Cognos Analytics

Cognos Analytics Training is Here!

October 25, 2023October 20, 2023 by Heather Cole

Written by Mike Bernaiche, October 20th, 2023

Are you ready to revolutionize your Cognos Analytics expertise? We are thrilled to invite you and your team members to our exclusive 3-day Cognos Analytics training event. This Cognos Analytics training is designed to empower you with the skills and knowledge essential for mastering Cognos Analytics.

Here are the details:

Dates: Coming in January!
Classes: Cognos Analytics Reporting Fundamentals and Cognos Analytics Dashboarding Essentials
Location: Your venue / online
Instructor: Professional consultant and trainer with 20-plus years of experience.
Investment: $2,781 for the full 3-day training, environment, and training materials included.

Why Attend

Our Cognos Analytics training program is meticulously crafted for professionals like you, whether you are navigating the advanced features of Cognos 12 or working with earlier versions like Cognos 11.2.x or 11.1.7. Here’s why you shouldn’t miss this opportunity:

Limited Seating - First Come, First Served: We have limited seats available, and they are filling up quickly! Secure your spot today to guarantee your place at this exclusive event. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to learn from industry experts in an intimate setting.
Expert Guidance - Learn from a seasoned 20-year professional consultant, not just a trainer. Gain insights from real-world scenarios and industry best practices, ensuring you’re equipped with practical skills.
Comprehensive Curriculum - Dive deep into Cognos Analytics Reporting fundamentals during the first two days. Explore topics such as Report Creation, Filters, Parameters, Calculations, and Formatting. On the third day, master Cognos Analytics Dashboard 12 Essentials, covering Pins, Explorations, and Data Storytelling. This will help you plan your upgrade if you are not on 12 yet.
Hands-On Experience - Immerse yourself in a real-world Cognos Analytics environment. Our interactive sessions provide hands-on experience, allowing you to apply your knowledge immediately.
All-Inclusive Training - No need to worry about materials. We provide everything you need to succeed, including comprehensive training materials to support your learning journey.

What Will You Learn?

Cognos Analytics Training – Reporting Fundamentals, 2 days.

Tables, Crosstabs and Charts	List Reports, Crosstabs, Advanced Crosstabs, Legacy Charts, Visualizations, Create a Report with Multiple Displays
Filters	Filters – Defined, Model Filters, Custom Filters, Detail Filters, Summary Filters, Filter Options
Parameters and Prompts	Parameters – Defined, Global Parameters, My Parameters, Prompts – Defined, Why Use Prompts, Create Prompt Pages, The Prompt Button, Multiple Prompts, Cascading Prompts
Calculations	Calculations – Defined, Subtotals, Insert Calculation Button, Query Calculations, Layout Calculations, Using Functions
Formatting and Conditional Formatting	Templates, Fonts and Styles, Styles, Alignment and Justification, Text Items, Headers and Footers, Blocks, Tables, Conditional Formatting Defined, Conditional Styles, Advanced Conditional Formatting, Define the Condition
Complex Reports	Dashboard Reports, Drill-Through Definitions, Create Drill-Through Definitions, Create Reports from a Dimensional Source, Member Tree View vs. Metadata Tree View, Add Levels, Members, and Sets
Saving and Scheduling	Schedule reports for distribution.

Cognos Analytics Training - Dashboard Essentials - 1 day

Now that you have learned the fundamentals of Reporting, join us for the last day to start mastering Dashboards in Cognos Analytics. Rookie or veteran, this class will teach you the essentials of building a dashboard in Cognos Analytics 12.

Introduction	Cognos interface, Dashboard interface, Edit mode vs Preview mode
Basic Dashboard	Starting a new dashboard, Layouts, Data sources, Visualizations, and different methods of creating a visual, Saving a dashboard
Complex Dashboarding	Customize and filter dashboard objects, Filtering capabilities, Verify and modify filters, Modify dashboard object properties, Add an active visualization, Add insights, Customize dashboard for presentation, Share the dashboard
Miscellaneous	Pins and Explorations

Secure Your Spot Now!

Ready to elevate your Cognos Analytics game? Don’t miss this chance to boost your career opportunities and enhance your organization’s capabilities. Secure your spot today by emailing services@lodestarsolutions.com now.

For any inquiries to determine if this is a good fit for you, contact Lodestar at services@lodestarsolutions.com. Act swiftly as seats are limited, and this transformative learning experience awaits you.

Additional Blogs on Cognos 12

What’s New in Cognos Analytics 12.0.1

Elevate Your Analytics – Why You Should Upgrade to Cognos Analytics 12

Welcome to Cognos Analytics 12

What’s New in Cognos Analytics 12.0.1

October 13, 2023 by Heather Cole

Written by Mike Bernaiche, October 13th, 2023

IBM released Cognos Analytics 12 in June 2023, adding an enhanced experience for all users with the incredible assistant, lighting quick dashboards, and so much more. Now IBM has released Cognos Analytics 12.0.1 with some additional enhancements. Below I will provide all the details of what is new in Cognos Analytics 12.0.1

General Enhancements in Cognos Analytics 12.0.1

Favorites – In the Content view, you can now mark items as a favorite by clicking the heart icon. Your Favorite items will show up in your favorite tab.

Search Result Enhancements – a new result reason option has been added to search results to show reasons why the search returned various items.

AI-Generated Recommendations in Learn Panel - the recommendation engine makes daily updates based on what you and other users are searching for. Each search you make in the learn panel makes it better and better.

AutoComplete and Popular Search Suggestions in Learn Panel - The Learn pane now predicts your search query as you type keywords in the Search field and displays a list of search suggestions from all content types.

Assistant

Assistant and Learn Panel Integration - The Assistant now gives you the option to jump to the Learn pane if it cannot find an answer to a general usage question. You can use the Learn pane to find help in the product documentation, blogs, and videos.

Share Narrative Insights from Assistant – You can now share insights with or without a visualization via email, Slack, or Teams.

New Option for adding Visualizations to Dashboard – You can now add a visualization from the assistant to a new dashboard or a current dashboard by clicking the add to button or dragging the visualization to an open dashboard.

Usability Improvements and Natural Language Enhancements - The Assistant now understands choose source, set source, change source, and select source when you want to change the Assistant's data source. When you ask the Assistant a question that doesn't require a visualization, the Assistant now responds with just the relevant values. The assistant now understands: What is, When is, Where is, Who is.

Dashboards

Automatic Sorting in Month, Weekday, and Season Columns - In newly loaded database schemas and uploaded files, the members in the month, weekday, or season columns are automatically sorted in chronological order, no matter in which order they are listed originally.

