Display in Dashboard Pages?

[kado]

Gurus,

Within an evaluation for a Cognos Dashboarding option I've got the following questions (perhaps limitations) that I'm wondering if anyone has come across or solved:

1) Is there a way to embed Active Reports in a 'Page' (so as to publish as a new Dashboard 'Tab' within Cognos Connection)?
2) Can Active Reports be exported to anything but HTML/MHT and sent via email as such (XLS or PDF)?

3) Can Business Insight content be embedded in a 'Page' (same #1 question but for Business Insight)?
4) Can Business Insight content be emailed as a screen shot or XLS file (instead of just a link)?

THANKS,
Kado

[MFGF]

Hi,

1. Yes, if you are sneaky about it! :-) Normally Active Reports open in a new browser window whenever you select them from Cognos Connection. View your desired Active Report output, and once the new window is open, select and copy the URL from the address bar.  Then create a new Cognos Connection portal page, add an HTML Viewer portlet to it, and in the properties of the HTML viewer paste your copied URL into the URL field.

2. No - just MHT. You can save normal report outputs as PDF/XLS but of course they do not support the interactivity, so for an Active Report, MHT is the only format. You can send an Active Report via email - if you select to run and save a report, then go into Advanced Options, you can select whether the output is attached to the email or whether to send a link to the output.

3. Despite IBM's efforts to force you to view Business Insight in a new browser window, you can also embed it into a Cognos Connection portal page in a similar way to 1 above.  When you are in your Business Insight workspace, select the button on the toolbar to email the workspace, and once the email dialog appears, select and copy the URL contained in the email body. Then create a new Cognos Connection portal page, add an HTML viewer portlet to it, and in the properties of the HTML viewer paste your copied URL into the URL field.

4. Not inherently from the Cognos UI, no.  You could of course use the PrintScreen button and paste the image into an email manually, but I guess you're after something a bit more robust.

One other option you may not be aware of - in the new 10.1.1 release, you can now bring Active Reports into Business Insight. 10.1 did not allow this.

Regards,

MF.

[kado]

 :)

THANKS for the feedback, very helpful!!!!

[neo_pham]

Hi,

1. Yes, if you are sneaky about it! :-) Normally Active Reports open in a new browser window whenever you select them from Cognos Connection. View your desired Active Report output, and once the new window is open, select and copy the URL from the address bar.  Then create a new Cognos Connection portal page, add an HTML Viewer portlet to it, and in the properties of the HTML viewer paste your copied URL into the URL field.

Hi MFGF,

How can the page edit URL automatically when new version output is updated?

RG

[charon]

2) & 4) = True
1) & 3) Sneaky :D Thats nice, have to try this...

:P

[MFGF]

Hi MFGF,

How can the page edit URL automatically when new version output is updated?

RG

I don't have a sneaky way to do that, sorry.

[p8prad]

Hi,
It would be helpful if someone answers me following relating active reports
1.   How security can be enabled on active report for restricted access even when portable ?
2.   How to run .mht file directly from report studio (it gives prompt to save the file) ?
3.   How to bring active reports to dashboard ?

Thanks,
p8prad

[MFGF]

Hi,

1. The only security in Active Reports currently is the ability to password protect. That's it. Nothing else.
2. I think the prompt to save is down to your browser security settings. Some people can run them directly and others see the prompt you describe. I'm not sure which security setting triggers this behaviour, though. You may want to try changing a few to see if you can hit on the right one?
3. Active reports can be brought into Business Insight in 10.1.1. You can also bring them in to a Cognos Connection portal page using the technique I posted earlier in this thread (answer number 1 back on 30th September 2011)

Cheers!

MF.

[charon]

yep...

let me be a bit more detailed on the answers as compensation for a bad "apple device" joke to avoid geting banned  ::)

1) click "file" in left uper corner menu bar, then active report preferences...in the new window, enter an access code. this will be the PW to open the mht file = active report. (similar to PW in pdf. files)

2) in the menu bar, the small little arror next to the "Run" button, it provides the options a) to run the active report and b, save the A.R....try this, save it. After choosing this option Report Studio runs the queries behind the A.R., and creates the mht to store the layout and data information in it.
Also, make sure you use I.E. after version 6, better version 8 or 9.

3) the master of muppets (yes, i like guitarmusic!) wrote a nice little tutorial on how to bring A.R: or other pages on your Connetion dashboard.

cheezr :P

[kado]

Unfortunately even very basic Active Reports I've built (without much data) are extremely large in file size and too big to mail. It would be nice if these files were more compressed  :o

[dataenthusiast]

Kado,

I have been building active reports everyday for the last 3 months now and have a bit of advice. Active Reports is very sensitive to size issues as you have hinted at. These type of reports really require one to think differently in the sense of not putting just anything on a page (even if its a duplicate somewhere else on the report) but to figure out what you want on the report and then get rid of any duplication and be more useful with filters and the use of variables to drive those. Many times I was creating a report where I had the same exact information many times throughout the report with the only difference was the geography. Well instead of having 6 different copies I created one with a filter on the crosstab or list and made it a component reference. I literally saw my file size drop from 50MB (completely unusable) to less than 5MB, fast and very cool!

Hope that makes sense. Let me know and I can give more concrete examples...

Joshua

[charon]

The key point is to use as little data decks as possible...  ;)

[kado]

I appreciate the feedback and have just been scratching the surface with the technology but from what I gather it appears to be the next best thing for not only dashboard-ing but also building mobile exports.

The component reference and less 'data decks' advice is valuable and I'm surprised to hear how much smaller the component reference made your MHTs (I assume thats what your referring to).

Thanks!

[jeff_rob]

Interesting responses.  How can I find the tutorial mentioned in Reply #8 by charon?

I still haven't found a way to make an updated Active Report show in a dashboard portal tab.   :-\

Thanks,
Jeff

[MFGF]

Interesting responses.  How can I find the tutorial mentioned in Reply #8 by charon?

I still haven't found a way to make an updated Active Report show in a dashboard portal tab.   :-\

Thanks,
Jeff

I think charon means my earlier post in this thread: http://www.cognoise.com/index.php/topic,17512.msg50808.html#msg50808

It's not really a tutorial :)

MF.

[bacckom]

Hi all,

my active report has data authority ,so can not use the old version or mht,but must run online.
If not use the mht url for portal tabs page,any solutions ?

thanks . .. 

[MFGF]

Hi all,

my active report has data authority ,so can not use the old version or mht,but must run online.
If not use the mht url for portal tabs page,any solutions ?

thanks . ..

What do you mean by "has data authority"? Do you mean it uses data security to provide different results for different users?

Active Reports are not really designed to be generated interactively, because they can take a good while to render the MHT. If my guess above is correct, it soulds like to need to use bursting to produce different MHT outputs for users with different security restrictions.

MF.

[antya76]

As mentioned earlier, I am able to display the active report in a Cognos Dashboard by including an HTML portal and copy/pasting the link from the Active Report output. However, when the active report runs again, it produces a new file name. Which means I have to go into the portal and update the link to the new file name.

Is there a way to control the file name that is used when the Active Report produces an MHT file so I can have a dedicated file name in my HTML portal?