QueryVision Report Viewer Autosizing – Introduction & Resources

At first glance, embedding IBM Cognos content in a web application appears simple; just get the default action URL for a report and drop it in an iframe – right?

In practice, it’s not that simple.  A potentially time consuming task is setting the position, height and width of the allocated space on the web application page (e.g. a designated iframe) to match that of the report. And statically setting the height and width can’t address dynamically sized reports – those with drill-up/down or drill-through to another report in the same space.

QueryVision’s Autosizing feature simplifies optimizing the height and width of the both static and dynamically sized reports in SharePoint application pages so it looks and feels like a seamless part of the application.

Video: Introducing QueryVision Autosizing

Overview

Right-sizing Cognos Reports in SharePoint can be time consuming

Typical production BI reports are designed to take advantage of the full browser or even the full screen of a users desktop. When embedded in a web application page, there are two main issues:

  • Less space available – while it is possible to dedicate a SharePoint page area to a single report, a more typical scenario is the report shares the page with application specific content plus SharePoint and web application navigation bars, menus, links and other  controls. How do you make a full screen/page report fit into 75% of the screen/page or less?
  • Embedded content height and width issues – embedding Cognos content into SharePoint ultimately involves using [HTML] iframes. While both SharePoint and Cognos individually support HTML dynamic sizing, they don’t have out-of-the-box support for dynamic sizing where a SharePoint Host is hosting Cognos content in an iframe.
  • Drilling – up/down/through – drill-down can result arbitrary changes in width or height to the current report and drill-through can take you from a simple chart to a large list or cross table report. How do you set height or width in this scenario?

This leaves the web application developer/author with the manual task of configuring height and width of either the SharePoint page, web part zones and web parts height and width and/or the Cognos report for each report.

Which can add hours to application development  and maintenance time and cost.

QueryVision Autosizing optimizes sizing in SharePoint

QueryVision Autosizing enables Cognos reports to specify a dynamic or static height and communicate with the SharePoint host page to ensure that the SharePoint page provides the desired height and width for the Cognos content.

This includes dynamically resizing if the report is changed (e.g. navigate to a different report) or the user drills up/down performs drill-through.

The result is a professional look and feel for embedded reports.

Resources

  • Quick Start – we suggest you start with building a quick demonstration of Autosizing with a step by step walk through provided in the KB article QueryVision Report Viewer Autosizing – Quick Start
  • AutoSizing Samples  – this includes JavaScript and HTML snippets, example Cognos Report specifications configured for Autosizing
  • QueryVision Report Autosizing Guide – this provides in depth information on Autosizing. Outline:
    • Installation and Configuration – detailed installation and configuration guide
    • SharePoint, Cognos and Browser support – SharePoint 2013 vs. IBM Cognos Versions vs. Browser brand and version compatibility and limitations
    • Report Viewer Web Part Properties & Autosizing – configuring QueryVision’s Report Viewer web part for autosizing, including recommended settings for web part width and height settings
    • Specifying Autosizing Options in a Cognos Report – Autosizing requires embedding JavaScript into Cognos reports via Report Studio “html items”. Descriptions of the available Autosizing options and how to format them in a Cognos report
    • Drill up/down behavior – Autosizing support for drill up/down behavior
    • Autosizing reports with multiple page definitions – how to enable Autosizing for reports with one or more prompt pages and/or report page definitions
    • Drill-through behavior – how to enable both source and target reports for Autosizing
    • Multi-Table Dashboard via Nested Reports – how to use Cognos reports as HTML containers for presenting multiple reports using html controls (tabs, buttons, etc.) for report selection, plus, how to configure this technique for Autosizing
    • Troubleshooting
    • Managing IBM Cognos report size in SharePoint – in-depth look at how to optimize embedding Cognos reports using QueryVision’s Report Viewer web part on SharePoint application pages using Web Part Zones
    • Detailed Feature Specifications – details on what Autosizing can and cannot do