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www.triangleinformationmanagement.com 01256 860050 Cognos Enterprise Planning Migration 10 Tips E-Book Think of Migration as a journey… one step at a time. Here are ‘Triangle’s Top 10 Tips for Cognos Enterprise Planning’ Migration’ Author: Mike Young (EP Migration Specialist, Triangle Information Management) April 2016

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Cognos Enterprise Planning Migration

10 Tips E-Book

Think of Migration as a

journey… one step at a time.

Here are ‘Triangle’s Top 10 Tips for

Cognos Enterprise Planning’

Migration’

#

Author: Mike Young

(EP Migration Specialist, Triangle Information Management)

April 2016

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Tip 1: Managing Big Cubes within Cognos EP

I have no idea what the specific issues of your model are but I can tell you from experience that most EP sites run into

trouble over ‘Big Cubes’. Find out how to avoid key problems with ‘Big Cubes’ when using Enterprise Planning and what

you can do to overcome the challenges.

The trouble with 5 dimensions in a cube is that you only need to increase each dimension by 20% to increase the cube

size by 200%. I’m not exaggerating – check the arithmetic:

One moment you have a cube within the software safe limit (20m cells) the next moment you are looking at all your

Excel reports taking an hour or more to refresh when they used to take minutes, I promise you, you don’t want to be in

the office when that happens!

“What do you mean the cube’s too big? It’s only a few more cost centres. What on earth did I spend all this money on!”

For this reason I have made ‘Big Cubes’ the first of my ‘Top 10 Tips for Cognos EP Migration’.

Do I have ‘Big Cubes’?

The first thing you need to know about ‘Big Cubes’ is that they probably won’t be ‘big’ in any tool you migrate to. So the

real question is whether you face an immediate crisis or one you can live with?

The most obvious pointer is cell-count. In Cognos EP Analyst when you open a Cube you see the cell-count before you

click ‘OK’. If it’s over 20m you know you have an issue. Anything over 30m and you are lucky it hasn’t blown up already.

Cognos EP Contributor is different with ‘slice-size’ as the limiting factor. You get this figure on a splash screen when you

kick off a GTP. 500k is great, 2m is ok, but 5m and there will be problems. If you’re not sure, check out other symptoms

like the Website being slow to open or your Excel Addin being abnormally slow. The Addin refresh can be a nightmare –

I have known it go from 2 mins to 2 hours after a slight increase in Cube size. It was like driving over a cliff with no

reverse gear.

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OK I have ‘Big Cubes’ – What do I do now?

Your Triangle EP Health Check will advise you of your best course of action. But if you want to go it alone I recommend

you look at cutting back on excessive Scenarios.

The problem of excessive Scenarios is associated with ‘Excel style’ design. Excel is a victim of its own flexibility.

Because you can throw data, assumptions, calculations and reports randomly into the same worksheet, there is an

enormous temptation to do so. When you move to a bigger tool like Cognos EP, it is necessary to think a bit more about

process so you don’t, for example, recalculate last year’s budget every time you run an update macro process. This

sounds very obvious but if you open a Cube and you are not sure whether it is a Report or a Calculation then you

probably have a Scenario problem.

As a general rule, Reports need many Scenarios and Calculations need only one. If your cube is a hybrid then you

might want to consider separating into separate cubes i.e. pushing your Calculation Measures into a Calculation Cube

which can be slimmed down to just one Scenario.

Worked example

Your ‘Before’ Cube (Report P&L) has 120 Measures, 12 Customer Groups, 12 Product Groups, 12 Markets, 24

Timescale (Months, Qtrs etc.), 12 Scenarios (Budget, Actuals etc.) and it is already a Cognos EP busting 60 million

cells. The Financial Director wants to add a new Product Group and your Triangle EP Health Check has told you that

the cube is about to blow.

You only need to report on 20 measures so your ‘After’ Cubes (Calculation P&L + Report P&L) only need to be 5m and

10m cells respectively. Even though you still have exactly the same 120 Measures in your Calculation you now only

calculate scenarios once instead of 12 times. After you have done your analysis, this change might only take a few

hours to implement and yet could buy you another 12 months of life for Cognos EP.

So what’s the catch?

The phrase ‘After you have done your analysis’. It is so much easier to make a change like this on a well house-kept

and well documented model with a development box rather than blind on a live untidy system. If your Cubes go down on

the live system then you will have no choice. Either way, you have to do your analysis or you might make matters

worse.

