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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Business planning is no longer just about defining goals, identifying critical issues, and then mapping out strategies. In today's dynamic and highly competitive business environment, companies with complex business models want their abstract strategies turned into discrete, executable plans. They want information from the field to reach decision makers in real-time so that they can fine-tune their plans as events unfold. IBM Cognos 8 Planning offers just that.
This book provides you with everything you need to know for building planning models using IBM Cognos 8 Planning. After reading this book, you can begin your journey into model building bringing with you a perspective that comes from three of the most seasoned IBM Cognos Planning consultants in the business.
In this book, you will learn how to build planning models using IBM Cognos Planning's modeling tool, Analyst. We introduce you to key objects in Analyst that let you define, store, and move data. Then we show how you can deploy the model to hundreds or thousands of users using IBM Cognos Planning's web-based tool, Contributor. We demonstrate some of the things you can do as an administrator and as a user. Finally, we show the automation tools that you can use to maintain and support your models. As we go through this, we will share with you tips and tricks and insights from our experience with real implementations.
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Seitenzahl: 475
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009
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Table of Contents
IBM Cognos 8 Planning
Ned Riaz
Jason Edwards
Rich Babaran
IBM Cognos 8 Planning
Copyright © 2009 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: July 2009
Production Reference: 1240709
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-847196-84-2
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Filippo Sarti (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Authors
Ned Riaz
Jason Edwards
Rich Babaran
Reviewers
Steve Ladd
Sascha Mertens
Acquisition Editor
James Lumsden
Development Editor
Siddharth Mangarole
Technical Editors
Aanchal Kumar
Akshara Aware
Bhupali Khule
Editorial Team Leader
Akshara Aware
Project Team Leader
Lata Basantani
Project Coordinator
Joel Goveya
Indexer
Monica Ajmera
Proofreader
Dirk Manuel
Production Coordinator
Adline Swetha Jesuthas
Cover Work
Adline Swetha Jesuthas
About the Authors
Ned Riaz is a Certified IBM Cognos Planning expert and principal partner at Agile Strategic Business Consulting, a consulting company that specializes in IBM Cognos Planning and Business Intelligence implementations.
Ned has obtained a B.S. degree in Accounting and Management Information Systems, and he passed the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam after finishing his degree. After finishing his education, Ned worked as an auditor, accountant, and finance director in many industries, such as banks, software reselling, and entertainment. He became involved in system development work in the late nineties, and deployed various medium-sized accounting and general ledger systems.
Ned joined Adaytum Software, the original manufacturer of Planning products, in late 1999 when Adaytum had less than 50 employees. He has been working with Planning products since Contributor 1.1 and Analyst 2.2 were released in early 2000. While working with Adaytum, Ned designed and built many Planning models for a wide range of customers.
During his days in Adaytum and Cognos, Ned designed and deployed models and systems for many large fortune 500 companies in various industries, such as pharmaceutical, hospital, aircraft operations, and retailers.
As a partner/employee of Agile Strategic Business Consulting, Ned has been involved in designing and deploying various models and systems at a large information delivery corporation since 2006.
Ned and his wife live in Central Minnesota. He enjoys cycling, badminton, and volunteering with rescued rabbits. He can be contacted at <[email protected]> and on the Web at www.agilestrategic.com.
For their collaboration and insight, I would like to thank co-authors Jason Edwards and Rich Babaran. Having open communication between all co-authors greatly facilitated the writing of this book. In addition, I would like to thank the staff at Packt for providing the opportunity to write this book, as well as for their editors' guidance in editing and streamlining core concepts.
I would also like to thank my wife for her support during the writing of this book, and for helping me proof read and edit the book's contents.
Jason Edwards is a Certified IBM Cognos Planning expert and founding partner at Agile Strategic Business Consulting, a consulting company that specializes in IBM Cognos Planning and Business Intelligence implementations.
