IBM Cognos BI 10.2.2

IBM Cognos 10.2.2 – What’s New

IBM’s latest release of the Cognos Business Intelligence product has just taken place and was made available to download on 21 November , this release being 10.2.2 and comes with the branding of ‘Enabling IT Driven Self Service Reporting’.

Here we will explore and explain some of new features of the product release and together with Watson Analytics (which is also due for release before the end of 2014) will keep Cognos as the leading Business Intelligence software solution.

My Data Sets

This allows data (Excel or text files) that live outside of Cognos to be analysed with the full reporting suite. The size limitation placed on the External Data option does not apply and it will create a standalone package for reporting and analysis.

Visualisations

Enhancements in this area include:-

• Most categories and drop zones on the charts are now made optional.
• Conversion between visualisation types without having to redefine the data points.
• Three new visualisations have been created – a Chord, Combination and Tornado Chart.

Active Reports

We can now produce an Active Report in HTML format now which means we can now view those reports in browsers that do not have MIME HTML (MHT) capability.

You can now preview your report directly from Report Studio with the click of a button. You can even make changes directly to the report output, seeing results immediately, and those changes will be written back to the report itself.

 Dynamic Cubes

There has been a lot of effort put into the Dynamic Cube product and the new changes in this release further enhance this capability.

• The Custom Relative Time ability allows the modeler to establish custom relative time members using the same properties available in Transformer.
• The ability to import Framework Manager Metadata directly and use it as the basis for a Dynamic Cube.

Report Authors/Administrators

• Tabbed Report Output option specifies whether report pages should function as pages or as tabs.
• Framework Manager has introduced Summary Query Subjects that allow you to specify grouping and aggregation in the model query subject in ways that could previously only be accomplished in the query design itself.
• The User Interface Profiles tool allows administrators to customize the UI elements and default behaviours for each studio in Cognos for an individual or group of users to create an environment to suit different users’ needs, skills, and comfort level with the technology. In the Profile Editor, you can customize almost any element of the studio, including toolbars, explorers, toolbox objects, and many more.

Query and Analysis Studio

Although all studios are available from the Welcome page, the number of options on the Launch dropdown menu is reduced. Query and Analysis Studio have always had a short shelf life ever since the introduction of Cognos Workspace Advanced, and the ability to purchase licences was withdrawn , and this release will be last one where these products exist and all 32-bit versions of the product  (as well as Microsoft SQL Server 2005 , IE 8 and IE9) will be removed from the next release.

To find out more visit http://www.budgetingsolutions.co.uk/products/ibm-cognos-solutions/ibm-cognos-bi/ibm-cognos-bi-10-2-2/

To see the new release in action you can visit the specific YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBR9T_Kk_isnm3q7RaSRVP-oyAhO035NV that has videos demonstrating the 25 top new features and can try these functions for yourself with a valid IBM user profile at http://cognos10.analyticszone.com/ibmcognos.

For those customers with valid product maintenance , this upgrade is free and further details of the upgrade process and to book your upgrade are available directly from Budgeting Solutions on 0115 853 2863