Showing Additional Data Values in Tooltips – display additional values in the tooltip data field.

Expanding Visualization Content in PDF Content - You can configure crosstab, table, or list visualizations on the dashboard to export detailed information into new pages in the PDF output. A hyperlink at the visualization on the main canvas in the PDF file directs you to the new page where the detailed visualization information appears.

Showing and Styling Stack Labels in Stacked Visualizations – New show stacked label property to show the sum of each item in a stacked visualization.

Additional Fields in Line and Column Visualization – 2 new fields are available in this visualization. Column y start and Column Target.

Styling Titles of Repeated Row and Columns in Visualizations – When you repeat a column or row you can now add formatting to those titles.

Icon Visibility in the Visualization Header – you can hide or show icons in the visualization header now in Cognos Analytics 12.0.1

Better Documentation of all Visualizations – please see the link for this documentation.

Reporting

Excel Sheet Naming Improvements – In Cognos Analytics 12.0.1 this has been greatly improved. Please see link for all the details.

Event Agent

Event Studio – Event Studio was reinstated as a standard component in Cognos Analytics 12.0.1 and is now named Event Agent.

Administration

Activities Page Enhancements – The activities page contains many improvements and is best described here.

New Settings for Uploaded File and Data Set Size - Administrators can now use the Manage component to configure size limits for uploaded files and for data sets.

New Watsonx Data Connector - A new connection editor, watsonx.data, is available for creating data source connections.

Summary

There you have it; Cognos Analytics 12.0.1 brings some nice enhancements across the board in Cognos Analytics.

If you haven’t checked out my blog on Cognos Analytics 12, please check that out here.

Next, head over to this blog to understand why you should upgrade today.

Last, you can check out a quick demo of Cognos 12, most specifically the amazing Assistant here.

You can always reach me at services@lodestarsolutions.com to discuss your specific needs. We offer some amazing upgrade bundles to get you on the latest and greatest version.

Unleashing Business Insights: A Comparison of Cognos Analytics and Power BI

August 24, 2023 by Heather Cole

Elevate Your Analytics Game Power BI vs. Cognos Analytics - Unraveling the Differences

Written by Mike Bernaiche, August 24th, 2023

Cognos Analytics and Power BI are two prominent names in the realm of data analytics and visualization, each offering unique features and capabilities. In the era of data-driven decision-making, organizations rely heavily on business intelligence tools to extract actionable insights from their data. In this blog post, we'll dive into the world of Cognos Analytics and Power BI, comparing their strengths, features, and benefits. We are also hosting a live webinar unraveling the differences of Cognos Analytics and Power BI on Thursday, September 7, 2023, at 2pm Eastern. You can register by scanning the QR code below or clicking this link.

Cognos Analytics: Empowering Sophisticated Analytics

Cognos Analytics, developed by IBM, is a robust business intelligence platform designed to help organizations uncover deeper insights and make data-driven decisions. With its comprehensive suite of features, Cognos Analytics offers a powerful solution for businesses looking to harness the full potential of their data.

Key Features of Cognos Analytics:

Advanced Analytics: Cognos Analytics provides advanced analytics capabilities, including predictive analytics and machine learning integration, enabling users to uncover hidden patterns and trends within their data.
Data Modeling: The platform offers sophisticated data modeling tools that allow users to create complex data relationships and calculations, providing a deeper understanding of the data landscape.
Enterprise Reporting: Cognos Analytics excels in creating highly formatted, pixel-perfect reports suitable for corporate reporting, financial statements, and compliance-related documents.
Scalability: It's well-suited for large enterprises with complex data environments, offering scalability to handle extensive datasets and accommodate diverse user needs.
Data Governance: Cognos Analytics places emphasis on data governance and security, making it an appealing choice for industries with strict regulatory requirements.

Power BI: Empowering Intuitive Data Visualization

Power BI, a Microsoft product, is known for its user-friendly interface and robust data visualization capabilities. It's designed to democratize data analytics, enabling users across all levels of an organization to create, share, and collaborate on insights.

Key Features of Power BI:

User-Friendly Interface: Power BI's intuitive drag-and-drop interface allows users to create interactive visualizations and reports without the need for extensive technical skills.
Data Connectivity: The platform seamlessly integrates with various data sources, including Excel, cloud services like Azure, and popular databases, making data consolidation effortless.
Visual Exploration: Power BI offers a vast library of pre-built visualizations and custom visuals, allowing users to present data creatively and explore insights through dynamic dashboards.
Natural Language Querying: Power BI's natural language query feature allows users to ask questions in plain language and receive visualized answers, making data exploration even more accessible.
Collaboration: Power BI supports easy sharing and collaboration, enabling teams to work together on reports and dashboards in real-time, and fostering cross-functional insights.

Myths

Certainly, there are some common myths and misconceptions associated with both Cognos Analytics and Power BI. Let's debunk a few of these myths:

Myths about Cognos Analytics:

Cognos is Only for Large Enterprises: While Cognos Analytics is known for its robust features that cater to complex enterprise needs, it is also suitable for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers various editions and deployment options to cater to different organizational sizes.
Cognos is Too Complex for Business Users: While Cognos Analytics does offer advanced capabilities, it also provides user-friendly interfaces and tools that enable business users to create their own reports and dashboards without deep technical expertise.
Cognos is Only for IT Professionals: While IT professionals often play a role in setting up and managing Cognos environments, the tool is designed to empower business users to create, customize, and access their own reports and visualizations.
Cognos Lacks Modern Visualization: Cognos Analytics has evolved over time to include modern visualization options that allow for interactive and visually appealing dashboards, similar to other contemporary BI tools.

Myths about Power BI:

Power BI is Only for Microsoft Users: While Power BI integrates seamlessly with Microsoft products, it supports a wide range of data sources and can be used on various platforms, making it accessible to users across different ecosystems.
Power BI is Only for Small Data: Power BI can handle both small and large datasets effectively. With features like DirectQuery and data compression, it can handle substantial volumes of data without sacrificing performance.
Power BI is Only a Visualization Tool: While Power BI is renowned for its data visualization capabilities, it also offers powerful data transformation, modeling, and analysis functionalities, making it a comprehensive end-to-end BI solution.
Power BI is Not Secure: Power BI offers robust security features, including role-based access control, row-level security, and data encryption, to ensure that sensitive data remains protected.

It's important to dispel these myths to make informed decisions about choosing the right BI tool for your organization. Both Cognos Analytics and Power BI have evolved to meet the needs of various users and organizations, and understanding their capabilities and limitations can help you utilize them effectively. Join on us on Thursday, September 7, 2023, at 2pm Eastern where we take a deeper dive into the strengths and weaknesses and further dispel these myths. Which is better? Cognos Analytics or Power BI?

