IBM Cognos News from BSP

Welcome to this month's BSP Newsletter. We have a lot of educational content this month, along with some great tips and tricks and other IBM Cognos related information as always!

And remember, we enjoy hearing your suggestions regarding the content you'd like to see. Please e-mail us at Newsletter@brightstarpartners.com if you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in future newsletters.

BSP OFFERS COGNOS ADMINISTRATION TRAINING

BSP is pleased to announce the addition of "A Practical Guide to Cognos Administration" to our series of onsite training classes that we offer. This new offering rounds out our training curriculum to cover all aspects of Cognos Business Intelligence implementations. Topics in this training class include:

Cognos 8 Architecture
Monitoring System Activity and System Load
Understanding Log Files
Performance Tuning
Cognos 8 Security
Understand Servers and Networks with Cognos 8
Advanced Routing Options

For more information, please contact Neil Morgan at nmorgan@brightstarpartners.com or 847-439-0308 x. 113.

BSP SOFTWARE RELEASES ICS 2.0

BSP's

Governance, Risk and Compliance for IBM Cognos

Integrated Control Suite (ICS) delivers governance, risk and compliance solutions to lower IBM Cognos customers' total cost of ownership. ICS provides customers' with version control, content management, source control, and compliance reporting within their performance management environment.

The Integrated Control Suite's tight integration into the IBM Cognos environment enables transparency to users and supporting IT departments, as ICS appears and behaves as part of the core IBM Cognos product suite. Above and beyond version control and content management, ICS provides the capabilities needed to impose workflow and audit controls throughout the lifecycle of business intelligence artifacts.

Join us on May 18th to see the launch of this groundbreaking release!

USING REPORT VARIABLES TO CHANGE LAYOUT

Using variables in Report Studio, you can change the layout or content of a report based on the format. Use this technique to help make your reports look and work their best in all formats. There are certain objects and formatting that do not transition well to some output formats, such as complex table layouts in Excel and data driven HTML items in CSV. Using this technique you can hide, replace, or alter them to meet the needs of each format.

Please visit www.bspsoftware.com and register for a free account on the site. Once logged in, you can view this and other tips and techniques in the BSP Software Podcast Channel, located under Support >> Podcasts or by clicking http://www.bspsoftware.com/podcasts.

SETTING BACKGROUND GRADIENT FOR A REPORT

By Mike Vilhauer, Senior Consultant

Many times a report will have a background color or gradient set to enhance the visual presentation. This color or gradient looks nice when viewed in HTML but is often not necessary or wanted when viewing in PDF due to the amount of ink used in printing or for any number of other reasons. Setting the background color to be white when a report is run as PDF is pretty straight forward. Just select the Page and set the style variable and set the background color when the report output is PDF. However having a gradient as the background for a report requires a few more steps...

In a nutshell the following steps will be followed

Set the page to have a desired gradient (this is available in 8.4)
Create a conditional style to set the background as while when the ReportOutput is PDF
Adopt the conditional style for page body
Adopt the conditional style for page header
Adopt the conditional style for the page footer

Adoption of the conditional style for page body, header and footer is necessary as the gradient will override it if we try to set the style at the page level.

This technique is available in 8.4 only.

Click here to read the complete article.

INTEGRATING COGNOS REPORTS INTO CORPORATE INTRANET SITES AND PORTALS

By Jason Arnold, Consultant

Any easy and effective way to add Cognos Reports and content to Corporate Enterprise Portals and Intranet Websites is to use Parameterized URLs. Parameterized URLs allow content to be viewed seamlessly in another portal or web application. It also provides the option to hide unwanted parts of the Cognos environment such as headers and toolbars. All Cognos security and access permissions carry over. If single sign-on is enabled, users can access reports and other content without ever viewing Cognos Connection.

For detailed steps to setup a basic Parameterized URL with screen shots, click here

DID YOU KNOW...

About Chinese Calendar......

History

In China the calendar was a sacred document, sponsored and promulgated by the reigning monarch. For more than two millennia, a Bureau of Astronomy made astronomical observations, calculated astronomical events such as eclipses, prepared astrological predictions, and maintained the calendar (Needham, 1959). After all, a successful calendar not only served practical needs, but also confirmed the consonance between Heaven and the imperial court.
Analysis of surviving astronomical records inscribed on oracle bones reveals a Chinese lunisolar calendar, with intercalation of lunar months, dating back to the Shang dynasty of the fourteenth century B.C. Various intercalation schemes were developed for the early calendars, including the nineteen-year and 76-year lunar phase cycles that came to be known in the West as the Metonic cycle and Callipic cycle.
From the earliest records, the beginning of the year occurred at a New Moon near the winter solstice. The choice of month for beginning the civil year varied with time and place, however. In the late second century B.C., a calendar reform established the practice, which continues today, of requiring the winter solstice to occur in month 11. This reform also introduced the intercalation system in which dates of New Moons are compared with the 24 solar terms. However, calculations were based on the mean motions resulting from the cyclic relationships. Inequalities in the Moon's motions were incorporated as early as the seventh century A.D. (Sivin, 1969), but the Sun's mean longitude was used for calculating the solar terms until 1644 (Liu and Stephenson, in press).
Years were counted from a succession of eras established by reigning emperors. Although the accession of an emperor would mark a new era, an emperor might also declare a new era at various times within his reign. The introduction of a new era was an attempt to reestablish a broken connection between Heaven and Earth, as personified by the emperor. The break might be revealed by the death of an emperor, the occurrence of a natural disaster, or the failure of astronomers to predict a celestial event such as an eclipse. In the latter case, a new era might mark the introduction of new astronomical or calendrical models.
Sexagenary cycles were used to count years, months, days, and fractions of a day using the set of Celestial Stems and Terrestrial Branches described in Section 6.1. Use of the sixty-day cycle is seen in the earliest astronomical records. By contrast the sixty-year cycle was introduced in the first century A.D. or possibly a century earlier (Tung, 1960; Needham, 1959). Although the day count has fallen into disuse in everyday life, it is still tabulated in calendars. The initial year (jia-zi) of the current year cycle began on 1984 February 2, which is the third day (bing-yin) of the day cycle.
Western (pre-Copernican) astronomical theories were introduced to China by Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century. Gradually, more modern Western concepts became known. Following the revolution of 1911, the traditional practice of counting years from the accession of an emperor was abolished.

