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

IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook, Second Edition: Getting the most out of IBM Cognos Report Studio is a breeze with this recipe-packed cookbook. Cherry-pick the ones you want or go through the tutorial step by step – either way you'll end up with some highly impressive reports. , Second Edition

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IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook, Second Edition

Chapter 2. Advanced Report Authoring

In this chapter, we will cover the following:

  • 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

Introduction


Now as you have implemented the recipes in Chapter 1, Report Authoring Basic Concepts or read through them, I am confident that we are on the same page about the fundamental techniques of report authoring.

Now you know how filtering, sorting, and aggregation work. You also know how to apply data formatting, create sections, and hide columns. You are also now aware of how to add new prompts and select appropriate options in the prompt wizard.

Based on this understanding, we will now move on to some advanced topics; including cascaded prompts, nested reports, and conditional blocks. We will also examine some techniques around drill-through links. These will enable you to create professional reports as required in the current industrial environment.

Adding cascaded prompts


Business owners want to see sales made by employees. They also want the facility to limit the report to a certain region, country, or employee.

When they select a region, they would like the country pick-list to automatically reduce to the countries falling in that region. Similarly, the employee pick-list should also reduce when they pick a country.

Getting ready

Create a simple list report with Employee name (from the Employee by region query subject) and Quantity (from Sales fact).

Define appropriate grouping and sorting for Employee name and ensure that aggregations for Quantity are correctly set.

How to do it...

In this recipe we will build three prompts for Region, Country, and Employee. We will create a relationship between these prompts by making them cascading prompts. So if you change the value selected in one prompt, the data in the other prompts should change accordingly. To do this, perform the following steps:

  1. We will start by creating detailed filters on the...

Creating a nested report – defining the master-detail relationship


Users want to see product lines, products, and corresponding unit costs. For every product, they also want to see the trend of sales over the last year.

We need to produce a list report with the required information and nest a line chart within it to show the sales trend.

Getting ready

Create a simple list report based on the Sales (query) namespace. Pull Products / Product line, Products/Product and Sales fact / Unit cost in the list.

How to do it...

To complete this recipe, we need to create a relationship between the list report created and a chart report that will be embedded into it. We can do this by defining a master-detail link between them.

  1. We already have a list report that shows the product lines, products, and corresponding unit costs. Please make sure that appropriate sorting and aggregations are applied to the columns.

  2. Now we will add a nested Chart object to show the sales trend for each product.

  3. Drag a new Chart object...

Writing back to the database


Writing back to the database is perhaps the most frequently requested functionality by business users—writing some notes or comments back to database, for a particular entry on the report. Though there is no direct functionality provided in Cognos Report Studio for this, it is still possible to achieve it by putting together multiple tools. This recipe will show you how to do that.

The business wants to see sales figures by products. They then want to write some comments for the products from the same interface. The comments need to be stored in the database for future retrieval and updating.

You will need access on the backend database and Framework Manager for this recipe.

Tip

As we are only concentrating on Report Studio in this book, we will not cover the Framework Manager options in depth. The power users and Report Studio developers need not be masters in Framework Modeling, but they are expected to have sufficient knowledge of how it works. There is often...

Adding conditional formatting


The business wants to see company sales figure by years and quarters. They want to highlight the entries where sales are below 5,000,000.

We will assume that database provides us the Quarter number and we need to convert that to words. We will use conditional formatting for that. Also, where sales is below 5 million, the cell will be shown in red using another conditional variable.

Getting ready

Create a simple list report with Year and Quarter (numeric) columns from the Sales / Time query subject.

Drag Quantity from Sales fact.

Group by Year and sort by Quarter.

How to do it...

Conditional formatting is used to enhance the report visualization. Here is how we can define conditional formatting in the created report:

  1. Go to Condition Explorer and click on Variables as shown in the following screenshot:

  2. Drag a new string variable from the Toolbox pane. Define the expression as [Query1].[Quarter (numeric)].

  3. Change the name of the variable to Convert_To_Words as shown in the...

Formatting negative values


Business owners need to see the sales figures by month and their month-on-month difference.

If the difference is negative (fall in sales) then it needs to be shown in red and values need to be in brackets.

Getting ready

Create a simple list report with Time / Year, Time / Month (numeric), and Sales fact / Quantity as columns.

Group Year and sort Month (numeric) in ascending order.

How to do it...

Showing negative values in red and between brackets is a familiar practice for analysts in tools like Excel. Here are the steps to create the exact same formatting in your reports:

  1. Add a new query calculation to the list. Define the expression as running-difference([Quantity]). Call this item as Running Difference.

  2. Open the Data Format properties for this calculation from the Property list.

  3. Set the Format type as Number and the Negative Sign Symbol as brackets () as shown in the following screenshot:

  4. Now go to Condition Explorer and create a new condition variable of Boolean type...

Playing with conditional styles


Assume that the following report needs to be formatted such that quantities below 1.7 million will be highlighted with red background and those above 2 million should be green. Also, we need the negative values for Running Difference (month-on-month) to be shown in red and in brackets as shown in the following screenshot:

As shown in the previous recipe, this would have needed us to define two conditional variables. Then attach each to the corresponding column as Style variable to define the styles. With one more such numeric column, the author had to define one more variable and repeat the exercise. Let's see how the new conditional styling feature solves this problem.

Getting ready

Write a new report similar to the one shown in the previous screenshot.

How to do it...