Register Here - Elevate Your Analytics Game: Power BI vs. Cognos Analytics - Unraveling the Differences

Conclusion:

Both Cognos Analytics and Power BI bring immense value to the table when it comes to data analytics and visualization. Cognos Analytics shines with its advanced analytics capabilities and suitability for large enterprises with complex data needs. On the other hand, Power BI's user-friendly interface, extensive data connectivity, and emphasis on democratizing data analytics make it an excellent choice for organizations aiming to empower users at all skill levels.

Ultimately, the choice between Cognos Analytics and Power BI depends on factors such as your organization's size, data complexity, technical expertise, and desired level of user accessibility. Regardless of your decision, both platforms are essential tools in the journey toward making data-driven decisions that lead to business success.

To learn more please reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com.

And be sure to check out Lodestars' recent blog on Cognos Analytics 12!

Stop Spreadsheet Anarchy, Increase End User Adoption of Cognos and IBM Planning Analytics

March 1, 2023 by Heather Cole

Written by Heather L. Cole, March 1st, 2023

The number one question I get asked from our IBM Cognos and IBM Planning Analytics customers is, “How can we increase end user adoption of Cognos and IBM Planning Analytics?” One client made me laugh when they asked, “How do you control spreadsheet anarchy within an organization? The ongoing trend by some is to grab large amounts of data from multiple published data sources and spin up highly customized versions of existing reports or parts of other reports.” Spreadsheet Anarchy, what a great way to describe it. It’s time to stop spreadsheet anarchy and increase end user adoption of Cognos and IBM Planning Analytics.

Today I’ll share a few secrets to increasing end user adoption of Cognos and IBM Planning Analytics.

Listen to End Users Challenges

The first step to solving spreadsheet anarchy is to understand why end users are not using the tools you are providing. When you stop telling them to use Cognos or Planning Analytics and start listening to their challenges and why they feel the tools are not meeting their needs, you will discover the cause. In our experience the cause is one or more of the following:

the end users were not properly trained on Cognos or Planning Analytics.
clients are on an outdated release and the functionality they seek is in a new release.
the data they seek has not been incorporated into Cognos or Planning Analytics.
functionality has been restricted by administrators.

Share the WHY!

After you listen to their challenges and why they are using spreadsheets, it’s important to share the WHY. Why is it important that they use the tools you provide? Is it that you want to ensure everyone is working from the validated and secured data? If so, share what happens when decisions are made on bad data. Is it to eliminate the errors that spreadsheets are prone to having? We recommend you create a list of why you need your users to standardize and make sure your team knows how to communicate the message.

Engage Users in The Creation (WORKSHOPS)

It’s been long proven that people support and embrace what they create. A fast way to increase end user adoption is to engage end users in the design and development of the solution. I know you may be thinking whoa that would be nuts, they don’t know how to create reports or models. But hear me out, you don’t need them to create the Cognos reports or Planning Analytics models, you need to let them discuss the business goals they are tasked with achieving and the challenges they are facing. The best way to do this is by hosting workshops. Workshops can be held live, in person, or virtually via zoom. If you are not familiar with workshops check out or blog on Discovering Requirements.

Continuous Training of New Functionality

The next step to increase end user adoption of analytics is to provide continuous training. Do you see that? CONTINUOUS! IBM keeps adding new functionality to the software and end users typically only really learn what they need to use at the time. So, it’s important to provide continuous training and workshop opportunities for your end users. Consider building a training program internally. If you need help with training, here’s a link to how Lodestar Solutions can help.

IBM Infusing AI & Improve Self Reliance

IBM has done a great job of working to help increase end user adoption of Cognos and Planning Analytics as well. They have done this in a number of ways.

Better In Application Help

Do you remember the day of the Red Books? They were guides to help you use Cognos. Or maybe you purchased the big, IBM Cognos TM1 The official Guide, and had it on your desk. Lugging that around was a good workout.

Today IBM has incorporated the details you need into their in application help and search. This empowers end users to try new things and feel more confident using the solutions.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

IBM has incorporated NLP capabilities in Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics, which enables users to ask questions in natural language (normal words) and get answers in a human-like response. This allows for more intuitive and user-friendly interactions with the software.

Predictive Analytics

One of the coolest things we are seeing from IBM is the integration of predictive analytics capabilities into Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics. This allows users to forecast trends and identify patterns in data. This is especially useful for Planning Analytics users that want to leverage the data to forecast out the future. The result is end users can make more informed decisions and optimize their business strategies.

Cognitive Computing

Did you notice IBM changed the name of their products again? Cognos is now IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson, and TM1 became Planning Analytics, and is now IBM Planning Analytics with Watson. Well, it was not just the marketing team being creative. IBM has incorporated cognitive computing and Watson technologies into Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics. This includes the use of machine learning algorithms and other advanced analytics techniques to automate data analysis and decision-making processes.

Intelligent Automation

IBM has introduced greater automation capabilities in Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics, which allows for the automation of routine data tasks such as data preparation, cleansing, and transformation. Automation is the key to increasing productivity, so look at where you are spending time doing repetitive tasks and see if you can automate it. This will give you time to focus on more complex data analysis and strategic decision-making. (Cognos Automation)

Cognos SDK

For Cognos users the IBM Software Development Kit (SDK) is used to automate many tasks. But what a lot of users don’t know is IBM includes the Cognos SDK in the Admin license. This has not always been the case. You used to need to buy a separate license. Here’s our very old blog, where we informed everyone of this change.

The Answer

We can all agree it’s time to stop spreadsheet anarchy and increase end user adoption of Cognos and IBM Planning Analytics. The first step is to create a Plan that includes engaging with your end users. I am a huge fan of workshops because they can align the teams and build camaraderie even if done virtually. Keep an eye out, Lodestar will be sharing more on hosting workshops soon.

If you are on an old release of Planning Analytics or Cognos, it’s probably time to upgrade. Lodestar solutions can help you plan your upgrade and provide technical services and training for your team. For more information email services@lodestarsolutions.com.

New in Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 – Important Information!

January 16, 2023 by Heather Cole

In December 2022, IBM released Cognos Analytics 11.2.4. There are several efficiency enhancements, changes, and some very important information on future releases. Please read below for all the important information.

In summary Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 provides the following:

Query engine performance improvements
Microsoft™ Teams integration for Cognos reports
Data source support
Capability to render maps in PDF and Excel
Natural language generation in dashboards
Themes support for toolbar colors

Now on to the details of these additions and more!

