Cognos BI provides many interfaces. A list of these interfaces along with their brief descriptions is mentioned in the following sections.
The following sections discuss the web-based interfaces available to Cognos users. The following sections discuss the web-based interfaces available to Cognos users. For a user to gain access to these interfaces, proper capabilities must be assigned to the user, There are two ways, either explicitly add the user to allowed users for every interface (for example, query studio, reports studio, cognos connection etc.) or add the user to built-in roles or groups in Cognos security namespace. Web-based interfaces include the following interfaces.
IBM Cognos Connection is a portal with many features available to a user depending on the permission that is assigned. From Cognos Connection, the user may access any other interface (any studio, administration section), provided that the permissions allow the user to access it.
Users may access the preferences, other portals, public, or my folders. Users may also run any available Cognos content.
Only administrators and power users may access this section. Full permissions are available to users that belong to the System Administrator group in the Cognos security namespace. From the Cognos Administration portal, users have easy access to the management functions, Cognos environment, and system parameters.
This studio is used for ad hoc reporting. Users with a basic knowledge of Cognos and reporting can easily use this studio to prepare a report. The functionality of this studio is limited compared to the Report Studio.
In order to develop and create professional reports, this studio is available with a bundle of options. Authors have access to this studio.
The Analysis Studio is used for detailed analysis and dimensioning extensive OLAP. It is fast and needs dimension tables to be created first.
The Event Studio is used to create agents that monitor a particular event to trigger before some work is done.
Unlike web-based interfaces, there are certain interfaces (such as the ones listed in the following sections) that need separate installation and configuration.
Cognos Metric Designer is also a modeling tool that is used to create extracts. Later, it is used in Metric Studio.