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TRANSCRIPT
Based on EP 8.4
IBM Cognos Enterprise Planning
Tips and Techniques
Agenda
• Introductions
• Who is Senturus?
• Today’s format
• Who is presenting?
• Cognos EP Tips & Techniques • Overview of additional Training Options
• Q&A
• Wrap-up
Introductions
• Senturus, Inc – John Peterson
• Co-Founder, Chairman & COO
• Phone: (650) 347-4043
• Email: jpeterson[at]senturus.com
– Steve Chapman • Senior Consultant, Planning Practice
• Phone: (888) 601-6010
• Email: schapman[at]senturus.com
– Amin Shaker • Senior Consultant, Planning Practice
• Phone: (888) 601-6010
• Email: ashaker[at]senturus.com
Who is Senturus, Inc.?
• Consulting firm specializing in corporate performance management
– Business Intelligence and Enterprise Planning
– Platform-independent
• Our three pillars: Pragmatic business experience + Technical expertise + professional project management
• Experience & Credentials
– 350+ clients in a range of industries and geographies
– IBM Advanced Partner 2009, Cognos Platinum Partner 2002-2008
What is happening?
Scorecards and Dashboards
Why did it happen?
Analytics
What do I want to happen?
Planning
Budgeting
Consolidation
What will happen?
Forecasting
What happened?
Reporting
Corporate Performance Management
Flexible Service Offerings
• Complete project implementations
• Staff augmentation
• Assessment and Roadmap consultations
• Upgrade & Support packages
• Training:
– Classroom, Onsite, Remote, Mentoring, Workshops & Webinars
– Led by professional trainers and seasoned consultants
A few of our 350+ Clients
Today’s Format
• Demonstration will begin shortly
• Please submit questions via the GoToWebinar
Question pane in the GoToWebinar control panel
• We will address questions LIVE at the conclusion
of the presentation, so if you do not get an
immediate response, please HOLD ON!
• We will try to answer EVERY question via email if
we do not get a chance to respond while you are
attending the Webinar
• The Webinar is being recorded and will be
available on our website
Who is presenting today?
Steve Chapman
• Senior Consultant , Senturus Planning Practice
• 30 years experience in operations management, finance, IT and consulting.
• Extensive experience in inventory management, off-shore sourcing, customer operations and financial management for the retail, distribution, apparel and electronics manufacturing industries.
• Prior to joining Senturus in 2004, Steve consulted to: The Nature Company, Gymboree, goshopwireless.com, Sony Pictures, Lucasfilm Ltd., Sun Microsystems, Cisco, and Nortel.
• Steve has also held positions of CIO, Director of Operations, Finance Controller, Business Systems Manager and Senior Director of International Systems for companies including: The Gap (15
years), Dakin Inc., and Fritzi Apparel Mfg.
• Steve has done Cognos Enterprise Planning implementations for the past five years
Today’s Course Level & Prerequisites
• Software/Tools Covered:
– Cognos 8.4 Analyst & Contributor
• Recommended Experience:
– Attendees should be comfortably
conversant and experienced with D-
Lists, D-Cubes, D-Links, Macros,
Manager, and the Contributor Admin
Console (importing e.Lists and
Access Tables). Entry
Intermediate
Advanced
Bode Miller
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques Topics
Business Planning Opportunities and Problems
1. Control which accounts, departments and items are
planned within the EP model
2. Reclassify history for accurate amount referencing and to
support top-down planning (using breakback /
spread calculations)
3. Prevent loss of Contributor data when e.List names
change
4. Perform multiple, flexible expense allocations with
different bases
Time permitting, or in a later Webinar:
5. Automate Access Table control and maintenance
6. Create summaries with additional dimensions
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Attribute D-Cubes - 1
Business Opportunity or Problem
- Control what items to plan and their roll-up’s within EP.
Business Advantages
- Plan for only those accounts, departments and items that should
be active. (Others may be obsolete or contain minimal data.)
- Web users see active items only, which also results in a smaller
Contributor model, and improves performance.
- Control planned items within EP rather than through external SQL
or customized data base views that require IT maintenance.
- Leverage automated list and parent updates, but override them
when needed.
