Every month or so I will be publishing a list of list of RFEs (Request For Enhancements) that have been submitted to IBM. Some of these are enhancements that I believe should be instituded ASAP, and others just sound interesting.

This is the second month doing this, please take a look at November 2018’s list here.

This time we’ll start with a couple of RFEs relating to data modules. Data modules are a great addition to Cognos. It’s an ETL job, it’s a data source, it’s a modeling tool. I love it to death, but that doesn’t mean it can be improved.

1. Object Level Security at Table and Field Level for Data Modules

Under Consideration with 8 votes.

Data security is possible, to a small degree, but object security still isn’t. There are some columns that I don’t want users to see, ever. If they run a report that uses it, I want it to fail hard with an unfriendly error message. We can do it in FM, but not yet in data modules.

2. Data Module created from Data Server with multiple connections should be able to use any connection

Under Consideration with 3 votes.

With regular data sources it’s possible to create multiple connections to a single database, or even different databases. Reports built on FM models work very gracefully with this. Data modules just aren’t there yet.

3. Data Module – Select Unmatched Column Values

Under Consideration with 5 votes.

For the most part a standard equals join is pretty much all I ever need, except for that one time in a year where I absolutely need to have a non-standard join. I haven’t had that problem yet, but it looks like someone already did.

Now let’s look at a couple others

4. RAVE2 SDK

Under Consideration with 60 votes.

Story time! A few years ago I was giving a lecture, at BACon, on RAVE. How to use it, how to work with it, and most importantly a walkthrough of the grammar. It was a great success and everyone loved it. Then a certain IBMer who will remain anonymous, had his session. Where he said that RAVE 1 was being dropped in favor of RAVE 2. It was like I got punched in the stomach. However RAVE 1 is still going strong. That being said, having a modern kit for customizing or creating our own visualizations would be awesome. It’s interesting to note that the RFE linked here has an update from IBM: While we would like to have an extensible viz API, it is unlikely to be RAVE 2 based.

5. Improve Look, Flexibility and augment the properties on Interactive Dashboard and Visualization (IDnV) Prompts

Submitted with 9 votes.

Recently there’s been an upsurge on people demanding changes to the prompting GUI. The bottom line is the prompt options are aging, and competing tools are much “sexier”.

Did I miss any important RFEs? Got an important idea that you want in Cognos? Drop a note in the comments.

11.1 is finally here! With tons of new features and an entirely new studio. There are also over a hundred fixes, but you’d never know it. IBM is continuing with their decision to not publish a comprehensive fix list for each version.

So, despite a possible ding due to “scraped content”, I present to you the only place where you can find the entire IBM Cognos Analytics 11.1.1 fix list.

