Tutorial: IBM Cognos Insight
Tutorial: IBM Cognos Insight
Tutorial: IBM Cognos Insight
Version 10.2.2
Tutorial
Note
Before using this information and the product it supports, read the information in “Notices” on page 25.
Product Information
This document applies to IBM Cognos Insight Version 10.2.2 and may also apply to subsequent releases.
Licensed Materials - Property of IBM
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2012, 2014.
US Government Users Restricted Rights – Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract
with IBM Corp.
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Chapter 1. Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Installing Cognos Insight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Downloading the samples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Cognos Insight user interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Chapter 2. Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Importing order data from a spreadsheet file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Reviewing sales data in an existing workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Filtering data to view details about specific products and customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Grouping months into a quarter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Calculating a salary increase with a dimension calculation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Identifying high and low revenue with color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Calculating revenue by modifying the model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Audience
For analysts and business users who are looking to more easily access and
understand key business information, Cognos Insight empowers you to
independently discover, explore, and share this information, and then take action.
In contrast to spreadsheets or other point solutions that create information silos,
Cognos Insight can be seamlessly woven into a workgroup or larger corporate
entity.
Finding information
Accessibility Features
Accessibility features help users who have a physical disability, such as restricted
mobility or limited vision, to use information technology products. Cognos Insight
has accessibility features. For information on these features, see the accessibility
section in the IBM Cognos Insight User Guide (http://www.ibm.com/support/
knowledgecenter/SSVJ22_10.2.2).
Forward-looking statements
Samples disclaimer
The way in which you download and install Cognos Insight depends on the other
Cognos products in your environment.
Procedure
By using the sample workspaces to perform a set of tasks, you can explore Cognos
Insight and learn how it can help you use your corporate data to fully understand
how your company is doing now and what lies ahead.
To use this tutorial, you must download the Cognos Insight samples
(https://www.analyticszone.com/wikis/home#/wiki/
W688ee50d7e7f_4322_b0bb_006007324321/page/IBM%20Cognos%20Tutorial
%20and%20Samples).
The following figure displays the parts of the Cognos Insight window.
icon , which enables you to change the type of the chart that appears
in the widget.
The overview area
The overview area is displayed above a crosstab or chart. The overview
area tells you what dimensions and measures appear in the crosstab, chart,
or crosstab and chart. The overview area is divided into three sections:
rows, columns, and context. These sections represent the dimensions and
measures that appear in the rows, columns, and context of the crosstab,
chart, or crosstab and chart. For example, if the Products dimension
appears in the rows section of the overview area, then products also
appear in the rows of the crosstab.
The content pane
The content pane displays all of the cubes, dimensions, measures, and
attributes that you can work with in the current workspace. From the
content pane, you can also import, create and delete, move, and edit the
elements in the content pane. The content pane also displays import
processes, which enables you to refresh data from a specific import.
Explore points
An explore point is a list of the elements in a dimension. You can click the
elements to filter the data in the crosstab, chart, or crosstab and chart.
Tabs Workspaces can be divided into several tabs. From the tabs area, you can
create, delete, and rename tabs.
The tab thumbnails icon
Clicking the tab thumbnails icon displays small graphics of each tab so
that you can navigate to another tab using these graphics instead of the tab
names.
Chapter 1. Prerequisites 3
4 IBM Cognos Insight Version 10.2.2: Tutorial
Chapter 2. Lessons
Each lesson of the IBM Cognos Insight Tutorial focusses on different features. The
Cognos Insight samples will show you these features in real-world examples.
This tutorial can be completed in the order in which the lessons appear. However,
each lesson stands alone as well, so if you are interested in a particular feature,
you can skip to that lesson.
As a sales executive at the Sample Outdoors Company, you want to review your
order data to analyze your company's performance. You have a spreadsheet file
that includes this data, so you decide to import the file into a new IBM Cognos
Insight workspace for analysis
Procedure
1. From the Microsoft Windows Start menu, click IBM Cognos Insight.
2. From the Get Data menu at the top of the Cognos Insight window, click
Import Data. The import wizard appears, displaying the Import Data - Select
Data Source page.
3. To import a file, beside the Name field, click Browse. A new Open window
appears where you can browse the files on your computer.