Jason has ten years of experience in application design and development by using corporate performance planning software in a broad range of industries, such as telecommunications, retail, pharmaceutical, and entertainment. He specializes in all phases of the development life cycle including requirements gathering, design, development, and deployment. With efficiency and resourcefulness, Jason has effectively led and managed highly successful IBM Cognos Planning implementations for clients in Europe and the United States.
Jason holds a Bachelor's degree in accounting and finance from Kingston Business School in the U.K. He started his career by modeling complex financial systems in spreadsheets. It was while working as an International Business Analyst for a global interactive games publisher a decade ago that he acquired his experience of the dynamic and powerful corporate performance planning software Adaytum (IBM Cognos Planning). From then on, Jason's passion for modeling sophisticated forecasting systems led him into a career of consultancy devoted to helping clients utilize the power of IBM Cognos Planning to achieve their organizational goals.
Jason believes that his dual expertise and experience in finance and information technology and his ability in building strong client relationships has helped him develop highly successful user accepted software solutions using IBM Cognos Planning.
Jason lives with his wife and daughter in Philadelphia. He enjoys recreational sports, such as cycling, soccer, and tennis and takes pleasure in exploring the great restaurants and parks of Philadelphia with his family and friends.
Jason is continually looking for new opportunities and challenges and can be contacted at <[email protected]> and on the Web at www.agilestrategic.com.
I would like to thank my highly talented co-authors and extend my sincere gratitude to the production team at Packt. I would especially like to thank my wife, family, and friends for their patience and their continued support and encouragement.
It was a pleasure to have co-authored this book with Ned Riaz and Rich Babaran. I am certain that this book will be of great help to anyone who is interested in understanding the techniques of application development using IBM Cognos Planning.
Rich Babaran has over 20 years of experience in financial modeling and analysis, corporate planning, performance measurement development, workflow modeling, and process improvement. He has spent the last 9 years helping Fortune 500 companies improve their planning processes using IBM Cognos Planning. In addition to architecting complete end-to-end planning solutions, Rich has helped clients turnaround critical implementations by applying innovative techniques learned from years of working in challenging environments. Rich has a degree in Management Economics at the Ateneo de Manila University and an MBA at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Rich can be contacted at <[email protected]>.
My gratitude goes to Packt Publishing for giving us the opportunity to write this book and to my co-authors from whom I have learned a great deal. Also, I would like to thank the editors, reviewers, and the rest of the Packt crew who made our work better than we could have done alone. Most of all, I am grateful to my wife, who patiently endured my absence as I poured my time into this book. Her encouragements got me through the long hard days. If I stand tall, it's only because of the rock that I stand on.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to extend their thanks to Janosys Inc. for their gracious support in the development of this book. Janosys Inc. is an authorized re-seller and services provider of IBM (Cognos Software), and would like to thank IBM for allowing us to use the product to build examples in this book. Amar Chabra is the president of Janosys Inc.
During his 15+ years of tenure at Cognos (now owned by IBM) and as a founder of Janosys, Inc. he has successfully deployed numerous Enterprise Planning (EP) and Business Intelligence (BI) Solutions in various industries across the USA.
Amar can be reached at <[email protected]> or at the web site www.janosys.com
About the Reviewers
Steve Ladd is a Certified Cognos Planning Solution Designer, and a Senior Consultant with a performance management consulting firm. He has 10 years of technology experience, with a focus on performance management systems.
Steve is a seasoned (PMP certified) project manager who has led the development of a diverse set of software solutions including financial planning, financial reporting, and business intelligence systems. His experience includes working with accounting, finance, operations, and IT in multiple industries, including retail, insurance, and healthcare. His technical proficiencies include web development, ETL design, and OLAP data modeling.
Steve lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Marisa and son Tyson. He is available for consulting work and may be contacted at <[email protected]>.