If your Excel Addin is taking 2 hours to refresh it should not be hard to make the case for a few hours of analysis to work

out exactly which cubes should be calculations and which ones should be reports. Hopefully you have already

completed your Triangle EP Health Check so this will already have happened.

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Migration Journey

Think of Migration as a journey, one step at a time.

You will get the most out of my ‘Top Ten Tips for Cognos EP Migration’ if your system documentation is already clear,

concise, and up to date. If, as I do, you hate doing system documentation then make sure you use a proven

documentation template or you will end up creating an elephant or missing key points, or both.

What Next?

In this series of Top 10 Tips for Cognos EP Migration, next time I will be showing you how to tackle ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Links’ . You know what I’m talking about – “why use 1 link when 10 will do!” If you think that’s bad in Cognos EP – you

don’t even want to think about what it will do to you in a migration!

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Cognos EP Migration Tip 2 ‘Sorcerers

Apprentice Links’ Continuing the migration journey, here is the second in the series of ‘Triangle’s Top 10 Tips for Cognos Enterprise

Planning Migration’. Find out if you have ‘Sorcerors Apprentice Links’ and how to manage them.

Whatever migration issues a model may experience, experience suggests that most Cognos Enterprise Planning

Migration sites will run into trouble over ‘Sorcerors Apprentice Links’. In Cognos EP, Links are really easy to create

through a quick point and click. That in itself is the problem – they are really easy to create – so many of them!

Unfortunately they are also rather difficult to delete! This is not only because the software hangs on to them (a Link

referenced in a Macro cannot be deleted), they also strike fear into the hearts of anyone who has not written them!

Story of the Simple 2 Link Cube & the 10 Link Monster

Consider the example of a Simple ‘2 Link Cube’ that grew into a ‘10 Link Monster’:

The 1st Cognos Administrator set up a simple 2 Link Cube. Then along came the 2ndCognos Administrator who

added Links 03,04,05,06 for reasons now forgotten & undocumented.

When the 3rd Cognos Administrator arrived, who didn’t want to break anything so just added Links 07,08,09,10 on

top. Link 07 overrides Link 01 – Link 09 overrides Link 02 – Link 10 overrides Link 07 – Link 08 was for something else

to keep, just in case!

Then along came the 4th Administrator whose job was to Migrate to TM1, and tried to use the TM1 Migration Utility but

the Links generated so much useless Script that the Links were binned. After trying from scratch again, the specification

was too high-level and so ended up repeating all the errors of the previous Administrators’ work.

Well this couldn’t happen in real life – or could it?

Do I have ‘Sorcerers Apprentice Links’?

In a word “Yes” – everybody does. Hence, why ‘Sorcerors Apprentice Links’ is the second of ‘Top Ten Tips for Cognos

EP Migration’.

In 25 years of trouble-shooting Cognos EP solutions, I never once came across a site that did not have high

maintenance or redundant Dlinks. The only question was “How many?”

If you are not sure whether you have Sorcerors Apprentice Links the most obvious pointer is your Dcube Update Table.

If there are more links feeding into the Cube than items in the Update Table then you may well have an issue.

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If Standard & ODBC Links are mixed together in your Update Table then you probably have an issue. If your Link

names are not Tgt Cube < Src Cube (Optional Simple Note) where Tgt Cube & Src Cubeare standardized short Cube

names then you definitely have an issue.

I have ‘Sorcerers Apprentice Links’ – What now?

Your Triangle EP Health Check will tell you your best course of action. But if you want to go it alone I recommend you

immediately tidy up your Link names. You then need to work out a Standard Policy to define which Links should be in

the Dcube Update Tablevs which Links should be actioned directly by a Macro. Your Link naming convention should

then help you drive out cobwebs from your model:

Standard Links named “STD Tgt Cube 01 < Src Cube” actioned by DcubeUpdate Macro

Standard Links index “01” refers to the Order of the Link in the Dcube Update Table

ODBC Links named “OBD Tgt Cube 01 < Src Cube” actioned by DlinkExecute Macro

ODBC Links index “01” refers to the Order of the Link in the Macro.