4. Navigate to where you downloaded the samples, and then open the
Orders_language_code.csv file. For example, if you want to work with the
Spanish sample file, open the Orders_ES.csv file. The data from the file
appears in the import wizard.
Tip: You can expand the File Details section to display details about how
your source data is imported. In this example, the default options are
appropriate.
You decide that you don't want to import all of the data from your file into
Cognos Insight.
5. In the Columns section, in the Import column, clear the check boxes for the
following data items to indicate that these items should not be imported:
a. Order number
b. Month
c. Order size
d. Unit price
e. Ship date
f. Sales representative
6. Click Advanced. The Import Data - Data Mapping page of the import wizard
appears. This page provides details about how your data will be imported.
Note that Cognos Insight automatically nested the City element within the
Country or Region element, because cities are logically child items of
countries or regions.
7. Click Summary. The Import Data - Importing page of the import wizard
appears. The Import Messages pane displays the actions that Cognos Insight
will perform when you import the data. The Property Summary pane
displays the settings that you chose in the Properties pane for each target
item. You can use this summary to review and compare the properties of each
type of data, including the cube you are creating and its dimensions, levels,
attributes, and measures.
8. Click Finish.
Your data appears in a new Cognos Insight workspace. The workspace
includes a crosstab and a column chart, and your data hierarchy appears in
the content pane on the right, under the heading Data.
Figure 3 on page 7 shows the workspace after importing the CSV file.
The crosstab displays the following data from your new cube:
v The Product dimension appears in the rows of the crosstab.
v The three measures in your cube, Order Revenue, Order Quantity, and
Count, appear in the columns of the crosstab.
The chart displays the following data from your new cube:
v Products are plotted as columns in the chart. For example, there is a column
for Infinity in each group of columns.
v The three measures in your cube are plotted as groups of columns in the
chart. For example, there is a group of three columns for Order Revenue.
The overview area above the crosstab identifies the data that appears in your
crosstab:
v The rows section shows that the Product dimension appears in the
rows of the crosstab.
v The context section shows that the Customer dimension, the City
dimension, and the Order date dimension appear in the context of the
Chapter 2. Lessons 7
crosstab. The dimension names in the context section represent the totals for
the dimensions, such as Total of Customer and Total of City. The Order
date dimension appears as 2007 in the context section, because only 2007
was included in the source file.
Tip: You can click the dimensions in the rows, columns, and context sections
of the overview area to change the data that is displayed in your crosstab and
chart. For example, click Total of City, and then click Austria. Now only the
data for Austria is displayed in your crosstab and chart instead of the data for
all cities. To return to displaying the data for all cities, click Austria in the
context section, and then click Total of City.
You decide that you want to add data about sales representatives to your
workspace so that you can see which sales representatives were responsible
for the most revenue.
Using tabs can help you organize data and filters to hide or focus on specific data.
For example, you can use tabs to tell a story about your own business by
separating the aspects of your business into meaningful divisions that allow you to
quickly view and analyze your data. Each tab displays different information, but
all the tabs are part of the same workspace.
Procedure
v From the Workspace section of the content pane , click the Products tab.
v From the tabs along the bottom of the Cognos Insight window, click the
Orders tab.
v At the top right of the canvas, click the Samples action button. You can add
action buttons like these to any workspace by clicking Action button from
the Insert menu.
4. Click the Actions icon, and then click Close.
5. When you are prompted to save the changes you made to the sample, click No.
Procedure
Chapter 2. Lessons 9
Figure 4. The Orders tab filtered to show only the Kodiak product line
Tip: You can use the Clear this explore point icon to display all the
products again. If you clear the explore points, ensure that you select Kodiak
again to continue with this tutorial.
5. In the pie chart, hover over the pie slices to display sales information for the
countries or regions where the Kodiak product line is sold.
6. In the Customers explore point to the left of the Cognos Insight window, click
Kanga Kampers. Figure 5 on page 11 shows the resulting workspace.
As the manager of the Sample Outdoors Company who is responsible for training,
you need to cut costs. To help you determine where you can cut costs, you want to
compare costs for given periods of the year.
