SMITH COLLEGE COGNOS REPORTNET USER GROUP
The Smith College Cognos User Group now meets every other month on the second Thursday of the month from 1:15 to 2:30 in Seelye B2. These informal meetings will generally include a presentation or training opportunity, question and answer session, and an opportunity for members to share experiences and ideas. These meetings are primarily for Cognos Report Authors.
Prior Meetings
December 11, 2008
Our first meeting was led by Marsha who demonstrated prompt pages, how to display the user's selection on the report, and adding sort functionality. She also showed us how to back up a report's XML code to Notepad, and how to copy a query from one report to the other (FAQs/Demos on these will be listed below as soon as possible). Finally, she demonstrated the templates Advancement uses for both reports and prompt pages, as well as how Advancement documents their reports. Thanks Marsha!
Backup up a Report (flash demo)
January 8, 2008
Our second meeting was led by Bill who gave a brief overview of the various resources available on the Tara Cognos web page. He also demonstrated how to do a find and replace references to old field (query objects) names in XML code. Here's the FAQ:
Using Search and Replace in XML Code to Fix References to Old Field Names
Also, here's a walk through on disabling the annoying "Click to Continue" message that can appear in Internet Explorer.
February 12, 2009
Our third meeting was led by Bill who demonstrated some of the more complex reports we worked on with the Cognos Consultant last week. He also walked through several features that can help with your report authoring. Here's a link to the "tips and tricks" covered at this meeting (text only at the moment) FAQ022109.
March 12, 2009
Today's meeting was led by Xia Stolle. Xia started the demo by explaining Banner POPSELS including their purpose and how they are created. She then explained that the POPSEL packages in Cognos are directly linked to the Banner POPSELS. She showed the design details of two excellent reports she wrote: "SF Ask Checking Report (POPSEL)" and SF Alumnae Constituents Contact Form (POPSEL). Both of these reports can be found in Public Folders > Smith Reporting > Shared Folder > Adv Examples. An impressive feature was having a drop down prompt with the POPSELS concatenated with current record count. It was helpful to see the more powerful ways Cognos can handle complex reporting requirements. Thanks Xia!
April 9, 2009
Thank you to Tim for demonstrating several new custom functions Sylvia created. Also, thank you to those of you who attended and provided great feedback such as naming convention/documentation suggestions for the new functions.
October 8, 2009
Today's meeting was a smaller more informal meeting. We had a discussion about the different Cognos projects on campus. Bill then gave a brief Go!Office demonstration. It was also agreed to move our start time for future meetings to 1:15.
Future Meeting Dates
May 13, 2010