PH03822	‘TYPEERROR: COGNOSVIEWER.ONKEYDOWN IS NOT A FUNCTION’ IN BROWSERCONSOLE WHEN CLICKING KEY LIKE ‘CURSOR DOWN’
PH03410	WHEN DATABASE KILLS A QUERY ERROR RETURNED IS GENERIC AND DOES NOT STATE THAT THE DATABASE CANCELED THE QUERY.
PI94410	CA 11.09 DASHBOARD – LATITUDE / LONGITUDE COLUMN FROM AN FM SOURCE NOT RECOGNIZE AS GEOCODE
PH02319	LIFECYCLE MANAGER DOES NOT DISPLAY CHINESE CHARACTERS.
PI93401	SORTING NOT WORKING ON ASCENDING & DESCENDING IN INTERACTIVE MODE ON SAME COLUMN
PH05041	USING A DMR PACKAGE AS A SOURCE, THE CURRENCY FORMAT IS NOT SHOWN ON THE DASHBOARD.
PI98896	SHORTCUT TO FOLDER NOT WORKING WHEN ACCESSED VIA FOLDER EXTENSION LIKE SAMPLEEXTENSIONBUTTONFOLDER.ZIP
PI98021	VISUALIZATION LEGEND TOOLTIP SHOWS TOTAL VALUE FOR AVERAGED MEASURE
PI95467	VALUE PROMPT NOT HONOURING BACKGROUND-COLOR IN IE 11 ON COGNOS 11 WHEN MIGRATING FROM COGNOS 10
PI96502	LIST REPORT WITH A TABLE STYLE LEAD TO THE FOLLOWING ERROR MESSAGE RSV-VAL-0002 INVALID EXPRESSION PARSING …
PI98732	FILTER NOT UPDATED WHEN USING CALCULATION ON DASHBOARD
PI93589	NO RESULTS IN SEARCH FOR FILTER IN DASHBOARDS
PI97323	MSR-VRF-1116 VALIDATION ERROR ON NAVIGATION PATHS IN DASHBOARDS
PI93784	CHANGES MADE IN REPORT OPTIONS IN EDITING MODE ARE NOT KEPT WHENRE-EDITING THE SAME REPORT
PI96266	PALETTE COLOURS ARE NOT DISPLAYED WHEN EDITING THE PALETTE PROPERTY OF A CHART OBJECT
PI98800	THE DESCRIPTION FIELD IS EMPTY WHEN VIEWED UNDER REPORT VIEW EVEN THOUGH THERE WAS DESCRIPTION FOR THE REPORT.
PH00067	NAME OF THE AGENT IS MISSING IN TITLE BAR WHITIN THE EVENT PROPERTIES
PI96326	EXPORT TO PDF DOES NOT INCLUDE ALL WIDGETS WHEN THEY ARE GROUPED
PI99506	BAR VALUES ROUNDED DOWN ON LEGACY COMBINATION CHARTS WHEN RUN ASEXCEL
PI96387	DYNAMIC MAPS OF LEGACY VISUALIZATIONS SHOW BAR CHARTS FOR FEW STATES
PI98648	CAST TIMESTAMP TO DATE IN FRAMEWORK MANAGER, DATE WAS NOT SHOWN CORRECTLY IN DASHBOARD
PI95876	SORTING A CROSSTAB WIDGET IN DASHBOARDING ON A DIFFERENT FIELD IS IGNORED
PH00017	LOGIN INTO OKTA NAMESPACE FAIL WITH CA INITIALIZATION INFORMATION ERROR
PI93938	GOOGLE BIGQUERY – UNABLE TO CREATE DATA MODULE OR RETRIEVE SCHEMAS
PH03002	IN A DASHBOARD WITH LINE CHART MOUSE OVER THE LEGEND LABELS DOESNOT DISPLAY THE EXPECTED AVERAGE VALUE FOR …
PI94546	LOSS OF FUNCTIONALITY FROM 10.2.2 TO 11 REGARDING TOOLBAR OPTIONS AROUND BORDERS
PH02504	USED CSS TRANSLATEX(100%) NOT RENDERED CORRECTLY IN IE11 ON WIN10 WHEREAS RECOMMENDED TRANSLATE3D(100%,0PX,…
PI94674	UNABLE TO DISABLE WEB-BASED MODELING FOR DATA SERVER CONNECTIONS
PI97892	CANNOT REVERT ERRORED DASHBOARD WIDGETS GRACEFULLY
PI96168	PI96165 CITIES LOCATIONS ARE MISPLACED IN COGNOS DASHBOARD MAPS 11.0.9
PI94462	ERROR WHEN CREATING PACKAGE FOR A TM1 CUBE WITH AMPERSAND IN ITSNAME