Sascha Mertens graduated from German University for Applied Sciences (HS Niederrhein) in 2001 as an engineer of Economics. Focusing on the business part of his degree, he began to work with Corporate Performance Management (CPM) topics in his thesis on 'Redesign of a controlling system by means of a Management Information System (MIS).'
When he started working at Deloitte in 2001, he was trained and certified in Analyst and Contributor by Adaytum—the original software producer—before they were acquired by Cognos and subsequently by IBM. With his gained knowledge, Sascha started working for the first German planning project with Volkswagen Financial Services AG, which was brought up to a status that is still live today. While this project was realized on a nearly full Analyst model with several thousand Analyst objects storing actual and plan data, he proceeded to grow himself with Cognos Planning and its development in the direction of web technology.
Once Sascha encountered the magic and the fun of translating the business requirements of CFOs and CIOs into powerful, full-blown, and integrated information systems, he continued to contribute his knowledge to many different projects. Through the modeling of system designs and architectural concepts, as well as their implementations into CPM systems, Sascha developed all kinds of planning models, such as sales planning, cost planning, personnel planning, and so on, up to the resulting financial plans.
Working closely with Cognos, Sascha became a beta tester for several upcoming Planning releases, and a community leader in one of the leading Cognos Planning forums on the Internet. With a deep knowledge of the system internals, he developed his own documentation tool for Cognos Planning systems which connects an interactive online documentation of an IBM Cognos Analyst to IBM Cognos Connection, and this is now used by a wide variety of his clients. With a strong focus on the conceptual and business side, he conducted a study for the 'State of planning within German companies' (Standortbestimmung zur Planung in deutschen Unternehmen) and offered various public webcasts, such as 'planning scenarios and simulations on board level', 'business planning for health insurance companies', 'decentralized sales planning within the franchise industry', and 'driver-based planning within a fleet management company'.
During his time with Deloitte, Sascha progressed his way to a senior managing level and designed and implemented Cognos Planning on a full-time basis in over 15 Cognos Planning and BI projects nationally, in Europe, and overseas, in the last six years. These covered nearly all kinds of industries with a concentration in the financial, biotech, and manufacturing industry and the public sector, spanning IT systems from a single server environment to huge service infrastructures holding more than 30 Planning servers that deliver services to more than 100 financial institutes. In 2006 and 2007, he designed and modeled Cognos Planning for the Austrian ministry of finance and implemented a planning system that was capable of planning the national budget of the whole country.
Since 2008, Sascha has worked for Conunit, a consulting firm specializing in CPM and BI solutions and the 'Cognos Partner of the year 2008 for Germany and Europe'. Within Conunit, Sascha and his team continue the Cognos Planning story with an offering of all kind of services around the IBM Cognos CPM and BI products, including full-scope projects (concept, design and implementation), version upgrades and their migrations, as well as performance enhancements and system improvement checks.
It was a great pleasure reviewing this book. I am sure that it will essentially help you to set up a planning system in your company.
I would also like to thank some great people from Deloitte and Cognos whom I worked with in collaborative projects, and who helped me gain experience with the product and all of the topics around CPM.
Preface
In this book we provide you with a comprehensive introduction to the design and development of planning models using IBM Cognos Planning. We have divided the book into four parts. The first part (Chapters 1-3) provides a compelling argument for improving your enterprise planning process, and introduces you to the IBM Cognos Planning suite and the model development process. The second part (Chapters 4-7) discusses model building in detail. The third part discusses the web development process (Chapters 8-13). The fourth part (Chapters 14-16) covers maintenance and automation of the planning models.
What this book covers
Chapter 1 states the objective of this book and its intended audience. We uncover the most common issues that organizations face with their planning processes, including the difficulties of a spreadsheet-based planning environment. We introduce you to IBM Cognos Planning and how it addresses some of the most pervasive problems in today's business organizations. We talk about the benefits of IBM Cognos Planning in its role in Corporate Performance Management (CPM).
