Spring is finally in the air here in Canada and the latest release of Cognos Analytics, release 11.0.10 has become generally available since March 2018 – see our Press Release. In this release IBM has addressed some of the top Requests for Enhancements (RFEs) that have been raised by its Cognos Analytics customer base and their Business Partners, like NewIntelligence. IBM continue to make improvements based on the feedback and suggestions they receive – they truly are listening!
These enhancements are becoming increasingly important as the ‘End of service’ for Cognos BI 10.2.x approaches. On April 30th, 2018, IBM will end its support for Cognos BI 10.2.x, meaning no new fix packs and no new development work. It is important to for you to start planning your migration to Cognos Analytics. Having spent the past 2 years helping our customers explore Cognos Analytics by moving from Cognos BI to the latest release, we can help. Read more about our expertise.
The following features are new or changed in Cognos® Analytics 11.0.10.:
General Features
Create a URL
Create URLs to keep your files, as well as your most visited websites at your fingertips.
Security
OpenId Connect Authentication Proxy
Another addition to R10 is the simplification of migration to a new OpenID Connect authentication method, and the ability to remap ID’s from old providers to OpenID. R10 eliminates the need for an administrator to go through a time-consuming Namespace migration and verify each user when they want to change their OIDC connect provider type.
Jobs created by any user
Access to ‘job’ function to run reports has been simplified, with new a ‘manage job’ UI menu option and the ability to move jobs. In previous releases, only a person with administrative permissions could see their jobs. Now it’s easier for all users to run, schedule, or monitor all their jobs.
Dashboards and stories
Export dashboards to PDF
A highly popular Request For Enhancement (RFE), as submitted and voted for by the Cognos user community, is the ability to export to PDF in dashboards. You can now create a PDF of your dashboard to print out or to share electronically. Printed PDFs can be conveniently read when you’re away from your computer, for example, while traveling on a plane. You can also easily share PDFs via email.
Drill through from a dashboard or story to a report
In response to the most popular request for enhancement, R10 introduces the ability to easily drill through from a visualization on your dashboard or story to a report. This allows you to navigate from the visualization to the related report, while retaining the original context of the visualization.
Data modeling
Relinking a data module source
You can relink a data module source to a different source. You can use this functionality when the current source in your data module is invalid, or when you want to replace a test source with a production source.
After a successful relink, global calculations and relationships in the data module remain valid, and reports and dashboards that are based on this data module can start using the new source without any involvement from report authors. The relinked source must be of the same type as the original source.
IBM’s New Dynamic Dashboard Embedded (DDE)
Here’s a neat new feature that’s being trialled and introduced by IBM. The Dynamic Dashboard Embedded (DDE) makes it easy for developers to embed the dashboarding visualisation capabilities of Cognos Analytics directly into external applications – as though they are a part of the app.
Currently available as an experimental service, DDE is an API-based solution that lets you define the user workflow and control the options available “from a guided exploration of the analysis through authored fixed dashboards to a free-form analytic exploration environment in which end-users choose their own visualizations – and virtually anything in between.” The pricing for this will be session-based, where by users can cross-filter, drill-down, and refresh as mush as they need during a session.
Check out What’s new in the portal dashboarding and modeling for IBM Cognos Analytics 11.0.10 to see a short demonstration of a few capabilities included as part of this new version of Cognos Analytics, including: Firefox Quantum support, the URL content object, exporting a dashboard to PDF, drill-through from a dashboard to a report, and relinking a data module.
Contact NewIntelligence to book your migration to Cognos Analytics, before it’s too late!
