IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced Dimensional

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10: The Official Guide by Dan Volitich and Gerard Ruppert

McGraw-Hill/Osborne. (c) 2012. Copying Prohibited.

Reprinted for AJAY CHOWDAVARAPU, Cognizant Technology Solutions

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Chapter 9: IBM Cognos Business Insight AdvancedDimensional IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced allows decision-makers to analyze data quickly to make critical business decisions. When analyzing data, executives or managers need a tool that can accurately answer their most important question. The challenge arises, however, after that initial question is answered, because it always leads to follow-up questions. Rather than bouncing from report to report to find answers, decision-makers must be able to navigate through the data at hand to find the answers to follow-up questions.

Using Cognos Business Insight Advanced with a dimensional source allows users to navigate through data by drilling up or down on hierarchical business attributes known as dimensions.Suppose, for example, that a retail store manager is in charge of several stores within his region. While looking at a Cognos Business Insight Advanced weekly revenue report, he notices that revenue is down from the prior week. With a simple mouse click on his region in the report, a list of all the stores in his region is displayed. The drill-down feature allows him to determine whether sales are down for all stores, or whether the problem is with a particular store. After determining that one store is having sales issues, he can further evaluate the data for only that store to determine the source of the problem. This quick analysis of data allows the manager to contact the appropriate people and take corrective actions to help boost sales.

Dimensional Data Sources

In this chapter, we will focus on reporting from dimensional sources using the IBM Cognos samples. You will learn about reporting techniques and terminology used when you are working with dimensional sources. You will also learn how to use some of the features within Cognos Business Insight Advanced, such as expanding and collapsing members, suppressing empty cells, creating dimensional calculations, and filtering.

The objects you will most often use to report from dimensional sources are crosstabs and charts. When working with dimensional sources, the source tree contains the package, namespaces, dimensions, level hierarchies, levels, members folders, members, and measures.

Getting Started with IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced

To open Cognos Business Insight Advanced, follow these steps:

1. Log on to Cognos Connection, and navigate to the Public Folders tab.

NoteCreating workspaces with relational data sources is discussed in Chapter 8.

IBMCognosBusinessIntelligence10:TheOfficialGuide

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2. From the Launch menu located in the upper right of the screen, select Business Insight Advanced. The Select a Package screen displays.

3. Select a package from either the Recently Used Packages area or the List Of All Packages area. For the examples in this chapter, well use the GO Sales (analysis) package, which is a dimensionally modeled data source. The Cognos Business Insight Advanced startup page is displayed, as shown next:

4. Click the Create New button. The New dialog displays, listing the report templates available for use as a starting point for creating reports.

NoteYou can also access Cognos Business Insight Advanced from the Welcome screen by clicking the Author Business Reports link and then choosing a package.

NoteTemplates are discussed in detail in Chapter 8.



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5. Select the Crosstab template, and then click OK. Cognos Business Insight Advanced opens with the crosstab placed in the work area. The user interface contains a Content pane, work area, standard toolbar, Page Layers area, and Context Filter area, as shown next:

n Work area Contains the crosstab that will be used to build a report.

n Standard toolbar Gives users quick access to many commonly used features. Table 9-1 describes some of the functions available from the standard toolbar.

n Page layers Create sections or page breaks for members to display on separate pages.

n Context filter Filter your report to allow for a more focused analysis.

n Content pane Contains the Source tab that displays the source data to be used in a report, and the Toolbox tab that displays objects that can be used in a report. The Source tab for dimensional reporting contains several features that allow you to customize how the source tree is displayed and how the data is pulled into a report. These features are described in Table 9-2.

Table 9-1: IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced Standard Toolbar

Icon Name Description

Run Report Run a report in HTML, PDF, Excel, CSV, or XML format; also provides report options

Filters Filter the selected data



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Generating Crosstab Reports

Crosstab reports display dimensional data in rows and columns and summarized information at the intersecting points of the rows and columns. We will use the GO Sales (analysis) package from the Cognos samples to demonstrate the features and techniques you can use when reporting from a dimensional source in Cognos Business Insight Advanced. Youll learn how to insert hierarchies, members, sets, individual members, and nesting members. We will create a simple crosstab report and describe features such as inserting calculations, adding filters, and summarizing data.

Inserting a Hierarchy

Hierarchies let you quickly add the highest level member or all levels and members of a hierarchy to a crosstab report.

Inserting Root Members

To add root members of a hierarchy to a crosstab, follow these steps:

1. Open a new crosstab template in Cognos Business Insight Advanced using a multi-dimensional package. Choose the GO Sales (analysis) package.

