Your SpotOn the IBM Cognos Edge

Hello again,

I've been working through a specific issue where I wanted to dynamically set the value of a Cognos 8.4 Text Box Prompt with Javascript. I immediately went to my previous blog posting to copy and paste the code! Unfortunately, this only got me half way.

Since the Cognos prompts aren't simply HTML form elements, it did not suffice to try searchPrompts("Address").value="HELLO!!!". What I REALLY needed to do was simulate the user typing the desired text. So, after spending some time trying to understand what is going on in the background, I'm pleased to announce that with just a few lines of Javascript, I can easily set the value!

Hi folks,

There is a whole lot of new going on around SpotOn these days.  We've got (still relatively) new awards on the wall, new faces around the office, and a freshly minted website - check it out!

We're also introducing a new blog, and relaunching the current Edges blog.  Based on the popularity of the Javascript Prompts and FM on the Web posts, we're going to focus the blog you are reading on the work we do on the edges of the Cognos BI solution; SDK development, customizations, extensions, and application integration.

We're also very excited to be launch our blog focusing on the value of integrating spatial awareness with your IBM Cognos reports.  Geographic Business Intelligence (GBI) is something that will be on your radar in short order, if it is not already.  Please join us in the conversation.

Chris

BI is the CIO's top technology priority; it has been for more just about a decade - so says Gartner Research.  There has been a mad scramble by the megavendors to acquire the top rung of the pure play BI solutions.  Upstart, "flexy", dashboard and reporting solutions have been making their presence felt.  So what exactly are we talking about here?

I recently had an opportunity to present to a senior team at an enterprise mapping/GIS firm.  The subject was on why they should care about business intelligence.  In researching the presention, my favorite definition for BI  that I came acrosse was the following from Microsoft:

BI simplifies information discovery and analysis, making it possible for decision-makers at all levels of an organization to more easily access, understand, analyze, collaborate, and act on information, anytime and anywhere.

I found this definition very compelling as it focuses on the desired outcome.  Wait a minute....!!!

What if broad-based understanding of BI focused on the desired outcome - useful, actionable information for everybody (regardless of role) in the organization - rather than the features and functionalities of the various BI tools and technologies?  

Looking through the other end of the kaleidoscope leads to some interesting thinking; information usage versus technology capability; what different information consumers in the organization require; do they get the complete picture; how does the information get to the people that need it; how often...  It also puts the traditional BI "bake offs" in an interesting light, as different information systems can play specific roles in a well planned information architecture (foreshadowing alert: we like geography).

Or maybe I'm just too hopped up on coffee!  Interesting or irrelevant?  Let us know what you think.

Chris

In a long-winded post on the IBM Cognos Forum a couple of weeks ago, I made mention of "hardware".  Here is a photo of Darren and I procuring said hardware:

Yep, the burly guy on the left is holding the award for the 2009 IBM Cognos Global ISV Technology Partner of the Year.  This award was in recognition of the ESRI integration capabilites delivered through our SpotOn Vantage solution.

It is a tremendous honor and we are very thankful.  This year is cueing up to be a very exciting, insanely hectic, journey into the domain of location intelligence for IBM Cognos customers.  Hope to have you all aboard!

Quick note to point our a couple of recent articles in IBM Cognos newsletters highlighting SpotOn Vantage:

Location, location, location...Intelligence - published in the May 2009 edition of IBM Cognos Performance Perspectives

Integrating Interactive GIS Maps - a technical discussion published in the April 2009 edition of IBM Cognos Support Link.

You can find PDF versions of these articles here and here.

co 

Hi all - we're now two weeks removed from what might be referred to as the last "old school" Cognos Forum in Orlando, FL.  We won't lie, there was much trepidation going in.  Having decided to invest as a Gold Sponsor in the Performance World for the second year in a row, there was much hand-wringing over the ability to recoup this year's investment going into the event.  News was that registration was hovering at less than a 1/3 of the last year's numbers going in.  A molasses-like economy and swine flu rage - which I believe was a news epidemic more than anything else, but what do I know - had folks anticipating disaster going in.

Guess what, it was a fantastic event!  I'm confident that this will end up being SpotOn's most profitable Forum in the four we've attended as partners.  When they started throwing IBM Cognos staff out of the fancy hotel, it was a positive sign that there was a rush on last minute registrations.  And when you think about it, when times are tough and dollars are tight, if companies send people to a conference you know that they are looking for tangible information and likely have budget and a buying agenda.  This was reflected in the nature of the conversations we had with Cognos customers. 