Long Term Support

IBM Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 is a long-term support release (LTSR) and provides standard support for a minimum of two years with an available one-year extended support option to provide coverage for a total of three years minimum. IBM provides defect corrections, security patches, and select conformance updates on Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 as needed during the supported period.

Why is this important? Cognos Analytics 11.1.7 was the previous LTSR and with this release the new LTSR is Cognos Analytics 11.2.4. This means that you should start to make plans to upgrade from any version prior to 11.2.4 soon. At a minimum, you should be on version 11.1.7 today.

Legacy Studios

Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 (LTSR) is the final release that includes IBM Cognos Query Studio, IBM Cognos Analysis Studio, and IBM Cognos Workspace. Support for Cognos Query Studio, Cognos Analysis Studio, and Cognos Workspace will not be continued after the current release.

What does this mean? You will still have support and availability of Query Studio, Analysis Studio and Cognos Workspace on version 11.2.4. Once you upgrade past 11.2.4, support will NOT be available through IBM and the studios will not be available in Cognos Analytics. I highly suggest you start planning to upgrade to Cognos Analytics 11.2.4, however, I also suggest you start to make a plan for the above studios to go away. How does that change what you do today and what can we do to help you through this transition? Reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com to start these discussions.

Hardware and Software Requirements

Something we don’t highlight enough are the requirements for Cognos Analytics. IBM provides links to each of these requirements, and I suggest from time to time, clicking on this link to read the latest and verify your set up.

We can also help you through this by reaching out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com.

Ok, on to the enhancements and product changes in Cognos Analytics 11.2.4.

Assistant

Support for Assistant capabilities on data sources - The Use Assistant capability can now be set at the source level. Previously, capability to use the Assistant was set at the user level. When the Use Assistant capability is enabled on a source, you can interact with the source in the Assistant and ask questions or create a visualization or dashboard.

When you open the assistant panel, the source is set to the active data source that is in Dashboard or Explore, depending on which component you open the assistant panel from. If you do not have Use Assistant capability for the source, you might be prompted to select a source before you can proceed. If you do not have Use Assistant capability on a specific source, when you enter Show source <source name>, the Assistant displays a message indicating that the package cannot be used.

Dashboards

Narrative Insights - Narrative Insights derive and leverage data from outside the visualization (such as by using other measures, categories, or time dimensions) to explain or highlight potential drivers, underlying causes, or further breakdown data. These are different from insights that were released in Cognos Analytics 11.1.3. The new auto-generated narrative insights are in natural language, making it easier to read and understand these insights. Think explorations inside a dashboard visualization.

Zoom Levels on Dashboard Canvas -

Zoom Bar – the zoom bar in now in bubble, line, column and scatter charts. You can use this bar to zoom in on individual visualizaitons and drive deeper insights.

Bubble Size Limits – you can now spicify the minimun and maximun size on bubble charts.

Alignment position for zero in line and column charts - In line and column visualizations, you can control whether or not the line and column sections have zero in the same position.

Handleing missing values in line visualizations – you can specify how missing values are now handled in line visualizaitons.

Data Labels in Visualizations - You can show value labels in line visualizations and line and column visualizations so that the data values are clearer.

Reporting

New VIDA Image Service - A new service, VIDA Image Service, is introduced in Cognos Analytics 11.2.4. This service allows Cognos Analytics reports to render maps and other visualizations into PDF and Excel formats. In previous releases, these visualizations were available only in HTML format.

VIDA Image Service supports these chart types:

Map (Tiledmap using MapBox API)
Donut
Treemap
Bullet
Marimekko

To learn about installing the VIDA image service please click here.

Embedded Reports in Microsoft Teams – you can now add a tab within teams to embed a Cognos Analytics Report.

Bulk Conversion of Query and Analysis Reports - Convert a group object of type query (Query Studio report) or analysis (Analysis Studio report) to objects of type report. This supports the deprecation of Query Studio and Analysis Studio and allows you to migrate your analysis and query content to Cognos Analytics Reporting.

For instruction on how to accomplish this please see this link.

Trend Lines in Bubble and Scatter Visualizaitons - You can apply a trendline to the X- and Y-axis data items in bubble and scatter visualizations. Apply trendlines to X- and Y-axis data items to illustrate trends in those specific items, typically when charting predictions.

PDF Drill Behavior - Drill-through behavior in PDF reports is changed to work similarly as in Cognos® Analytics 11.1.7. In Cognos Analytics 11.1.7 and earlier versions, PDF drill through was supported only in Internet Explorer, using Adobe Acrobat Reader. Acrobat Reader provided a mechanism that allowed for generation of self-contained PDFs where the drill-through information was encapsulated in the PDF. Drill-through links worked as long as the PDF was viewed in Acrobat Reader.

Starting in Cognos Analytics 11.2.0, PDF drill through became available in all supported browsers and their respective PDF viewers. Because some of the viewers don't provide the same functionality as Acrobat Reader, the PDF output needed to be saved in Cognos Analytics for the drill-through links to work.

For cases where the PDF output is not saved in Cognos Analytics, a change is delivered in this release (11.2.4) that allows the drill-through links to work like they did in Cognos Analytics 11.1.7: in self-contained PDF reports that can be viewed in Adobe Acrobat Reader. The drill-through links don't work if the PDF report is opened outside of Cognos Analytics, in a viewer other than Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Downloaded PDF reports can be opened in any PDF viewer. However, drill-through links work only in the following situations:

The downloaded PDF report is viewed in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
The report output is saved in Cognos Analytics, such as when running a report in the background and selecting the Save Delivery option.

Modeling

Dynamic Source Override - Data modules can be dynamically redirected to different data server connections, schemas, or catalogs at run time.

Convert and Relink Option Available for All Types of Tables - The Convert and relink option is now available for all types of referenced tables, including the except, intersect, join, union, and SQL-based tables.

Current_date Sesison Parameter added for Dynamic Query Mode

Administration

There are serval additions and changes for administrators. For all that information please see this link.

Summary

There is a lot going on with Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 and we are here to help! Please reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com and let our experts help you with this transition. As mentioned earlier, please start to plan for upgrading to Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 and beyond. Especially with the Query and Analysis studio announcement, planning is even more important.

2023 Lodestar Solutions Services

December 23, 2022 by Heather Cole

Written by Mike Bernaiche, December 23rd, 2022

Lodestar Solutions Services team is ready to help in 2023! I wanted to take a minute and provide details on everything Lodestar Solutions Services team offers. Whether it is a big project or small, redesign or upgrades, we can deliver on all of your needs for Cognos and Planning Analytics. We even provide consulting on Power BI! Plus, with our partner network and addon products, we can help take your analytics initiatives to the next level! Please reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com to discuss your needs and let us put a plan in place to take your analytics to the next level.

