Written by Mike Bernaiche, September 13th, 2023 With the release of Cognos Analytics 12 in June 2023, IBM has taken[...]

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Written by Mike Bernaiche, December 23rd, 2022 Lodestar Solutions Services team is ready to help in 2023!  I wanted to[...]

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Written by Mike Bernaiche, March 31st 2022 The latest update of Cognos Analytics 11.2.2 arrived in March 2022 and it[...]

Written by Mike Bernaiche, November 11th, 2021 In September 2021, IBM released Cognos Analytics 11.2.1.  This blog will highlight the[...]

Written by Mike Bernaiche, August 12th, 2021 Looking for a quick view at important data in Cognos Analytics?  Maybe, your[...]

Written by Mike Bernaiche on June 10th, 2021 The next major update from IBM on the Cognos Analytics platform was[...]

February 18th, 2021As the world of Big Data continues to evolve, we have noticed many of our IBM Cognos Analytics[...]

November 12th, 2020 The world has changed, and it is never going back!  A year ago we were able to[...]

October 22nd, 2020 Have you been using IBM Cognos Analytics for years?  You are a master of Framework Manager and[...]

September 10th, 2020 As clients look to drastically cut cost, it’s natural for IT departments to look at all their[...]

August 13th, 2020 The latest release of Cognos Analytics is here!  Cognos Analytics 11.1.7 is now available for download via[...]

June 11th, 2020 ​ Are you ready to simplify the maintenance of your Cognos BI environment? Regardless of whether you[...]

May 14th, 2020 IBM has done it again!  Recently they released Cognos Analytics 11.1.6 and with this update comes some[...]

April 27th, 2020IBM Cognos has done an amazing job of enhancing and updating Cognos Analytics since inception.  Every few months[...]

January 23rd, 2020IBM continues to provide 4-5 new Cognos Analytics releases each year.  In December 2019, IBM released Cognos Analytics[...]

January 14th, 2020Are you one of the many clients that haven’t upgraded to Cognos Analytics version 11 yet?  As much[...]

November 7, 2019Cognos Analytics 11.1.4 was released in October 2019 and this is a big release with tons of new[...]

October 10, 2019Cognos Analytics Training – Hands on & LiveAre you a power user thinking about upgrading your current BI[...]

October 8, 2019As you are planning your IBM Cognos Analytics upgrade you need to ask yourself, “Is Your Cognos Analytics[...]

October 4, 2019 WARNING! If you are planning your Cognos Analytics upgrade and you haven’t heard of Motio, your upgrade[...]

September 5, 2019In July 2019, IBM released Cognos Analytics 11.1.3.  With the new release came many new features and enhancements.[...]

August 27th, 2019 The SituationYou are currently using IBM Cognos BI 10.2.x and you are wondering why you should upgrade to[...]

1/15/19 Recently, IBM released Cognos Analytics 11.1.  I have been using it now for a few weeks and I must[...]

 7/24/18 The importance of enabling audit in Cognos BI / CA is profound.  As we all know, tracking users in Cognos[...]

7/12/18 On June 29, 2018 IBM made available for download Cognos Analytics release 12.  This release is an "addition" to release[...]

Whats New in IBM Cognos Analytics Release 11 I have been asked many many times about portal pages in Cognos[...]

5/15/2018Well the time is finally here!  Ever since IBM supersized client’s IBM Cognos licenses in 2014, Lodestar Solutions has warned[...]

2/13/2018 On December 22, 2017, IBM made available release 9 for IBM Cognos Analytics.  Below is a breakdown of what's new[...]

IBM Cognos Analytics Release 8 is Available Now! IBM Cognos Analytics release 8 was made available to download on Friday,[...]

Take Advantage of Lodestar's FREE Educational Workshops! It is time to start thinking about investing in your company's continued education.[...]

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Expert Training for Cognos Analytics Next Steps Now that you have upgraded to Cognos Analytics, what's next?  How about expert[...]

9/26/2017First Step - Get Lodestar Tool KitAs someone who used Cognos 10 for years, the thought of upgrading to Cognos[...]

9/26/2017 Latest Cognos Analytics Updates IBM releases Cognos Analytics updates 3 to 4 times a year.  In the last year,[...]

Level Up Dashboards with Cognos Analytics Cognos 10 Dashboards For those of you on Cognos 10, building a dashboard is[...]

