IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook, Second Edition

IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

Overview of this book

IBM 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, this book is designed to take the reader beyond the basics and into the world of creating more sophisticated, functional business reports.IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook, Second Edition 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.Written in a recipe style, this book offers step-by-step instructions for IBM Cognos Report Studio users to author reports effectively, allowing a reader to dip in and out of the chapters as they desire. You will see a new fictional business case in each recipe that will relate to a real-life problem and then you will learn how to crack it in Report Studio. This book covers all the basic and advanced features of Report Authoring. It introduces 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. You will discover how to build and use Cognos Active Reports, a new addition in IBM Cognos 10. Provide richness to the user interface by adding JavaScript and HTML tags and using the different chart types introduced in IBM Cognos 10. The main focus is on the practical use of various powerful features that Report Studio has to offer to suit your business requirements. Learn numerous techniques and hacks that will allow you to make the best out of your IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio.

IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook Second Edition

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

Report Authoring Basic Concepts

Introduction

Summary filters and detail filters

Sorting grouped values

Aggregation and rollup aggregation

Implementing if-then-else in filters

Formatting data – dates, numbers, and percentages

Creating sections

Hiding columns in crosstabs

Prompts – display value versus use value

Advanced Report Authoring

Introduction

Adding cascaded prompts

Creating a nested report – defining the master-detail relationship

Writing back to the database

Adding conditional formatting

Formatting negative values

Playing with conditional styles

Using conditional blocks – many reports in one

Defining drill-through from crosstab intersection

Overriding crosstab intersection drill-through definitions

Using JavaScript Files – Tips and Tricks

Introduction

Defining dynamic default values for prompts

Changing the title of the value prompt

Validating textbox prompts

Showing/hiding prompt controls at runtime

Selecting and submitting values automatically

Manipulating the Date Time control

Creating a variable width bar chart using JavaScript

The Report Page – Tips and Tricks

Introduction

Showing images dynamically (traffic light report)

Handling the missing image issue

Dynamic links to an external website (a Google Maps example)

Alternating drill links

Showing tooltips on reports

Merged cells in Excel output

Worksheet name in Excel output

Conditional column titles

Working with XML

Introduction

Changing drill targets quickly

Copying and pasting drill links

Removing references to old packages or items

A hidden gem in XML – row level formatting

Writing Printable Reports

Introduction

Controlling the container size and rows per page

Eliminating orphan rows

Defining page orientation and size (and overriding them for one page)

Avoiding page title repetition

Horizontal pagination

Page numbering with horizontal pagination

Choosing the output format from a prompt

Choosing the right colors

Defining page sets

Cautions about HTML items and JavaScript files

Displaying the report name in a footer

Working with Dimensional Models

Introduction

List report or crosstab report

Filtering rows or columns

Filtering a whole report

Adding a prompt into Slicer and its limitations

Achieving zero suppression

Aggregation versus preaggregated values

The roleValue() function

Swapping dimensions using MUN manipulation

Working with Macros

Introduction

Adding data-level security using the CSVIdentityMap macro

Using the Prompt macro in native SQL

Making prompts optional

Adding a token using macros

Using the prompt() and promptmany() macros in query subjects

Showing the prompt values in a report based on security

String operations to get it right

Showing a username in the footer

Using Report Studio Efficiently

Introduction

Using Report Studio's environmental options

Copying and pasting partial or full reports

Upgrading report specifications

Setting the execution timeout

Setting the maximum row limit

Handling slow report validation

Capturing a query

Browsing values from the data expression window

Viewing the page structure

Picking up and applying styles

Using the "grab them all" practice

Using Default Data Formats

Working with Active Reports

Introduction

Building tabbed reports

Working with Decks

Working with the Data Deck

Filtering data using Data Check Box Group

Charts and New Chart Features

Introduction

Chart formatting options

Converting a chart to another chart type

Working with pie charts

Getting started with bullet charts

Getting started with scatter charts

More Useful Recipes

Introduction

Timing report execution

Missing values versus zero values

Overriding data formatting using patterns

Setting up conditional drill-throughs

Dynamically switching between reports using an iFrame

Freezing column titles

Best Practices

Introduction

Reducing the number of query items

Highlighting hidden items

Using relative paths for images

Controlling JavaScript file execution

Customizing classes for report-wide effect

Creating templates

Regression testing

Commenting the code

Naming data containers (lists, crosstabs, and charts) for use in Cognos Workspace

Enabling a larger worksheet size for Excel 2007

Recommendations and References

Introduction

Version controlling

Recommendations for prompt types

Cognos Mashup Service

SDK and third-party tools for Cognos

IBM Cognos Analysis For Excel (CAFE)

IBM Cognos for Microsoft Office

IBM Cognos Workspace

IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced

IBM Cognos Cloud

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Version controlling

Cognos allows direct connection to certain version controlling software (Visual Source Safe being the most popular) for Framework Manager. However, there is no direct mechanism for reports.

The following methods are seen in different organizations for version controlling of reports:

Copy the report specification to the clipboard, save it as an XML file, and store it in the version controlling system. This method allows easy comparison to prior versions of the report, and hence is good for code review during any changes. However, it can be tedious. Also, restoring to an older version needs to be done for one report at a time. This also breaks any existing report views defined at the target location.
Export the whole suite of reports and store the export file (the ZIP format) in the version controlling system. This is less tedious compared to the previous one as only one file is created for the whole suite of reports. Reverting to an older and stable state is easy (the entire suite is reverted so that you can bring the system back to older and stable state, like baseline). However, this method is not particularly useful while troubleshooting a report to check what changed in it over the versions.
Use third-party tools. It is possible to hook up to the content store to retrieve the information. There are some third-party tools available that use this method to retrieve report specifications and do certain jobs. You can consider the tools like MotioCI to automatically record report versions and track changes. They also allow you to revert to older versions (more information can be found at http://www.motio.com/products/ci/overview.do).
There are also similar tools from BSP Software (www.bspsoftware.com) and Envisn (www.Envisn.com) that provide version controlling as well as other administration tasks such as scheduling, migration, and monitoring.

IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

Overview of this book

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IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition

Version controlling