Report Viewer

Overview

This is “getting started” guide to the Report Viewer web part. For in-depth information see the full Installation and Configuration Guide and for in depth control over report height, width and the amount of space available on SharePoint Pages see Autosizing

Adding the Report Viewer to a Page

You can add a web part to a SharePoint page directly from your browser. If you don’t have the correct permissions some of these steps might not be possible.

• Click the “Edit Page” button from the SharePoint Page ribbon.
• Then click the “Add a Web Part” link and a gallery of web parts will be listed under the Categories section.
• Choose the QueryVision Web Parts category and you will find a list of all web parts for Cognos.
• Select the web part and the location you want to insert it on the page

Types of Content the Report Viewer Can Display

All popular content from IBM Cognos can be displayed in the Report Viewer including the following:

• Report Studio Reports
• Query Studio Reports
• Analysis Studio Reports
• Portal Pages / Dashboards
• Business Insight/Workspace dashboards
• PowerPlay Studio report
• Microsoft Office documents with embedded Cognos Content
• …

Login Properties

Setting a URL to the Login Page Address will automatically detect that a user is not logged in and redirect to a page with a QueryVision Authentication Web Part. You can choose to automatically redirect a user to this address

Configure Report Viewer to Run a Report

You can set the path the Cognos report in one of two ways:

• Click within the Report Path field, then click the edit button and browse the report on the Cognos Server. This will be a fixed Cognos report that will run whenever the SharePoint page displays
• Connect the web part to the Content Explorer Tree to allow users to dynamically choose the report

Enabling / Disabling the Menu

Checking or Unchecking this option will toggle the display of the QueryVision Menu within the web part

Enabling / Disabling the Toolbar

Checking or Unchecking this option will toggle the display of the Cognos Toolbar

Enable Studios

Enabling this feature will add an option to the QueryVision menu to open the displayed report within a Cognos Studio. Users will only be given the option if they have been granted permission to use the studio within Cognos. Depending on the type of report content being displayed users may be given options for multiple studios. For instance, a query studio report can be opened in both Report Studio and Query Studio, however a Report Studio report can only be opened in Report Studio. Only appropriate options that are allowed by Cognos will be displayed.

Connecting to a Filter Provider

SharePoint has a number of out of the box (OOTB) filter providers in the web part gallery. The list includes:

• Choice Filter
• Current User Filter
• Date Filter
• Query String Filter
• Page Field Filter
• SharePoint List Filter
• SQL Server Analysis Services Filter
• Text Filter

In addition QueryVision provides two drop down list filter providers

• QueryVision Drop Down List Filter Provider – which provides filter values from a any SharePoint List
• Cognos Report Drop Down List Filter Provider – which provides filter values from a Cognos report

These filters can be used to supply parameter information to the QueryVision Report Viewer web part. Parameters are processed by the web part and then mapped and sent to Cognos report parameters.

To take advantage of this integration you simply add the Filter web part to the same page as the Report Viewer web part and then connect them together using the web part connection interface. To do this follow these steps:

1. Put the page into edit mode
2. Add a web part to the page, look under the “Filter” category in the web part gallery
3. Choose the appropriate web part for your application and the location on the page
4. You will need to set the filter web part properties depending on the part (e.g. Choice Filter requires values and a Name)
5. From the Filter Web Part drop down edit menu (top right corner of the web part), you can select the Connections sub-menu and then choose “Send Filter Values To” the “QueryVision Report Viewer Web Part“
6. A dialog will then be displayed where you map your Filter Web Part parameter to the Cognos Parameter Name in the report. Choose the appropriate Cognos Filter from the drop down list
7. Click Finish and you are done

Force Parameter Level Settings

Cognos Parameters are detected within the Report Viewer web part. You can control the behaviour of the web part to either force parameters to be supplied from an external source (such as a filter provider) before the report is executed. There are three settings you can use to control the web part behaviour:

1. Force All: Forces all Cognos parameters (required and optional) to be supplied before the report is run
2. Force Required Only: Forces only Cognos parameters that are defined as required within the report to be supplied before running the report. The report will be executed without supplying optional parameters.
3. Force None: No enforcement is done at all. External filters will still be used if they are supplied. If they are not supplied users will be prompted for parameters within the Cognos report (for both required and optional parameters).

When parameters are applied, filter messages can be displayed within the web part. These include how many filters / parameters were detected in the Cognos Report and how many filters were applied by the QueryVision Report Viewer web part. These message can be turned off by unchecking the “Display Messages” checkbox.

Controlling the Size and Display

Report Style Properties allow you to set CSS properties using the HTML element style attributes for the iframe that contains the Cognos Report within the web part.
Any CSS style property type can be included using the style ‘string’ format of:

propertyName:propertyValue;propertyName:propertyValue;…propertyName:propertyValue;

There are 3 mandatory property types: overflow, width and height which must specified or the properties and their default values will be added by the Report Viewer web part. The following are the default values

• overflow:auto
• width:100%
• height:700px

The overflow and width values are recommended, the height value is used as the default height for reports without Autosizing enabled (see the document QueryVision Report Autosizing Guide for details). It is recommended to specify the height in pixels (e.g 1250px) vs. percentage (100%).

The default value of the Report Style Properties reflects the individual default properties/values:

overflow:auto;width:100%;height:700px

Select Render Target

See the full Installation and Configuration Guide for options to render the Cognos Component within the web part, to a new tab/windows or redirect to a new tab/window