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What’s New in Impromptu 5.0

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Impromptu® version 5.0

This edition published 1998.

Copyright © 1998, Cognos Incorporated

Portions Copyright © Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington 98052-6399 USA. All rights reserved.

Portions of this product provided by LEAD Technologies, Inc. Charlotte, NC.

Portions Copyright © LEAD Technologies, Inc. 1991-1995. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Portions Copyright © Gupta Corporation

Portions Copyright © Syware, Inc.

Cognos, the Cognos logo, the Cognos tag line "Better Decisions Every Day," Impromptu, PowerPlay, PowerCube, Scenario, 4Thought, DataMerchant, PowerHouse, RealObjects, COGNOSuite, and Cognos Accelerator are trademarks of Cognos Incorporated. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Reporting on Your Database .................... 5
Increased Ease of Use .....................................................6Easy Filtering .............................................................6Quickly Create a Crosstab Report .................................8Streamlined Query Dialog Box....................................10Quicker Catalog Log On ...........................................10Easy Navigation Within Dialog Boxes..........................10Improved Access to Associated Files ............................10

More Power.................................................................11Sub-Reports .............................................................11Drill Through to More Information ................................12Remote Snapshots ....................................................13Enhanced HTML Support ...........................................14

Added Flexibility ...........................................................15Print Wide List Reports ...............................................15Print Specific Columns on Every Page...........................15Dynamic Column Titles ..............................................17Template Placeholders ...............................................17Prompt Manager ......................................................19Easy Access to Help .................................................19

Chapter 2: Administering Impromptu ...................... 21Upgrading to Impromptu 5.0 ..........................................22

Report and Catalog Files ...........................................22.ini Files..................................................................23

Client-Server Balancing ..................................................23Database Support .........................................................24

Database Definition Manager.....................................24Native Support for DB2.............................................25

New Summaries ...........................................................25User-Defined Function Support .........................................26Online Help in a Report .................................................26Request Server Enhancements..........................................26

What’s New in Impromptu 5.0 iii

Scheduler Enhancements ................................................27Enhanced Selecting ..................................................27Overwrite Result Sets.................................................27Configure the Send Command....................................27

Index ..................................................................... 29

iv What’s New in Impromptu 5.0

Chapter 1: Reporting on Your Database

Impromptu version 5.0 meets your reporting requirements by providing you with more power, more flexibility, and increased ease of use. In this chapter, you’ll learn about

• sub-reports, remote snapshots, and extended HTML support

• the ability to drill through to another Impromptu report

• more flexibility in the creation and completion of templates

• a wider range of printing options

• the ability to create crosstabs easily

What’s New in Impromptu 5.0 5


Increased Ease of UseWith this new version of Impromptu, it’s easier to

• filter a report

• create crosstab reports

• customize the Query dialog box to meet your needs

• open and log on to a catalog

• navigate within dialog boxes

• access files associated with a report, such as bitmaps, catalogs, macros, or OLE objects

Easy FilteringThe Filter button on the toolbar now has a Filter drop-down button that gives you quick and easy access to a variety of filter capabilities previously available only in the Filter Definition dialog box.

To use the Filter button enhancement, simply select one or more values in your report, or an entire column, and click the Filter drop-down button. Select an operator from the menu, such as Between, then make a selection from the available commands, such as Select Values. Depending on the command you select, the filter may be applied or Impromptu may prompt you to type or select one or more values.

6 What’s New in Impromptu 5.0


Example

You have a report that lists product information.

You want to filter your report to only show products within a particular price range. Select the Product Cost column in your report and click the Filter drop-down button. You select Between, and the available options Number and Select Values appear. Since you’re not sure what range you want, choose Select Values. The Select Values dialog box appears and prompts you to select two values from the list of all Product Cost values. You select two values in the Product Cost column, such as $32.00 and $95.00, and click OK.

Impromptu filters the report to show only the information on products with a cost between $32.00 and $95.00.