PI99156	NAVIGATE TO PROPERTIES OF A REPORT, GO TO GENERAL > ADVANCED, THERE ARE TWO ENTRIES WITH THE NAME LOCATIONS. …
PI97127	CUSTOM FILTER IN DIALOG SHOWS NOT ALL AVAILABLE SEARCH RESULTS
PH02938	REPORT VALIDATION FAILS IF < OR > CHARACTER ARE USED IN THE FILTER EXPRESSION
PI99225	‘UNAVAILABLE’ TAB APPEARS MOMENTARILY BEFORE A SAMPLE WELCOME PAGE IS DISPLAYED
PI93598	NOT ABLE TO REMOVE SCROLLBAR IN CHARTS ALONG WITH LEGENDS DURING TOP/BOTTOM ALIGNMENT IN IE11
PI99459	DRAG/DROP DOESN’T WORK IN DASHBOARD’S MAP VISUALIZATION FOR LONGITUDE/LATITUDE FIELDS
PI91932	Dashboarding actions are very slow in IE11
PI92700	COGNOS DASHBOARD FREEZES IN IE 11 WHEN PINING A PACKED BUBBLE VISUALIZATION
PI96631	SCHEDULING REPORT VIA OIDC AUTHENTICATION RE-AUTHENTICATES (WHENUSER DIDN’T CREATE CREDENTIALS)
PH00474	HIDDEN MEASURES ARE DISPLAYED IN METADATA TREE IN DASHBOARDING
PI98988	“COPY OR MOVE” MISSING FROM “PROPERTIES” MENU
PI95101	UNABLE TO DESELECT AN OPTIONAL SINGLE SELECT TREE PROMPT WITH FULL INTERACTIVITY ENABLED
PI98855	DASHBOARD WITH STACKED COLUMN CHART AND SUMMARY WIDGET THROWS ERROR WHEN MULTI-SELECTING COLUMN SECTIONS: …
PI96892	CA 11.0.10 : POWERPLAY STUDIO TAKES LONG TIME TO REACH AND DRILLTO THE TARGET REPORTS
PI98551	MILLISECONDS NOT CAPTURED FROM UPLOADED EXCEL SPREADSHEET
PH01247	PREVIOUS BUTTON LOSES FUNCTIONALITY UNDER COGNOS ANALYTICS MANAGE -> ACCOUNTS IF TWO FOLDER LEVELS ARE CREATED …
PI94088	COGNOS VIEWER IN PORTLET HEIGHT CHANGE IS IGNORED IN C11
PI98107	AJAXERROR: BAD REQUEST CODE: 400 WHEN PUBLISHING A DATA MODULE FROM A PA CUBE THAT OVERWRITES AN EXISTING DATA …
PI98115	TOOLTIP FOR LEGEND ITEM OF STACKED BAR CHART DISPLAYS INCORRECT TEXT
PI90584	DRILL THROUGH ON DASHBOARD NOT CHANGING VALUES IN 11.07
PI99150	CONDITIONAL PALETTE COLORS ARE NOT RESPECTED FOR GRAPH IF MORE THAN TWO CONDITIONS
PH01803	REPORT WITH LONG NAME IS WRAPPED AND SECOND LINE IS ONLY PARTIALLY VISIBLE IN THE COPY OR MOVE SELECT A …
PI93599	DATA MODULE AGAINST TM1 CUBE MAY FAIL TO LOAD IN REPORT STUDIO
PH01866	“REPORT TOOLBAR” OPTIONS DO NOT WORK WHEN A SCROLLBAR APPEARS ATTHE BOTTOM.
PI99145	CHANGES MADE THROUGH THE CLASSIC VIEW LINK IN REPORT SCHEDULE PROPERTIES PANE ARE NOT PERSISTED
PI76096	DATE PROMPT CALENDAR CONTROL REQUIRES SCROLLING IN 11.0.4 AND 11.0.5 ON CHROME AND IE
PI99738	THE NUMERIC LITERAL “0” IS NOT VALID BECAUSE ITS VALUE IS OUT OFRANGE
PI94086	FULL INTERACTIVITY SETTING CAUSES RANGE PROMPT DIFFERENCES
PI96065	REQUIRED PROMPT NOT WORKING AS EXPECTED WITH SPECIFIC CONDITION
PI96483	FILTER OPTION IN 11.0.10 NOT AVAILABLE TO ADD A LIST OF VALUES MANUALLY
PI96248	LAYOUT COMPONENT REFERENCE IN REPORT CAUSES TYPEERROR
