objects

This control cube stores property values of all cubes and can be used to enhance the performance of existing cubes in an environment. Some of the definitions from this control cube determine how the cube is loaded on a TM1 server, what the measure and time dimensions are and if cube logging is enabled. In case you migrate cubes from one server to the other using replications – some of the properties define the source cube, replication status and sync information between views and rules.

View Maximum Memory (VMM) and View Minimum Time (VMT) are 2 properties which can help you performance tune your TM1 cubes.

VMM: This is the amount of memory the TM1 Server will allocate for all Stargate views for a given cube. The values are entered in kilobytes and the default value (if not specified otherwise) is 64KB. The more memory made available for SGV’s, the better the performance will be. However, one must keep in mind sufficient memory exists for the TM1 server to load all cubes.

Example: Consider 100MB allocated to a cube in memory. While the user opens views during an active session, the first Stargate view requires 60MB, while the 2nd SGV requires another 30 MB. This leaves 10MB or 10% remaining for any other views. Now, a thirdy view (SGV) requiring 70MB needs to be utilized. How does TM1 manage this? An intelligent memory management algorithm frees up another 60% of memory that was originally being used by the 1st SGV, hence allocating a total 70MB for the 3rd SGV. This is an example of how VMM is used to establish the amount of memory that will be used when dealing with SGVs.

VMT: This cube property defines the time threshold in seconds beyond which the algorithm that stores TM1 SGV’s is triggered. If the time requires calculating a cube view surpasses the specified threshold, TM1 attempts to store the SGV. If there is not enough memory available to store the SGV, TM1 purges the oldest SGV that is not currently in use and continues to purge views in this manner until sufficient memory is made available.
 
Tuning RAM in a 32-bit Environment: The following describes how to tune RAM so that 3GB is available to the TM1 server. NOTE: This procedure would require you to modify the “boot.ini” Windows system file and can have adverse affects if not performed correctly!

1. Verify that your operating system (OS) is one of the following that supports RAM tuning:
a. Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
b. Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
c. Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
d. Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition

2. Open C:/boot.ini in a text editor

3. Add the “/3GB” switch to the end of the last line of boot.ini

4. Reboot the physical server in which the TM1 server runs

 
Check back next week for part 2 of Performance Enhancements to the TM1 Environment blog series where I will be discussing database techniques.
 
 
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By Sanjeev Datta, Consultant for PerformanceG2
 
Last week, as part of my 4-part blog series,TM1 Top Utility. Today is the final chapter of my 4-part TM1 series and I will be reviewing performance counters.

Check back in next week where I will be starting another blog series on performance enhancements to TM1 environment.
 
Windows Performance Monitoring and “PerfMon”
The Windows Performance Monitoring tools is nothing but the task manager on a Windows System. There are 2 ways of monitoring the performance of the TM1 server: the Task Manager Process Tab and the PerfMon — another built-in TM1 Performance monitoring tool. This console tool provides a display of TM1 performance counters.
 

 
For more information about Cognos TM1 and Cognos TM1 training, email us at info@performanceg2.com
 
 
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Ken Davenport, President of PerformanceG2, Inc.

As business intelligence consultants, we know well the many potential pitfalls of trying to establish an enterprise business intelligence strategy.  Organizations — both large and small — are made up of distinct operating units that often compete for scarce resources.  This is never more true than now, with a slow economy and dwindling IT budgets.  Many projects get started in specific departments and end up being siloed — precisely where you don’t want them to be if you are looking to use technology to gain a “single version of the truth” about your company’s performance.

The most successful BI strategies incorporate a holistic approach that looks at your company as a series of interdependent parts.  Information that remains siloed is of little value to decision-makers, who need a broad view of the business to understand how decisions will affect performance.

A great article in CIO magazine that came out way back in 2007 dealt with many of these issues and I’ve linked to it here: 1o Keys to a Successful BI Strategy.

The ten keys will seem straightforward, but are much easier said than done.  They range from choosing a C-level sponsor (but NOT the CIO),  having a common understanding of business terminology, understanding the needs of the business, start with “low-hanging fruit” that will lead to a quick win, and picking the right consulting partner who can assist you in avoiding the common pitfalls inherent to the DYI approach.

