Overview

The IBM® Cognos® TM1® REST API provides an Open Data Protocol (OData) Version 4 compliant interface to an IBM Cognos TM1 server, which allows clients to query and update data sources that are hosted by the IBM Cognos TM1 Server.

The OData standard defines a set of rules and guidelines that are derived from common web technologies that include HTTP, REST, XML, and JSON. The OData standard provides a rich, interactive interface to data that can be accessed by any OData-compliant HTTP application. The TM1 REST API meets the intermediate conformance level of the OData Version 4 protocol. For more information, see Conformance.

You can use the TM1 REST API to maintain a TM1 model, manage T1 processes, and query data that is stored in the model. For general information, see TM1 REST API introduction. For more information about how to use the TM1 REST APIs, see Representing TM1 data.

With minimal configuration, the TM1 REST API provides developers with a standards-based approach to writing applications that query and update TM1 models. The Entity Data Model (EDM) defines the TM1 data model so that OData clients can understand and manipulate the model. For more information, see Metadata.

The OData website, OData.org, is a comprehensive source for information about the OData standard. You can find documentation about the provider of an OData web service (also referred to as an OData endpoint) and consumers of the OData service. The OData standard is described in the following documents:

• OData Part 1: Protocol
• OData Part 2: URL Conventions
• OData Part 3: Common Schema Definition Language (CSDL)
• OData JSON Format

You can learn about TM1 REST API conformance to the OData Version 4 standard in the following sections.