PI96633	USING MEASURE GROUP IN A LINE CHART WILL DISPLAY THE WRONG VALUES IN THE LEGEND
PI95297	DASHBOARD DATE ON AXIS IS OFF BY ONE DAY IN CHARTS
PH02481	DASHBOARD PERFORMANCE WITH LARGE MODELS EXTREMELY SLOW
PH00094	TOOLTIP SHOWS NOT ALL VALUES FOR MEASURE GROUPS IN DASHBOARDING
PI97220	WHEN THE NUMBER OF REPORTS LISTED IN SCHEDULES GETS LARGER THAN THE BROWSER WINDOW THERE ARE NO SCROLL BARS IN …
PI99517	JAVASCRIPT ERROR POPS UP WHEN COGNOS SESSION TIMES OUT AND USER THEN TRIES TO CLOSE THE ALREADY OPEN REPORT
PI86165	CA INCLUDED NAMESPACE – WILL NOT DISPLAY CONTENT OF AUTH NAMESPACE VIA MANAGE-ADMINISTRATION CONSOLE AFTER …
PI99509	DASHBOARD : DEPENDING ON THE SCREEN RESOLUTION AND THE BROWSER AN USELESS SCROLL BAR IS DISPLAYED ON THE LEFT …
PI93696	EXCEL DOWNLOAD OPTION IS NOT AVAILABLE IN CA 11.09 WHEN DRILL THOUGH FROM REPORT VIEW SAVED HTML OUTPUT
PI94887	PMHUB.HTML REMOVED AFTER UPGRADE
PH02833	LOAD OPTION OF SCHEMA IN DATA SERVER CONNECTION USING EXTERNAL NAMESPACE NOT WORKING WHEN ACCESSING THROUGH …
PI98513	PACKAGE WITH HIDDEN POWERCUBES SHOWS HIDDEN METADATA IN A DASHBOARD
PI86861	MISSING SESSION PARAMETERS “ACCOUNT.PERSONALINFO.TIMEZONEID” IN LIST OF AVAILABLE SESSION PARAMETERS.
PH03102	ERROR RUNNING AN AGENT CREATED BY ANOTHER USER
PI87319	UNEXPECTED CROSS JOIN OCCURS WHEN ‘ELSE CONDITION’ IS TRUE IN A FILTER.
PH02934	IN A DASHBOARD A CALCULATION EXPRESSION BASED ON ACCENTED DATA DOES NOT WORK
PI88072	“CANNOT OPEN JOB” AND “CANNOT OPEN SHORTCUT” WHEN CLICK ON A SHORTCUT OF A JOB
PH02810	RIGHT MOUSE CLICK DOES NOT GRAB THE FOCUS IN A VISUALIZATION.
PI88292	REMIND CHOSEN CONNECTION ON DRILLTHROUGH .
PH03108	DECIMAL (0.0) NUMBER IS ROUNDED TO FIVE-DIGIT NUMBER.
PI88245	GLASS UI PAST ACTIVITIES NOT SHOWING INFORMATION
PI98496	HEATMAP VISUALIZATION RETURNS “QUERY SERVICE INTERNAL ERROR” WHEN NO DATA IS AVAILABLE
PI97029	FOCUS NOT MAINTAINED ON WHICH QUERY BEING WORKED ON IN QUERY EXPLORER.
PH01715	RUN ONCE OPTION DOES NOT PROPAGATE VALUES FROM SCHEDULE
PI89979	CANNOT SAVE DATA SOURCE CONNECTION AFTER MOVING ROLE FROM ORIGINAL LOCATION
PH02627	IN A DASHBOARD HOVER OVER THE 2ND MEASURE FROM THE DISPLAY LEGEND SHOWS A WRONG LABEL
PI90867	IN R7 IN QUERY STUDIO USING ANY FF WHEN RUNNING TO XML FORMAT ITPRODUCES A BLANK SCREEN WORKS IN IE.
PH02949	AMBIGOUS REGIONS FOR CITY AUSTIN IN STATE OF TEXAS WHEN USED IN MAPS ON DASHBOARD.
PI91548	TOOLBAR MISSING IN THE DRILL-THROUGH TARGET REPORT
PH03034	TERADATA CALLBACKS
PI89825	DQM INCORRECTLY HANDLING ORACLE STORED PROCEDURE
PI99787	REPORT VIEW NOT AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION WHEN CREATING DRILL TROUGH DEFINITION FROM CA 11.0.10 DASHBOARD …