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IBM Cognos Analytics R7 Available Now The release of Cognos Analytics R7 on August 24, 2017, took an already good[...]

Have You Secured Funding Yet?  It's Budget Season.  Secure Funding Now for IBM Cognos!​Do you need process improvement and require[...]

4/8/2017IBM Cognos BI 10.2.x - is it ending?Recently, we found out that IBM Cognos BI support for 10.2.x was ending[...]

3/22/17On Friday March 17, 2017, IBM Cognos Analytics Release 6 was made available to download and with it came some[...]

11/9/2016Do you find yourself spending exorbitant amounts of time sending multiple reports to multiple people? Maybe you have a report[...]

10/26/16Here's the formula: Owning IBM Cognos BI = Owning IBM Cognos Analytics.  If you are current on your IBM Cognos[...]

9/7/2016Do you have lots of reports that need to be run daily and you sometimes forget to run them or[...]

8/23/2016IBM Cognos BI 11  release 3 (also known as Cognos Analytics) was recently made available for download. It includes a[...]

8/9/2016Are your IBM Cognos BI reports taking a long time to run? Do you have certain reports that are scheduled[...]

7/27/2016IBM has made a lot of positive changes with IBM Cognos Express over the years. The biggest change was with[...]

4/11/2016IBM Cognos Analytics 11 (you can think about this as Cognos BI 11) is the new powerful Business Intelligence platform[...]

3/30/2016One drink too many and I suddenly develop turrets and start shouting things like “Cognos can do that.”  Lodestar Solutions[...]

3/22/2016WOW! That was my first impression of IBM Cognos Analytics (Cognos 11) as I spent some time with working with[...]

1/12/2016Released on December 22, 2015, Cognos Analytics 11 brings a more user friendly unified interface, improved efficiency in all business[...]

6/16/15As a Business Analytics Coach, I’m often asked to compare Cognos BI to other BI products.  Today I’m going to[...]

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Great news for Cognos Express users!!! The Cognos Expressa more comprehensive look on what issues have been corrected. The fixes[...]

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Exciting news for all of you BI nerds like myself! IBM is releasing the newest version of Cognos Business Intelligence 10.2.2[...]

​Big Licensing Changes provide Cognos SDK for administrators! Hopefully you have heard about the massive licensing changes IBM made for[...]

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Since Cognos is designed to be relatively easy to implement and is architected to empower business users, many non-IT departments find Cognos BI to be a fantastic business intelligence solution. This is especially true for our mid-market clients who don’t typically have a large or robust IT department. However, business users can be at a disadvantage. Knowing the right questions to ask or the right order of events can be ambiguous. Just understanding how the data gets from the data mart to Query Studio can be a mystery. There are 4 major areas of concentration in your project plan; five if you are also implementing TM1 as a data source.

With many companies realizing the bang for their buck by purchasing and training their end users on Cognos 10.2 Workspace Advanced, we are starting to see at Lodestar an influx of Workspace Advanced “how to” questions. These “studios” combine the functionality of Query Studio, Analysis Studio, and Report Studio Express into one. However, the most frustrating part of learning any new software is understanding where to find things, what functions are built-in, and what syntax to use in calculations. Amazingly enough, sometimes the simplest question can be the hardest for which to find answers.

The redesigned iPad application for Cognos Mobile is now available in Apple's App Store. This release is easier to use, performs better, and allows for personalization and more interactive gestures. IBM has updated this application twice in the month of March. Here is a list of the new functionality in Cognos Mobile.

With the release of Cognos 10.2, IBM Cognos introduced a new data modeler tool called Dynamic Cubes. Essentially, Dynamic cubes is an extension of Dynamic Query that leverages in-memory data to achieve high performance interactive analysis and reporting over terabytes of warehouse data. Very important – you must have a data warehouse structured in a star or snowflake schema in order to maximize the performance!

In theory, time calculations are simple; however the DMR (dimensional model relational) data I was working with last week was presenting a challenge. DMR is a modeling technique in Framework Manager that identifies predefined hierarchies in relational data; hence providing a pseudo dimensional view of the data. This allows end users to drill-up and down through aggregate levels of data. However, do not mistake DMR for an OLAP environment. In an OLAP environment, you point the system to an intersection by selecting multiple dimensions. DMR in Framework Manager uses filters and aggregations to build hierarchies in relational data.

