Before you can create a dashboard, you must decide what business purpose it is intended to address and how it will do
that.
What is the goal of the dashboard
Before you can create a dashboard, it is essential to understand these items:
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Business objectives: What is the purpose of the dashboard? What problems or issues will it
address?
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Business measures: What metrics will it display to address those objectives?
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Operational objectives: What process improvement goals will the dashboard address?
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Operational measures: What metrics will it display to measure progress against the operational
measures?
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Usability concerns: Who will use the dashboard?
Without this information, you cannot be sure that you are showing the right data or that it will help the intended
users by supplying them with information that they need.
How will the dashboard address these issues
After you're confident that you understand the goals of the dashboard, you need to specify how the dashboard will meet
them. There are a variety of entities that you can put on a dashboard, such as reports, Web pages, RSS feeds, and so
on. Reports (our main focus here) can be charts, small tables, cross tabulations, or trend indicators, for example.
Generally, a dashboard presents information that is intended to convey high-level concepts quickly, not to present
details. Thus, the user should be able to grasp the meaning of the data at a glance. Charts and trend indicators such
as up and down arrows, stop lights, and such are generally more effective than data tables. The dashboard may include
drill-down capabilities for the users to get the details if they want more information.
Dashboard layout is also an important consideration. Screen real estate is limited, so reports must be small. Don't try
to provide low-level, detailed data at the top level. Instead, provide higher-level information with a drill-down
capability to explore other reports that can provide the detailed data. Generally, the purpose of the top-level
dashboard is to let the users know whether everything acceptable or they need to spend more time to look deeper.
To make the dashboard easier to view, try to arrange the page to avoid scroll bars when the dashboard is viewed in a
reasonably sized window. Some necessity of vertical scrolling is usually acceptable, but horizontal scrolling is more
of an imposition on users.
Dashboard building steps
1. Create reports or other content
When you have specified what you want to display in the dashboard, you're ready to construct it. You will probably
build Cognos reports with Report Studio. You must create the reports that you want in the dashboard first so that you
can add them to the dashboard.
Before starting to create reports, check the sample reports supplied with IBM® Rational® Insight. There are many
reports that may supply what you need or be close to what you want. Generally, it is simpler to modify an existing
report than to create a new one, so look for one that is relatively close. If you are going to modify one of these
reports, copy it from the Sample Report Definitions / Data Warehouse Reports folder and work on the
copy.
2. Create the dashboard
Use the Cognos Connection portal to create the dashboard by following these steps:
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Click the New Page icon on the toolbar. This starts the page creation wizard.
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Give the dashboard a name, optional description, and screen tip, and specify where you want to store it.
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Specify the number of columns that you want in the dashboard. Cognos supports 1-3 columns. For each column, there
are several elements:
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Select the width as a percentage of the page.
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Click Add under each column to add portlet containers. The Report Viewer is under Cognos
Content. Web, RSS, and image viewers are under Cognos Utility.
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Set properties of the page such as a title, whether you want to show or hide portlet borders, and so forth.
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When you have finished the steps in the wizard, you should see the new dashboard in the Cognos Connection
Explorer. Click on it to display the empty page.
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Click the dashboard name in the Cognos Connection to display it. It won't have any content yet.
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For each portlet, you have these options:
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Click Edit button to add content.
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Select the report to be run, the URL to display, and so on.
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You can also configure communication between portlets so that parameters can be passed between them. This
enables one set of user prompts to control multiple reports, for example.
See the Cognos documentation or Help for more information.
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