A Better TM1 Monitor Tool

Compared with traditional TM1 Top, in 10.1, IBM issued a new web-based TM1 monitor tool - TM1 Operations Console.

It provides the basic server monitoring functionality provided by the TM1Top utility with some important additions:

• The Cognos TM1 Operations Console can monitor multiple Cognos TM1 servers at the same time.
• The Health feature allows for instant feedback on the current state of servers.
• Filtering helps highlight specific states for multiple servers.
• Sorting allows administrators to quickly identify which servers are in specific states.
• The Cognos TM1 Operations Console can use Scheduled Logging to monitor activity offline.

The following sample show multiple servers being monitored in the Cognos TM1 Operations Console:

It is one of default components if you intall TM1 package and default web server is Apache Tomcat provided with Cognos TM1. Here is the location: Select and install the Web Application Tier > Cognos TM1 Operations Console component.

Use the following set of steps to install it (IBM Link for detailed installation steps):

• Add certificates to the JRE keystore
  The IBM Cognos TM1 Operations Console requires a certificate in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) keystore.
• Deploy Cognos TM1 Operations Console with the provided version of Apache Tomcat
  Use the IBM Cognos Configuration tool to deploy the IBM Cognos TM1 Operations Console with the version of Apache Tomcat provided with the Cognos TM1 installation. The Cognos TM1 Operations Console uses the same version of Tomcat as the IBM Cognos TM1 Application Server.
• Create a user group for the Cognos TM1 Operations Console
  The IBM Cognos TM1 Operations Console requires a designated Cognos TM1 user group that you create in Cognos TM1 Architect.
• Edit the OpsConfig.xml file
  The IBM Cognos TM1 Operations Console uses an XML file to identify the user group, server, and admin host to use. Before you can run the Cognos TM1 Operations Console, you need to update this configuration file with the information that describes your new monitoring group.
• Configure Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 for the Cognos TM1 Operations Console
  You need to do some additional configuration to use the Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 web browser with the IBM Cognos TM1 Operations Console.
• Start and log into the Cognos TM1 Operations Console

According to my practice, the first one is pretty important. Please make sure you have done that otherwise the Admin Hosts you added would be "None of the servers are contactible". After that, restart your TM1 Application Server to make it effect. 

 

If you already have some groups, you can just skip the third step to use existing ones. And then update OpsConfig.xml to add your admin host, tm1 server and group name. You can just add one admin host because from there, you can also monitor other admin hosts. (But make sure all admin hosts are listed in this server's tm1s.cfg file.) 

Then go to your IE, type http://server_name:port_number/tm1operationsconsole, this address can be found in your TM1 Application Server.

After adding Operation Group -> Admin Host -> Server, you can start to monitor all your TM1 servers in one window. It is pretty convenient and no need to configure TM1 Top one by one.

One more thing, to kill one process, just right click the line for that ID and kill it.

Have fun and that makes our life easier!

Basic TM1 Tips for Green Hand

1.    When presenting views to business users, make sure you create the view in all detailed levels as default and tick “Automatic Recalculation”.
2.    You can create a “Picklist” in dimension’s attributes which allows users to select values from drop-down list.
3.    Use “Driver” cubes to centralize all rates, values etc and use DB function in rules to refer to it.
4.    Don’t forget to consider maintenance when designing cubes.
5.    Prefer to use weight to do addition or subtraction instead of rules for consolidations.
6.    Dimension order should be from smallest/sparsest to largest/densest and measure dimension would be the last one when creating cubes.
7.    Always add roll-up level for dimensions.
8.    If dimensions are nested, you can’t use filter in cube viewer.
9.    Think about the following when building a cube
       a.    Purpose of the cube
       b.    What the measures?
       c.    What else dimensions do I need?
       d.    Build
       e.    Create default view and format
       f.    Write rules/feeders if necessary and test
       g.    Load
       h.    Publish if necessary
10.    When an element belongs to a group in dimension, if you delete it, TM1 just takes it out from the group and put it in the last. Delete it again if you really don’t need it.
11.    Alias is useful for displaying alternative names but also can be used for loading. E.g. you have staff name in the dimension and also use alias for staff number. TM1 would firstly search for staff name and then look for staff number in alias.
12.    Set order each time when creating dimension before saving it.
13.    When you see “#N/A” in cubes, it would be either circular reference or dividing by zero.
14.    Dimension order is very important.
15.    As long as you write a rule for a cube, performance engine would be turned off automatically. So you need remember rules and feeders are combined together.
16.    Under feeding or only writing “SKIPCHECK” would lead to zero consolidations.
17.    Over feeding or only writing “FEEDERS” could work but still have slow performance.
18.    When you have DB functions in rules, you need write feeders in the referenced cubes and use DB functions to feed it back to the source cubes.
19.    Whenever you open a view in a cube, TM1 would execute rules first and then aggregate cells for consolidations.
20.    Addition and subtraction need feeders for all elements in the formula.
21.    Multiplication and division only need feeders for the sparsest element depends on business rules.
22.     When using wizard for DB function, remove anything in the field before clicking on subset button on the right.
23.    Use “Trace Calculation” or “Check Feeders” in views when you see zero for consolidations and values for detail levels.
24.    Use curly braces to feed multiple elements to same target cell.
25.    Rule sequence should be from specific to generic.
26.    Use DB function in rules to test a string.
27.    You can use custom format sometimes such as 0.00”%”.
28.    Use UPPERCASE for all rollup elements or consolidations.
29.    Active form can be drilled down, formatted quickly and have dynamic subset on rows.
30.    Whenever you don’t save data when exiting the server, TM1 would generate *.REJ file to backup and you can use TI process to load it for recovery.
31.    You can create TM1 server by shortcuts or windows service by using different parameters.
32.    Attribute and lookup cube can be useful but only admin can modify attributes.
33.    When specifying values for leaf cell and consolidation cell, you need to write them down in one formula.  E.g. [‘Price’] =:N .... ; :C 0;
34.    When creating dimension, usually we need to use TI process to create them from files dynamically and further create dynamic subset from them as well. These processes would be scheduled automatically.
35.    When using TI to create dimension, you should just put one variable as “Element”. For loading cubes, they have many.
36.    Make sure you use your own view such as “TIXXXXX” to copy data within cube or between cubes.
37.    The security applies according to this order. Cube->Dimension->Element->Cell
38.    No need to add feeders for string elements and they are only for numeric elements.
39.    You can use “Re-order dimensions” or “Load on Demand” to improve performance.
40.    You can use relative data spreading functions to reference data from other cubes but make sure referenced cube has same dimensions on column.
41.     When replicating, you need to careful about modification on same cells on different servers as only the source server takes precedence and change from other servers would be overwritten. The replication is merging changes from all different servers and bi-directional.
42.    When copying data in one cube for different views, you can just use a new variable in TI to specify different element such as “Final Version” and the original one should be ignored.
43.    When Cognos Framework Manager is connecting to TM1, you need to specify which dimension is measure in cube properties first.
44.    For lock permission, only admin can unlock it.
45.    Six permissions have precedence.

