TM1 10.1.1

[declanr]

"The latest version, IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.1, will enable you to re-excite customers & prospects about these great innovations, and will extend the lead by further refining quality and enterprise readiness with:
• Improvements to the user experience:
o Email notifications and attached commentary
o Improved charting and interactive gestures
o And complete off-line availability for IBM Cognos Insight users
• Greater enhancements to modeling and data and metadata management in Performance Modeler
• Additional features for dynamic server monitoring in the Operational Console

The new capabilities enables organisations to more easily reduce silos of data, improve collaboration and increase business agility in order to drive performance at all levels.
•
• More Time for value added experiences - with improvements to the user experience:
-- Faster, more effective analytics, decision-making and planning
-- Greater collaboration and efficiencies of scale
-- Reduced cost of ownership.
• More Control for greater business agility - with enhancements to modeling and data management
-- Greater visibility to enterprise performance and profitability
-- Eliminate delays in coordinating to emerging realities
• More Confidence to make better business decisions - with improved solution performance monitoring
-- Improved enterprise-level planning and forecasting
-- Greater accuracy in plan models"



All I saw was "EMAIL"... what do you reckon the chances are of it not just being via the use of BI?

[lotsaram]

All I saw was "EMAIL"... what do you reckon the chances are of it not just being via the use of BI?

About 0.

[stephen waters]

"The latest version, IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.1, will enable you to re-excite customers & prospects about these great innovations, and will extend the lead by further refining quality and enterprise readiness with:
o Email notifications and attached commentary
o Improved charting and interactive gestures
o And complete off-line availability for IBM Cognos Insight users

I assume (and hope) that the email and commentary refers to Contributor\Planner. Lack of email notification is currently a big hole in work flow.

Improved interactive gestures? I will refrain from a rude comment ( or indeed gesture) there. No idea what that means

Off line availability - good idea and in line with general direction.

There are a couple of partner events this week where we are getting product updates Cognos Insight 10.2 today, so hopefully will get more info.

Gives us just enough time to update slides for our customer update day!

[moby91]

All I saw was "EMAIL"... what do you reckon the chances are of it not just being via the use of BI?

About 0.

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27035837
Using email notifications in 10.1.1 IBM Cognos TM1 Applications

Product documentation

Abstract
In TM1 10.1.1 you can send automated email to users when you take certain actions on your applications.


Content
Email notifications

You can add workflow email notifications to IBM Cognos TM1 applications.

To use email notifications

* The Cognos TM1 servers must be Cognos Access Management (CAM)-authenticated using Mode 5 authentication.

* Human Task Services

* Notifications are processed using the Human Task Service and Mail Delivery Service from the Cognos platform. These services are installed either as part of the Cognos Business Intelligence (BI) Server install which C10 BI users have, or as part of the Cognos BI Runtime install which Cognos TM1 customers with no Cognos BI license are entitled to. These platform services must be at 10.1.1 or newer.

Attention: If you install Cognos TM1 the Cognos BI Runtime solely in support of workflow email notifications, you must provide a supported RDBMS instance, for example DB2, SQL Server or Oracle, to use as a Content Store. Alternatively, the Cognos Content Store based on Apache Derby may be used as a test environment. Apache Derby is not provided with the Cognos BI Runtime that Cognos TM1 users can access, and should not be used for Production systems.


Prerequisites for using email notifications

* An installed Cognos BI Server or Cognos BI Runtime with the Human Task Service and Mail Delivery Service.

* The Cognos TM1 Application Server installed and configured against Cognos Access Management (CAM)-authenticated Cognos TM1 servers.

* The relevant Cognos TM1 Applications gateway components installed on the Cognos BI Server, and configured correctly, as described in the IBM Cognos TM1 Installation and Configuration Guide. Edit the planning.html file in c10_install_location\webcontent to point to the location of the Cognos TM1 Application Server, for example, http://machinename.com:9510.

* A Cognos TM1 Application deployed from Cognos Cognos TM1 Performance Modeler and with appropriate Rights assigned.

