Imagine for a second…  You are in the month-end process and once again you need to execute the processes calculating the allocation during working hours.  Do you know how long this process is going to take to complete?  Maybe you also need to schedule a new chore – is it easy to find a free timeslot between two chores?

In this article, we’re going to see just how Pulse can help with these two scenarios.

Pulse keeps track of all the execution times for all processes and chores.  In the Pulse Web client, you can see the minimum, average and maximum runtimes for all chores and processes.  This is invaluable information because before you run a process you can see quickly the last execution time and therefore have a much more accurate estimation about how long it is going to take to run.  This allows you to plan much more effectively and be more efficient as a result.

If you find some odd or peculiar statistics like, for example, the minimum run time is just 1 second and the maximum run time is 50,000 seconds, you can use the Chore/Process History dashboard from the Pulse Explorer to get to the bottom of it and investigate why there was such a strange difference.

After selecting the process you want to learn more about, you will see a chart with all the execution times.  You will therefore be able to quickly see when the maximum run time occurred:

Then by looking at the thread at the exact time that maximum occurred, you can get a better understanding of why the process took that much time.  In this example, the maximum occurred because the process was locked by another process:

You can read more about this functionality and how it might help you here.

To load data into your IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) cubes, you will need to execute a TM1 process.  Then if you need to execute this process daily and outside working hours, this is when you will need to create a chore.

When you start to have more and more chores scheduled, it can be challenging to know when new chores should be added in so that everything is still completed as expected.  You’ll need to find a free moment when no one is working and when no other chores are running – so that you can make the most of the system.

Without Pulse, you would need to open every single chore to identify the starting time and then guess the ending time – so that you could manually slot your new chore in.  This is tedious and can lead to errors when your chore schedule is sufficiently complex.

With Pulse, you’ll get a comprehensive Gantt chart that visualizes all your chores so that you can easily see when each chore starts and ends.  In the example below we can schedule a new chore from 2:30 to 3:00 AM because we can see the gap there:

This is what makes Pulse so powerful.  It simplifies your chores and processes so that your system works for you – aligned to your priorities.  Each moment saved by functionality like this represents time and energy that you can then dedicate to more important things.

More about Pulse for IBM Planning Analytics

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