IBM Cognos 8 Planning Contributor: Develop Applications (V8.4) SPVC

Introduction to IBM Cognos 8 Planning - Contributor Administration

• Review IBM Cognos 8 Performance Management (PM) Solution
• Identify IBM Cognos 8 Planning and its components
• Identify IBM Cognos 8 BI and its components
• Examine the IBM Cognos 8 Planning architecture
• Examine IBM Cognos 8 Planning - Contributor and its components
• Examine the development process for the Contributor solution

Build a Contributor Application

• Examine best practices for building the underlying IBM Cognos 8 Planning - Analyst model
• Configure the Contributor Administration Console
• Create a Contributor application using the Application wizard
• Specify navigation, orientation, and application settings
• Import the e.List and rights
• Run Go to Production and preview a Contributor application

Manage Workflow and Web Application Activities

• Access the application in Cognos Connection
• Examine the user roles and workflow states
• Create annotations
• Attach documents to Contributor application items
• View and delete commentary
• Bounce users from the application
• Work offline

Apply Security

• Examine Cognos 8 Planning security: authentication and authorization
• Examine Cognos 8 Planning roles
• Assign access rights to end users
• Examine levels of user rights
• Create saved selections
• Examine and create access tables
• Identify network considerations

Administer Applications

• Review what happens during Go to Production
• Back up the datastore
• Display Invalid Owners and Editors
• Create a planning package
• Reset workflow states
• Set advanced options for subsequent Go to Production processes
• Examine job management and the types of jobs that can be performed
• Create help text for end users
• Verify that data entered is valid

Manage Data

• Synchronize the Cognos 8 Planning - Contributor application with the Cognos 8 Planning - Analyst model
• Import data into the Contributor application as a planner, reviewer and administrator
• Publish Contributor data

Use Extensions

• Examine Cognos 8 Planning - Contributor extensions
• Report from Contributor data using extensions
• Configure Contributor extensions
• Use administration extensions

Automate Applications

• Examine automation of common administration tasks using macros
• Create and publish a macro
• Group related tasks into one macro
• Examine how to run macros

Consume Planning Data in Cognos 8 BI

• Examine Cognos Connection
• Create a portal page to group different types of content into a single view
• Examine how to access live data in Cognos 8 Studios
• Create and run agents based on planning data in Events Studio

Case Study

• Create a Contributor application
• Ensure planners and reviewers have the required access to the appropriate data
• Modify the application to accommodate the addition of new locations
• Bring test data into the application in an administrator role and an end user role
• Publish data for reporting and automate this task

Use the Contributor Add-in for Excel (Optional)

• examine the Cognos 8 Planning - Contributor Add-in for Excel
• enter, save, and submit Contributor data using the Excel Add-in
• modify the display of Contributor data in Excel
• annotate data in Excel
• save a workbook as a template

Move Data Between Analyst and Contributor (Optional)

• Export data from Analyst for use in Contributor
• Integrate Contributor with Analyst
• Move data from Analyst to Contributor using a D-Link
• Move data from Contributor to Analyst using a D-Link
• Compare D-Links to importing data in the Administration Console

Translate a Contributor Application (Optional)

• Examine the translation cycle
• Create a translation
• Translate applications into different languages
• Export files for translation