Hints and Tips on Managing IBM Cognos Planning Models Effectively Pat Bann / Paresh Kerai Cognos Planning Consultants

COGNOS PLANNING OVERVIEW IBM Cognos Planning is an integrated solution for planning, budgeting, forecasting and modelling data Allows multidimensional OLAP planning, with consolidation, drill down and slice and dice of data Consists of three main components: Analyst, Manager & Contributor Both Analyst and Contributor have Excel Add-In functionality

COGNOS PLANNING COMPONENTS Analyst – for dynamic data modelling, effectively creating the structure of the budget, plan or forecast Contributor – deploy models via a web interface for data input and aggregation, involving potentially hundreds of users Manager – create dynamic flowcharts and interactive front- ends for maintenance and management of budget models

MODEL ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN Models can be built and run in Analyst only - if in fact models are used and maintained by small number of centralised users, such as finance staff Models could also be built in Analyst and deployed in Contributor as a web application, allowing potentially hundreds of concurrent users to contribute to the forecasting process

PLANNING MANAGER Manager can be used to enter data into cubes Provides easy access into dimensions which may need to be changed - E.g. Timescales Allows creation of Admin screens to group tasks by functional areas Can create interactive flowcharts, so that a Modeller can understand the flows of data Allows maintenance of Centralised Assumption Data (Like FX Rates, GL Mappings Cubes, Profiles, etc)

PLANNING MANAGER ADVANCED TIPS Creation of Timescale Cubes to make timescale updates easier to maintain (rolling timescales) Use of TestData Built in Function for Data Validations Creation of a Timestamp Cube to record when a Cube was updated Use of SliceUpdate Macro to update a cube a slice at a time overcoming size issues when updating cubes