9.4 Released today

[Eric]

Yes I said the F word, but spoke with dave Corbett and he sad it should be available for download today. Hopefully, I will get to look at it next week!

[Martin Ryan]

I'm sure someone said time travel was possible with 9.4, so I presume that next week you'll be travelling back to now to tell us all about it.

Either that or there'll be a bug and you'll be back to the cretaceous period.

I suggest that if we don't hear back from Eric next week we should assume he is T-Rex chow and avoid 9.4.

Martin

[Eric]

T-Rex chow, forget that. All I have to do is bring a lighter and invent fire and I will be worshiped! Or maybe I already did and humanity is in my debt.

[Alan Kirk]

Yes I said the F word, but spoke with dave Corbett and he sad it should be available for download today. Hopefully, I will get to look at it next week!

We only use the "F-word" rather than... that number between 3 and 5, because your doctors warned us that you get over-excited when you hear it! (Insert smiley here 'cos I have Javascript disabled and can't do it myself.)

I was told the same thing in the meeting with the Iboglixians (in which no-one died) earlier this week. (Specifically, that it should be out "this week".) However I've heard so many release dates for 9., umm, 3 + 1, that it's a case of "yeah, I'll believe it when I download it".

[Alan Kirk]

OK, everyone get ready to sedate Eric....

It's there. It's on the downloads page as I speak. At 382 Meg, I'm obviously gonna wait until I get back to the office on Monday before I do the download. But for those of you who have a death wi... errrr, I mean, are ready to push the boundaries of this new cutting edge release, knock yourselves out.

However I AM going to download the .pdfs for some bedtime reading.

Let's see what's out there...

[Alan Kirk]

However I AM going to download the .pdfs for some bedtime reading.

Random thoughts time:

Well, I WAS going to say "at least they haven't changed the icons this time" until I realised... yuh-huh, yes they have in Web. The oh-so-obscure-and-difficult-to-understand calculator icon for (it will surprise you to learn) recalculating has been replaced by something that looks like a crash at a 4-way intersection between four mathematical operation symbols.

Oh yeah, that's MUCH more intuitive.

What else is new in Web? Hyperlinks to application documents other than .xls's? Nup. Support for real XHTML pages which, unlike websheets, don't look as aesthetically pleasing as the north end of a south-bound camel? Nup. Speed improvements? Remains to be seen, but if there had been any I imagine that it would be prominently mentioned. Have they finally moved the ability to regulate which nodes are displayed OUT of the universal web.config file and put it at user level? Nup. Oh, wait, there are a couple of things for XL2007 including:

New features introduced in Excel 2007, such as enhanced conditional formatting, are not supported in TM1 Websheets.

Hmm. Yeah, well, that and a bunch of other stuff...

The new TM1 Audit log SUGGESTS that they've sorted out the client properties cube problem with 9.1, but let's wait until we see that in action.

The new Security Admin and Data Admin groups are interesting. Interesting in the sense that if 1% of users use them I'll be astonished. Possibly those who want to sub-contract user account creation to an IT help desk, but aside from that? Meh. And despite the claims of Sarbox compliance, there is of course still no sign (and, as per advice that I received from Iboglix earlier, n INTENTION of a sign) of mandatory password changes.

Much as I'm no .Net fan, I'll be interested to try out the new .Net API; it looks like it may be easier to work with than the "classic" one. Althoooouughhh...

Code examples in the documentation are provided in the Microsoft C# programming language.

Yeah, 'cos, um, it's not like most TM1 developers are more likely to have a VB / VB.Net (a.k.a. Visual Fred) background, is it?

OOH, a couple of new API functions including "TM1UserKill"! Exxxxcelleeennnt... Oh, wait, it only kills the user's SESSION. Iboglix is such a tease...

We finally have the long string support, though they're not clear about whether that's just in cubes or TI's as well; I'll have to test that. A long string ASCIIOutput would be useful.

When I met with the two Iboglixians earlier this week they expressed surprise and disbelief when I suggested that migrating to 9.4 would be a "no going back" decision because of Unicode. They were going to check that out and get back to me, but there's no need for as we hypothesised, there it is in black'n'white in the New Features document:

IMPORTANT: Before upgrading to TM1 9.4 from a previous release, we strongly recommend that you back up and save your TM1 data directory to a secure location. Upon upgrading to TM1 9.4, your data directory will be converted to Unicode format, which is not compatible with previous versions of TM1. Once your data directory has been converted to Unicode, there is no way to revert the data directory to non-Unicode format.