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Attribute D-Cubes - 2
EP Solution
- Use Attribute D-Cubes to choose planned items and
conditional D-List parents to customize their
hierarchies.
EP Technique
- Link in available, external attributes and parent values.
- Override and adjust them within an EP attribute D-Cube.
- Use conditional formulas to generate hierarchical D-Lists (and the
e.Lists for Contributor web applications).
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Attribute D-Cube - 3
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Attribute D-Cube - 4
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Attribute D-Cube - 5
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Attribute D-Cube - 6
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 1
Business Opportunity or Problem
- Reclass history for discontinued, inactive or unplanned
items for accurate historical referencing and to support
accurate top-down planning (breakback / spread
patterns).
Business Advantages
- Includes all historical volumes for correct breakback / spread
calculations and top-down goal-setting and planning.
- Provides complete reference amounts when account, department
or item structures change.
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 2
EP Solution
- Use remapping attributes and D-Cube allocation in D-
Links to reclassify data from discontinued, inactive or
unplanned items to planned accounts, departments and
items
EP Technique
- Stage all historical data (for both planned and unplanned accounts,
departments and items).
- Add a “reclass to” planned item to the attribute D-Cubes for each
dimension.
- Link the historical, staged data using D-Cube allocation for the
account, department and item dimensions.
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 3
• For Planning data management, we recommend “E-L-T”
instead of the classic, data warehouse process of
“E-T-L” . . .
E = Extract (from external sources)
L = Load (into Analyst staging D-Cubes)
T = Transform (reclassify as needed within EP)
• Planning operational advantages:
- No SQL or db view logic to maintain after initial setup
- Easier to balance and reconcile to external sources
(before further model processing).
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 4
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 5
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 6
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 7
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 8
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 9
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 10
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 11
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 12
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Reclassifications - 13
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: E-List ID’s - 1
Business Opportunity or Problem
- Changing E-List Display Names causes Contributor
data loss.
» Even one character or a blank is a change!
Business Advantages
- Names can change often and should not cause D-List Items to
be considered “new” (which causes automatic delete and add
actions within Contributor).
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: E-List ID’s - 2
EP Solution
- Use the unique part of the D-List rather than the full
Display Name for the E-List’s Item ID in Contributor.
EP Technique
- Export the D-List as an E-List.
- Use an Excel formula to strip the unique part of the item for only
the lowest level E-List nodes for the Contributor Item ID.
- Import the result into Contributor as the E-List.
- Subsequent E-List changes will match on the unique ID and
change the Display Name without loss of data. (Hint: Also change
Analyst to Contributor D-Links to match on unique ID’s only.)
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: E-List ID’s - 3
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: E-List ID’s - 4
EList Export Column => Contributor Use
EListItemName => Item ID
EListItemCaption => Item Display Name
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: E-List ID’s - 5
EList Export Column => Contributor Use
EListItemName => Item ID
EListItemCaption => Item Display Name
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: E-List ID’s - 6
EList Export Column => Contributor Use
EListItemName => Item ID
EListItemCaption => Item Display Name
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: E-List ID’s - 7
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: E-List ID’s - 8
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Allocations - 1
Business Opportunity or Problem
- Allocate planned expenses with these rules:
- Each pool to be allocated may be defined by multiple
departments (source departments).
- There may be multiple departments in the target pools.
- Each allocation step may use a different basis for allocation.
(For example, square feet, headcount, sold units, or
revenue dollars.)
- There are multiple allocation steps, some using the allocated
results of the previous step.
(For example, department 123 maybe the target of an
occupancy expense allocation, and then contribute as a
source to the next allocation pool – that includes its own
incoming allocations.)
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Allocations - 2
EP Solution
- Use a department attribute D-Cube to control both allocation pool
sources and targets.
- Use an account attribute D-Cube to control the source allocation
pool expenses if not all should be used.
- Use one allocation calculation D-Cube dimensioned by the
number of allocation steps needed.
EP Technique
- Pairs of department attributes define each allocation step.
- D-Cube allocation links populate the source pool expenses and the
target department allocation bases.