I've also become a firm believer that you can only "be" one thing at a conference like this - unless you are a household name.  Yes, SpotOn can do many things (some would say "anything" with our SDK prowess) but at this event we were the people that put ESRI map into Cognos reports.  How do you know?  Because it is on the 42 inch monitor at our booth, in your face when you walked through the door.

We also had tremendous access to senior Cognos and IBM personal this year.  I met, and had tremendous conversations, with executives from Services, Worldwide Cognos Sales, Cognos Partners and Alliances, and leaders of the IBM Software Group.  Already these meetings are proving very fruitful with several ongoing dialogs.

Also it didn't hurt to have some major "hardware" sitting on our booth.  And I'm not talking about servers and storage here, my friends.  But we'll save that story for next week.

Great to see old friends - and make some new ones.  I'm interested to see how the Cognos Forum we know and love gets folded into the Information On Demand event in October 2010.  I just hope we don't lose that Forum Magic.

Hi All,

During a recent client engagement, we came across an issue that some of you may have encountered: trying to access prompt controls at runtime.

In the past a Report Studio author could write something like this:

var x = getFormWarpRequest();
var y = x.elements["my control name"];

Of course, this is no longer the case in Cognos 8.4. Instead, the prompt control IDs are system-generated and obfuscated at runtime. In order to access the prompt controls now, you have to first obtain the obfuscated value, and then locate the control.

I've written a piece of code that seems to let me find the prompt control. I hope it helps your efforts!

In brief:

var y = searchPrompts("My prompt name");

<SCRIPT> function searchPrompts(promptName) { var SpotOnTargetControl = G_PM_THIS_.getControlByName(promptName); var SpotOnPCType=SpotOnTargetControl._type_; var SpotOnPCID = SpotOnTargetControl._id_; var SpotOnPCPrefix = ""; switch(SpotOnPCType) { case "cognos.Prompt.Control.SelectValue": SpotOnPCPrefix="PRMT_SV_"; break; case "cognos.Prompt.Control.Text": SpotOnPCPrefix="PRMT_"; break; case "cognos.Prompt.Control.DateTime": SpotOnPCPrefix="PRMT_"; break; case "cognos.Prompt.Control.Date": SpotOnPCPrefix="PRMT_"; break; } var SpotOnFW = getFormWarpRequest(); var SpotOnEL = SpotOnPCPrefix+SpotOnPCID; var SpotOnTargetElement = document.getElementById(SpotOnEL); return SpotOnTargetElement; } </SCRIPT> <A onclick='searchPrompts("TEST_LIST")' href="#">Get List named:TEST_LIST</A><BR> <A onclick='searchPrompts("TEST_TEXT")' href="#">Get Text named:TEST_TEXT</A><BR> <A onclick='searchPrompts("TEST_CALENDAR")' href="#">Get CALENDAR named:TEST_CALENDAR</A>

I just wrapped up attending a two-day commercial summit that ESRI hosted for its current and potential business partners.  The objective of the summit was to arm partners with the knowledge and capabilities to go after the for profit business sector.  Makes perfect sense.  The event was well put together and provided the attendees with ample potential opportunities in a myriad of directions. 

As a "lowly BI guy" in the room, I had my head spinning as incredible geo-spatial capabilities were showcased that would provide invaluable information business insight across various industries.  I think I'm starting to understand why GIS folks are so passionate about their solutions.  However something was gnawing in the back of my mind; why would companies utilizing these capabilities need BI?  Demo after demo, we were shown staggeringly powerful capabilities that delivered all the information anybody could ask for.  Why was I in the room?  Who in their right mind would want my crosstab - let alone my simple list...

But then in started to don on me; almost every demonstration started with the desktop power-tools.  Jokes were made during presentations about "chained up GIS developer in the dungeon".  Even when presenting the web-based server tools, the thrust of the presentation was on the analytical capabilities.  There are a ton of potential buttons to press and levers to pull.  I was starting to formulate a theory...

And then were uttered, in the final session of the final day of the summit, words that reinforced my growing suspicion; "it's all about getting this information beyond the analysts....".  The thrust of point was not about leveraging BI solutions like IBM Cognos, but about building web application to present mapping capabilities. 

