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402 Solving Operational Business Intelligence with InfoSphere Warehouse Advanced Edition

11.3 IBM Cognos Business Insight

IBM Cognos Business Insight is the key web-based interface that allows you to

create, open, edit, and interact with a business intelligence dashboard. Thus, the

tool is used by both dashboard developers and report authors, and by users and

analysts. It is highly interactive and intuitive. Figure 11-2 shows the essential

elements of the interface.

Figure 11-2 IBM Cognos Business Insights GUI layout

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Key areas of the GUI shown in the figure include the following items.

򐂰 Application bar

The application bar displays the name of the current dashboard and contains

the icons for different actions that you can perform in the dashboard layout

area.

򐂰 Dashboard layer area

The dashboard layer area is a workspace in which you can combine

information from various sources to gain insight into your business. This is the

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Figure derived from IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1 Handbook, SG24-7912.

Chapter 11. Cognos Business Intelligence for InfoSphere Warehouse 403

main work area where various widgets with BI and non-BI content are

arranged for optimal interaction with users.

򐂰 Content pane

The content pane contains multiple tabs of all the information that can be

included in the dashboard area, including the following items:

– Content tab

The content tab displays IBM Cognos content in a hierarchy of folders and

subfolders with dashboards that you can open and reports that you can

add to a workspace

–Toolbox tab

The toolbox tab includes a palette of widgets that can be used in the

dashboard, including:

• Widgets that can add additional content to the workspace of a business

user, such as images, HTML content, or RSS feeds.

• Widgets that allow you to filter already added content, sliders, and

select value filters.

򐂰 Widgets

Widgets are containers for all objects that you can add to the workspace. For

business users, widgets allow the interaction and manipulation with the

content that they contain, whether it is a report or a filter. There are two types

of widgets provided, content widgets and toolbox widgets.

– Content widgets can contain IBM Cognos content, as listed here:

• Report widgets contain content authored in Report Studio, Query

Studio, Analysis Studio, or Metrics Studio.

• Powerplay widgets contain content from IBM Cognos Powerplay

Studio (OLAP).

• TM1widgets contain content from IBM Cognos TM1® (in-memory

OLAP).

• IBM Cognos Navigator is a navigation browser that displays IBM

Cognos BI content such as folders, packages, and reports.

– Toolbox widgets are used for adding non-Cognos content to the

workspace, either to add or filter information:

• Page widget is a toolbox widget to display HTML content in the

dashboard.

• Image widget displays a single URL-accessible image in the

dashboard.

• Inbox and RSS feed widgets display RSS feeds.