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Cognos Analytics Data Servers

December 30, 2019 by Ryan Dolley 2 Comments

Joe Schmoe asks a fairly common question about Cognos Analytics data servers in the comments to my Framework Manager vs Data Modules article:

In Cognos Analytics 11.1.5, I don’t see a way to use a data source to feed a data module. It looks like in order to use data from a database, you need to use a package — which means you need to use Framework Manager anyway. Am I missing something?

Let’s take a look at how data servers work in Cognos Analytics to (eventually) answer Mr. Schmoe’s question.

What is a data server?

A data server is simply a connection to a database that has been defined within Cognos Analytics. This definition contains the database url, connection parameters, username and password necessary for Cognos to authenticate with, issue queries to and receive data from the desired database. A data server can be re-used by an infinite number of data modules to provide self-service users and report authors controlled access to desired data while maintaining high quality row-level security. Longtime Cognoids will no doubt say ‘Ryan, that sounds exactly like what we used to call a data source!’ Yes. Yes it does.

Cognos Analytics data server vs Cognos 10 data source

Cognos Analytics data servers and Cognos 10 data sources are fundamentally the same while having some differences in where and how they are configured. If you’re familiar with Cognos 10 you can breath a sigh of relief as your existing knowledge is almost 100% applicable. You just need to learn a slightly new UI.

Cognos Analytics data server

Introduced in Cognos Analytics
Provides a definition which Cognos uses to connect to a database
Configured via the manage menu
Requires JDBC drivers and uses exclusively JDBC connectivity
Uses Dynamic Query Mode exclusively
One data server can be used by infinite data modules
Source for data modules only – no Framework Manager [Editors note: Commentor Jerzy points out below that you can use data servers as a source for FM for DQM models only. I didn’t know that! Thanks Jerzy!]

Cognos 10 data source

Introduced in Cognos 8? 7? Reportnet? I was in college, it’s all very hazy
Provides a definition which Cognos uses to connect to a database
Configured via legacy administration console
Uses a wide variety of connection types including JDBC, ODBC and others
Uses Dynamic Query Mode or Classic Query Mode
One data source can be used by infinite Framework Manager packages
Source for Framework Manager only – no data modules (we’ll cover a simple workaround later in this article)

As you can see, data servers and data sources serve the same function within Cognos – defining a reusable database connection for Cognos – and have many of the same features. They differ primarily in the types of databases to which they can connect, the connectivity standard they use and how they are configured within Cognos.

Configuring data servers

Configuring a data server is easy and is – for the most part – a one time, ‘set it and forget it’ task most frequently done by Cognos administrators. Like everything in Cognos you have a few options for how to proceed. Before we dig into that though, let’s take a look at the info we need regardless of how we’re configuring data servers.

Data server configuration checklist

Identify which type of database you want to connect to
Make sure you have permission to connect to it!
Check to make sure it’s supported by Cognos
Check to see if there are any special considerations for that database
Acquire the relevant JDBC driver and install it in the ‘drivers’ folder of the Cognos install directory
Ask your DBA for the following information:
- URL for connecting to the database
- Database name
- Schema name
- Username for authentication
- Password for authentication

Configuring a data server from scratch

Now that we have our ducks in a row we can build the data server. This is incredibly easy, though you might not know it from reading these instructions. Let me break it down for you:

Click the manage icon then select ‘Data server connections’
Click the plus button in the upper right of the data server connections window
Select your database type from the list that appears
The data server configuration window will automatically open for you to input your connection url from above.
In authentication method, select ‘use the following signon’ and input your username and password
Click ‘Test’ and ensure Cognos can connect to your database
Click on the ‘Schemas’ tab and set the following:
- In ‘Load options’, choose whether or not you want Cognos to retrieve statistical samples from the database. I generally leave this alone. Turning this off will disable certain advanced features of Cognos – like auto joins in data modules
- In ‘Tables’, select which tables you want to expose via the data server. I highly recommend you select only the tables which you need. Allowing Cognos to profile your entire production database during work hours is an extremely bad idea…
Click ‘Save.’ Your data server is ready for use in data modules!

