By Richa Bhatia

The space in the cloud computing area is more competitive than ever. Big technology players are investing millions of dollars to gain a bigger share in the market. With players like Amazon, Salesforce, Google, and Microsoft making significant achievements in the race for supremacy in the cloud space, IBM has upped the ante with IBM Bluemix as a Cloud-Foundry based PaaS (Platform as a Service). In this article, I will examine the key differentiators that make Bluemix an ideal solution to develop applications easily and rapidly.

By Denis Barchukov

TM1 is well-known for its flexibility, user friendly interface and powerful engine on the server side. It is perfectly suitable for data discovery tasks. That is why many customers use TM1 not only as a budgeting and forecasting tool, but also as an analysis tool for many reports and analytical dashboards. In this article I’ll show you how to leverage TM1 to deliver reports that provide maximum visibility and structural simplicity.

By Piers Wilson

It has long been the case that payroll can make or break a business. CFOs know that HR costs must be closely monitored to ensure that it remains in a reasonable balance - in the 15-30% of gross revenue range. 

By Rory Cornelius

Have you ever received a requirement for a prompt that gives the option of selecting a date but also defaults to the current day? The typical question mark prompt syntax (ie., ?date_prompt?) just doesn't handle that very well. What's a Cognos developer to do? A prompt macro can be used to accomplish this goal and many other more complex reporting requirements.

By Seth Hickey

As more and more users are running reports and utilizing their company’s data, developers find themselves looking for new ways to enhance their reports when possible.  Business users and developers alike enjoy new, exciting features that help push reports from a static list/crosstab to a dynamic reporting tool that has the ability to go beyond Cognos, if necessary.  An easy way for developers to assist business users is through an insertable object in the Report Studio Toolbox, the HTML Item.

By Ruban Lawrence

Back in my salad days, I used to be that guy. We all know that guy - he leans back in his chair confidently, cracks his knuckles, and then dives right into a project without any planning or preparation.

"Pffft. Planning is a waste of time. My time is best spent actually DOING work rather than PLANNING it," I thought.

By Rory Cornelius

In Cognos Analytics 11.0.5 (R5), dashboard enhancements top the list of new and improved tools in the Cognos toolbox. Among the many new dashboarding features in R5, two of the biggest are: being able to access Framework Manager packages directly and, the one we've all be waiting for ... the new geospatial analytics with MapBox integration!