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May 20 / Administrator

12. TM1 Perspective

Introduction to TM1 Perspective

You can integrate all your TM1 data with Microsoft Excel and use it in graphs etc. You do this by using TM1 Perspective. It’s an excel add-in which helps you get connected to your TM1 application server. Follow below steps:

1. Go to Start > All Programs > IBM Cognos > Perspective For MS Excel (if you’re using Windows 7, figure out how you’re going to open this path, may be just search for Perspective)

2. MS Excel will open and will ask you to enable macros. Enabling macro will launch IBM’s TM1 perspective with Excel.

3. Go to TM1 menu bar, then click Connect and login to your TM1 admin server. You’ll receive a message saying that you’re now connected. Click OK. Now let’s learn how you can get the data from cubes into MS Excel.

From TM1, you can bring the data into MS Excel using 3 methods:

1. Slice

Slice lets you update TM1 cubes’ data directly from MS Excel. It’s created using DBRW formulae and retains a real time interaction with TM1 cubes. If you update any data in a slice, the same data is written back to corresponding TM1 cube.

To check this functionality, click on Explorer on your tm1 menu bar. Browse to your Products2 cube and launch the default view. Cube view opens. From File menu click on Slice. This will create a data slice in excel.

tm1 perspective 1

 

Check different cells of excel and notice the formula which has been used. Now change quantity value of Jan from 10 to 12 (if you have any other cube, change the value of some input cell. but remember, that cell must not be calculated cell) and press enter.

Now go to the TM1 cube and check the value of that cell. The value has been changed to 12.

Advantages:

1. Using slices you can create input screens for users who don’t have access to architect or are not very familiar of TM1 cubes and related concepts. They can enter data directly in excel without bothering about cubes etc.

2. To update data, you don’t need to install TM1 Architect. You can get your work done by just using TM1 perspective

Disadvantage:

1.  To use the cube data that you’ve brought into the slice, you need to keep yourself connected to TM1 server. Once you get disconnected from the server, the excel sheet looses the data.

2. If new items are added to the rows or column dimensions (such as new products etc.), slices will not automatically get those items. You will have to either manually add them to your slice, or create a new slice.

 

2. Snapshot

Snapshots also brings TM1 cubes’ data into MS excel but do not have real time update capability. Snapshots just bring the data values (no formula).

tm1 perspective 3

 

Advantage:

1. They are useful if you want to do some analysis on your cube’s data and don’t need the unnecessary TM1 formulae (you just need the data).

2. You don’t need to stay connected to the TM1 server to use values.

3. Lighter and faster than TM1 slices (as snapshots don’t have write back functionality, they are faster and excel files that’s built using them are lighter)

Disadvantage:

1. No write back functionality. You can’t update cube data using a snapshot

2. While you’re doing your analysis using snapshot data, if someone changes the data on TM1 server, you’d not receive the new data and will end up with incorrect analysis.

 

3. Active form

Active Forms, like TM1 Slices, let you view and update live TM1 cube data directly in MS Excel. Active Forms retain the ability to expand and collapse row dimensions in TM1 views. That means

tm1 perspective 2

 

Advantages:

1. Active forms have all advantages of slices.

2. If you add new dimension items to your dimensions, active forms reflect those changes too provided that you had created your cube views using dynamic subsets.

3.  They also have formatting unlike slices.

4. Active forms have suppress rows functionality. So based on data, they can increase rows and show only non-zero relevant data. Slices don’t have this feature. If data is zero in all rows, slices will still show those rows.

5. You can filter the data too in active forms. So if you want to top 5 performing products, you can see them using active forms.

Disadvantages:

1. They have all above disadvantages of slices.

For further information on active forms, follow IBM documentation:

IBM Documentation 

 

 

Homework

Create slice, active form and snapshot on a single worksheet of MS Excel and verify the data.

7 Comments

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  1. Suresh / Aug 31 2013

    Thanks a lot. Very useful info.Keep posting like this.

  2. Nathalia / Jan 16 2014

    Hi! Thanks for this quick tutorial!
    I have a doubt that maybe you can clarify:
    I am a user of Cognos Analyst doing the migration to TM1. Cognos Analyst have a funcionality such as this one of TM1 (Perspective). The main difference I could note between Analyst add-in and TM1 Perspective is this real time interaction with the Architect, which we do not have in Analyst.
    I have the need of refreshing data in Excel (selecting a month, year, product, for example) using the Perspective, but not allowing changings in the main figures/data of the table, typing other figures, etc. Is it possible?

  3. LuAnn / May 28 2014

    When using Slice or Active Form, do the formulas convey into Excel for calculations such as column (month) or row totals (cost element/revenue)? I know they do not convey when using Snapshot, you just get values only.
    Thanks,
    LA

  4. Sadiq / Sep 20 2016

    Thanks for your wonderful articles. I was able to pick up the basic stuff very quickly. Really appreciate.

  5. shobhit / Apr 11 2017

    Thanks its wonderful.

  6. Anil / Jul 13 2017

    Thanks you so much for your efforts..it is a real blessing for beginner .

  7. Siva / Jul 24 2017

    Introduction kept simple and easy-to-understand. Thanks a ton.

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