Converting Cognos 10 data sources to Cognos Analytics data servers

While it’s true that a data source configured in Cognos 10 cannot directly feed a data module, you can easily convert a data source to a data server provided the administrator has configured a jdbc connection for the data source. To do so follow these steps:

Click the manage icon then ‘Administration Console’
Click ‘Configuration’ tab and ‘Data Source Connections’
Click the ‘set Properties’ icon for the data source you wish to convert
Check the ‘Connection’ tab
Check the box next to ‘Allow web-based modeling’
Click ‘OK’
Exit the administration console and open ‘Data Servers’ in the ‘Manage’ menu. You should see your data source list as a data server.

Using data servers in Cognos analytics

By following the process outlined above we can easily use data servers to get our data into data modules and then into reports, dashboards or the new exploration feature without ever needing to reference Framework Manager. I hope this satisfies Mr. Schmoe and as always, contact me if you have any questions!

Read on to level up your Cognos skills!

Cognos Analytics 11.1.5 What’s New

December 21, 2019 by Ryan Dolley 5 Comments

It’s the holiday season and IBM has given us an unexpected gift in the waning days of 2019. No, I am not referencing the fact that Cognos Analytics is currently half-off! IBM rather suddenly dropped a new Cognos release chocked full of stocking stuffer features for all the good little Cognoids across the land. So let’s read on to learn what’s new in Cognos 11.1.5.

Schematics

The schematic feature of Cognos Analytics 11.1.5 enables interactive custom maps for things like stadium or airplane seating charts — Schematics allow you to turn anything into an interactive map

Schematics are undoubtedly the eye catching new feature in Cognos Analytics 11.1.5. Schematics allow Cognos to dynamically visualize data on an image – think a stadium or airplane seating chart, a hospital floor plan or a diagram of a machine. The schematic is interactive and plays nicely with other features.

Schematic Views

One interesting feature of Schematics is the ability to create ‘views.’ Views enable end users to automatically filter the schematic to render only those sections that interest them. In the example above I created two views of the United States – one titled ‘Midwest’ and one titled ‘Rest.’ You can see that unselecting ‘Midwest’ hides those states. For a more complex example, imagine a schematic with a detailed diagram of a car. Users could interactively choose to view only the suspension, transmission, power train, etc… Very powerful!

Schematic Management

Managing Schematics is not exactly straight forward but IBM has provided excellent instructions. Multiple schematics can be bundled together into a package, which allows report authors to select from a library of related schematics. These packages are managed just like the custom visualizations that debuted in Cognos Analytics 11.1.4.

Schematics are currently only available in reporting.

Data Modules

You guys know I love data modules. Well in Cognos Analytics 11.1.5 the changes to Data Modules are so, so, SO GOOD. Just ridiculously good. I got a huge smile of my face using it for the first time. You have no excuse at this point, they’re just too awesome!

Custom Tables

IBM has taken all of the scattered virtual table/view building functionality and very smartly bundled it together into a new, clean and totally kick ass interface called ‘Custom Tables.’ From custom tables you can easily blend tables or spreadsheets from any source together while understanding at a glance how all that blended data is related. I cannot tell you how crucial this feature is as I and my customers build increasingly complex data flows in Cognos.

Members in the data tree

Cognos Analytics 11.1.5 adds the ability for members to appear in the data tree regardless of source type — Members are now visible in the data tree regardless of source type

As of Cognos Analytics 11.1.5, members are now visible in the data tree regardless of source type. Yes, you read that correctly – even for relational sources. You can drag and drop individual members into visualizations, use them to build sets, etc. Even against excel spreadsheets. Holy cow! This change applies across the entire UI, not just data modules.

Show generated SQL and query control

Another huge quality of life upgrade – you can now see generated SQL directly in data modules! And you can now use a property called ‘item list‘ to determine whether the data module fetches the entire table or uses minimized SQL, just like you could in FM.

Dashboards

Dashboards received a host of small quality of life changes plus one big, frequently requested enhancement that I know you’ll love. So let’s start there.