Technical Services – Installations and Upgrades

At Lodestar Solutions Services, we can handle all your installs and upgrades on:

Planning Analytics
Cognos Analytics
Cognos Planning
Cognos Controller
ILMT
Data Connections to IBM SaaS offerings

Our technical expert has over 15 years of experience on IBM Analytics products and can perform the upgrade on their own or work with your team to guide your internal resources on a successful install or upgrade. Over the years we have performed hundreds of installs or upgrades on IBM products and we are here to help you be successful!

We offer upgrade bundles that can save you time and money on your install or upgrade and provide extra technical support hours for those pesky issues that come up from time to time.

Planning Analytics Services

Lodestar has a vast array of Planning Analytics Consultants that can handle the smallest project to the very large and complex. Utilizing best practices and the newest technology that Planning Analytics has to offer so we ensure all your Planning Analytics needs are exceeded. Lately, we have been performing model redesigns to utilize some of the newer features in Planning Analytics, like virtual hierarchies. Maybe you have outgrown your current models and it is time for enhancements. Whatever your needs are we are here to support you and make you successful.

Our services include but are not limited to:

Architecture
Dimension builds
Cube builds
Integration with Data
Model Redesign
Planning Analytics for Excel Reporting and Data Entry Points
Planning Analytics Workspace Dashboards and Entry

Cognos Analytics Services

We also have you covered on Cognos Analytics Projects. Lodestar has several excellent consultants to meet your needs on reporting, dashboards and modeling in Cognos Analytics. Perhaps you want to learn about some of the new features in Cognos Analytics or just need some simple reporting work, we have you covered.

Our services include but are not limited to:

Framework and Data Modeling

Dashboard Design

Reporting

PowerPlay and Transformer

Explorations

Bursting Reports

Power BI Services

Recently we started consulting on Power BI Reporting. We have an excellent Power BI resource that can work with your team on dashboards, reporting, and data. Reach out to us to discuss your Power BI needs and let our expert work hand in hand with you.

Training

Lodestar offers several different training programs on both Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics. Let our certified trainers help your organization get up to speed on everything from model design to Dashboarding. We can come onsite or deliver virtual training for your organization at a very cost-effective rate.

Cognos Analytics

Framework Manager
Data Modules
Explorations
Basic and Advanced Reporting
Dashboards
Administration

Planning Analytics

Complete Modeling in Workspace
Workspace end user set up and design
Planning Analytics for Excel
Administration

Add on Software

Did you know that Lodestar partners with and sells several different addon software platforms to take your Cognos or Planning Analytics to the next level? Read below for information on each product and don’t forget to reach out to us if you are interested. We can set up demo’s and take care of everything to get that product ordered for you!

TM1 Connect – Do you own Planning Analytics and need to create reports in something other than Cognos Analytics? TM1 Connect solves that problem! You can connect your PA data to Power BI, Tableau, Qlik and pretty much any other BI tool through an ODBC connection and provide that reporting in your BI software.

Digital Hive – Those of you with multiple BI/Data systems need to check out Digital Hive. It is your single-entry point to all of your data and so much more. We recently had a demo of this product in our client only user group and it was amazing. Reach out to us for more info and a demo today!

Motio – Tools for the CA administrator or power user to make your life so much easier!

MotioPI Pro - MotioPI Pro gives Cognos Administrators tools and automations to bring even more efficiencies to your work with Cognos. MotioPI Pro saves you time, effort, and frustrations across a world of Cognos administrative tasks.

MotioCI - MotioCI provides Cognos authors and administrators with new capabilities including faster upgrades, change management & version control, faster deployments, automated testing, and improved cleanup.

ReportWorq - enables you to generate and distribute personalized reports across your organization with ease. You can develop stunning dashboards and professional reports with all the power of Microsoft Excel from IBM Planning Analytics. When it’s time for distribution, ReportWORQ’s scalable bursting functionality is like an enterprise mail merge, generating, collating, and distributing personalized reports across your organization through Network Drives, Email, SharePoint and even Slack Channels. Yes, burst PA data!

ControlWorq – extends Planning Analytics by providing a framework of controls that facilitates financial reporting.

Key Benefits:

Controlled, balanced, authorized, and auditable journal entries
Excel and web user interfaces available
Automated recurring and reversing journals
Journals can be posted individually or in a batch
Reconciliation reporting for inter-company balances
Automatic elimination of journals of inter-company balances
Real‐time visibility of the impact of journal entries in IBM Planning Analytics

Summary

As you can see Lodestar Solutions Services team has you covered. Our consultants have many years of experience and hundreds of successful projects on our resume. Reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com and schedule a consultation today.

Top Ten Cognos and Planning Analytics Features in 2022

November 11, 2022 by Heather Cole

Top 10 Cognos and Planning Analytics Features in 2022

Written by Mike Bernaiche, November 11th 2022

It is that time of year where you start to see top ten lists of different things. I thought it would be a good idea to highlight some of my favorite things about Cognos and Planning Analytics in one place and thus provide you my top ten features in Cognos and Planning Analytics in 2022. Without further delay…. Here are my top ten features in Cognos and Planning Analytics for 2022!

Favorite Features 10 to 7

10. Learn Panel in Cognos and Planning Analytics. IBM spent considerable resources on the quality and usefulness of documentation on both products. The learn panel is intuitive, gets you answers quickly and even suggests things to view as you look something up. It includes webpages, videos, tutorials, and documents. Let’s say you need to figure out a rule in Planning Analytics or how to set up bursting in Cognos Analytics. Simply start typing in the learn panel and watch the magic happen. As you can see below, the results speak for themselves. You can even click on the forum area to get even greater info for a broad user base.

9. Insights in Visualization using Analytics Panel in Cognos Analytics. Insights in visualizations provide analytic insights that can help users to detect and validate any important relationships and meaningful differences based on the data that is presented by the visualization. The type of insights depends on the displayed data by the visualization. Available types of insights are Average, Predictive strength, Meaningful Differences, Fit Line, and Most Frequent. Average provides the mean of the displayed summaries, and most frequent the category or category that appears most often in the data. The rest of the insights depend on more advanced analytics and statistical tests. The goal is to provide reliable information that you can use for an enhanced description of the viewed data and discovery of any relationships that are expected to be found in the population that is represented by this data. This area is new to Cognos Analytics 11.2.3 and I would expect IBM to continue to enhance this area in future releases.

