April 30th, 2021

Recently, it came to my attention that some Planning Analytics (formerly TM1) clients are not clear about Planning Analytics Workspace (PAw) and think that they have to complete a number of steps or model rebuilds to use their data in PAw.  Below I will try and explain everything you need to know about Planning Analytics Workspace and your existing models and provide some tips for future work to take advantage of PAw.

Do My Existing PA / TM1 models work in PAw?

The short answer is, YES!  As you can see below in the screenshots that my models that were built in older versions of TM1 are available in Planning Analytics Workspace and I can bring over a view to the workspace area.  Of course, you will need to make sure you have users set up in PAw to access workspace, but all of my data is there without any modifications to the models.

Can I create or change cubes, dimensions, processes, rules, and chores in Planning Analytics Workspace?

Again, the short answer is, YES!  You have the ability to create or change dimensions, cubes, rules, Turbo Integrator processes and chores.  See below for screen shots of each.

Dimension Options:

Cube Options:

Rules Options:

TI Process Options:

Chores Options:

Now that we have covered the above in Planning Analytics Workspace, let’s cover some of the newer items that you may want to start planning to use. 

Comparing Sandboxes

In the later versions of Planning Analytics you have the ability to compare sandboxes in explorations or visualizations.  Maybe you have never heard of sandboxes and are wondering what they are?  Sandboxes are a simple way to create what if scenarios with changing your base budget or forecast information.  I’m sure over the past year dealing with Covid, management has asked for a number of what if budgets or forecasts.  With sandboxes you can create as many what if scenarios you want and then when everyone agrees on a path forward you can promote that version to the new base version or just keep it and compare with it.

Virtual Hierarchies

We have a great blog that talks in detail about virtual hierarchies.  In short, these are a great way to add data to your cubes and perform analysis without having to rebuild your cubes or add dimensions!  Please click here for all of the information.

Knowledge Center

Have you ever been in Planning Analytics or TM1 and wondered how to do something and then spent countless hours searching google to hopefully come up with the right link to solve your issue?  I have and it was a pain.  IBM has spent considerable time and energy to create a knowledge center directly in Planning Analytics Workspace.  Simply click the question mark at the top right of the home page and type in what you are looking for and you will be presented with relevant links to solve your issue.  See below what was provided when I typed in cubes.  You can even click through to a forum and talk with others looking to solve problems.

Summary

As you can see and read, starting with Planning Analytics Workspace is easy and your existing models can be used right away in PAw.  I highly suggest that if you don’t own or are unsure if you own PAw, you reach out to us at sales@lodestarsolutions.com and we can help you!  If you own PAw and have yet to start using it, I highly suggest you start today.  Log in and take a look around.  Start building out your first workspace book.  You can start simple, but I guarantee you will start to think about how you can use Workspace for dashboards, budget entry and everything in between!  Plus, IBM’s go forward strategy will be Planning Analytics Workspace.  If you have any questions about getting started reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com.

For all things new in Planning Analytics check out this link.