Book Image

IBM Cognos 8 Report Studio Cookbook

By : Abhishek Sanghani
Book Image

IBM Cognos 8 Report Studio Cookbook

By: Abhishek Sanghani

Overview of this book

Cognos Report Studio is widely used for creating and managing business reports in medium to large companies. It is simple enough for any business analyst, power user, or developer to pick up and start developing basic reports. However, when it comes to developing more sophisticated, fully functional business reports for wider audiences, report authors will need guidance. This book helps you understand and use all the features provided by Report Studio to generate impressive deliverables. It will take you from being a beginner to a professional report author. It bridges the gap between basic training provided by manuals or trainers and the practical techniques learned over years of practice. This book covers all the basic and advanced features of Report Authoring. It begins by bringing readers on the same platform and introducing the fundamental features useful across any level of reporting. Then it ascends to advanced techniques and tricks to overcome Studio limitations.Develop excellent reports using dimensional data sources by following best practices that development work requires in Report Studio. You will also learn about editing the report outside the Studio by directly editing the XML specifications. Provide richness to the user interface by adding JavaScript and HTML tags. The main focus is on the practical use of various powerful features that Report Studio has to offer to suit your business requirements.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
IBM Cognos 8 Report Studio Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
Index

Recommendation for prompt types


There are many types of prompts available for use in Cognos Report Studio. Let's see some information about when to use which kind of prompt.

Data

Suggested prompt

Information

Hierarchical

Tree prompt

This naturally supports the hierarchical data

Two to four values – Single select, mandatory

Radio Button group

The value prompt can be used in Radio Button UI for this kind of requirement

Five to hundred values – Single select

Drop Down list

This is another UI of value prompt. It saves space on the prompt page.

Five to hundred values – Multi select

List box

This UI of value prompt allows users to select multiple values by holding Shift and Ctrl keys

More than hundred values

Search and Select prompt

When more than one hundred distinct values are available to choose from, it is advisable to use this prompt as user can search for required values which are simpler than browsing. Also, it reduces the burden to populate all values when prompt loads.