Back in the Cognos 10 days, IBM introduced Active Reports. They were revolutionary, in that it allowed interactive functionality with saved outputs. Since then IBM pretty much ignored it. Fortunately it’s back! And in regular interactive reports!

So let’s go over the basics.

Pretty much every data container, except for repeaters and singletons, now have two new buttons in the toolbar.

Interactive Behavior should be a welcome sight to anyone familiar with Active Reports, but let’s go through a basic example, the second is Create a New Connection which we’ll talk about in a moment.

The image above has a table showing the parameter and it’s value, a simple list with only Product line, and interactive behavior defined. When the user clicks on a product line, the report will refresh and set the Product line parameter. When the report submits, the container will automatically highlight the specified row. This is great, as we can now quickly and easily set parameters.

There’s a third section in the Interactive Behavior. When that’s defined, the output is filtered without needing to refresh the report! There are a few limitations to this. Crosstabs, lists, and repeater tables don’t support local filtering. Only the JS containers, like the 11.1 graphs and data tables work.

When we create a connection, we can select the source container, the target container, and how it affects it. For lists, crosstabs, and the older Cognos 10 graphs, we can only select the Highlight behavior. But for Data Tables and the 11.1 (and 11.0) Visualizations we can filter. The Create a Connection button is really just a wizard, we can also define the same thing using the interactive behavior button.

Disabling the auto-submit on the product line list and we get the following:

You also don’t need to have the Product line visible in the container. Simply having Product line in the Extra Data is enough. The data table and JS graphs will aggregate the measure based on the aggregation type. Make sure the Category Range is set to “Filtered Data”, or only the measure will be filtered.

The best thing is that all of this still works in saved HTML outputs! Set all of the parameters and behavior as needed, then schedule the report to save.

Now we come to the areas of improvement.

• We can only set parameters on included items.

I would expect that I would be able to set parameters on items defined in the list properties.

• Setting parameters only sets the use value.

I would love to be able to set the use and display values at the same time.

• We can only set one value at a time.

A mechanism to set multiple values would be awesome.

• Deselecting parameters is a pain.

We should be able to define the interactivity on a per object level. This would let us deselect the Product line parameter by setting it on the list header. Giving us granular control over the brushing would let us make incredible reports.

• We shouldn’t need to use query items

We should be able to just type in the values we want. Combined with the previous idea, this would let us do basically anything in the report.

And speaking of which, everyone should go and vote on this RFE: https://ideas.ibm.com/ideas/CA-I-4824

And while we’re on the subject of what everyone should do, I’m going to be giving a session at the New England Cognos User Group. We’re doing hybrid this year, in person and remote!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-england-cognos-user-group-tickets-1987102460952

Session topics include:
• watsonx in Sports
• What’s New in Cognos 12
• Cognos Tips & Tricks <— That’s me this time!
• Meet IBM Bob
• IBM Experts Roundtable

Hope to see you all!

A great way to get me to figure something out is to tell me it can’t be done. Soooo….

I recently received a request to set the default email option to “attach report output” instead of “include link”. It’s a fairly common request, so it was surprising that there was no officially supported way. It turns out that IBM did sneak in a way in 12.1, without updating the docs!

To begin with, you need to be a sys admin. Open the hamburger menu, configuration, system. Expand Advanced Settings, and paste the following into the Key:
Admin.defaultEmailAttachReport by default the value will be “myDefault”. Change the value to true, like you see in the following image:

Close, log off and back in, and try sending an email (via Schedule or Run As) through Cognos. If it worked, the attach report output should be toggled on.

Now this is great for those on 12.1 and higher, but what about the poor folks on earlier versions? I only have 12.0 to test on, but we can do the following.

On the gateway server, navigate to the following folder:
\ibm\cognos\analytics\webcontent\bi\ba-react-admin

There should be a single JS file in there. ba-react-admin.min.js
BACK THAT UP! Copy it, print it out, carve it into slate, whatever it takes for you to restore it if we break anything (or if you ever need support from IBM, we can pretend we didn’t modify any internal files. Don’t worry, my lips are sealed.).

Now that we backed it up, let’s open it in notepad and look for the following string:
defaultEmailAsURL:!(null!==(r=a.props.schedule.getOption("email","runOptionBoolean"))&&void 0!==r&&r.value)

change that to:
defaultEmailAsURL:false

Now let’s search for
defaultEmailAsAttachment:!0

change that to
defaultEmailAsAttachment:true

(Yes, it’s technically the same thing, but !0 for true is just silly).

Since we’re updating a JS file, we don’t need to restart Cognos. Clear your browser cache, and refresh. Try doing a run as again. The email options should be updated.

I’ve been doing some testing, and haven’t seen any unexpected side effects from doing this, but I cannot guarantee that this won’t cause issues. If you have multiple gateways, you’ll need to update each of them. This change won’t survive any updates or fix packs, but if you are upgrading, just upgrade to 12.1 already!

Also, a note about the blog. I’ve been making some changes. The biggest is the removal of the comments. This was not a decision I made lightly, but unfortunately the amount of spam I’ve received was one of the major reasons I stopped posting. I had 4 different spam blockers, blocking upwards of five thousand spam comments each month, and spam was still getting through. I’ll try to find some compromise here, but it’s not likely to happen soon.

Hello Everyone!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, but don’t worry, I’ve been keeping busy. I’ll try to start writing more in the upcoming months, but in the meantime I have a small announcement. NECUG is starting up operations again, and I’ve joined their team. We’re looking at a session in June, but we need your input. If you’re at all interested, please consider filling out this form: https://forms.gle/cENP93Lgk3xCXxFq5

While I would hate to push my own personal agenda, I personally think virtual or mixed meetings would be ideal. I’m a few KM away from New England, and getting there to present a session would be a little difficult. If all goes well, I hope to see everyone (virtually) there in June!