I have come to realize that most people don’t understand what it means when a report is dynamically written. For the most part, reports created in a Cognos Studio are already dynamic, as long as the data sources are regularly updated. This is because every time the report is open or run, it renders the most recent data from the data warehouse.

So, you are sitting on a plane or somewhere without access to the internet or your company’s servers and you really need to verify some numbers for a meeting you have soon. What do you do? With Cognos Active Reports, you can view a report offline with all of the typical interaction you have come to love with your Cognos reports!

Workspace Advanced (known as Business Insight Advanced in 10.0) is an IBM Cognos product that encompasses Query Studio, Analysis Studio and Report Studio Express capabilities into one application. Now ad-hoc meets slice and dice, and can be wrapped up in a pretty package too. Unlike Analysis Studio, end users no longer have to predetermine whether a data package is relational or dimensional because Query Studio functionality is also included in the application. The Workspace Advanced user interface and program capabilities automatically change to match the data source; reducing confusion and increasing end user satisfaction.

There has been a paradigm shift in how business users receive their information. Not too long ago, if the business needed data to answer a critical question, they would call IT, submit a formal request for a report to be written, and wait. The timeframe from when the request was queued to when it was delivered used to take weeks. Through lost opportunities and poor decisions based on old data, businesses quickly realized how expensive this process was.

Active Reports is an excellent solution for delivering off line reports to end users on the go. However, it too has its limitations. Following are issues that end users have run up against while using Active Reports and we offer suggestions for resolution. 1. Very slow performance with large data sets 2. Creating an interactive dashboard with Active Reports performance is very slow 3. Report never appears when opening from Cognos Connection 4. Cannot export to Excel format 5. Cannot use drill through functionality; does not work when Active Reports are viewed off line 6. Unable to reopen Active Report saved in web browser 7. Active Reports does not open in web browser

Is your Framework Manager Model built to answer tomorrow’s questions? Since you are not clairvoyant, the best you can do is to make sure the data is modeled with maximum query power. This includes defining appropriate drill-up/drill-down and drill-through capabilities, providing powerful model filters, and optimizing the model with stored procedures. All of these features are based on identifying and setting up determinants. However, this article will only cover the drilling feature, with additional insight to follow in future articles. But if you are truly clairvoyant, you already know that and need to read no further.

Experience information like never before with IBM Cognos Mobile. Access and interact with all the rich reports and dashboards you need to make the smartest business decisions, all on you mobile device. Gain trusted insight through a rich and visual experience, whether you are offline or online, to ensure you remain productive wherever you are. Easily sync your IBM Cognos content from email attachments or directly from the Cognos server. Your IT department will love the fact that they can leverage existing Business Intelligence (BI) content and a single administrative environment. Built on a flexible and proven platform, IBM Cognos Mobile ensures mobile decision-making is simple, reliable and secure.

It can be frustrating to open a cube and realize that it is not updated with the current information you need to perform analysis or report off of. You then remember that the person who is responsible for updating cubes is not in the office and the update did not occur. Follow these 10 simple steps and your cube builds can be automated and your frustration level reduced!

Maybe you invested in upgrading to IBM Cognos 10 BI but you are not realizing the benefits you thought you would experience. If so, you might have missed the fact that IBM Cognos 10 BI should change your approach to report design and deployment. It may even cause you to modify your Data Warehouse or Data Mart. Let’s talk about why:

Maps are great visual aids. They’re a great way to add pizzazz to your Sales Region reports over the standard layout of columns of numbers. But wait, your Sales Regions are comprised of multiple states. You can’t use one of the canned maps that IBM Cognos BI offers. Despite this glitch, creating custom maps for use in Report Studio is really quite easy thanks to IBM Cognos Map Manager.

Have you ever been asked to create a report containing prior year and current? The request is common and most report writers would respond by doing a union of the current year data, plus the prior year data, then present the results on a crosstab. If you have a cube modeler like Transformer, it does the current year and prior year work for you, but what if you don’t have a cube modeler with a time wizard build in?