Chapter 2 gives an overview of the various IBM Cognos tools and their practical application. We provide a brief overview of each tool, and then illustrate the application of each tool by using the example of a regional restaurant chain.
Chapter 3 gives an overview of the model development process. We explain some of the important considerations before embarking on IBM Cognos Planning project. We discuss three important principles of model building and walk you through the main phases in building a planning model, including designing the model in Analyst, deploying the model using Contributor, and automating and maintaining some of the administrative tasks.
Chapter 4 describes the Analyst interface and teach you how to navigate and work with objects within Analyst. We explain in detail how you can use libraries to organize objects. Finally, we discuss various administration functions that can help you to manage libraries, optimize Analyst, search for BIFs and ODBC connections, and fix corrupt index files and references.
Chapter 5 covers the D-List in detail. We show you how to create and update a D-List from many different sources. We demonstrate how to add formulas into items in the D-List and resolve calculation conflicts and circular references. We show you how to format D-List items as numeric, text, and date data types. We explain the different categories of D-Lists and how they should be ordered in a D-Cube.
Chapter 6 demonstrates how data is stored in IBM Cognos Planning. We discuss the importance of the order of dimensions in enforcing calculation and format priorities. We teach you how to view multiple slices of the cube and how to save a selection of the cube as a separate object. We teach you how to restructure the dimensions of the cube by adding, deleting, substituting, and reordering dimensions. We cover some of the important functions available for the D-Cube, including global formatting, exporting, and other options that can make it easier for you to work with the program. We illustrate how to use data entry commands that will enable you to enter data, execute mathematical operations, or set restrictions on a cell, a range of cells, or the entire cube. Finally we introduce Breakback, a powerful feature that allows you to cascade changes throughout the cube by simply making a change to a calculated item.
Chapter 7 explains how to move data by using D-Links. We discuss the basic steps of creating a D-Link and the things that you need to think about when you move data. We show you how to connect to sources outside of Analyst in order to bring data into the D-Cube. We go through two special types of D-Links: Lookup D-Links and Accumulation D-Links. We demonstrate how we can use a virtual dimension to move data effectively and efficiently. We introduce you to the A-Table, an object that allows you to map dimension items between a data source and a D-Cube, using a variety of tools. Finally, we show you the various D-Link options that enable you to perform advanced tasks when using the D-Link.
Chapter 8 explains the purpose and capabilities of the Web-based and Windows-based components of IBM Cognos Planning. We also discuss the 3-tier architecture of IBM Cognos Planning, namely the Web Server, the Application, and the Data Tier. Lastly, we list and describe the functions of the Contributor Administration Console, toolbars, menu items, and the Tree.
Chapter 9 discusses the process of creating and configuring a Contributor application before deploying it on the Web for budgeting and forecasting. We also describe the need for application synchronization after changing the Analyst model. Finally, we look at the Contributor extensions that are available for extending the Contributor administrative and client functionality.
Chapter 10 covers various features of IBM Cognos Planning that pertain to securing and controlling the Contributor web client templates. First, we discuss the role of the e.List and rights configuration in securing a planning application. We show how to create and import the e.List and rights information. Then, we cover data and content security. We talk about the importance of access tables in securing Contributor web client template contents. We also demonstrate the purpose of the saved selections in defining access tables. Next, we discuss data validation and how to set up this important feature. Lastly, we briefly cover how the cut-down function can improve the performance of Contributor web client templates.
Chapter 11 describes various methods for importing data into a Contributor application from external sources.
Chapter 12 demonstrates the Contributor workflow process and how to use the Contributor Web Client and the Contributor Excel Add-in to enter budget and forecast data.
Chapter 13 teaches you how to create publish containers; how the two different publish layouts—the Table-only Layout and the View Layout—work; and the impact of the changing e.List, models, and dimension for publish, on publishing and reporting. We demonstrate how to produce real-time reporting by publishing the application as a package, and how to use IBM Cognos Planning Contributor as a data source in Framework Manager. Lastly, we describe the process of creating a Framework Manager model using the Contributor's Framework Manager Extension.
