Running Reports in Cognos Version 1.3 Updated June 24, 2008 The Cognos Reporting Warehouse is a web-based tool intended to provide district staff members the capability to report on a variety of data from various student information systems. A diverse set of reports and tools are available via the Cognos Portal. Follow the steps below to log in to Cognos Reporting Warehouse. Open Internet Explorer. Complete Steps A and B shown below. A Type https://cognos.sandi.net/ into the Address field of your browser, and press Enter. B Enter your employee ID and DWA password. Click OK. The Cognos Reporting Warehouse dashboard will appear, as shown on the following page. Running Reports Page 1
Running a Report Once you have logged in, follow the steps below to run your report. Follow steps A through F shown below. A A list of folders are displayed in the Student Information window. The reports are organized within the folders. Click on the appropriate folder to find a list of reports. In this example, we are selecting the folder Assessments (AS), and then selecting its CST folder. Student Information > Assessments (AS) > CST B Select from the following items: ELA English Language Arts CST Assessment Data Math Math CST Assessment Data AS0029-CST Test Results by Subject Grouping AS0030-CST Test Results Trend Analysis for Subject Grouping AS0031-CST Test Results by Subject AS0013-CST Strand Results by Course/Section for Teacher, Student Strands AS0014-CST Strand Results by Course/Section for Teacher, Student Demographics AS0024-Multiple Test Performance Level Distribution For this example, we re selecting ELA. Running Reports Page 2
C A list of available reports will be displayed. Click a report title to select it. As an example, we ll select AS0009-Performance Level Distribution by Area. A new browser window pops up that will contain the requested report. Initially, it shows an hourglass while it prepares data that you ll filter before calculating and displaying the report. Running Reports Page 3
Once the initial data preparation is complete, the browser displays a set of parameters, or filters, that allow you to specify which data you wish to view in the report. D Select the parameters for the data you re interesting in seeing. For a CST ELA Performance Level Distribution by Area, those parameters are Test Date and Test. Your report may require you to select from a greater set of parameters. Once you have made your selections, the Finish button will be enabled; click Finish to run your report. E Once again, you ll see a message indicating that your report is running. The example below shows the results. Running Reports Page 4
F The report results are displayed. For our report, we see a Performance Level graph at the top, with the data broken down by Area. At the bottom of our report is a table breaking down Performance by Student Count. Running Reports Page 5
The Cognos Report task bar Once your report is run and displays in your Internet browser, you ll see a set of icons at the top right of the report. The Cognos Report task bar provides functions for emailing reports, drilling into and out of report data, and viewing reports as pdfs, Excel files, or other formats. You can click on these icons to perform different tasks with your report data. We ll detail a few of those tasks here. Email Report The Email Report function allows you to email the report you generated, along with any comments. When you click on this button, the Email Report page appears: A Add the email addresses of recipients here. The Select the recipients link allows you to send to groups of SDUSD personnel that you specify. C B The report can be added as a link in the main text, or as a pdf attachment, or both. Your Subject line and the main text of your email message go here. You can toggle between plain text and html via the Change to plain text link. Running Reports Page 6
Viewing the Report The four View buttons at the far right of the task bar allow you to view the report data using different applications. The default HTML View shows the report graph and accompanying data in the browser. The View in PDF Format icon brings up the report in the browser page, with PDF reader controls for resizing, saving and printing the PDF report, among others. The View In Excel option allows you to generate the report data in a version of Excel that you specify from the pull-down list of options. The default is Excel 2000 Single Sheet Format; you can choose between Excel 2000 Format, Excel 2002 Format, or CSV Format. Each option allows you to choose between saving the report, or opening it in Excel. Running Reports Page 7
Cognos Folder Structure Folder Structure and Visibility Folders within this folder structure may or may not be visible based on individual security permissions. As more reports are developed and deployed into folders that are currently empty, those folders will be changed to visible for those individuals with the appropriate security permissions. Public Folders>Student Information The Student Information folder contains the Departmental Specific folder as well as a folder for the various types of student system reports. The letters in parenthesis at the end of each folder name represent the characters that are used in report naming conventions for reports within each folder. Reports created and deployed to the student system report folders should start with the applicable report prefix for the folder to which they are deployed. The naming convention is report prefix plus a four digit report number ####; starting with 0001 and upwards incrementally. This is followed by a hyphen and the alpha description for the report. For example: AS0001-Performance Level Distribution by Course for a Teacher, AS0002-Performance Level Distribution by Teacher for a Course. Reports developed and deployed to these folders will be developed and deployed by Report Administrators; typically in a Central Office department. These reports will go through a quality assurance and approval process prior to their deployment. Running Reports Page 8
Cubes Folders Within Student System Reporting Folders There are cubes folders inside each of the student system reporting folders. Cubes can be created using Cognos PowerPlay Transformer and deployed to these folders. The District has limited licensing for PowerPlay Transformer at this time. Cube development will be limited to a small number of individuals employed in Central Office departments. When cubes are generated, they capture data at a specific point in time and are static until the cube is regenerated. Cubes allow the client to slice and dice data in various ways based on the cube design using Cognos Analysis Studio. Cubes developed and deployed to these folders will be developed and deployed by Report Administrators; typically in a Central Office department. These cubes will go through a quality assurance and approval process prior to their deployment. Departmental Specific Folder The Departmental Specific folder contains subfolders for various departments. The Information Technology Business Intelligence (BI) group will work with the departments to determine the appropriate security for the folders owned by their department. Reports created and deployed to these folders should start with the applicable report prefix for the folder to which they are deployed. The naming convention is report prefix plus a four digit report number ####; starting with 0001 and upwards incrementally. This is followed by a hyphen and the alpha description for the report. For example: EOD0001-Open Enrollment Report, EOD0002-Magnet Ranked Listing, etc. Reports developed and deployed to these folders will be developed and deployed by Report Administrators; typically in a Central Office department. These reports are intended for use of individuals within the department designated by the folder name or individuals that have authorization from that department. These reports will go through a quality assurance and approval process prior to their deployment. Running Reports Page 9
Cubes Folders Within Departmental Folders There are cubes folders inside each of the departmental folders. Cubes can be created using Cognos PowerPlay Transformer and deployed to these folders. The District has limited licensing for PowerPlay Transformer at this time. Cube development will be limited to a small number of individuals employed in Central Office departments. When cubes are generated, they capture data at a specific point in time and are static until the cube is regenerated. Cubes allow the client to slice and dice data in various ways based on the cube design. Cubes developed and deployed to these folders will be developed and deployed by Report Administrators; typically in a Central Office department. These cubes will go through a quality assurance and approval process prior to their deployment. Running Reports Page 10