IBM recently announced a major licensing change in their IBM Cognos Planning licensing. Clients that are on 8.4.1 of IBM Cognos Planning and own Contributor, will receive an equivalent license for IBM Cognos TM1 Contributor. This is great news for clients looking to complement Planning with TM1.

With this licensing change, they are requiring all IBM Cognos Planning clients to be on the latest Cognos Planning Enterprise Licensing Model to download 8.4.1. Clients who purchased Cognos Planning or Adaytum Planning prior to the IBM acquisition may be affected and be required to modify their IBM Cognos licensing.

For all older Planning clients, there are a lot of benefits to upgrading your licenses.

IBM recently announced a major licensing change in their Cognos Planning licensing. Clients that are on 8.4.1 of Cognos Planning and own Contributor, will receive an equivalent license for IBM Cognos TM1 Contributor. This is great news for clients looking to compliment Planning with TM1.

IBM Cognos recently announced a licensing change in IBM Cognos 8 Planning Version 8.4.1 . If you weren’t anxiously awaiting the news like Lodestar was, I’ll bet you missed it. Why were we anxious for the announcement? It paves the way for IBM Cognos clients to leverage both Enterprise Planning and TM1 to provide the Best of the Best Planning solution at a reasonable price.

So, hopefully you read my previous blog on Innovation.  It is essential to success in this market.
WHAT IS INNOVATION: A new way of doing something.
Let’s look at a great example of innovation.   In 1968 at the Olympics in Mexico, a man named Dick Fosbury set an Olympic record with a move that others called [...]

The idea behind this is that when creating a D-Cube you create it putting the D-List in order of 1-5. This helps in priority conflicts of formulas and formats. Plus, when you browse the library the D-Lists are sorted by the type of D-List. Easy Right? Maybe yes, Maybe no. The naming convention is open to interpretation. If I have a D-List for Years and it has no calculations, is it a 4 or a 3? What about a D-List that has Current Year Budget, Prior Year Actual, and a variance between Current Year Budget and Prior Year Actual. Is this a 5 since it has versions or is it a 1 since there is a calculation? What about a D-List that was a 3 but I’ve recently included a subtotal in the D-List do I need to go back and rename this to a 2?

The numbering method works great in a training class environment to help us learn the dimension order when creating the D-Cubes. After we learn the order, do we really need to number our dimensions?

Choosing the dimension for publish is one of the most critical steps in the Generate Framework Manager model process. The dimension chosen for publish will be treated as the Fact table in the publish process. In addition, the Generate Framework Model admin extension will model the dimension chosen for publish as the fact table. More simply put, the dimension chosen for publish will be your measure dimension.

I have a client that we began working with about a year ago. They previously used another firm that had lost a lot of people, some of whom become “independents”. One such person had written an interface for them and they wanted it modified. So they called the “independent “ in without our knowledge. Don’t get me wrong, we play well with others - but communication is the key! The “independent” for some reason decided to upgrade their Cognos Finance, knowing they had Cognos Planning integrated with CF, but not thinking about the ramifications on upgrading one piece at a time. Choo Choo Choo, do you hear the train coming down the track? Yes train wreck ahead! So I get the distress call!

“HELP!!!” As you suspected the “independent” killed access to the entire planning system and they were getting ready for a forecast.
So I asked, “Can I speak with him to see what happened in hopes that we can fix it faster?”
“No, he’s unavailable”.
“Is he in the bar drinking?” I asked.
“No he left,” they replied “What do you mean he left???”
“Ummm, he’s on a plane going home.”
Stunned, I asked, “Are you kidding me? Let me get this straight, he decided to upgrade a piece knowing there was integration with other moving parts, blew up the system and LEFT?”
“Yes, he said, “I don’t know how to fix it, call Lodestar” and left.”

Needless to say our technical team stepped in and working with the clients IT department, were able to get them up and running before their forecast was due.MORAL OF THE STORY! Independents typically work alone and can’t fix it if they screw up. You do not control them, so they can leave if they want.
MY QUESTION – Do you think the “independent” billed them for his time and travel?