Quickly Create a Crosstab ReportNow Impromptu makes it easier to create crosstab reports. You can

• create a crosstab report using the Report Wizard

• create a crosstab report manually

Create a Crosstab Report using the Report Wizard

The Report Wizard has been enhanced to enable you to quickly and easily build a basic crosstab report. Using the Report Wizard, you can choose whether you would like a list report or a crosstab report.



When you select Crosstab Report, the Report Wizard prompts you to add data items to the crosstab by dragging them into the report placeholders. The placeholders indicate what sorts of data items to add. You can add more than one data item to the crosstab rows, columns, and cells, and you can select the type of cell summarization you want. You also specify whether you want row and column summaries.

For more information about placeholder enhancements, see "Template Placeholders" on page 17.

Create a Crosstab Report Manually

Now you can easily create sophisticated crosstab reports. You can

• produce a nested crosstab report that includes multiple data items in the rows and columns, or cells with a summary at each break in the report

• generate totals automatically by selecting the summary check boxes in the Query dialog box

• add a variety of summaries to your crosstab report

You can create a crosstab report from scratch using a crosstab template, or you can convert a list report into a crosstab report.

The new Query dialog box for crosstab reports makes it easy for you to select the data items you want as the rows, columns, and cells. You also have a choice of default summary types that you can apply, such as total, average, and count. You can sort the report directly in the Sort tab and filter the report in the Filter tab.

If you want to use advanced crosstab features, click the Advanced button in the Query dialog box. You can then create calculated columns using the columns generated in the crosstab.



Streamlined Query Dialog BoxYou can now choose to keep the less frequently used tabs in the Query dialog box hidden from view. The Access, Profile, and Client/Server tabs are not shown unless you make them visible leaving only the commonly used Data, Sort, Group, and Filter tabs. To show the Access, Profile, and Client/Server tabs, select Show Advanced Tabs in the Query Dialog Box (Options dialog box, Tools menu).

Quicker Catalog Log OnYou can now log on to a catalog faster than you could before since Impromptu remembers the last user class you logged on with. The user class appears automatically in the Catalog Logon dialog box so you don’t have to select your user class each time.

Easy Navigation Within Dialog BoxesDialog boxes, such as the Query dialog box and the Fill in Placeholders dialog box, now show data items in a folder structure that is more intuitive. You can open several folders at the same time, and they remain open until you explicitly close them.

Improved Access to Associated FilesImpromptu now uses enhanced search technology to enable you to share reports more easily. For example, you email a report that references a catalog and some picklist files that are in a network folder, but the relative path to those objects are different on the recipient’s computer. Now Impromptu takes extra steps to locate these files automatically, including substituting drive letters, and searching for specific folder names. If the referenced files still cannot be found, a dialog box appears asking the user to locate the files.



More PowerYou now have the power to

• create sub-reports, that is, sophisticated multiple queries contained in a single report, that provide users with comprehensive information

• drill through to information behind a value in your report

• take advantage of server speed to deliver efficient, remote snapshots that many users can quickly access without running a query

• enhance reports that will be viewed with a Web browser by including HTML (HyperText Markup Language)

Sub-Reports You can now create a report consisting of several sub-reports. This enables you to see the results of several queries while only generating one report.

Sub-Reports versus Regular Reports

A report that contains sub-reports consists of several queries. In contrast, a regular report only contains one query.

Sub-reports offer more flexibility for grouping data. When a report contains sub-reports, you can group sub-report data on different columns than the main report or other sub-reports, whereas with a regular report, you can only group data in different frames on the same columns.

Sub-reports can have relationships to one another. You can link sub-reports by a filter so that the data in one sub-report is dependent on the data in the other sub-report.

Example

You create a report consisting of a form frame that contains one list frame (main query) and two sub-report list frames (sub-queries). The scope of the data in the form frame is set to a single row. The main query list frame shows one customer name at a time. One sub-report list contains the order details (order date and closed date). The other sub-report list contains product purchased (product type, product line, and product) and it is grouped on product type and product line. In this example, the information in each sub-report is filtered on the same column (customer) as the main query.