Dashboard to dashboard drill through

Dashboards can now drill through to dashboards — Dashboard to dashboard drill through – it finally happened

Dashboards can now utilize other dashboards as drill-through targets. IBM did a great job of making this extremely straightforward so end users should have no problem with it. It works like this:

Create two dashboards that share at least one data source
Establish a Drill-through definition (pictured above)
Notice there is no mapping of parameters or anything like that!
In the source dashboard, select a visualization element and choose the drill-through icon
The target dashboard will open and a new filter will appear in the ‘All tabs’ filter section
The target dashboard has been filtered by the values passed from the source

Customize tabs

Cognos 11.1.5 brings significant new tab controls

You can now customize the location an appearance of Dashboard tabs. In the example above, I moved the tabs to the left side and formatted the fourth tab to appear in red with some cool spectacles as an icon.

Various and sundry improvements

Here is a summary of additional enhancements to Dashboards:

Show and hide rows and columns in crosstabs
Customize missing values in visualizations
Assistant-suggested questions based on context
Enhancements to forecasting (as in it’s more accurate)

Administration

I don’t write a ton about administration on this blog. Mostly that’s because it’s boring. However there are some important changes that I want to highlight for you.

Save reports to cloud storage

Save to cloud is a new capability that allows you to, well, save reports directly to 3rd party object storage services. This allows you to archive your 10-years-and-running collection of daily PDFs to Amazon S3 instead of in your content store. I think this is hugely helpful, especially for customers on Cognos cloud where archival and bursting capabilities have been severely restricted. It also portends good things as far as integration with 3rd party cloud vendors going forward.

AI Capability

The new AI capability controls who can use the AI Assistant in Dashboards and Explore. I know the ability to turn this on and off is something many Cognos teams have been asking for. My advice to you is to just leave it on! But if you absolutely must lock it away, now you can.

Other new features of Cognos Analytics 11.1.5

There are a host of other small changes that I’m not going to cover here. Many of the changes to Report Authoring, Explorations, etc… are covered above as there are quite a few UI spanning updates in this release. Overall I’m extremely pleased with this one. Schematics are a great new feature while the changes to Data Modules are exceptionally good. I suggest -as always – that you update to 11.1.5 as soon as possible. And as always, hit me up with any questions you may have.

Read on to level up your Cognos skills!

Framework Manager vs Data Modules

November 20, 2019 by Ryan Dolley 22 Comments

I have spent a lot of time showcasing data modules to audiences across the world in-person and in livestreams, helping people understand how and why to use them as part of Cognos Analytics. The most consistent question I receive – by far – is about understanding framework manager vs data modules. There are a lot of outdated opinions and outright misconceptions floating around so let me outline the exact feature differences between framework manager and data modules as of Cognos 11.1.4.

What do data modules and framework manager have in common?

The answer is ‘a lot’ but this wasn’t always the case. In the 11.0 releases data modules were missing many essential framework manager features and didn’t offer compelling reasons to switch. Of course that has changed. As of 11.1.4 framework manager and data modules both:

Produce data models that can be used with all Cognos 11 features
Join dozens or hundreds of tables across multiple databases
Execute cross-grain fact queries (aka the dreaded determinants)
Build simple or complex calculations and filters
Build alias, view, union and join virtual tables
Secure data by groups, roles and users
Create OLAP-like dimensional hierarchies
Offer enterprise governance, auditablity and security

Oftentimes people washed their hands of data modules a couple years ago and are surprised to see virtual tables, cross-grain fact queries and security by groups. These features may exist in both but the implementation in data modules is superior from a usability perspective.

Column dependencies can handle degenerate dimensions, unlike framework manager — Column dependencies go beyond what was possible using determinants in FM

What do data modules offer that framework manager does not?

Again, the answer is ‘a lot’. The 11.1. release takes data modules beyond what is possible in FM with a host of powerful capabilities and quality of life enhancements. The following features are either exclusive to data modules or done infinitely better in data modules.

Natural-language and Ai powered auto-modeling
Automatic join detection
Easy integration of excel data
Ability to easily clean data
Flexible hierarchies that go up, down and across (navigation paths)
Easy measure binning and attribute grouping
Easy extraction of year, month, day, etc… from data data types (split)
Automatic creation of relative time filters (YTD, MTD, PYMTD, etc…)
Automatic creation of relative time measures (YTD actuals, PYTD actuals, etc…)
In-memory materialized views within Cognos Analytics
In-memory query cache
Easy multi-model inheritance for single source of truth
Degenerate dimension aggregation (column dependencies)

Some of these features are absolute game changers for how I craft highly performant, easy to use and self-service friendly data models. Consider ~~the coconut~~ relative time; because this was such a titanic brain buster in framework manager only the most skilled developers could deliver. Now it takes minutes for end users to implement.