Useful Excel Tips for TM1 Operations

(F8) - Toggles whether to extend a selection with the arrow keys.

(Ctrl + Spacebar) - Selects the current column.

(Shift + Spacebar) - Selects the current row.
   
(Ctrl + Shift + 8) - Selects the current region (block of contiguous cells).

(Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar) - Selects the whole worksheet.

(Shift + F4) - Repeat last find.

(Ctrl + Backspace) - return to the active cell.

(Ctrl + Arrow Key) - Move to the edge of next data region (cells that contains data).

(Ctrl + Shift + Arrow Key) - Selects the rest whole worksheet.

(Ctrl + D) - Fill complete cell down (Copy above cell).

(Ctrl + R) - Fill complete cell to the right (Copy cell from the left).

It is possible to change the active cell in a selected range without changing the whole selection by using the Enter key to manoeuvre within the selection.

F9 = recalculate all worksheets in all open workbooks

SHIFT-F9 = recalculate the active spreadsheet only ( but not rebuild the active forms).

CTRL-F9 =  minimizes a workbook window to an icon.

Ctrl-Alt-F9 = recalculate all worksheets in all active workbooks

CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-F9 = "relink" the workbook to Tm1 when the connection was "confused" between Excel and "Perspectives".

Alt-F9 = rebuild of the active form

F2-Enter = recalculate a single cell

TM1 MDX RUNNER is on its way!

It will be developed in VB.

TM1 Tip - Feeders

For debugging feeders,
1. Go to detail level of one specific example.
2. If the rule is very long, make sure there is no TYPO!!! (This is very important since many errors come from this kind of issue.)
3. Use "Trace Calculation" to make sure calculation is right.
4. Use "Check Feeders" to verify it is fed or not.
5. From source cells, use "Trace Feeders" to check if it is feeding right target cells or not.
6. You can put some specific feeder ( e.g. one specific cell) to feed target cells and check.
7. Usually, the rules and feeders will take effect immediately after saving to servers. ( no need to restart server and run refreshing feeder process.)
8. To feed multiple cells at one time, you can feed their consolidate cells directly.
9. You need to find some key drivers to make the feeders fire, especially for conditional feeders. In other words, Don't always obey the formulas. E.g. >>>
10. Turn off Zero Suppression when using one small example and you will find target values are there with improper feeding.
11. The intermediate values coming from other fomulas can be used as feeders.
12. It is recommended to use CubeProcessFeeders(CubeName) function to proccess feeders rather than restarting server each time.
13. Be careful about saving rules to server as once it starts rule attaching, you can't stop it until server crashed by using the memory up. Thus, you can save data first before saving any complex rule.

Useful TM1 language highlighter for Notepad ++

I worte it and it supports all languages up to 9.5.2 in TM1 (Process scripts, rules etc.)
You can use latest Notepad++ to import this UDL xml file into it and it would be there in Language menu for you to select and highlight.
In Notepad ++, View -> User Defined Dialogue... -> Import
From >>> , you can find the attachment.