Trace feeders

From an Exploration view, you can right-click a leaf cell and click Trace feeders to trace how a selected cell feeds other cells. You can use this capability to debug or improve the performance of your cube rules.

About this task

You can feed only from a leaf member, so the Trace feeders option is not available for consolidated cells. However, the option is available for leaf cells defined by rules.

Note: You can trace feeders only from cubes that reside on Planning Analytics database version 2.0.3 or later. If your cube resides on a database before version 2.0.3, the Trace feeders option is not available when you right-click a leaf cell.

You can learn more about rules in general, and feeders in particular, in the TM1 Rules Guide.

Procedure

  1. In an Exploration view, right-click the leaf cell you want to trace.
  2. Click Trace Feeders.

    The Trace Feeders window opens. When you open the window, the first row in the grid shows the cell from which you initiated feeder tracing. Following the first row you can see the cells that are directly fed by that cell.

    Trace Feeders window with several rows visible. The first row shows the cell from which Trace Feeders was initiated.

    The grid includes three columns: Cell, Value, and Source.

    Cell

    Identifies the cell by its coordinates in the cube using a comma-separated list of invariant names. If the cell is not from the cube in which feeder tracing was initiated, the cell is identified as CubeName(Member0, Member1,...).

    An expand/collapse button appears next to the cell coordinates. You can click the button to reveal the cells that are fed by the current cell, and you can click the button again to hide the cells that are fed by the current cell.

    Value
    Indicates whether the cell is fed or is unfed.
    Source

    Displays the feeder statements that are associated with the cell. The statements are formatted and colorized as they appear in the rules editor.

    To minimize space, feeders statements are initially shown truncated on a single line. An expand/collapse button appears next to the feeder statements. You can click the button to reveal all the feeder statements that are associated with the cell, and you can click the button again to collapse the statements to a single line.

    When you first open the Trace Feeders window, the statements for the cells that are fed by the cell from which you initiated feeder tracing are unknown. The Source column displays the message Expand cell to trace feeders. Click the expand/collapse button in the Cell column to calculate the feeder statements. If the cell is included in feeder statements, then the statements are displayed in the Source column and any fed cells appear as child entries. If the cell is not associated with any feeders, the Source column displays the message This cell does not feed any cells. This is also the case as you trace through feeders. Calculation occurs when you click the expand/collapse button in the Cell column.

  3. Click the expand/collapse button for any location in the Cell column to reveal how that cell feeds other cells in your model. If the cell feeds other cells, those other cells appear as children in the Cell column. You can continue to trace down through children until you reach the point where a child cell does not feed any other cells.