As a seasoned Cognos TM1 architect, it is exciting to see the possibilities delivered with IBM Cognos TM1 Performance Modeler! With this tool, you can perform TM1 model prototyping with little or no programming experience.
With performance modeler you can:
- Create applications – based on the objects contained in your model for use in Cognos TM1 Applications
- Create cubes based on the dimensions that exist in the model
- Use links to make connections between the cubes
- Include views in an application to define the way it is presented to an end user
- Set up a workflow to determine how contributors will interact with the application
- Define the default presentation of the application, including layout and languages to be used
- Set up group-based security to define the actions that group members can take within an application. You can use either IBM Cognos Access Manager (CAM) security or Cognos TM1 security
- Create rules (let PM generate them or create them yourself) and feeder scripts from the logic in the formulas and links
- Load data into applications by importing data and creating TurboIntegrator processes
- Much more!
Accessing Performance Modeler
To access performance modeler, you need to install it! It is not part of the “default” TM1 installation, so you may need to re-run the installation (and just select that component).
Once the installation is completed, you’ll notice that the installation process did not create a desktop shortcut or start menu item for it. That is because Performance Modeler is designed to be accessed through the TM1 Applications Portal (is the web-based client and portal used to run planning applications built using IBM Cognos TM1 data).
If you haven’t tried this, you can:
Open a web browser and go to http://servername:9510/pmpsvc) (on my laptop the Servername can be “localhost”).
Log in.
Click on the “performance modeler” icon:
Performance Modeler launches and asks you to select a server:
Trick
Now, if you ask IBM, they’ll share this neat trick.
The first time you launch Performance Modeler, a file (provagent.cogrcp.modeler) is downloaded. If you save this file to your desktop, you can double-click it and launch Performance Modeler directly from there (without accessing the portal (as I described here). Sweet!
Next time I’ll share the basics of building a simple TM1 planning model using this tool. Stay Tuned!