Building a dozen relative time filters can be done in as little as five clicks. — It took five clicks to build the relative time filters that take ~1 trillion years in FM

What are data modules missing?

There are still some things data modules lack:

Object level security
DMR capabilities
Parameter maps
Multiple connections for data servers

If I’m being honest, I don’t really recommend you use many of these features for new development in 2019 unless you absolutely have to, particularly DMRs. DMRs are very powerful for those who know MDX but a true maintenance and self-service nightmare in the long run. I cannot count the number of clients who are stranded with critical DMR based reports they cannot understand. In any case, a little bird told me that DMR-like functionality will grace data modules soon.

Going beyond the feature list

Comparing framework manager vs data modules feature for feature, we can see how data modules have few shortcomings and offer huge advantages. While this is a common way for IT folks to think (and I would know, I’m one of them!), I argue that it badly misses the point. By using data modules an IT professional can do weeks of FM work in an afternoon while a self-service user can easily accomplish tasks that will otherwise be done in Power BI. I repeat it often but I’ll say it again – data modules are the key to modernizing your Cognos Analytics environment and delivering content with the speed modern users demand.

What do you recommend?

I’ll parrot Cognos offering manager Jason Tavoularis and say, ‘use data modules unless you can’t.’ And as you can see above, the list of reasons you can’t has become quite short. I start ALL consulting engagements under the assumption that we’ll be building data modules and I’m always happy with the results.

Cognos Analytics Forecasting Overview

November 7, 2019 by Ryan Dolley 7 Comments

Cognos Analytics 11.1.4 brings exciting and long sought forecasting capabilities to the platform. While Cognos is far from the first analytics tool to offer forecasting, IBM’s implementation is more flexible, more powerful and easier to use than competitors. Let’s take a dive into Cognos Analytics forecasting to understand why.

Cognos Analytics forecasting is a powerful and easy to use forecasting tool — Cognos Analytics forecasting is just really cool.

Where is forecasting available?

Forecasting is available in line, column and bar visualizations in Dashboards, Stories and Explorations as of 11.1.4. Report Authoring is on the horizon (in fact there’s a ton of cool stuff coming for Report Authoring.) The ability to forecast column and bar charts sets Cognos apart from Tableau and Power BI. Cognos hides the forecasting button until a visualization meets the following criteria:

Visualization is the proper type (line, column or bar)
Visualization has a measure in the Y axis
Visualization has a time element in the X axis

Once this criteria is satisfied the forecast button appears next to the insights button in the top right of the visualization.

You start from any line, column or bar chart — Forecasting is available for line, column and bar charts

In the above example I use the ‘Great outdoors data module’ available in the samples. Using the Sales table I apply Revenue to the Y axis and nest Year and Month on the X axis – the perfect scenario for forecasting.

Single category forecasts

One click of the forecast button is all it takes to build a predictive forecast — Forecasting a single category is simple

Click the forecast button, turn the feature on and there you have it – your very own Cognos Analytics forecast! You may immediately notice that the slope of the line changed dramatically once a forecast was applied. I first assumed this was a bug until I clicked the yellow ‘!’ next to the forecast button and read these magical words:

Cognos will even automatically re-order your time categories — Forecasting automatically orders time categories chronologically!

That’s right – Cognos automatically reordered the time categories to be in chronological order rather than alphanumeric! I’ve been waiting for this feature for all my life and it’s finally here. Now we just need IBM to automatically apply it to all visualizations, not just forecasts.

Multi-category forecasts

Adding additional categories builds a multi line or bar forecast — Forecasting multiple categories, just as easy

In the above example I add ‘Retailer Type’ from the Retailers table to the color attribute of the visualization. Cognos instantly re-applies the forecast to each individual category. This is one advantage Cognos has on Power BI, which currently forecasts a single category only. This makes data discovery on forecasts extremely fast and easy.

