Business Intelligence and Risk

Management

Florin Anton
Cognos BI Personal Analytics

Cognos Insight - Module

objectives

Examine and experience the powerful personal analytics

capabilities for business users

Understand what it is and the positioning of Cognos Insight

within the Cognos Family

How to assemble, customize and display content

Understand options for sharing and publishing the content

IBM Cognos Insight

What is Cognos Insight?
Ad-Hoc Personal Analytics environment for
business users
Provides a consistent, simplified, and rich
interface for self-service analysis, what- if
scenarios and dashboarding

Key Capabilities
Independence : Easy to install, simple dashboard or planning creation,
flexible data import, collaboration, much more than just consuming
authored dashboards, no IT skills needed
Read and Write made easy : Automatically create hierarchies, measures
and data structures, built in calculations
What-if Scenario Model : Model new scenarios, test assumptions,
optimize, with no scripting
Plan : Modify plans, budgets, forecasts accordingly
Extend : Managed reporting, performance management and predictive
analytics with the endorsement of IT values and governance
3

IBM Cognos Insight continued

Benefits
Cognos Insight is part of the Cognos Family
- Common capabilities: dashboards, analysis,
planning and collaboration
- Everything you build with Insight can be shared
and extended within the Cognos Family
- Growing path from Cognos Insight to Cognos
Express or Cognos Enterprise
Insight is a great place to get started when

Line of business requires flexible independence to quickly analyze

data

IT is not available or report authoring processes take time

Small team or workgroup collaboration is required

Price sensitive budgets for software and support

Want to begin now

Add Cognos Express or Cognos BI Enterprise or Cognos TM1 when your
business needs grow

Security, access control

Governed deployment

Additional capabilities (see chart)

information requests while maintaining proper IT governance
4

The data I need is not only

in our corporate systems.

I dont know exactly what

Im looking for.

I cant afford to wait for

someone else to build it.

When to use Cognos Insight

Business analysts require the ability to easily access/analyze/explore
information from their personal sources and business applications
without relying on IT and without requiring specialized skills
Business analysts require the ability to measure their performance
(from these personal sources) against the organizations trusted
performance
To make effective decisions, the business needs to model and test
different decision scenarios and understand the business impacts of
those scenarios
IT needs to partner with the business to rapidly prototype these new
applications and needs a trusted platform to deliver proper
governance and security and to scale to the enterprise
8

When to use Cognos Insight

continued
Already
using
Cognos BI

Already
using
Cognos TM1

New to
Analytics

Deploy Cognos Insight to address personal analytics needs in LOB

Expand role of Cognos Insight by deploying Cognos TM1 to centrally

manage personal analytics and apply user rights to published cubes

Expand traditional BI deployments with Cognos TM1 what-if analysis,

scenario modeling, personal data contribution, and planning

Upgrade to Cognos TM1 10 to deliver powerful new desktop analytics

and planning capabilities into the hands of analysts and planners

Expand with Cognos BI to deliver reports, dashboards and mobile

access to plans, actuals and targets into the hands of more users

Address your immediate needs with the confidence you can grow as
your needs expand

Work with one vendor to deploy integrated personal analytics,

business intelligence and performance management

The IBM Cognos Family

Analytics in the hands of everyone
Insight to action with
every product
Right-sized for your
organization
Built to future-proof
your investment

10

Cognos Insight, part of the Cognos Family

Business Analytics Solutions that Grow With You
Small Deployment

Workgroup Deployment

Enterprise Deployment

Desktop Users

Single Server plus Desktops

Distributed Architecture

server
server
server
Solve individual &
team problems
quickly

Orchestrate work & minimize

cost of broader deployment

server

Coordinate Enterprise execution

through consistency & broad access to
a wide range of data & functionality

Typical Criteria

Small

Workgroup

Enterprise

Business Individual

LOB-led

IT-Led

Individuals (<10)

Workgroups (<100)

Large (100+)

IT Skill Set

Not required

Limited

Strong

Deployment Style

Standalone

Single Server

Distributed

Buying Center
Community Size

11

IBM Cognos Insight

Personal analytics without compromise
Visualize, explore
and share insight
Wired for the
enterprise
Independently take
insight to action

12

Why the need for Personal Analytics for

Business Users
Great data interactivity
Complex analysis
Limited visualizations

13

Why the need for Personal Analytics

for Business Users
Great data interactivity
Complex analysis
Limited visualizations

Great visualizations
Limited data interactivity
Pre-defined analysis

14

Why the need for Personal Analytics

for Business Users

15

Why the need for Personal Analytics

for Business Users

The only desktop product that empowers

decision makers to independently take insight to

action
16

Model
scenarios,
Model
scenarios,
test
testassumptions,
assumptions,
and
andoptimize
optimize

Add compelling
visuals, widgets
and themes

Drag-and-drop data,
smart filters, and
intuitive analysis

Modify plans,
budgets, and
forecasts
accordingly

Exchange files
or publish
and extend within
the Cognos Family

How will it help you?

