Written by Mike Bernaiche, September 8th, 2022

At the end of August 2022, IBM released Cognos Analytics 11.2.3.  There is a lot to unpack in the release as IBM has been hard at work enhancing Cognos Analytics.  Below you will find all the details of what is new, what has changed and what has been removed.  As always, if you have any questions or want to discuss an upgrade please reach out to us at services@lodestarsoltuins.com.

Feature Updates

• Integrations with Microsoft Teams - Much like Slack integration of past versions, IBM Cognos Analytics 11.2.3 now supports Teams integration.  Share dashboard and report content along with messages in Teams. Please note, your company must be using the Microsoft 365 developer program with an E5 subscription.
• Use the up down arrows – utilize the up and down arrows to move through certain menus and content areas.  Previous versions only supported the tab button.
• Full page property view – view properties for an item in full screen view.
• Context sensitive search – define the context of your search and see only items in that context, also a new tab that shows all search results.

Assistant

• Enhanced Time Filtering – The Assistant now understands even more time related searches.  Use text like YTD, QTD, MTD and abbreviations like Mon for Monday and Thur for Thursday and Xmas for Christmas to narrow you search in the assistant.

Dashboards

• Insights and Forecast on New Analytics Panel – Open the Analytics Panel to turn on or off insights and forecast.
• Create a multivariant Forecast – You can now add in optional data points to take into account in your forecast in Cognos Analytics 11.2.3.  For more information check out this link, Creating a multivariate forecast - IBM Documentation.

• Enhanced Forecasting with the Watson Core Time Series Library - Using the Watson Core Time - Series Library increases the prediction accuracy of the forecasts and allows the use of multiple seasons (or nested seasons).  Time series that have regular repeating cycles can be modeled with a seasonal component.
• Embedded Dashboard in Microsoft Teams - In Microsoft Teams, you can add a tab with an embedded dashboard from an external Cognos Analytics environment.  On any platform, Teams users can then perform interactive analyses of the dashboard without having to log in to Cognos Analytics themselves.
• Cascading Filters – There is a lot to unpack in Cascading Filters.  Check out this excellent link from IBM.  Cascading filters - IBM Documentation
• New Bar Visualization –

The bar chart includes the following value label formats:

•  Value and percentage of category – two values in the value label
• Value and percentage of color – two values in the value label    
• Value delta of target
• Percentage delta of target

• New Area Visualization – a new gradient option on the area chart.

• Tree map Visualizations Enhancements - Leaf labels in treemap visualizations can now be shown as value, item, or both.
• Area and Line Visualization Enhancements – A property has been added to handle null values in a better way.
• Display Multiple Measures on Rows Instead of Columns in a Crosstab.

For all dashboard enhancements check out this link. Dashboards - IBM Documentation

Explorations

Explorations has been enhanced with the following.  For complete details see the dashboard section as these are the same.

•  Insights and Forecasts in New Analytics Panel
• Enhanced Time Forecast with Watson Core Time Series Library
• Multi Variant Forecasting

Reporting

• Controlling Drill Through Behavior when Context Filters are used - You can change the default package-based drill-through behavior in Cognos® Analytics - Reporting when using context filters.
• New Treemap Visualization – as discussed above under Dashboards.
• New Properties for Bubble and Scatter Charts – The new properties allow you to specify the border width color, and size of bubbles, minimum and maximum size of bubbles, and label rotation.

For a complete list of Reporting enhancements check out this link. Reporting - IBM Documentation

Other Enhancements

Depreciated or Removed

In Cognos Analytics 11.2.3 the following is not supported:

• Windows 8 and 8.1
• Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5
• IBM InfoSphere Information Server 11.3 and 11.5
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0
• IBM Connections
• Mozilla Firefox ESR 68 and ESR 78
• Adobe Reader XI and DC
• FileNet Content Manager 5.2

Removed Data Source Connectors

As of release 11.2.3, connectors for several types of data sources are removed from IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson.  If you have existing connections to these data source types, they will no longer work.

Connectors are removed for these data source types:

• IBM Weather Company
• TM1
• IBM Planning Analytics versions prior to 2.0.6
• Microsoft Analysis Services (OLEDB) versions prior to SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 2

Depreciated Data Source Connections

In a future version of Cognos Analytics, support will be removed for the following data source connections:

1. Planning Analytics 2.0.6 - 2.0.8
2. Snowflake prior to 3.10
3. Oracle Database 11g and 12c

• Oracle Database 11g Standard Edition Release 2
• Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 2
• Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2) Standard Edition
• Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2) Enterprise Edition
• Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.0.0) Enterprise Edition
• Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.0.0) Standard Edition
• Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.1.0) Standard Edition

4. IBM Db2 Server 10.5

• IBM Db2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition 10.5
• Db2 Express Server Edition 10.5
• DB2 Workgroup Server Edition 10.5
• DB2 Enterprise Server Edition 10.5
• DB2 Advanced Workgroup Server Edition 10.5

5. Essbase

Supported Versions of Cognos Analytics from IBM

Reminder that Cognos Analytics version 11.0.x end of support was in September of 2021.  Cognos Analytics 11.1.7 is the long-term support version and we HIGHLY recommend you are on that version or later.  What happens when you are on an older unsupported version?  Well in a few words, you will be asked to upgrade to a latest supported version and will not receive support directly from IBM.

Summary

As you can see Cognos Analytics 11.2.3 offers a lot of new features and enhancements.  Schedule your upgrade now with us at services@lodestarsolutions.com.  We would also be happy to schedule a demo with you to see if this version is right for you!