IBM released Cognos Analytics 11.1.7 in August 2020. This is a Long-Term Support (LTSR) release, as it is the final release of the 11.1.x version. Here is a list of new and changed features in this new release.
Getting Started
New APIs for developers – next generation APIs now available for developers to automate, scale, and accelerate their use of Cognos Analytics.
- RESTful APIs – allow you to create, read, update, and delete common operations, such as customizing themes and extensions; managing content and data sources; and working with tenants, users, and roles.
- JavaScript APIs – enable you to develop applications that leverage an assortment of JavaScript classes and methods. Use the provided dashboard sample to get started with creating your own dynamic dashboard.
Additional Carbon Design changes – new icons and updates to fonts and colors and icons from previous releases may have changed as well. The adoption of Carbon Design provides a consistent user experience across IBM products.
Accelerator Catalog samples – assets are available for various skill levels and are categorized across multiple industries and business function – can be searched for and opened from the Cognitive Learn Pane.
Dashboards
Schematics – a library of similar images, like seating plans or stadium layouts, that use similar keys and that are conceptually bundled together to provide some organization. When the schematic is authored and distributed, you can add it in a dashboard.
Improved categorical axis labels in visualizations (also available in Reporting & Explorations) – the padding and angle changed to improve the legibility.
Logarithmic scale in visualizations (also available in Reporting) – useful when the data you are displaying is much less or much more than the rest of the data or when the percentage differences between values are important.
Responsive option – hides certain aspects of the visualization if the size is limited, to maximize the space that is available to display data.
New axis options for visualization (also available in Reporting) – change the value axis tick interval in some visualizations, i.e. you can set the minimum or the maximum value of the value axis.
Changing the label options in a pie visualization (also available in Reporting) – change the format of the labels and use a callout for the label location in pie visualizations.
Improvements to visualization legends (also available in Reporting) – if there are too many items in the legend to be displayed an ellipsis is displayed.
Sub-categories added to waterfall visualizations (also available in Reporting) – use to display how categories are built up. You can see how the revenue of each month contributes to the quarterly totals.
Treemap visualization supports different display modes (also available in Reporting) – In addition to the default squarified display mode, you can now select: slice, dice, and slice-dice as the display mode in treemap visualization.
Accessibility: skip to content (also available in Reporting & Explorations) – skip the application toolbar and the navigation pane and go straight to the content in IBM Cognos Analytics. Helps in keyboard navigation because you don’t need to tab through the application toolbar and the navigation pane to reach your content.
Create custom templates – save an existing dashboard as a template to use to quickly create new dashboards.
Drop zones on visualizations (also available in Explorations) – to add data directly to specific fields and quickly build a visualization.
Creating a visualization using search in data fields (also available in Explorations)
Export aggregate and detail data from a visualization to a CSV file
Conditionally format crosstabs (also available in Explorations) – define rules to color cells based on key business metrics.
Create module filters – from the metadata tree. Filters can be dragged to the local filter area on a visualization or on to the filter shelf.
Using module filters in the filter areas – drag on the This tab and All tabs areas.
Bullet visualization range coloring – apply color to the min/mid/max ranges.
New title options for visualizations (also available in Explorations) – The following options are available for titles in a visualization:
- Smart title – Data is used to display the title.
- Custom title – You can specify the title.
- No title
Reporting
Adding a baseline to a visualization – horizontal or vertical lines that cut through the chart to indicate major divisions in the data.
Comparing measures in a visualization – compare measures from the same category in a visualization by adding multiple measures on the measure slot. Available for only certain visualizations.
Clustered combination and stacked combination visualizations – Use a clustered combination visualization to compare values by one or more columns, such as sales for products per country and use lines to highlight relationships between multiple data series.
Use a stacked combination visualization to compare the proportional contributions for each item to the total, such as sales for products and sales for products each month and use lines to highlight relationships between multiple data series.
Data set improvements – By using the query explorer, you can reuse an existing report and its queries in the data set. You can also perform query operations with properties, manage advanced filters and parameters, review the generated SQL, and validate and rename queries. The data sets are created much faster than in previous releases because of fewer resources (CPU and memory) that need to be used.
Data table enhancements – The column filter dialog box in a data table includes a new option that allows you to deselect all filters.
Disabling the on-demand toolbar – If you do not want to allow users to perform interactions on report output that uses the toolbar, you can disable the toolbar based on role as well as per report.
Running a single page – run an individual page with the output format you require.
Modeling
Metadata modeling guidelines – A new document, Metadata modeling guidelines, was added to the IBM Cognos Analytics modeling documentation set. Guidelines are built around the metadata modeling workflow, and discuss gathering requirements; choosing, importing, and verifying data; removing ambiguity; and designing and enhancing the model with focus on query performance. Doesn’t provide step-by-step instructions on how to use data modules. Instead, it gives best practice type of advice on how to model your data to take full advantage of the Cognos Analytics query components, such as Dashboarding, Reporting, or Explore.
Column dependency attributes for measures – can now assign attribute values to measures. The values of Minimum (default), Average, and Maximum can be assigned.
Sample retail calendar – when creating data modules for relative date analysis, you can now use the sample retail calendar based on the National Retail Federation (NRF) 4-5-4 Calendar.
Additional out-of-the-box filters in sample calendars – the following new filters are available for relative date analysis:
- Current week
- Prior week
- WTD (week to date)
- Prior WTD
- Same week last year
Boolean data type preserved on columns in Framework Manager models – When importing metadata from a data server, the Framework Manager model now shows the data type of Boolean columns as Boolean instead of Unknown.
Administration
New capabilities in 11.1.7
Five new capabilities are available and one existing capability was modified.
- Email capability allows a user to send an email when scheduling or sharing content.
Additionally, four new secured functions are associated with the Email capability:
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- Email Delivery Option
- Include link in email
- Share using email
- Type in external email
- Attach Outputs – allows a user to attach outputs in an email when setting a schedule, running a report in the background, or setting job steps.
- The following three capabilities are available only to users of Cognos Analytics on Cloud On-Demand and Cognos Analytics on Cloud Hosted:
- Cognos Analytics for Mobile
- Share Pin Board – allows users to share a pin board that they created using Cognos Analytics for Mobile.
- Visualization Alerts – allows users to create an alert for a pin board in Cognos Analytics for Mobile.
- Existing Job capability was modified so that Report Administrators can now create jobs.
Salesforce available as a data server connection
Salesforce URL connection change
In the Cognos Analytics Administration console, if you have an existing Salesforce data server connection or want to create a new one, you must manually update the URL endpoint
Support for Microsoft Analysis Services 2019 (ODBO and XMLA)
Support for REST API data server connections
For more details on the new capabilities of Cognos Analytics 11.1.7, check out our latest blog.
Contact NewIntelligence today for help with migrating to the latest version of Cognos Analytics.
