Single-Cell Visualization

In Planning Analytics Workspace release 2.0.81, IBM added a new Single Cell visualization type with several unique capabilities. The Single-cell visualization is a single cell Exploration that has been added as a Visualization. You can still create a single-cell view using the Exploration visualization, but it is much easier to use the Single-cell visualization type. The Single-cell visualization is designed to display a single value from a cube without row or column headers and without the context filters. Using the Fields Property, you can configure and filter your cube data to arrive at a single value for the visualization. So, when you have the need, you can quickly add a simplified, single-value display to your report or dashboard.

Planning AnalyticsDan SwanDecember 11, 2023IBM Planning AnalyticsComment

The Ultimate Guide for Planning Analytics Architecture

If you are in the market for a budgeting and forecasting application like IBM Planning Analytics and you are curious about the architecture and components within Planning Analytics, then read on.

Planning AnalyticsDan SwanSeptember 11, 2023TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, Planning Analytics WorkspaceComment

Planning Analytics LogOutput Function

The Planning Analytics (TM1) function LogOutput has been around since TM1 version 10.2. This function allows developers to write custom messages to the tm1server.log file when a certain condition occurs in your TurboIntegrator (TI) Process. Let’s explore the functionality and usage of the LogOutput function.

Planning AnalyticsRob BaierleJuly 10, 2023TM1, TI Functions, LogOutput, IBM Planning AnalyticsComment

Data Visualizations in Planning Analytics

Data visualization has become an increasingly important tool in today's data-driven world. By converting complex data sets into visual representations, we can quickly identify patterns, trends, and insights that would be otherwise difficult or impossible to detect. IBM Planning Analytics Workspace, or PAW, is designed to offer a user-friendly and intuitive interface that makes it easy for users to create data visualizations. In this article, we will explore how one can use different visualization types, the layout of a workbook, and different property settings in PAW to create an appealing design that truly stands out from the rest, capturing the attention of the audience and effectively conveying important insights from the data.

Planning AnalyticsWerner CoetseeApril 10, 2023Planning Analytics Workspace, IBM Planning AnalyticsComment

What's New in Planning Analytics?

We’re discussing some of the new features and enhancements from the last few releases of Planning Analytics Workspace. We will dive into several topics ranging from changes to Dimension Editor, enhancements to building a book, to the all-new TI Process Debugger. The last few releases might not have been as hyped up as some releases of PAW in the past, but there are certainly some changes to make note of. Whether you're a seasoned user or new to Planning Analytics Workspace, these updates are worth checking out!

Using IBM Planning Analytics for Consolidations

Existing customers of IBM Planning Analytics are likely performing consolidations of some sort, and oftentimes using different software systems to do so. These organizations come to realize that by layering the consolidation processes into their Planning Analytics system, they can save by not having to license and maintain multiple systems, train personnel on different products, and address technical issues with compatibility. This article will cover the many benefits of using Planning Analytics, or PA, to perform consolidations.

Planning AnalyticsBrian MooreFebruary 14, 2023PA Consolidations, IBM Planning AnalyticsComment

IBM Planning Analytics with Watson (PA) vs Anaplan vs Workday Adaptive Planning

Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, when it comes to planning for your organization’s success in an unpredictable world that is data-driven, chances are that you have outgrown Excel spreadsheets and are looking for an extended planning and analysis (xP&A) software solution such as IBM Planning Analytics with Watson, Anaplan or Workday Adaptive Planning. Let’s have a closer look at some of the key features in IBM Planning Analytics with Watson, Anaplan, and Workday Adaptive Planning.

Kai Ming’s PMsquare Children’s Center Opens Its Doors

Kai Ming, a non-profit agency providing comprehensive early care and education services for underprivileged children, and PMsquare, a data analytics technology and consulting firm, are excited to announce that the PMsquare Children’s Center has officially opened its doors on May 13th in Mission Bay, San Francisco.

New Cube Viewer & Set Editor in Planning Analytics (2022)

IBM’s latest releases include a “new experience” cube viewer (or exploration) and a newly configured Set editor. There are several improvements and enhancements to the new viewer and set editor that represents IBM’s direction in making features easier to access. IBM is focused on improvements to the “new experience” within Workspace as it plans to deprecate the “classic experience”.

Which To Choose: Staff Aug or SaaS Anywhere?

