INFOASSIST: REPORTING MADE SIMPLE BRIAN CARTER INFORMATION BUILDERS SUMMIT 2010 USERS CONFERENCE JUNE 2010 Presentation Abstract: InfoAssist, WebFOCUS' browser-based ad hoc reporting tool, provides a single facility that meets all the needs of business users. Users easily progress from simple tasks, such as building a single query, all the way up to creating published documents. Come see how WebFOCUS and Web 2.0 can combine for a rich and efficient ad hoc reporting experience. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 1 of 20 5/24/2010
OVERVIEW In this lab, you play the part of a typical business user or analyst. You will walk through a typical workflow in InfoAssist, demonstrating the creation of reports and dashboards. Enjoy! PART 1 Log in and get familiar with the Active Dashboard you are about to build. 1. Open Internet Explorer and you will see the BI Dashboard login page. The URL is: http://localhost:8080/approot/iawork/index.htm 2. Login as wfuser and leave the password blank. 3. There are two tabs on the dashboard. The first tab opens automatically to reveal an active dashboard. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 2 of 20 5/24/2010
4. Filter the entire dashboard by TYPE. 5. On the bar chart, click on the icon and change the Sum to an Average. 6. Click on a slice of the pie chart to isolate. 7. Right click on the pie chart and select Enable rotation. Then spin the pie chart around to get a different perspective of the data. 8. Click the icon on the tool bar of the Pie chart to bring up the Chart/Rollup tool. Now you can change the chart to a number of different chart types. Select the Charts tab and the select the Other sub tab and change to a Radar, Pyramid, or Funnel chart to see the different types of charts available. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 3 of 20 5/24/2010
PART 2 Build the dashboard in InfoAssist 1. Switch to the Query and Analysis tab. 2. Expand the My Reports folder in the domain tree. Right click on the Custom Reports folder and click on the InfoAssist link. 3. Note the Quick Start page: 4. Click Compose a Document and note the list of available data sources. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 4 of 20 5/24/2010
5. Double click on AWDEMO_DEMODB. Now note the InfoAssist interface. 6. Maximize the IA window. Note that InfoAssist is launched in its own window to maximize real estate. 7. Go to the Layout tab and change the page orientation to Landscape to maximize the page size and give yourself plenty of room to build your dashboard. 8. Switch to the Home tab and Change the format to Chart. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 5 of 20 5/24/2010
9. Build the Bar chart a. Drag and drop Country on to the top left hand corner of the canvas. b. In the data pane, click on Internet Sales, hold down the Shift key and click on Reseller Sales to multi-select the two fields. Now drag and drop the two fields together onto the chart preview to add to the chart. Note you can also double click each field individually to automatically add to the chart. The built-in intelligence eliminates the need for you to know which bucket to drop a field in to create a chart. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 6 of 20 5/24/2010
a. Size the chart to fill approximately half of the canvas horizontally and vertically. Note, use the ruler and page size (11 x 8.5 ) as a guide for sizing the chart. b. Change the format of the chart to a stacked bar. Go to the Format tab and select Other for the chart type. Click OK. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 7 of 20 5/24/2010
10. Build the Pie chart. a. Deselect the bar chart and activate the canvas by clicking on the canvas to the right of the chart area. Note, the chart is selected if there is a black outline around it. b. In the field list, expand the Time dimension to see Quarter by clicking on the plus in front of Year. c. Drag and drop Quarter to the right of the bar chart. Note the drop point will be where the upper left hand corner of the new chart will be positioned. d. Double click Internet Sales to add a measure to the chart. e. From the Format tab, select the chart type. Pie for the f. Size the chart to match the Bar chart and position evenly side by side with the bar chart. Note you can select the Bar chart and hold the shift key and then select the Pie chart to see the sizing. You can move the last item selected and still see the size of both. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 8 of 20 5/24/2010
11. Build the Area chart. a. Click onto the Canvas so no charts are selected. b. From the field list, drag and drop Month/Year to the left hand side of the canvas, below the Bar chart dropping the field as to position the chart roughly so it aligns with the left edge of the bar chart. c. Double click Internet Sales and Reseller Sales to add to the chart or multi-select the two fields and drag and drop onto the new chart. d. Size the chart so it fills the remaining bottom half of the page and spans across both the bar and the pie charts. e. From the format tab, change the format of the chart to Area. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 9 of 20 5/24/2010
12. Run the document by clicking the Run button. Then hide the field list by clicking the View tab and selecting the Resources option. Finally, right click anywhere on the ribbon and select Minimize to give a full screen view of the dashboard. Note this is just a static HTML dashboard and how nice the graphics are. This can also be run in PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint. 13. Make the ribbon visible again by right clicking in the toolbar area and deselecting Minimize. Then click the Resources option again to bring the field list back into view. Finally, close the output window by clicking the small X in the top right hand corner of the window (just like Windows). Now you should be back to the Compose view of the dashboard. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 10 of 20 5/24/2010
