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| Greetings!
Welcome to the February 2009 BSP Newsletter. We appreciate all of the great feedback we've received on the newsletters, and this month in addition to our discussions on IBM Cognos FPM ( IBM Cognos Planning / IBM Cognos TM1) and IBM Cognos PM ( IBM Cognos BI), we have included a few additional tips and tricks per your requests.
In addition, we have begun our entry into the podcasting community and will be releasing monthly (or more) new tips and tricks with both audio and video starting in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for details.
As always, we enjoy hearing your suggestions regarding the content you'd like to see. Please e-mail us if you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in future newsletters. |
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The Economic Report, Featuring BrightStar Partners / BSP Software Set to Air
BrightStar Partners is excited to announce that the segment on Business Performance Management for The Economic Report is now finalized and ready for viewing. In the coming months, the show will be aired nationwide through a variety of media outlets including CNN Headline News and Fox Business. Following is the schedule for the Minneapolis/St. Paul area on CNN Headlines News through Comcast Cable.
Wednesday 2-11-2009 at 4:54 PM
Sunday 2-15-2009 at 10:24 AM
Wednesday 2-18-2009 at 2:54 PM
Saturday 2-21-2009 at 12:24 PM
Sunday 2-22-2009 at 10:24 PM
BrightStar Partners is proud to have been chosen by the producers of The Economic Report to speak about our experiences within the Business Performance Management industry and the business value that we've consistently demonstrated to customers like University HealthSystem Consortium. Please take a moment to reacquaint yourself with the many faces of BrightStar Partners! |
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Checking Your Progress
- Contributed by Daryl Baker, Consultant -
Well as we have all settled into the New Year - and come back to "reality" let's take a peek at our New Year's Resolutions and the progress that we have made for each!
- Eat Healthy.
- All the "post-holiday" parties, this was not a good month to start.
- It's just been so cold.
- I'll start tomorrow.
- Lose Weight
- I shouldn't have eaten all of those tasty treats at the Super Bowl party
- I'll start tomorrow
- Get to gym more often.
- It's been too crowded.
- I just have so much work to do.
- I'll do it tomorrow.
- Refine my annual planning and forecasting process
- The Vice-President of Sales wants a closer look at their sales numbers.
- Month-end close is requiring more time!
- I'll do it tomorrow.
Though these resolutions are all different, they most likely are not succeeding due to a common excuse -I'll do it tomorrow. So often we say we are going to do things tomorrow, and then tomorrow comes and it's the next day.
We at BSP can help you work through that "tomorrow" syndrome and get your annual planning and forecasting process get back on track. Our FPM team can huddle and help you "tackle" those obstacles that are getting your planning and forecasting process off track. Through our proven best practices and methodologies, we will work alongside you to ensure that not only are your current demands met, but together we can plan for the future!
We have laid the ground work in January of what NEEDS to be done, let's plan on continuing the success through February.
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Difficult Deployments Made Simple with Powered by IBM Cognos Solutions
With many of our customers around the globe maintaining multiple IBM Cognos environments (development, test, production), the task of moving content from one environment to another is a given. It's not if we'll need to do it, but when, and how difficult will it be?
Many of the answers lie in addressing a few simple questions, but regardless of how simple or complex your enviornments are, and regardless of whether they are set up the same (same OS, same number of servers, same LDAPs securing them), the process can be greatly simplified (and often very possible when other means don't work) with BSP Software's MetaManager and / or CPM Explorer.
With the most recent release of CPM Explorer, admin users can now easily move content between environments as easily as moving a standard file from one windows folder to another. In fact, the process is exactly the same, as CPM Explorer's administrator version supports drag and drop or cut / copy and paste within and between IBM Cognos environments, all within Windows Explorer.
When differing environments are in place (i.e. dev, test and prod are secured by different LDAPs), it is MetaManager's Backup / Restore / Deploy to the rescue. This module allows users to selectively backup any and or all content in the content store (packages, folders, reports, data sources, portal pages, etc.) to any desired location on a local or network drive. Once backed up, the content can be restored within the same place in the same environment, a different location in the same environment, or the same or different location in a different environment.