When you scroll up or down to see a different customer name, the query for each sub-report runs, and the information in each sub-report list changes according to the current customer.

Insert and Edit Sub-Reports

You can easily insert a sub-report by selecting Sub-Report from the Insert menu and specifying the type of frame you want to insert.

You can select the query you want to edit by selecting Query from the Report menu. From the fly-out menu, select the main query or sub-query you want to edit.

Drill Through to More Information

What Are Drill-Through Reports?

Impromptu now features a drill-through capability that enables you to see reports that show information behind a value in your report. Drill-through reports can be set up to drill through from one Impromptu report to another Impromptu report. You can also access drill-through reports from Cognos products such as PowerPlay, Scenario and other custom applications.



Using Drill-Through Reports

Create one or more reports and set up a link between the main report and the drill-through reports. Then, click the Drill Through button, to view information behind a value in your report. Use the Drill Through Properties dialog box to change the links between reports.

Example

You can see the individual sales transactions that make up the total sale amount. If there is more than one predefined report available for the selected amount, you can select the report you want to see from the Drill Through button drop-down menu. By drilling through to the information behind a value, you may be able to make more informed business decisions.

Remote Snapshots

What Are Remote Snapshots?

A remote snapshot is a report run on Impromptu Request Server that has its data stored on a database server such as Informix, Oracle, or Sybase. Because remote snapshots are created and stored on a database server, you can use remote snapshots to deliver information to users faster.

Create Remote Snapshots

To create a remote snapshot, start by scheduling a report to run on the Impromptu Request Server. Not only do the reports run faster on the server, but you can continue other work on your computer. When the query finishes running, you have a remote result set, which is one or more tables stored in a database on a server.

When you use Scheduler to open the report, Impromptu runs a simplified query on the remote result set. Previously, when viewing data from a remote result set, the Data, Sort and Filter tabs in the Query dialog box were disabled. Also, you could not autogroup or use outer joins. Now these restrictions have been lifted.

You can save the report as a remote snapshot file so that other users can access this report and data.



Benefits of Remote Snapshots

The queries Impromptu Request Server uses to get data from a remote snapshot are much simpler than the queries used to get data from the entire database, and generally require less local processing and time.

Also, you can have permission to use the remote snapshot even if you don’t have authorization to log on to a catalog.

You can save the remote snapshot as a local snapshot on your computer to allow you to work without a network connection when you are travelling. To update the local snapshot with the most recent data available, you can periodically refresh it from the latest remote snapshot on the server.

Enhanced HTML SupportWith enhanced support for HTML (HyperText Markup Language), you can better integrate published HTML reports into a Web site. For example, you can

• include HTML tags and scripts in an Impromptu report before you publish the report as HTML. This enables you to provide users with additional functionality when they view the reports with a Web browser.

• harness the power of HTML tags that are automatically generated by Impromptu to set up search and indexing capabilities for published HTML reports.

Integrating HTML into your reports is easy. Simply insert a text frame in the Impromptu report, and type <html>. Anything you type after <html> is inserted as-is into the HTML code that Impromptu creates, and will show up in the HTML report as long as it is capable of being recognized by a web browser.

Examples

Here are a few examples of what you can do in a report before you publish it as HTML:

• include a hotspot that enables users to jump from the published HTML report that they are viewing with a Web browser directly to another Web site, such as the Cognos Web site.

• reference external HTML scripts.

• reference Java applets.

• embed JavaScript code directly in the HTML.

• include questionnaires and information requests in a report. For example, you can provide users with the opportunity to send you their comments about the annual sales report.



• put Web page locations in a database and join it to a report column. Then users can jump from each value in that column to a specific Web page. For example, users could jump from a specific product in the Product column to a Web page containing information on that product.

• use information that is automatically generated in the published HTML report to search for or index HTML reports.

• standardize the header and footer of all corporate reports by creating a file called header.htm. Report authors include it with each report that they publish as HTML.

