Cognos Analytics Portal Tabs: Past, Present and Future (Defining Custom Landing Pages)

PORTAL TABS: PAST, PRESENT AND
FUTURE
Defining Custom Landing Pages in Cognos
Analytics

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©2018 Senturus, Inc. All rights reserved. 2

Chris McPherson
Senior Offering Manager
Business Analytics
IBM
Presenters
Todd Schuman
Practice Lead Installations,
Upgrades and Performance Tuning
Senturus, Inc.
Albert Valdez
Vice President of Learning Solutions
Senturus, Inc.

• Introduction
• Past: Portal Tabs in Cognos 8/10
• Present: Portal Tabs in Cognos Analytics 11.0.11
• Future: extensions
• Advantages/disadvantages
• Demo
• About Senturus
• Q/A
Agenda

This slide deck is from the webinar
Portal Tabs: Past, Present and Future
To view the FREE video recording or download this deck
go to:
https://www.senturus.com/resources/cognos-analytics-portal-
tabs-are-back/
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THE PAST:
PORTAL TABS IN COGNOS 8/10

Cognos 8/10 Portal Tabs
©2018 Senturus, Inc. All rights reserved.
• Navigator
• Search
• Viewer
• HTML
• Images
• RSS
7

Considerations
Strengths
• Easy to set up
• Custom landing page for groups/users
• Simplify Cognos portal
• Only expose folder/content needed for user/group
Weaknesses
• Cognos 10.2.X standard support ended 4/30/2018
• Cognos 10.2.X is now in extended support
8

THE PRESENT:
PORTAL TABS IN COGNOS 11.0.11

Cognos 11 Portal Tabs

Where Are They?
• Disabled by default
• Use the config setter to enable
• Log in as administrator
⎯ Add “:/bi/utils/ConfigSetter.html” to your Cognos URL
⎯ So https://Cognos.Senturus.com/ibmcognos would be
https://Cognos.Senturus.com:9300/bi/utils/ConfigSetter.html
• Name: ContentApps.enableMyPortalPages
• Value: True
11

Considerations
Strengths
• Quick transition for Portal Tab users to move to
Cognos 11
• Provides similar look and feel
Weaknesses
• Difficult to edit once migrated
• Unable to use interactive viewer or Cognos 11
dashboards
12

Extensions
Create customs buttons for
• Dashboards
• Reports
• Folders
• Websites
• More
Add/remove buttons for each
Cognos role
14

Considerations
Strengths
• Fully integrated with Cognos 11 UI
• Unlimited customization options
Weaknesses
• Requires admin to rebuild Portal Tabs
• Requires context menus to be edite/restricted
• Requires basic understanding of JSON code
15

Comparison
Feature Cognos 8/10
Portal Tab
Cognos 11
Portal Tab
Cognos 11
Extensions
Search
Jump to Folders
Report Viewer
Dashboard/
Interactive
Report Viewer
Multi-Tab
Support
16

To view the FREE video recording and download this
deck, go to:
tabs-are-back/
The Senturus comprehensive library of recorded
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See the Demo

Demo
• Review ConfigSetter tool
⎯ Enable/disable Portal Tabs in 11.0.11
• Review sample IBM extensions
• How to upload and enable
• Review process to create custom extensions
• Quick edits to json code
• Assign extension to Cognos roles
• Set as home page
• Share/embed Portal Tab
• Custom folder
19

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you need it
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20©2018 Senturus, Inc. All rights reserved.

Answers to Participant Questions
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Q: Are Recents something we will be able to add to a
custom view/perspective with extensions in Cognos
Analytics in the future? Not the menu, but as shown on the
default Welcome screen.
A: There is not currently any way to do this as far as we
know, although it sounds like a great enhancement request.
Q: When you say you cannot edit a portal page in Cognos
Analytics, what does that mean?
A: There is no editor built into Cognos Analytics 11.0.11 to
edit or create portal pages. To do this, you would need to
enable the Cognos BI 10 portal (which is still in the box) and
modify or create pages there. The two portals (11.0.11 and
10) can both be enabled at the same time as they have
different URLs.
Q&A Portal Tabs: Past, Present and Future

Q: Can you recommend ideas for a JSON editor or at
least training/manuals for Cognos Analytics?
A: I personally like using Notepad++ for any code related
work but there are many options available. See W3Schools
for free tutorials on JSON if you want to learn more.
Q: I am new to Cognos Analytics, if I send the portal tab
to my colleagues can they view/interact with it without
being a user?
A: If you have security enabled in your environment,
someone would need to be a Cognos Analytics user to view
and interact with the content.

Q: If no security is enabled in Cognos Analytics, can
everyone see the content?
A: If you have anonymous access enabled (which is almost
never the case) then anyone who could access the page
would see the content. There could be licensing
considerations, or options, for this if needed.
Q: When setting a report as a home page in role
customization in Cognos Analytics, the report takes a
long time to run and the hourglass icon keeps appearing
when I first log in. How do I make the report appear
when displaying the home page so there is no wait?
A: The report will be running, so we suggest using a report
output as home.

