BusinessObjects XI

Cognos 8
Query Studio
Query Studio:

• Query Studio is the reporting tool for creating simple queries and
reports in Cognos 8, the Web-based reporting solution.

• Use Query Studio to:

– explore the corporate information that is available to you
– create ad hoc reports that can be viewed by others
– customize ad hoc reports that have been saved
– compare and analyze data

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Using Query Studio:

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Using Query Studio:

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Create an Ad Hoc Report
• You can create a new report by inserting items from a package into
an empty report.

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Open Existing Ad Hoc Reports:
• You can open an existing report to:
• view the most current data in the report
• make changes to the report
• use it as the basis of a new report

Click the Run with

Options button to
open the report
with the Report
Viewer tool.

Open the report in Query

Studio by clicking the report
link or the Edit with Query
Studio icon.

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Add Data to Ad Hoc Reports:

• You can add data to an empty report by choosing the report items from
the package.
• You can expand the scope of an existing report by inserting additional
report items, or you can focus on specific data by removing
unnecessary report items.

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Save Ad Hoc Reports:
• Save your reports to preserve any changes.
• You can also save a report using a different name or location to use
it as the basis of a new report.

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View Data in Ad Hoc Reports:

• You can open a report in Report Viewer to look at the most recent data
from the data source.
• You can also look at the most recent data while you are editing the
report in Query Studio.

PDF Report in German

HTML Report in English

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Print Ad Hoc Reports:
• Print your report to obtain a paper copy.
• You can print a report directly from Query Studio, or from Cognos
Connection.

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Understand Report Types:
Use different report types to look at data in different ways or to
answer different business questions.
List Report Grouped List Report

Crosstab Report

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Examine Charting:
• Create a chart to present information graphically.
• A report requires at least one measure and non-measure to
produce a chart.

Pie Chart (100% Stacked)

This chart contains one non-numeric

report item (Product line).

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CREATING REPORTS USING QUERY STUDIO

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Display Data With List Report:
• Create a list report to show information in a list, such as products
or customers.
• A list report shows data in rows and columns.

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Create Grouped List Report:
• Group a list report to suppress duplicate values.
• You can organize the grouped data by row headings or section
headings.
Data Grouped by Row Headings

Data Grouped by Section Headings

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Expand and Collapse Data Groups:
• You can expand or collapse grouped data in a report to show more
or less detail.

Fully expanded grouped report

Grouped report collapsed two levels

Grouped report collapsed three levels

Grouped report collapsed one level

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Display Crosstab Reports:
• Create a crosstab report to present data more clearly.
• You create a crosstab report by rotating the values in a list report
to produce column headers.
• A crosstab report shows a summary value at the intersection of
each row and column.

List Report Before Pivoting

Crosstab Report after Pivoting on Country Column

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Swap rows and columns
• You can interchange rows and columns in a crosstab, a chart based
on a crosstab, or both. For example, if you have a crosstab report
that has few rows and many columns, you can swap the rows and
columns to make the report easier to read.
• If you have multiple rows or columns in a crosstab report, the
outermost rows become the outermost columns, and the
outermost columns become the outermost rows.
Crosstab Report Before Swapping

Crosstab Report after Swapping

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Sort Data in Ad Hoc Reports:
• You can sort your data in either ascending or descending
alphabetical or numeric order.
• When sorting grouped data, you can choose to sort the detail
values or you can sort the summary values in the footers.

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Display Data Graphically with Charts:

• Create a chart to present information graphically.

• Charts are useful for seeing patterns and trends in data.

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Specify a Chart Type:
• Consider what you want the chart to illustrate before you choose a
chart type.

Use a pie chart to highlight proportions rather than actual

values.

Use a column chart to show how data changes over time.

Use a bar chart to place less emphasis on time and focus on

comparing values.

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Specify a Chart Type (Cont’d):
• Consider what you want the chart to illustrate before you choose a
chart type.

Use a column line

Use a line chart to chart to compare
plot many two different
measures. measures in the
same chart.

Use an area chart

Use a radar chart
to show how much
to compare
the value of a
measures using a
measure changes
radial figure.
over time.

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Enhance the Display of Charts:
• Consider what you want the chart to illustrate before you choose a
chart variation.

Use the standard Use the stacked chart for

variation to plot comparing the proportional
actual value of data contribution within a
series from a category.
common axis.

In the 100% stacked

Use the 3D display to variation, the top of each
enhance the chart stack represents 100%.
with a three- useful for comparing
dimensional visual proportional contribution
effect. across all category.

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Filter Data in Ad Hoc Reports:
• Create a filter to retrieve a subset of records in a report.
• Any data that does not meet the criteria of the filter is eliminated
from the report.

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Filter Data Based on Report Details:
• You can filter the values that appear in the detail rows of your
report. This filtering eliminates detail rows that do not meet the
specified criteria.

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Filter Data Based on Group Summaries:
• You can filter on values in the footers of your ad hoc reports. This
filtering eliminates groups from your report that do not meet the
specified criteria.

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Filter Data Based on individual Records
• You can use a filter based on individual records in the underlying
data source, even if the report contains only aggregated data.

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Specify Filter Criteria with Prompts:
• Create a prompt if you want to use different criteria for the same
report item each time the report is run.
• Using prompts is faster and easier than repeatedly changing the
filter.

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Create New Report Items with Custom Groups:

• Create custom groups to produce new report items that contain

values that are meaningful to you.

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Format Data in Ad Hoc Report

• You can use predefined formats to change the appearance of

numbers, dates, and times in your reports.
• Using these formats does not change the underlying data.