Interacting with forecasts

Hovering over an individual point in the forecast will show you the confidence upper bound, forecast and lower bound for that intersection of the chart:

In this example I hover over the projection for ‘Outdoors Shop’ in September, 2018. You can see Cognos’ predictions for the upper and lower bound.

Focusing on a single category will visualization the confidence interval — You can visually see the upper and lower bound as well

Clicking on the line for ‘Outdoors Shop’ will filter the dashboard by this category, bring the selected category into visual focus and plot the confidence intervals as they evolve in the forecast. Super duper cool.

Configuring forecasts

Forecast configuration options are available in the menu that appears when the forecast button is clicked.

Cognos analytics forecasts have several configuration options to customize how the forecast is generated — Forecast configuration options help tailor results

Let’s take a look at what these options do:

Forecast periods: The number of periods included in the forecast. The default ‘Auto’ will project forward 20%. If you have 10 months of data, auto will generate an additional 2 months of forecast
Ignore last periods: Ignore last periods is useful for cases where you have incomplete data at the end of your chart – for example, the month of November currently has 6 days worth of actuals. Ignoring this incomplete period creates a more accurate forecast.
Confidence level: Controls the confidence level displayed on the tool tip and confidence visualization – options are 90%, 95% and 99%.
Seasonality: Cognos automatically detects seasonal fluctuations in your data and accounts for them in its forecasts – think about retailer revenue during the holidays for example. The default ‘Auto’ setting will build multiple models with different seasonal periods and and select the best one, however you can specify a season period by entering numbers here.

That last option is incredibly powerful and another strong advantage for Cognos vs Power BI and Tableau. The inability to detect and account for seasonal variation when forecasting renders this functionality useless for many industries – retail, hospitality, utilities – and only Cognos has it.

Understanding forecasts

Cognos uses exponential smoothing models to generate these forecasts. I don’t know what the means either but you can read about it here. The important thing to know is that you have access to the forecasting statistical details in the data tray.

Cognos analytics forecast statistical details are available for each category in the visualization — For those that know, here are the statistical details for the forecast

I’m a BI/DW guy and this screen might as well be magical incantations to me, but the fact that Cognos provides this level of detail means that I can always find a friendly wizard to explain it. IBM has a nice explanation that I also don’t understand here.

Bar chart forecasts

Switching to a column/bar chart retains the forecast and forecast parameters that were applied to your line chart.

One thing it doesn’t do, which I just discovered in writing this blog post, is automatically sort the time category in chronological order like it does with line charts. I’m not sure if this is purposeful, an oversight or a bug. You can vote for my feature request to rectify this here.

Cognos Analytics forecasting is the real deal

I have to say, I think this feature is extremely well done and I’m certain end users are going to love it. If you need help prepping your environment for self-service see my guide here. Allowing your users to build their own data modules will make forecasting even more powerful, read more about it here.

IBM was late to the market with it but delivered something much better than their competitors. This has been a recurring story in the last year – Cognos has come so far since the 11.0 releases. It’s up to IBM – and to us – to make sure the broader BI community is aware of the good things going on in Cognos Analytics.

Cognos Analytics Linked Modules

October 29, 2019 by Ryan Dolley 4 Comments

If you’ve been following this blog you know that I love Cognos data modules to death. They are easy to learn, easy to use and full of functionality. Today we’re going to explore using Cognos Analytics Linked Modules to maintain enterprise data governance while enabling self-service. This entry is meant to give a straightforward implementation guide to reinforce concepts outlined in the posts Data Modules as a Single Source of Truth and How to Organize Cognos for Self-Service.

Companies do not have to choose between governance and self-service — Like Jedi vs Sith… can you truly have both?

How and why of linked modules

Using linked modules is a slam dunk way to enable self-service analytics on a foundation of trusted and governed data. When you link two modules you are a creating a relationship in which:

The IT expert can build and maintain a complex module with high quality data that requires significant skill to create
The power user can utilize high quality data as a foundation for analysis but customize and extend at their own pace, not IT’s
The casual user can build dashboards and run reports that meet their needs without waiting for IT

This works so well because the modules of the power user automatically inherit all the complex relationships, transformations and logic from the enterprise module prepared by IT in near real-time without having to do anything. It’s magic.