Chapter 14 shows you how to completely automate common tasks in Analyst, such as importing and exporting data from the model by using Analyst macros. We teach you how to give users rights to Analyst libraries and also to the objects contained in these libraries. Finally, we take a look at how Planning Manager can be used to illustrate the Analyst model data flow and to build custom menu screens so that users can easily navigate around the model.
Chapter 15 shows you how Contributor macros can be created and scheduled to automate administrative tasks such as the import and publishing of data. We demonstrate how to schedule these macros to run in IBM Cognos Connection or from a batch file. We also look at how to set up rights so that Contributor Administrators can perform specific administrative functions. Finally, we look at jobs, job clusters, and job servers.
Chapter 16 discusses the topic of IBM Cognos security, explaining the concepts of authentication, authorization, and the IBM Cognos 8 namespace. We also recapitulate how security is configured in Analyst and Contributor.
What you need for this book
To realize the full benefit of this book, you must be familiar with spreadsheets and must have done some modeling using this tool. Much of the subject of this book makes a distinction between IBM Cognos Planning and the spreadsheet-based planning process. It also helps to have basic understanding of data structures and some working knowledge of the standard query language, SQL. This book does not cover installation and configuration of the software. Please refer to the IBM support web site for instructions on installation this software, as well as the other software pre-requisites necessary for this IBM Cognos Planning to run.
Who this book is for
This book is written for first-time developers wanting an introduction to IBM Cognos Planning. It gives clear and easy-to-understand instructions on how to design, build, and deploy Planning models focusing only on the essential tools that you need to know. It is for anyone who wants to understand IBM Cognos Planning and make a transition to this tool from elsewhere.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "So if the file is called products.txt, it would be appropriate to name the File Map as Products."
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "Open the Contributor Administration Console from Windows Start button".
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Chapter 1. Planning with IBM Cognos
The objective of this book is to introduce you to IBM Cognos Planning and provide you with a guide to help you get started. If you are a beginner seeking to expand your basic knowledge about IBM Cognos Planning, or perhaps a power-user who would like to start developing a model, then this book is for you. We provide you with a conceptual framework and cut to the heart of the subject without the technical clutter. We have structured this book in a way that focuses on the key aspects of IBM Cognos Planning while at the same time giving you step-by-step instructions on how to build simple models from the ground up. Like any software, IBM Cognos gives you tools that enable you to create solutions to problems. Tools by themselves do not solve problems; you do through the use of these tools. A lot has to do with the understanding of how to leverage the features of IBM Cognos in order to create new capabilities within your enterprise. That is what we hope you will learn from this book.
Throughout this book, we will offer our advice on building effective and efficient models and will provide tips on overcoming or avoiding some of the pitfalls of modeling. As with any skill, the aspiration for mastery of IBM Cognos Planning must begin with the fundamentals. We hope that after you have gone through the book, you will have gained the fundamentals that will prepare you to take on the challenge of building more complex models and, by harnessing the power of this software, improve on how your enterprise plans and manages performance.
Planning in a dynamic business environment
Today's dynamic business environment demands more accurate projection about the future. Forces such as intense competition, changing regulatory requirements, disruptive technologies, demands for financial transparency, and more sophisticated customers and investors compel companies to develop a clearer picture of the future so that they can react faster, while at the same time lower the level of uncertainty with their business. We have seen over time how markets have responded to companies that fail to deliver expected results. Those that fail have seen their stock value diminish. On the other hand, companies that consistently deliver are rewarded with higher market capitalization. The key to gaining the confidence of the market is in reducing the level of uncertainty by setting the right expectations. To do this, companies must be in tune with the realities of their business so that they can project the future more accurately and manage performance towards their goals. Yet, despite advancements in technology, a great number of companies operate their business using inadequate planning systems, effectively hampering their ability to execute their strategy. No matter how great its products are, a company cannot realize its full potential with a flawed planning system.