[moby91]

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.w ... wg24032681
Downloading IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.1

Abstract
This page describes how to download IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.1




htp://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27034263
Cognos TM1 10.1.1 fix list

Abstract
A comprehensive list of defect corrections for major releases, refresh packs and fix packs of Cognos TM1 10.1.1




http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.w ... wg27036005
Cognos TM1 10.1.1 Software Environments

Abstract
Software environments for Cognos TM1 10.1.1 are listed as active, compatible or not supported.




http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.w ... wg27027501
Supported environments ending with Cognos TM1 10.1.1

Abstract
Cognos is committed to supporting the latest technologies being used by our customers. As we move forward in our support for these newer technologies, Cognos TM1 10.1.1 will be the last release to support the environments and/or features listed in this document.

Content
Cognos is ending support for the following environments and/or features in an upcoming release. For a list of all current supported environments, please see the IBM Cognos TM1 10.1 Software Environments page.

Components
Advanced Rules Editor in TM1 Architect and TM1 Perspectives

Utilities
TM1Top




http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27021893
Cognos TM1 version 10.1 and 10.1.1 product documentation

Abstract
This techdoc contains links to all of the product documentation in PDF format.

http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/data ... m1_nfg.pdf
TM1 10.1.1 New Features Guide




http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27032994
New feature updates for IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.1

Abstract
This document provides links to documentation for new features that were introduced in IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.1 after the core documentation and the formal New Features Guide were published.


Content

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27035863
Rule Aware Aggregate Support

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27035862
New Bouncing interface for TM1 Applications

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27035861
Adding attachments to TM1 Applications

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27035838
Centralized logging in TM1 Operations Console

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27035837
Email notifications in TM1 Applications

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27035835
Object Contention Analysis

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27035827
DashboardRefreshRate and Enhanced Status Detail in TM1 Operations Console

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27034273
Configuring TM1 Operations Console to monitor the TM1 Applications Server

[lotsaram]

possibly only IBM could manage it, pretty much all the links from the 10.1.1 new feature guide page are all broken and "can't be found" ... no further comment.

[Andy Key]

And now the link in the 10.1.1 New Features column (from http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27021893) takes you to the 10.1.0 NFG and vice versa.

They might get it fixed in time for 10.2.

[Steve Vincent]

ending support for the rules editor, but no mention of its replacement. if we are going back to the basic editor only thats the clearest indication yet about how little they now care about the core product.

[David Usherwood]

@steve
That's the 'new' (not very) rules editor which is pretty but doesn't allow you to create multidimensional [] references (among other issues)?

[Steve Vincent]

that is how i understood the tech note, yep. it might not be perfect, but its far better than the basic option.

[Alan Kirk]

ending support for the rules editor, but no mention of its replacement. if we are going back to the basic editor only thats the clearest indication yet about how little they now care about the core product.

that is how i understood the tech note, yep. it might not be perfect, but its far better than the basic option.

Except for those of us who still think that .xrus have the biggest amount of rockage

But seriously, you may have noted that TM1Top was on that list as well. Why?

Because as far as IBM is concerned, there is a replacement. The gateway to the core product, and the replacement to which you refer (one which does not rely on Microsoft products as a host, all hail the IBM anti-Microsoft jihad) is....

{drum roll...}

That clunky, bloated, slow moving, power-user-unfriendly, Java-based piece of {redacted} mis-named Performance Modeller which you will note (once you've cooked yourself a nice roast dinner in the time that it takes to start up) does have a rules editor which looks[1] remarkably similar to the Advanced Rules editor that you lament the passing of. But, of course (and here's the key point) it does not rely on Excel to host it. (Yes, yes, I know, the A.R.E. worked in Architect as well but I feel safe in suggesting that the usership of Architect is a bare fraction of the usership of Perspectives.)

And so the grand quest by IBM to pay back Microsoft for IBM having its backside handed to it by the market back in the PS/2 / OS/2 days continues, with we the users yet again copping the business end of it. (Easier to blame MS for that than to accept that it was a combination of IBM's greed and inferior products caused them to lose that war.) This is also why the chances of us getting any sort of replacement TI editor are nil (again outside of the laughable-but-it-ain't-funny effort that was passed off in Performance Modeller), and why they don't fix blatant oversights in the classic API, and why they've left the massively under-developed .Net API swinging in the wind.

