1. What’s New: Versions 3 and 4 of IBM Cognos 8 BI
Vladimir Stojanovski
Solutions Architect for Texas and Louisiana
State/Local Government and Higher Education
© 2009 IBM Corporation

2. IBM Cognos 8v3
© 2009 IBM Corporation

3. 8.3 – Key New Features
 Briefing books
 Self-Service personal alerts
 Improved Transformer capabilities
 Global dashboard filtering
 More flexible organization of information
 Express authoring mode
 New scorecard portlets
 Model Advisor
 Proactive Administration (System Health Metrics)
 Report & Job Queue Prioritization

4. Briefing Books
Inter-mingle different page
Live TOC to enable orientations within the
quick navigation same report
No Data Handling allows the
A singleton is a dataframe
business user to customize the
that displays the first value
report when there is no data found
for a single query item
 Professional authors are able to quickly combine different styles and
formats within a single report
 Business users can easily navigate multi-style, multi-page reports
with critical information formatted for easy consumption.

5. Self-Service Personal Alerts
Define how
you would like
to be alerted
Highlight the report, or
Receive alert and
value within a report that
monitor over time
you wish to be alerted on
 Users can easily create their own alerts for scheduled
reports
 Users can control when and how they receive critical
information without IT intervention

6. Improved Transformer Capabilities
CUBE BUILDING
AND DEPLOYMENT
Reporting Cognos 8 Reporting
Ad-Hoc Query Analysis
Ad-Hoc Query
Transformer 8 PowerCubes Relational /
Non-Relational
 Provides business friendly tools for end users to create
and manage their own cubes optimized for exploration and
analysis
 IT can leverage existing investments and enables targeted
analysis to speed decision making

7. Additional capabilities ...
 Global dashboard filtering
– Allowing users to quickly
filter on all data contained
in dashboard
 More flexible organization
of information
– Ability to push packages
to any folder in the content
manager
– Enable organization of a
large number of packages

8. Express Authoring Mode
Working with live
data to accelerate
report production
Pre-defined financial
calculations
Statement style
formatting
Optimized toolbox for
crosstab functionality
 Provides financial/business analysts a quick and easy mechanism to
create formatted reports to support financial and business processes
 Instant feedback and a focused user-interface satisfies self service
needs

9. New Scorecard Portlets
Embed scorecards
into Cognos
Connection
Global filtering
Embed history
charts into Cognos
Connection
 Users can now access scorecards and history charts through
Cognos Connection using new scorecard portlets.
 Easier to access and communicate scorecard information and
promote broad use across the organization

10. Model Advisor
Generate a quick report Pinpoint areas in the
Launch Model Advisor
highlighting recommended model where improvements
from Framework Manager
areas of optimization can be made
 Enables users to apply proven Cognos modeling
practices to optimize model creation
 Reduces the amount of time and effort to build high-
quality models

11. Proactive Administration
Prioritize critical
View hundreds of system process to ensure
metrics, consolidated consistent service
in summary views is delivered
Provides centralized
holistic management of
Cognos solution
 Provide administrators with more detailed metrics and
thresholds. Also leverages Cognos 8 capabilities such as
event management and reporting.
 Reduce the time it takes to identify, troubleshoot and
resolve an issue

12. Queue Prioritization and Report Rerun
Monitor job queue
Re-start report runs
Set priority on scheduled
reports on demand.
 Improve IT’s visibility and control enabling them to take action on
reporting activities
 Provides administrators with the ability to change priority of a
scheduled report or re-run a report on a user’s behalf

13. © 2009 IBM Corporation

14. “Informed” Functionality
Provides more trusted information with the additional context
to add perspective to the information
 Annotations
 Charting enhancements
 Data Lineage
 More interactivity on mobile devices

15. Informed
Annotations
Cognos 8 v4 delivers information with greater…
 Context
 Relevance
 Confidence in the information

