Release 7 and just when you think things are starting to settle down, tweaks to functionality and appearance continue to make this product feel new and exciting. IBM are responding to customer’s requirements and delivering a range of enhancements in all areas.

In this blog, we will share a selection of the enhancements with you.

Portal enhancements

First thing you’ll notice is the portal has changed significantly, with a new look and relocation of icons.

Welcome page

Menus are streamlined, fonts smaller and the screen has fewer icons. There is now an area for the following:

• Recents
• Quick reference links

• Drag and drop files directly onto the screen to begin

Home

The addition of a Home icon is welcome and can be used to navigate to your chosen Home screen quicker than using the Switcher at the top of the screen.

The Home screen can be set using the three dots to point to your favourite dashboard or report.

Home page can be reset to Default in 'My Preferences':

New menu

The new menu now expands upwards, decreasing the screen clutter in the work area, a simple but effective change.

Notifications relocated

Notifications has now been moved from the side bar to the top of the screen to the left of the User icon.

Search facility no longer includes Hidden folders

If a folder is hidden it will not be retrieved in the Search results.

Reporting

Show Filters

When running a report, if a user filters the report to include only certain items, there is now a Show Filters section displaying how the report is currently filtered.

Specific filters can be amended or removed in one just click:

The Home icon is visible in the reporting environment.

Visualization - Mapbox Maps

Report authors can now include Mapbox maps in a regular report.

The Map visualization has been updated, allowing users to plot more data points than previously:

The map visualization contains a drop down to populate the coloured map regions or display data points:

Scrolling is more responsive and therefore it is less likely that the map will move around the screen when trying to zoom into an area.

Users can define locations that are most pertinent to their data and pick and choose from up to 40 different zoom layers.

Street level data is now available, select from a range of palettes and map styles:

View Tabular Data

The popular IBM Cognos 10, Tabular Data feature is brought in from the cold, this allows users to focus on the stripped back data returned in your individual queries without having to run the entire report:

Dashboard

Once again, the majority of enhancements have been made in Dashboard.

Shapes and Media combined

Shapes and Media have been combined into a Widgets panel:

These are updated icons used in a Dashboard:

Resize the Source panel

The Source panel can now be resized by dragging the bar, to maximise the working area:

Visualization options

Visualizations are neatly presented, with a couple of name changes. Grid is now named Table and Hierarchy is now named List:

Dashboard filter area

New look and feel with filter tab options. Simply drag an item such as Retailer Country into the top area, make your selection and then decide if it should apply to one tab or the whole dashboard.

This is a space saver meaning less need for list boxes that can dominate the canvas:

Reorder objects

Reorder objects with options 'Send to front' and 'Send to back' to layer objects:

Visualization: Compulsory areas

Compulsory areas are highlighted by a red asterisk, with Repeat slots. This should help the user successfully construct a Visualization:

Visualization: Repeat slots

Drag the value you want to see and the preview screen displays your chart, filtering is easier to find and the Repeat options offer interesting layout potential:

Visualization: Measures as Categories

Move the Measures group (2) to the Categories to view data in a different way:

This example show measures displayed as categories with the new Show Value labels property on:

My Parameters

Allows users to set parameter and prompt values for reports such that when the report runs it uses their personal values by default.

Once you set up My Parameters, it can reduce or eliminate scenarios where users are prompted for the same values over and over again.

Other

Improvements across the board in Data Modules as well as Story mode. A new property has been added, allowing for transitions between slides:

Whilst we have hand-picked a few enhancements, there are a whole host of others in release 11.0.7 of Cognos Analytics.

Each release continues to improve and has come a long way in a short space of time.

Please contact Vedere to discuss any training requirements you may have.