A business analyst has to manage data from multiple

Microsoft Excel

sources: Data warehouses, spreadsheets, ERP systems

The analyst can communicate high level findings but

wishes to make the details more accessible and useful to
business users

Using Cognos Insight the analyst can import files from

local sources (csv or excel) or corporate servers into
Cognos Insight and create dashboards or plans that
reflect the needs of individual or workgroup scenarios.

Cognos Insight
SPSS Statistics

Allows business users to further analyze the findings for

themselves, using calculations, what-if, traffic lights

Fast visualization selection for better understanding

Focus on their particular areas of responsibility
Share finding amongst colleagues
No IT assistance
18

Business case 1: Business users who

want to discover new insights and share
them with others
Requirements

CDD
CDD

Complete user interaction and control

Standalone analytic desktop capabilities for
ad-hoc and project specific analysis

CDD

Easily create and share powerful

dashboards and multidimensional data in
small workgroups
Benefits
Freedom to quickly and independently
create fresh information points
Control to share with key stakeholders
Freedom to maximize productivity with
desktop analytics
Control to collaborate with other
usersto annotate, enter data
and share with others
19

Business case 2: Business analysts who want to

create new insights and information sets for
deployment in the enterprise environment
Requirements:
Flexibility of personal desktop analytics
Combine corporate sources with personal data to
create fresh insights

CDD
CDD

Publish and distribute throughout the enterprise

Benefits:

CDD

Freedom to create fresh information

points with personal and
corporate data
Control with managed publishing into
the governed corporate system
Freedom to maximize productivity with
desktop analytics
Control to rapidly incorporate prototypes
and centrally govern uploaded files

20

Business case 3: Business managers who want to

accelerate planning cycles and gain higher
participation across the business
Requirements:
Easily build a planning application
Create scenarios and plans using the
flexibility of personal desktop analytics
Control contribution of plans from others
Share plans and scenarios with others
Benefits
Freedom of distributed planning with rich
analysis capabilities
Control to apply workflow, rules and
user rights centrally
Freedom for business to define the
planning model and process
Control of centralized and distributed
enterprise planning and analysis

21

Cognos Insight working modes

On the desktop, standalone
Guided data acquisition
Analysis and visualization
Dashboard creation
What if scenario modeling
Exchange files with other users
Connected to a Cognos server
Share and Publish dashboards
Access list reports and packages
Promote content to be managed
Create ad hoc planning apps
Plan contribution

22

Start with an empty Workspace

Simply drag and drop an excel or csv file into your workspace
or choose quick import / import data from the Get Data Menu option

Cognos Insight

23

Progressive Interaction
Once the initial content has been added, and the first display of data is
shown, ad-hoc analysis can be started by means of:
Drilling Up / Down,
Filtering
Changing dimensions and
measures
Conditional formatting
Creating Calculations
Sorting
Importing more data
and more

24

Lets look deeper at some of

those features
Ease of creating calculations
Percentage of Total Calculations
Calculations in Parent

Chart Interaction
Usability Features

Simple Terminology
Easy Access to Formatting
Keyboard Shortcuts

Easy Filtering
Guided Import and Smart Metadata
Time Dimension Import

25

We have seen Cognos Insight fits

the first 3 scenarios
Cognos Insight is a personal data analysis &
planning tool that:
Supports users who have a lot of questions to answer from their data
Who dont necessarily know what all the questions are
And who want to share and disseminate their results with others
Personal Analysis

Sharing

Rapid Application Design

Rapid ad-hoc analysis for the

business user to explore
their data in the time they
need

Create and share results

with others without the
assistance of IT

Rapidly prototype
applications to answer
business questions quickly
and partner with IT

What If Analysis
Understand different
scenarios & consequences
of business decisions. Writeback to plans or sources

Planning & Analysis

Explore & analyze business
situations, restructure data
on the fly and prototype data
that can be further modeled
in Performance Modeler

Planning Contributions
A powerful client for Central
and Managed Enterprise
Planning opportunities
26

Lets talk about What If Analysis

There are many opportunities for What If Analysis
'What happens to the result if we make a particular change to another
value, calculation or parameter ?
Ad-hoc What If
Analysis

Scenario
Modeling

Allocation and
Distribution

Forecasting

Ability to Write back

Restructure
Dimensions
Create Rules and
Calculations
Input values and
reaction values

Compare & contrast

scenarios
Best, Worst and Do
Nothing scenarios
Light Sensitivity
Modelling

FPM
Budget and Allocation
Planning
Cube to Cube
Business Rules and
Calculation

Uncover patterns
Apply algorithms
Churn Analysis
Predict outcomes
True Sensitivity
Modelling with
Statistical Foundation

Use cases
What if we sold 1m
units in Q4?
How might we
reorganize Sales
Teams?

Use cases
What If we decrease
sales prices by 5%,
10% or 20%, How
many more units would
we sell?

Use cases
How should we
allocate $5m of capital
dollars for factory
expansion?