Added FlexibilityYou now have the flexibility to

• print a wide list report on a single page

• print a wide list report with columns that repeat on every printed page

• optimize template creation with optional, required, or multi-column placeholders

• have report column titles automatically match the names of the data items in the placeholders

• manage and re-use report prompts

Print Wide List ReportsYou can automatically scale down a wide list report to preview or print it on a single page using the Fit to Page check box (Setup dialog box). When the report is scaled down, the width and height are reduced proportionally so the information remains legible.

Print Specific Columns on Every PageSometimes your report may be too wide to fit on a single page, but if you scale it down to a single page using the Fit to Page check box, it becomes difficult to read. If you allow the report to print over several pages, the columns can lose their context on subsequent pages. In such a case, you can repeat one or more columns or objects in a list frame on every printed page.

You can resize or edit a repeat column and the changes are automatically applied to this column on all pages.



Example

You can repeat a grouped column, such as Product, on each page, so the detailed columns on each page have a context. With this improved printing capability, the context of the information is maintained, ensuring that every page of your printed report is easy to understand.



Dynamic Column Titles

What Are Dynamic Column Titles?

You create a dynamic column title when you link a column title with the name of a query data item. For example, you can create a template with placeholders and have the report column titles reflect the names of the query data items that fill each placeholder. Although each user of the template may fill the placeholders with different data items, each report contains column titles that are meaningful and relevant to the specific data. If you create templates for others, dynamic column titles give you the flexibility to meet users’ diverse needs.

Example

You use a list style template created for a wide audience in your organization. The placeholders are called Name and Description. You fill the placeholders with the data items Customer Name and Job Title, and the report column titles become Customer Name and Job Title. If you later replace Customer Name with a different data item, such as Employee, the report column title automatically reflects this change.

Template Placeholders

Benefits of the Placeholder Improvements

With enhanced placeholders, you can deliver fewer, more flexible templates to better meet the diverse needs of a large user community.

You can now define a placeholder as either

• optional, which can be filled in any order or skipped altogether

• required

You can also define a placeholder to accept

• only one column

• one or more columns

You can select whether to include a placeholder in the report. This is convenient if you want the template user to perform a calculation based on a data item without including it in the report.

You can also create a calculated placeholder. For example, you create a placeholder called Sales, and enable it to accept several columns. Then you create a calculated placeholder called Total Sales. For each column entered into the Sales placeholder, a Total Sales column will also be added to the report.



Example

You create a template with three placeholders called Name, Product/Service and Telephone Number. Name and Telephone Number are required multi-column placeholders. Product/Service is an optional single-column placeholder.

The template enables users to fill in the placeholders as they require. For example, one user could fill in the Name placeholder with the company name and company contact data items while another user might only fill in the Name placeholder with the company name data item. Likewise, one user could fill in the Product/Service placeholder while another user might skip this placeholder and choose to leave it blank.

Filling In Placeholders

Any placeholder that does not match the selected column’s data type is unavailable. The OK button in the dialog box is enabled only when all required placeholders have been filled. Required placeholders appear in bold type. The new folder structure in the Query dialog box enables you to see which data items are in each placeholder. Column titles in the report are based on the name of the query data items, not the name of the placeholders.



The standard templates provided with Impromptu use limited local processing as the default query processing setting. The setting can be changed in a template or in each report using the Client/Server tab (Query dialog box). For more information about how these settings impact performance, see the Mastering Impromptu Reports online book or the Administrator’s Guide.

Prompt Manager

Manage Catalog Prompts

You can now store prompts in the catalog for future use. You can create, edit, and delete catalog prompts using the Folders dialog box (Catalog menu). Using catalog prompts saves time because prompts can be re-used in different reports.

Automate Prompt Management

You can move, copy or delete catalog prompts using OLE automation just as you can with any other catalog folder items. For more information on OLE automation, see the Macro Online Help (Cognos ScriptEditor).

