Today, we are going to discuss Cognos BI reporting and how it relates to TM1. As many of you know, to use certain dimension functions in Cognos BI (like period-to-date & closing period) you need to have named levels in TM1.  These functions require levels and members; not hierarchies to build with in BI.  TM1 model builders know how to add named levels, so I’m going to focus on a different option.

While using the above approach is standard practice, you must create those functions every time you need them and in every report.  How about this option?  Use TM1 as a “database” and create these time periods for use in any Cognos BI reporting without the need to create these data items in Cognos BI.

Start this process by scoping out all of the different time periods you will need.  Some common ones are:

Current Day/Week/Month/Qtr/Year
PY Current Day/Week/Month/Qtr/Year
Current Day/Week/Month/Year – 1
Same Year Prior Qtr/Month/Week/Day
Obviously this is just a few of the many you can create.

Make sure you include people from each major department or end user group and DO NOT forget about your BI team.  Your BI team needs to be involved from the beginning of a TM1 project, especially one that will use Cognos BI to supply Cognos BI reporting to the end user.