Not only can this process be done through drag and drop from within MetaManager's user interface, but it can also be automated from command line. In addition, in environments where security is different (the same or different LDAPs with the same or different content), MetaManager allows users to deploy content by inheriting the security of the target location's parent and or by setting the newly deployed content's owner as the person performing the deployment within MetaManager.
Stay tuned for an example of this in our upcoming Podcasts and Tips & Tricks recordings. | |
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Building a running total (i.e. MTD or YTD) using a dimensional data source
- Contributed by S.J. Van Jaarsveld, Consultant -
The following technique will allow you to quickly create a running total in a crosstab report in Report Studio, using a dimensional data source (DMR). In this example, the running total is used to display a Year-to-Date value.
Steps:
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Create a new crosstab report in Report Studio, using the 'GO Data Warehouse' sample package.
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From the Sales Query Subject, drag Order Method from the Order Method dimension onto the rows, and drag Year from the Time dimension onto the columns.
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Drag Month from the Time dimension onto the columns nesting it below Year.
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Add the Quantity measure from Sales to the crosstab placing it underneath Month.
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Drag a new Query Calculation from the Toolbox onto the columns ensuring you drop it nested underneath the Month member and next to the Quantity measure.Label it 'YTD'.
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Define the expression for this new calculation as 'running-total([Quantity] for [Order method],[Year])'.
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Create a prompt for the crosstab by selecting the Year member and clicking the 'Build Prompt Page' icon.
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Continue to run the report and select a year when prompted. The Year-to-Date value will be displayed next to the month value.
Additional Information
This technique has been tested in 8.3. For a working specification of the above example e-mail BrightStar Partners. |
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IBM Cognos Articles of Interest
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Did You Know...
About Moon...
The Moon only shows one face to the Earth
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Although the Moon used to rotate in the sky compared to our point of view, it has been slowing down billions of years. And at some point in the distant past it just stopped turning from our perspective.
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The Earth's gravity holds the Moon in orbit, but it pulls differently at various parts of the Moon.
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Over a long period, gravity slowed down the Moon's rotation so that it finally stopped, and always displayed one face to the Earth.
The Moon is slowly drifting away
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Although the orbit of the Moon seems nice and stable, our only natural satellite is actually drifting away from us at a rate of 4 centimeters a year.
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This is happening because of the conservation of momentum in the orbit of the Earth. In about 50 billion years from now, the Moon will stop moving away from us. -
It will settle into a stable orbit, taking about 47 days to go around the Earth (it takes 27.3 days today). At that point, the Earth and the Moon will be tidally locked to each other.
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It will look like the Moon is always in the same spot in the sky.
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Of course, the Sun is expected to consume the Earth in about 5 billion years, so this event may not happen.
The Moon looks the same size as the Sun
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This is an amazing coincidence
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From our perspective here on Earth, the Moon and the Sun look approximately the same size in the sky.
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Of course, the Sun is much much bigger than the Moon. The Sun happens to be 400 times larger than the Moon, but it's also 400 times further away.
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This wasn't always the case. Billions of years ago, the Moon was much closer than the Sun, and would have looked larger in the sky.
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And the Moon is moving away from us, so in the distant future, the Moon will look much smaller than the Sun.
The official name for the Moon is... the Moon
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It's kind of confusing, but the only real name for the Earth's moon is "the Moon."
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When the Moon was given its name, astronomers didn't know that there were moons orbiting other planets. And so they just called it the Moon.
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Now that we know there are other moons, it all comes down to the capitalization.
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The Earth's moon is referred as "the Moon", with a capital "M." Other moons are given a lowercase "m" to show the difference.
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BrightStar Partners is committed to bringing you quality content month after month. If you have ideas for topics or if there is something you'd like to learn more about, please contact us and we'll do our best to address your request! We hope you enjoy this newsletter as much as we enjoy bringing it to you. |
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Taking a User-Centric Approach to Information Challenge