Instead of putting Action-Buttons on a workspace websheet or a PAfE sheet, it would be very beneficial, if it would be possible to be able to run TI-processes - to streamline workfows of users and to enhance user-friendliness of a Planning Analytics application - directly from a cube cell. Similar to the integrated functionality of spreading, it would be a great enhancement of the tool to let modelers implement TI-procedures that are of higher (or lower) complexity and attach them directly to the position in a cube where it should be available to a user, rather than the necessity to implement Action-Buttons. Very similar to the existing drill-through functionality but focused on data-manipulation possibilities rather than data-deep-dive.
Similar to drill-through or spreading it would be good, if the "TI actions" would be available for users by the right-click operation on a cell. It would be natively available in explorations, dynamic reports, etc. and feature an assignable drop-down-menu.
To assign TI-processes to a cell there would be a technical cube call "}tiactions_[cubename]" that could be similar to the logic of "}picklist"-cubes. It would contain all dimensions of the source-cube, plus on additional dimensions "}tiactions_item", "}tiactions" for the definition of the available TI-processes.
The "}tiactionsitem" dimension would consist of a simple count-dimension that starts from 1. So it would be possible to assign more than 1 process to a cube-cell.
The "}tiactions" dimension would consist of a couple of elements to control the ti-processes: S:"menu_name", S:"process_name", N:"success_dialog", S:"success_message", N:"fail_dialog", S:"fail_message", N:"check_dialog", S:"check_message".
"menu_name" would be the text to be displayed in the right-click-menu in Workspace, PAfE, etc.
"process_name" would be the name of the process that would be triggered. The process would need to have each dimension of the cube that it is run for as a parameter - similar to the way drill-processes are built.
"success_dialog" would be a boolean and define if a popup should appear when the process did successfully finish. "success_message" would be the message that would pop up.
"fail_dialog" would also be a boolean and define if a popup should appear when the process did fail. "fail_message" would be the message that then would pop up.
"check_dialog" would be a boolean and define if a popup should appear before the process is started, to ask the user if they are really sure if the process should be started. Again "check_message" would be the message that would appear.
What would be the benefit of this endeavour?
We all know that TurboIntegrator, and especially the scripting possibilities within a Planning Analytics/TM1 cube are a major selling-point for the software. But putting Action-Buttons that are not even deployable throughout the application outside of the zone where people are doing their planning is limiting the user-friendliness of the tool.
The possiblity to run certain actions directly with a right-mouse click on a cell (like with spreading or converting), is a very natural and user-friendly way of enabling users to perform performant and easing planning. The possiblity to be able to run custom-made TI-processes directly from a cell would enhance the user-friendliness enormously and streamline planning.
Some examples of possible uses of custom-made TI-procedures that can be run from a cell:
- assign a linear-regression or any kind of predictive functions and perform it only on a certain portion of the data of a cube
- move data within a certain margin within a cube
- copy data from one month to another one on any selected drill-state within a cube
- ...
The Planning Analytics product team has opened a work item track this idea. We will consider this idea for the 2025 roadmap starting with TM1 v12.
I love this idea, I would like to add to this the ability for a TI to automatically be executed on commit of a picklist.
I think, it is a very good idea and it would be very useful to have it!