Cognos Analytics with Watson

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How to create custom URL for Cognos Report/Dashboard

By Dinesh K. Dhiman posted Thu June 11, 2020 12:05 PM

  
Introduction :
Purpose of this article is to share a technique to provision custom URL for accessing reports/dashboards in Cognos Analytics. The idea for devising this technique is to provide an easy to remember URL for reports/dashboards. Custom URL method enables analytics viewers/end users to access the intended reports without remembering complicated urls and directory structure.

Solution Overview :
Assuming, end users of "Small and Medium Business" a.k.a. SMB business unit in the organization are looking for custom URL for accessing "Telco Churn Dashboard".  Example :  http(s)://<cognosservername>/ibmcognos/smb/telcochurn

This demonstration has been performed on CA 11.1.6 with IHS 9.0 environment.
Default virtual directory i.e. ibmcognos is configured at webserver.

Prerequisites :- CA environment with access to Gateway and Web Server

Procedure:

Step 1 - Copy the iFrame code for target dashboard
Use Share -> Embed code for the target dashboard


Step 2 - Paste the iFrame code in new text file
Save this text file with name as "telcochurn", ensure no extension for this file.

We've updated the Height and Width tags to 100% each for our demo.


Step 3 - Place "telcochurn" file on Cognos server at given location
<Cognos Installation>/webcontent/smb


Step 4 - Dashboard can now be accessed using the custom URL.
http(s)://<cognosservername>/ibmcognos/smb/telcochurn







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Comments

Kiran Passumarthi
Wed June 24, 2020 04:41 AM

Hi @Dinesh K. Dhiman​

We have integrated CA into our SaaS product and use CJAP for authentication. Our customers want to use these reports from within their intranet without having the need to provide additional credentials. Now, the credentials they use in their intranet are not the same as the credentials they use for our SaaS application. We do have a solution in place where we pass encrypted credentials in the URL to an intermediate page, authenticate and then redirect to the respective report/dashboard. But there are lot of redirects and it takes lot of time as well. I am looking for alternatives to make things easy. 

Regards

Dinesh K. Dhiman
Tue June 23, 2020 09:22 PM

@Kiran Passumarthi 
You can enable SSO.

Here’s the link.

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.inst_cr_winux.doc/c_enabling_single_signon_between_actdirsrv_and_cog_comp.html

Kiran Passumarthi
Tue June 23, 2020 05:41 PM

What options do we have if we want to access these reports and dashboards using custom URLs from external systems without having the need to login explicitly?

Saquib Ansari
Fri June 19, 2020 03:57 AM

For some reason, images are not displayed in comment.
I have emailed them .

Dinesh K. Dhiman
Thu June 18, 2020 11:46 AM

Hello Saquib,

The approach works with Dashboards, Reports, Explorations and Stories. You can slack me for assistance.

Saquib Ansari
Thu June 18, 2020 02:57 AM

Hi Dinesh,
Is this applicable for reports too?
I have tried this, with exact same steps. I am unable to call the specified report. It says 'Site cannot be reached'.  Is there any settings we need to enable apart from the steps mentioned in the post. Screenshots are added below. Please let me know if something wrong and any other changes we need to make for standard cognos reports.
file content which copies from cognos report > share, as suggested
File saved with on type and at location as suggested
Error when using custom URL as suggested.