The answer is, the specifics depend very much on the nature of your metadata structure but the general principles hold true. Subsequently, the hand waving which follows is at a fairly high level.
Building a multi-fact query is one of basic bits of functionality in Cognos.
You would want to do your modelling in a module and use the module in the dashboard.
Among other things, this enables you to know and control the relationships between objects and to define the grains of detail, which is especially important if your facts are at different levels of detail. Quite often planning facts are at higher levels of detail for things like time and specific products etc. than the actuals. For example, you might be planning for the month level whereas the actuals are captured on a day level. Also, you might be planning for some level of product abstraction --product brand or type -- but the actuals capture the sales for the actual products. The problem which you can encounter is that if you accidentally try to view data for a fact below its fact grain you will get what is called double counting, although the values being presented would be usually more than literally double the real value which should be displayed. This situation is dealt with by modelling column dependency in the module. In Framework Manager, the analogue is determinants.
The actual modelling steps depend on the structure of the data. If it is in a data base then you would need to model so that the dimensions and facts are properly identified, and in the case of the former, role-playing is dealt with.
What is the source of the files' data? You need to take into consideration data governance, including controlling in a systematic manner the capture of data, its retention, its refreshment, and the documentation of the system and how controls are implemented to ensure that bad data is not generated and used.
Here are links to the new best practices document.
Web: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.mod_guidelines.doc/c_mod_guidelines.html
PDF: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.mod_guidelines.doc/mod_guidelines.pdf?view=kc
https://community.ibm.com/community/user/businessanalytics/blogs/torben-noer1/2020/09/08/metadata-modeling?CommunityKey=6b10df83-0b3c-4f92-8b1f-1fd80d0e7e58&tab=recentcommunityblogsdashboard
https://community.ibm.com/accelerators/catalog/content/Metadata-Modeling-Best-Practices
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IAN HENDERSON
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Original Message:
Sent: Tue February 23, 2021 10:25 AM
From: Philipp Hornung
Subject: Question: Building a dashboard - How to display objectives & compare to them?
Hi @Alexandre Lanoue,
I think any good approach is based on data modules where you can join (or union) an uploaded spreadsheet easily with your transactional data. The transactional data may be accessed directly from a data source, as (usually aggregated & compressed) data sets or by a (usually rather complex) Framework Manager model.
Best,
Philipp
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Philipp Hornung
Original Message:
Sent: Sun February 21, 2021 07:58 AM
From: Alexandre Lanoue
Subject: Question: Building a dashboard - How to display objectives & compare to them?
Hi,
I have been looking for the best way to achieve the following in Cognos Analytics for a while now. How do you build a report where you can display KPI and compare the actual to the result?
I am looking for a way to reproduce what my team is currently doing in an Excel spreadsheet. My objectives are defined by management in a spreadsheet and the results come from the transactional system. Two questions:
- What is the best way to structure the objective sheet so we can link them to the results?
- How do you create a table that will present the information?
Thanks!
Alex
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Alexandre Lanoue
Executive & Leader - Enterprise Advisory Services
SIA Innovations Inc.
Montreal QC
5148425764
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#CognosAnalyticswithWatson