16. Informed
Annotations

17. Informed
Annotations – Report Properties (Advanced Options)

18. Informed
Bubble chart property – ‘Empty’
bubbles are negative values
Charting Enhancements
New color palettes to match
Marimekko Chart industry standards
More visually appealing and interesting reports
 New and improved charts types available
 Background design and color flexibility (ie Excel palette)

19. Informed
Data Lineage
Select Objects of Interest from
Report View or Package
Depending on your Role, See
Business or Technical Lineage
 Gain User Confidence
– Provide the ability to understand where the data their decisions originated

20. Informed
Data Lineage Access Metadata Workbench
Directly from Cognos Reports
Metadata Workbench - View
Other Reports that Contain this
Data, Trace Back to Source
 Business users easily see where data originated to gain confidence
in the data they use to drive decisions
 Data modelers and report authors see lineage from report to source,
saving time with report development and troubleshooting

21. Informed
Business Glossary
Select Objects of Browse definitions,
Interest from Report examples, term owner,
View or Package usage and related terms
Access Business With appropriate
Glossary directly from rights, contribute to
Cognos reports dictionary of terms
Integration with InfoSphere Business Glossary
 Improve overall business understanding of what terms mean
 Build enterprise dictionary of terms to align organization and increase data
confidence

22. Informed
Go! Mobile
Support for all Prompt types
on the Mobile Device
 Enhanced Prompt Support
 Location Aware Content

23. Informed
Go! Mobile
 Send the report to mobile recipients Select the recipients…
 Fully Integrated Cognos 8 Scheduling
 Ability to Burst reports to Multiple Mobile users

24. “Engaged” Functionality
Cognos 8 v4 invites business users with more a dynamic & interactive
business intelligence experience
 Dynamic and Customizable Dashboards
 Authoring and Exploration via BI Search
 Extended Analysis for Excel Support
 PowerPlay on Cognos 8 Platform
 New Scorecard Portlets

25. Engaged
Go! Dashboard Flash graphics deliver
Rich Charts and enable
Re-Sorts, Filters etc
Highly interactive Slider object
Dynamic
 Rich Flash graphics
 Quickly create visually appealing dashboards

26. Engaged
Go! Dashboard
Modify Chart Types
Personalization options enable
Reorganize the Dashboard
End Users to customize look and
Layout
feel
Personalized
 Easy to use, Drag-and-Drop interface
 Arrange content in a way to maximize impact

27. Engaged
Go! Dashboard
Access to reports or report
‘parts’
Trusted
 Leverages existing secure Cognos content
 Cognos 8 full report or report parts

28. Engaged
Go! Search Search results categorized and
weighted; Includes 3rd Party
search results
 Search Assisted Exploration and Authoring
– Exploration – May drop you into PowerPlay Studio with a selected cube
– Authoring – May drop you into a Studio
 More relevant results
– Relevance adjustments
– Suggested content

29. Engaged
Go! Search
Go! Search tab added to the
standard admin area
 Improved Administration
– No longer required to edit the csnconfig.xml file
– Inclusion / Exclusion / Freshness / Relevance of Types, Content, Data
 Configuration of Third Party Search
– Google Search Appliance, IBM OmniFind Enterprise, IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition
 Admin Options - Index group items, Adjust resource utilization, …

30. Engaged
IBM Cognos Analysis for Excel
Users see metadata tree
instead of member tree
 Access to Relational data sources
– Not all data suited to Dimensional Model (e.g. price lists)
– Not a replacement for Query or Report Studio
– Avoid Time based reporting when leveraging relational data
– Lists added to support relational data

31. Engaged
IBM Cognos Analysis for Excel
New complex filters to
enable you to quickly
focus your data
 Complex Filters
– Contains, And, Or, brackets, etc.
– Very similar to Analysis Studio
– Can filter on Label or Measure

32. Engaged
IBM Cognos Analysis for Excel
 Preview
– Preview with no data
 Select Levels
– Put Levels side by side
(Like a relational table list)
 Expand Levels
– Expand All
– Multi-Select then Expand
 Exploration Style Sheets
– Header, total lines, etc.

