Make Report Maintenance Easier by Implementing these BI Development Strategies

To “Get it done” and to “Get it done well” are two entirely different things.  Both have merit and are appropriate under specific conditions.  A mission critical output under a strict deadline must be prioritized to “get it done” to meet the objective.  Often this approach has delayed consequences that the urgency of the objective […]

Configure Multiple Reports in One Report Specification

One report specification can contain different views of your data, essentially rendering different reports. But why would it make sense to set up one report spec to do this, you ask? This makes sense when the queries behind the pages share a lot of content, and it’s easiest to maintain that content in one location […]

Relative Time Prompt Token Macro Technique

Prompt token macros are used to pass the definition of a data item rather than a value. They are very efficient and useful for both relational and dimensional data sources and prove to be a friendly administrative and end user experience. You can use the relative time token for scheduling purposes as well as a […]

A Report Developer’s Guide to Sanity

IBM Cognos Report Studio is a tremendously flexible and useful application for querying and presenting data in a multitude of forms. From crosstabs to graphs, details or summaries, sales reporting to financial statutory reporting, Report Studio is both powerful and versatile. Due to its expansive feature set and extensibility, every report developer will have their […]

Documentation Tips for Report Studio

Report Studio Documentation Have you ever opened an existing report in Report Studio and blundered through the many components of the layout and queries wondering where the best place is to start trying to understand how it all comes together to form the output? If you’re a report developer, I’ll bet that you have. Report […]