Benefits of the Web over Excel

One of the main reason why TM1 is so successful is its Excel interface. If you’re familiar with Excel, you will quickly be able to build advanced TM1 reports. Over the years many great TM1 applications have been implemented using Excel. Although Excel is great to build TM1 applications, it has its own limitations…

It is a known issue that for TM1 Perspectives to work, you need to be located locally on the same local area network (LAN) as the TM1 server. The main advantage of the web over Excel is that it is very fast over a slow network. It does not matter where you are, with the Web you do not need to use Citrix or a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to the TM1 server in order to access TM1. 

With the Web, you can easily distribute your TM1 reports. It does not matter if a user has TM1 installed or not. You just need to send a link and then anyone can open it from any devices (computer, tablet or smartphone). 

Managing an environment where users have multiple version of Excel can be difficult for both IT and TM1 Administrators. There are many versions of Excel (2007, 2010, 2013, Office365, etc.) and you can get it in 32 or 64 bit, Mac or Windows, etc. TM1 doesn’t necessarily support all versions so you need to check for compatibility and possible issues on each.  

New web browsers like Internet Explorer (IE)/Edge, Safari, Chrome and Firefox support HTML standards enabling users and companies to decide on their browser of choice while receiving the same experience.

Building reports in Excel is a great way to build TM1 applications but you can easily reach the limit of Excel. Active Forms and Excel can be limiting: 

• Only a few charting options. 
• The structured row/column is limiting and doesn’t always reflect what a UI should look like.
• The template (Images, fonts and color coding) is defined in each Excel spreadsheet. If the logo or color coding change you’ll have to update all spreadsheets one by one.
• Navigation in Excel is limited to Action buttons or hyperlinks.

 Once you have started using HTML, there is an infinity of libraries to chose from. Canvas for TM1 uses: angular-nvd3

With Canvas, you can allow the user to customise their own user interface:

You’re free to set up a navigation menu as you like, for example create a dropdown list with a search button:

If you have reached the limit of Excel and you’re looking for a modern web frontend to emphasis your TM1 application, Canvas for TM1 is the right tool for it.