Manage Prompts for the Current Report

Unused prompts can now be stored in reports. You can create, edit, and remove report prompts using the Prompt Manager. You can apply any prompt shown in the Prompt Manager to the current report.

Work with Cascading Prompts

The Prompt Manager also makes it easier to manage cascading prompts. Cascading prompts are a series of prompts, each of which shows only those values that correspond to the value selected for the previous prompt.

Easy Access to HelpThe Help menu is restructured to make it easier to find the information you need. All Help, including online Help, the Quick Tour, and online books, can now be accessed directly from the Help menu.


Chapter 2: Administering Impromptu

This chapter describes new features that help you administer your Impromptu environment. These include

• catalog and report upgrading to the version 5.0 formats

• enhanced client-server balancing

• the Database Definition Manager

• native DB2 support

• new summaries

• user-defined functions (UDFs)

• online help in a report

• the ability to store Request Server result-sets in an alternate database

• Scheduler enhancements



Upgrading to Impromptu 5.0

Report and Catalog FilesWhen you use Impromptu version 5.0 to open a catalog or report created with a previous version of Impromptu, you see an Upgrade dialog box that offers you the following options:

• Upgrade the Catalog/Report

This converts the file to the version 5.0 format. If you upgrade a catalog or report, you can no longer open it using previous versions of Impromptu. If you upgrade a distributed catalog, users with a previous version of Impromptu cannot upgrade their local copies of the catalog.

To automatically upgrade old reports, click the Upgrade the Report and clear the Show this Dialog When Opening Previous Version Reports check box. This disables the Upgrade dialog box. You can enable the dialog box in the General tab of the Options dialog (Tools menu).

Note: You cannot automatically upgrade catalogs.

• Open the Catalog/Report as Read-Only

If you open a catalog or report for reading only, you cannot make any changes to it.

To always open old catalogs and reports as read-only, click the Open the Catalog/Report as Read-Only and clear the Show This Dialog When Opening Previous Version Catalogs/Reports check box. This disables the Upgrade dialog box. You can enable the dialog box in the General tab of the Options dialog (Tools menu).

If some users in your environment are using a previous version of Impromptu, you may want to make a copy of a report so you can upgrade the copy and preserve the original. To do so, open the report in Impromptu without upgrading it, then use Save As (File menu) to create a copy of the report in the new format.

To make a copy of a catalog so you can save the original, you can use Windows Explorer or another file manager.



.ini FilesThe Cognos.ini file is stored outside the Impromptu folder structure in the Windows 95 or NT operating system folder. This file contains settings for file locations, information for database support, and other Impromptu system settings. For more information about the Cognos.ini file, see the online Help.

Impromptu.ini is the settings file for the Impromptu client. It is placed in the User Workspace folder. This file contains settings for users’ startup options and preferences. For more information about the Impromptu.ini file, see the online Help.

Client-Server BalancingPreviously, standard templates provided with Impromptu used flexible query processing. When you ran reports based on the templates, Impromptu determined where the processing occured.

Now, Impromptu’s standard templates are defined to use limited local processing. Impromptu performs as much of the processing on the database server as possible using multiple queries, then combines the results on the personal computer. This prevents an entire result set from being sent to the personal computer at once, and decreases network traffic. For more information on how balancing options impact performance, see Chapter 10 in the Administrator’s Guide.

You can change the query processing setting in a template or in each report using the Client/Server tab (Query dialog box).



Database Support

Database Definition ManagerThe Database Definition Manager now offers a more intuitive interface for exploring and setting up your database definitions. In the default view, the available database drivers are shown in a hierarchy whose entries expand to show the associated logical databases.

The names of database drivers and logical database definitions appear in mixed case for readability. They are not case-sensitive.

The logical database names can be edited like any file name in Windows 95 and NT. To edit a logical database name, just select the name and double-click it.



You can switch from the default view to the Logical Database View. The Logical Database View is a simplified list showing only the logical databases that are available.

Native Support for DB2Impromptu now incorporates access to IBM DB2 database servers via the 2.1.2 CLI.

