Cognos Event Studio

IBM Cognos Express Includes Event Studio for Cognos Express BI

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7/27/2016
IBM Cognos Express

IBM has made a lot of positive changes with IBM Cognos Express over the years. The biggest change was with their 10.2.2 release when they made IBM Cognos Express the same software code as the IBM Cognos Enterprise solution. See our blog IBM Cognos Express is Now the SAME Software as Enterprise for more information.

As a business analytics coach at Lodestar Solutions and member of the IBM Partner Advisory board, I was championing this effort because it was better for IBM, the clients, and the partners. When you now download the latest release of IBM Cognos Express, you will notice that you see components you might not have seen before.

WARNING! Just because you can see it and download, doesn’t mean you legally have the rights to it!

As a business analytics coach, it’s my job to ensure you don’t accidentally put yourself in a compliance issue and not know it. It’s very easy to have a technical team member download the IBM Cognos Express software and turn features on. How many of you actually read the licensing agreements? Really?

Here’s the skinny on IBM Cognos Express...

There are “Prohibited Components” in IBM Cognos Express such as Dynamic Cubes that are included in the Enterprise licensing but not included in your Express licensing. You need to police yourself and make sure you don’t accidentally turn on the functionality.  Below is the language you MUST read if you are a IBM Cognos Express client or thinking of becoming one!

“Notwithstanding any provision in the Agreement, Licensee is not authorized to use any of the following components or functions of the Program:
A) IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes (of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Analytics Administrator)

B) Multitenancy (of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Analytics Administrator)

C) IBM Cognos Express Administrators:
IBM Cognos Insight to publish workspaces to the IBM Cognos Analytic Server except with IBM Cognos Express Connector or IBM Cognos Express Connector for Performance Management.

D) IBM Cognos Express User: (TM1 and BI)
- IBM Cognos TM1 Administration
- IBM Cognos Framework Manager
- IBM Cognos Performance Modeler
- IBM Cognos TM1 Operations Console
- IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration

E) IBM Cognos Express Business Intelligence User:
- IBM Cognos Analytic Server except as a data source connection
- IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration
- IBM Cognos Framework Manager
- IBM Cognos Insight for publishing
- IBM Cognos Mobile Contributor
- IBM Cognos Analysis Studio
- IBM Cognos Query Studio
- IBM Cognos Analysis for Excel for writeback

F) IBM Cognos Express Performance Management User (TM1):
- IBM Cognos TM1 Administration
- IBM Cognos Framework Manager
- IBM Cognos Performance Modeler
- IBM Cognos TM1 Operations Console
- IBM Cognos Insight for distributing
- IBM Cognos Mobile
- IBM Cognos Viewer
- IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration
- IBM Cognos Analysis Studio
- IBM Cognos Cube Designer
- IBM Cognos Dynamic Query Analyzer
- IBM Cognos Event Studio
- IBM Cognos for Microsoft Office
- IBM Cognos Query Studio
- IBM Cognos Report Studio
- IBM Cognos Software Development Kit
- IBM Cognos Workspace for non TM1 Data
- IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced

G ) IBM Cognos Express Consumer User:
- IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration
- IBM Cognos Analysis Studio
- IBM Cognos Cube Designer
- IBM Cognos Dynamic Query Analyzer
- IBM Cognos Event Studio
- IBM Cognos for Microsoft Office
- IBM Cognos Framework Manager
- IBM Cognos Insight for publishing
- IBM Cognos Report Studio
- IBM Cognos Query Studio
- IBM Cognos Workspace for non TM1 Data
- IBM Cognos Software Development Kit
- IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced
- IBM Cognos Mobile Contributor
- IBM Cognos Analytic Server except as a data source connection
- IBM Cognos Analysis for Excel “

But here’s the fabulous news! If you have IBM Cognos Express BI or the complete user license that includes TM1 and BI, the BI component includes Event Studio for IBM Cognos Express clients. Event Studio allows you to set up alerts so the system notifies you when triggers are met. Don’t you want your solution to tell you when there is a problem?

For more information on Event Studio, here’s a link to one of our blogs on the topic: Cognos Event Studio Policing Data Quality - Somebody's Gotta Do It or check out this link at the IBM Knowledge Center.

For more information, check out my source for this blog and if you like reading legalese check out the IBM License Information Documents.

If you found yourself more confused after reading this, don’t worry! Just give us a call at Lodestar Solutions (813-415-2910) or email us at sales@lodestarsolutions.com. We would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Additionally, keep an eye out for new blogs on the cost to migrate from IBM Cognos Express to IBM Cognos Enterprise licensing.

Last updated:  7/29/16
Based on the knowledge we have regarding license functionality at the time.

When to Use Cognos Event Studio

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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.

Scenario A – Process Support

• Sales Order Table holds sales order detail and is important to the production management process. When a sales order is created, a sales order number is automatically created but an order category must be manually entered. The order category is needed by production to prioritize inbound orders. The company cannot change their ERP because of cost and time, so customer service is responsible to enter the category.

The production department expects a report with all orders categorized.  If the orders are not categorized, they might get missed. Clearly we don’t want to risk missing an order, so how do we ensure all orders are categorized?

We create an event that looks at all open orders and find any which do not have a category. When we find one, we send an email to customer service with the order number so they can correct the order. We can schedule the event to run every five minutes or as often as required to make sure the production report is correct and no order is missed.

Scenario B – Data Warehouse

• You have a data warehouse which you use for reporting. Before your data is brought into the warehouse, it is staged for cleaning (transformation). Data that doesn’t pass certain business rules and will require human review are placed in a quarantined area within staging. The clean data is then loaded into the warehouse.  This means there will be a difference between the warehouse and the data source.

To settle the discrepancy, we can create an event that monitors the quarantined area to send an email with an attached report.  This report shows all of the records which did not make it into the warehouse along with the reason why.

This will allow the business to review and correct the data without having to ask IT why it data did not make it into the warehouse.

Cognos Event Studio can help you maintain clean data. Give it a try it might be just what your company needs! Feel free to contact us at Sales@LodestarSolutions.com for more information.

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