Migration Journey

There are many other tasks you can do to prepare for Cognos Enterprise Planning for Migration but renaming Links is

one of the first key steps because there is no possibility of data loss, broken reports or problems with Excel. After this

exercise, all links that are not in Update Tables or accessed directly by Macros can be safely deleted and you will be

well on the way towards getting your model ready for Migration.

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Cognos Ep Migration Tip 3 ‘Alternate

Hierarchies’ As the migration journey continues, find out how you can prepare your Cognos model with our third top-tip for Cognos

Enterprise Planning on how to handle ‘Alternate Hierarchies’.

Cognos Enterprise Planning has always had an achilles heel which is ‘alternate hierarchies’. For those unfamiliar with

this jargon as part of their Cognos EP Migration, an ‘alternate hierarchy’ is any rollup from base data which consolidates

into groupings different to, but parallel with, the standard hierarchy.

Do I have ‘Alternate Hierarchies’?

Probably yes. Typically this is an issue when a business is re-organising its cost centres, for example:

“Manager A gains an additional 6 cost centres, 3 from Manager B & 3 from Manager C”

If this re-organisation takes place at the beginning of a Budget then Cognos EP presents the user with a choice:

“Do we re-organise history for comparison to last year or do we leave the history alone?”

This is a very tough question as ‘out-of-the-box’ EP only supports one hierarchy. It is very difficult to leave the history

alone as everything gets re-organised according to the new Hierarchy.

If this re-organisation takes place during a Budget or Forecast then Cognos EP tends to just ‘melt-down’.

I have ‘Alternate Hierarchies’ – What do I do now?

A lot of Administrators go down the route of creating parallel sets of Cost Centre dimensions but this can be very messy,

especially when the time comes to migrate. All Enterprise Planning tools support alternate hierarchies, so it becomes

something of a nightmare trying to pull together a disparate bunch of cost centre dimensions back into a single

consolidated structure.

Fortunately I have a ‘widget’ for this.

Widget – ‘Hierarchies’

This widget is intended for use as an ODBC source in Microsoft Excel. It is strongly recommended that you duplicate

this format in a proper enterprise tool such as SQL Server. It is simple to relocate an ODBC connection from Excel to

SQL Server provided the SQL table matches the above specification.

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As you can see, the Primary Hierarchy is rolling the Cost Centres up into Old and New groupings. The Alternate

Hierarchy is an attribute, in this case colour, but this is not supported by the Dlist Builder which is only capable of

automating subtotals for the Primary Hierarchy.

The Hierarchies widget allows for an Alternate Hierarchy to be automatically maintained on the Cost Centre Dlist

through the use of a Dcube Map which is itself automated by the widget.

Please note that if you are not a Cognos Administrator just ignore this paragraph as it will all be “Greek”. (Incidentally,

did you know that Greek for “It’s all Greek to me” is “It’s all Chinese”?)

Show Me How

1. Setup ODBC for your widget e.g. EP Migration Widgets.xlsm

2. Setup ODBC Import in your Dlist e.g. Dlist Hierarchy Widget

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3. Setup ODBC Import into your Dcube Map e.g. Dcube Map Colour

4. Add an internal Dlink using your Dcube Map e.g. Dlink Hierarchy Widget

5. Finally you need to refresh your report Dcube e.g. Dcube Hierarchy Widget

You can now see we have 2 Hierarchies in the same Cube and both add up to the Total of 8.

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Cognos EP Migration Journey

I am not saying you should replace all your Standard Hierarchy Dlists with Alternate Hierarchy Dlists as this could be a

loss of focus on the main task, which is to get your model streamlined and ready for migration.

What I am saying is that you should populate your Hierarchy documentation with all Alternate Hierarchies whether or not

you implement these in EP as you will definitely want them to be implemented in your new tool.

Nobody wants to waste time during actual migration trying to work out what Alternate Hierarchies should or should not

be included in what calculations & reports.

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Cognos EP Migration Tip 4 ‘Year End

Rollover’ What is it about ‘Year-End Rollover’ that seems to make all planners seem to bury their heads in the sand until they

have no choice i.e. the day before the first monthly report pack is due out? Find out how you can prepare your Cognos

EP Migration model with Triangle’s fourth top-tip for Cognos Enterprise Planning on how to handle the ‘Year-End

Rollover’.