[1] Provided, of course, you ignore the reduced (useful) functionality like the absence of a button to select the area to apply the rule to, and look at only the graphical design. After all, appearance is everything and in Cognos-Land it's Just Plain Wrong for you to be generating anything that doesn't come from a Wizard anyway.

[Harvey]

If the general direction of the product is to make Performance Modeller the only available development UI, then my next project for Flow will be an improved version of the TM1 Architect UI!

Good to see the email notifications in there, but it's pretty limited if it works only with Contributor events.

[Alan Kirk]

If the general direction of the product is to make Performance Modeller the only available development UI, then my next project for Flow will be an improved version of the TM1 Architect UI!

I don't think that they'll pull the "classic" development environments like the original Rules Editor or the TI Editorsaurus any time soon, but they probably won't feature heavily in any future certification courses. Let's face it, the "Advanced" Rules Editor never really worked "right" anyway, as David's post alludes to. Even the 9.4 release notes had to concede that some parts of it (without specifying which ones) weren't fully functional, and when I said that Sloth Modeller's one resembled the Advanced Rules Editor I was mainly working from memory; I can't get the accursed thing (that is, the A.R.E.) to launch in my 10.1/Windows 7 environment under either Excel 2003 or Excel 2010. It just flashes a window for a moment then vanishes. And as we know, IBM doesn't do screenshots in its documentation any more so I couldn't compare those.

Given that the official IBM theology is now that Java / Web is the way of the future it doesn't surprise me that they've pulled any future development work on an Excel-based interface that didn't work properly anyway. Irritates, but doesn't surprise.

Good to see the email notifications in there, but it's pretty limited if it works only with Contributor events.

Verily. That's another thing that people have been crying out for for ages, with all manner of kludges being used to get some sort of e-mail functionality. But again, if the desire is to try to drive a wedge between the user base and the classic non-Web environment then it doesn't surprise me.

Irritates (again), but doesn't surprise.

[Steve Vincent]

I'm just finding more and more reasons to not want to work with TM1. They are still in this weird world where they think people will buy their software no matter the cost. If it was utterly exceptional i might, but the more this meanders to web (which is still too slow and restrictive when compared to an installed client & Excel) with all the additional guff that is being bundled that i have no use for, the less i want to continue developing with it.

[declanr]

Good to see the email notifications in there, but it's pretty limited if it works only with Contributor events.

It's a nice idea but you need to have Cognos BI installed as well...

Prior to this extra "component" you could manually adjust the TI's which performed the Contributor events anyway and collaborate with a decent BI consultant to send emails as a result (in any BI product that offered email functionality).

Now that it has presented us with a nice GUI to do this as opposed to manual "tinkering" we are much more limited but have some as always "fantastic" IBM support to go with it!... I may resort to my favoured tinkering method however... especially since a lot of customers don't have Cognos BI but one of the rivals.

From what I have tested so far 10.1.1 feels more like a patch than anything but I'm not complaining since the last patch didn't exactly fill me with joy.

[mattgoff]

I'm just finding more and more reasons to not want to work with TM1. They are still in this weird world where they think people will buy their software no matter the cost. If it was utterly exceptional i might, but the more this meanders to web (which is still too slow and restrictive when compared to an installed client & Excel) with all the additional guff that is being bundled that i have no use for, the less i want to continue developing with it.

I've thought about this a lot, and I've been very vocal with them (and here) on how I think they've effectively gone nowhere in the six years I've been using the product. Other than the locking improvements (and possibly active forms but I have some major performance issues), IMHO all of the other changes have been a waste of engineering effort, either because they're useless or they don't work.

My conclusion is that the execs are picking sales over product management when it comes to engineering resourcing. Everything they've added since I started with 9.0 has made for a great bullet point on a flyer or in a demo but is completely useless in actual production. IMHO, they're selling out their customers on maintenance for their prospective customers. TM1 Web is broken, replication is broken, Perspectives UX is broken, documentation is broken-- and they have been since 2006 at least.

Matt

[standtrue]

It will be very interesting to see what happens in the TM1 space over the next few years.

On the one hand we have the existing user/consulting community with ~20 odd years of developing & interfacing in Architect and Perspectives, and on the other we have IBM introducing the very Cognos/EP-ish Performance Modeler & TM1 Applications portal.

As someone mentioned before the new TM1 10 Design & Develop course is all in Performance Modeler and the class (probably new clients) are not seeing Architect at all.

