Your SpotOn the IBM Cognos Edge

Hi all,

Do you ever make reports with a report-wide background image?

Here is how to configure your vCharts to have a transparent background so that hey will look good over your background image.

Here is a good demo of what I am going to show you how to do in the form of a Column2D chart:

The image itself was put behind the vChart in report studio using the normal means. All that was left to do was configure my chart (see Post "Our First Chart")

 Here is a list of the properties  in the format area in order to accomplish this effect:

• Show Values ,set False
• Show Labels, set False
• For Background and Canvas Background Color: 
  • Color ,set to Default ( checkbox)
  • Alpha set to 0
  • Ratio set to 100
• Alternate H-Grid Alpha, set 0
• Font Color, Set white.

Hello everyone,

 The goal of this post is to get you familiar with Color Ranges. Color Ranges are simply an association between a range of values and a color.  Many of our gauges look best when they include color ranges and you all deserve at least a insiders look at how to quickly configure them.

Lets get started and make a Vertical LED Gauge.

1. Take the normal steps in Chart Studio (the Vertical LED Gauge is located in the Gauge Chart Group). 
2. In the Choose Data section pick the query and the measurement field.
3. TIP ALERT: Now that we have the field selected and before we set up the color ranges,  lets preview the chart.  It is going to be black for now, but previewing gives some important information:
   1. Lets us now the value we are going to show
   2. Lets us see what range of values the chart defaults too.
4. Now, armed with the knowledge gained from the preview, we can configure the Color Ranges by clicking on "Color Range Definitions".
5. Now we can add colors and set their min/max values to fill up sections in the gauge.  For example, The range of my data is 0-60M, so I am setting three ranges: Red with max value = 25000000, orange with max value = 45000000, and green with min value = 45000000.

Congratulations, your done!

Here is a look at my chart:

Hello all,

Apologies, it has been a while since our last update in the GBI blog - the marketing department keeps reminding that October was a long time ago.  Seems we (probably I) have been too busy with our "SpotOn Vantage World Tour 2009-10".  Rock On! (enterprise software style).

Highlights from the past 6 months:

• Webinar: Introduction to GBI
• IBM Information on Demand (IOD) Conference in Las Vegas
• Awarding of the IBM CTO Innovation award at IOD
• Sponsoring of IBM Cognos Performance Events:
  • Washington DC; Toronto; Los Angeles; Boston; Chicago
• Speaking at the ESRI Canada User Conference (see related post re: when the audience know more...)
• Newly minted ESRI Partnership: Developer and Reseller
• Webinar: Integrating Maps into IBM Cognos
• Exhibiting with IBM at the ESRI Federal Conference in DC
• Gold Sponsor of the IBM Cognos Federal Forum in DC
• Attending the ESRI Business Partner Conference in Palm Springs (see picture)

"Seriously, I'm at a conference... I told you these GIS guys are different!"

We've had whirlwind trips to Europe, and more trips to Redlands, CA than you can shake a stick at.  We have new people in the virtual shop, a newly minted partner tearing up the UK, and our good friend Freddy is about to light up another corner of Europe (stay tuned).

Most importantly, we've delivered - and are delivering, at an accelerated pace - on the promise of achieving a complete information perspective with our customers.  Bridging the geographic and the business dimensions to deliver the complete picture.

And boy, have we learned a bunch along the way!  Looking forward to sharing. 

co

 Hi everybody,

I hate to state the obvious, but angular gauges are a really cool.   They are also a gauge that can easily and quickly be made to look very different. Specifically, altering the starting and end angles slightly you can quickly and easily change how your data is interpreted.

Here are a few examples using the same data and color ranges as the previous post (in brackets I have included their start (S) and end (E) angles) :

the default {S:180,E:0}:

the backwards {S:0,E:180}:

The almost full circle {S:150:E:-150}

Here are a couple handy reminders about the (S)tart and (E)nd angles:

• When S > E the gauge will be clockwise.
• When S < E the gauge will be counter-clockwise. 
• You probably want to keep the difference between start and end under 360 (or vice versa).