Enterprise planning solutions enable a company to plan accurately so that it can allocate its most precious resources effectively and respond to a dynamic business environment. The goal of enterprise planning must be achieved through a comprehensive performance management framework consisting of planning, scorecarding, and business intelligence. By establishing the company's future state, enterprise planning provides the basis by which performance is measured. From the plan, the company generates its key metrics to monitor performance. Through business intelligence and analytics, it attempts to understand deviations from plan so that it can respond appropriately. Enterprise planning engages people, process, and technology to anticipate the future. It is a multi-faceted discipline that spans the whole enterprise, and not just the Finance department. When everyone is aligned in a unified forward-looking motion, in touch with every vital aspect of the business, the company becomes more proactive and adaptive to changes in its environment.
Common problems with the planning process
Problems with traditional planning processes are commonplace. The process can be time consuming, involving countless hours of activities that add little value. Changes in the business environment are seldom reflected in the plan. The integrity of data is questionable. The process of collecting and consolidating plans creates a lag that makes information obsolete by the time it reaches the decision maker. For non-financial managers, the task of preparing the budget seems to be more of an invasion of their time rather than a rather a meaningful, productive exercise. They feel overwhelmed by the demands for financial projections that have little connection to the realities of their business. Many of these problems are evident in companies that have inadequate planning systems.
Disconnect between operating reality and financial plan
Ideally, operational targets are linked to financial measures. When the link is severed, decisions by people on the ground are not reflected in the financial plan, and high-level corporate strategies do not translate into discrete operational plans.
Confrontational versus collaborative
Many financial plans are developed in silos by individuals whose perspectives do not go outside of departmental boundaries. In many cases, even individuals within the same department work in isolation, unaware of how their work affects others. In such a fragmented enterprise, planning likely becomes a win-lose proposition and managers tend to view planning as an opportunity to protect existing resources rather than a purposeful endeavor.
Cycle times
Planning cycles must be in sync with major milestones in the business so that the company can reposition itself in anticipation of change. When the time it takes to develop the plan is too long, the plan becomes obsolete before it is finalized. Because of the tremendous effort involved in starting and completing a planning cycle, traditional planning cannot keep up with the business dynamics and is often relegated to an annual or semi-annual ritual.
Ownership and accountability
When plans are imposed from the top down, or from the finance area, they will likely fail to receive buy-in if there is a lack of common understanding of the basis for the plan. The planning process must engage all lines of business managers in a collaborative approach in order to ensure ownership and accountability, and the plan must reflect the contributions of both upper and lower layers of management.
Spreadsheet-based planning
While today's business literature has placed considerable focus on sophisticated enterprise-wide planning systems, most companies still plan using spreadsheets, sending planning templates back and forth, and spending an inordinate amount of time collecting and consolidating plans. A survey by CFO Research Services asked finance executives about their efforts to transform their planning, budgeting, and forecasting processes. Of those who responded, 73% rely primarily on spreadsheets and manual processes. Only 16% use analytical applications, and only 11% extract the necessary numerical information from their accounting modules. Spreadsheet-based planning is littered with problems and is often a chaotic, frustrating, and ineffective process, causing managers to submit unrealistic budgets and senior executives to fudge the numbers at the top. This drives a wedge between senior executives and lower-level managers, and alienates people who are accountable for the plan but feel a certain distrust of the numbers by which they are now measured. Other problems are familiar.
Lack of control
Developing a model in a spreadsheet appeals to many users because of its flexibility. You can develop a model without the need for a preliminary blueprint or prototype, because the spreadsheet imposes no rules or structure for designing or laying out your model. While this is all well and good for a simple model, you will soon realize that a spreadsheet-based planning process can quickly degenerate into "spreadsheet hell". A simple insertion of a row or column can be a daunting task when numerous worksheets are involved. Macros that execute routines must be recoded, retested, and redeployed to account for the change. The fact is that the spreadsheet, while a powerful personal tool, lacks the structure that is so vital in enforcing the discipline necessary to support and maintain any process on an enterprise scale.
