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Highlighting Every Other Row in a Report Using IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced with a Twist

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For an updated version of this blog post using IBM Cognos Analytics 11.1.7, click here.

For users of IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced (formerly Business Insight Advanced), a popular request is to have the ability to highlight every other row in a list report. This technique has been demonstrated with IBM Cognos Report Studio using the running-count() and mod() functions. The issue is that IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced does not expose all functions that can be used in query calculations, so users think they are not available.

This article will demonstrate how to highlight every other row using IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced by entering a ‘non-exposed’ function in the expression editor (the twist!). Read more

A Sales Perspective on Incentive Compensation and Sales Performance Management

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On April 13, 2012, IBM announced the acquisition of Varicent, a leading provider of sales performance management (SPM) and incentive compensation (IC) analytics software. The Ironside Group loves this move as it further sets IBM business analytics solutions apart from the pack. This acquisition is continued proof of IBM delivering on its strategic growth objective of expanding its analytics portfolio to help enable a “smarter planet”. When reviewing this acquisition, it appears the most quantifiable value proposition marketed is heavily weighted towards improving back-end sales operations; “reduce sales operations administration by 40-50%, reduce commission calculation and erroneous payments by 90+%, etc.” This article is going to focus on what I believe to be the real value of a commercial IC and SPM solution. Read more

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Introduction to Predictive Modeling

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Predictive Analytics 101

Business intelligence focuses on the identification and understanding of events that happened in the past; that is “what’s happened?” and “why has it happened?” Business imperatives and other constraints are increasingly driving organizations to look forward and use their data to ensure decisions that are being made today will lead to wins in the future. Predictive analytics has often been viewed with hesitation and intimidation and seen as only relevant to statistical specialists, but with the advent and evolution of the IBM SPSS solutions, the power of predictive analytics can be harnessed by a much broader group of users. This newsletter article describes what predictive analytics is, how it is used, when it is used, and how to integrate it into your organization. Read more

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Building Effective IBM Cognos Active Reports: Part 2

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Part 1 of Building Effective IBM Cognos Active Reports, described Active Report Variables, Connections, and how they work together to make dynamic content possible in IBM Cognos 10 Active Reports. When the user interacts with a report item, one or more Active Report variable values can be changed. These changes can trigger effects in the report (selecting data, filtering controls, etc.). This article discusses how to use static controls to make larger scale changes to what the report displays. Read more

How to Make the Most of Your Cognos Investment

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Given recent innovations in the latest IBM Cognos toolset and the promise of business intelligence to provide a competitive advantage, more and more customers are critically evaluating their business intelligence strategy and roadmap, including customers who own earlier versions of Cognos and those looking to make an initial investment into the current version of the Cognos suite of solutions. There is a common requirement among both these customers: to make the most of their Cognos investment (existing or new) while also controlling software and project costs.

With over 13 years working with Cognos, the Ironside Group is uniquely suited to help your organization address these issues by providing guidance when architecting a comprehensive solution that includes training, services, and software that fits your organizational needs. In this article, we will focus on the software license cost.

There are two primary costs when considering purchasing software: the upfront purchase price (discussed here) and maintenance costs (which will be discussed in a future article). Read more

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A Comprehensive Guide to Cognos Insight for Existing Cognos BI Customers: Part 1

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So you’ve likely heard about Cognos Insight, the new and exciting self-service, desktop dashboarding and analysis solution that has been making waves since its release in Q1 2012. This incredibly intuitive and easy-to-use tool enables rapid arrival at answers and simple what-if analysis by allowing users to drag-and-drop their way to a personal TM1 OLAP cube on their desktop. There are two versions of Cognos Insight, one is standalone that is intended for customers without an existing installation of IBM Cognos 10 BI, and the other is an add-on module for IBM Cognos 10 BI which provides a means for provisioning the desktop tool to your users via Cognos Connection. There has been a bit of confusion around the latter of those two, and the purpose of this guide is to clear the air on Cognos Insight for existing Cognos 10 customers. Read more

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BAO Inc. gets ahead of the competition with help from Ironside Group – Case Study

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Overview

Headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts, BAO Inc. acts as a partner for sales and marketing teams in the high-tech industry, developing powerful, aggressive go-to-market strategies. BAO gives organizations the real-time insight, tools, and resources they need to transform their businesses – to drive new revenue while increasing the profitability of existing accounts; to optimize sales and marketing operations; to outcompete the competition; or all of the above. BAO has a proven track record for success – generating more than $10 million in pipeline for its clients every day. Read more

Bringing Analytics to the Front Line at Symmons Industries – June 25th

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Join us at noon eastern daylight time (EDT) on June 25, and learn how Symmons Industries outperforms with analytics-driven reporting.

In the never-ending pursuit of keeping or gaining a competitive edge, your ability to extract greater value from information can make all the difference. Yet traditional reporting approaches can limit users’ visibility into key metrics and performance indicators that are needed for optimizing decisions. And this poor visibility affects the already overworked IT department, which has to find ways to meet users’ needs.

Join us for the IBM TechTalk event on June 25 to see how IBM client Symmons Industries was able to meet order demands in real time and make its lean manufacturing processes outperform using an IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10 solution—and how IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10 software can help you bypass traditional reporting challenges.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how comprehensive business intelligence (BI) reporting and dashboarding capabilities can deliver immense business value by giving your users the information they need to support better decisions.

Register now for the June 25 TechTalk web seminar.

Date: June 25, 2012

Time: Noon EDT

Register Here

 

Performance Management Best Practices Roadshow

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The Ironside Group and IBM are hosting a series of complimentary Lunch N’ Learn’s where we will discuss benefits that our customers are experiencing with Integrating Budgeting, Reporting, Consolidation and Forecasting using IBM Business Analytics Solutions. Read more

Self Service BI and Analytics IT Briefing with Dr.Claudia Imhoff at the Capital Grille – May 30th

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As the velocity of business increases, business users are less willing to wait for the IT department to create custom reports and analytics. In order for customer analytics to be truly effective, they must be made available to all customer-facing personnel and attain the status of supporting fact-based decision-making used by the entire enterprise. At the same time, BI teams would like to offload report and analytics creation duties to users and focus on morevalue-added activities.

A new crop of self-service BI and analytics tools promises to empower users while liberating the BI team from ad hoc reporting tasks. To work, these tools must be easier to use than previous generations of BI tools, and give the BI team a measure of control over the semantic representation and use of back-end systems and oversight of the creation of standardized reports and dashboards for decision-making. Read more