Year-End Rollover is probably an Excel legacy thing where a flurry of frenzied activity, late nights & weekends would

result in some sort of year end process which, whilst not perfect, could be tidied up the day before the second monthly

report was due out. This is key to your Cognos EP Migration Planning.

Do I have ‘Year End Rollover’ issues?

Whatever the history, the reality is that the vast majority of EP sites have inherited some, if not all, of Excel’s worst

habits. The ‘Year-End Rollover’ – or lack of it – is most definitely one of them.

If you don’t have a process chart stuck on your wall clearly showing how you roll from Budgets to Actuals to Forecasts

and back to Budgets then you probably have ‘Year End Rollover’ issues.

If you have enormous Excel workbooks with last year’s Budget on hidden tabs then you definitely have ‘Year-End

Rollover’ issues.

I have ‘Year End Rollover’ issues – What do I do now?

If you don’t have your year-end process documented then you need to do this straight away. If your process involves

some sort of pre-population then this also needs to be clearly defined. Fortunately I have 2 ‘widgets’ for this –

‘Processes’ and ‘Scenarios’.

Widget – ‘Processes’

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Widget – ‘Processes’ encourages you to think of everything in terms of cycles. In the example above, a Budget-

Forecast-Actuals cycle may be depicted at the highest level but the cyclic nature is un-mistakeable.

For example, if the year-end coincides with 2016 Budget then DEFINE Scenario could define the scenario name

together with a definition for how it is to be pre-populated.

DEFINE Timescale could indicate the number of time periods as well as the relationship between ‘generic time’ (Jan,

Feb, Mar) and ‘calendar time’ (Jan-15, Feb-15, Mar-15).

DEFINE Hierarchies is the space where you can indicate changes to corporate structures being put in place at year-

end.

In this example ‘Year-End Rollover’ is now complete and the operational Budget process takes over.

With this flowchart, it is easy to see how the ‘Year-End Rollover’ could also coincide with Forecast & Actuals, where the

key relationship is the definition of what Scenario rolls into the next.

Fortunately my next ‘widget’ deals with this:

Widget – ‘Scenarios’

We saw in Cognos EP Migration Tip 1 how Scenarios can be used to keep the size of Cubes down. We can also use a

structured Definition of Scenarios to define ‘Year-End Rollover’:

Widget – ‘Scenarios’ contains a Dlist Builder to automate the creation of:

Data

Assumption

Calculation

Output

It also contains a Map Builder section which enables automation of the Year-End Rollover.

In our example ‘2016 Budget’ is pre-programmed to pre-populate with ‘2015 RFC Q4’ data.

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Cognos EP Migration Journey

I am not saying you should automate your Year-End Rollover as this could be a loss of focus on the main task, which is

to get your model streamlined and ready for migration.

I am saying that you should populate your scenario documentation with a pre-population definition, whether or not you

automate rollover, as you will definitely want this to be implemented in your new tool.

Nobody wants their planning model to grind to a halt at year-end because the specialist administrator is not available. It

really should be something that the end user can drive.

Remember that the Triangle team of Cognos consultants are with you for the whole journey. So if you can get easy wins

out of simply documenting your processes then we will be backing you all the way.

Look out for the next Cognos EP Migration Tip 5 when I will run the rule over Security Definition & Automation.

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Cognos EP Migration Tip 5 ‘Security

Automation’ It seems to be in the nature of Security issues that software vendors tend to assume a manual approach to Security

maintenance. Find out how to automate existing security as part of your Cognos Enterprise Planning Migration in

Triangle’s fifth top-tip.

The only problem with a manual approach to Security maintenance as part of your Cognos EP Migration is that changes

to Security tend to build up over time to the point where the original specification is obsolete. The result is you then end

up relying on the software’s self-documentation which is not really ‘readable’:

ELIST:

RIGHTS:

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Here is the same information presented in a ‘readable’ format:

This is much simpler. Wouldn’t it be great if the readable document could be used not only to document but

also automate the existing Security? Well, it just happens I have a widget for that. Widget – ‘Security’

Do I have ‘Security Automation’ issues?

Probably not, unless your users are changing every week. However I would put serious money on the likelihood that you

have ‘Security Documentation’ issues for the reasons outlined above.

When you come to preparing for Migration you have to produce a readable Security Document for the new software. So

you may as well automate your existing system at the same time. It only takes a few minutes and this approach will

save you hours and reduce embarrassing errors.