- Macros sequence the allocation steps and then link the credits to
sources and debits to targets for the allocation accounts.
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Allocations - 3
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Allocations - 4
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Allocations - 5
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Allocations - 6
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 1
Business Opportunity or Problem
- Automate Access Table updates and make them
dependent upon:
- the type of data contained in each month, and
- each Contributor tab
Example1: for an input cube
- “Actual” months => READ
- “Forecast” months => WRITE
Example 2: for an inventory summary cube
- “Actual” months => NODATA
- “Forecast” months => READ
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 2
EP Solution
- Use a D-Cube for Access Levels which is dimensioned
by both month and by Contributor tab.
EP Technique
- Conditionally calculate (or enter) Access Levels in an Analyst D-
Cube, then export text files for each Contributor tab for importing
into the Contributor Admin Console.
- Automate using a .bat file and Contributor macro.
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 3
D-Cube with Access Levels by tab and month
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 4
Conditional tests by tab and month attribute
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 5
Analyst Macros to
Export text (per tab)
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 6
Export Options
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 7
Example D-Cube Export txt files (per tab)
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 8
Overwrite option requires Erase and Rename step
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 9
Erase and Rename bat file
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 10
Contributor macro: Erase/Rename txt files,
then for each tab: Export from Analyst,
then Import Access Table into Contributor
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 11
Imported Contributor Access Tables
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Access Tables - 12
Finance Admin Operations Steps
1. Change monthly Act/Fcst flag 2. Run Contributor macro
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Additional Summaries
Business Opportunity or Problem
- Provide planned data summaries for Publish or Export
that have additional business dimensions that are not
used for planning.
AKA: Turning an “attribute” into a dimension.
Business Advantages
- Avoids forcing summary or reporting dimensions into
the planning process and model.
Example: Plan by Product and Territory (dimensions);
but also need to summarize by Package Type and
Production Line (which are attributes).
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Additional Summaries
EP Solution
- Use an attribute D-Cube and D-Cube allocation links for
mapping items to additional dimensions.
EP Technique
- Link in or Enter the additional dimension values as attributes.
- Create summary D-Cubes that use those attributes as dimensions.
- Use D-Cube allocation type D-Links to map planned data to the
summary D-Cubes with the additional dimensions.
– OR –
- Link the attributes into the calculation D-Cubes and use
Accumulation D-Link types for mapping to the summaries.
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Additional Summaries
Product attributes used for specific summaries
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Additional Summaries
Product attributes added to the calculation D-Cube
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Additional Summaries
All product attributes structured as dimensions
(using an Accumulation Link Type)
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques: Additional Summaries
Contributor application with nested dimensions
Cognos EP Tips & Techniques - Review
Business Planning Opportunities and Problems
[and our recommended EP techniques]
o Control which accounts, departments and items are planned within
EP [Technique: Attribute D-Cubes with conditional hierarchies]
o Reclassify history when needed (e.g., for reference or breakbacks)
[Technique: Item / account / department remapping and D-
Cube allocation type D-Links]
o Prevent loss of Contributor data when e.List names change
[Technique: Unique e.List Item ID’s replace Display Names]
o Allocations [Technique: D-Cube control of source and target pools]
o Automate Access Table control and maintenance [Technique:
Access Levels in one D-Cube for all Contributor tabs]
o Create summaries with additional dimensions [Technique: Attribute
D-Cubes combined with D-Cube allocation
and Accumulation Link Types]
Q & A and Follow-up
• If you have submitted a question via GoToWebinar, we will be responding as quickly as possible
Next Senturus Planning Training course:
• Three-Day IBM Cognos EP Planning Training Course:
Intro Level; April 26-28, San Francisco and Remote
• Please visit www.senturus.com/events.php for more events like this. • Or check out www.senturus.com/training.php for details on the full range of training offerings
Today’s Special
• For attending today’s webinar, you are eligible for a special, one-time discount on future events, training and selected consulting services.
• Please contact us and mention the following Promotion Code to secure your savings:
SAVE10-EP1
* Also, please note that today’s session will be posted on
the Senturus website in a few days.
www.senturus.com
Today’s Trainer: Steve Chapman
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