Spreadsheet error
Even the most carefully-crafted spreadsheet carries the risk of formula errors. In a spreadsheet, formulas are embedded in cells and then copied across many rows, columns, worksheets, and workbooks. This method may not seem initially onerous, but when you have to make a change in formula to multiple spreadsheets, it is easy to make a mistake, especially when there is no central place where calculations reside. Errors come in many forms, from a simple typographical mistake to completely overlooking a critical component. Because the calculations are scattered and mixed with data, finding a formula error is like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Lack of transparency
All too often, spreadsheets are developed by individuals in finance and so are designed to be user-friendly to the designer. To a non-financial person, it could be the opposite. A spreadsheet that contains complex formulas that refer to multiple cells across several worksheets can be intimidating. When users do not understand how their numbers are arrived at, the planning process loses its integrity.
Consolidation and version control
When spreadsheets are distributed across the organization, the task of collecting and consolidating them can be extremely time-consuming. No wonder that in some companies the task of consolidating is a full-time job. Not only must the plan be submitted on time, it must be the correct version, and it must roll-up the latest organizational hierarchy.
How technology enables planning best practices
In recent years, many companies have migrated from spreadsheet-based processes toward more sophisticated enterprise planning tools. These tools promise a greater level of operational detail for analytical purposes, more robust financial reporting, real-time aggregation of data, and higher participation from users. The tools also liberate finance departments from the demands of collecting and consolidating data so that they can focus on analysis, and understand real business drivers. As software technology improves, companies are tasked with enabling planning best practices by adopting new tools. Some of the new capabilities but these tools provide can have far-reaching effects on the accuracy and timeliness of the plans, and have an almost immediate impact on the productivity of the users.
Finance organizations that adopt dedicated planning tools are better able to support strategic Performance Management initiatives. Ventana Research believes that planning and budgeting will be transformed over the next five years by nearly universal use of software tools dedicated to this purpose.
Ventana Research
Introducing IBM Cognos Planning
IBM Cognos, a leading performance management software company brings together technology, analytical applications, and best practices to give companies an open, adaptive, and complete performance management platform. It offers solutions that deliver the integrated planning, consolidation, querying and reporting, analysis, and metrics management capabilities that enable better decision-making across the enterprise. IBM Cognos Planning is the cornerstone of the corporate performance management platform. It is developed for companies that possess even the most complex business planning models. It is a state-of-the-art, scalable planning and forecasting solution that gives managers real-time visibility into operational and financial plans. Its also gives financial analysts powerful modeling tools that enable the design of complex models, and allows the financial analysts to perform what-ifs and scenario planning using latest version of the plan. Its distributed administration architecture provides localized ownership and responsibility for the preparation, control, and maintenance of plans across functional, geographic, and organizational boundaries while still keeping a unified and secure planning environment.
Corporate Performance Management
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) is a term that describes the practices, processes, technologies, and metrics that are used to measure and manage a company's performance. There are a host of similar terms in business literature, such as Business Performance Management (BPM), Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), and Financial Performance Management (FPM). Notwithstanding the differences in terminologies, the concept is the same: companies need a way to manage performance within a complete and comprehensive framework. CPM provides answers to three fundamental questions: "How are we doing?", "Why?", and "What should we be doing?" Leading organizations are succeeding through an integrated CPM approach that encompasses planning, scorecarding, and business intelligence. This approach enables companies to define strategic goals and then measure and manage performance against these goals. Such organizations establish performance expectations through planning, monitor performance by using scorecards, and understand what drives performance by reporting and analyzing information.