Convince me it will only take a few minutes

I am assuming here that you have completed your EP Healthcheck and have tidied up the Hierarchies you want to use

for website Security. This means your Hierarchy Widget has already automatically populated your Security Widget thus:

If you now click on the ‘Elist Export’ macro on Widget – ‘Security’:

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You get your EList Export back into Cognos for free:

Now all you have to do is add your Rights in a readable format thus:

Notice “R” for Read, “W” for Write, “C” for Control.

Now click on the ‘Rights Export’ macro on Widget – ‘Security’:

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You get your Rights Export back into Cognos for free:

Also, you get some Icons automatically pasted over your “R” “W” “C” to make your documentation more ‘readable’.

If you have 1,000 users it will take more than a few minutes but it is still many times easier than maintaining those EList

& Rights tabs manually.

Cognos EP Migration Journey

On this occasion automating your Security is not a loss of focus, as the direct result of tidying up your Security definition

will be to weed out gremlins which have probably hidden in the system for years. The automation element also prompts

you to deal with compliance issues like Sarbanes Oxley since the document is the model and vice versa. Compliance

requires you to not only protect personal data but also clearly document and verify same.

Widget – ‘Security’ is specifically designed to make that journey much easier. It is part of the Triangle philosophy of

staying with you for the whole journey.

Look out for the next Cognos EP Migration Tip 6 which is going to show you some fancy tricks to get your Measures

calculations locked together with your Excel definitions. Just like with Security we will be replacing complex self-

documentation with at-a-glance readable definitions.

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Cognos EP Migration Tip 6 ‘Calculation Migration’ A fair understanding of Cognos Enterprise Planning is required to make sense of the issue of ‘Calculation Migration’.

Find out how to address this tricky issue with Triangle’s sixth top-tip as part of your Cognos EP Migration.

The issue of Calculation Migration within Cognos EP Migration is that all planning products do most Calculations in

similar ways. But there is one big difference – ‘Cross-Dimension Calculation’.

What is a Cross Dimensional Calculation’?

I would define a ‘Cross-Dimensional Calculation’ or ‘CDC’ as a calculation which alters its definition in the Measures

Dimension according to its position in another Dimension.

An example might be:

{Sales} = {Units} x {Price}

Units might be keyed in for some Cost Centres but calculated for others.

In Excel this is not an issue as you just overtype one formula with another depending on which Cost Centre you are in.

But in Cognos EP you have to attribute your Measures Calculation with a Flag and then add a conditional statement:

IF {Flag} = 1 THEN {Sales} = {Total Units} * {Share%} * {Price} ELSE {Sales} = {Units} * {Price}

The above expression converts a ‘CDC’ into a ‘Single Dimensional Calculation’ or ‘SDC’.

So What’s the Problem?

The problem is that Excel is fundamentally designed to support CDC’s and Cognos EP is fundamentally designed to

oppose them. This puts you in a ‘Grand Old Duke of York’ situation. You went through all the pain of converting your

‘CDC’s into ‘SDC’s in the first place when you set up your EP model. If you have lost your original Excel specification,

like many of my clients, then you have to go through the pain of converting your ‘SDC’s back into ‘CDC’s because all of

your migration options need a specification in Excel format.

“No!” I hear you say, “Let’s save time by using the self-documenting feature of Cognos EP.”

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Well here it is:

Don’t worry, I don’t understand it either and I have been doing it for 30 years.

Nobody in Anaplan or TM1 or Hyperion Planning would have the first idea how to implement this unless they were also

Cognos EP experts. Even if they were Enterprise Planning experts they would probably tell you to redesign the whole

thing from scratch, and that breaks the golden rule: ‘Don’t eat the whole elephant’.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a simple template which could help us both document and streamline our Measures

Calculations into bite-sized chunks ready for Migration?

Well it just happens I have a widget for that. Widget – ‘Measures’.

Widget – ‘Measures’

The purpose of Widget – ‘Measures’ is to pull together all the elements of a Measures Calculation in both Excel and

Cognos EP formats at the same time.

This is a very rapid way of liberating Cognos EP formulae into a simple documentation standard. More importantly it

also allows us to rapidly replace complex BiF functions that do not migrate with much simpler expressions like ‘IF THEN

ELSE’ which migrate easily.