With the continuous tightening of the credit markets, Cash Flow is in the spot light at almost every organization. The first step in getting Cash Flow under control is to educate your organization on the importance of Cash Flow and how it affects the organization. If you have an issue with Cash Flow, you need to closely monitor the variables that affect it. The variables in an increase for Cash Flow include:

The success of your business depends on your ability to analyze information, quickly find the right answers, and make timely responses. To meet this challenge, IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides an enhanced Java-based query execution mode while still maintaining native access to the leading data sources to replace the former query engine.

For clients that are on older IBM Cognos PowerPlay licenses, this document is to help explain your options for migrating to IBM Cognos 10 BI. IBM Cognos BI (8 & 10) are completely different solutions than Series 7. IBM Cognos BI provides different and expanded capability as well as functionality when compared to Series 7 products. These architectural and functionality differences are also reflected in the licensing of IBM Cognos BI – which is based upon User Roles rather than the individual product licensing applicable to IBM Cognos Series 7 products.

Have you ever needed prior periods or last period within a report? If you write financial reports, these calculations are a must and also a headache for report writers. This is the first issue you have to contend with when calculating last and prior is current. I know that line seems strange, but in order to calculate the prior period or the last period, you have to know that current period. Now, you can take the easy way out and ask the user to tell you the current period via a prompt, but what happens when the report has to be run on a schedule and you can’t rely upon a user? See … you need to calculate the value.

It is possible to embed IBM Cognos BI without an SDK into a third party application. The process will require using a parameterized URL, but before we talk technique, there are a few things we must consider. First, is the third party application internal or external? If the application is internal, then you should be ok. However if your application is outside of your firewall, then you are going to need to do some hardware configuration. I am not going to pretend to know what you need to do to your server, but what I will say is that you need to speak with a network administrator for assistance on how to make an external application talk to the appropriate server for specific web traffic.

Bursting is one of the best functions within IBM Cognos Report Studio. If you are not familiar with bursting let me explain how it works. You have a report that is for your sales team. Each salesperson is responsible for a certain region and you want each person to only see their region’s sales. Normally, you would make a report for each sales person because we know how territorial sales people are about their commission. Report writers love bursting because they can use one report to serve multiple people with what looks be a custom report.

Creating a filter in IBM Cognos is normally straight forward. Most people are familiar with creating them in Report Studio and Query Studio. For more advanced folks, you might even know how to create a slicer in Analysis Studio that works just like a filter but for dimensionally modeled relational (DMR) data. However, if you have ever tried to create a filter in Framework Manager you might be ready to pull your hair out and jump off a tall building. Okay, maybe a short building, but you are definitely losing your hair over it.

PowerPlay Studio has a loyal user following. In many ways, it is the predecessor to Analysis Studio within the IBM Cognos suite. If you have ever used both tools, you will know that there are many things within PowerPlay that don’t exist in Analysis Studio. One of the biggest drawbacks within Analysis Studio is the five level nesting restrictions. Most people would agree that going past five levels when looking at data within a pivot environment is overkill, but in some instances, it is necessary. Most importantly, PowerPlay does not have that restriction and therein lies why many feel that IBM will have to pry “PowerPlay from its users cool dead hands” … this is an actual quote from a customer.

Framework Manager (FM) is the engine of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence. It is one of the intermediaries between BI and your data sources. The foundation of FM is that it can help you visualize your data and prepare it for reporting. However, Framework Manager is only as good as its data source. With that in mind, below are top five things you can do to improve FM performance.

Managing security within your reporting environment can be a difficult and risky task if you don’t fully understand your software’s security structure. In this blog, we will discuss the various levels of security and how you can mix and match to come up with the best security plan for your business. Security within IBM Cognos BI is object oriented. That means you can set security on many different objects within Cognos, but the lowest level of security will win if you have multiple levels of security. In order to understand security and permissions, let’s talk about two examples:

IBM has released Cognos 10 and there are some skeptics out there wondering if it is worth the hype. In my opinion, the release warrants a conversation because it is a major release. Note that they went from Cognos 8 right to Cognos 10 and there are major differences. Some of the additions and changes are great … really … so I will give you the quick and dirty. You can read the complete release information in the upgrade whitepaper, so I won’t bore you with too much tech talk.