8. Explorations in Cognos Analytics. Explore is a flexible workspace where you can discover and analyze data. You can also explore an existing visualization from a dashboard or story, uncover hidden relationships and identify patterns that turn your data into insights. Correlated insights are represented by a green icon with a number on the x-axis, y-axis, or the title of a chart. Ok that was the technical speak. Now for my thoughts. At first, I didn’t really get why explorations could be powerful or why you would even use it. After spending some time really getting to understand how explorations can work and how much effort IBM has put into improving them, I’m a big fan. Simple case, select 2 points of your data and let the system tell you what to start to look at. Pin that information and quickly use it in a dashboard. Speaking of pins. This is 8.1 of my favorite things in Cognos Analytics. Pinning visualizations allows you to save information and use it across Cognos Analytics in a quick and efficient way.

7. Planning Analytics for Excel (PAFe) in Planning Analytics. Everyone loves Excel! With PAfe you can have an excel experience in Planning Analytics while exploring data, reporting or inputting data. You can create several different items in PAFe.

Explorations – slice and dice your data
Static – Create a report that is disconnected from the PA database and send to anyone
Dynamic – Create presentation style reports and also create data input files
Custom – Start from scratch and build what you want.

By the way, whatever you create in PAFe, you can publish to Planning Analytics Workspace

Favorite Features 6 to 4

6. Data Models and Data Sets in Cognos Analytics. You can use data modeling in Cognos Analytics to fuse together many sources of data, including relational databases, Hadoop-based technologies, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, text files, and so on. Using these sources, a data module is created that can then be used in reports, dashboards, or explorations. Data sets are customized collections of data items that you use frequently. As you make updates to the data set, the dashboards, stories, or explorations that use that data set are also updated the next time you run them. You can create data sets from packages or data modules, and use as sources to create dashboards, stories, explorations, and data modules.

5. Navigation Paths and Relative Time in Cognos Analytics. To expand on your Dashboards and Reports using data models and data sets, use navigation paths and relative time.

Navigation Paths – provide a drill up and down feature to your data. In data models or dashboards simply click on the navigation path area and create your drill path. Go from Country, to State, to City with clicks of a button in your data and visualizations.
Relative Time – with a few clicks of a button create YTD, QTD, MTD, last month, current month and so many more relative time filters in your data to be used across Cognos.

4. Dashboards in Cognos Analytics. Dashboards in Cognos Analytics has come a long way over time and especially in the last year. First, with Cognos Analytics version 11.2.1 the speed to render improved signficantly. IBM has added in a ton of formatting enhancmenets from colors, fonts and the like. There are many new visualizations that compete with other BI products available and you can now export the dashboard to a PDF document. All things considered I believe Cognos Analytics dashboards compete and exceed any BI product available!

The Top 3 Features in Cognos and Planning Analytics for 2022

3. Applications and Plans in Planning Analytics. Applications and Plans have seen significant enhancements in 2022. Honestly, Planning Analytics Workspace has improved so much that it is imperative you own it and use it. More on that shortly. Back to application and plans. I wrote a detailed blog on everything new in applications and plans and you can find that here. Everything written in the blog above is now available as of Planning Analytics Workspace 82 (the most recent version). In short if you haven’t checked out applications and plans in Planning Analytics, do so now!

2. AI Assistant in Cognos Analytics. The AI assistant is game changing for Cognos Analytics. It has gained so many enhancements over the past year that if you are not using this, you are missing out. In Cognos Analytics version 11.2.2 and 11.2.3, the AI assistant added in time specific filtering. Things like:

Show sales this Thursday
Show sales between last Monday and last Wednesday
Show me sales for camping equipment from June 1-5
What is the total income between Halloween and Christmas
Show sales for 2021
Show October 2021 sales by product
YTD, QTD, MTD and abbreviations like Mon for Monday and Thur for Thursday and Xmas for Christmas to narrow your search in the assistant.

Type in “Show quantity between 1/1/20 and 2/29/20” and let the system generate visualizations based on what you typed.

As you can see, I typed that into the assistant, and it provided the following.

Now let’s check to make sure it is correct. I simply created a visualization and filtered on the dates I typed into the AI Assistant. As you can see the system generated the correct data.

Finally, my favorite feature in the AI Assistant is the ability to grab a data source and type in “create dashboard’ and watch the magic happen. The system will create a dashboard with relevant data and then you can pick and choose what you would like to keep by pinning it and then creating other items to complete your dashboard.

1. Workspace in Planning Analytics. Finally, my favorite feature in Cognos and Planning Analytics is Workspace. IBM has done an excellent job with Workspace in Planning Analytics and I’m going to spend a little time on why you should be using this. And if you don’t already own it, why you should reach out to us at sales@lodestarsolutions.com to discuss adding this to your license entitlements.

IBM Planning Analytics Workspace is a web-based interface for IBM Planning Analytics with Watson™. It provides an interface to TM1® data, with ways to plan, create, and analyze your content.

Planning Analytics Workspace helps you focus on the things that matter to your business. Using Planning Analytics Workspace, you can identify and understand patterns and relationships in data. You can use this information to understand why things happen and predict what might happen. Planning Analytics Workspace opens the world of advanced analytics to all business users.

IBM has spent an enormous amount of time building Workspace to be your A to Z space to build models, input data, analyze data and reports.

Over the past year IBM introduced the Workbench in Workspace. This is the main area for modelers to create TI processes, dimensions, cubes, rules and everything else you need to build your models. Those of you who build models in Architect remember having multiple windows open to simply create a cube. Now with the Workbench you have a flexible space that allows multiple windows open in one place adding great efficiency to the model building task.

Now that we have talked about the Workbench, let’s spend some time talking about the power of Workspace from a user perspective. The ability to enter data and create visualizations based on the data that sync with data entry is so powerful. After data entry the ability to create a dashboard to analyze that data in a visual way brings many insights to your data that were not readily available prior to Workspace.

Trust me when I tell you, if you are not using Workspace or do not have licensing for Workspace, you need to reach out to us today!

Helpful Links and Summary

There it is! My list of the top ten features in Cognos and Planning Analytics for 2022. There are so many more great features that didn’t make my top ten list. However, both Cognos and Planning Analytics have come a long way and are both very impressive offerings from IBM. Based on the roadmap for both products even more is coming in 2023.

If you are not on the latest versions and you need help upgrading, reach out to me at services@lodestarsolutions.com. We have several different offerings to get you upgraded and save you dollars and time.

If you do not own Workspace and would like to learn more reach out to us at sales@lodestarsolutions.com.

For everything new in Cognos Analytics

For everything new in Planning Analytics

IBM Cognos and IBM Planning Analytics Price Increase Coming!