To make things even easier, the widget comes with a Translate function which automatically converts simple

expressions like IF THEN ELSE

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From this:

Into this:

That makes it much easier to confirm your document matches your model and if you are tidying up your EP formulae

then these formulae will just paste straight in from the document.

That just leaves Options and Link information to add and you will have a definitive specification thus:

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I am assuming you have already tidied up your links after reading my previous top tips for Cognos EP Migration. So this

also acts as a double check that you have tidied up properly and don’t have multiple Links pointing at the same

Measures.

Cognos EP Migration Journey with Triangle

I’m not saying that tidied-up ‘Single Dimensional Calculations’ are the perfect solution for your new software platform.

There are many who swear by ‘Cross Dimensional Calculations’.

I am saying that tidied-up ‘Single Dimensional Calculations’ are guaranteed to work, maybe slower than the theoretically

‘perfect’ ones, but still a guarantee that you can eat the elephant in bite sized chunks and that your model will keep on

working while you do it. No outages.

Look out for the next Cognos EP Migration Tip 7 when we will be looking at how this widget can be used to transform

UAT.

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Cognos EP Migration Tip 7 ‘UAT Logic

Test’ Over the years of sorting out Cognos EP Migration problems I would say by far the ‘lion’s share’ of the time taken has

been in User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Even if you are just doing a bit of housekeeping, you will still need some sort of

framework or you will end up spending far too much time in UAT.

Why does UAT always seem to take longer than expected?

I think the key word here is ‘expected’. The person doing the ‘expecting’ is usually a Senior Finance Manager who has

been used to getting things in Excel. The Cognos EP Migration salesperson has no doubt promised that Cognos EP

works just like Excel, but only better. Hence, expectation levels have already been set and that faster is implied as a

result!

What’s the problem?

The problem is that in Excel you have one day for UAT after which you fudge the errors with an ‘adjustment’

column. A cynic might argue that you are more likely to progress your career with ever more plausible

explanations for the ‘adjustment’ rather than getting to grips with the real cause of the error because this way

you are more likely to make your deadlines.

Sadly Cognos EP does not enjoy this ‘benefit’. Any error in data or calculations stands out like a sore thumb and

it takes hours to engineer ‘adjustment’ columns compared to the seconds it takes in Excel.

So this is not really a level playing pitch!

What’s the solution?

Forget the comparison with Excel and put in a proper professional 3 step UAT regime:

Logic Test

Data Test

Stress Test

Expect that this will take longer than expected, manage expectations, and hit your deadlines. You may be thinking along

the following lines …

“Wouldn’t it be great if there was an off-the-shelf template that could take me through the whole UAT process more

quickly so I could hit my deadlines and keep my boss happy?”

Well, it just happens I have a widget for that, or at least the first part of it.

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Widget – ‘Logic Test’

It might be useful to first define what a Logic Test is. Since 99% of financial planning calculations begin in Excel we

could define Logic Test thus:

‘Prototype test cycle of EP calculations aimed at matching the output of a definition in Excel’

Widget – ‘UAT Logic Test’ is a spin-off from Widget – ‘Measures’. It shares the same first three columns in order to

leverage the translation of Excel into Cognos EP format.

I am sure purists would argue that you should never define anything in Cognos EP terms of Excel but in this case, the

purists would be wrong. Do it this way and you will make your deadline.

Columns 4, 5 & 6 are very different to reflect the specific needs of UAT.

I’m assuming you have already streamlined your Excel formulae to avoid the use of complex functions. It has been my

experience that the vast majority of complex functions (which cannot be migrated) can be replaced by a combination of

simple functions (which can be migrated).

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For the avoidance of doubt, simple functions are:

Plus Minus Times Divide + – * /

IF THEN ELSE IF(<Condition>,<Output>,<Output>)

CUMUL B2 = A2 + B1

LAG B2 = A1

It is remarkable how many complex formulae can be expressed in terms of the above simple formulae with the

enormous added advantage that UAT can then be reconciled line by line.

In the above example, column 4 uses the Excel Add-in to pull Cognos EP back into Excel. Because the formulae are all

simple, they match line by line and it is immediately possible to identify the precise line where the UAT fails.

In this example we can see that Measure dV0 is calculated at -738 in Excel and -1.476 in Cognos. A clear error.

Thereafter most of the calculations in Cognos are incorrect.

