First Guide to Dashboards using IBM Cognos Analytics

This video introduces viewer to Welcome Portal.

   •  Launch Welcome Portal and locate Recent Items

   •  Learn about Team Contents and My Contents areas

   •  Try the Search Panel

Compare the tools and terminologies from previous Cognos versions with the latest Cognos Analytics version.

   •  Understand how old tools are replaced with new functionalities and terminologies

   •  Assess the differences between Dashboards and Reports and their purposes

   •  Learn how various tools and capabilities can be rolled out for different user classes

Create your first Dashboard in Cognos Analytics in Cloud.

   •  Start a new Dashboard and launch Dashboard Editor interface

   •  Add Text and Media Widgets Learn about Dashboard properties

   •  Set the Dashboard as HOME page

Learn two ways to bring data in Cognos.

   •  Learn how to create a Data Server Connection

   •  See ways to upload data using files

   •  Upload the files supplied with this course

Create your first Data Module and learn how to use the interface.

   •  Create a new Data Module from scratch

   •  Bring the data from the files uploaded in previous video

   •  Learn how to use the Data Module Interface

Learn how to create Relationship between tables and understand Cardinality and Join Types.

   •  Locate the Relationships dialog box

   •  Match the common identifier columns and check that data returns

   •  Define Relationship Type and Cardinality

How will we solve the issue of joining two fact tables? Bridge table solves the many-to-many join type issues.

   •  Understand why many-to-many relationships may exist

   •  Resolve many-to-many using Bridge Table

   •  Hide redundant columns to avoid confusion and potentially wrong results

In this video, we will look at creating simple calculations using String and Arithmetic functions.

   •  Create a SUBSTRING calculation

   •  Create an Arithmetic calculation

   •  Concatenate multiple string data items

We will provide a guided drill-down and drill-across using Navigation Path.

   •  Locate Navigation Paths panel

   •  Define a drill-down to Branches

   •  Define a drill-across to Products

Let us build a Summary Page showing the Regional costs, earnings, and highlight the Annual Totals as Headline figures.

   •  Create a new Dashboard and source the Data Module that we built in Section 4

   •  Add a Cross-tab to Regional performance, format it, and hide summaries

   •  Add Summary Widgets to show Headline Annual Figures

In this video, we will see how the Navigation Paths that we defined in previous section are accessible in the Dashboard. We will also learn about Widget Connection Links and change them.

   •  Drill down from Regions to Markets and Branches within the crosstab

   •  Drill across to the Products and notice that each time you are selecting a cell, the Summary Widgets are getting updated

   •  See how the widgets are linked and modify the links, so that drill-down can be performed without changing Summary Widgets

Are you getting wrong results for the ratios? Well, it is not totally wrong. In this video, we will learn about two ways of aggregating and see which the right way to roll up the ratios is.

   •  Create a new page for Branch level data and build a 'Ratio' calculation

   •  Use the ratio on Cross-tab and notice that it brings wrong result. Understand the root cause

   •  Fix the problem to get the right Ratio, define Number Formatting, and create one more Ratio using data from two different tables

The slickest widget used to show headline figures against the targets and trend micro-chart is the KPI widget. Your Dashboard cannot be complete without it.

   •  Build Product Page and define Color Coding (conditional highlights)

   •  Learn about the KPI widget

   •  Build four KPI widgets to show the two best performing and two worst performing products, against their targets and their trend

Let us build the final tab in the Dashboard to employee's contributions to the earnings. It will also be the best page to use when discussing employee's performance and training.

   •  Create a waterfall chart showing how each product contributed to the Total Annual Earnings

   •  Build a radial chart to show employee's performance within the peer group

   •  See how the widget connectivity is helpful to dissect a product's performance, as well as, discuss employee's performance

Often, we would like to group certain categories together in a visualization because they together form one logical category, or they are simply too small to be shown as independent categories. In this video, we will see how to achieve it easily.

   •  Identify the categories that we would like to club together, on a waterfall widget

   •  Learn how to use the Data Group functionality to combine them into a logical category and give it a name

   •  See that Cognos automatically creates the drill-down path to provide ability to navigate from Data Groups from individual categories and back

Cognos provides powerful feature of creating Relative Date Filters, and filtered metrics for example, Current Year, Last Year, YTD, etc. In this video, we will see how to implement them in data module.

   •  Add linked data module for 'Gregorian Calendar' and map the Date data item to it

   •  Examine how Date data item inherits the Date Filters, which will work on the system date

   •  See how to map a metric or measure to Relative Date item, so that Cognos will automatically create the virtual filtered metrics; for example, 'Year-to-Date Costs'

Projecting data on maps using the common location names and latitude and longitude references.

   •  Pull MAP visualization and use it to show Costs data at Region level. See how Regions are automatically identified and colored in heat-map fashion

   •  Link Latitude and Longitude data items to map and use it to project the Invested Assets data as points

   •  Examine out of box features of map like show/hide layers and zoom in/out and use the Virtual Metric (YTD) on the map

Cognos provides forecasting capability in Line, Column, and Bar charts. Let us learn how to enable it and how it works.

   •  See how to enable forecasting in a line chart

   •  Learn how to examine the Forecast data and statistical parameters that Cognos has generated and used for plot chart

   •  Enable forecasting on a Column chart and also see one scenario when Cognos cannot forecast data due to lack of data points.

While IT developers and administrators can develop full scale data security using various options provided by Framework manager and administration console, the business users of Dashboards can also build data security using Cognos Macro functions to identify the user. In this video, we will learn one such method and protect the Employee level data in the Contributor's tab.

   •  We will learn about a Cognos Macro function that provides the name and roles of 'current user'

   •  We will see how to check which data belongs to the 'current user' by looking for the account name in the data column

   •  Implement filter on the Contributor's tab to show only the data pertaining to the user of the Dashboard, do that the Dashboard can be rolled out to wider audience and all employees will only see their own data in this tab

There are sophisticated options at our disposal when defining join between two tables. In this video, we will learn about them.

   •  See how to create relationship on a condition other than Equal To (=) condition

   •  Define a 'Range Condition' using <= and >=

   •  Learn how to optimize Join performance using the filters on large table

Let us learn what Story is and how to use the Story Editor.

   •  Learn what STORY is and why it is useful

   •  Create a new Story from scratch

   •  Learn how to use Story Editor screen and various options

Can you use the visualizations from existing Dashboards in Story? Learn how to do so in just three steps.

• Identify the visualizations that you would like to re-use

• Pin them down

• Use them on the Story

In this video, you will learn how to quickly make your STORY aesthetically stunning using the Themes, Animation, and Info-Graphics.

• Change the Theme and notice how most of the controls automatically change their appearance

• Define 'Mark ups' on timeline to highlight certain part of the visualization during the animation

• Learn two ways to use the Info-Graphics

Let us give finishing touch and learn about various way to share the Story and Dashboard with other users.

• Tidy up the titles, alignments, etc. to prepare the Story for sharing with others

• Learn three ways to share the Story and Dashboards

• Look at how to customize the URL to hide Application Bar and Navigation Bars, that is, Open in Full Screen mode

In this video, we will summarize the topics covered in this course.

• Review the concepts explained in each section