Calculated Measure, Member or a Query Calculation?

I posted previously about calculated members, but until recently, I never really understood when to use a calculated measure, a calculated member or a query calculation when building a report. By chance, I had the opportunity to bring this up to an IBM Cognos employee and was delighted to learn the following:

• Use Calculated Member or Calculated Measure for dimensional reports where the expression is a member or a tuple-based (as opposed to property-based) value expression.

• Use Calculate Measure if you intend it to behave like measure (or to replace a measure). In this case, the value expression must not depend on the current measure context.

• Use Calculate Member if you intend it to behave like measure (or to replace a measure). In this case, you must choose a hierarchy. The value expression must not depend on the current context in this hierarchy.

• Use Set Expression for set expressions. In this case, you must choose a hierarchy. The set expression must contain only members in this hierarchy.

Finally, use Query Calculation in all other cases.

Go! Dashboard Install Fun

In a surprise twist I was successful at installing IBM Cognos Go! Dashboard. Why the surprise? Go! Dashboard is not one of the easiest installs from Cognos. Initially, here were the steps I followed:

• Install Cognos Go! Dashboard
• Change the portnumber from 8080 to 8085 in the system.xml
• Generated the WAR file
• Deployed it to the Tomcat server
• Changed the Gateway URI in Content Administration
• Generate a service

And Go! Dashboard replied: "The IBM Cognos 8 Go! Dashboard service terminated with service-specific error 0 (0x0)."

With some persistent investigation I found the following workaround:

First, I added the JAVA_HOME environment variable in the ..\cognos\c8\dashboard\bin\services.bat:

set JAVA_HOME=C:/Program Files/cognos/c8/bin/jre/1.5.0

Next, instead of generating the service, start the startup.bat file in the C:\Program Files\cognos\c8\dashboard\bin directory (default file location). After this the Tomcat server windows are spawned and Go! Dashboard actually seems to work (and everyone is happy).

Cognos on the iPhone?

Built a couple of the report samples out to an iPhone emulator yesterday. Even out-of-box the viewer looks pretty decent. The Cognos Viewer navigation buttons are manageable but would be obviously better if specifically designed for the iPhone.

Oracle and MicroStrategy BI both have offerings now for the iPhone so I'm sure we can expect it is only a matter of time until IBM Cognos picks this up.

(Click the image to see it larger)

IBM is looking at Sun

There is breaking news that IBM is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. This could be good news for the open source community especially with projects like Open Solaris. Also - IBM is heavily into Java and development of products using Java so I can see a real benefit in this area for them. Not sure what this does to Sun's recent cloud announcement...

Is $6 billion too much?

Set default "from date" in a date range prompt

I discovered recently that you can't set the "default" of any Cognos prompts to a dynamic (non-static) value.

Let me explain: In my example, within Report Studio, I needed to change a date range prompt. I needed the "from date" to default to the beginning of the current year (i.e. Jan. 1, 2009), and the "to date" to default to the current date (today's date).

The best (non-Javascript) method of handling this as I discovered, is to create a radio-button prompt with the static choices of "From Start of Year" and "Select From Date". Next, I set these to values of 1 and 0 respectively. Finally, in the filter, I used the following logic:

(?DateType?=1 AND [MyDate] > _make_timestamp(extract('year',currentdate),01,01))

OR

(?DateType?=0 AND [MyDate] > ?FromDate?)

IBM Cognos 8.4 - Released to the masses

Just in time for Christmas, Cognos 8.4 was released for download on December 15th. Highlights include Flash-based dashboards, improved BI search, location-aware mobile delivery and new data lineage capabilities. A new viewpoint interface lets business users manage hierarchies and dimensions. A bus full of new features have been added:

• Increased visual appeal includes new background designs and colors. Users can add gradient colors and behind charts
• New chart types: Merimekko, Stepline, Sparkline, Sparkbar, Spark Win/Loss
• Report annotations: Users can add comments directly within the body of HTML-rendered reports
• Enhanced suppression: Suppress all types of reports against relational, dimensionally-modeled relational, and OLAP sources. Also, users can also suppress rows, columns, or rows and columns based on "zero" values, "divide by zero" values, missing values, and overflow values
• Extended filters now include wildcards, range, and between operations
• Associated frames now drill together
• Strategy Maps and Impact Diagrams now available as portlets that can be integrated into IBM Cognos Connection, IBM WebSphere, and MS Sharepoint portals
• Data lineage: Users can access and view major transformations to data as it moves through the system
• Expanded data access: Use data from IBM Cognos Now! and IBM Cognos TM1

The reviews are fairly positive (quote from intelligententerprise.com):

"I give Cognos a lot of credit for taking the time, a few years ago, to rewrite the entire platform, but with that effort they fell somewhat behind on bells and whistles," says Forrester Research analyst Boris Evelson. "With 8.4, Cognos is filling out many of the pieces that competitors have provided over the years."

Read the complete review here: After Leading on Platform, Cognos Catches Up On Details

More information can be found on the Cognos site: What's New in 8.4

Reference book: IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence

From the editorial review: Develop, deploy, and maintain a complete BI solution across your enterprise. IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence: The Official Guide shows you how to take full advantage of the robust service-oriented architecture and simplified role-based user interfaces. Learn how to create, share, and analyze data-rich reports that lead to increased productivity and better business decisions. Featuring real-world insight and expert tips, this is a must-have guide for IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence users of all levels, from administrators to end users.

Measure and monitor performance using dashboards and scorecards; Assign user roles and privileges; Provide complete and consistent access to a broad range of data sources via Cognos Connection; Use Cognos 8 Go! to extend BI to Office applications, mobile devices, and search engines; Enable business users to create reports with Query Studio; Develop new insights by exploring data in multiple dimensions and perspectives with Analysis Studio; Build Dimensional Reports with Report Studio; Use Event Studio to identify and deliver mission-critical information; Create, modify, organize, and publish a model from Cognos Framework Manager;
Implement sound security measures; Take advantage of the management tools in Cognos Administration to ensure maximum reliability and availability.

We'll review this book soon. You can purchase this book on Amazon or as an eBook.

Disclaimer: The author of this blog is not affiliated with the author or publisher of the above described book.