9.4 supports all versions of Vista. Blagh.

Enhancements have been introduced in TM1 9.4 that improve the performance and reliability of progress messaging between client and server.

Yeah, well it WOULD be kinda nice if you could run a TI without the number of records processed dialog (a) failing to render which process it IS and (b) failing to redraw after a certain point so that you have no idea how many records have been processed.

I wonder whether Active Forms will finally be the ones that are "Done Right" after the less than successful forays into the ISB and dynamic slices. We shall see.

Well, plenty to learn, plenty to see.

[Eric]

OK, everyone get ready to sedate Eric....

To late. <Cranking up the music, jumped on desk, starting to dance (robot, moon walk, lude hip gyrations), realize I am at work and everyone is watching, stops and looks around> "F it" <continues to dance on desk, rips off pants to show off the speed-o (always wear, just in case!), others watch with confusion>

new API functions including "TM1UserKill"! Exxxxcelleeennnt... Oh, wait, it only kills the user's SESSION. Iboglix is such a tease...

Looking for the wish() mentioned earlier.... probably undocumented. When I figure out syntax I will let everyone know.
Also looking for KillSupport().... ohh wait that was already executed when they added Insight and deleted the old forum, thought it meant something else.

Did I ever mention the time Alan and I went on a road trip?

road_rage.png (39.49 KiB) Viewed 1706 times

At 382 Meg

Downloading now.... Might as well continue to dance while I wait. Think putting on tie with speedo will keep HR from complain about inappropriate work attire?

[Steve Vincent]

Eric, you seriously need help

Just to try and put some recent experience in here, although the method of reporting issues is not quite to my liking, the general responses i've had back have been excellent. In some cases 1st contact has been within a few hours and a massive improvement on the support we received via Applix, despite being the same people. Good to see the IBM / Cognos influence having a positive impact in at least some areas

[Alan Kirk]

Just to try and put some recent experience in here, although the method of reporting issues is not quite to my liking, the general responses i've had back have been excellent. In some cases 1st contact has been within a few hours and a massive improvement on the support we received via Applix, despite being the same people. Good to see the IBM / Cognos influence having a positive impact in at least some areas

What's the bet that with Insight the support boys and girls have to make a progress report on all logged issues to Headmaster Armonk each week or two, which, as a consequence, means more "proactive" followup?

On the other hand the prisoners which remain languishing in the dungeons of the old Applix support site are out of sight, and out of mind. I don't think that there's been an issue that I've raised on Insight that I haven't heard back about (even if the answer was "no" in the case of expiring passwords)... nor one on the old Applix site that I HAVE heard anything about since Insight's takeover.

Of course, it may also help that there are fewer issues on Insight because it's such a pain to raise them.

{Mutters...} I mean, cookies. Who doesn't like cookies? {/Mutters...}

[IanB]

This Active forms feature does look rather good - conditional formatting by level is just what I've always wanted
I can now throw away so many old macros...

And you can simply hook into the routines on the toolbar buttons...

Here's my new bit of code for a Hide Zeros Checkbox

Sub hideZ()
[TopLeft].Activate ' TopLeft is the named cell in the report
Run "TM1RebuildCurrentSheet" 'retains active functionality after you change subset names
Run "ArptZeroSuppression" 'toggle and refresh data
End Sub

Now to see what the "filter" feature does...

IanB

[Alan Kirk]

T-Rex chow, forget that. All I have to do is bring a lighter and invent fire and I will be worshiped! Or maybe I already did and humanity is in my debt.

Oh wow, how did I miss this one before?

I have one word for you, just one word.

Prometheus.

On the other hand, you may be safe enough, since:

http://www.despair.com/leaders.html

[Steve Vincent]

Been doing some reading this afternoon, this one made me

Some terminology in TM1 Workflow has been changed. A ’version’ is now referred to as a
’process’ and a ’plan’ is now a ’workflow’. The TM1 Workflow Administrator’s Guide has not
been updated to reflect this new terminology.

Why, because Find and Replace was too hard or were they scared that if they made a balls up they couldn't "undo" it?!

