An Active Report is a report that can be consumed offline. We looked at how end users can interact with Active Reports in Chapter 3, IBM Cognos Active Reports. Here, we will look at how these reports are created using Cognos Report Studio.
The first step to a successful Active Report is determining what information you want to display and how you will display it. The design phase of Active Report development is the most important as it will create our roadmap for when we get to the technical aspects of development.
A few questions that you may want to ask are as follows:
What information will my end users want to see offline?
How can I best display that information?
Are there logical ways to break up this information?
If my information is hierarchical, what is a typical drillpath?
Who will be using this information?
How often will it need to be refreshed?
These questions can go on and on. The important thing is to fully understand your end goal...