In Cognos Analytics 11, report administrators have the ability to implement company wide templates for developers to start with. These can be highly custom templates so that end users have less formatting to do before the report is ready for production. Below is a brief, best practice on implementing a template for a corporate enterprise level template. This process ensures that if a standard change needs to be made to the template across all reports, it is changed in one location and propagated throughout the Cognos solution.
Create a company template
Open a new Report.
Select the blank template and click OK in the bottom right corner. A developer could start with any of these templates or themes for this process.
Format the report
Add page headers and footers by selecting the Page Body, and from the On-Demand menu select the More (ellipsis) icon at the far right, select Headers & footers, and select Page header & footer.
Once the Page header & footer box appears, select the check boxes next to both Headers and Footers and click OK.
Select the Plus icon in the header and select Table.
Make the table 3 columns, 1 row, Max width, and select OK.
Do the same for the footer section.
Select the columns 1 and 3 in both the header table and the footer table.
Open Properties, navigate to Size & overflow and set the width to 20% and select OK.
Create standard header
Select the Toolbox icon from the left, Navigation bar, search for Image, and drag that into the header in the first column.
Double click the image to provide the path to the default logo
Example: http://analyticsdemo:9300/bi/images/eCapitalAdvisors_logo_large.png
Resize the image as needed. I will be changing my image to 100 px by 66.5 px.
From the Toolbox, search for a Layout Calculation and insert it into the header, middle column.
Provide the expression: ReportName ()
Select the plus symbol in the header’s far right column, and add a Table
Make the table 1 column, 2 rows, max width, and select OK.
Search the Toolbox for Date and insert it into the header’s right column, top row.
Search the Toolbox for Time and insert it into the header’s right column bottom row.
Format the header as needed
Create standard footer
Search the Toolbox for Page number and insert it into the footer’s left column.
Select the plus symbol in the footer’s middle column, add a Text item, and provide a message the all reports should display to end users.
Select the plus symbol in the footer’s right column, add a Text item, and provide a brief message the all reports should display to end users.
Format the footer as needed.
Name objects for future use
Rename the following objects
- Header
- table, “Report Header Table”
- logo, “Company Logo”
- title text, “Report Title”
- Footer
- table, “Report Footer Table”
- text in the middle column, “Footer Text”
- text in the right column, “Footer User Name”
Save the Report to Team Content > Templates > (company name) Template as (company name) Template
NOTE: Make sure to save as a Report and NOT a Report Template.
Close the Report
Create a company starting point
Open a new Report and select a blank template
Add the headers and footer from steps 5 thru 7
Search the Toolbox for Layout Component Reference and insert it into the header.
When the Component reference appears, select Another report and select the ellipsis on the right.
Navigate to Team Content > Templates > (company name) Template and select the (company name) Template and select Open
From the Available components to reference:, select Report Header Table and select OK.
Repeat 45 thru 48 for the footer
Save this Report to Team Content > Templates as (company name) Starting Point
Now, when a user goes to open a new report, (company name) Starting point will be part of the templates that can be selected.
Post Script….
If a developer would like to add the Cognos User’s display name to report template.
Open the (company name) Starting Point report
Add a package of data
Select the footer Layout component reference and in the Properties, select the ellipsis for Override
Select the check box for User Name
Search the Toolbox for Query Calculation and insert it into the Footer’s right column.
Insert the following expression: #sq($account.defaultName)#
NOTE: The developer that uses the report starting point may want/need to change the package before they start development. This should NOT affect the user name calculation.
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