PI91433	ENABLING VIRTUALMEMORYDUMP IN RSVPPROPERTIES.XML FILE CAUSES ALLREPORTS TO FAIL AND GET A BIBUS DMP
PI98396	CREATING A DATA MODULE WITH 2 DATA MODULES WITH FILTERS GIVES ERRORS
PI91431	ENABLING VIRTUALMEMORYTREEDUMP IN RSVPPROPERTIES.XML FILE CAUSESALL REPORTS TO FAIL AND GET A BIBUS DMP
PH00091	USERS ARE UNABLE TO SET PROPERTIES AFTER UPGRADING FROM COGNOS 10/8 TO COGNOS ANALYTICS 11
PI92863	DASHBOARD: UNABLE TO REPLACE CHART ELEMENTS WHEN COLUMNS REMOVEDFROM DATA MODULE
PI96131	INCORRECT LANGUAGE FOR FUNCTIONS/MACROS AND THEIR DESCRIPTION IN REPORT STUDIO WHEN CHANGE THE REPORT LANGUAGE
PI90852	11.0.7 CHANGING DASHBOARD VISUALIZATION FROM TREE MAP TO PIE CHART (OR OTHER) VISUALIZATION CAN CAUSE BROWSER …
PI98122	SETTING FILTER ON DASHBOARD REVERSES THE LEGEND ORDER AND COLOURS
PI96753	“FILTERING BY VALUE ON WHAT APPEARS TO BE A MEASURE IS NOT SUPPORTED.” IS SHOWN IN CUSTOM FILTER FOR A …
PH01152	TYPEERROR WHEN SELECTING DATA ITEM WITHOUT VALID REFERENCE IN A LIST
PI94680	DASHBOARD CAUSING UNRESPONSIVE SCRIPT IN ALL BROWSERS BECAUSE OFTABLES
PH01018	UNABLE TO USE A “SIZE & OVERFLOW” ‘PAGE’ SETTING UPPER THAN 2500PX
PH01402	LOCAL FILTER WITH DATE IS NOT WORKING IN WIDGET FOR DASHBOARD INCA 11.0.12
PI96159	TESTING A MULTI-FACT QUERY SUBJECT IN FM WITH “AUTO SUM” CHECKEDRESULTS IN AN ERROR XQE-PLN-0086 USING DQM
PH01527	ELEMENTS IN LISTS IN DASHBOARD CANNOT BE ACCESSED VIA KEYBOARD ALTHOUGH ACCESSIBILITY FEATURE HAS BEEN ENABLED
PI98039	SCROLLING DOWN IN FIND WINDOW OF CUSTOM FILTER DIALOGUE ON DQM PACKAGE GIVES RSV-SRV-0126 ERROR
PI97911	SAVE REPORT IS MANDATORY FOR AN EXISTING JOB YOU HAVE TO CHECK OR MODIFY
PI99316	FAVORITE COLORS ARE LOST FROM THE COLOR FAVORITES AS SOON AS I LEAVE THE REPORT
PH01394	PROMPTS WITH STATIC CHOICES THAT ARE MACRO FUNCTIONS GIVE QUERY SELECTOR ERRORS WHEN FULL INTERACTIVITY IS SET …
PI96325	SPECIAL CHARACTER CHR(0) ON ORACLE DATABASE FAILS IN DASHBOARDING
PH03370	TABLE VISUALIZATION IN A DASHBOARD BASED ON PLANNING ANALYTICS DISPLAYS INCORRECT VALUE FOR A NULL MEASURE
PH03599	PARAMETERIZED URL IN CA 11.0.12 DOES NOT RETAIN CUSTOM PARAMETERS AFTER RELOADING THE PAGE
PH04807	V5 ERROR THROWN WITH NORWEGIAN CONTENT LANGUAGE AGAINST GO SALESSAMPLES
PH05229	MODELLING WILL AUTOMATICALLY DO A MODULE PUT REQUEST AND RETRY THE QUERY WHEN THE QUERY FAILS WITH 404
PI99598	UNABLE TO ADD FILTER TO ALL TABS GLOBAL AREA IN DASHBOARD
PI94578	ACTIVE REPORT: CONTAINER SELECTION ERROR WITH AND OR OR
PH04623	UNABLE TO GET GLASGOW CITY TO APPEAR ON A DASHBOARD MAP
PH01892	CAN NOT SHOW COLUMN VALUES IN NEW VISUALIZATION
PH02165	UPGRADED REPORTS FAIL WITH XQE-GEN-0010 FOUND AN INTERNAL ERROR !MAPSUCCESS
PH01789	SEARCH MIGHT NOT FIND THE REQUIRED REPORT. ALSO THE ENTIRE SEARCH RESULTS LIST IS UNSORTED.