2. On the Source tab in the Content pane, select the View Metadata Tree button.

3. From the Content pane, drag-and-drop a hierarchy on the crosstab in the work area. Expand the Sales (analysis) namespace, then expand the Sales Staff dimension, and then insert the Sales Staff hierarchy into the Rows drop zone of the crosstab. The Insert Hierarchy dialog displays:

4. In the Insert Hierarchy dialog, choose Root Members and click OK.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to insert additional root members. Add the Time hierarchy to the Columns section of the crosstab. Insert Revenue from the Sales Measures namespace in the Measures drop zone of the crosstab. The crosstab in the work area shows the revenue amount for all time and all sales personnel:

Inserting All Members

To add all members of the hierarchy to a crosstab, follow these steps:


Sort Sort the selected data

Summarize Summarize the selected data

Insert Calculation Insert a calculation for the selected data

Suppress Suppress rows and/or columns that have missing values, divide by zero, overflow values, or zero values

Explore Exclude members, move members, edit sets, drill down, and drill up

Table 9-2: IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced Content Pane

Icon Name Description

View Member Tree Display the members tree.

View Metadata Tree Display the full package tree.

Insert Individual Members (currently creating sets) Create Sets for Members (currently inserting individual members)

Toggle between creating sets when inserting multidimensional data items and inserting individual members.

Insert Single Member Insert Children Insert Member with Children

Choose the insertion mode for multidimensional data items.



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2. From the Content pane, drag-and-drop a hierarchy on the crosstab in the work area. Insert the Sales Staff hierarchy into the Rows drop zone of the crosstab, replacing the Sales Staff root member. The Insert Hierarchy dialog displays.

3. In the Insert Hierarchy dialog, choose All Members, and then click OK.

4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to insert additional hierarchies with all members. Insert the Time hierarchy with all members in the Columns drop zone of the crosstab. The crosstab in the work area shows the revenue amounts for all members of the Sales Staff and Time hierarchies.

Inserting a Member

Members can easily be added to a crosstab by dragging and dropping them into the crosstab. You can use several options on the Source tab of the Content pane to change how members are inserted. The Create Sets For Members button lets you choose whether you want to insert members within a set or insert members individually. The Insert Member With Children button provides options to insert a member with children, insert a single member, or insert the children of a member.

Inserting a Member with Children

To insert a member with children in a crosstab, follow these steps:


2. From the Source tab in the Content pane, select Insert Member with Children as the insertion mode.

3. Drag-and-drop a member from the Content pane to the crosstab. Navigate to Sales (analysis) namespace | Sales Staff dimension | Sales Staff hierarchy | Sales Region level | Members folder, and insert the Americas member on the Rows of the crosstab, replacing the Sales Staff hierarchy from the last section. The Americas member and its children display on the rows of the crosstab.

4. Insert additional members into the crosstab. Navigate to Sales (analysis) namespace | Time dimension | Time hierarchy | Time level | Members folder, and insert the Time member on the columns of the crosstab. The Time member and its children display on the columns of the crosstab.

Inserting a Single Member

To insert a single member in a crosstab, follow these steps:


2. From the Source tab in the Content pane, select Insert Single Member as the insertion mode.

3. Drag-and-drop a member from the Content pane to the crosstab. Navigate to Sales (analysis) namespace | Sales Staff dimension | Sales Staff hierarchy | Sales Region level | Members folder, and insert the Americas member in the Rows drop zone of the crosstab, replacing the current content. The Americas member displays on the Rows section of the crosstab.

4. Insert additional members into the crosstab. Navigate to Sales (analysis) namespace | Time dimension | Time hierarchy | Time level | Members folder, and insert the Time member in the Columns drop zone of the crosstab, replacing the current content. The Time member displays on the Columns section of the crosstab.



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Inserting Child Members

To insert children of a member in a crosstab, follow these steps:


2. From the Source tab in the Content pane, select Insert Children as the insertion mode.

3. Drag-and-drop a member from the Content pane to the crosstab. Navigate to Sales (analysis) namespace | Sales Staff dimension | Sales Staff hierarchy | Sales Region level | Members folder, and insert the Americas member in the Rows drop zone of the crosstab, replacing the current content. The children of the Americas member display on the Rows section of the crosstab.

4. Insert additional members into the crosstab. Navigate to Sales (analysis) namespace | Time dimension | Time hierarchy | Time level | Members folder, and insert the Time member in the Columns drop zone of the crosstab, replacing the current content. The children of the Time member display on the Columns section of the crosstab.

Nesting Members

Nesting members allow you to group data in a hierarchy. Hierarchies, levels, members, and measures can be nested in the Rows and Columns sections of a crosstab. Nesting can be applied to a set or to an individual member in a set.