In this recipe, we are going to examine more ways to enhance the reports look and feel. To do this:

  1. Select the Quantity column on the report page.

  2. Open the new Conditional Styles dialog box from the...

Using conditional blocks – many reports in one


The purpose of this recipe is to introduce you to a very useful and powerful control of Report Studio called conditional blocks.

Users want a report on sales figures. They want the facility to split the numbers by product lines, periods, or retailer region, any one at a time. For convenience purposes, they don't want three different reports, instead they are looking for one report with the facility to choose between the report types.

Getting ready

Create a report with three list objects. Define the list columns as follows:

  • List 1: Products / Product line and Sales fact / Quantity

  • List 2: Time / Year, Time / Month, and Sales fact / Quantity

  • List 3: Retailers / Region and Sales fact / Quantity

Define appropriate grouping, sorting, and aggregation for all the list objects. Make sure that all objects use different queries as shown in the following screenshot:

How to do it...

Conditional blocks are very powerful tool that you can make your report very...

Defining drill-through from crosstab intersection


We have a crosstab report that shows sales quantity by month and order method. We need to create drill-through links from months and sales values.

Getting ready

Create two target reports for the drill-throughs. One should take only Month as parameter. The other should take Month and Order method type. These reports will be referred to as Drill-1 and Drill-2 reports respectively.

Create a simple crosstab report to be used as main report. Pull Time/Month on rows, Order method / Order method type on columns, and Sales fact / Quantity as the measure.

How to do it...

In this recipe, you will see how to create a drill-through from a crosstab intersection to another report. To do this:

  1. Select the Month item placed on crosstab rows. Click on the drill-through definition button from the toolbar.

  2. This opens the drill-through definitions dialog. Create a new definition. Select Drill-1 as Target Report. Map the month parameter with the Month data item as shown...

Overriding crosstab intersection drill-through definitions


Let us consider an extension of the last recipe. Let us say the users want to see a discontinuous crosstab as main report. Instead of just Order method type as a column, we need to display Order method type and Product line as columns.

The rows display Month. The measure is sales quantity.

The drill-through from the intersection has to go to the appropriate report depending on whether the column is Product line or Order method type.

Getting ready

Create a new drill-through target that accepts Month and Product line as parameters. We will call it Drill-3 from now on.

For the main report, we will use the same crosstab report as in the previous recipe.

How to do it...

In the previous recipe, we saw how to create a drill-through from a crosstab intersection to another report. In this recipe, we want to make it more complex. The drill-through line should be different based on the crosstab column. To complete this recipe perform the following...

Left arrow icon Right arrow icon

Key benefits

  • Learn advanced techniques to produce real-life reports that meet business demands
  • Learn tricks and hacks for speedy and effortless report development
  • Peek into the best practices used in industry and discover ways to work like a pro

Description

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.

Who is this book for?

The Cognos 10 Report Studio Cookbook is for you if you are a Business Intelligence Developer who is working on IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio and wants to author impressive reports by putting to use what this tool has to offer. It is also ideal you are a Business Analyst or Power User who authors his own reports and wants to look beyond the conventional features of IBM Cognos 10 Report Studio. This book assumes that you are familiar with the architecture of IBM Cognos 10. You should also have basic knowledge of IBM Cognos Report Studio and can do the basic report authoring tasks.

What you will learn

  • Learn basic and advanced options around sorting, filtering, and aggregation of data
  • Explore the powerful features of Report Studio‚ÄîConditional Formatting, Cascaded Prompts, Master-Detailed queries, and more
  • Learn how to build and use Active Reports
  • Achieve real business demands such as dynamic drill-though links, showing tooltips, minimum column width, prompt manipulation, and merged cells
  • Learn to edit reports outside Report Studio using XML editing
  • Develop sophisticated printer friendly reports
  • Introduce best practices such as inserting comments, regression testing, and version controlling in your reports
  • Enhance the features of Report Studio by using macros and Work with dimensional models (DMRs and Cubes)

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Aug 26, 2013
Length: 364 pages
Edition : 2nd
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849688208
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Length: 364 pages
Edition : 2nd
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849688208
Category :

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Table of Contents

13 Chapters
Report Authoring Basic Concepts Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Advanced Report Authoring Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using JavaScript Files – Tips and Tricks Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
The Report Page – Tips and Tricks Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with XML Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Writing Printable Reports Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Dimensional Models Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Macros Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using Report Studio Efficiently Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Active Reports Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Charts and New Chart Features Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
More Useful Recipes Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Best Practices Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Top Reviews
Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.6
(9 Ratings)
5 star 33.3%
4 star 33.3%
3 star 0%
2 star 22.2%
1 star 11.1%
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Aileen Oct 22, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Excelente
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Faenoel Oct 02, 2013
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This book had the exact example that I was looking for and paid for itself in the 1st 5 minutes
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Average Reader Apr 22, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
and I am only on page 50! Some instructions need more print screens but I still managed to find how to do it on my own. I am use to doing queries in Access so for me the way Cognos 'thinks' is quite useful. There aren't a lot of books out there for Cognos 10 so anytime I see something, I tend to buy it. Some have been a total let down as they only skim the surface and do not guide anyone to do actual reports but this one does. I do think it's worth the price.
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Angel S. Dec 19, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
No es para empezar. Se nececesita un conocimiento basico anterior. Pero es de gran ayuda. Solo funiciona con los catalogos que trae el Cognos de arranque
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Psyckers Feb 22, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Has some great examples demonstrating the breadth of capability that can be built into a Cognos report. It certainly demonstrates how 'integrated' various analytics tools are in Report Studio.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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