Just the other day, I was wrangling with a DIY challenge and spent hours trying to make a scattering of suboptimal tools I had work when a short run to the hardware store would have solved all my problems in minutes. In much the same way in analytics consulting, I see my clients sometimes struggling to find the right service for their challenges of the near and long term. In this piece, I’ll share an overview of two seemingly similar service options and discern the right time to engage for each.

AI Ethics & Explainability for IBM Analytics Practitioners

With the inevitable, ever-tighter AI integration and infusion with IBM’s products, analytics practitioners need to understand the AI pillars and explainability principles that IBM espouses. These principles should be understood by CA and PA developers, administrators, and product owners, as they will inform the future direction of the AI components of each core product. Most importantly, it will be necessary for doers in our space to use the explainability toolkit in order to explain why models (and integrated, downstream components) predict/project/suggest/decide what they do to our business partners.

Artificial Intelligence, Cognos Analytics, Planning AnalyticsCraig ColangeloJanuary 10, 2022Craig Colangelo, AIComment

Tracking the Run Time of Planning Analytics TurboIntegrator (TI) Processes

Track the run time of Planning Analytics TurboIntegrator (TI) processes by creating a cube with 3 specific dimensions and a little bit of code.

Budgeting Your Workforce in Planning Analytics

Planning Analytics allows you to make simple or complex budgeting models that can be effective for any aspect of your business including workforce planning. Your workforce model can be as precise as your requirements, whether you want to budget at a department level, position level, or employee level.

Planning AnalyticsDan SwanOctober 8, 2021Dan Swan, IBM Planning AnalyticsComment

Using the Planning Analytics Modeling Workbench

The Planning Analytics Modeling Workbench is a new modeling tool for developers in Planning Analytics Workspace. It is a dedicated modeling area that has tabs and sections for organizing your modeling tasks and is optimized for all types of modeling activities in PA.

Planning AnalyticsRob BaierleAugust 9, 2021IBM Planning Analytics, Planning Analytics WorkspaceComment

Setting Up Planning Analytics AI Forecasting

In a prior issue, my colleague Brian Moore introduced us to the Forecasting feature now available in Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW). Today we take an in-depth look at the steps to set up a Preview forecast and to apply a forecast to your model.

Planning AnalyticsDan SwanMay 9, 2021IBM Planning Analytics, Planning Analytics Workspace, Forecasting, AIComment

Introducing Cloud Data Delivery

PMsquare is proud to announce the formation of our new Cloud Data Delivery business unit. Cloud Data Delivery brings together decades of experience solving data pipeline, data warehousing, and business intelligence challenges from across the organization into a single entity focused on delivering cloud-first data solutions and migrating existing on-prem data warehouse and BI workloads to the cloud.

New Features for Managing Workflow within Planning Analytics (Applications and Plans)

The applications and plans feature is a new feature as of the 2.0.58 (October 2020) release of Planning Analytics. It represents a brand-new approach to managing the budgeting process. Applications and plans let you organize logically related Planning Analytics Workspace assets such as books, views, and websheets in containers called assets. How the assets are organized is completely up to the administrator. Books or views can be organized to match your management structure or based on the flow of specific tasks.

Planning AnalyticsDan SwanMarch 7, 2021Dan Swan, IBM Planning Analytics, Planning Analytics WorkspaceComment

Predictive Forecasting in Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW)

With the rollout of Planning Analytics Workspace Local 2.0.57 (and 2.0.58 in Cloud), IBM released long-anticipated Predictive Forecasting capabilities. This allows users to generate forecast data based on historical actuals within the cube. Sophisticated statistical algorithms calculate behind the scenes to provide accurate time series projections which blend trends and seasonality.

Planning AnalyticsBrian MooreFebruary 7, 2021Brian Moore, Planning Analytics Workspace, IBM Planning AnalyticsComment

What is PMsquare Managed Analytics Services?

The vision was to combine our global organizational reach (offices in: US, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, India) with our proven methodology to create a repeatable and scalable support arm for our customers’ unique needs. Over the course of the last 3 years, we have implemented and hardened processes to seamlessly coordinate across our global team and deliver value to our customers. Over that time, we have expanded our supported technologies significantly as well, to the point where we now can support many front-end BI tools, major cloud providers, and data pipeline applications.

Get IBM Planning Analytics System Alerts via Email

In Planning Analytics, you can get notifications for threads that are in a run state, threads in a wait state, database (instance) shutdowns, and more. I’ll give you an in-depth walkthrough for receiving event notifications from Planning Analytics Administration for Planning Analytics Local.

Planning AnalyticsDan SwanNovember 8, 2020Dan Swan, IBM Planning AnalyticsComment