New SummariesImpromptu now has several more summaries to choose from, including

• moving-average

• moving-total

• tertile

• quantile

• percentage

• running-difference



User-Defined Function Support Impromptu now supports user-defined functions (UDFs). UDFs are custom functions you can create and use within SQL statements for querying your data sources.

You can create two kinds of UDFs:

• database UDFs, which you set up in .ini files and store in your database

• external UDFs, which you set up in .ini files and store in DLLs (on PCs running Windows) and in shared libraries (on UNIX servers)

A UDF software development kit (SDK) is available to help you set up functions for Impromptu. For more information about the sample files in the SDK, see the online Help topic, “User-Defined Functions (UDFs)” in the Reference Help. For technical information about creating UDFs, refer to the PDF document “How to Create User-Defined Functions (UDFs)” in the User Defined Functions folder where you installed Impromptu.

Online Help in a ReportNow you can add context help to a report. You can use the new Annotations macro to assign online help topics to the different report frames. When users click a frame and run the macro, the help topic appears in a popup window. Users can also assign the macro to a launch button for increased ease of use.

Request Server EnhancementsIf you do not want to store users’ result sets in your production RDBMS, Impromptu Request Server now enables you to store result sets in a database other than the data source. You can define an alternate result-set database for each data source that users query.

The alternate database must be the same brand as the data source:

• an alternate Oracle instance for an Oracle data source

• an alternate Sybase server for a Sybase data source

• an alternate Informix server for an Informix data source

To avoid any problems resulting from differences between versions of your RDBMS, ensure that the version features of the data source match those of the alternate database.

Scheduler is enhanced to work dynamically with Request Server to retrieve results stored in an alternate database. The location of an alternate database is defined in the request database—you do not need to add a logical database name to users’ Cognos.ini files for them to retrieve results.



Scheduler Enhancements

Enhanced SelectingScheduler’s user interface has been enhanced to enable you to select several tasks at the same time by Ctrl-clicking them. When two or more tasks are selected you can delete them all, put them on hold, or take them off hold.

Overwrite Result SetsYou can now control whether a remote result set generated by a repeating task overwrites the previous result set, or becomes another result set on the remote server.

Configure the Send CommandScheduler’s Send command invokes the Messaging Application Programming Interface, a messaging system that enables Scheduler to interact with other applications. Now, if you use a different messaging system, you can configure the OLE server on which the Send command is based to use it instead.


Index
Symbols.ini files, 23
—A—alternate database, Request Server, 26

—C—catalog logon, 10catalog prompts, 19catalogs, opening as read-only, 22Cognos.ini, 23column titles, linked, 17copying a catalog, 22copying a report, 22crosstab reports, create with the Report Wizard,

8

—D—Database Definition Manager, using, 24database support, 24DB2, 25drill-through reports, 12

example, 13

—F—filtering, 6folder structure, 10

—H—help support, 19HTML, examples, 14

—I—IBM DB2, native support for, 25Impromptu.ini, 23

—L—logon to the catalog, 10

—M—migrating reports and catalogs, 22

—N—navigation, within dialog boxes, 10

—O—opening catalogs and reports as read-only, 22

—P—placeholders in templates, 17printing options

example, 16fit to page, 15repeating columns, 15

prompts, managing with Prompt Manager, 19

—Q—Query dialog box, show/hide advanced tabs,

10

—R—remote snapshots, 13Report Wizard, 8


Index

reportsfilter with the Filter button, 6

reports, opening as read-only, 22Request Server, alternate database, 26result sets, storing in an alternate database, 26

—S—Scheduler, working with Request Server, 26snapshots, remote, 13sub-reports, 11

example, 11

—T—templates

placeholder improvements, 17

—U—upgrading reports and catalogs, 22User Defined Functions (UDFs), 26

—W—Wizard, 8


Documents

What's New in Impromptu 5public.dhe.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/... · (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause at DFARS 252.227-7013, or subparagraphs