Insights, guides, and news from the IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 experts.
Python is a widely-used general-purpose programming language that lets you work quickly and integrate systems more effectively. TM1py enables you for the first time to easily get data from a multitude of systems and web services such as Trello, Salesforce, financial web services and many more into your TM1/Planning Analytics…
One of the reasons why IBM TM1/Planning Analytics is so fast at performing complex calculations is because it gives developers many options to optimise the calculation rules. The way developers write a rule has a huge impact in terms of performance. Thanks to the }StatsByRule cube introduced with IBM Planning…
Welcome to the second part of the Data Science with TM1/Planning Analytics article. In Part 1, we uploaded weather data from a web service into our TM1 cubes. Now that we have all the data we need in TM1, we can start to analyse it. The Python community provides lots…
Welcome to the last part of the articles series about Data Science with TM1/Planning Analytics and Python. In Part 1 we loaded weather data from the NOAA web service into our TM1 cubes. In Part 2, by analyzing the data with Pandas and Plotly, we learned that: There are strong…
TM1py makes all the goodness of the Python ecosystem available to your IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics cubes data. Python is very popular for Data Science and for a lot of other stuff. To use a Python library with your cubes data, you will need to get your data out…
Being able to run processes in parallel is one of the most powerful features of IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics. Instead of loading one year of data with one process, you could run in parallel one process per month which will significantly speed up your loading time! Run processes in…
In the first Episode of the epic webinar saga – MAY TM1 BE WITH YOU, we explore how you can solve some of the issues that can make a great tool like Excel an absolute hell. The road to Excel Hell is normally paved with good intentions. Almost every firm…
There have been considerable improvements to the TM1 server in recent years and one of the hot topics that the new Planning Analytics is bringing to the table is the "true" Hierarchies. Hierarchies are not enabled by default and there is important information about them that you should consider before…
The combination of in-memory calculation, amazing design and years of optimization have resulted in IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics being renowned as one of the fastest real-time analytical engines on the market. The default settings you get "out of the box" is all that is required to have a fast…
CubeCalc is a super calculator for IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics. It enables you to execute complex finance calculations which are not available natively in IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) such as IRR (Internal Rate of Return) and NPV (Net Present Value). Prerequisites TM1 10.2 FP5 as minimum TM1py v1.0.3 as…
What are the interfaces in PAx and how does it relate to Perspectives PAx contains the same reports provided in Perspectives, as shown in the mapping table below. Not only has the name changed, the interface has changed too. For instance, with the Cube Viewer, there are two interfaces that…
With IBM TM1 10.2.2 end of support, now is an ideal time to consider upgrading to IBM Planning Analytics. Before upgrading, an important consideration is whether or not to incorporate Planning Analytics' new Hierarchy feature into your applications. Hierarchies vs Roll-ups Until the arrival of Planning Analytics, what was commonly…
Lists and dictionaries are probably the most important data structures that you should be aware of when writing Python scripts for your IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics application. Lists: an ordered collection of items A list is a data structure that holds an ordered collection of items: A list in…
TM1 Web has been one of the main alternative user interfaces to Excel for planning and forecasting applications even since the release as early as back in 1997. This old friend has allowed business users to deploy web applications that can be easily created in spreadsheets. TM1 Web has never…
Python has recently arisen as a first-in-class programming language in the development of modern applications as well as data analysis mainly because it requires relatively little time and effort to learn. Its syntax is quite straightforward, and you can practically read it and understand it with very little interpretation. Consequently,…
Data science uses scientific methods such as statistics and mathematics to inform and more importantly provide guidance based on trends, behaviours and analytics of a company's data. Many organisations are still not embracing the power of Data Science and overlook the fact that it can help them solve many problems…
TM1py is a free Python package that wraps the TM1 REST API in a simple to use library, making it easier to integrate systems more effectively with IBM Planning Analytics. Getting Started! TM1py is really quick and easy to setup — follow these steps and you will be able to…