14. Now you will make this into an interactive dashboard in just two steps. a. Create a global filter for the dashboard by dragging and dropping the Category field into the coordinated bucket in the query pane below the field list. Be sure that one of the charts is selected before adding the coordinated field. b. From the Format tab, change the format of the document to Active Flex. Be sure the canvas is active and not one of the charts. Note that turning a static dashboard into an interactive dashboard is as simple as changing the output format! 15. Click the Run the report and note you now have a Coordinated Active Flex dashboard. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 11 of 20 5/24/2010
16. Save the dashboard. a. Click the globe to access the application menu. b. Select the Save option. c. Type the name of your dashboard My First Dashboard. d. Click Ok. e. Now open the application menu again and click Close to close the dashboard and prepare for the next task. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 12 of 20 5/24/2010
PART 3 Build a single report and analyze 1. Click the New option to create a new report. 2. When the Getting Started screen appears, select Build a report. 3. Select the AWDEMO_DEMODB data source. 4. Add the following fields by double clicking each field in the field list respectively: Country, Category, Internet Sales, and Reseller Sales. 5. Add a Computed field that measures the percentage of sales that came from the Internet. a. Click on the Data tab and select the Summary (Compute) option. b. Change the name of the field to Percent. c. Click the format button to change the format. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 13 of 20 5/24/2010
i. Change the format to Percent (%). ii. Reduce the number of decimals downs to zero. iii. Click OK. d. Collapse the Dimensions segment of the field list so only the Measures are displayed. e. Now we ll create the calculation: Internet Sales / (Internet Sales + Reseller Sales) * 100 i. Double click Internet Sales. ii. Click the / division symbol. iii. Now click the () symbol to create a group. iv. Within the parenthesis, double click the v. Click the + plus sign. Internet Sales field again vi. Double click the Reseller Sales field vii. Click to the right of the outer parenthesis. viii. Click the * multiplication symbol ix. Then add 100. x. Select OK. 6. Now you should see your calculated field in the report. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 14 of 20 5/24/2010
7. Drag and drop the Internet Sales field to the right of Reseller Sales. 8. Add conditional styling or traffic lighting to the report that indicates a percentage of Internet Sales greater than or equal to 60%. a. Click the Percent column and select the Traffic Lights option. b. Select Greater than or equal to and type 60 for the value. c. Click Ok. d. Your percent column should now reflect this indicator displaying any percentage of 60% or higher in green. 9. Now let s rank the Internet Sales column. a. In the Field tab, click the Rank option. b. Now you have an additional Internet Sales field appearing at the beginning of the report along with an actual rank column. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 15 of 20 5/24/2010
c. Now we ll use this additional ranking column to rank within Country. Select the Internet Sales ranking column (2 nd column from the left) and drag and drop between Country and Category. d. Now select the Internet Sales field (ranked column) again and select the Down option to change the sort from ascending to descending and see the highest ranked categories. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 16 of 20 5/24/2010
e. Now click on the Country column and click on the Line break option to visually separate the different countries. f. Now select the Internet Sales field (ranked column) again and right click on the column. Then select the the report. Visibility option and select Hide to visually remove the column from InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 17 of 20 5/24/2010
10. Now click the Run option to see the full output. 11. Notice a trend? It appears that Components are consistently selling over 60% via the internet. Let s see which type of components are attributing to this. a. Click the Interactive button on the bottom left hand of the tool to go back to the interactive preview. b. Let s focus on Components by filtering the report. i. Right click on the Category column in the field list and select Filter. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 18 of 20 5/24/2010
ii. Click Values and select Fetch All Values from Source. iii. Double click on Components to add to the filter. iv. Click Ok. c. Double click on the Subcategory and Product fields to add more detail to the report. d. Click Run to see the output. e. Looks like Wheels are our top selling item over the internet. InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 19 of 20 5/24/2010
12. Now let s add a heading and footing to prepare this report for a presentation to the boss. a. Click the Interactive button on the bottom left hand of the tool to go back to the interactive preview. b. Click on the Home tab in the ribbon. c. Click the Header & Footer option. d. Type in Internet Sales Ranking Report. e. Click the Report Footer button. f. Type in Powered by WebFOCUS. g. Now go to the Format tab and change the format to PDF and run the report. h. Now you can print the report and save it for later use. YOU RE DONE! InfoAssist: Reporting Made Simple Page 20 of 20 5/24/2010