PI96596	IMAGE GALLERY EXTENSION SETS THE WRONG CONTENT-TYPE HEADER FOR NON-PNG IMAGES
PH01910	ABILITY TO REMOVE THE CREATE URL BUTTON
PH03507	TOOL TIPS FOR THE DATE-TIME LABELS ON THE X-AXIS IN A LINE CHARTON THE DASHBOARD SHOW THE INCORRECT TIME
PI80442	SETVALIDATOR FUNCTION IN INTERACTIVE MODE IS NOT CALLED WHEN TEXTBOX PROMPT IS CLEARED AS IT WAS IN …
PI81788	MULTICONNECTION DATA SOURCES DO NOT WORK WHEN BEING SELECTED IN CHROME.
PI91010	UNABLE TO CREATE DASHBOARD WITH POWERPLAY CUBE PACKAGE
PH02199	SAVED REPORT OUTPUT IN RAWXML FILE INSTEAD OF EXCEL FORMAT
PI97885	DRILL-THROUGH FAILS WITH MULTIPLE MEASURES ON VISUALIZATION
PI94355	DASHBOARDS: CHANGE VISUALIZATION BUTTON NOT WORKING
PI85422	EXCEL EXPORT CONTAINS INVALID XML CHARACTER
PI86535	REPORT BOOKLET RUN IN BACKGROUND AS PDF, HTML OR EXCEL AND EMAILED AS AN ATTACHED FILE FAILS TO RUN
PI97753	DATE PROMPT IS CHANING OTHER PROMPT VALUES IF A DATE IS SELECTED
PI96066	PROMPT BACKGROUND COLOR ALIGNMENT ISSUE
PI87259	_ADD_HOURS FUNCTION NOT FOUND WHEN USED IN A PROMPT
PI88320	PERFORMANCE DELAY WITHIN GUI WITH GATEWAY
PI87261	UPGRADE TO 11.0.7 FROM 11.0.6 WITH INFORMIX DB
PI88733	TRAVERSE AND EXECUTE ON ADMINISTRATION USERS,GROUPS, AND ROLES WILL SHOW ELEMENTS IN MANAGE ACCOUNTS THAT …
PI87180	FRAMEWORK MANAGER QUERY ITEM FOLDER IS MISSING IN REPORT AUTHORING (REPORT STUDIO) WHEN THE PACKAGE IS A PART …
PI89170	FIELD SET CAPTION NOT RENDERED CORRECTLY IN IE11 (FIELDSET HAS ‘SIZE & OVERFLOW’ SET)
PI90548	PRESSING F5 IN IE11 TO REFRESH THE VIEW UNDER “MY SCHEDULES AND SUBSCRIPTIONS” FOR THE USER DOES SHOW A BLANK …
PI89511	LOGIN USING OPENID
PI91631	Missing a disable function for reports running in background in “My schedules and subscriptions”
PI92419	MANAGE > ACTIVITIES DOES NOT LIST ALL ACTIVITIES AND SCHEDULES DUE TO NOT ALIGNED WINDOW
PI90464	CUSTOM FILTER ON SPECIFIC VALUES SHOWS WRONG RESULTS DEPENDING ON SEARCH CRITERIA
PI91558	FONT SIZE SET FOR LIST BOX PROMPT IS NOT CORRECT IN WORKSPACE.
PI93154	PROBLEM WITH MAPS RENDERING IN IE
PI93344	LICENSED ROLES INCORRECTLY AUDITED
PI92926	COLOURS ARE DISPLAYED AS EMPTY WHITE BOXES IN THE PALETTE FOR REPORTS THAT USE VISUALIZATIONS IN COGNOS …
PI91333	XQE-DAT-0013 ERROR TESTING STORED PROCEDURE USING PROMPT MACRO
PI93356	SELECT “VIEW MOST RECENT REPORT” IN ACTIVE REPORT PROPERTIES MAKES THE REPORT OPENED IN A NEW TAB INSTEAD …
PI66871	ERROR MESSAGE RECEIVED WHEN CREATING TUPLE IN IBM COGNOS ANALYTICS AUTHORING. TYPEERROR: _F8F….
PI89741	MONTH COLUMN FROM A TIME DIMENSION IS SORTED ALPHABETICALLY IN DASHBOARD
PI96716	DATA AGGREGATION NOT WORKING AS EXPECTED
PI96520	UNABLE TO EDIT PROPERTIES OF A REPORT FROM THE MY SCHEDULES AND SUBSCRIPTIONS PAGE