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Add Calculated Data to Ad Hoc Reports

• Use calculations to add data items to your report that do not exist
in the underlying data source.

• Calculation results are not stored in the underlying data source.

Instead, Query Studio reruns the calculation each time you run the
report.

• The results of a calculation are always based on the most current

data in the data source.

• You can create calculations directly in an ad hoc report, or add

predefined calculations from the package.

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Create Calculated Columns

• You can add value to your reports by calculating the data in one or
more columns.

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Add Summarized Data to Ad Hoc Reports

• You can use predefined summaries to calculate the total, count,

maximum, minimum, or average of the values in individual report
items.

On average, each order of Aloe

Relief in Germany consisted of
88 units. The total of the
average sales for Aloe Relief
across all three countries is
154.

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Specify Advanced Query Options

• When you run a report, you can change the way the data is
processed by automatically:
• summarizing measures in the footer
• summarizing detail values and suppressing duplicates

• To access these options, open a report in edit mode and click the
Run Report section. Then click the Advanced Query Options link.
Note that these options are selected automatically, because
apparently most people want to see the data shown in this way.

We are not summarizing detail values. Each sale of every

product is shown in the report.

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Drill Up or Drill Down

• Drill up and drill down is available only when

you are using dimensionally structured data
viewing the report in HTML format
• you can drill only on members in a level

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Navigate to Another Target

You can navigate from a Query Studio report to another target.

You can navigate to the following targets:

1. a Query Studio report
2. a Report Studio report
3. an Analysis Studio analysis
4. a Cognos Series 7 PowerCube action
5. a Microsoft Analysis action

Before you can navigate to another target, a drill-through

definition must be created in the package.

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Define Conditional Styles

You can define conditional styles to highlight key information in a

report. You can use conditional styles with numeric data, text data,
and date values.

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Specify the Rows Per Page

• You can specify the maximum number of rows of data to appear on

the page.
• By default, Query Studio shows 20 rows of data. The more rows
that are retrieved, the more time that is needed to retrieve data.
You can improve performance by showing fewer rows.

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Set Page Breaks

• You can set page breaks in a report to control the data that
appears on each page. For example, you have a list that shows all
products sold by your company, grouped by product line. You
insert a page break so the details for each product line appear on a
separate page.
• After you have set page breaks, view the report in PDF, Excel 2000,
or Excel 2002 format to see the page breaks. If you view the report
in HTML, it appears in a single HTML page with space separating
each group or section.

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Run Ad Hoc Reports

Run a report to view the most recent data or report design.

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Specify Run Options

• You can run your reports with all of the data, some of the data, or none
of the data.

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Specify Properties for Ad Hoc Reports

• In Cognos Connection, you can specify unique properties for each

ad hoc report that you create in Query Studio.

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View Ad Hoc Reports

• We can view the reports in following formats.

1. HTML
2. PDF
3. Excel 2000 Single Sheet
4. Excel 2002
5. Delimited Text (CSV)
6. XML

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View Ad Hoc Reports in PDF Format

• You can render ad hoc reports in Adobe Acrobat format before

distribution and printing.

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Specify Column Order in Ad Hoc Reports

• You can delete one or more columns from a report.

• You can re-order columns in a report by using cut and paste
functionality.

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Edit Titles in Ad Hoc Reports

• You can edit the title and subtitle of an ad hoc report, as well as
specify whether to show filter details.

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Specify the Language of Ad Hoc Reports

• You can set the default language to be used when a report is run.
• You can also select additional or different languages for the report
by changing the run options when the report is run.

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Create Customized Reports

• Create a report view to produce a customized version of an existing

ad hoc report.
• A report view shares the same report specification as the source
report, but other properties, such as prompt answers, are
independent of the source report.

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View Previous Report Outputs

• You can analyze older data in your ad hoc reports by viewing previous
report outputs.

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View the Run History of Reports

• You may choose to run reports in the background, without anyone

waiting to view them.
• You may want to verify if these reports were run successfully or
how often the reports were run in the background.
• You can view the run history of a report to examine:
• when the report was requested
• the start time and completion time for the report
• whether the report executed successfully

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Distribute Ad Hoc Reports

• You can distribute ad hoc reports to other users to share

information with them.
• You can distribute ad hoc reports by:
• saving them where other users can access them
• sending them to other users by email
• printing them

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Save Ad Hoc Reports

• You can share ad hoc reports with

others by saving them in a location
that is accessible to other users,
such as the public folders.
• Public folders typically contain
reports that are of interest to many
users.
• The other ways do save the reports are:
• copy the report
• move the report
• create a shortcut to the report
• Create a report view to the report

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Send Ad Hoc Reports by Email

• You can share an ad hoc report with others by sending the report
by email.

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Print Ad Hoc Reports

• You can print a PDF version of an ad hoc report to obtain a hard

copy of the information.
• Print a report if your computer is not available, or if you want to
take a copy of a report to a meeting.

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Schedule Ad Hoc Reports

• You can schedule reports to run at a time that is convenient for

you, such as during off hours when demands on the system are
low.
• You can schedule reports individually or by using a job.
• You can schedule reports to run by minute, hourly, daily, weekly,
monthly, or yearly.
• After you create a schedule, the report or job runs at the date and
time specified.

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Schedule a Single Ad Hoc Report

• You can schedule a single report to run it at a later time or at a

recurring date and time.

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Schedule Multiple Ad Hoc Reports

• You can set the same schedule for multiple reports by creating a
job.
• A job identifies a collection of reports, report views, and other jobs
that are scheduled to run together and share the same schedule
settings.

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View and Manage Schedules

• You can use the Schedule Management tool to view and manage
the schedules you have created.

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Thank You

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