IBM Cognos Supportlink

Techniques and features from IBM Cognos Support Services

We’ve heard your feedback about the challenges you've faced in accessing IBM Cognos Support and we understand you’ve seen changes to some support systems and processes. However, our team members are the same dedicated people offering you the Cognos-specific knowledge and expertise you have always relied on.

Often the data in an IBM Cognos report needs user interaction for various reasons like researching how the particular product is being sold during the specific period or how much is the profit/loss against the expected value. Have you ever thought about creating such an interactive report in IBM Cognos rather than just giving the static report?

The specific relational databases listed in the Supported Environments for Express are the ones IBM Cognos Express can connect to natively. However, as indicated in the footnote, Xcelerator and Advisor can only connect through ODBC. This means the specific relational databases listed are only relevant to Express Reporter and not to Xcelerator and (Data) Advisor.

This document describes a method of choosing a measure column to sort a report in dimensional / DMR reports.

The annual conference for IBM Cognos customers has a new name! IBM Cognos Forum is now "Business Analytics Forum." The new name reflects both the expanded scope of this year’s conference and the enormous emphasis that IBM is placing on the analytics agenda. And this year, you get two conferences for one great price as Forum is held in conjunction with the annual IBM Information On Demand conference.

With a Roman Legion's worth of bagged lunches making their way through the revolving doors of the Marriott Park Rome, it's a good time to reflect on the first-ever Business Analytics Program at IOD EMEA. I'll be posting more data, findings and maybe a word cloud or two after a few days off with the Nikon, but for now here's a summary of what I've seen and thought about.

Farhana Alarakhiya is Director of Analytic Applications for IBM Business Analytics software. Smart, focused and impeccably dressed, she took time to answer five questions from me about IBM Cognos Analytic Applications - What they do, who they're for and how they're different from our other business analytics software.

Wayne Eckerson wrote a great post last week explaining why "Purple People" are the key to overcoming the communications, culture and skills gap between IT and business. I've been following this particularly thorny area of BI for years, but never before have I seen the problem laid out so clearly.

The strength of a midsize company lies in its agility. It has fewer layers of management and limited bureaucratic processes. It can respond quickly to changing business conditions and switch marketing tactics, cut operating costs or tap into new revenue streams more quickly than bigger companies in their markets.