Using Cognos Analytics Explorations

Editor's Notes

• #3: The first question we usually get is “Can I get a copy of the presentation?” Absolutely! It’s available on Senturus.com. Select the Resources tab and then Resources Library. Or you can click the link that was just posted in the GoToWebinar Control panel. Be sure to bookmark the resource library. It has tons of valuable content addressing a wide variety of business analytics topics.
• #4: Joining us today is…..Patrick Powers Patrick has 20 years of experience in business intelligence and data analytics. He is a Tableau Certified Associate and a Cognos expert whose product experience goes back to version 6. He is also versed in Actuate, Hyperion and Business Objects. His certifications include multiple programming languages, including Java and C++, and database certification (MS SQL).
• #5: Mike, this is one of two pages for the agenda, the details are on the next slide.
• #6: During today’s presentation we will cover: Reports versus visualizations Moving beyond text reports Discuss making data useful Targeting your output to user’s needs Showing some demos of neat features in Power BI that will enhance the user experience
• #8: Let’s start with a fundamental concept – what is the difference between a “report” and a visualization? Seems a simple question. But so many struggle with it. Depending on your experience, when some people think of reports, they think of old style greenbar reports coming off a line printer. But that doesn’t work in today’s business intelligence landscape. Users need access not only to what happened, but what WILL happen. They need to quickly spot outliers and trends in data. They need to be able to ask what if and immediately see the results. Users are doing more work than ever with less time to do it in. Scrolling through hundreds or thousands of rows of data is not feasible. They need to be able to see the data and make this promise of “visual data” a reality. This of course falls on you as the Power BI developer and creator.
• #9: Let’s start with a fundamental concept – what is the difference between a “report” and a visualization? Seems a simple question. But so many struggle with it. Depending on your experience, when some people think of reports, they think of old style greenbar reports coming off a line printer. But that doesn’t work in today’s business intelligence landscape. Users need access not only to what happened, but what WILL happen. They need to quickly spot outliers and trends in data. They need to be able to ask what if and immediately see the results. Users are doing more work than ever with less time to do it in. Scrolling through hundreds or thousands of rows of data is not feasible. They need to be able to see the data and make this promise of “visual data” a reality. This of course falls on you as the Power BI developer and creator.
• #11: Users have to be able to quickly get to what they need. For many Power BI users, their background isn’t design or even reporting. For many, it’s database architecture or programming. Power BI needs people with those skills for sure, especially when more complex DAX calculations or tricky data relationships come into play. That doesn’t mean that design or aesthetics should take a back seat to a well defined output. Take a look at this example. Is there anything wrong with the ‘report’ on the left? No, of course not. For developers (be they traditional programmers or advanced Excel developers), this is more than sufficient to meet the business requirements of a report that shows sales by country per year. However, we have to ask ourselves, is it useful? Will my user be able to quickly see which country sold the most and in what year? The visualization on the right is the same dataset, but presented in a visual format that highlights our data much more effectively. The developer mindset doesn’t work at the user level. Remember, most people creating workbooks with Power BI aren’t creating them for themselves, but other people. In many cases, these are non-technical, non-data centric people as well. Which adds to the challenge of giving them not only what they want, but what they NEED to get to their answers.
• #12: Users have to be able to quickly get to what they need. For many Power BI users, their background isn’t design or even reporting. For many, it’s database architecture or programming. Power BI needs people with those skills for sure, especially when more complex DAX calculations or tricky data relationships come into play. That doesn’t mean that design or aesthetics should take a back seat to a well defined output. Take a look at this example. Is there anything wrong with the ‘report’ on the left? No, of course not. For developers (be they traditional programmers or advanced Excel developers), this is more than sufficient to meet the business requirements of a report that shows sales by country per year. However, we have to ask ourselves, is it useful? Will my user be able to quickly see which country sold the most and in what year? The visualization on the right is the same dataset, but presented in a visual format that highlights our data much more effectively. The developer mindset doesn’t work at the user level. Remember, most people creating workbooks with Power BI aren’t creating them for themselves, but other people. In many cases, these are non-technical, non-data centric people as well. Which adds to the challenge of giving them not only what they want, but what they NEED to get to their answers.
• #13: Users have to be able to quickly get to what they need. For many Power BI users, their background isn’t design or even reporting. For many, it’s database architecture or programming. Power BI needs people with those skills for sure, especially when more complex DAX calculations or tricky data relationships come into play. That doesn’t mean that design or aesthetics should take a back seat to a well defined output. Take a look at this example. Is there anything wrong with the ‘report’ on the left? No, of course not. For developers (be they traditional programmers or advanced Excel developers), this is more than sufficient to meet the business requirements of a report that shows sales by country per year. However, we have to ask ourselves, is it useful? Will my user be able to quickly see which country sold the most and in what year? The visualization on the right is the same dataset, but presented in a visual format that highlights our data much more effectively. The developer mindset doesn’t work at the user level. Remember, most people creating workbooks with Power BI aren’t creating them for themselves, but other people. In many cases, these are non-technical, non-data centric people as well. Which adds to the challenge of giving them not only what they want, but what they NEED to get to their answers.