As it exists today

The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar based on calculations of the positions of the Sun and Moon.
Months of 29 or 30 days begin on days of astronomical New Moons, with an intercalary month being added every two or three years. Since the calendar is based on the true positions of the Sun and Moon, the accuracy of the calendar depends on the accuracy of the astronomical theories and calculations.
Although the Gregorian calendar is used in the Peoples' Republic of China for administrative purposes, the traditional Chinese calendar is used for setting traditional festivals and for timing agricultural activities in the countryside.
The Chinese calendar is also used by Chinese communities around the world.

Rules for Civil Use

The following rules (Liu and Stephenson, in press) are currently used as the basis for calendars prepared by the Purple Mountain Observatory (1984):

The first day of the month is the day on which the New Moon occurs.
An ordinary year has twelve lunar months; an intercalary year has thirteen lunar months.
The Winter Solstice (term P-11) always falls in month 11.
In an intercalary year, a month in which there is no Principal Term is the intercalary month. It is assigned the number of the preceding month, with the further designation of intercalary. If two months of an intercalary year contain no Principal Term, only the first such month after the Winter Solstice is considered intercalary.
Calculations are based on the meridian 120o East.

Rules for Religious Calendar

There is no specific initial epoch for counting years. In historical records, dates were specified by counts of days and years in sexagenary cycles and by counts of years from a succession of eras established by reigning monarchs.
The sixty-year cycle consists of a set of year names that are created by pairing a name from a list of ten Celestial Stems with a name from a list of twelve Terrestrial Branches, following the order specified in Table 6.1.1. The Celestial Stems are specified by Chinese characters that have no English translation; the Terrestrial Branches are named after twelve animals. After six repetitions of the set of stems and five repetitions of the branches, a complete cycle of pairs is completed and a new cycle begins. The initial year (jia-zi) of the current cycle began on 1984 February 2.
Days are measured from midnight to midnight. The first day of a calendar month is the day on which the astronomical New Moon (i.e., conjunction) is calculated to occur. Since the average interval between successive New Moons is approximately 29.53 days, months are 29 or 30 days long. Months are specified by number from 1 to 12. When an intercalary month is added, it bears the number of the previous month, but is designated as intercalary. An ordinary year of twelve months is 353, 354, or 355 days in length; a leap year of thirteen months is 383, 384, or 385 days long.
The conditions for adding an intercalary month are determined by the occurrence of the New Moon with respect to divisions of the tropical year. The tropical year is divided into 24 solar terms, in 15o segments of solar longitude. These divisions are paired into twelve Sectional Terms (Jieqi) and twelve Principal Terms (Zhongqi). These terms are numbered and assigned names that are seasonal or meteorological in nature. For convenience here, the Sectional and Principal Terms are denoted by S and P, respectively, followed by the number. Because of the ellipticity of the Earth's orbit, the interval between solar terms varies with the seasons.

Year Names

1. jia-zi
2. yi-chou
3. bing-yin
4. ding-mao
5. wu-chen
6. ji-si
7. geng-wu
8. xin-wei
9. ren-shen
10. gui-you
11. jia-xu
12. yi-hai
13. bing-zi
14. ding-chou
15. wu-yin

16. ji-mao
17. geng-chen
18. xin-si
19. ren-wu
20. gui-wei
21. jia-shen
22. yi-you
23. bing-xu
24. ding-hai
25. wu-zi
26. ji-chou
27. geng-yin
28. xin-mao
29. ren-chen
30. gui-si

31. jia-wu
32. yi-wei
33. bing-shen
34. ding-you
35. wu-xu
36. ji-hai
37. geng-zi
38. xin-chou
39. ren-yin
40. gui-mao
41. jia-chen
42. yi-si
43. bing-wu
44. ding-wei
45. wu-shen

46. ji-you
47. geng-xu
48. xin-hai
49. ren-zi
50. gui-chou
51. jia-yin
52. yi-mao
53. bing-chen
54. ding-si
55. wu-wu
56. ji-wei
57. geng-shen
58. xin-you
59. ren-xu
60. gui-hai

Next Month.... A New Series.....

BSP is committed to bringing you quality content month after month. If you have ideas for topics or if there is something you'd like to learn more about, please contact us at and we'll do our best to address your request! We hope you enjoy this newsletter as much as we enjoy bringing it to you.