Overview

This course is designed to guide report authors in building on their expertise with IBM Cognos Analytics by applying dimensional techniques to reports. Through interactive demonstrations and exercises, participants will learn how to author reports that navigate and manipulate dimensional data structures using the specific dimensional functions and features available in IBM Cognos Analytics.

Audience

Report authors working with dimensional data sources.

Prerequisites

• IBM Cognos Analytics: Author Reports Fundamentals (v11.0)• Knowledge of your business requirements• Knowledge of dimensional data

Objective

• Compare dimensional and relational data sources • Understand dimensional concepts and reporting styles • Create reports using dimensional data items such as members, levels, and hierarchies • Focus reports using dimensional techniques such as edge filters, slicers, and filter functions • Navigate dimensional data structures using functions to find related members or comparison time periods • Create sophisticated measure calculations • Understand totals and aggregation • Analyze reports with drill-up and drill-down techniques • Configure advanced drilling behavior to support complex calculations and dashboard reports • Set up drill-through access from one data source to another

Course Outline

1. Introduction to Dimensional Concepts• Identify different data sources and models• Investigate the OLAP dimensional structure• Identify dimensional data items and expressions• Differentiate the IBM Cognos Analytics query language from SQL and MDX• Differentiate relational and dimensional report authoring styles2. Introduction to Dimensional Data in Reports• Work with members• Identify sets and tuples in IBM Cognos Analytics3. Dimensional Report Context• Understand the purpose of report context• Understand how data is affected by default and root members4. Focus Your Dimensional Data• Compare dimensional queries to relational queries• Explain the importance of filtering dimensional queries• Evaluate different filtering techniques• Filter based on dimensions and members• Filter based on measure values• Filter using a slicer5. Calculations and Dimensional Functions• Use IBM Cognos Analytics dimensional functions to create sets and tuples• Perform arithmetic operations in OLAP queries• Identify coercion errors and rules6. Functions for Navigating Dimensional Hierarchies• Navigate dimensional data using family functions7. Relative Functions• Navigate dimensional data using relative functions• Navigate dimensional data using relative time functions8. Advanced Drilling Techniques and Member Sets• Understand default drill-up and drill-down functionality• Identify cases when you need to override default drilling behavior• Configure advanced drilling behavior to support sophisticated use cases• Define member sets to support advanced drilling• Define member sets to support functions9. Set Up Drill-Through Reports• Navigate from a specific report to a target report• Drill down to greater detail and then navigate to target report• Navigate between reports created using different data sources10. End-to-End Workshop• Review concepts covered throughout the course