October 21, 2022 by Heather Cole

Written by Heather L. Cole and Mike Bernaiche, October 21st 2022

Inflation is everywhere! Have you seen the price of eggs lately? Well, I am sure you will not be surprised that inflation is impacting the technology industry too. Software costs, support renewal costs and consulting are all rising. IBM Cognos and Planning Analytics price increase is coming in January 2023. Unlike the price of eggs that increases every trip to the store IBM has held their prices all year. But that’s about to change!

(Want to learn more about what’s causing this inflation, check out this NY Times article.)

IBM Price Increase

IBM has announced that effective January 1, 2023, that most of their products worldwide will increase 8% with a few countries increasing at a different rate. See IBM’s recent announcement for your specific country.

For many of us 8% seems outrageous, but is it? The Consumer Price Index is around 8.2%. Pricing all around us from gas, to food, to well everything is increasing. Even the government is recognizing inflation by increasing social security payments in 2023 by 8.7%. So, thank you IBM. An 8% increase by IBM is not that bad.

Take Action Now!

Budget and Save Money

My goal is to make sure every IBM Cognos and IBM Planning Analytics client knows the 8% price increase is coming. This should allow you to plan accordingly and make sure your budget for 2023 reflects this increase because your annual software support renewal will reflect the 8% increase. For some IBM Cognos and Planning Analytics clients that have not reviewed their licensing with an IBM licensing expert recently, there may be ways to reduce your support costs. At Lodestar Solutions we have helped hundreds of clients save on support by ensuring they are in the correct licensing mix. Think of it this way, licensing is like a cell phone plan, IBM comes out with new bundles and licensing models periodically. But, if you don’t ask if you are on the right licensing plan, you might end up paying more than you need to. (See our blog How to Save Money on Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics)

If you would like a licensing review with one of our IBM Licensing experts, email Services@lodestarsolutions.com.

Buy Software Now to Save

The second reason I want to sing this from the roof tops is that there is an opportunity!! If you believe you will need additional licenses of IBM Cognos, IBM Planning Analytics, SPSS or any other IBM products in 2023 you might want to act now! Many clients Lodestar Solutions’ works with are in acquisition and merger mode. If this is you, you may need more licenses with your acquisition. Or maybe you are rolling out new dashboards or planning models and need to add users.

It’s important to know that December is IBM’s end of year, which is always the best time to buy software and the pricing is still at 2022 rates.

NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY SOFTWARE!

Buy Future Year's Support to Save

But let me tell you a little trick! Often when a client makes a significant purchase, they miss an opportunity to lock in their future year’s support. How can you lock in support? If you prepay for 2 years with your purchase, you will reduce the annual uplift and save money.

Now, I know you are thinking “we don’t want to spend our cash.” So, consider leveraging IBM Global Financing to purchase your licenses and 2 more years of support. At Lodestar Solutions, we can help you do the analysis to see what rates you qualify for with IBM Global financing and see if the numbers work to save you money. (Learn more about IBM Global Financing)

Consulting Rates Increasing Too

I would be remised if I did not also announce that Lodestar Solutions, and most consulting firms are increasing their rates too.

Over the past year we have done our best to keep prices for our services at the same rates we have had for the last 5+ years. As we mentioned above, costs are rising and as such we will be increasing the price for services approximately 8.5% in 2023. This cost increase will be reflected on Statements of Work created starting Jan 1, 2023. We hate to do this but to retain our top talent we need to compensate them fairly.

Lodestar Solutions offers many services including:

Technical Support – This includes upgrades, installation of new IBM Analytics software, database work, security and much more.
Planning Analytics and Cognos Analytics Consulting Including - architecture, modeling, model redesign, end user reporting and dashboard creation.
Power BI Consulting – data, creating reports, and visualizations.
Training – Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics training for both the novice and experienced. Including both modeler and end user training.

This is our first consulting price increase in many years, and we strive to show value far above the cost.

Lodestar Value Add -

This is our first consulting price increase in many years, and we strive to show value far above the cost. One of the benefits that add a ton of value to our clients is our Lodestar Solutions’ Client Only, Quarterly Virtual User Groups. These are live interactive events that allow our clients to network and learn from our other clients. We record all content and offer our clients access to our library of prior users group sessions. This allows Lodestar clients to reference our content at any time. If you are a current Lodestar client and have not accessed your library, please reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com and we will help you get access.

Our next user group is scheduled for Nov 15, 2022 (Cognos Analytics) and Nov 17, 2022 (Planning Analytics) at 11am – 2pm est. If you are an active Lodestar client and want to attend but have not received an invitation, please reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com and we will ensure you are on the right list.

In Summary

Unfortunately, a lot of things must happen to slow inflation. IBM Cognos and Planning Analytics Price Increase is Coming. We can’t stop that. But we all can plan and take action NOW to SAVE MONEY! If you would like to discuss your unique situation, email us at sales@lodestarsolutions.com.

PowerPoint Options Cognos and Planning Analytics

June 23, 2022 by Heather Cole

Written by Mike Bernaiche, June 23rd 2022

As someone who worked in finance and analytics for many years, I found myself having to update many different reports, often in PowerPoint, with financial numbers for management, board members and others. It can be a time-consuming process of hand typing numbers, verifying they are correct and then updating all over again each month or quarter. Did you know that there are PowerPoint options to automate this process? I wish I knew about these PowerPoint options for Cognos and Planning Analytics many years ago. One of the products for Cognos Analytics has been around a long time, the other product for Planning Analytics is new to market through a company called Intito (Intito – Solutions and services for smarter performance management), called Office Connect. Below I will talk about both options.

IBM Cognos for Microsoft Office

IBM Cognos for Microsoft Office is a product that allows you to use Excel, Word and PowerPoint to import data directly into presentations or documents and have that data refresh at the push of a button.

What is it?

IBM® Cognos® for Microsoft Office provides the framework that leverages the business intelligence architecture, including security, metadata, and content storage. This infrastructure helps you manage your Microsoft Office documents and monitor the financial performance of your organization.
Use the applications of IBM Cognos for Microsoft Office to create, view, and consume reports, analyses, and other business intelligence content using familiar Microsoft Office applications, such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.

What Problems does it solve?

The need to update PowerPoint presentations with data from Cognos Analytics or Planning Analytics (this is done by connecting your Planning Analytics cubes to Cognos Analytics) without having to copy and paste or hand type everything in.
Accuracy is important and you are nervous hand typing everything in each month.
When the closing process is complete you have very little time to update, and you are not into working nights and weekends.

