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. What is the best way to get a Cognos Summary Counts without the detail in Workspace Advanced. 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.

This week’s question is a simple one, but is also extremely useful. One of our clients asked, “What is the best way to get a summary report of counts without the detail. At the moment, we have to show all of the detail and create a count total.”

The steps to answer this question are:

1. Drag a Query Calculation object from the toolbox to either your list or crosstab report. This will prompt you to name the column and open the Expression Definition pane.
2. Drag the Count Summary function into the Expression Definition box. (For relational data, use the count found under the List Summaries folder. For dimensional data sets, use the Count function in the Crosstab/Chart Summaries folder.)
3. Drag the query object you want to count from the source tab and close the parenthesis.
4. Validate expression and click ok.

In the example below, I created a column that counted the number of sales orders per product for the given time period. From there, I was able to use the count to calculate the average quantity per order.

Cognos Summary Counts Expression