Use cases
How sensitive is our
cash flow to possible
commodiityfutures ?

27

How to create a What if scenario

You may start with an existing column and duplicate it to get some values
or you can insert a new empty column or row directly from the right click menu
you may rename the newly created column

28

What if scenario continued

the new column called Plan, has been changed to a different number
changes are automatically highlighted in Blue to show affected values
right click menu allows for further gestures, like holding a value
- The held value will not be affected by further calculations

Cognos Insight

29

What if scenario continued

any column can be hidden or deleted from your workspace
you may type in the values you want or resize the columns
- Resizing may be done by either moving the slider or
- grabbing the edge of the column to adjust the height
changes are immediately reflected in the crosstab and chart

30

Cosmetic changes

31

Cognos Insight working modes

On the desktop, standalone
Guided data acquisition
Personal modeling
Analysis and visualization
Dashboard creation
Scenario modeling
Exchange files with other users

Connected to a Cognos server

Share and Publish dashboards
Access list reports and packages
Promote content to be managed
Create ad hoc planning apps
Plan contribution

32

What can you do when integrating

with Enterprise Servers?
Import
BI report data or package
into Cognos Insight and
merge with local data

Integration requires:
IBM Cognos BI Version 10.1.1 or later

33

What else can you do when

integrating with EnterpriseShare
Servers?
Upload CDD file to
Cognos Connection
Users open & launch
CDD file on desktop

Publish
Publish application to TM1
Application Server

Publish & Distribute

Integration requires:
IBM Cognos BI Version 10.1.1 or later
IBM Cognos TM1 Version 10.1

Publish application to TM1

Enterprise Server
Publish BI package & reports
to Cognos BI Enterprise
Server

34

Getting ready to share and/or publish

before you can publish you must save your
workspace and have connection to a server
from the same drop down menu, choose Share, Publish or Publish and Distribute
- Sharing through a Server means uploading your finished files so that others can
download from Cognos Connection

Share
Upload CDD file to
Cognos Connection
Users open & launch
CDD file on desktop

35

Getting ready to share and/or publish

(continued)
before you can publish you must save your workspace
from the same drop down menu, choose Share, Publish or Publish and Distribute
- Sharing through a Server means uploading your finished files so that others
can download from Cognos Connection

Publish
Publish application to TM1
Application Server

Publish & Distribute

Publish application to TM1
Enterprise Server
Publish BI package & reports to
Cognos BI Enterprise Server

36

Lets take a look at Cognos Insight

as a Planning/Contribution client
Cognos Insight is a personal data analysis & planning tool that:

Supports users who have a lot of questions to answer from their data
Who dont necessarily know what all the questions are
And who want to share and disseminate their results with others

Personal Analysis
Rapid ad-hoc analysis for the
business user to explore their
data in the time they need

Sharing
Create and share results with
others without the assistance of
IT

Rapid Application Design

Rapidly prototype applications to
answer business questions quickly
and partner with IT

What If Analysis
Understand different
scenarios & consequences of
business decisions. Writeback to plans or sources

Planning & Analysis

Explore & analyze business
situations, restructure data on the
fly and prototype data that can be
further modeled in Performance
Modeler

Planning Contributions
A powerful client for Central and
Managed Enterprise Planning
opportunities

37

User Planning & Analytics Experience

38

User Planning & Analytics Experience

Cognos Insight Connected Mode
- Thick client
- Available for all application types
- Rich client experience
- Canvas based contribution
Cognos Insight Distributed Mode
- Thick client
- Canvas based contribution/analysis only available for
leaf level contribution.
- All In-grid actions occur client side.

Cognos Insight - 2 modes but fundamentally the same client.

- Behind the scene behaviour is different.

Faster, more effective personal analytics and planning

39

Cognos Insight provides more value to the

Business User and Business Administrator

Work independently and quickly without

waiting for corporate systems

Provide discovery and planning tools to

reduce error-prone spreadsheet work

Share insights by uploading files or

publishing data and analysis to the server

Centrally secure and archive all analysis

and contributed content

Combine personal and corporate data to

create fresh insights

Gain insight into the use of corporate data

and new data sets needed in the business

Gain power of all enterprise BI capabilities

against business contributed datasets

Encourage usage of standard BI capabilities

by all users regardless of location

Articulate the visualizations and data sets

required to run the business

Adopt business prototypes to quickly and

easily build out corporate solutions

40

Key take away

Access your data
Leverage multiple data sources to create your own
personalized explorations
Create and analyze
Create custom personalized applications, dashboards and
what-if scenario models to optimize your business outcomes
Visualize
Control and independence over the look and feel of your canvas
Enterprise ready
Start at the desktop and span across the organization with collaboration,
Enterprise BI and PM capabilities IT endorsement

Visit AnalyticsZone.com for a free download of Cognos Insight

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Sales, Marketing, Finance, HR, Ops, IT, Exec Mgmt, and more

42

Cognos Insight

.com