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Why you should consider the IBM Cognos Analytics 11 Legacy Portal

The Analytics 11 UI/Portal is a new platform with very rich capabilities which IBM has stated will be rolled out incrementally via it’s quarterly updates (11.0.1/.2/.3/.4/…). And that some features from 10.x Cognos Connection have not yet been carried forward to the new platform and some have been dropped completely – to be replaced at some future date with new solutions.

To fill the gap, IBM Cognos Analytics 11 includes a (not heavily advertised) feature called the “Legacy Portal”, which is a limited version of the IBM Cognos 10.x Cognos Connection Portal.

Reasons to consider:

  • Portal for Report Consumers – as an interim portal/UI for existing customers for 10.x content, particularly those making use of portal tabs
  • Providing missing tools for Administrators, Authors and Developers

In Depth

The following screen shots shows the UI capabilities of the Legacy Portal in Analytics 11 (top) vs. Cognos 10.2.2 (bottom)

legacy-ica-11-vs-cognos-connection-portalsCandidate Report Consumer UI:

  • Pro
    • Consumer Portal – provide existing consumer users with the familiar 10.x Cognos Connection Interface, including:
      • Portal tabs – while the new Analytics 11 portal/UI can render individual portal pages, the concept of a portal with a set of portal tabs is no longer supported in the new Analytics 11 portal/UI. They are still available in the Legacy Portal.
      • 10.x name/description search
    • Defers the learning curve for the new Analytics portal/UI
    • Report run features
      • Use 10.x “default actions” on reports – the new Analytics 11 portal/UI is default action is  “Default Output” and while it can be changed and used in the Legacy Portal – the object property value is ignored by the new portal
      • Run interactive reports in non-interactive mode (uses classic vs. advanced viewer)
    • Can launch Legacy Client tools for existing objects (e.g. PowerPlay Studio)
  • Con
    • Home – you can’t set or go to a home page
    • My Inbox, My Watch items, My Data Sets and My Activities/Schedules,  Drill-through Definitions, IBM Cognos Administration – have been moved to only be accessible from the new Analytics 11 portal/interface
    • Studios/Authoring
      • Report Studio – the old Report Studio is not supported. No option to launch the new Report Studio for existing IBM Cognos reports or create new Reports
      • Legacy Studios – can be launched only for existing content (e.g. PowerPlay studio object)
    • No link to the Legacy Portal in the new Analytics 11 portal/UI – a separate URL needs to be provided to IBM Cognos users
    • Report Studio reports- will only run reports (whether flagged as interactive or non-interactive) in non-interactive mode
    • New Analytics Dashboards – can see them as objects, but can’t run, create, edit or see/change properties

Admin/Author/App developer features:

  • Pro
    • Provides default action URLs, search paths for all existing content types except the new Analytics 11 Dashboards
    • Create and maintain –  portal pages, portal tabs, shortcuts
    • Administration for Multi-Tenant
  • Con
    • The “default action URL” property will not provide new JSON based request URLs for the new portal, running reports in interactive mode, editing reports with the new studio or how to run/edit the new Analytics 11 “explorer” dashboards

Resources

For how to enable the Legacy Portal see:

QueryVision Guide to Installing and Configuring IBM Cognos Analytics 11

QueryVision’s SharePoint Web Parts for IBM Cognos also includes support for the Legacy Portal:

Announcing 2016.1 QueryVision Web Parts for IBM Cognos

 

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