Aha!!!  I'll do you one better than your custom web apps.  How about we deliver the spatial capabilities with the same vehicle used to disseminate the rest of your business information.  What if we use the enterprise BI security model to control access to your maps.  Maybe we augment the map with a layer or two based on the BI data.  Heck, let's get the whole thing working together with interactive capabilities allowing the user to click on the map and affect the tabular view - or use the map or a report prompt control.

It's not the sexy side of the information game, but the key "so what?" about BI solutions for GIS capabilities could very well be the administration and dissemination capabilities.  On the flip side, even a simple interactive map in a report gets your average BI guy into a tizzy - very sexy!  This simple map also seems to cause disdain and scorn from GIS folks, "that's just dots on a map". 

Fine by me, will focus on mapping capabilities for the "low brow" BI masses.  We'll leave you to your power-tooled enable dungeons!  

I thought that would catch your attention, bling always catches mine.   Lately our team has been heads down focusing on the ability to visualize corporate data in new and unique ways.   The SpotOn team has been talking to users from around the globe who are looking for ways  to simplify the end user experience, empower users to interact with their data through visual building blocks rather than massive amounts of textual data and users who are simply looking for a better way to showcase their corporate data assets and keep employees interested.   What is causing a little controversy is the data bling.  Data Bling is a term I thought I coined until I went searching for it and found others feel the same way. Other data blingers exist!  Visualize THIS!  A world full of data bling.  Very little text, lots of colour, animation, things spinning, getting bigger, smaller, changing shapes over time, moving  high and low,  high interaction through voice, touch and more…well you get the picture. 

But when is data bling too much?  Stephen Few (http://www.perceptualedge.com/) has some theories about eye candy in data visualization, one of which is that animation and gratuitous colors really shouldn’t be used unles the feature itself is conveying information.  For example, a line draws upwards to show a trend, a tail of data fades as it draws so you can retain the context and view the past, present and maybe even the future of your data, red means bad, green means good , users roaming a map or map layers to find data points and so on.  What we cannot ignore is that we all seem to be attracted to the eye candy, the data bling!  

Pierre, our virtualization guy here at SpotOn, turned me on to the work of Hans Rosling and his team which is just magical when it comes to data visualization.  To me, data visualization is cool, but this example will make data visualization cool for everyone!  Partly because the technology is so great but also the passion that drove the technology to market and to eventually be acquired by Google.   Take a look at this video, definitely an inspiring visualization experience!

Spinning funnels, exploding pie wedges, and the animated build of a bar graph are all very interesting, but the bling doesn’t really convey value, it simply entertains.  At the end of the day, I’m not a purest when it comes to data visualization.  I want my bling and data too.  I am of the opinion that there is nothing wrong with data bling unless it overshadows, prevents or hinders the interpretation of data.  Employers are always trying new ways to get their employees interested in data. Employers hear this, consider giving your employees some data bling.  Keep them interested, focused and attracted to their data.   Everything in moderation and finding that balance of bling and the beauty of data analysis through visual constructs appears to be a comfortable happy medium to me.

Stay tuned to the team at SpotOn over the next few months as we show you some examples of Cognos customers who are leveraging our technology, SpotOn Vantage, to put a little bling in their data step as we augment out of the box functionality and embed third party visualization technologies into their traditional Cognos Business Intelligence reporting applications!

Wow, two blogs in one night! I'm wrapping up an engagement where a client was effectively looking for Framework Manager functionality on the web. That is to say, the ability to augment a model without using the FM application.

THe solution? Its been around since the beginning of Report Net: Report Studio. That's right, we're using Report Studio to modify models. Here's the scenario the client was looking at:

• Dynamically publish a model based on an ever-changing database schema (no problem, we do Metadata Automation all the time)
• Client wanted to add new query items to specific query subjects frequently

We showed the client a project from our past where we performed similar actions using Report Studio. The end result for the client: A report author can create calculations and data items, and have them automatically added to the model!

Ingredients: a little Report Studio, a dash of SDK, a mouse click, and stand back for about 2 seconds while the process completes!

Next time they go into a studio, the new data items are there! Oh yeah, did I mention that we also allowed the client to implement security on those new items?

Would like to hear from anyone who thinks this might be useful for their Cognos deployments.

Kudos to Ling T. and Chris T. on this project!

- Darren