I'm with Alan on the extra security options too, they've listened (good) but misunderstood (bad) what most people are after. We wanted admin configuarable sub-groups where we could determine certain things they could do, rather than security and nothing else (literally) or data admin and no security. For instance i'd like to be able to give a few of our users access to edit security and read only most cubes, but i can't unless i give them full admin. In that case they can't have read only and so can change anything

[Mike L]

Why, because Find and Replace was too hard ... ?!

More likely a simple case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, one or both having become detached from the brain.

[Alan Kirk]

Iboglix loves me.

It won't let me download EV 9.4, saying that "We are very sorry but our records show that you are not supported for the product you have selected for Download."

Hmmm, wha'did I pay that bucketload of cash for again....

I feel confident that they're doing this for my own good, though.

[Eric]

Eric, you seriously need help

I am being helped it is just that Friday I didn't take my medication.

Just to try and put some recent experience in here, although the method of reporting issues is not quite to my liking, the general responses i've had back have been excellent. In some cases 1st contact has been within a few hours and a massive improvement on the support we received via Applix, despite being the same people. Good to see the IBM / Cognos influence having a positive impact in at least some areas

My issues with insight,
1) Way to cumbersome to report a ticket.
2) With most support they are tier one guys that only know find replace through all the manuals and do not know anything about the system.
2a) Basic question about the syntax of a function mentioned in the documentation took 3 weeks to get a response. Heck i could have emailed Crillo and would have gotten a response in a day or two, but I was being good and went through the proper channels. Serves me right I suppose. I hope it gets better.

This Active forms feature does look rather good

Indeed it looks cool; however, so does the dynamic slice, which we all know has issues. Demos are one thing, but in alive system is another. I am keeping my fingers crossed it is a slick as they say, but I am not holding my breath.

I'm with Alan on the extra security options too, they've listened (good) but misunderstood (bad) what most people are after. We wanted admin configuarable sub-groups where we could determine certain things they could do, rather than security and nothing else (literally) or data admin and no security. For instance i'd like to be able to give a few of our users access to edit security and read only most cubes, but i can't unless i give them full admin. In that case they can't have read only and so can change anything

I agree with your point and think it is better than what they did, but sadly people misunderstand the reason and reason for SOX and implement the most cumbersome interpretation of SOX. On another sad note this feature has my IT department really happy

[Alan Kirk]

Mother of glub, you can't be serious...

I'm just installing 9.4. It requires the .Net framework version 3.0 for the rules editor. So lemmie see, Web needs 1.1 and won't work with 2, EV requires 2 and won't work with 1.1 (as at the last version; as per this morning's post I can't download 9.4 yet), and now the rules editor requires 3.0.

Way to harmonise...

[Alan Kirk]

This Active forms feature does look rather good

Indeed it looks cool; however, so does the dynamic slice, which we all know has issues. Demos are one thing, but in alive system is another. I am keeping my fingers crossed it is a slick as they say, but I am not holding my breath.

I was thinking exactly the same as you there compadre, but I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt and try it out before saying anything.

Initial impression is that it's like Web; OK for small data sets, not so good for larger ones.

I created an active form from a view with 3 row dimensions; Business Unit, Product, then account. Account was the top level P&L with its immediate children of Revenue, Expense, Depreciation, Interest.

The view ran to about 2600 rows.

I didn't time the active form creation time, but I could have made myself a coffee with time to spare.

Then I double clicked on Revenue to open it into its three children. Hmm, am I mistaken, or is there still no way to asynchronously expand a row? (Expanding Expenses, say, on that row only without it happening on all of the other rows with Expenses.) Pity. However that's not the problem. The problem is that expanding it and closing it took between 1 minute 22 seconds and a smidge over 2 minutes for each operation.

Thinking that it may be because I was running it on my notebook and was hitting virtual memory issues, I tried an ISB for comparison purposes. The same operation, on the same view, took 6 seconds.

Oh dear.

Oh, and I love the way they've apparently reduced the point size in the font in Cube Viewer by, best guess, 1 to 2 points. If Mike L had problems with the Forum's legibility, I can see him sitting in front of his monitor with a set of binoculars strapped to his head when he's using Cube Viewer in 9.4.

Edit: I just read in the Read Me that 9.4.x will be the last version that supports the ISB. I guess someone else noticed the unfavourable speed comparison with Active Forms.

[Alan Kirk]

Been doing some reading this afternoon, this one made me

Some terminology in TM1 Workflow has been changed. A ’version’ is now referred to as a
’process’ and a ’plan’ is now a ’workflow’. The TM1 Workflow Administrator’s Guide has not
been updated to reflect this new terminology.

