IBM Cognos Connection is the Web portal for IBM Cognos Business Intelligence. It is the starting point to access your BI information and the functionality of IBM Cognos BI.
Use the portal to publish, find, manage, organize, and view your organization's business intelligence content, such as reports, scorecards, and agents. If you have the necessary permissions, you can access the various studios from the portal and use the portal for content administration, including scheduling and distributing reports, and creating jobs.You view reports in IBM Cognos Viewer.
System administrators also use the portal to administer servers, optimize performance, and set access permissions.
Example 1 -How to Run a Report
IBM Cognos Connection is the Web portal that gives you access to all the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence functionality. In the portal, you can run reports.
In this exercise, you will learn how to
v Navigate the portal
v Run a report
v Navigate within a report
v Drill through from one report to another
v View the report in a different format
You are a business analyst for the Sample Outdoors Company. You are asked to study the percentage of returned products. Returned items reveal important information about the quality of products, especially products that are returned because they are defective or are missing parts.
You will drill down to more detailed information in the pie chart, drill back up to the beginning, then drill through to another report using the data shown in your current report as a filter.
Things to notice:
1)The icon for a report shows the default format and default action of the report.
2)Reports that have saved outputs have an additional icon in the Actions column.
3) At any time, you can click the arrow next to the help button, and click Go to the Welcome Page to return to the IBM Cognos Welcome page.
Procedure
1. Open IBM Cognos Connection:
a. Start your Web browser.
b. In the address bar, type the URL supplied by your administrator, and then press Enter. The URL looks something like this: http://servername/cognos
2. In the IBM Cognos Welcome page, click IBM Cognos content.InthePublic Folders tab, click Samples, Models, GO Data Warehouse (analysis), and Query Studio Report Samples.
3. Locate the Return Quantity by Product Line Chart report. Tip: The icon beside an entry identifies its default action. The default action for this report is to open it in IBM Cognos Query Studio. Instead, you want to run the report in HTML format in the viewer.
4. Under Actions, click the Run with Options icon next to the report, accept the defaults, and then click Run.
The report runs and opens with the latest data about product returns.
5. Click the Outdoor Protection slice in the pie chart to drill down to more detailed information.
Tip: You can also drill down by right-clicking or by clicking the legend label. At a quick glance, you notice that insect repellents have the highest number of returns.
6. Drill down on Insect Repellents. You notice that the BugShield Lotion has the highest number of returns. You want to drill up to go back to where you started in this report.
7. Drill up twice to return to the high-level product returns data. To do so,right-click any area on the pie chart and click Drill Up, then repeat this step to drill up again.
Example
Use IBM Cognos Connection to try the following report features: - On the toolbar, click the Home or Return icon to return to the portal.- Change the report format to PDF.
Tip: Click Run with Options on the actions toolbar. From the Format list, select PDF, and click Run.
-Change the report to a different language. To do so, change the language settings in IBM Cognos Connection or in your Web browser, and then run the report again. Because the sample data is multilingual, all data will be translated.
Tip: Click My Area Options
, My Preferences. Under Regional options,change the Product language and the Content language. To see the content language changes, you must run the report.
Example 2 : Schedule a Report
You can schedule entries that are stored in IBM Cognos Connection, such as reports, queries, and agents, so that they run at a time that is convenient for you.
In this exercise, you will learn how to
- Save a report as a report view
- Schedule a report so it runs daily
- Use the schedule management tool to view the status of the schedule
You are a business analyst for the Sample Outdoors Company. You want to schedule the Return Quantity by Product Line Chart report because some people in your organization need the data updated daily. You schedule the report to run daily, and then check that it is properly scheduled.
Things to notice:
Example 2 : Schedule a Report
You can schedule entries that are stored in IBM Cognos Connection, such as reports, queries, and agents, so that they run at a time that is convenient for you.
In this exercise, you will learn how to
- Save a report as a report view
- Schedule a report so it runs daily
- Use the schedule management tool to view the status of the schedule
You are a business analyst for the Sample Outdoors Company. You want to schedule the Return Quantity by Product Line Chart report because some people in your organization need the data updated daily. You schedule the report to run daily, and then check that it is properly scheduled.
