Earlier this week (and without much fanfare) an incremental, but none the less exciting update to Cognos BI was released. Cognos 10.2.1 FP1 (Fixpack 1), also known as Cognos 10.2.1.1, includes a number of new features that build on the June’s impressive release, especially in the area of extensible visualizations or RAVE. Read more
Much has been written recently about the value of transforming data into useful information for decision making. It has become a strategic must-have for organizations to figure out how to use the structured historical data they already own, make sense of the ever-expanding amount of unstructured social media data out there, and implement the appropriate analytics platform to use these assets to their fullest extent through developing business intelligence maturity. Read more
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
IBM Cognos Business Intelligence platform has built-in monitoring systems that gather different metrics on each service, dispatcher, server and server group. These system metrics provide better insight into the status and overall health of a Cognos BI environment. The performance of these system metrics play a key role in tuning a BI environment to its full potential. Read more
Effective July 1, 2013, IBM training has been discontinued. IBM has moved to a partner-led model which shifts the responsibility of IBM’s internal training practice to qualified specialists and partners like Ironside. Clients will now be able to select training from industry experienced partners who can tailor courses and schedules to their needs. Training is obviously a critical piece of utilizing technology and is perhaps why this transition was made. While IBM continues to focus on creating best-of-breed technology, partners and third parties can focus on providing the highest quality training to customers. Read more
Thomas Friedman’s book “The World Is Flat” describes how outsourcing, technology, and other factors helped level the business playing field around the globe. What if traditional barriers to entry for using big data and business analytics were removed? Would small to mid-sized businesses be able to compete more effectively with larger organizations? IBM has made it possible to answer these questions and many more for its customers who leverage IBM Analytic Answers. Read more
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
Rapidly Adaptive Visualization Engine (RAVE) is the technology behind IBM’s extensible visualization offering. With the ability to create your own visualizations and to utilize those that others have created, the bounds of what have historically been accepted as the limits of IBM Cognos charts and graphs are gone. Read more
On June 11th, IBM announced the release of Cognos 10.2.1, billed as a refresh pack, but loaded to the brim with new features, enhancements and improvements. The Ironside Group participated in the 10.2.1 beta earlier this year and had the opportunity to fully vet these new and exciting features and we have been anxiously awaiting general availability of this release. Read more
Because a large number of IBM Cognos clients have upgraded to Cognos 10, IBM has announced Cognos 8.4 will reach End of Support (EOS) at the end of September 2013. To help clients manage this transition, the Ironside Group is offering a 2-day free assessment for any current Cognos 8.4 client looking for guidance on how to proceed with their Cognos environment. Read more
Ironside is a data, analytics, and AI consulting and technology implementation company. We work with clients to understand their business objectives and day-to-day challenges, then employ our deep expertise in data strategy, architecture and engineering, integration, business intelligence, AI, and generative AI. We create technical solutions and practical approaches designed to drive smarter, data-driven decisions across a company and help it move further and faster toward its business goals.