What is parallel loading? TurboIntegrator processes (TIs) is the built-in ETL tool of IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics. TIs are very powerful and fast — with just a few seconds, millions of records can be loaded into your cubes. You can make them even faster by running them in parallel.…
Often when interacting with TM1 through TM1py, it is necessary to clear out a slice of a cube. Since release 1.5 there are four options. Let's look at the pros and cons of each. 1. Calling a clear process from TM1py Execute }bedrock.cube.data.clear using tm1.processes.execute_with_return : Intuitive, but less flexible…
IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) developers benefit from TM1py, in particular when source data resides in cloud systems such as Snowflake or Salesforce, where it can't be reached easily with plain TM1. Three ways to connect Salesforce with TM1 programmatically Options 1 and 2 require two steps: one Python script to…
MDX is becoming more and more important in the IBM Planning Analytics / TM1 community and it is one of the key skills that any TM1 developer needs to have. Arc includes a dedicated feature for editing and working with MDX queries called the MDX Lab . Here are several…
Analyzing how a financial system is used provides several benefits, and IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) systems are no different. Why it is important even for TM1 Understanding how the user base interacts with your TM1 model offers several benefits: increased user satisfaction by addressing pain points, efficient problem resolution aligned…
MDX Forms, available through the Slice add-on in Excel, provide a powerful way to customize and maintain reports efficiently — offering flexibility for on-the-fly dimension changes, dynamic row/column swaps, and calculated members using MDX. Practical Example Let's create a dynamic asynchronous view for analyzing sales data across different years and…
Slice offers innovative features that simplify your workflow, making it easier to manage, analyse, and present data from your IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) applications. Cell Audit: Fast and Simple During the monthly financial close, accuracy is a top priority. Cell Audit helps you quickly identify and resolve errors by highlighting…
Dealing with daylight saving time and time zones can be challenging, but luckily, IBM Planning Analytics powered by TM1 has many features to help you overcome this situation. In this article, you will learn how TM1 can help you with getting dates in different languages, calculating the time difference between…
Starting with Arc v3.3, the cube viewer comes with styles! From a cube view, you can select the style you want to use and access the View Style Editor to create your own styles. Accessing the View Style Editor You can access it from a cube view: Or expand Tools…
Picture this: you are staring at an active form report in your IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) application, wanting to delve deeper into a specific record for more insights. Finding a clear and efficient solution seems like a tedious task — but we've got your back! Drill down into another dimension…
Transitioning from IBM Perspectives to Slice might seem daunting, but the benefits make it a worthwhile endeavor. 1. End of Life of Perspectives IBM has announced the end of life for Perspectives — it will no longer receive updates, support, or improvements. Continuing to use outdated software can lead to…
TM1py (pronounced "TM1-pie") is a Python package that wraps the TM1 REST API in a simple to use library. That makes it easy to build stuff with TM1 and Python. Python is a widely-used general-purpose high-level programming language that lets you work quickly and integrate systems more effectively. We believe…
Do you want to do more with TM1? Since TM1 10.2, IBM introduced the TM1 REST API which enables you now to do pretty much anything you want with your IBM TM1/Planning Analytics application. In this post you will find everything you need to know to run your first TM1…
Over the years your TM1 application will grow, you might create new cubes, create/update rules or TM1 processes, create new elements…. All these changes will have an impact on your application performance. If you want to minimize this impact, here are 10 tips that you should look at. When you…
Pulse helps you to migrate TM1 objects from one TM1 instance to another. If you want to know how to create a migration package in Pulse, you should check the following How to. This article describes what's happening in the background when Pulse executes a migration package. The execution of…
Arc helps TM1 developers build higher quality IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics applications faster. It brings state of the art development interface to TM1 developers including modern IDE features. This article delves into one of its most popular feature the Process Editor. The Arc Process Editor has many little gems…
