Tag Archive for: Report Studio

IBM Cognos and JavaScript – Part I

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Editor’s Note:  This blog was originally posted on July 25, 2011, we recently reviewed and updated on October 5, 2020. 

Over past major releases, Cognos has provided a couple predefined JavaScript library to interactive with report objects especially prompt objects. We find that traditional web standard JavaScript is still very useful due to the effort of migrating to IBM specific JavaScript library and flexibility to develop code at report level. Going forward we would encourage you to consider using the new custom controls provided by IBM Cognos Analtyics family product for new JavaScript application development. The new custom controls support the full interactive mode, provide much better end user experiences and support HTML5 standard.  Some commonly seeded functionalities such as dynamic column sorting, filters are now built-in via full interactive viewer, and JavaScript is no longer needed.  Read more here.
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Ironside Tech Tip: Which Logic Statement is Better to Use – Case or If?

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The Preferred Syntax to use in Cognos and Why

Cognos is not a programming language, but it does allow programmable syntax such as a case or an if logic statement.  The question is, which is the preferred syntax to use and why?

Generally speaking, the answer is that it does not matter.  The best one to choose should be based on your brain’s ability to write and perceive the code one way or another.  The best application, however is to use them as follows: Read more

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Ironside Tech Tip: Dynamically Selecting Filters Utilizing Before or After Aggregation via a Prompt

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Synopsis:

Enable a user via a prompt to pre-select if a value will be filtered before or after aggregation.

Overview:

Normally, the report author hard codes filters placed on facts in the Properties pane as before or after aggregation. While this is adequate in most report scenarios, hard coding can be limiting if the executing end-user would like to dynamically choose which aggregation method to use on the fact value at run time. When creating typical reports, this option is not obvious or apparently possible. Read more

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Ironside Tech Tip: Creating a Burst Table for a Cognos Report

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Synopsis: How to create an external data file to use as a burst table for a Cognos report.

Pre-Requisites: This article assumes familiarity with how to burst a report and how to use external data, and creating an external data package. Read more

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Ironside Tech Tip: Standardizing Prompt Names in Report Studio

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Synopsis

Define the technique behind and benefits of standardizing prompt conventions in Report Studio.

Overview

Report authors can easily create automatically generated prompt page prompts for data items in a report using the question mark syntax, as shown below: Read more

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IBM Cognos Solutions for the Self-Service Spectrum

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Due to the rapid pace of today’s business world, new strategies, products, projects, and tools are being introduced on a constant basis. This means that the speed of business often does not match the speed at which IT departments, which tend to have to follow rigorous testing and governance policies, can provide ways to measure the success of the given implementation. With tools like social media and Google at our fingertips to provide constant and immediate information at our every whim, the ability to get answers to business questions with the same deftness as we can in our personal lives becomes expected by BI end users. That’s why accounting for self-service options is essential. Read more

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Ironside Tech Tip: Best Practices for Documenting Report Studio Reports

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Synopsis:

Three methodologies for documenting Report Studio reports.

Overview:

Reporting tools like IBM Cognos Report Studio do not naturally provide a means of documenting and commenting procedures like traditional programming languages do. As a result, once a report has been created, it may be difficult to follow the logic and design of the original report, modify it, or reverse-engineer how it works. Additionally, the lack of documentation makes it difficult to determine how and why a report was built and what specific techniques were used to create it. Read more

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Ironside Tech Tip: Allow or Deny Access to a Report Based on the Time of Day

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clock graphicSecurity in Cognos is extremely robust, permitting or denying very precise access to data elements in a package, data source, or even to row level access in a database. Read & Execute permissions are usually applied to a report allowing certain Groups or Roles the ability to run a report. However, you can also allow or deny access to a report to only let it execute within specific hours of the day. Read more

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Ironside Tech Tip: Using Macros in Cognos

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Difficulty: Easy

Required Ingredients: Prompt macros and static values within a prompt parameter.

Scenario:

You have some existing reports that prompt on Year and Month.

Users would like a better experience by having default selections provided for them. For scheduling purposes you’d also like to set relative time so the report can run based on current month and current year. You can accomplish this using macros. Read more

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Ironside Tech Tip: Writing a Printable Report

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Difficulty: Easy

Required Ingredients: Report Studio, List Object, PDF Viewer

Scenario:

A report that you expected to be viewed exclusively in HTML will need to be printed. In order to do this, you switch the output to PDF to create a printable report and find that the columns span across multiple pages, making the report more difficult to understand.

You’ll need to make some minor modifications in order for the printable report to remain effective. Read more