Cognos Analytics V11: A Closer Look
New Report Authoring, Dashboarding and Modeling Tools
See our on-demand webinar for the new functionality for 11.1.6.
Up until now, demos of Cognos Analytics have been more about look and feel than its implications to users. In this show-and-tell, Nic Leduc, Product Manager of Cognos Analytics shows demos and covers topics that satisfy your curiosities:
- IBM’s intent behind the radical new design
- How Cognos Analytics solves the riddle of providing enterprise level analytics and governance while still being friendly for line-of-business users
- How Cognos Analytics has made authoring easier while maintaining the robustness
- Data discovery: how users can directly access data sources
- See a demo of the new dashboarding, self-service modeling and simplified authoring
Our other on-demand webinars highlighting Cognos Analytics new features
- What’s New in Cognos Analytics 11.1.4
- Cognos 11.1.3: Demos of New Features
- Cognos 11.1: Overview of Major New Release
- Cognos 11.0.8 Demos and Q&A with IBM Product Team
- Cognos 11.0.7 Demos and Q&A with IBM Product Team
- Cognos Release 7+ Authoring Improvements
- Cognos 11.0.6 Demos and Q&A with IBM Product Team
- Cognos 11.0.5 Demos and Q&A with IBM Product Team
- The New Reporting Experience in Cognos Analytics
- Cognos Analytics R5: Say Hello to Portal Tabs Replacement
- Preview of Cognos v11: Totally New User Interface
IBM Cognos BI: Cognos Workspace, Cognos Workspace Advanced, Cognos Report Studio, Cognos Dynamic Cubes, Cognos Transformer, Cognos Query Studio, Cognos Analysis Studio
BI Report Authors, BI Report Consumers, BI Power Users (Developers, Support Staff), BI Managers, IT Managers, IT / BI Executives (CTO), Program or Project Managers
Nic Leduc
Product Manager
Cognos Analytics
Nic is part of the Product Management team for IBM Cognos Analytics. His main responsibilities are around the dashboarding and mobile capabilities.
IBM Cognos Business Intelligence in Review
- General availability of IBM Cognos BI v10.2.2 on Cloud – March 27, 2015
- Announced IBM Cognos Analytics – October 26, 2015
- General availability Cognos Analytics – December 23, 2015
Cognos Analytics on Cloud
- Cloud computing expertise delivers a highly secure BI SaaS offering
- Managed by IBM, with no need to move your data or security to the cloud
- Choose from three editions starting at 25 users, full user flexibility
Factors Shaping the Future of Business Intelligence
- Self-serve analytics
- Data governance
- Smarter, more embeddable analytics
Cognos Analytics v11 Delivers Ease of Use for the Business Without Compromising IT Functionality
- Completely re-designed experience – dramatically increase productivity for departmental and enterprise reporting
Cognos Analytics Demo
Interact
- Intuitive and interactive
- Personalization
- On-demand toolbars and menus
Create
- Easy access to corporate or uploaded data
- Easily combinable data modules
- Intent-driven modeling and authoring
Creators, Simple Dashboards, and Reports
- Select data source and get started
- Guided experience
- Design and layout
- Drag and drop content
- Recommended visualization
- Progressive interface
- Create dashboard on a tablet
Creators, Power Users
- Intent-driven modeling process based on the selected data
- Search for fields
- Join multiple sources
- Automated model generation
- Improve data quality – data cleansing
- Visualize the model
Updating to Cognos Analytics v11
- Cognos Analytics is an upgrade to Cognos Business Intelligence (v8, v10)
- All your existing content will be brought forward
- Traditional 10.2.2 studios are available (now called Companion Applications)
- No license changes (free to download from Passport Adv for existing customers)
- Life cycle manager is planned to ship in Q1, 2017
Simplification of the Studios
- We’ve reduced the number of interfaces for simplicity:
- Report
- Dashboard
- Data module
- IBM recommends to create new content using the new tools
Where are the Old Studios in Cognos Analtyics?
- Companion applications are still available for existing customers
- Cognos v10 studios
- My Inbox
- Drill-Through definitions
- My Watch items
Cognos Workspace in Cognos Analytics
- Currently
- Still available in Cognos Analytics, opens in a new browser tab
- Removed certain capabilities such as the Do More
- Announced for deprecation
- What we are looking at:
- Reusable parts in the new dashboards and reporting
- Multiple packages in reporting (vote on RFE 68073)
- Master filtering across multiple sources / widgets / pages
- Auto-refresh of widgets in dashboards
Portal Pages and Tabs in Cognos Analytics
- Currently
- Portal pages open in a different browser tab
- Portal tabs are no longer accessible
- Recommendations
- Users can set a report or dashboard as their home page (not portal pages)
- Recently used list provides a quick way for users to get to their content
- Search has been greatly enhanced to find content they need
- What we are looking at:
- Ability for admins to set their user’s home pages based on users and groups
- Vote on RFE 84915
Infrastructure, Installation
- Installation options
- Ready to run! Provides a quick way to get up and running in minutes without any additional configuration or third party software
- Custom: same as previous version of Cognos
- Gateway component is optional, meaning no dependency on a web server
- Only required for advanced options such as SSO or third party portal integration
- Items to consider
- Size of snapshots and uploaded content
- Potential additional load on the servers as users interact with their content
Mobile Experience
- iOS Safari for connected experience
- Native apps for disconnected
- Interface only shows the capabilities that are supported on mobile devices
- On-demand toolbar menus are touch friendly
- Report prompts are converted to native controls
Embedded Items
Models, OLAP, Query Engines
Useful Links
- Main Cognos Analytics page – http://www.ibm.biz/cognosanalytics
- Videos and demos – https://www.youtube.com/user/Analyticszone/videos
- Free trial – http://www.analyticszone.com
- Documentation – http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.cbi.doc/welcome.html?lang=en
- FAQ installation steps – http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21974153