Consultants will want to develop in the "legacy" tools they feel comfortable in, and newly-trained clients will have to try to maintain or modify models in the new interfaces with predictably interesting results.

So will the existing consulting base grit their teeth and jump into the new tools once they are quasi-stable and stop doing silly things like generating feeders from rates, or will they simply make the rounds fixing the horrible auto-generated models until IBM decides to adjust their product roadmap back to a more manual & technical nature?

Will we see a mini-industry of EP-to-TM1 ports with PM with a bunch of EP consultants landing in the TM1 space? EP models are designed quite differently than TM1 models, and it's interesting (aggravating?) to see the product align with the EP style.

Will the 'in the labs' CAFE-style interface allow for scalable Excel-based models for those that don't want to venture down the web path?

We KNOW there are people at IBM that want TM1 to be awesome. The engine HAS improved under the covers of the past few years. Front end not so much.

Going to be interesting times...

[Alan Kirk]

On the one hand we have the existing user/consulting community with ~20 odd years of developing & interfacing in Architect and Perspectives, and on the other we have IBM introducing the very Cognos/EP-ish Performance Modeler & TM1 Applications portal.

As someone mentioned before the new TM1 10 Design & Develop course is all in Performance Modeler and the class (probably new clients) are not seeing Architect at all.

Consultants will want to develop in the "legacy" tools they feel comfortable in,

Hmmm... careful with the implications of that. Someone once suggested that I stayed with an "older" technology only because it was what I was used to. I took serious exception to that because I'd already stated that I stayed with the older technology because it was, in my view, a better and more effective technology for anyone who already knew the tool and didn't need their hand held. (Not that I think that the new tools are all that intuitive anyway, but that's a whole other conversation.) Similarly I don't believe that there are many consultants, certainly not some of the better ones and certainly not some who inhabit these halls, who wouldn't be all over a newer technology regardless of the learning curve if it provided advantages to both themselves and their clients. Not everybody in this field can't be bothered moving on to something new, they just need to be convinced that there's an up side to doing so.

But therein lies the key problem. All the slick, glossy, virtualised-to-the-cloud, new-paradigm marketing presentations notwithstanding... the new tools just don't offer such an advantage. Steve Vincent nailed the key issue:

but the more this meanders to web (which is still too slow and restrictive when compared to an installed client & Excel)

It's become almost an article of faith that "web/cloud is good, desktop is bad" but the fact of the matter is that a well designed, dedicated and regularly updated desktop client, one which is optimised to communicate with its corresponding server, is always going to outperform (and not just in speed) a corresponding Web application simply because browsers are so generic. Whatever you want to do on your web "canvas" needs to come from the server side. The price of the zero footprint is that you can't build in things on the client side which help handle the load. That's why there's a difference even with something as simple as cracking open subset editor, at least with larger dimensions. In Perspectives I just click the thing and get on with it. In Web I suck in my breath through clenched teeth, click and wait as the elements buffer, and scroll, and wait, and scroll...

However pretty the interface might be (and not very in this case, as I've written scathingly about Sloth Modeller previously), that's the kind of thing that turns end users off.

But that's not the worst aspect of it, not by a long margin.

The worst aspect is the attempt to move away from Excel.

However good the core product is (and it is) it can never be a complete solution. It's basically a numbers machine and the intention is to seek out patterns within those numbers. You can never anticipate in advance where poking and prodding at the numbers will take you and I'll betcha that in almost every site at least some of the analysis on TM1 data is done in Excel simply because it's the fastest and easiest way of getting from A to B. Do a slice, whack in a formula, copy it down, recalculate, slap on an auto filter... Compare that to trying to drag and drop an endless series of objects around a web canvas. The IBM "wobsession" smacks to me of them (yet again) trying to dictate the direction of the market and keep it all to itself, shutting out any and all competitors. (Even ones which they can benefit from a symbiotic relationship with.) In which case they would mark themselves out as a company which cannot learn from history... even their own.