Step 1: Build an enterprise data module

The enterprise module is typically – but not always – built by IT, more often than not the result of a much longer process of data warehouse design and ETL. Regardless of how its created or what it contains the enterprise module will server as our example though any two modules can be linked together.

Any data module can serve as a source for another data module — The enterprise module serves as the source / parent when linking data modules

Our example uses ‘Great outdoors data module’ from the Cognos samples. This module is located in the data folder. Once built the enterprise module resides in a folder where self-service users can easily access it. I advocate creating a data library folder for this purpose.

Step 2: Use a data module as a source

IT has built and deployed an enterprise module with validated and accurate data, which takes a long time. Now a power user needs to extend that module with some additional context and can’t wait for IT to do it. The solution is simple: ~~use Tableau~~ Build a new data module using the enterprise module as a source!

Adding a data module source is no different from adding any other source — Adding a data module source is extremely easy, fun and profitable

When creating a new data module, users can select other modules as sources in the ‘select sources’ screen. In our example, select ‘Great outdoors data module’ and hit ‘OK’. That’s it. We’ve built a linked module.

Data module sources appear in teal and have a link icon — A linked module has visual cues to let you know that it is indeed a link

The tables above appear in teal rather than blue and have a link icon, indicating that they are actually inherited from another module. At this point any changes made to the tables of ‘Great outdoors data module’ will automatically flow through to this module with absolutely no intervention.

Step 3: Extend the enterprise module

You’ll notice that the teal linked tables do not offer much in the way customization by design. They inherit everything from the parent module. This means users cannot change what comes from the enterprise module but they can extend it with additional logic and data.

Linked tables don't have all the options of normal tables as you're trying to preserve governance. — No options = no opportunity to mess with governed data

Cognos restricts us to creating data groups, navigation paths and editing some properties for product line – a far cry from what is available in the source module. However we still have considerable power to extend the enterprise module. Let’s look at some examples.

Creating calculations

In the example above the calculated field ‘Revenue Variance Amount’ contains the fields ‘Revenue’ and ‘Planned Revenue’ from the sales table. This custom calculation is built entirely using elements inherited from our enterprise module. At many of my customers such a simple request spends weeks or months in the IT backlog but here we accomplish it in minutes while still using centrally modeled and governed data. Yowza!

Adding additional data

Here I join a Cognos data set called ‘Sales Staff Analysis’ to the tables from the enterprise module via two conjoined dimensions. Joining a spreadsheet is just as easy, which is what the vast majority of power users want to do.

These are just two examples of extending an enterprise module using the linked module functionality. Users can do almost everything data modules have to offer while still relying on trusted data, including building table views and aliases, creating drill paths, custom grouping and filter, row level security, etc…

Step 4: Watch the linking magic in action

Before the module can be used it must be saved. Users typically save modules to ‘My content’ but it is critically important that you allow them to save self-service modules to a location where they can easily share with coworkers. Now let’s close this module and test our module link.

Almost all changes made to the source module flow through

Here I create a new calculation in our enterprise module called ‘Revenue Percent Variance’ and click ‘Save’. I then immediately create a dashboard using the self-service module as a data source. Keep in mind that I made absolutely no updates to the self-service module before doing so.

The changes flow through just like magic!

As you can see, ‘Revenue Percent Variance’ is immediately available for use in Dashboards even when they reference the self-service module rather than the enterprise module.

Putting it all together

Allow me to summarize what we just did:

An enterprise module is made available as a data source
Power users extend the enterprise modules with their own logic and data in self-service modules
Content is built using both the enterprise and self-service modules as a data source
Updates to the enterprise module flow through to all content regardless of which data source was used

Single source of truth meets self-service

Nobody but Cognos offers this combination of data governance and self-service. It’s a game changer for organizations who truly embrace it. Book some time with me to explore these ideas further (there’s a link on the screen) and be sure to check out my live impressions of the recent 11.1.4 release.

How to Organize Cognos for self-service

October 28, 2019 by Ryan Dolley 4 Comments

Most Cognos environments are organized to support a world of IT authored report consumption – a fact that I confirm over and over as I present about Cognos modernization across the United States and am asked by beleaguered but hopeful looking Cognos admins, ‘How am I supposed to support all this self-service stuff?’ Never fear – here’s my take on how to organize Cognos.