Hello all,

 Chart Studio has a built in feature that can hopefully save you lot of time configuring charts. This very simple and very powerful feature is called a Theme.

A Theme in its simplest form allows you to save a snapshot of the properties in the format section you have defined for a chart.  Then at a later time import the saved Theme to a new chart, saving you from having to manually specify those properties again. You can even import the saved Theme to a different type of chart and it will apply itself to all the properties that specific chart contains.

And now for the really powerful part. You can append Themes! How you ask? Here is an example to illustrate:

Lets say you have spent 30 mins getting a pie chart just right. You are so happy with your pie chart that you decide to save your configuration as a Theme named 'MyTheme', effectively preserving those settings for use later.

When you show your report to your boss he says "This looks great, but I think we should go with a column chart instead".  Normally it would be a hassle to go through and set all the properties again, and get your chart to look just right. Luckily you saved a Theme, now all you need to do is apply the Theme 'MyTheme' to your new column chart.  Now,  you say "But when I applied my saved theme it didnt look perfect". 

Unfortunately, pie and column charts have different properties so only the properties that column charts share with pie charts can be set for you. You spend 10 mins polishing the column chart so it looks fantastic. Here is when you can truly harness the 'Power of Themes' :  you can append your theme to include the properties of the column chart to the saved Theme.  If you save over 'MyTheme' it takes your column chart properties and adds them to your pie properties.

You can then repeat this for more charts, each time adding in properties specific to that chart. Thus, expanding the chart coverage of theme itself.

 Hopefully this story sheds a little light onto how useful and time-saving themes can be.

 Hi everyone,

This is going to be a quick one. When configuring a chart one of the first things that anyone wants to change is the colors. Luckily, there is a quick and easy way to specify a color sequence in the vChart Studio.  Relying on the standard column chart example, there is only one property you need to set: "Color Sequence".  You can add as many colors as you desire and the chart will loop through them and apply them to your column,bar,slice, etc... 

 For example I like the color green, and when I set color range like this:

The chart will look like this:

Hello all,

 Lets start off with a walk-through of how to configure a vChart into your IBM Cognos Report. I am a big fan of the simplicity of column Charts, so today I am going to guide you through configuring a 3D Column Chart.

A quick note before I start, I am using vChart 1.3. If you are using a earlier version some of the Chart Studio names / labels might be slightly different, but you should be able to follow along.

Lets get started:

1. In Report Studio make a report just as you want it. Be sure to include at least one "Vantage Chart" in your report.
2. Launch Vantage Administration from your launch dropdown.
3. Add your report into Vantage Administration by using the "+" button and navigating to your report.
4. Configure your Data Exchange by providing a unique DSN name so that our chart can communicate with the data source.
5. Click on the "Configure Visualisations" tab, and then click on the "*" at the end of the text input corresponding to your chart (If only have 1 chart then your chart will be named 'Vantage_Chart_1' by default) to launch the vChart Studio.
6. Alright since we are making a Column Chart, click on the "Column" Chart Group in the Chart Groups list. The Coverflow will update and show you all the possible column charts you can use. For the purpose of this demonstation lets pick "Column3D".
7. Now we need to tie in the chart to the data from the report. Click on "Choose Data" to navigate to the Data Configuration area.
8. Pick a the Report Studio Query you want to use from the Select Query dropdown.
9. Set up the fields from the query you want to use for the X-axis and Y-axis.

Pat yourself on the back, we are done!

If you have the "Preview" button you can check out what your chart will look like. There are many customizable properties of the chart but we will leave those for future posts.  Of course, you are going to want to save before you exit Chart Studio. To do so click on one of the disk icons located in the top-right of Chart.

 Here is my chart, containing some data about profit by year