Working with your external data

You can supplement your enterprise data with your own external or personal data file.

You can create a report that uses an external file that contains data that is not part of your IBM® Cognos® Analytics enterprise data. For example, you are an analyst and you receive a spreadsheet that contains what-if data about opening new branches of your retail store. You are asked to analyze the impact of these possible new branches on existing sales volumes. You link this scenario data with your enterprise data and create a professional report in Cognos Analytics.

You import your own data file and start reporting on it right away. After you import the file, it is protected by the same Cognos Analytics security as your enterprise data. As a result, you can report on your data in a secure and private environment.

You can import your external data in different tools.

Upload files tool the upload icon

You can import the following types of files:

  • Microsoft Excel (.xls and .xlsx) spreadsheet software files
  • Delimited text files, such as .csv files. You can compress multiple .csv files into a .zip file for a quick upload.

After you import your data, it is saved in a database. You then publish a package that contains your data and you can then report on your data. You can grant other users access to your personal data by sharing the corresponding packages.

Manage External Data tool the manage external data icon

You can import the following types of files:

  • Microsoft Excel (.xls and .xlsx) spreadsheet software files
  • Tab-delimited text (.txt) files
  • Comma-separated (.csv) files
  • XML (*.xml) files

After you import your data, you then publish a package that contains your data in addition to the data contained in an existing package. You can then report on your data.

For an up-to-date list of the environments that are supported by Cognos Analytics, including information about operating systems, patches, browsers, web servers, directory servers, database servers, and application servers, see Software Product Compatibility Reports (https://www.ibm.com/software/reports/compatibility/clarity-reports/report/html/prereqsForProduct?deliverableId=DA295E70A6F611E88A70560C75A2DCDE).