Converting to a Custom Report using Cognos Analytics data

Convert an Exploration View to a Custom Report when you want to manipulate individual cells or place columns or rows in between the imported data.

About this task

When you convert an Exploration View, you have the option of converting data on the current worksheet, copying and moving the data to a new worksheet, or specifying the location for the converted data.

Before you convert an Exploration View to a Custom Report, note the following restrictions:
  • You cannot convert data from relational sources to a cell-based analysis.
  • Text values in formulas are limited to 255 characters. To create text values longer than 255 characters in a formula, use the CONCATENATE function or the concatenation operator ( & ).

It is also possible to convert your Custom Report to an Exploration View. Click a cell and then click IBM® Planning Analytics > Explore. Depending on how your columns and rows are set up and how many items are in each, you may notice that certain objects are added to the context drop zone instead of being placed in a row or column.

If the default measure is also on columns, you cannot convert an Exploration View to formulas. You must first remove the default measure. For more information, see Remove measures.

Procedure

  1. Open the workbook with the Exploration View you want to convert.
  2. In the IBM Planning Analytics tab, click Convert to.
  3. Choose where to place the converted data:
    • To convert the Exploration View to formulas and place the result on the current worksheet, click On This Sheet.
    • To convert the Exploration View to formulas and place the result on a new worksheet, from the exploration bar, click Convert to Formulas > On New Sheet . By placing the results on a new worksheet, you preserve the original Exploration View used to create the analysis and can use it again to change parameters for another analysis.
    • To convert the Exploration View to formulas and specify the location, which is a cell in an existing spreadsheet, from the exploration bar, click Convert to Formulas > At Specified Location.

Results

After the report is converted, the drop zones disappear. The formatting remains the same, but the cells of the report contain formulas, which link the individual cells to data items in the database.

You can continue to modify the worksheet by editing formulas and applying formatting. By default, data is updated when you edit a formula. To edit formulas without data updates, right-click the worksheet and select IBM Planning Analytics > Pause formula resolution. When you are ready to show data, right-click the worksheet and select IBM Planning Analytics > Run formula resolution.