Nesting Members Within a Set

You can group data in a hierarchy with nesting members. Nesting can be applied to a set or to an individual member in a set. When inserting items into the work area as sets, the items are grouped together and behave as a unit. When you insert items into the work area that are not members of sets, the items behave individually.

To nest members within a set, follow these steps:

1. Open a new crosstab template using a multi-dimensional package. Choose the GO Sales (analysis) package.

2. From the Source tab in the Content pane, click the Create Sets For Members button, so that the button reads Insert Individual Members (currently creating sets) upon mouse-over.

3. Insert items into the Rows, Columns, and Measures drop zones of the crosstab. Insert the Americas member and its children from the Sales Staff dimension to the Rows section, the Time member and its children to the Columns section, and Revenue into the Measures section.

4. From the Content pane, drag a second item into the Rows or Columns drop zone, inside of the first item, and drop it where the flashing black bar appears. Insert Products (with children) within the Americas sales region. The product lines are nested within each country in the Americas sales region:



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Nesting Members Within an Individual Member

To nest members within an individual member, follow these steps:

1. Open a new crosstab template using a multidimensional package. Choose the GO Sales (analysis) package.

2. From the Source tab in the Content pane, click the Insert Individual Members button, so that the button reads Create Sets For Members (currently inserting individual members) upon mouse-over.

3. Insert items into the Rows, Columns, and Measures drop zones of the crosstab. Insert the Americas member and its children from the Sales Staff dimension to the Rows section, the Time member and its children to the Columns section, and Revenue into the Measures section.

4. From the Content pane, drag a second item into the Rows or Columns drop zone, inside of the first item, and drop it where the flashing black bar appears. Insert Products (with children) within United States. The product lines are nested only within the United States:

Nesting and Stacking Measures Within a Set

To nest and stack measures within a set, follow these steps:

1. Open a new crosstab template using a multidimensional package. Choose the GO Sales (analysis) package.

2. From the Source tab in the Content pane, click the Create Sets For Members button, so that the button reads Insert Individual Members (currently creating sets) upon mouse-over.

3. Insert items to the Rows and Columns drop zones of the crosstab. Insert the Americas member and its children from the Sales Staff dimension to the Rows section and the Time member and its children to the Columns section.

4. From the Content pane, drag a measure into the Rows or Columns drop zone, inside of the first item in the drop zone, and drop it where a flashing black triple-bar appears. Insert Revenue inside of the years in the Columns drop zone.

5. From the Content pane, drag a second measure into the crosstab and drop it next to first measure at the flashing black triple-bar. Insert Planned Revenue next to Revenue within the years in the Columns drop zone. Two measures are now nested within the years of the crosstab:

Adding Filters

Filtering your data lets you focus your report on a smaller set of data. For example, suppose you want to see revenue and planned revenue data for the current year only. In this case, you can add a filter that will include only the current year in the report. When you are using dimensional data with Cognos Business Insight Advanced, you can use several options to focus your data. You can use context filters or create custom filters to narrow the data returned.

Adding a Context Filter

To add a context filter to a crosstab, follow these steps:

1. Create a new crosstab and insert items into the Rows, Columns, and Measures drop zones of the crosstab. Continue to use the crosstab from the previous section.

2. From the Content pane, drag-and-drop an item in the Context Filter section at the top of the work area. Insert the Web member in the Context Filter section.



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The values in the crosstab are now focused on web orders for the Americas sales region by year. Notice that the context filter (Web) is automatically displayed in the header. This is a visual indicator indicating that there are filters on the report.

3. Add additional context filters. Insert the 2007 member from the Time dimension in the Context Filter section.

The crosstab is now focused on web orders for the Americas sales region for the year 2007. With context filters, you will notice that the members that do not meet the filter criteria are not removed from the crosstab.

Suppressing Rows and Columns

In this example, because we have a context filter on 2007, the other year members do not contain any values but remain in the report. To remove the blank cells, you can use the Suppress Rows and Columns feature.

To suppress cells with zeroes or blanks, click the Suppress button on the standard toolbar, and choose Suppress Rows and Columns. This removes the unwanted blank cells:

Deleting a Context Filter

To delete a context filter, follow these steps:

1. Click the downward-facing arrow next to the filter in the Context Filter section of the work area, as shown next:



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2. Select Delete from the menu. The context filter is removed. For this example, we removed the 2007 filter from the report.

Creating a Custom Filter

To create a custom filter, follow these steps:

1. In the crosstab, select the item for which you want to create a custom filter. Select the 2007 cell in the columns of the crosstab.

