IBM Planning Analytics: Powered by TM1
Planning Analytics, formerly Cognos TM1, is a market-leading enterprise planning platform to transform your financial and operational planning cycle, from target setting and budgeting to reporting, scorecarding, analysis and forecasting
Planning Analytics is designed for public sector bodies that wish to improve budgeting, financial reporting, forecasting and business planning activities.
Features
- Centralised, integrated financial performance management for budgets, plans and forecasts
- Market-leading IBM Cognos TM1 multidimensional (OLAP) technology platform
- Intuitive Planning Analytics Workspace to quickly create dashboards and visualisations
- Library of visualisations to aid rapid understanding
- Browser and Excel interfaces for plan input, reporting and analysis
- In-memory processing delivers real-time calculation and consolidation
- Two-way integration with cloud and in-house systems
- Workflow enables management control of budget submission and review
- Support Help-Desk manned by qualified consultants
- Fast implementation by InfoCat, Europe's first gold-accredited TM1 partner
Benefits
- Centralised application ensures consistency through "one version of the truth"
- Reduces time for monthly close, gives more time for analysis
- Eliminates time-consuming manual processes; develop budgets, forecasts and plans quickly
- Powerful modelling functions enable users to develop comprehensive financial plans
- Flexible reporting, from dashboards to traditional reports, supports all users
- Leverages existing Excel skills for designing input templates and reports
- Supports and manages multiple versions of budgets, plans and forecasts
- Beyond spreadsheets approach drives efficiency and improved working practices
- Finance-driven administration - needs minimal IT support
- Confidence in support from one of Europe's most experienced partners
Pricing
£55.95 to £180.00 a user a month
- Free trial available
Service documents
Request an accessible format
Framework
G-Cloud 11
Service ID
1 9 0 9 1 3 5 3 8 4 6 6 4 9 2
Contact
InfoCat Ltd
Ken Leedham
Telephone: 020 7735 7711
Email: ken.leedham@infocat.co.uk
Service scope
- Software add-on or extension
- No
- Cloud deployment model
-
- Private cloud
- Hybrid cloud
- Service constraints
-
The service requires the customer to have business-class personal computers with Internet access and Microsoft Excel at supported versions listed at https://www.ibm.com/software/reports/compatibility/clarity-reports/report/html/softwareReqsForProduct
or as advised by Supplier - System requirements
-
- Browsers: https://www.ibm.com/software/reports/compatibility/clarity/index.html
- Excel: https://www.ibm.com/software/reports/compatibility/clarity/index.html
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
-
Support Desk open UK business hours except those between the Christmas and the New Year Bank Holidays
Response Timetable
Severity Level - Classification - Acknowledge - Resolution
1 - Critical - Within 2 hours - Within 12 hours
2 - Serious - Within 4 hours - Within 1 day
3 - Degraded - Within 8 hours - Within 3 days
4 - Minimal - Within 24 hours - Worked on a time available basis - User can manage status and priority of support tickets
- No
- Phone support
- Yes
- Phone support availability
- 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
- Web chat support
- No
- Onsite support
- Yes, at extra cost
- Support levels
- The support service includes reporting of issues by telephone and email, together with remote access support to aid diagnosis and resolution. There are two support levels: Software Support and Application Support. Support is handled through our HelpDesk, there is no single specific technical account manager or support engineer. Software Support Software support and maintenance includes access to new releases, upgrades and fixes, and the reporting and resolution of problems relating to the Planning analytics software. This support is included in the subscription cost of the cloud service. Application Support As an extended level of service, InfoCat also offers an Application Support service, which provides cover for the planning and reporting application itself, including the data integration processes with source data systems, rather than just the underlying Planning Analytics software. The cost is an annual fee based on the complexity of the application and therefore will be different for each client.
- Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
- Clients implementing Planning Analytics for the first time will need support from us through implementation services and formal training. These are covered in detail in the section "Cloud Support"
- Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
- HTML
- End-of-contract data extraction
- The software includes the capability to download data. If the client also has Planning Analytics Local (ie, the same software but installed on-premises) then the TM1 models can be migrated.
- End-of-contract process
- On expiration or other termination of the contract, Buyer’s data and content will be destroyed. There is no additional cost for this.
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- Yes
- Supported browsers
-
- Internet Explorer 10
- Internet Explorer 11
- Microsoft Edge
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Safari 9+
- Application to install
- Yes
- Compatible operating systems
- Windows
- Designed for use on mobile devices
- Yes
- Differences between the mobile and desktop service
- Administrator's functionality - but not business users' - requires desktop device, connected to cloud application by secure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).
- Service interface
- No
- API
- Yes
- What users can and can't do using the API
- The API enables you to perform create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations on TM1 data using standards defined by OData Version 4. The TM1 REST API conforms to the OData Version 4 protocol, which is based on RFC2119
- API documentation
- Yes
- API documentation formats
- HTML
- API sandbox or test environment
- No
- Customisation available
- Yes
- Description of customisation
- The service delivers an environment in which users can develop budgeting, planning and reporting applications. It includes the TM1 database and modeling engine. Users will customise all aspects of their application including database structure, business rules and calculations, input templates, report templates, dashboards, interfaces to external systems for data transfer.
Scaling
- Independence of resources
-
In the standard configuration the database tier is a single tenant virtual environment, hosted on multi-tenant physical infrastructure. It includes up to 64GB RAM. This optimises performance for all users.
There is a premium configuration, at additional cost, which includes up to 512 GB RAM and is hosted in a single-tenant environment with a managed hypervisor and/or a dedicated physical server.