Why your environment needs a re-org

11.1.4 is out, is excellent and you need to utilize all its features in production ASAP. Reticent clients sometimes object that their existing folder structure and security cannot support all the new features. Honestly they probably can’t. The typical IT managed legacy Cognos environment has some combination of the following:

High level folders that reflect the org structure (finance, HR, etc…) in which users can do nothing
Low level subject area folders nested within the org folders in which users can do nothing
A hidden data sources folder that users can’t find
A self-service folder where old timers use Query Studio
Non-prod environments where all real work must be done
A deployment cycle that takes weeks to bring finished reports to production

No path leads to modernization with these roadblocks to user adoption in place. Feel no shame, however, if this describes your environment in part or whole – this was absolutely best practice when most Cognos environments were first established.

Towards a new folder structure

Modern Cognos environments deliver consumer oriented experiences built around use cases rather than org structures or IT priorities. Redesigning folder structures and security to achieve this feels daunting – but it’s crucial. Here’s an example of what it looks like:

A modern Cognos Team Content folder structure

Curated Content

Curated content is the closest thing to a traditional IT-centric approach and is where a large portion of existing IT authored reports wind up. Mission critical reports live here alongside anything too high profile to mess up. Tight security and IT control are the name of the game here.

Nobody saves to curated content without IT approval and strict documentation. If your requirements involve audit, regulatory reporting or the CEO’s eyeballs it goes here.

Data Library

The data library is a semi-curated area and is THE PLACE to go to find data in your company. The data must be high quality and IT should exercise significant oversight, however data stewards and trusted power users have the ability to promote data to this location.

Do not structure the data library by data source or modeling tool – that’s thinking like IT! It’s okay to have folders mingled with packages and data modules. Using linked modules to reference the data library maintains single source of truth.

Sensitive data targeted at only a specific department – HR data for example – can be located here as well provided you have appropriate object or data level security in place but may be best kept in department content

Department Content

Department content is a semi-curated area controlled by the data stewards and power users in each of your business units. Much of your existing content migrates here and becomes the responsibility of the business unit to secure, maintain and update. This means granting admin, modeling and report authoring powers to trusted individuals in the business.

Organize cognos content by department — Data stewards and power users maintain department content – not IT!

Yes this means dissolving the responsibility for maintaining department content folder security to the business. This is a shocking recommendation, I know, but this power belongs with those who know the data and user community best.

Help

Help contains everything to assist your users with Cognos. The Cognos samples go here. Example content you build goes here. Everyone has access to this location.

EDIT: As Jeremy points out in the comments, moving the ‘Templates’ folder from its original deployment location breaks the templates feature. Please leave it in its original location at the root of the ‘Team Content’ folder.

organize cognos help in one place to make it easy to find — Help – I need some Cognos! Help – not just any Cognos!

Self-Service

Self-service is hands off to IT. Anybody with access to Cognos can fully utilize all their capabilities in this location without asking permission first. That means making folders, building data modules, uploading excel files, etc. I mean it – everything!

You are indeed inviting chaos into Cognos, but this chaos already exists in your organization – it goes by the names ‘Tableau’ and ‘Power BI’. Giving full access to all Cognos features in the self-service folder encourages users to, well, use Cognos.

This is not to say you surrender all control – rather, you closely monitor what users are doing using the audit reports or a product like PMsquare’s Thrive and intervene as necessary under the following conditions:

Users are sharing inappropriate data
Users need help utilizing Cognos
Self-service content gains too wide an audience

Pmsquare Thrive will help — Thrive will tell you what they are doing…

The beauty of the self-service folder is this: When a user builds a dashboard based on spreadsheets that winds up being used by 200 people, you’ll know. And you and the relevant data steward from the business can transition that report to department reporting or curated content where it belongs.

Now you’re ready to organize Cognos

I hope this gives you some inspiration to deploy a more modern approach to your Cognos environment. There is much more to this than simply changing the folder structure, but a new folder structure is a crucial piece of the puzzle and one that I get asked about all the time. You’ll also need to consider things like persona-driven development, data governance with linked modules and thinking like an app instead of a report. I’ll cover all these topics and more going forward.