The following figure shows the various steps in the CPM approach:
Benefits of IBM Cognos Planning
IBM Cognos Planning helps to improve financial and operational planning by giving companies the ability to transform a high-level strategy into discrete plans. It encompasses the entire company yet it enables the finance department to own and manage the process. It supports dynamic planning and provides the cornerstone for enterprise-scale performance management. Some of the benefits are:
Summary
The goal of this book is to give you the fundamentals of model building using IBM Cognos Planning. In today's competitive and dynamic business environment, companies need to manage performance effectively by setting accurate plans and monitoring performance against the plan. However, many companies still plan using traditional spreadsheet-based planning systems which are littered with problems. To address these problems they need a planning system that produces plans that reflect business realities, fosters collaboration, provides greater control, minimizes errors, and promotes ownership and accountability. IBM Cognos Planning, a cornerstone of Corporate Performance Management, offers a solution that engages all levels in the enterprise in a controlled, reliable, collaborative, and real-time planning process. Some of the new capabilities that IBM Cognos provides can improve the accuracy and timeliness of the plans and have an almost immediate impact on the productivity of the users
Chapter 2. Getting to know IBM Cognos Tools
IBM Cognos offers many products, and covering these products in depth requires dedicated books. In this chapter, we will just skim the surface and take a brief look at the major products frequently used by IBM Cognos Planning modelers and administrators. After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
Scenario
Before introducing various IBM Cognos tools, let's sketch out a scenario to explain how IBM Cognos is used in corporate planning processes.
Panda Garden Inc., a regional restaurant chain, is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Panda Garden has 20 restaurants throughout the metropolitan St. Paul/Minneapolis area. Each restaurant offers the same menu and operates under strict corporate guidelines.
As the Corporate Planning Manager, you are responsible for planning, analyzing, and reporting for each restaurant's financial activities, as well as consolidating the results of financial operations.
To fulfill your job responsibilities, you would like to do the following tasks:
You can always use a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel to complete the above tasks. However, you would find that a spreadsheet program, although flexible, is not scalable for your needs. Specialized, scalable planning software such as IBM Cognos Planning can ease your job and help you to accomplish your planning and forecasting tasks.
We will provide an overview of the following IBM Cognos tools in this chapter:
We will also relate the functionality of each tool to Panda Garden's planning and reporting needs. Note that the first three tools are traditionally described as the Planning tools, while the remaining are considered IBM Cognos Business Intelligent (BI) tools.
IBM Cognos Planning — Analyst
IBM Cognos Planning Analyst is a business planning modeling tool that some people call Excel on Steroids. Analyst provides a multi-dimensional view, similar to an Excel Pivot table, of your planning data. It is a client tool and will typically require installation on a PC-based desktop.
Panda Garden Scenario
To collect data from each restaurant, you, as a Planning Modeler, can create the budget/forecasting template in Analyst, as illustrated in the following screenshot:
IBM Cognos Planning — Contributor
By design, IBM Cognos Planning — Contributor is a data collection tool. This program has two components: administration and client.
Contributor administration
The Contributor administration component is called Contributor Administration Console (CAC). The CAC provides the functionality to publish the template created in Analyst over the Web after customizing its look and feel and applying any necessary security. It is a server-based tool and can be installed on a PC desktop or a server machine.
Panda Garden scenario
Using the CAC, you, as a Planning Administrator:
The following screenshot demonstrates the CAC interface, in which planning administration tasks are performed:
Contributor client
The Contributor client component is referred to as Contributor Web Client, or Contributor Grid, and it is a web site programmed using Java technology. IBM Cognos Planning software provides all necessary web site files and programs to load on a web server.
Panda Garden scenario
You, as a Planning Administrator, provide the URL of the Contributor web site to your users. Users are generally referred to as Planners or Contributors. A restaurant manager, essentially a Planner, opens the template for his/her restaurant on the Contributor web site. He/she enters his/her plan numbers and saves his/her data, which is stored in a planning database. The following screenshot shows an example of such a template:
