Report Studio

IBM Cognos Report Studio is a Web-based report authoring tool that professional report
authors and developers use to build sophisticated, multiple-page, multiple-query reports against
multiple databases. With Report Studio, you can create any reports that your organization
requires, such as invoices, statements, and weekly sales and inventory reports.
Use Report Studio for reports that
 are intended for a wide audience
 exist long enough to require maintenance for changing requirements and data
 require detailed control over the appearance
Your reports can contain any number of report objects, such as charts, crosstabs, and lists, as
well as non-BI components such as images, logos, and live embedded applications that you can
link to other information.

Relational and dimensional reporting styles

You can create reports in IBM Cognos Report Studio using either a relational reporting style
or a dimensional reporting style.
You can choose a reporting style from your viewpoint:
 If you think about your data as tables and columns, you have a relational viewpoint and
should use a relational reporting style.
 If you think about your data as a number of dimensions intersecting at cells, you have
a dimensional viewpoint and should use a dimensional reporting style.
Relational reporting style
The relational reporting style consists of lists. You focus the data with filters and summarize
with header and footer summaries.
 If your data is purely relational, then only query subjects and query items appear in the
Source tab, and you must use the relational reporting style.
 If your data is dimensional, then dimensions appear in the Source tab, and you can still
use a relational reporting style, but instead of query items (columns) and query subjects
(tables), you use measures, levels, and level properties.
Dimensional reporting style
The dimensional reporting style consists of measures and members from different hierarchies
arranged in a crosstab with cell values at the intersections. You focus the data with set
expressions that navigate from specific members in the hierarchy and summarize with set
summaries.
To see an example of dimensional style reporting with dimensional data, see the GO Balance
Sheet as at Dec 31, 2012 sample report in the GO Data Warehouse (analysis) package.
The dimensional reporting style is similar to report authoring in IBM Cognos Analysis Studio.
User Interface
Content Pane
The content pane contains objects that you can add to a report. You add objects to a report by
dragging them to the work area. The content pane contains these tabs:
 The Source tab contains items from the package selected for the report, such as data
items and calculations.
 The Data Items tab describes the queries created in the report.
 The Toolbox tab contains a variety of objects that you can add to the report, such as
text and graphics.
 The Search tab contains the results when you perform a search for members. You can
insert the members found in a search directly into a report.
 If you are authoring an active report, the Active Report Controls tab shows the
controls and active report variables inserted in a report and their relationships to one
another. You can click a control in this tab to quickly locate the control in the report as
well as set default values for variables.
 If you are authoring an active report, the Active Report Variables tab shows the active
report variables defined in a report. Use this tab to create new variables and set default
values.

Properties Pane
The Properties pane lists the properties that you can set for an object in a report.
You can obtain additional information about a property by selecting it and pressing F1. For
example, you can view the list of objects that use each property.
When you specify a value for a property, press Enter, click another property, or save the report
to ensure that the value is saved.
Tip: To view a description of the currently selected property at the bottom of the pane, from
the View menu, click Property Descriptions.

Explorer Bar
Pause the pointer over the following buttons on the Explorer bar to work with different parts
of a report:
 the page explorer button
You use Page Explorer to view or create new report pages and prompt pages or to
create and modify classes.
 the query explorer button
You use Query Explorer to create or modify queries in relational reporting or
dimensional reporting and to perform complex tasks, such as defining union joins and
writing SQL statements.
 the condition explorer button
You use Condition Explorer to work with variables to define conditions in a report.
Page Layers Area
Use the Page layers area to create sections, or page breaks, in a report to show values for each
member on a separate page. For example, you can drag Northern Europe sales territory from
the Source tab to the Page layers area. The report is broken into a separate page for each
territory within northern Europe. Each page's context appears in the report header.

Context Filter Area

When working with dimensional data, use the Context filter area to filter your report to show
values, or context, for only a specific data item. This technique is also known as a slicer filter.
For example, you can drag Sales Territory from the Source tab to the Context filter area.
When you click a specific territory from the list, the values in the crosstab change to represent
data for that territory.

Report Layout and Queries

Objects
You add layout objects to a page when you create a report. Below are objects that you will
use often when building reports in IBM Cognos Report Studio:
 list
Add a list to show data in rows and columns.
 crosstab
Add a crosstab to show data in a grid with dimensions along the rows and columns
and measures in the cells or intersection points.
 chart
 map
 repeater
Add a repeater to show each instance of a certain column or data item in a separate
frame.
 text
 block
Add a block to hold text or other information. Blocks are often used to lay out
horizontal bands of information.
 table
Queries
Queries determine what data items appear in the report. Sometimes you want detailed rows of
data, which you obtain by using a simple SELECT statement. Other times you must calculate
totals or averages using summary functions and grouped columns or must apply filters to show
only the data you want.
IBM Cognos Report Studio automatically creates the queries you need as you build reports.
However, you can modify these queries or create your own custom queries to get the results
you want.
The IBM Cognos Software Development Kit
When you create a report, you are creating a report specification.
A report specification is an XML file that you can view (Tools, Show Specification). In
addition, you can view the specification for a selected object with the Show Specification
(Selection) menu option.
You can also programmatically create or modify reports by using an editing tool to work with
report specifications. You then use the IBM Cognos Software Development Kit to implement
the reports in your IBM Cognos Business Intelligence environment. This is useful if, for
example, you must make the same modification in many reports. Rather than opening each
report and making the change, you can automate the process using the Software Development
Kit, thereby saving you time.

Chapter 3. Creating a report

When you create a report, you are actually creating a report specification. The report
specification defines the queries and prompts that are used to retrieve data and the layouts and
styles used to present the data. For simplicity, the report specification is named by the same
name as the report.
Specify the Data Package
The packages that you use to generate reports are based on models that are created in the
modeling tool, IBM Cognos Framework Manager. A model is a set of related objects, such as
query subjects, dimensions, filters, and calculations. When you open a package in IBM Cognos
Business Intelligence, these model objects are visible in the left frame.
Insert a Single Data Item
You can insert a single data item anywhere in your report using the singleton object. The
singleton object retrieves only the first row value for that query. Inserting a single data
item is useful when you want to show a value that is independent from the rest of the values in
the report or when you want to insert some boilerplate text, such as a company name and
address. For example, you can add the total revenue value in the header of each page in a report.

Chapter 4. Lists
Use lists to show detailed information from your database, such as product lists and customer
lists.
A list shows data in rows and columns. Each column shows all the values for a data item in the
database or a calculation based on data items in the database.

You can specify whether to automatically add an overall aggregate summary in the list footer
and a summary for any groups in the list by selecting Automatic group and summary
behavior for lists in the IBM Cognos Report Studio options. The default aggregation as
specified in your enterprise data source is used.
Using Repeaters
Use repeaters to repeat items when you run the report. For example, you can use repeaters to
create mailing labels, including customer names and addresses.
To build a repeater, drag the Repeater or Repeater Table object from the Toolbox tab to the
work area. Use repeaters to repeat items across a single row without a particular structure. For
example, you want to create a list that contains Year, and Product line. For each year, you want
all product lines to appear in a single row. To do this, create a list with Year as a column and
with a repeater as a second column. Then insert Product line into the repeater. Use repeater
tables to repeat items in a table structure. Drop the items in the repeater, and modify the
properties of the repeater to obtain the results you want. For example, you can specify how
many frames appear per page in a repeater table by typing values in the Across and Down
properties.
Horizontal pagination is not supported for data containers, such as lists or crosstabs that are
nested in repeater tables.

Example - Create Mailing Labels

You are a report author at The Sample Outdoors Company, which sells sporting equipment.
You are requested to create mailing labels for all of the company's retailers.
Procedure
1. Open IBM Cognos Report Studio with the GO Data Warehouse (query) package.
2. In the Welcome dialog box, click Create a new report or template.
3. In the New dialog box, click Repeater Table and click OK.
4. Click the repeater, click the select ancestor button in the Properties pane title bar, and
click Repeater Table.
Tip: You can also click the container selector (three orange dots) of the repeater table to
select it.
5. In the Properties pane, set the following properties:
 Set the Across property to 2.
 Set the Down property to 5.
 Double-click the Table Properties property, select the Fixed size check box, and
click OK.
6. From the Toolbox tab, drag the Table object to the repeater.
The Insert Table dialog box appears.
7. In the Number of columns box, type 1 and click OK.
8. Click the table, ensure that you see Table Cell in the Properties pane title bar, and modify
the following properties:
 Double-click Background Image, click Specified and click Browse.
 Click logo.jpg and click OK.
 In the Background Image dialog box, under Position, click the align top right button.
 Under Tiling, click Do not tile and click OK.
  Double-click Size & Overflow, and in the Height box, type 175, and click OK.
9. Click the table, click the select ancestor button in the Properties pane title bar, and click
Table.
Tip: You can also click the container selector (three orange dots) of the table to select it.
10. In the Properties pane, specify properties for the table:
 Double-click Border.
 In the Style box, click Solid line.
 In the Width box, click 1 pt.
 In the Color box, click Black.
 Under Preview, click the apply all borders button and click OK.
 Double-click Font, and under the Size box, click 8pt, and click OK.
11. From the Toolbox tab, drag the Block object to the repeater 8 times to create 8 blocks.
12. Drag the Text Item object to the first block:
 In the Text dialog box, type To: and click OK.
 Select the text item.
 Double-click the Font property, set the weight to Bold, and click OK.
13. Click the first block, and, in the Properties pane, specify properties for the first block:
 Double-click the Padding property, type 35 in the box on the right, click mm as the
unit, and click OK.
 Set the Horizontal Alignment property to Center.
14. From the Source tab, expand Sales and Marketing (query), Sales (query), and Retailer
site and drag seven data items to the remaining seven blocks.
15. Ctrl+click the seven blocks to select them, and in the Properties pane, specify properties
for the seven blocks:
 Double-click the Padding property, type 25 in the box on the left, click mm as the unit,
and click OK.
 Set the Horizontal Alignment property to Left.

Chapter 5. Crosstabs
Use crosstab reports, also known as matrix reports, to show the relationships between three or
more query items. Crosstab reports show data in rows and columns with information
summarized at the intersection points.
For example, the crosstab below shows the gross profit and revenue by product line for each
year.
Crosstab Nodes and Crosstab Node Members
When you add data items to crosstabs, you create crosstab nodes and crosstab node members.
These objects allow you to easily create crosstabs, by dragging data items to crosstabs.
Crosstabs are dimensional objects that have row edges and column edges. Each edge is
composed of a set of crosstab nodes. Each crosstab node contains the following:
 One or more crosstab node members.
 Zero or one nested crosstab node, which contains one or more crosstab node members
or nested crosstab nodes.

Each crosstab node member refers to a data item that contains an expression to define the
members in the crosstab.

The following crosstab contains four crosstab nodes.

1) Crosstab node 1 contains a single node member for the total. This node refers to the
data item Total (Product line).
2) Crosstab node 2 contains a crosstab node member that refers to the data item Product
line. This member has a nested crosstab node containing a crosstab node member that
refers to the data item Product type.
3) Crosstab node 3 contains a single node member for the average. This node refers to
the data item Average (Product line).
4) Crosstab node 4 contains a crosstab node member that refers to the data item Order
year. This member has two nested crosstab nodes. The first node contains a crosstab
node member that refers to the data item Order month. The second node contains a
crosstab node member for the total. This node refers to the data item Total (Order
month)
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