33. Engaged
PowerPlay
PowerPlay
Studio
Zero footprint
Windows Client
administration
 Brings PowerPlay onto the Cognos 8 BI platform
 Maintains the same PowerPlay user interfaces
 Facilitates the migration of content from PowerPlay 7

34. Engaged
New PowerPlay Functionality
 Enable/Disable Drill-through to Cognos 8
 Support for IPv6
 PowerPlay Auditing integrated with C8 Audit database
 Complete Administrative Monitoring (including interactive)
 Transformer 8 Automation
 Performance improvements
– New load balancing algorithm
– On-demand thread creation available
– Age limit on Idle Connections for PPESBusServer
(if using on-demand thread creation)

35. Engaged
PowerPlay 7 → 8 Migration
 If upgrading from FCS…
– Must uninstall FCS if installing in the same directory
– The FCS Content Store can be retained and automatically updated
 Migration from PP 7 MR3 fully supported
 Support for Cubes from Cognos Connection with no associated reports
 Migrated packages, reports, etc. may be moved and renamed
 Security information captured
– Every time migration is run
– Only for relevant users
 Improved accuracy of cube mapping for duplicate named cubes

36. Engaged
New Scorecard Portlets Impact Diagram for
better operational
understanding
Strategy Map portlet
for easier strategy
communication
 Strategy map and impact diagram portlets
 Easier access to scorecard information
 Easy integration into 3rd party portal

37. “Aligned Theme”
Cognos 8 v4 improves alignment between strategy & operations,
increasing with complete visibility from business operations to
advanced analytics & strategic plans, e.g.
 Dimension Management
 Integration with Cognos Data Sources
 Expanded Conformance & Compliance to IT Standards
- New 3rd Party Release Support
- Deployment & Administration

38. Aligned
Replace manual, error prone
Business Viewpoint efforts with fully transparent
automated processes
Deliver shared, approved
Easily create their own
viewpoints across PM
perspective
 Benefits…
– Information structured to reflect the reality of the business
– Organizations can quickly respond to business change
– Plans and Actuals can be aligned to future structures

39. Aligned
Manage nominations,
approvals and versions with
Business Viewpoint business workflow
Maintain any and all
dimensions, attributes
and hierarchies
Visualize create and relate Assign specifics roles and
dimensions and flexibly add areas of responsibility across
any number of attributes the business community
 Drive a single, sanctioned source of dimensions and hierarchies across
performance management
 Integration into the entire Cognos portfolio
– Planning, BI, TM1 and Transformer

40. Aligned
Expanded IT Compliance
New 3rd Party Release Support
 IPv6
 Browsers: Firefox 3
 Adobe Acrobat Reader 9
 O/S: Linux on IBM System z
 Application Servers
– Update Versions: SAP Netweaver 7, IBM WebSphere 6.1
– 64-Bit Support: Tomcat, Netweaver, IBM WebSphere (32-Bit still
available)
 Database: Oracle 11g, Teradata 12

41. Aligned
Expanded IT Compliance
Deployment and Administration
 SQL Tagging (comments helpful in debugging)
 Virtual View Manager (Composite Information Server Rebranded)
 Hide Portal Objects
 Hide Logon Namespaces
 Improved Prompt Performance
 PowerPlay IPF Database Audit Logging
 PowerPlay Service Requests Display in Current Activities
 Six New Languages

42. Aligned
Integration with Cognos Data Sources
Integration with Cognos power Sources
Leverage Data of TM1 across performance management
– TM1 data available through published packages
TM1 – Cognos 8 BI capabilities available to Cognos TM1 communities
– TM1 cubes can be loaded by Data Manager from any source
Gain broader visibility into operational datasets
– Now! data available through published packages
Now!
– Deliver operational metrics across performance management
IT can leverage power of InfoSphere Cubing Services
Cubing
– Cubing Services data available through published packages
Services – Existing DBA skill set optimizes warehouse performance
Greater confidence to deploy on-the-fly views
Virtual View
– Rebrand and packaging of Composite Information Server
Manager

43. Any ESRI Users in the Room?
 We now have an out-of-box integration solution