12 May 2015
By Allen
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Giving Back

Cognos
From previous posts, you know I believe in giving back to community. Last week my wife had an aunt pass away who had suffered with MS for many years. This week I learned that one of my client companies has a team in the Central Oklahoma MS Walk. I'll be donating and I invite you to join me here: http://walkoke.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Walk/OKEWalkEvents?team_id=437146&pg=team&fr_id=25519   Thank you.
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10 May 2013
By Allen
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Business Intelligence Forecasting in SQL and Cognos

Business Intelligence Forecasting in SQL and Cognos

Cognos, SSAS, , , , ,
Note: This article is an update of a presentation given when I was at the University of Oklahoma's Health Sciences Center. At that time, I was using Cognos version 7.3. This article is updated for Cognos 10 and SQL Server Analysis Server 2012.  Revisiting this subject ten years later, my opinion is that Microsoft has finally surpassed IBM Cognos. Most businesses, including medical clinics, want some method for forecasting business trends. The Cognos BI powerplay presentation tools contain the tools needed for basic forecasting.  The trick in getting accurate forecasting is select the correct algorithm. I recommend trying the model…
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13 Mar 2011
By Allen
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Cognos 10 Download

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Go to http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal Select "Downloads" from "Choose your Page". Don't use the "Featured Download links". Instead, look at the right hand side of the page where you should see 'Other IBM Pages' with a [+] to expand  drop down box. Within that you can choose "Software Trials and Downloads" and then download the Cognos 8 Develop Edition or Cognos 10 (Cognos BI Developer Edition). When you fill out the download form, it asks if you were referred by an IBM partner.  Answer 'yes' and list 'GAMA Health Technology, Inc.'.  Then contact me if you need assistance testing the product. I…
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13 Mar 2011
By Allen
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Cognos 10 – First thoughts

Cognos
Ok so this is just my first thoughts as I watch a Cognos 10 demo.  I have yet to get my hands on a demo to try it with some real data. The Demo Theme: Think, Connect, Do The focus is trying to remove barriers from what user wants to do with their data. Duh. Unified Workspace Adds, 'Progressive Interaction', ability to drill in for more information.  Adds ability to link in data from a spreadsheet, local, or network share.  One contractor in the room from Redlands BIDW uses Excel spreadsheets as a method for filtering reports for given departments,…
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05 May 2010
By Allen
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Hiding Crosstab row titles in Cognos 8.4

Cognos, , , , ,
Since 8.3, the (Don't Print) global class still reserves a full width space for the title object, even if the text is not displayed. One method is to set 'Box Type' to 'None' but that can mess up alignment with the column headers if you have nested row levels to hide. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next version of Cognos. Workaround: 1. Click the column/row header and set the 'Source Type' property to 'Text'. This creates a null string so it measures zero length of space to reserve. 2. In Page Explorer, go to the 'Classes' 3. Create…
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08 Apr 2010
By Allen
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Calling Cognos reports with URL parameters and removing headers

Calling Cognos reports with URL parameters and removing headers

Cognos, ,
When building dashboards with jQuery objects, there may be issues calling the report within the Cognos Portal Pages 'Cognos Viewer' object. The workaround is to use the 'HTML Viewer' in a portal page. The HTML Viewer is actually an iFrame calling a new instance of Cognos and may require re-authentication. The method we ended up for inserting reports is as follows. 1. Create the target report for the dashboard/portal page. 2. In Cognos Connection, navigate to the report and click on Properties. 3. In the upper right hand corner Click on 'View the search path, ID and URL'. 4. In…
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25 Mar 2010
By Allen
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Add a custom chart palette to Cognos.

Add a custom chart palette to Cognos.

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While Cognos does many things well, most people have different tastes in colors.  This article will walk you through creating and installing a custom chart palette.  This example is for general charts, but the principles can be applied to maps and gauges in the same XML files. Example Charts 'Before' and 'After' 1. Choose your colors. These colors are from the 'Barn' palette and others I found at Colour Lovers They have great palettes to get you started. 2. Edit ChartPalettes.xml In windows this file is found in: C:\Program Files\Cognos\c8\webcontent\pat\res 3. You can either create a new palette or just…
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