Making use of Snap Commands in Planning Analytics Workspace

With the release of IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (hereinafter referred to as PAW) came a new interface, new ways of interacting with data, and the addition of Snap Commands.

PAW’s Snap Commands are simple commands that can be used to accelerate common tasks.  They allow the use of natural language to find, create, and interact with visualizations.  Snap Commands can be used  for finding specific views or cubes, as well as creating and modifying views and visualizations.

To take advantage of the find/create a feature in PAW, simply type a Snap Command in the “intent bar”.

PAW examines your intent, then searches for member names, captions, aliases, named sets, and named levels that might satisfy it. For example, to find a named view simple type VIEW and the name of the view in quotations (i.e. VIEW “Total Sales”).  If PAW finds more than one match, they are listed in order of relative strength of the matches, with more weight being given to precise matches.

Snap Commands can also be typed in full words or abbreviations.  They are not case sensitive and exact spelling is not required, making them easy to enter without requiring much memorizing.  You can also undo Snap Commands simply by clicking the Undo button in the main PAW toolbar.

To use Snap Commands to interact with data, you must select the visualization you wish to work, then click on the Snap Command button in the view’s toolbar:

Upon selecting Snap Commands, an entry bar prompts you to begin typing commands and lists some of the most useful and common commands below the bar:

The commands listed below are the most-commonly used Snap Commands for interacting with data.

For example, hide/un-hide can be used either to hide/un-hide specific members or to hide entire rows and columns.  Zero is used to enable and disable zero suppression.

List of Common and Useful Snap Commands

Drill – Drill down on members.

Find – You can find members on rows, columns, or both.

Hide – Hide named members in dimensions on the rows or columns.

Keep – Keep members in dimensions on the rows or columns, while you hide the other members.

Level – Expand levels in a hierarchy to a specific depth. If you don’t specify a level, the leaf level is expanded.

Select – Select members, sets, and levels in dimensions.

Sort – Sort labels or values in ascending or descending order. You can choose to sort by hierarchy, or to break the hierarchy.

sort -x – Clears all sorting. To clear sorting on the months hierarchy, type sort clear months.

Swap – Swap rows, columns, dimensions in the context area.

Totals – Show leading or trailing totals, or hide totals.

Un-hide – Show or un-hide members.

Zero – Enable zero suppression.

You know enough to “be snappy” in PAW!

A full list of Snap Commands, along with examples can be found in IBM’s official documentation: Snap Commands