Transcript Cognos 8.4 Upgrade - Northwestern University Information

Cognos 8.4 Upgrade
Business Intelligence
Why Cognos 8.4
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Increased Performance on Database due to
optimized SQL and more filters passed in native
SQL
Less chance of killing the BIBus core process
Firefox 3 support for Cognos Connection, Report
View, and Query Studio
Internet Explorer 7 is now supported for all products
and studios
Better Administration and Security
Microcharts and Excel 2007
Excel 2007 now supported,
smaller files and
ECMA supported
Microcharts added to
crosstab and list reports
Packages
Packages can now
be moved into
folders
Capabilities can now
be defined at the
package level
Express Authoring
A simplified Report Studio view that uses
dimensionally modeled packages only.
Designed for Financial Analysts.
Query Studio Filter Column
Query Studio users
can now filter a
column without
adding it to the
report.
Data Lineage
Data Lineage can be displayed in Report Studio from the selectable
objects, and also in a report against a data item. It shows where a
data item came from and any calculation done on that item.
Cognos 8.4 Behavior Changes
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Search prompts will now prompt to continue to search if the result set is
large.
Null values will now be used if selected.
Divided values will now show 3 digits after the decimal except for
currencies which will use the same number as the numerator.
Divided values will use the same format as the numerator if the
denominator is a query constant, number, or percentage. Else the
format result will be a number.
Rounding values will result in as many decimal places as the rounding
precision.
PDFs can now be paginated horizontally as well as vertically.
Using custom formatting and leaving the replace null value box empty
results in nulls now being shown instead of 0 values for nulls. Previous
versions appeared to be ignoring this format and now it is being used
correctly in 8.4.
Cognos 8.4 Splash Screen
Cognos 8.4 Studio Launch
The studio icons are now in a launch list, instead of spread across the top
as icons. This list will still only show studios the user has the capabilities
to access.
Excel Header
In Excel 2002 worksheets, headers can now be broken across multiple
rows. In the Excel 2007 format below, the behavior stays the same and
headers stay on the assigned row.
Currency Decimal set as Comma
The default for
Currency Decimal
Separator is , when
not defined. Need to
change the value to
period where it is
used.
Nulls in Prompts
Nulls are now an
acceptable item in
picklist prompts. If
selected, it will
return values with
null. To remove this
behavior add a null
filter to the prompt
query.
Singleton Usage
In this example there is a single data item displayed in a header, Open/Close.
To do this, the report designer had to insert a table and then a list frame with a
single data item in the list.
Singleton Usage cont.
Instead, use the new singleton object which is a single data item element.
Don’t Print Class
The Don’t Print class behavior has changed. It tells the object to not print
or show in PDF or Excel formats. However it still shows in HTML outputs.
Don’t Print Class Solution
There are a couple solutions to this if you don’t want the object to show in
HTML. One of the options is below, change the box type of the object to
None.
JavaScript
JavaScript code can break during version
upgrades and is not a recommended
method.
In this example, the
DESCRSHORT needs
to be changed to
Business Unit.
The above JavaScript is used
currently to do this change.
JavaScript Fix
Changed the query to force the new name to be
in the result set. This name is now used in the
drop down list and no need for JavaScript.
Rigorous Datatype Checking
In 8.4, datatypes are now more rigorously checked. In the above
example, count is a numerical value and hence does not equal a
character as represented by the = ‘’
Rigorous Datatype Fix
In this case, you would replace the =‘’ with the is null statement.
Even better for this job though would be to use the coalesce function to
replace Nulls with 0.
Drill Through Page 8.2
Drill Through Page 8.4
The new page shows all three drill through entries, even though the label
on one of the entries is still hidden and hence was not displayed in 8.2.
The new drill through link page shows more detail and has a debug
option now to display the passed source values to the target report.
Upgrade Plan
Framework Manager
When running
Framework Manager 8.2
and 8.4 concurrently, be
sure to install 8.4 into a
separate directory, here it
is installed in c84.
Framework Object Dependencies
One of the new features in
Framework Manager 8.4 is
the Object dependency tool
to show you any
dependencies before you
make a change to the
model.
Further Resources
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Business Intelligence Solutions Website
– http://www.it.northwestern.edu/about/departments/bi/index.html
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NUBI Listserv email
– [email protected]
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IBM Cognos Support Site
– http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-businessintelligence/support/
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IT Toolbox Cognos Community
– http://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com/topics/pbs/cognos/
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Reference Manuals
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Report Studio Professional Authoring User Guide:
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_cr_rptstd.pdf
Framework Manager User Guide:
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_fm.pdf
Transformer User Guide :
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_cogtr.pdf
Report Studio Express Authoring User Guide:
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_rptstd_fin.pdf