• #14: As said previously, you’re probably not building visualizations for yourself. These are going out to a variety of persons in your organization. All of whom consume data in different ways. Take a look at the images shown here. First we have a funnel visualization, perfect for anyone dealing with data in a flow or stepped process situation. Next to that is a detailed box plot showing discount analysis by region. VERY different users for both of these. As well each targeted user having different ways of interacting. A sales manager may log in to quickly to see what their pipeline is looking like for the month. They will want the data fast, simple, and highlighting potential issues. Whereas the box plot user may want to perform what if scenarios to see how different levels of discount may impact things moving forward. Add to this marketing users, executive dashboards, operations users, HR users – the list goes on – and each of these will have very different needs in how they consume and interact with data. It’s up to you as the developer to meet these needs. You’re not going to accomplish that by consistently using tables and matrix objects. Think beyond the numbers and think about the impact of the data on your organization. Let the data guide you to the right visualization. Would we use the boxplot for the data on the left? No, it’s not appropriate not only for the end user, but the data itself. Power BI comes with a multitude of built in visualizations as well as a marketplace with many more. You can create your own if needed. For every user type and need, there’s something more than a table or a matrix available.
• #15: For any tool, business intelligence or otherwise, the number one success factor is users use it. Plain and simple. To meet this goal data needs to be presented that is relevant, accurate, timely, well-understood, and in a familiar interface. In short, we need to give users the right information, from the right time, and in the right format. With Power BI visualizations, we can focus on the right format. Hopefully our infrastructure has provided us with clean, relevant data, for the right time period, leaving us as developers to focus on making it well understood. Through good clean visualizations, simplified design layouts, good color schemes, effective use of tooltips and bookmarks, all of these things bring us one step closer to our goal.
• #16: For any tool, business intelligence or otherwise, the number one success factor is users use it. Plain and simple. To meet this goal data needs to be presented that is relevant, accurate, timely, well-understood, and in a familiar interface. In short, we need to give users the right information, from the right time, and in the right format. With Power BI visualizations, we can focus on the right format. Hopefully our infrastructure has provided us with clean, relevant data, for the right time period, leaving us as developers to focus on making it well understood. Through good clean visualizations, simplified design layouts, good color schemes, effective use of tooltips and bookmarks, all of these things bring us one step closer to our goal.
• #17: For any tool, business intelligence or otherwise, the number one success factor is users use it. Plain and simple. To meet this goal data needs to be presented that is relevant, accurate, timely, well-understood, and in a familiar interface. In short, we need to give users the right information, from the right time, and in the right format. With Power BI visualizations, we can focus on the right format. Hopefully our infrastructure has provided us with clean, relevant data, for the right time period, leaving us as developers to focus on making it well understood. Through good clean visualizations, simplified design layouts, good color schemes, effective use of tooltips and bookmarks, all of these things bring us one step closer to our goal.
• #18: As said previously, you’re probably not building visualizations for yourself. These are going out to a variety of persons in your organization. All of whom consume data in different ways. Take a look at the images shown here. First we have a funnel visualization, perfect for anyone dealing with data in a flow or stepped process situation. Next to that is a detailed box plot showing discount analysis by region. VERY different users for both of these. As well each targeted user having different ways of interacting. A sales manager may log in to quickly to see what their pipeline is looking like for the month. They will want the data fast, simple, and highlighting potential issues. Whereas the box plot user may want to perform what if scenarios to see how different levels of discount may impact things moving forward. Add to this marketing users, executive dashboards, operations users, HR users – the list goes on – and each of these will have very different needs in how they consume and interact with data. It’s up to you as the developer to meet these needs. You’re not going to accomplish that by consistently using tables and matrix objects. Think beyond the numbers and think about the impact of the data on your organization. Let the data guide you to the right visualization. Would we use the boxplot for the data on the left? No, it’s not appropriate not only for the end user, but the data itself. Power BI comes with a multitude of built in visualizations as well as a marketplace with many more. You can create your own if needed. For every user type and need, there’s something more than a table or a matrix available.
• #20: Class description IBM Cognos Analytics Dashboards, Explorations & Stories is a one-day, instructor-led, online course. Learn how you can better communicate your data stories and offer up deeper insights. We will show you how use drag and drop to create easy to understand, dazzling dashboards, use the AI assistant and create and animate an interactive slide show.
• #21: At Senturus we concentrate our expertise on business intelligence with a depth of knowledge across the entire BI stack.
• #22: At Senturus, our clients know us for providing clarity from the chaos of complex business requirements, disparate data sources and constantly moving targets. We have made a name for ourselves because of our strength at bridging the gap between IT and business users. We deliver solutions that give you access to reliable, analysis-ready data across the organization so you can quickly and easily get answers at the point of impact: the Decisions you Make and Actions you Take.
• #23: Our consultants are leading experts in the field of analytics, with years of pragmatic, real-world expertise and experience advancing the state-of-the-art. We’re so confident in our team and our methodology that we back our projects with a 100% money back guarantee that is unique in the industry.
• #24: We have been focused exclusively on business intelligence for 19 years. We work across the spectrum from Fortune 500 to mid market, We solve business problems across many industries and function areas including in the office of finance, sales and marketing, manufacturing, operations, HR and IT Our team is large enough to meet all your business analytics needs yet small enough to provide personal attention.
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