Chapter 2. Lessons 11
Procedure
As the human resources manager, you need to determine the business impact of
making changes that affect the structure and staff of the Sample Outdoors
Company. In this case, you want to see the effect of increasing salaries by 5%.
Procedure
As a sales account manager at the Sample Outdoors Company, you want to know
which products are selling well and which products are selling poorly. You also
want to see changes over the year to determine the months in which each product
does not perform well.
Procedure
Chapter 2. Lessons 13
5. In the Conditional Style window, click the Add icon , click New
Conditional Style Using > Order Revenue.
6. In the Numeric Condition window, in the Range value field, type 5000, and
press Enter. The new condition appears in the list.
7. In the Range value field, type 10000, and press Enter. The list now displays
the two values you entered and rows above and below each of the values.
These rows are where you will define the conditions. For example, you can
define a condition for the values that are below 5,000 by setting the style in
the row below the value 5,000.
8. In the row below the 5,000 value, click the cell in the Style column, and then
click Poor.
9. In the row above the 5,000 value, click the cell in the Style column, and then
click Average.
10. In the row above the 10,000 value, click the cell in the Style column, and then
click Excellent. The conditions you created now indicate the following
information:
v Order revenue above 10,000 is excellent.
v Order revenue between 5,000 and 10,000 is average.
v Order revenue below 5,000 is poor.
11. Click OK twice to see the workspace. The Orders information crosstab, as
shown in Figure 7 on page 15, now displays excellent, average, and poor
values in the styles that you defined.
12. In the Customers explore point on the left of the Cognos Insight window,
click each of the customers to see sales by month and country or region to
help you determine when and where to target your sales campaigns.
13. Click the Actions icon, and then click Close.
14. When you are prompted to save the changes you made to the sample, click
No.
Results
From exploring the data in the workspace, you can tell that there might be sales
opportunities with the Sportworld customer, as they did not order the Kodiak nor
the Legend products.
As a data analyst at the Sample Outdoors Company, you want to change the Order
Revenue column so that it reflects changes to the Quantity and Unit price values.
This will enable you to decide how the quantities and unit prices of products affect
the company's revenue.
Chapter 2. Lessons 15
Procedure
5. Open the content pane to see all the dimensions and measures that have
been imported into this workspace.
6. Drag the Order details cube onto the workspace.
By default, dragging the cube to the workspace creates a crosstab and a chart.
The crosstab and chart display the first dimension in the cube, Order number,
and all the measures that are available in the cube.
The overview area above the crosstab identifies the data that appears in your
crosstab:
v The rows section shows that the Order number dimension appears in
the rows of the crosstab.
7. From the content pane , from the Order details cube, drag the Products
dimension to the right of the Order number dimension in the rows section
of the overview area. The cursor changes as you hover over the
overview area to show you where you can and cannot drop the dimension.
Tip: You can also drag dimensions from one section of the overview area to
another.
the Customers dimension in the rows section of the overview area. The
rows section now includes the following dimensions, nested in this order:
Order number, Products, Customers, and Order size, as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Crosstab with Order number, Products, Customers, and Order size in the rows and Order details
Measures in the columns
10. Right-click each of the four totals in the rows of the crosstab (such as All
Order numbers), and then click Show Totals > Don't Show Totals. The
crosstab is still mostly empty, because it is showing a cell for each data
intersection. You decide to remove the empty cells.
11. In the widget toolbar, click the Suppress empty cells icon , and then click
Rows.
The crosstab now displays all the data in the cube, as shown in Figure 9 on
page 18.
Chapter 2. Lessons 17
Figure 9. Crosstab with no totals showing and no empty cells
You decide that you want to focus on the Kanga Kampers customer.
12. In the overview area, click the Customers dimension, and then click Kanga
Kampers. The crosstab and chart now show only the Kanga Kampers data.
13. Multi-select all of the cells in the Order Revenue column of the crosstab, and
then right-click the selection and click Create Cube Calculation.
14. In the Cube Calculation Name window, enter Order Revenue Calculation,
and press Enter. The calculation that you are creating applies only to the
dimensions and measures as they are filtered in the crosstab. For example, the
Customers dimension is filtered to include only the Kanga Kampers product
in the crosstab, so the calculation applies only to the Kanga Kampers product.