The above examples show the Microsoft Office add-in and a resulting report once imported. Every time the data updates in Cognos Analytics, you simply open the presentation and click the refresh data button and voila, your numbers have been updated. Best news is, if you own Cognos Analytics you already own IBM Cognos for Microsoft Office.

Intito Office Connect

Intito Office Connect is software that works directly with Planning Analytics and allows you to update data and report objects directly in PowerPoint with a few clicks of a button. When I first saw this product, I was blown away and believe anyone who has presentation style reporting that needs to be updated each month should investigate purchasing this product.

By using Intito Office Connect you will save time, increase efficiency and accuracy, and spend more time analyzing and less time verifying numbers in a presentation.

Would you like to learn more about Intito Office Connect? Reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com. We have uploaded a demo that can be watched here. I highly recommend checking this product out. For years the only way to get Planning Analytics data into PowerPoint was either hand typing or connecting to Cognos Analytics. With this option you can skip all of those steps and direct connect!

Summary

As you can see, I have provided two good PowerPoint options for Cognos and Planning Analytics. Why not make your life easier and more automated? Reach out to us at services@lodestarsolutions.com to discuss both PowerPoint options.

Need to know what is new in Planning Analytics Workspace – check this out.

What’s New in Planning Analytics Workspace 75 and 76 - Lodestar Solutions

What’s new in Cognos Analytics - What’s New in Cognos Analytics 11.2.2 - Lodestar Solutions

Using the Cognos Analytics Assistant

April 14, 2022 by Heather Cole

Written by Mike Bernaiche, April 14th 2022

Have you ever wondered, “where do I start in building a dashboard in Cognos Analytics?” Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with all of the data? I have and I bet you have as well. What if I told you that IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson has a built in feature called the Cognos Analytics Assistant and it can help answer the questions above and so much more.

What is the Cognos Analytics Assistant?

The Cognos Analytics Assistant is a text-based feature that allows you to gain quick insights into your data, making creating dashboards or explorations simple. With just a few steps you can access data sources, view suggested visualizations or insights, and bring them over to a dashboard or exploration. The assistant panel is made up of 3 sections: toolbar, output, and input areas.

Capabilities and Commands

There is a lot to unpack in this area about everything you can do with the Cognos Analytics Assistant.

Show Overview of Assistant – Type “help” to see a general overview of the assistant.
View Data Sources – To see a list of supported data sources type “view data sources.”
Suggest Questions – Type “suggest questions” and the assistant will suggest some starting questions for you.

Cognos Analytics Assistant Suggested Questions

Show Data Source Details – Type “show source (enter source name” or “load source (enter source name)” to see fields and details of your source.

Show Column Details – type “show column (column name)” to see information and related fields.

Show Column Influencers – Enter “What influences (column name)” to see what fields influence your chosen field.

Create chart of visualization – The assistant can create a chart of visualization by simply typing “show chart (column1) and (column2)”. You can further expand by then clicking “show related visualizations”. You can further the experience by clicking “create dashboard form chart”.

Create Dashboard – If you want to select a data source and ask IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson to start with a dashboard you can simply type “create dashboard” and use that as a starting point.
Create Simple Dashboard – With larger data sources or just the need for something simple, you can start with “create simple dashboard” to ask the Cognos Analytics Assistant to create a simple dashboard to start with.

Dashboard Example:

Filtering with Assistant

You can ask the Cognos Analytics Assistant to apply filters to data by applying words and associated synonyms. I will go through a few examples below but there are many ways to filter through the assistant and a complete list can be found here. Assistant filtering - IBM Documentation

Filtering through the assistant has been included for many versions, however, time entity filtering is included with Cognos Analytics 11.2.2 which was released in March 2022. To read about everything new in CA 11.2.2 please see this recent blog. What’s New in Cognos Analytics 11.2.2 - Lodestar Solutions

General Filters

This filters examples are provided through IBM documentation.

show the top 3 products by sales
show sales where month is January
show products by sales where inventory > 500
show products by sales for California
show top <num> <column1> by <column2>

The following operators or modifiers can be used to filter.

In, for, if
Where, with
including
excluding
top percentage
bottom percentage
greater than
less than
top (post data aggregation)
bottom (post data aggregation)

Time Entity Filtering

The Cognos Analytics Assistant understands references to date, time, month, year, seasons, and holidays. For the Assistant to apply time entity filters, the data set must have a Timestamp or Date/Time column. The Assistant can filter based on relative time references (this, that, last, and next). For example, show sales this Thursday.

The Assistant can use closed time intervals to filter. A closed time interval has a start and end date. Example, show laptop sales for January 2021 or show sales from January 2021 to March 2021.

Other examples from IBM documentation are:

Show sales before last Thursday
Show sales in 2021
Show profit for December 31, 2021 at 10 pm
What is our expected revenue on the day before Labor Day?
Show me sales for camping equipment from June 1-5
Show me total sales last year
Show the average sales for past 3 weeks
Show the top 3 products sold on the third Monday after Christmas
show sales after next Christmas
Show October 2020 sales by product
Show sales after October 12, 2020
Show me sales up to a week ago
Show sales between last Monday and last Wednesday
Show sales every January and March
Show sales every January and every March
Show sales every single August
Show revenue in Canada for every Friday
Show sales each August and September and each Monday
Show sales by product each and every August
Show sales where transaction date is not January
Show sales where transaction date is not before January
Show sales where transaction date is not between January and March.

The following time-based filters are not supported:

References to time zones (ex. show sales for October 1 at 2 pm GMT)
Fractional periods (ex. half day or quarter month)
2nd Tuesday
Weekly or monthly
Month over month, YTD, and QTD
Time periods such as Q1 and Q2 are not supported.

As you can see there are many ways to filter based on time, and If I were to take a guess the unsupported filters will be supported in due time by IBM. I want to be clear I do not have any inside knowledge, but IBM has done an excellent job of continuing to update an already great product.

IBM has documentation on tips and best practices for using the Cognos Analytics Assistant that can be found here. Check it out and take your knowledge to the next level. Tips and best practices - IBM Documentation

Summary

As you can see the best place to start in Cognos Analytics may very well be the Cognos Analytics Assistant. You gain great insights, start a dashboard, build a dashboard and so much more. Simplifying using a few commands and natural language will get you started and wow your business. If you need help upgrading to the latest version to take advantage of the time filtering or just general knowledge of the assistant please contact us at service@lodestarsolutions.com and we would be happy to talk with you.

We are updating our mailing lists!

Our goal is to provide amazing content to help you and your business succeed. If you want to receive relevant content to topics that you choose please click here now.

CLICK HERE NOW