Ultimately it's the users, not the developers, who will decide whether a product succeeds or fails. And given that the object of the exercise for most people is to do their work in the minimum amount of time so that they can get on with their real lives, slapping slow-moving, click and drag, click and drag, click and drag web interfaces in their way is more likely to make them ask "Hmm, so what other options do we have for this?" The appeal of eye-candy lasts only so long, even in the i-Everything, reduced attention span age that we now find ourselves in.

and newly-trained clients will have to try to maintain or modify models in the new interfaces with predictably interesting results.

So will the existing consulting base grit their teeth and jump into the new tools once they are quasi-stable and stop doing silly things like generating feeders from rates, or will they simply make the rounds fixing the horrible auto-generated models until IBM decides to adjust their product roadmap back to a more manual & technical nature?

Or will they perhaps see an opportunity for bolstering training courses in how to use the product properly, bypassing the slower components of it? It may be a matter of perception but I seem to be seeing an upswing in the courses offered by some consultancies and certainly I'd probably be more inclined to recommend some of those over any "official" courses. But I'd agree that the above two will play a part as well.

We KNOW there are people at IBM that want TM1 to be awesome.

The problem is that many of those are ex-Applix and I'm not sure about the extent to which they're thriving (or not) in the IBM biosphere. I also think that there are too many from the IBM and Cognos realms who still don't really comprehend what drew the user base to TM1 in the first place, and we're seeing that in where the development priority is these days.

The engine HAS improved under the covers of the past few years. Front end not so much.

The engine hasn't been completely ignored, notably with the change in locking model post-9.0. And there has been an attempt to implement more parallel work, though I shall leave Mr. Usherwood to comment on the effectiveness of that. I'm not sure that I'd describe these as leaps and bounds improvements, but they're heading in the right direction.

Going to be interesting times...

True enough.

[dkleist]

Will we see a mini-industry of EP-to-TM1 ports with PM with a bunch of EP consultants landing in the TM1 space? EP models are designed quite differently than TM1 models, and it's interesting (aggravating?) to see the product align with the EP style.

In NA (cannot speak to EMEA or AsiaPac), I think that bubble has passed. Anecdotally, I think the EP consultants that will transition to TM1 have already done so. Those that haven't have moved to other products or roles, or are biding their time with the diminishing number of EP customers who will not be transitioning. As for porting from EP to TM1, personally, I've not seen that many EP-TM1 transitions: I'm sure they are happening, but I hear more of EP-to-SomethingElse than EP-to-TM1. (These are not big numbers so, again, just personal experience).

Consultants will want to develop in the "legacy" tools they feel comfortable in

Bad consultants will want to develop in the "legacy" tools they feel comfortable in - [Fixed]. One can certainly have preferences, but the client is paying the bills and should be the one making those choices.

I also think that there are too many from the IBM and Cognos realms who still don't really comprehend what drew the user base to TM1 in the first place

I believe that can be said for any product in the IBM/Cognos fold, starting back from the LEX days (Cognos Finance).

[Harvey]

It's become almost an article of faith that "web/cloud is good, desktop is bad" but the fact of the matter is that a well designed, dedicated and regularly updated desktop client, one which is optimised to communicate with its corresponding server, is always going to outperform (and not just in speed) a corresponding Web application simply because browsers are so generic.

This is very true, and, as a seasoned software developer, something I have struggled with a lot during my career.

However, in development circles, that trend is well and truly over now and has been for many years. Personally, I never bought into it and always evaluated a platform choice on its merits rather than trends.

The fact is, we tried going web for perhaps a decade and, while some very good web applications were possible with technologies like AJAX and HTML 5, we realized the very advantage web was supposed to give us in the first place was not really occurring: ease of deployment. Web has challenges of it's own in that area, and it has become obvious over the years that this can be handled in other ways, with automatic software updates and other smart deployment technologies.

This is why I have tried to embrace ClickOnce deployment for the Flow Toolbox Suite. It's not perfect (actually, improvements coming in that department, later today), but it provides the benefits of centralized web distribution with those of a thick client application quite well.

I believe IBM will be shooting themselves in the foot if they continue to push trends that fizzled out 5 years ago. Some of their tools, such as Cognos Reporter, as very good and appropriate as web applications.

The platform choices of TM1Web, Excel Websheets and, more recently, Performance modeller and Contributor (given it's deployed using a mix of .NET, Java and with 2 web servers and now Insight's thick client!) have always seemed very misplaced to me.