Monday, February 28, 2011

Cognos Test - Report Studio

Have created the below online-test which can be taken by anyone to check their knowledge on Cognos Report Studio before attempting the cognos certification exam COG-112:

http://www.wiziq.com/online-tests/24850-cognos-report-studio-basics

Friday, February 25, 2011

Cognos Report Studio - II

Q. What is Condition Explorer in Report Studio?

Ø  Condition Explorer allows you to manage the variables that are being used in the report.

Q. What is a Page set in Cognos Report Studio?

Ø  The set of pages to render according to a grouping structure.

Q. What are classes in Cognos Report Studio?

Ø  Classes provide a default style to be applied to the objects.

Q. How you do “Conditional Highlighting” on a report in Report Studio?

Ø  The steps to add conditional highlighting to a report are listed below:
a)     Select the list column body for which you want to set conditional highlighting.
b)    From the Style toolbar, click Conditional Styles.
c)     In the New Conditional Style list, select Advanced Conditional Style.
d)    Type a name for the style. Click on New Advanced Condition.
e)     In the Expression Definition pane, specify terms for the expression.
f)     Select a style from the Style list. Edit to define a custom style.
g)    Click Ok and run the report.

  Q. How do you convert a list to cross-tab in Cognos Report Studio?
Ø  To convert a list to a cross-tab, follow the listed steps:
            1. Click the columns that you want to appear as columns or nested columns in the cross-tab.
            2. From the structure menu, click “Pivot List to Crosstab”.

Q. How can you hide an object in Report Studio?

Ø  Set its “Box Type” property to “None”.

Q. How do you hide the rows that have null values?

Ø  You can hide the rows having null values by applying conditional formatting as when you find null values in rows make the box type none in the properties.

Q. How can you hide a column in Report Studio?

Ø  For Crosstab reports –
a)     Group on the column and create aggregation to have the column total in the bottom row.
b)    Click the Unlock button on Report studio toolbar.
c)     Now select the “text item” and delete it.
d)    Select the empty crosstab node after deleting the text. Change its padding to 0 pixels and font to 0.001 pt size.

Q. How can you Specify what appears when no data is available in a report?
Ø  The steps  are as listed below:
a)     Select the data container in the report.
b)    From the properties pane, set the “No Data Contents” property to Yes.
c)     No data contents tab is displayed, which can be used to drop “Text item” or “Layout Calculation” to be displayed in case of no data in report.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

COGNOS TRAINING

Below is the detailed course outline of Cognos 8 training. For further information, contact guideoncognos@gmail.com.

1. Overview of Business Intelligence
                      i.        What is Business Intelligence
                     ii.        Importance & Uses of BI
                    iii.        Components of BI
                    iv.        Business Intelligence Roadmap

2. Overview of Data Warehousing
                      i.        What is Data Warehouse
                     ii.        OLTP and OLAP systems
                    iii.        Data Warehouse Architecture
                    iv.        Star Schema

3. Cognos 8 BI introduction
                      i.        Cognos Architecture
                     ii.        Installation of Cognos 8 BI
                    iii.        Configuring Cognos 8 BI
                    iv.        Different studios in Cognos 8 BI

4. Cognos 8 BI Administration
                      i.        Create and Modify Data Sources
                     ii.        Create Users, Roles and Groups
                    iii.        Define permission/security settings

5. Cognos Connection QuickTour
                      i.        Navigation - Public and Private Folder
                     ii.        Scheduling – Report, format options, job
                    iii.        Create URL, Portals, Pages, Report views
                    iv.        Cognos Configuration, Content Store
                     v.        Security setup and Deployment(import,export)

6. Cognos Query Studio
                      I.        Introduction to Query Studio
                     II.        Create Reports (List, Crosstab, Charts, Grouped List)
                    III.        Report Layout and formatting
                   IV.        Sorting, Grouping & Subtotals
                    V.        Applying Filters, Prompts & Calculations
                   VI.        Drill Through Reports
                  VII.        Run and Manage Reports

7. Cognos Analysis Studio
                      I.        Introduction to Analysis Studio
                     II.        Creating a basic Analysis
                    III.        Insert data, Nest data
                   IV.        Exploring data
                    V.        Change measure, Drill down
                   VI.        Insert a calculation, Sharing data

8. Cognos Report Studio
                      I.        Introduction to Report Studio
                     II.        Creating List, Crosstab, Chart, Repeater, Maps
                    III.        Formatting Reports
                   IV.        Creating prompts, filters, calculations
                    V.        Conditional formatting
                   VI.        Master detail and drill through reports
                  VII.        Report bursting
                 VIII.        Setting Variables
                   IX.        Set operators
                    X.        Report functions & Report validation

9. Cognos Framework Manager
                      I.        Introduction to Framework Manager
                 (User Interface, Navigation, Objects, Metadata modeling)
                     II.        Creating Model & Namespace (Layers)
                    III.        Importing Metadata
                   IV.        Creating Query Subjects & Query Items
                    V.        Creating Relationships & setting cardinalities
                   VI.        Verify model, publishing package
                  VII.        Add Business Rules & Set Governors
                 VIII.        Assigning package level security
                   IX.        Calculations & Filters

10. Cognos Event Studio
 
                      I.        Introduction to Event Studio
                     II.        Creating Agents
                    III.        Specify an Event condition
                   IV.        Scheduling Agent