2. Click the Filters button on the standard toolbar, and choose Create Custom Filter from the drop-down menu. The Filter Condition dialog appears:

3. Make any necessary modifications to the filter condition. Add 2006 to the list of selected values so that 2006 and 2007 will be included in the crosstab.

4. Click OK to create the filter:

Creating a Calculation

Adding calculations to your reports lets you include additional data in a report that does not exist in the data source. For example, using the Revenue and Planned Revenue measures, you can create Revenue as a percentage of a Planned Revenue calculation to show a manager how close actual revenues come to expected revenues. We continue to use the same sample report created throughout the chapter in this section.

To create a calculation, follow these steps:

1. Select two items in the crosstab for which you want to create a calculation. CTRL-click Revenue and Planned Revenue in the columns of the crosstab.



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2. Click the Insert Calculation button on the standard toolbar, and choose Custom from the drop-down menu. The Insert Custom Calculation dialog appears:

3. In the Insert Customer Calculation dialog, select the desired action from the Operation drop-down menu. Choose % (percentage) as the operation.

4. In the Calculation area, make any necessary modifications. Select the Revenue As A Percentage Of Planned Revenue radio button.

5. In the New Data Item Name area, choose to use the default name or type a name for the calculation. Click the radio button next to the blank space and type % Variance.

6. Click OK to create the calculation. The custom calculation is added to the crosstab:

Creating Page Layers

Adding page layers lets you uniformly split a report across several pages. Page layers are also helpful when you are dealing with larger sets of data. We continue to use the same sample report created throughout the chapter in this section.

To create page layers, follow these steps:

1. From the Content pane, drag-and-drop an item into the Page Layers section of the work area. Insert the Products member into the Page Layers section.



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The values in the crosstab have been filtered on the first product line, and the paging buttons in the work area are now enabled. A header (Camping Equipment) has been added to the title section of the work area to provide a visual aid to what the crosstab contains.

2. Click the Page Down link to see the next page. Golf Equipment displays:

Enabling Drill-Down and Drill-Up

Drill-down and drill-up capabilities in a report allow users to navigate through hierarchical data. This flexibility lets users view data at a high level or view more detailed lower level data. By default, Cognos Business Insight Advanced reports do not have drill-up and drill-down capabilities when they are executed by an end user in IBM Cognos Viewer. This feature must be enabled by the report creator. We continue to use the same sample report created throughout the chapter in this section.

To add drill-down and drill-up capabilities to a report, follow these steps:

1. From the Data menu, select Drill Options. The Drill Options dialog displays.

2. In the Drill Options dialog, select the Allow Drill-Up And Drill-Down check box. Click OK.

3. Click the Run Report button on the standard toolbar. The report displays in IBM Cognos Viewer:



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Notice that the items in the rows and columns are now underlined, indicating they are links. This signifies that drill-down and drill-up capabilities are enabled for this report.

4. Click a link in the crosstab to drill-down on the selected item. Click the United States link to drill-down to the Sales Staff cities within the United States.

5. Right-click an item in the crosstab and select Drill Up from the context menu to drill-up one level on the selected item.

Creating Custom Groups

You can create custom groups to organize members in a group that might not exist in the data source but that may have value to the business. We continue to use the same sample report created throughout the chapter in this section.

To create a custom group, follow these steps:

1. Select the United States member in the rows of the crosstab.

2. Click the Explore button on the standard toolbar, and choose Edit Set from the drop-down menu. The Set Definition dialog appears.

3. In the Set Definition dialog, click the New button, and select Custom Grouping from the drop-down menu. The Custom Grouping dialog appears:

NoteThe drill-down and drill-up options work only for HTML output reports.

NoteThis is a new feature in IBM Cognos v10.1.1. It is not available in Cognos v10.1.



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4. In the Custom Grouping dialog, click the New button. The Custom Group dialog appears.

5. In the Custom Group dialog, specify a name for the new custom group. Enter North America in the New Group Name text box.

6. Add items to be included in the group from the Available Members pane into the Members pane. Navigate to the Sales Staff dimension and add the United States, Canada, and Mexico members to the Members pane.

7. Click OK to save the new custom group. The Custom Grouping dialog appears again, now with the new custom group.



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8. In the Custom Grouping dialog, choose the behavior for the remaining values. Select the Group Remaining Values Into A Single Group radio button, and enter South America in the text box.

9. Click OK to save the changes made to the custom groupings.

10. In the Set Definition dialog, click OK. The new custom groups appear in the crosstab:



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Chapter 9: IBM Cognos Business Insight AdvancedDimensionalDimensional Data SourcesGetting Started with IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced

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IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced Dimensional

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