Q: If My Portal Pages is enabled in Cognos Analytics is
dashboarding unavailable universally or just for users that
have access to portal pages?
A: Enabling My Portal Pages should have no impact on
dashboarding. The portal pages themselves are not capable of
displaying new Cognos Analytics objects such as dashboards or
reports build with the interactive viewer mode set to true.
Q: How do we invoke the extensions from the Cognos
Analytics welcome page?
A: You create an extension bundle (.zip) that contains the
necessary files, scripts and JSON file and then an administrator
will upload it to the environment. An administrator would
upload the extension bundle (ZIP) that contains the files. They
should then be available after a browser refresh.

Q: Can I assign an extension to a specific role in Cognos
Analytics? The demo seemed to show an extension being
added for all users, but not a specific role.
A: The extension is global, but you can customize what is
visible by role.
Q: How do we determine what icon relates to what
extension in Cognos Analytics? The folder icon is pretty
easy to discern but what about the rest?
A: You would specify in the JSON file which icon to use for
a specific element.

Q: Can I disable the enable My Portal Pages in Cognos
Analytics?
A: Only a system administrator has the ability to enable
the My Portal Pages functionality.
Q: Is there a place that shows the folder icon and then
describes what to use it for in Cognos Analytics? I can't
tell by the shape/look of the icons themselves which
type of extension they are.
A: The icons and extensions shown in our webinar are part
of the samples that are shipped with the product. You may
want to provide your own icons. The samples are well
documented so it should be pretty easy to reuse and
modify an existing sample.

Q: How can an administrator set a user's custom home
page and test it if the users are all in active directory in
Cognos Analytics.
A: The administrator can set a custom home page for a
role, but not a specific user.
Q: Is there a way to limit access to types of reports
within report capabilities (e.g List), since Query Studio
has been deprecated in Cognos Analytics?
A: Access to the reporting tool can be limited as well as
some of the options such as the toolbar or query buttons.
The ability to remove specific objects such as lists and
crosstabs is not currently possible.

Q: Can I put permissions on portal tabs in Cognos
Analytics?
A: 11.0.11 will automatically honor the permissions that
were set in Cognos BI 10. You can put the portal pages in a
secured folder if you want to restrict users from adding
them to their list.
Q: Can I create new Portal Tabs in Cognos Analytics?
A: Not really. If you enable the Cognos BI 10 connection
portal it is possible, but doing so is not recommended.

Q: Can we open a report in an edit mode from portal
page after migrating portal from Cognos BI 10.2 in
11.0.11?
A: Today, the launch icons for Report Studio, Query
Studio, etc. are not visible. IBM is working on putting those
back in a future release.
Q: Can we add our own roles to customize, for example
HR and sales roles in 11.0.11?
A: Yes, you can create a new role in the Cognos Analytics
namespace. IBM provides a collection by default, but you
can remove them or add new ones.

Q: Where can we find info on custom JSON elements,
such as option? What are the possible arguments?
A: The samples provide around 15 samples to cover
various use cases. They are pretty well commented in the
code to help you understand the elements and the use.
Q: Can we remove the My Portal Pages button in Cognos
Analytics?
A: Only users who have access to portal tabs will see the
folder. If they don't have any, the folder won't appear for
them.

Q: In Cognos Analytics, the enabled portal tabs folder
appears in the nav bar in every single view, even when
creating reports. There appears to be no way to hide it
using the customization tab, is this correct?
A: Yes, it’s either enabled or disabled and is not able to
be conditionally hidden using the customization panel.
Q: In Cognos Analytics, if an object referred to an
extension has its name changed, does it break the entire
extension.
A: Yes, we recommend using folders or caution when
changing report or folder names.

Q: With the current access manager, we can set every
user's home page individually and test it, has this
functionality been removed in Cognos Analytics?
A: Yes and no. You can create a role for each user and
map the user to the role. You can then set the role to have
a custom home page. We recommend not using this
approach, but instead use a one-to- many (role to user)
approach instead.
Q: In Cognos Analytics, the portal can't display an
interactive report when we select a report from a folder
that is on the portal page, so is report interactivity not
possible?
A: Correct, the report launches in the classic legacy
viewer and will not have interactivity.

Q: Can I edit the portal page if I switch from Cognos Analytics
back to Cognos BI 10 Interface view?
A: Yes.
Q: I work at a company with more than 6000 employees with
lots of Cognos users. To confirm, I could have an extension
that would only appear for users in a certain security group
instead of being visible to the entire company?
A: The extensions themselves are global, but you can hide
elements based on user role in the Cognos security.
Q: How do I disable My Portal pages in Cognos Analytics?
A: It is disabled by default. A system administrator needs to
enable it. To disable it, the admin needs to repeat the
ConfigSetter steps and set the value to false.

To view the FREE video recording and download this
deck, go to:
tabs-are-back/
The Senturus comprehensive library of recorded
webinars, demos, white papers, presentations and case
studies is available on our website:
http://www.senturus.com/resources/
Hear the Recording

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