Change a reused object

If you reuse an object that contains other objects, you can change the child objects to something different. For example, you have a block object containing a text item in the page header and you decide to reuse the block in the page footer. However, you want the text item in the page footer block to show different text from that in the page header.

About this task

If you reuse a visualization, you cannot change the data container of the visualization.

Procedure

  1. In the parent object to reuse, click the child object to change.
  2. In the Properties pane, set the Name property to a value beginning with a letter to uniquely identify the object.

    IBM® Cognos® Analytics - Reporting may have already specified a name for the object.

  3. Select the copy of the parent object you created with the Layout component reference object.
  4. In the Properties pane, double-click the Overrides property.
  5. In the Overrides dialog box, select the child object to change and click OK.

    The child object in the copy of the parent object is replaced by the following text:

    Drop item to override component child.

  6. Drag an object to replace the child object.

    You can replace the child object with any other object, not just an object of the same type. For example, if the child object is a text item, you can replace it with an image.