As I’m sure you heard, IBM unveiled Cognos 10 at IBM's annual Information on Demand (IOD) event in Las Vegas recently. Cognos 10 is the first major BI release since Cognos 8 was published in 2005. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss version 9 - in an effort to have the numbers of all the various modules in line, IBM jumped to 10. Cognos 10 presents a more integrated user interface along with a broader offering of analytics and technology. The recent acquisitions by IBM of SPSS , TM1 (Applix) and Clarity are now a part of the offering.

Have you ever tried to change a Metric Studio chart? If you have, then you now it can be downright maddening and frustrating. Well, I am here to give you four tips that will save your sanity and just might stop you from throwing your hands up and losing all hope.

IBM Cognos Event Studio is often an underutilized Studio but has its place. I think it would be better to explain how you can use this Studio in your everyday duties instead of the traditional white paper approach. I will use a couple of examples that I think highlight how a business group (departments) can use Event Studio and how a database modeler can use Event Studio.

Your Mission: Complete the company presentation and merge data from 5 different places. And here’s the kicker, the numbers have to be CORRECT. So, you put on your thinking cap, you fit more windows in your tiny computer screen than you can really read, and you begin the task you dread every month. You first make sure you have all the data that you need to compile. Check. Then you open last month’s presentation and start removing all the reports, graphs and data from last month. Check. You open your Excel spreadsheet that checks your numbers to make sure they are correct. Check. You are armed with the tools and ready to go to battle because that is really what this whole process is. But does it really have to be that painful? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Welcome to IBM Cognos Go! Office - you probably own it and aren’t using it.

Framework Manager is the brains of IBM Cognos 8. It is often misunderstood and therefore abused by the misguided. So let’s talk about Framework Manager do's and don’ts.

The promptmany macro function error message is such a letdown. Error QE-DEF-0406 is normally generated when you try to use the function to pass multiple values to a Sql stored procedure. By nature if a stored procedure have parameters, you can only set the parameter equal to a single. This is a problem if you want and need to pass multiple values to a stored procedure. Traditionally, Sql programmers use cursors to handle passing individual values one at a time to a procedure. Of course programmers would rather bite off their arm than willingly write a cursor if there is another viable alternative.

If you lessen the amount of custom work in the report and correct the issues in the database directly, you will see a marked improvement in report runtime and happier report writers.

Have you ever tried to do a nested IF THEN ELSE statement inside IBM Cognos Report Studio? If you have, you might run screaming because you can’t get the syntax just right. Granted, you could read the tips at the bottom as you build the syntax but shoot yourself in the head if you are not a programmer. You probably could pickup Chinese faster.

One of the most common misconceptions about Business Intelligence is that it is a technology solution. I buy the right software, hire the right consultants, plug it in and Boom……I have Business Intelligence. The reality is that Business Intelligence is a Business solution supported by technology not a technology solution supported by the business. It’s a business process; and if it is not implemented as a business process, it won’t matter how much money you throw at it, you are not going to get the value you intended.

Let me first start by saying this is not a how to or even necessarily the right way to do things… rather some options to explore learned from hours spent cursing at the computer trying to get the seemingly ‘simple’ things to work in crosstabs. You know, things like adding two columns together, calculate a variance, or filter out crosstab rows with no data. I run into these issues most when I’m building financial reports where we’re comparing multiple forecast/budget versions across specific spans of time.

I have been asked many times “What is the real difference between Cognos and Business Objects?” First, let me say that this is my opinion and not a recommendation for either product. I know that might sound strange because you are reading a blog written by a Cognos partner. Well I am going to give you my perspective based on my experience as a customer, which I think you would want instead of a sales pitch.

Report writing is difficult for most people. It requires a level of detail and skill that most people simply don’t have the patience to learn let alone apply. Historically, most report writers are primarily Information Technology (IT) people with very little business experience which makes it impossible to explain why a transaction must be a debit instead of a credit. The language gap between report writers and users can be the difference between speaking English and Spanglish. The report writer might understand basic information about the business but not enough to optimize a report or the user doesn’t understand real constrains such as data quality, database design, or application limitations to understand why a report can’t be written just like their excel spreadsheet. Report writer I have two words for you … Analysis Studio learn it, love it, use it. Business user I have the same two words… wait for it … Analysis Studio. Let’s assume that you have the groundwork covered such as a multidimensional Framework Package and you have Analysis Studio deployed, you can use Analysis Studio drop and drag functionality to bridge the gap between report writer and business user.