Written by Mike Bernaiche, October 21st 2021
Over the last couple of months, IBM has released 2 updates to Planning Analytics Workspace, version 67 and 68. I will detail the new features in each below. IBM releases an update to Planning Analytics Workspace about once a month. In this blog, I will detail everything new in version 67 and 68 for workspace. However, Planning Analytics is now on version 2.09.10, released in Sept 2021 and Planning Analytics for Excel 2.0.67, released in July 2021. I highly suggest upgrading to the latest version of each component.
Planning Analytics Workspace – Version 67
Updates to Planning Analytics Workspace version 67 include:
Checkboxes in Grid View
- You can see below that in grid view each item has a check box that once selected gives you different options including open and delete.
Pin Widgets while in Consumption Mode
- You now have the ability to pin a widget without having to be in edit mode. You do need to set the option in dashboard properties to allow pin widgets in consumption mode. You will only do this if you want to allow end users to pin widgets.
Assign a Step or Action to Everyone in Plans
- Until now, you had to assign individual user groups to a step in a plan or to a section in an application. You can now assign a step or a section to everyone, allowing all users in your environment access to a step or section.
Planning Analytics Workspace – Version 68
Updates to Planning Analytics Workspace version 68 include:
Use Decision Optimization with Planning Analytics Workspace version 68. (Cloud Only)
- You can now use Decision Optimization (IBM® ILOG® CPLEX®) with IBM Planning Analytics Workspace on Cloud to deliver prescriptive analytics capabilities to help you make better decisions and deliver improved business outcomes.
- With the Cloud Pak for Data Platform integration configured, and the required services IDs and views in place, analysts can easily view and run optimization jobs within the configured deployment space right from Planning Analytics Workspace. Additionally, they can configure action buttons to run any of the jobs of a deployment space, allowing any Planning Analytics Workspace user to run optimization jobs.
- Administrators, analysts, and modelers can access optimization jobs from the new Watson AI jobs tab on a book.
Analysts and Modelers Can Now Create Plans
- Analysts and modelers, not only administrators, can now create and manage applications and plans. The plan or application creator is automatically given full control over the asset.
Dashboard Grid Size Enhancements
- You can now use a template to display widgets in books and websheets in a tabbed page or single page. In previous versions of IBM® Planning Analytics Workspace, a hardcoded template with a single widget was used. When you save a view by using the Save view as option, you can select a template.
For more information on Planning Analytics see the below resources:
What's new in Planning Analytics Workspace - IBM Documentation
What’s New in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace Version 64, 65 and 66 - Lodestar Solutions
What's new in Planning Analytics - IBM Documentation
What's new in Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel - IBM Documentation
Summary
Enhancements and updates to Planning Analytics Workspace continue to be released monthly. It continues to improve an already great product. Give IBM credit for continuing to improve Workspace. Planning Analytics can be such a useful tool in transformational planning. Heather Cole recently wrote two great blogs on transformational planning. Those can be found here.
It’s Time for CFOs to Leverage Transformational Planning - Lodestar Solutions
Finance Must lead Business Transformation Before Someone Else Does - Lodestar Solutions
As a bonus, in the Finance Must Lead Business Transformation blog you can register for a free webinar hosted by Lodestar solutions! Sign up now!
If you have any questions regarding anything here, please reach out to services@lodestarsolutions.com.