Have you ever tried to change a Metric Studio chart? If you have, then you now it can be downright maddening and frustrating. Well, I am here to give you four tips that will save your sanity and just might stop you from throwing your hands up and losing all hope.

IBM Cognos Event Studio is often an underutilized Studio but has its place. I think it would be better to explain how you can use this Studio in your everyday duties instead of the traditional white paper approach. I will use a couple of examples that I think highlight how a business group (departments) can use Event Studio and how a database modeler can use Event Studio.

So, hopefully you read my previous blog on Innovation.  It is essential to success in this market.
WHAT IS INNOVATION: A new way of doing something.
Let’s look at a great example of innovation.   In 1968 at the Olympics in Mexico, a man named Dick Fosbury set an Olympic record with a move that others called [...]

Your Mission: Complete the company presentation and merge data from 5 different places. And here’s the kicker, the numbers have to be CORRECT.

So, you put on your thinking cap, you fit more windows in your tiny computer screen than you can really read, and you begin the task you dread every month. You first make sure you have all the data that you need to compile. Check. Then you open last month’s presentation and start removing all the reports, graphs and data from last month. Check. You open your Excel spreadsheet that checks your numbers to make sure they are correct. Check. You are armed with the tools and ready to go to battle because that is really what this whole process is.

But does it really have to be that painful? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Welcome to IBM Cognos Go! Office - you probably own it and aren’t using it.

Framework Manager is the brains of IBM Cognos 8. It is often misunderstood and therefore abused by the misguided. So let’s talk about Framework Manager do’s and don’ts.

The promptmany macro function error message is such a letdown. Error QE-DEF-0406 is normally generated when you try to use the function to pass multiple values to a Sql stored procedure. By nature if a stored procedure have parameters, you can only set the parameter equal to a single. This is a problem if you want and need to pass multiple values to a stored procedure. Traditionally, Sql programmers use cursors to handle passing individual values one at a time to a procedure. Of course programmers would rather bite off their arm than willingly write a cursor if there is another viable alternative.

If you lessen the amount of custom work in the report and correct the issues in the database directly, you will see a marked improvement in report runtime and happier report writers.

Have you ever tried to do a nested IF THEN ELSE statement inside IBM Cognos Report Studio? If you have, you might run screaming because you can’t get the syntax just right. Granted, you could read the tips at the bottom as you build the syntax but shoot yourself in the head if you are not a programmer. You probably could pickup Chinese faster.

One of the most common misconceptions about Business Intelligence is that it is a technology solution. I buy the right software, hire the right consultants, plug it in and Boom……I have Business Intelligence. The reality is that Business Intelligence is a Business solution supported by technology not a technology solution supported by the business. It’s a business process; and if it is not implemented as a business process, it won’t matter how much money you throw at it, you are not going to get the value you intended.

So you’re about to start a BI project and have to choose between a specific tool. There are a few major players in the BI world, each of which has pro’s and con’s and depending on the customer, one may be better than the other. Business needs and flexible functionality should always be a top priority.