In the previous article, I created a library for handling start/end date prompt validations in Cognos Analytics with custom JavaScript. This works beautifully, but end users may not understand why their selections are not working. A well designed page should include some form of notification explaining why certain actions are, or are not working.
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In the previous article, we talked about controls via custom JavaScript in Cognos Analytics. We created a select prompt that dynamically generates list of field names in a specified list, and allows the user to toggle the visibility of individual columns. In this article, we'll spend some time on date prompts and datasets and look at cases where we don't need to generate an interface control, and go over a practical example.
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Determining the optimal tuning settings for a Cognos Analytics environment can be a challenging and confusing exercise. Even when there is an understanding of how a specific setting behaves, there is no guarantee until it is implemented, that it will have the desired effect within a specific environment. Additionally, Cognos environments evolve over time as user bases shift and reporting requirements change. This leaves many Cognos administrators guessing and checking as they make settings changes to their Cognos environments. This methodology, unsurprisingly, is problematic.
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Work has been quite intense and very high-level recently, so I was missing the state of flow and the builders high that accompany coding. And I thought it's a good time to learn something new and since I've been reading heaps of good things about Apache Spark, a course on it sounded like a worthwhile pursuit. With that in mind, I enrolled in Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
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In every new release of Cognos, there are some ups, and there are some downs. And while some people may have a lot to complain about in Cognos Analytics, there are some shining advances that force me to forgive all the questionable design decisions (even the loss of the menu and button bars in Report Studio).
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