As a new feature of my blog, I’ll periodically list a number of interesting new (and some old) RFEs that should be added to the product. I’m not including any that are listed as Delivered or Duplicate, but Declined and Planned For Future Release are both game.

Since this is the first RFE Roundup, and because I’m the one writing it, let’s go through the most important RFEs first. My RFEs.

1. Use library tab in Admin to store JavaScript Controls

Under Consideration with 79 votes.

There are a number of reasons we would want Cognos to store the JavaScript controls. With the controls stored in a governed location, we can add security to them. We can have documentation and example configurations stored WITH the control. We could have a control picker, just like we have with visualizations. And most importantly I’d like to be able to extend the controls out to dashboards.

2. Enable advanced drill behavior in interactive mode

Uncommitted candidate with 11 votes.

I really can’t understand why this was removed. The advanced drill options made it possible to maintain a specific set function when drilling. You could see the top ten states in a country, and then drill down to see the top ten cities. They were also used to create a breadcrumb trail when drilling down. As it stands now, when you drill down you see everything.

3. Improvements to the Assistant AI

Uncommitted Candidate with 11 votes.

The new assistant AI in 11.1 is pretty cool. But it could be so much better. I want to be able to have deep philosophical debates with it, while I have it do all of the repetitive administrations tasks I am too lazy to do myself. Imagine being able to tell them AI to perform a rolling restart of the dispatchers. It should also be able to have a master dataset allowing more general questions to be asked of it.

4. Search prompt without refreshing page

Under Consideration with 6 votes.

This really bothered me. When version 11 first came out, the search prompts returned the results without refreshing the page. It was awesome! I had a nice sliding prompt pane that contained a search prompt, and everything was perfect. And then tragedy. IBM reverted the behavior to match C10. Searching in the prompt refreshed the page. Cue doom and gloom and whinging from all quarters (specifically from one Cognos Developer I could name, but I’m far too modest to talk about myself).

5. Improvements to Drill Throughs

Submitted with 5 votes.

Cognos has a solid way of linking from report to report, but drills haven’t been touched in ages. I’d like to be able to change the value being passed directly in the definition. Or even pass a static value. The RFE also includes a few suggestions for adding drill through related changed to the JavaScript API. In a previous article I wrote about modifying the drill options, changing the format of the drill or even the drill target. The drill options have been obfuscated in Interactive Mode, rendering that article useless.

Now let’s look at RFEs from people who aren’t named Paul.

6. Ability to save Dashboard/Story for offline use

Under Consideration with 10 votes.

I’d love to see Stories be used more often. Imagine if we could export stories to PowerPoint, with the animations intact.

7a. Allow Custom Sorting of contents like Folders, Reports and Packages

Uncommitted Candidate with 221 votes

7b. Allow custom Sorting of Report Folders and Reports like in 10.2.2

Declined with 344 votes.

Why do we even need to ask for this? Default sorting wasn’t used everywhere, but when it was used it was important.

8. Ability to control interactive mode on list/charts/crosstabs level

Uncommitted Candidate with 23 votes.

For the most part, I find the interactivity offered to users is more of an annoyance than anything else. Especially when building complex graphs and crosstabs. I think it stems from not trusting the vast majority users to know how to properly explore their data.

9. BRING back the Report Editor Toolbar and Menu (as in Report Studio)

Declined with 14 votes.

I’ve whinged about this before, and I’ll whinge about it again. I don’t like the focus on making it harder to find options and buttons. There are still a number of things that are impossible to do without the toolbar. Try building a report in structure mode, for example.

10. Homogenize prompt dialogs all over the product

Under Consideration with 13 votes.

The prompts throughout Cognos are beginning to show their age. Having a standardized template for prompts, identical across the various tools, would make the experience a lot easier for users.