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Chapter 11. Cognos Business Intelligence for InfoSphere Warehouse 407

11.4.2 IBM Cognos Active Report features

IBM Cognos Active Report produces reports that are an extension of existing

IBM Cognos Report Studio values and the IBM Cognos Platform. Users continue

to benefit from the enterprise value of one version of the truth, and new

interactive control types in IBM Cognos Report Studio serve as building blocks

for creating active reports. You use active report controls to create the

layout of

an active report and to

filter and sort data in the report.

Layout

To aid interaction with disconnected reports in IBM Cognos Active Report,

Report Studio has the following layout controls available:

򐂰 Tab controls

򐂰 Deck of card controls

򐂰 Control data for hiding or showing list columns

Filtering

Filtering allows users to focus on the data that is most important to them, such as

for their sales geography or product line. Filtering controls provided in IBM

Cognos Report Studio support filtering include the following items:

򐂰 Lists and drop-down lists

򐂰 Chart interaction

򐂰 Radio buttons

򐂰 Check boxes

򐂰 Toggle buttons

򐂰 Push buttons

11.4.3 Enable an existing report for active reporting

An existing report can be enabled for active reporting. As an example, we can

convert an existing report in the Customer Insight Pack samples into an IBM

Cognos Active Report.

We navigate in IBM Cognos Connection to the folder Public Folders 

Customer Insight  Sample Reports  Customer Profile  Transaction

Analysis. After opening the report Transaction Listing in the Report Studio

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editor, a window similar to Figure 11-7 is displayed. Note that the report is a

simple list of products for a customer and year.

Figure 11-7 Transaction listing report before converting to active reporting

First we convert the report to an active report by selecting File  Convert to

Active Report. Next we add a tab bar for Product. We insert a Data Tab Control

as shown in Figure 11-8 to the left of the existing list widget.

Figure 11-8 Data tab control widget

Chapter 11. Cognos Business Intelligence for InfoSphere Warehouse 409

We drop the Product level label on the box that says “Drop Item Here.”

Figure 11-9 displays the new tab bar after insertion.

Figure 11-9 Tab control bar for product

We create a connection variable by clicking the Interactive Behavior icon

(Figure 11-10).

Figure 11-10 Interactive Behavior icon

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We create a new variable connected to Product (Figure 11-11).

Figure 11-11 Product tab connection variable connecting to Product value

We now save and run the report, which generates a data file with an *.mht

extension. The file can be sent to any user or it can be published centrally, as

with other data file. It can be viewed in a browser by double-clicking it.

We can open the report file in a browser and navigate, as shown in Figure 11-12.

Figure 11-12 Active report navigation

The report file is disconnected from the data source, but it is still interactive.

Note: If using Mozilla Firefox, you must install the noMHT add-on before the

file can be displayed properly.