Pulse gives you a visual representation of when your chores run on the Chore / Process History Gantt chart. Under Chore / Process History, click on your TM1 instance: You'll find the gantt chart at the bottom: You see the list of chores that have been executed during the current…
For any company with TM1… a sizable investment is required to purchase licenses. If the company you work for is expanding its TM1 footprint (or wanting to), moving from one license metric to another or concerned about over-subscription of entitlements (i.e compliance). Pulse can deliver the information you need in…
Getting data into Power BI It is easy to connect your data together. Power BI (PBI) includes 45+ certified connectors for Files (Excel, CSV…), Databases (SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2…), Power Platforms (Power BI datasets), Azure (Azure SQL database, Azure Databricks…), Online Services (Sharepoint, Salesforce…) and Other (Web, Active Directory…).…
Since the first release of TM1 in 1981 to the latest versions of IBM Planning Analytics, TM1 has gone through a long journey from a niche to a mature product used all around the world to build Planning and Analytics applications. Using IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics out-of-the box is…
Arc is a piece of software designed to help IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) developers to increase their productivity without compromising the quality of their work. Since its launch in March 2018, over 500 developers have chosen Arc as their development tool of choice and they continue to benefit from the…
One of the main reasons why TM1/Planning Analytics has been so successful over the years is its calculation engine. TM1 can resolve very complex calculations over millions of cells in an instant. However, its only weakness is that it will need a little bit of help to resolve an equation…
Loading data from web services such as exchanges rates are a common requirement in TM1. An easy way to do it is to use TM1py. TM1py helps you to link your TM1 application from different web-services like Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg or Quandl. How does TM1py bring this data into your…
It is not easy to know which IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) version is installed on your server. Even if you know the TM1 server version number it is difficult to tell from the version number if you are using the RTM (first release) or an interim fix or a fix…
In TM1 Web or in a Cube view from Architect/Perspectives, after inputting a value, a user can undo or redo their input. It is great to be able to redo a change of data but on the other hand, a user clicking the redo or undo button can cause the…
The TM1 REST API is a way of accessing data and almost everything else in TM1. With the TM1 REST API you can do things that normal TM1 clients cannot do such as: Get all cubes that share a particular dimension Get all processes that have an ODBC Datasource Get…
Having accurate data in your TM1 and Planning Analytics application is just one part of the job. The second part, which is even more important, is to understand your data. This is where Data Science can help. Data Science will help you to improve how you make decisions by better…
Multi-Threaded Queries (MTQ) allow IBM TM1 and Planning Analytics to automatically load balance a single query across multiple CPU cores. In other words, TM1 is fast, MTQ makes it even faster. It has been around for a number of years but there are still some frequently asked questions which need…
We're excited to announce the latest Pulse release, packed with new features, security improvements, and critical fixes to enhance performance and usability. Support for Postgres Database (Beta) Pulse now supports Postgres in addition to MS SQL Server. Moving from the default H2 database to Postgres improves performance in large environments…
Mar 1, 2026 Cubewise Atmosphere connects SAP S/4HANA directly to IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) to sync actuals and forecasts automatically. 1. Finance-Led Automation Cubewise Atmosphere eliminates the data prep phase of the financial close. No tickets, bottlenecks or waiting for IT. Model-Ready Data: Automatically generates drillable hierarchies like your Cost…
We're excited to introduce Bedrock 5.3, a release packed with new capabilities to help you automate, orchestrate, and scale your IBM Planning Analytics/TM1 processes more efficiently than ever. JSON‑Driven Cube View Creation A brand‑new process, }bedrock.cube.view.create.from_json , lets you build cube views using clean, flexible JSON definitions. Perfect for data…
This release introduces 5 major new features, 10 enhancements, and 12 fixes to improve functionality, security, and user experience. Arc+ Object Locking Starting with Arc v5.2.0 and Pulse v7.2.0, a new security layer allows users to lock TM1 processes and rules. Locked objects can only be unlocked by the user…
Welcome Welcome to this edition of the “Life of Slice” Newsletter! Arc and Slice are now on Version 5! And as you'd expect there are some big changes in recent releases. For more complete details on all the features and fixes, check out the announcement page and Arc and Slice…