By simply pasting the contents of the Cognos EP column into Cognos EP, the calculation for dV0 is automatically

corrected and the cube sails through UAT Logic Test.

Cognos Enterprise Planning Journey with Triangle

In my next blog we will be look deeper into UAT issues with a standard methodology for Data Test.

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Cognos EP Migration Tip 8 ‘UAT Data Test’ User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is one of the final & critical software testing processes in Cognos EP Migration as it

verifies that a solution works for the end user. Here we now consider the second stage of UAT – ‘UAT Data Test’.

Typically ‘UAT Logic Test’ ends with sign-off on a working prototype and ‘UAT Data Test’ begins as the model is scaled

up to production strength. If ‘UAT Logic Test’ has been completed successfully, then in theory Cognos EP should sail

through ‘UAT Data Test’.

What’s the problem?

Cognos EP never sails through UAT Data Test.

There are a number of reasons for this but perhaps the most common are:

Real data is ‘dirty’ unlike the ‘clean’ data used in Logic Test

Real data contains ‘holes’ or is otherwise ‘incomplete’

Real data creates conditions that were not anticipated during prototype design

For all the above reasons, it is not wise to try to use ‘common sense’ during UAT Data Test or you will end up going

around in circles.

What’s the solution?

The bad news is that there is no magic bullet for dealing with UAT Data Test. There are no points for being clever, only

points for adopting a standardised approach.

The standard solution for Cognos EP Migration is to formulate a UAT Test Script which covers the entire planning cycle

‘from cradle to grave’ and then repeat this script over and over again until all the data ties back to a fixed reference.

Triangle provides two widgets to alleviate the pain of UAT Data Test namely:

Widget – ‘Processes’

Widget – ‘Data Test’

There now follows a brief overview of these two widgets in the context of UAT Data Test.

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Widget – ‘Processes’

Widget – ‘Processes’ is going to help you to formulate your UAT Test Script. You should scope your script taking into

account the following two considerations:

“Is my script broad enough to cover upstream/downstream effects I may not have considered?”

“Is my test cycle time compatible with the extent of changes that I am making?”

These are two very important questions because they tend to pull in opposite directions which is why it is so important to

document them appropriately.

In the example above, the first question might relate to whether you need to test a cycle rolling from

say Budget to Reforecast Q1 to Reforecast Q2 etc. but the second question might point to a cycle time of 2 hours which

may be too long.

Cycle time is a vital consideration when formulating a successful UAT strategy, which brings us to the next widget.

Widget – ‘UAT Data Test’

Just as important as formulating a good UAT Test Script is recording the results of each cycle in a simple and clear

format which improves the chances of the next text cycle being more successful than the previous one.

Widget – ‘UAT Data Test’ is a very simple way of recording test results for each cycle against the external reference, in

this case the existing business plan in Excel.

This widget provides an intuitive representation of pass/fail where the yellow columns represent output from Cognos EP

for each test cycle.

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Despite its simplicity, this widget could be the most useful of all, as it constantly reminds us of the phrase, ‘there are no

points for being clever, only points for being standard’.

Cognos EP Migration Journey with Triangle

In my next blog we will be look at locking in all the information we have gleaned from Cognos EP into an ‘online’ help

system which can double as a Migration Guide and a Training Guide to support your Cognos EP Migration journey.

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Cognos EP Migration Tip 9 ‘Online Migration Guide’ The Cognos EP Migration top 10 tips blogs todate should already have started to build an armoury of concise

documentation around your Cognos EP model. Here Triangle will show you how to use ‘Process’ and ‘Training’ widgets

to lock this information into an ‘Online Migration Guide’ that can also serve as context sensitive Help as well as support

for Training & Handover.

And all of this with just one simple idea.

What’s the problem?

If you have been developing Cognos EP for any length of time you will know that documentation is always bottom of the

priority list. Part of the reason is the Excel ‘culture’ of non-documentation but part is also down to the people who build

Excel and EP models.

In my experience, people who have a flair for model-building can be diabolical at documentation and will think of any

excuse to get out of it. Excuses are not hard to find as there is always a new model build that can take priority over

documentation of existing systems.

At the same time the people who are best positioned to write good documentation (users and other stakeholders) are

invariably too busy on ‘business as usual’ activities.

The result is poor documentation and that’s a real problem when it comes to Migration.

What’s the solution?