Tip: You can change these filters in the expression editor. Each dimension in
the filter area, under Define a new expression for, displays the members that
appear in the crosstab and the dimension name. For example, the Customers
dimension is filtered to include only the Kanga Kampers product, so the
Customers dimension includes Kanga Kampers, the member that appears in
the crosstab, and Customers, the name of the dimension.
15. In the data hierarchy on the left of the window, in the Terms tab, scroll down
and expand Order details Measures. The Terms tab includes the dimensions
and measures that are available in the current cube. These are called the terms
in your expression.
Tip: You can use expression terms from other cubes in the workspace by
importing a term. Importing a term from another cube enables you to add a
dimension or measure from another cube to your calculation. You do this by
mapping the dimensions in the current cube to the dimensions in the cube
that you want to import from.
16. Drag the Quantity measure to the Expression pane.
17. In the Expression pane, type an asterisk (*), which is the symbol for
multiplication.
Tip: You can add calculation templates to the Expression pane by choosing
them from the Simple tab. For example, on the Simple tab, if you click
Arithmetic in the Operation type list, and * (Multiplication) in the Operation
list, the following template for a multiplication appears in the Expression
Chapter 2. Lessons 19
20 IBM Cognos Insight Version 10.2.2: Tutorial
Appendix. The Cognos family of products
There is much more that you can do in IBM Cognos Insight. For instance, if you
have a license for IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos Business Intelligence, or IBM
Cognos Express software, you can use Cognos Insight to publish, distribute, and
control your workspaces.
The following workflow example illustrates how Cognos Insight works with other
products in the Cognos family.
1. User A creates a workspace (or CDD file) in Cognos Insight that shows
worldwide sales by salesperson and by country or region. User A decides to
ask for a manager's input before finalizing the workspace. So User A emails the
workspace to User B, a manager.
2. User B reviews the workspace and makes some minor changes to how the data
is displayed. Then User B emails the workspace back to User A.
3. User A likes the changes that User B made, and wants to share the workspace
with other employees. User A has permission to add files to his company's
Cognos Business Intelligence server, so User A uses the Share feature in
Cognos Insight to add the workspace to the Sales folder in Cognos Connection.
4. User C finds the workspace on Cognos Connection, and decides that the
International Sales team would also benefit from the information in the
workspace. User C opens the workspace from Cognos Connection and updates
the data from the company's sales database. User C then asks the Cognos TM1
server administrator to publish and distribute the workspace to the Cognos
TM1 server and Cognos BI server so that other users can access the data online.
Figure 13. Workflow of User C sending the workspace to the server administrator
5. The Cognos TM1 server administrator publishes and distributes the workspace
and model to the Cognos TM1 server and the Cognos BI server. Publishing and
distributing adds an application and the data model to the Cognos TM1 server,
and adds a data source connection and reports to the Cognos BI server. The
administrator also schedules a refresh of the data in the model from the
company's database so that users can refresh the report data.
6. User C finds one of the published reports on Cognos Connection and schedules
a PDF report to be regularly burst to the International Sales team.
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Notices 27
28 IBM Cognos Insight Version 10.2.2: Tutorial
Index
C I
calculations icons
cube 16 description 2
dimension 12 importing
charts files 5
creating 16 spreadsheets 5
filtering 9 installing
columns Cognos Insight 1
creating 12
inserting 12
conditional styles
creating 13
M
measures
content pane
changing in charts 16
description 2
changing in crosstabs 16
crosstabs
creating 16
filtering 9
cube calculations N
creating 16 navigating
tabs 8
D
data O
grouping 12 overview area
importing 5 description 2
inserting parent members 12
mapping 5
detail
viewing more 9
P
parent members
dimensions
inserting 12
changing in charts 16
prerequisites 1
changing in crosstabs 16
E S
samples
emphasizing
downloading 1
highs and lows 13
empty cells
suppressing 16
explore points T
description 2 tabs
using 9 creating 16
navigating 8
toolbar
F description 2
totals
filtering
changing appearance 16
charts 9
crosstabs 9
data with explore points 9
U
user interface
G description 2
grouping
data 12
W
widgets
description 2
workspace
navigating 8