Analytics
- Service usage metrics
- Yes
- Metrics types
-
Memory - usage, active threads, number of connections, memory in garbage//
Cubes - Total Memory Used, Memory Used for Views, Number of Stored Views, Number of Stored Calculated Cells, Number of Populated String Cells, Number of Populated Numeric Cells, Number of Fed Cells, Memory Used for Calculations, Memory Used for Feeders, Memory Used for Input Data//
Client - Message Count, Message Bytes, Request Count, Elapse Time, Bytes/Message//
Process and Chore - Current State, Completion Status, Client Name, Last Start Time, Last End Time, Last Duration, Next Activation Time, Current Process - Reporting types
- Reports on request
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Reseller providing extra support
- Organisation whose services are being resold
- International Business Machines Corporation
Staff security
- Staff security clearance
- Staff screening not performed
- Government security clearance
- Up to Security Clearance (SC)
Asset protection
- Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Data storage and processing locations
-
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- EU-US Privacy Shield agreement locations
- Other locations
- User control over data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Datacentre security standards
- Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
- Penetration testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Penetration testing approach
- Another external penetration testing organisation
- Protecting data at rest
- Other
- Other data at rest protection approach
- Planning Analytics Data by default is not encrypted at rest, but is available as simple configuration switch.
- Data sanitisation process
- Yes
- Data sanitisation type
-
- Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
- Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
- Equipment disposal approach
- Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001
Data importing and exporting
- Data export approach
-
Users can generate flat file exports in any combination of separators and text qualifiers that may be required (eg CSV / TXT).
Users can also export to the web and Excel.
Users can also export over ODBC and ODBO - Data export formats
-
- CSV
- Other
- Other data export formats
-
- TXT
- XLSX (Excel)
- ODBO & ODBC
- Data import formats
-
- CSV
- Other
- Other data import formats
-
- TXT
- XLSX (Excel)
Data-in-transit protection
- Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
- Data protection within supplier network
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
Availability and resilience
- Guaranteed availability
- Penalties apply if service level drops below 99.9%. Compensation is awarded on a rising scale, calculated on a monthly basis. Compensation takes the form of a credit against future invoices.
- Approach to resilience
- Available on request
- Outage reporting
- Scheduled outages for updates are notified by email to arrange a mutually agreeable time (usually 3rd Sunday of each month). Information on unplanned outages are also supplied via email.
Identity and authentication
- User authentication needed
- Yes
- User authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Username or password
- Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
- Access restriction controls for IBM staff and the systems management interfaces are tested
- Access restriction testing frequency
- At least once a year
- Management access authentication
- Username or password
Audit information for users
- Access to user activity audit information
- Users have access to real-time audit information
- How long user audit data is stored for
- User-defined
- Access to supplier activity audit information
- Users have access to real-time audit information
- How long supplier audit data is stored for
- User-defined
- How long system logs are stored for
- User-defined
Standards and certifications
- ISO/IEC 27001 certification
- Yes
- Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
- Bureau Veritas
- ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
- 18/12/2015, valid to 01/10/2017
- What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
- We are not aware of anything not covered that is relevant to the cloud service. Please refer to the STAR assessment for full details of items covered - https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/star-registrant/softlayer/
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- Yes
- CSA STAR accreditation date
- Please see report referred to below
- CSA STAR certification level
- Level 1: CSA STAR Self-Assessment
- What the CSA STAR doesn’t cover
- We believe that the full cloud service provided through G-Cloud is covered by the CSA STAR certification available at https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/star-registrant/softlayer
- PCI certification
- No
- Other security certifications
- Yes
- Any other security certifications
- For full list see: http://www.softlayer.com/compliance
Security governance
- Named board-level person responsible for service security
- Yes
- Security governance certified
- Yes
- Security governance standards
- ISO/IEC 27001
- Information security policies and processes
-
IBM Cloud Centres support standards such as SSAE-16, PCI, HIPAA, etc. IBM control points are independently audited by a third party via an annual SSAE-16 Type II (SOC 2 ) certification. SoftLayer customers can request the SOC 2 report via the SoftLayer Customer Portal.
IBM support various ISO standards and has passed an ISO 27001 certification for its datacenters.
Operational security
- Configuration and change management standard
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Configuration and change management approach
-
IBM support various ISO standards and has passed an ISO 27001 certification for its datacenters.
IBM control points are independently audited by a third party via an annual SSAE-16 Type II (SOC 2 ) certification. Customers can request the SOC 2 report via the Customer Portal. - Vulnerability management type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Vulnerability management approach
-
IBM support various ISO standards and has passed an ISO 27001 certification for its datacenters. IBM control points are independently audited by a third party via an annual SSAE-16 Type II (SOC 2 ) certification. Customers can request the SOC 2 report via the Customer Portal.
Please also see the Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) Overview at https://www-03.ibm.com/security/secure-engineering/process.html - Protective monitoring type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Protective monitoring approach
- IBM support various ISO standards and has passed an ISO 27001 certification for its datacenters. IBM control points are independently audited by a third party via an annual SSAE-16 Type II (SOC 2 ) certification. Customers can request the SOC 2 report via the Customer Portal. Response times vary with incident criticality.
- Incident management type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Incident management approach
- IBM support various ISO standards and has passed an ISO 27001 certification for its datacenters. IBM control points are independently audited by a third party via an annual SSAE-16 Type II (SOC 2 ) certification. Customers can request the SOC 2 report via the Customer Portal.
Secure development
- Approach to secure software development best practice
- Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)
Public sector networks
- Connection to public sector networks
- No
Pricing
- Price
- £55.95 to £180.00 a user a month
- Discount for educational organisations
- No
- Free trial available
- Yes
- Description of free trial
- Access to full product functionality, for 15 days