Our company is implementing new finance tool called 'cognos TM1' for Financial planning and analysis. Does any one have an idea about this tool?

TM1 is an OLAP tool with one or more powerful TM1 data servers running remotely or on a single server. TM1 data servers provide access to shared data in an organization. These data servers are controlled by one or more admin servers. Users can work on shared data and objects across the organization through intuitive client interfaces, which interact and send requests to admin servers.

Admin servers then pass on the request to one of the TM1 data servers.The data server then provides access to the shared objects to the clients.TM1 has a built-in ETL (Extraction Transform and Load) tool to perform data transfers from source databases to target multi-dimensional cubes, in the required format. In TM1 terminology the ETL module is called Turbo Integrator and ETL processes are called Turbo Integrator (TI) processes.TI processes can also be written to write-back data in source databases, asand when the user modifies business data and decides to save that back tothe backend databases.In a nut shell, business-specific multi-dimensional models are created using oneof the client interfaces stated above. Inbuilt TI processes enable users to pull data from thebackend source databases and populate cubes on top of the models.

TI processes can alsobe custom written and modified for specific ETL requirements. Business-specific reportingtemplates are then created, again using one of the client interfaces on top of the relevantcubes. Users are given access to the cubes and templates to view, analyze, and modify data.backend data sources can be of any type and turbo integrator handles all thedatabase-specific complexities. Users don't have to worry about disparate multipledata sources.Data can be modified through client interfaces and transferred to cubes. Therefore, changeddata in cubes can then be saved back to backend databases,Data can also be saved to cubes to source databases using inbuilt TI processes.

TM1 – Key Advantages:

1. In-memory processing(faster performance)

2. Quickly load and merge large data volumes(intra day or nightly)

3. Load data from multiple sources (ODBC/Flat files/Excel files)

4. Multi cube architecture with shared dimensions

5. On the fly changes to hierarchies and self-service ad-hoc analysis

6. Can accommodate advanced calculations through rules & TI

7. Easily create reports deployed through excel or Web

Hope this article is helpful for you..

Thanks,

Mohammed