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 the how's and why's of deploying IBM Cognos 10 BI:
1. A SINGLE REPORT TO ANSWER MANY QUESTIONS – Historically, reports have been created to answer one specific business question. The reports are designed to answer that single question only, not to answer many questions at once. With IBM Cognos 10, reporting can be designed to answer many questions at once and empower the end user to interact with the data to answer all the questions they have. This allows the power users to create one report instead of many versions of a similar report. Always keep the end users experience in mind when designing reports and dashboards.
2. CREATING OBJECTS INSTEAD OF REPORTS – You might have a pie chart, a bar chart and a cross tab all being displayed in the same report. With IBM Cognos 10, Lodestar recommends you change your philosophy and build the three separate objects representing the pie chart, bar chart and cross tab, and create a dashboard with Business Insight to display the 3 components. This will allow the end users to interact by modifying the filter and even remove or change the objects in their workspace to better meet their needs. By creating objects, you empower the end users to “self-serve” their BI.
3. DON’T PUT THE LOGIC IN THE REPORT. Many BI developers build logic in Report Studio. Often, they use this as a patch to get the data to present the way they want it when the Framework or data source doesn’t have the necessary format. Although this has been effective over the years, it’s a bit of a duct tape and super glue approach, which could be exposed as you deploy C10 Business Insight. The idea of Business Insight is to empower the end users to “self-serve”, providing better information without burdening IT. If the Framework you provide to the end users is not clean and efficient, the end users will experience major issues, especially if they are not completely familiar with the data. To fully realize the benefits of Cognos 10 BI and its powerful Dashboarding capabilities, you may have to take a couple steps back and make sure your FM Packages and Data sources are optimized.

Lodestar Solutions can help you make the transition when deploying IBM Cognos 10 BI so you can maximize your ROI. We offer customized training for power users and end users. Additionally, we offer FM Package and Design reviews as well as consulting on all aspects of IBM Cognos.