Actually there is a very simple solution which can turn a negative spiral into a positive one. If you can make

documentation easy, accessible and above all fun, then it will happen. I would like to think that my Excel widgets make

documentation easy and fun so that just leaves accessible to sort out.

Widget – ‘Processes’

Widget – ‘Processes’ can be used in your Migration documentation to help show where you are in the Planning Cycle

through the application of Hilite/Lolite thus:

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These images can be saved as bitmaps on a matching set of Cognos EP Manager screens to create an intuitive

‘animated’ interface:

Widget – ‘Training’

Widget – ‘Training’ is simply the output of the Help Icon on the Manager screens

This can be used for Migration definition as allows you to drill down to context sensitive Help.

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Using this technique you can positively engage your users and other stakeholders in your Enterprise Migration Process

without making unnecessary calls on their time. You might even persuade them to complete the text for you!

Cognos EP Migration Journey with Triangle

In my final blog on Tips for Cognos EP Migration I will compile a summary of all the tips to date. Seen as a whole these

will paint a picture of how we can help you every step of the way.

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Cognos EP Migration Tip 10- ‘Cloud’ Up to now my Top 10 Tips have dealt with the nitty gritty of Cognos Enterprise Planning migration. For this last tip I

would like to stand back a little and ask a much broader Cognos EP Migration question – the sort of question that

perhaps the boss is asking.

Why do we have expensive planning software in the first place?

This is an important question. Some Finance Directors might be coming to the conclusion that the only ‘migration’ they

want is back to Excel!

Why would anyone want to migrate back to Excel?

One good reason could be that your existing planning tool might be seen as inflexible and unresponsive to business

demands. Another reason could be that the benefits of migrating to the Cloud might be understood by technical people,

but the business benefits may not be so obvious to the boss.

It’s worth a moment then to put ourselves in the shoes of the boss who might be considering on the one hand going

back to Excel and on the other hand going forwards to migrate Enterprise Planning into the Cloud.

One thing is for sure. The options are very different. Going back to Excel is not always the disaster that some would

have us believe. It could be that the legacy planning tool has got itself into such a pickle that the best option may well be

to re-group in Excel. Here the skill base of all the users can be used as a resource to get the show back on the road.

If you do wish to return to Excel, however, this should be taken as seriously as migrating to any other enterprise

planning tool. A disorderly return to Excel could actually make matters worse. Make sure you maintain the discipline that

we have covered in Tips 1-9 of this Cognos EP Migration journey. Even if you migrate back to Excel you are not at the

end of the journey.

The Cloud beckons whatever your starting point

Why?

Because the Cloud offers you the possibility of the best of both worlds. The Cloud offers you a solution which can be

both flexible and responsive to business demands, and within a framework of data you can trust.

How?

There is nothing fundamentally different to the Cloud that you don’t already have ‘on premise’. There is one obvious

difference that you don’t have the overhead of your own IT hardware and support staff.

The real difference with the Cloud is far simpler – you get the ‘good stuff’ first! It’s a bit like going to the cinema. Sure

you can wait until it comes out on video but for the really good stuff, you want to get it first. In this case the ‘good stuff’ is

a whole new generation of budgeting ‘widgets’ which are going to render slow & unresponsive enterprise planning tools

a thing of the past.

If you go down the IBM Planning Analytics route you will be getting cutting edge stuff coming out of Watson Analytics

right now!

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Over the coming months, Triangle will be uploading a series of budgeting widgets to the Cloud that users will be able to

use ‘off the shelf’. Thereafter, the moment Watson rolls out Google style query over the Cloud, Triangle users will be

first in line to build budgeting cubes on demand. As a sign of our commitment to and confidence in Watson Analytics,

we are investing in widget production now in order to build up a library of widgets to cover all budgeting needs.

Budgeting Measures Widget

Here is a Budgeting Measures Widget.

You can define it in Excel. We can upload it into IBM Planning Analytics. From there on, you can drag and drop it into

any cube you want or choose from a library of other functions suited to your business needs. This one will back solve

Budget Targets into Volumes & Rates and even allows for Time Slippage to help make your Annual Budget. All in

seconds. And if that’s not an exciting prospect, I don’t know what is.

Cognos EP Migration Top 10 Tips journey

Thank you for following my Cognos EP Migration Tips 1-10. I hope they are useful.