Why, because Find and Replace was too hard or were they scared that if they made a balls up they couldn't "undo" it?!

My issues with insight,
1) Way to cumbersome to report a ticket.
2) With most support they are tier one guys that only know find replace through all the manuals and do not know anything about the system.

I think you mean FIND, not FIND/REPLACE. For in the spirit of the non-change mentioned by Steve, I've just been reading about dynamic slices in chapter 6 of the 9.4 User Guide... including the menu items which no longer exist as a result of Active Forms replacing Dynamic Slices.

I just found another interesting one too... in the Clients/Groups dialog, if I scroll left or right to the border, then move the cursor in the opposite direction once, the column headings disconnect from the checkboxes. Pressing the cursor key in either direction again seems to fix it, so it's weird rather than annoying. But it may be worthwhile to just check your headings before assigning someone to a new group.

Oh, and I believe that this post will put the number of posts in the TM1 forum into 4 figures. The other tools need to catch up!

[Alan Kirk]

We may as well have this as the semi-official 9.4 thread, so here are the latest discoveries from 9.4ville.

The Read Me document cautions that long strings work in data input or SQL statements, but not dimension and element names. I'm cool with this because frankly you'd need to be daft as a brush to use a dim or element name > 255 characters.

"Although the user interface allows input of long strings, processing them may cause a server crash or truncation of data."

Truncation of data I'm OK with. But a server crash? Hey Iboglix, there's this new concept in coding called "Error Handling". Can you say that? E-r-r-o-r-H-a-n-d-l-i-n-g. Yes, that's right! It's all the rage now.



What I've found is:
- Output of a > 255 character string by ASCIIOutput: Works fine. Sweet.
- Reading a > 255 character string as a variable: Works fine. Sweet.
- Some functions such as Long and Subst work fine with a long string. Sweet.
- A CellPutS will write a > 255 string to a cube. Sweet, but there's probably much point because Cube Viewer can't wrap text and...
- DBRWs from a cell containing such a string return only the first 255 characters. This was actually expected given some of the other comments in the Read Me.

"MDX queries that pass long string ... as arguments to the following functions can cause a TM1 server crash".

I'll leave the readers to look up the functions concerned by themselves, but... E-r-r-o-r-H-a-n-d-l-i-n-g.

One thing that DOESN'T appear to be fixed is the user's Active status in the }ClientProperties cube. Either that or I had a cloaking device on when I logged in. I presumed that the Audit Log was supposed to be the new way of dealing with this, but I couldn't find it tracking ANYTHING. Ah yes, of course... it's disabled by default and you need to set some flags in the config file before it will do anything.

Time for a .cfg update and a server bounce.

C'mon guys, I can't be the ONLY one doing a rectal probe on 9.4... what's everyone else finding?

(And yes, I know that whatever it is it won't be E-r-r-o-r-H-a-n-d-l-i-n-g, but aside from that...)

[mattgoff]

I'm with Alan on the extra security options too, they've listened (good) but misunderstood (bad) what most people are after. We wanted admin configurable sub-groups where we could determine certain things they could do, rather than security and nothing else (literally) or data admin and no security. For instance I'd like to be able to give a few of our users access to edit security and read only most cubes, but i can't unless i give them full admin.

In Cognos' defense, they did implement what some users were asking, just not what you (and, arguably most) users wanted. This system meets basic SOX separation-of-responsibility rules as it allows a class of users who do nothing but security (and have no access to data). IMHO, they took a shortcut to get to minimal compliance instead of implementing true, granular security which would have given us a lot more flexibility.

I was part of the beta for 9.4 and the thing I was most excited about was active forms. Specifically, allowing MDX in Excel will be huge for us as I currently have thousands of subsets built via process (and cluttering up my views list) that will be unnecessary. I haven't had a chance yet to confirm that they've fixed all of the bugs I found, but unfortunately this release has come too late for me to implement until late-Q4 at the earliest-- we've started the dreaded budgeting process, so there's no way I'm disturbing anything until that's done. Plus, we run nine replicating servers, and TM1 isn't slick enough to handle different versions replicating to each other, so whenever I do an upgrade it's an all-day marathon (plus some finger crossing, sacrificial offering, incantations, ...)

Matt