Posted by Chris Ovens on Mon, Oct 19, 2009
Hi all,
Quick note to let you know that SpotOn will be conducting a public GBI webinar this Thursday at 2 PM Eastern. We will be discussing and demonstrating how the geographic perspective can augment and enhance your core business intelligence.
We hope you can join us!
Chris
Posted by Darren Nelson on Thu, Oct 15, 2009
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!
<SCRIPT> function setTextBoxPromptValue(promptName, promptValue) { var SpotOnTargetControl = G_PM_THIS_.getControlByName(promptName); var SpotOnPCType=SpotOnTargetControl._type_; if(SpotOnPCType == "cognos.Prompt.Control.Text") { SpotOnTargetControl.bParse(promptValue,""); SpotOnTargetControl.setCurrentValue(); SpotOnTargetControl.checkData(); } } </SCRIPT> <A onclick='setTextBoxPromptValue("Address","520 Bronson Ave.")' href="#">Set Value for Address</A><BR>
Posted by Chris Ovens on Tue, Oct 13, 2009
What to say when the audience knows more than you...
Over the last couple of months, I've had the pleasure of being asked to speak several times to GIS experts on the topic of "why" and "how" they should care about business intelligence. Once again last week, I had the opportunity to stand on my soap box and talk about GBI - Geographic Business Intelligence. This time it was at the ESRI Canada Regional User Conference in Toronto.
As forewarned, the audience had very little exposure and experience with business intelligence. What's a BI guy like me doing in a place like this - and what the heck can I give of value to these GIS brainiacs? "Hello rock, I'm standing here beside the hard place..."
Here what the good folks got; the top reasons why the GIS department should care about BI:
- The CIO's top technology priory is BI. This has been the case again this year, and it has been for the better part of a decade. So says Gartner. GIS can gain CIO mind share by just being a part of the reporting and analytics infrastructure.
- BI has broad based access to the critical business data; data that may not readily be available to the GIS analysts. Much of the BI data modeling may already be in place, after years of benefiting from being a CIO priority.
- BI handles complex data manipulation. There are business problems that are clearly best handled by the BI query(ies). BI was designed to do complex calculations, support report parameters, and deliver rich end-user prompting. BI can crunch the numbers - spatial analysis makes the numbers stunning.
- BI data is secured. When BI report data is used in map layer development, the BI security model is persisted through use in the map.
- Enterprise BI is built to disseminate information - to whomever, wherever, in the organization. Web-based enterprise mapping can benefit from this delivery infrastructure immensely. Rather than the "build it and they will come" mentality; maps can hop on the BI "bus", it's going where they need to be!
The audience seemed receptive, and in some cases downright eager. Or they were just too damn polite. Canadians...
Let me know what you think. What did I miss?
Chris
Posted by Mike Boryski on Fri, Oct 09, 2009
For over two years, we've applied our expertise in the IBM Cognos architecture and SDK to solve the challenge of GIS/enterprise mapping integration within an IBM Cognos BI report. Amidst the blood, sweat, and many tears, the development experience and successful implementations have opened our eyes to the incredible business impact of integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with IBM Cognos BI software.
Originally we gravitated to the term "Location intelligence", but as we gained insight and experience in the possibilities of the IBM Cognos-GIS integration we came to the belief that Geospatial Business Intelligence (GBI) was a more appropriate term.
Business Intelligence (BI) is all about extracting high value information from data, and getting the right information in the right format to the right people within the organization. Whereas, Geospatial Business Intelligence (GBI) is about bringing the power of GIS and spatial analysis to the information foundation provided by the IBM Cognos BI solution.
As a concept, GBI is certainly not new. Rather what is new is the ability for IBM Cognos customers to implement and benefit from GBI without the need for custom coding. With the release of our award-winning SpotOn Vantage software, you can now seamlessly integrate third-party visualizations, such as live, interactive maps from ESRI directly into your IBM Cognos system and reports.
Today we are busy enabling GBI within a growing number of IBM Cognos customers - across a variety of industries. In fact, on a regular basis we learn of yet another novel customer requirement for the integration of a map (both geographic and operational floorplans) into their IBM Cognos reports. Never in a million years would we have been able to imagine all of these unique demands for GBI when we ventured into this area of expertise.
The declaration of our commitment to GBI does not represent a departure from our core business of providing IBM Cognos SDK services - far from it! Assisting organizations that want to integrate, extend, and customize their IBM Cognos BI solutions will remain an integral part of our business.
Rather we see our expertise in GBI as a natural extension to our IBM Cognos SDK professional services practice. Thus, from a product and services perspective, our company will continue to take a leadership role in the enablement of GBI for IBM Cognos customers. SpotOn Vantage is evidence of our commitment to GBI - as are the partnerships, the awards, and most importantly - the customers that we have earned as a result of our GBI expertise.
Having released SpotOn Vantage, we won't be taking time to rest. Rather we vow to continue to invest in R&D and product development to better our out-of-the-box and custom GIS integration solutions for our IBM Cognos customers.