In this lesson, you will learn how to customize a report
so that it depicts consolidated information for multiple projects.
Such consolidation helps senior managers get an overview
of the health of their projects. This consolidation helps them identify
areas that demand special attention, and thereby direct management
bandwidth toward priority areas.
We will use the Defect status
and distribution report in this tutorial. This report helps track
patterns in defects, which can be used to take corrective action for
reducing defect resolution time and the number of defects. When consolidated
for projects, the report is a powerful tool for group managers to
analyze the overall health of their groups.
Create a copy
The
first step is to create a copy of the Defect status and distribution
report.
- In Cognos® Connection,
click Public Folders > Sample Report Definitions > Data
Warehouse Reports.
- To create a copy, click More… on the same
line as the Defect status and distribution report.
- In the perform an action page, click copy
.
- In the save as a copy page, enter Defect
status and distribution _1 in the name field.
- Under location click My folders and click OK.
Open Report Studio
You need to open Report
Studio to customize the report element properties . To open Report
Studio, in IBM® Cognos Connection, click the Report Studio
link on the same line as the report or by selecting Report Studio
from the launch menu.
Enable selection of multiple
projects
You need to select more than one value in a prompt.
For example, you have a prompt for which users must select a project.
You need to modify the prompt so that you can select more than one
project.
If you enable multiple selections, the Auto-Submit
property is always set to no.
- On the Explorer bar, click Page
Explorer, and click Report Pages.

- Click Page1 .
- Click the Project control. This is a Value
Prompt control that shows up in the Properties pane
and toolbox.
- In the Properties pane, set the Multi-Select property
to Yes.
- On the Explorer bar, click Page
Explorer, and then Prompt Pages.
- Click Prompt Page 1.
- Click the Project prompt control.
- In the Properties pane, set the Multi-Select property
to Yes.
- On the Explorer bar, click Query
Explorer. The report has five queries, one for each of
the three charts (Defects by State, Defects by Severity, and Defects
by Priority), one to select the program, and one to select the project.
- Click DefectByState.
- Double-click the filter expression associated with the Project prompt.
- Change the operator [Project]=?AllProject? to [Project]
in (?AllProject?).
- Click Validate Expression, and click OK.
- Repeat steps 10 to 12 for the two queries: DefectBySeverity and
DefectByPriority.
Add a Prompt button
To run the customized
report, you need to add a Prompt button.
- Select Page1 in the page explorer under Report Pages folder.
- In the Insertable Objects pane, on the Toolbox tab,
drag Prompt Button
to the work area.
- Click the prompt icon and, in the Properties pane,
set the Type property to Finish.
This will enable you to run the report, because in this case Auto-submit
is set to No.
Select multiple projects
You are now ready
to generate a report showing defect status and distribution for multiple
projects.
- From the Run menu, click Run
Report - HTML.
- In the Parameters page, select PPMProgram from the Program list.
Use the Ctrl key to select Auction, and Bid management from
the Project list.
- Click Finish.
- Validate your report to make sure that it contains no errors.
From the Tools menu, click Validate
Report. A message box opens indicating whether any errors
were found in the report.
- Verify that the report correctly contains data from multiple projects
before saving.
- Save your report to preserve the modifications that you made.
To save a copy of the report under a different name, from the File menu,
click Save, or click Save As.