Things to notice:
- When a report runs according to a schedule, the report output is saved, and appears in the Action column in IBM Cognos Connection.
- At any time, you can click the arrow next to the Help button, and click Go to the Welcome Page to return to the IBM Cognos Welcome page.
Procedure
1. Open IBM Cognos Connection:
a. Start your Web browser.
b. In the address bar, type the URL supplied by your administrator, and then press Enter. The URL looks something like this: http://servername/cognos
2. In the IBM Cognos Welcome page, click IBM Cognos content.InthePublic Folders tab, click Samples, Models, GO Data Warehouse (analysis), and Query Studio Report Samples.
3. Locate the Return Quantity by Product Line Chart report. You can also use any one of the IBM Cognos sample reports.
4. Create a report view for a daily view of the report:
a. Under Actions, click the Report View icon next to the report.
b. In the Name box, remove the words Report View of from the beginning of the name, type (daily) at the end of the name, and click Finish.A new entry appears in IBM Cognos Connection, with the report view icon.
5. Schedule the report view to run daily:
a. Click the Schedule icon next to the entry.
b. Under Frequency, click the By Day tab.
c. Accept the default time and other defaults.
d. Click OK.
6. Check the schedule:
a. Click My Area Options , My Activities and Schedules.
b. Click Schedules.
c. In the Filter pane, select Any status and Any priority, and click Apply.
Results
Your report view appears in the list of scheduled reports.
Example 3- How to create a Portal page
You can customize the IBM Cognos Connection portal by creating your own portal pages. You can choose the information that is most important to you and make it available from your page. Choose from different types of content and organize the pages in a way that works for you.
- This exercise shows how to
- Create a page
- Add content to a page
- Define the appearance of a page
- Enhance the content of a page
You want to create a personal page that includes all of the reports and content that you worked on in the previous exercises so that you can easily view the content each time you log on to IBM Cognos Business Intelligence.
Things to notice:
- In a portal page, you can add IBM Cognos content (such as business intelligence reports), utilities (such as URLs and bookmarks), and third-party portlets.
- You can make a portal page available to a group in your organization, such as to the sales team, or you can create a portal page for your personal use.
Procedure
1. Open IBM Cognos Connection:
a. Start your Web browser.
b. In the address bar, type the URL supplied by your administrator, and then press Enter. The URL looks something like this: http://servername/cognos
2. In the IBM Cognos Welcome page, click IBM Cognos content and then click New Page
.
3. Type the name My Sample Outdoors page, click Select My Folders as the location for the new page, and click Next.
4. Specify the page layout:
a. Under Number of columns, select two columns.
b. Change the width of the first column to 40% and the second column to 60%.
5. Add content to your page:
a. Under the first column, click Add.
b. Click IBM Cognos Content.
c. Select the IBM Cognos Navigator, IBM Cognos Search, and IBM Cognos Viewer portlets. Click Add
to move them to the Selected entries box.
Tip: You can preview the content of the portlets by clicking View This Portlet.
d. Click OK.
e. In the first column, click IBM Cognos Viewer and click the right arrow
.
f. Click Next.
6. Define the appearance of the page:
a. In the Title box, type My Sample Outdoors page. Tip: You can change the formatting of the text.
b. Click Next.
c. Select the Add this page to the portal tabs check box.
d. Click Finish.
The My Sample Outdoors page that you created appears as a tab in IBM Cognos Connection.
7. Enhance the content of your page:
a. Click the My Sample Outdoors page tab.
b. In the IBM Cognos Viewer portlet title bar, click Edit.
c. Under Entry, click Select an entry. Click Public Folders, Samples, Models,GO Data Warehouse (analysis), and Query Studio Report Samples. Selectthe Return Quantity by Product Line Chart sample report and click OK.
Tip: You can also use any other sample report.
d. Under Height (pixels), type 600.
e. Click OK.
The report now appears in your portal page.
If the report was not previously run and saved, click the run button in the IBM Cognos Viewer portlet. In the Run with options page, click Save the report and then click Run.