For more information on how PerformanceG2 can assist you in your BI strategy, click here.

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IBM has increased its strategic move into Business Intelligence in a $1.2 Billion purchase of analytics firm SPSS, Inc.  The move is designed to augment the company’s 2008 acquisition of Cognos, which established IBM as a leader in the corporate performance management business.

Details of the acquisition can be found here.

The acquisition of SPSS will enable IBM to deepen its competitive abilities in the strategic services business, where it competes head-to-head with SAP and Oracle.  Both SAP (with its acquisition of Business Objects) and Oracle (Hyperion) have moved to improve their analytics offerings as part of their enterprise-scale data management solutions.

For IBM, however, the acquisition of Cognos and SPSS are in line with the strategic objective of enhancing its ability to provide strategic consulting services.   The recent economic conditions have created an opportunity to use analytics solutions to improve profitability and efficiency, and IBM sees both of these as critical to companies in a recession.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the most recent financial results for IBM seem to bear this out — with the company making major inroads into analytics-based services business in health care, government and other strategic sectors.   The value proposition for IBM is that it can use its analytics technology to assist customers in managing their operations. The SPSS software, for example, is used by the Atlanta Police to assist it in determining which parolees with re-offend.  This kind of work is central to IBM’s “services-first” strategy:

Using proprietary software and data from from motion and temperature sensors, IBM tells railroads how to make trains run on time and utilities how to cut electricity use. Projects in the energy sector, transportation, water and health care are part of what it calls “smarter planet” projects.

“We look for the consulting arm to lead our entry to the client,” driving sales of other products, says IBM Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge.

The consulting work falls under IBM’s Global Business Services unit, which grew 9% last year to $19.6 billion, or about a fifth of IBM’s revenue of $103 billion.

The following graphic underscores the importance of services now at IBM:

It is clear that Cognos and SPSS fit squarely into IBM’s future — making it clear that even in a recession, investing in analytics is a smart move for all companies!

Craig Colangelo, Senior Consultant for PerformanceG2

This is part one of a five part series on successful scorecarding. Over the course of the next several weeks, we’ll touch on the following scorecard related topics…

• Strategy and corporate performance management
• Identifying benefits
• Understanding potential risks
• Realizing opportunities
• Scorecarding 101
• Requirements gathering
• Best practices & other practical advice

Tune in weekly for the latest and greatest!

Many successful companies realize the importance of strategy and the benefits of driving performance in the desired strategic direction. Unfortunately, relatively few have properly articulated, communicated, or implemented the practical means to wind up at their chosen strategic destination. Scorecarding applications allow you to do just that…guide day to day decisions in the direction of your company’s chosen strategy. Living your company’s mission statement OR strategy/road map OR balanced scorecard doesn’t have to be a pipe dream or something that only happens in an annual review. Implementing a pragmatic and actionable scorecarding system gives employees the ability to think and act strategically every day.

The uses of conventional BI systems are really only one part of a larger corporate performance management opportunity. Combining planning components (drive the business), scorecarding components (monitor/influence the business), and reporting components (understand the business) allows for a fully synergistic decision making continuum. This is true closed-loop analytics, where clearly stated strategy influences outcomes, and those outcomes influence future planning, and so on. In this continuum, corporate strategy can now be implemented and thoughtfully executed at all desired levels of the organization.

Now that we’ve set the table on where scorecarding fits in terms of living strategy and corporate performance management, we’ll spend next week’s post detailing the benefits, identifying risks, and better understanding scorecarding opportunities.

(more…)

Kirk Wiseman, VP of Training for PerformanceG2
A requirement of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is for all funds to be tracked and results measured. IBM Cognos 8 and PerformanceG2 are perfectly positioned to help Federal, State and local governments meet the stringent ARRA requirements. Check out the links below to learn more about reporting on your Economic Recovery Funds:
Tracking and Measuring Funds with IBM Cognos 8

Tracking and Measuring the Success of Your Agency’s Stimulus Dollars archive seminar

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