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Cognos 8.4 Upgrade

Business Intelligence

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Why Cognos 8.4

n Increased Performance on Database due tooptimized SQL and more filters passed in nativeSQL

n Less chance of killing the BIBus core processn Firefox 3 support for Cognos Connection, Report

View, and Query Studio

n Internet Explorer 7 is now supported for all productsand studios

n Better Administration and Security

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Microcharts and Excel 2007

Excel 2007 now supported,

smaller files and

ECMA supported

Microcharts added tocrosstab and list reports

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Packages

Packages can nowbe moved intofolders

Capabilities can nowbe defined at thepackage level

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Express Authoring

A simplified Report Studio view that usesdimensionally modeled packages only.Designed for Financial Analysts.

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Query Studio Filter Column

Query Studio userscan now filter acolumn withoutadding it to the

report.

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Data Lineage

Data Lineage can be displayed in Report Studio from the selectableobjects, and also in a report against a data item. It shows where adata item came from and any calculation done on that item.

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Cognos 8.4 Behavior Changes

n Search prompts will now prompt to continue to search if the result set islarge.

n Null values will now be used if selected.

n Divided values will now show 3 digits after the decimal except for

currencies which will use the same number as the numerator.n Divided values will use the same format as the numerator if the

denominator is a query constant, number, or percentage. Else theformat result will be a number.

n Rounding values will result in as many decimal places as the rounding

precision.n PDFs can now be paginated horizontally as well as vertically.

n Using custom formatting and leaving the replace null value box emptyresults in nulls now being shown instead of 0 values for nulls. Previousversions appeared to be ignoring this format and now it is being used

correctly in 8.4.

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Cognos 8.4 Splash Screen

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Cognos 8.4 Studio Launch

The studio icons are now in a launch list, instead of spread across the topas icons. This list will still only show studios the user has the capabilitiesto access.

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Excel Header

In Excel 2002 worksheets, headers can now be broken across multiplerows. In the Excel 2007 format below, the behavior stays the same andheaders stay on the assigned row.

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Currency Decimal set as Comma

The default forCurrency Decimal

Separator is , whennot defined. Need tochange the value toperiod where it isused.

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Nulls in Prompts

Nulls are now anacceptable item inpicklist prompts. If

selected, it willreturn values withnull. To remove thisbehavior add a nullfilter to the prompt

query.

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Singleton Usage

In this example there is a single data item displayed in a header, Open/Close.To do this, the report designer had to insert a table and then a list frame with asingle data item in the list.

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Singleton Usage cont.

Instead, use the new singleton object which is a single data item element.

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Dont Print Class

The Dont Print class behavior has changed. It tells the object to not printor show in PDF or Excel formats. However it still shows in HTML outputs.

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Dont Print Class Solution

There are a couple solutions to this if you dont want the object to show inHTML. One of the options is below, change the box type of the object toNone.

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JavaScript

JavaScript code can break during versionupgrades and is not a recommendedmethod.

In this example, theDESCRSHORT needsto be changed toBusiness Unit.

The above JavaScript is usedcurrently to do this change.

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JavaScript Fix

Changed the query to force the new name to bein the result set. This name is now used in the

drop down list and no need for JavaScript.

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Rigorous Datatype Checking

In 8.4, datatypes are now more rigorously checked. In the aboveexample, count is a numerical value and hence does not equal a

character as represented by the =

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Rigorous Datatype Fix

In this case, you would replace the = with the is null statement.

Even better for this job though would be to use the coalesce function toreplace Nulls with 0.

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Drill Through Page 8.2

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Drill Through Page 8.4

The new drill through link page shows more detail and has a debugoption now to display the passed source values to the target report.

The new page shows all three drill through entries, even though the labelon one of the entries is still hidden and hence was not displayed in 8.2.

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Upgrade Plan

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Framework Manager

When runningFramework Manager 8.2and 8.4 concurrently, be

sure to install 8.4 into aseparate directory, here itis installed in c84.

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Framework Object Dependencies

One of the new features inFramework Manager 8.4 isthe Object dependency toolto show you anydependencies before youmake a change to themodel.

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Further Resources

n Business Intelligence Solutions Website http://www.it.northwestern.edu/about/departments/bi/index.html

n NUBI Listserv email listserv@listserv.it.northwestern.edu

n

IBM Cognos Support Site http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/

n IT Toolbox Cognos Community http://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com/topics/pbs/cognos/

n Reference Manuals Report Studio Professional Authoring User Guide:

http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_cr_rptstd.pdf

Framework Manager User Guide:http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_fm.pdf

Transformer User Guide :http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_cogtr.pdf

Report Studio Express Authoring User Guide:http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_rptstd_fin.pdf

http://www.it.northwestern.edu/about/departments/bi/index.htmlmailto:listserv@listserv.it.northwestern.eduhttp://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com/topics/pbs/cognos/http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_cr_rptstd.pdfhttp://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_fm.pdfhttp://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_cogtr.pdfhttp://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_rptstd_fin.pdfhttp://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_rptstd_fin.pdfhttp://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_cogtr.pdfhttp://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_fm.pdfhttp://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.0/ug_cr_rptstd.pdfhttp://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com/topics/pbs/cognos/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/products/cognos-8-business-intelligence/support/mailto:listserv@listserv.it.northwestern.eduhttp://www.it.northwestern.edu/about/departments/bi/index.html