Jim Miller

One of the goals of the Cognos Framework Manager modeler is to build a model that makes report authoring easier. To accomplish that, you “build in” business logic” (a loosely defined term here) into your meta model. This business logic can be simple (like simply renaming or hiding a database table column) or quite complex […]

During a recent project of mine, I jumped “head first” into IBM Cognos Framework Manager. Yes, it is an awesome tool, but where exactly does it “fit” into the Cognos environment? Are there similar or alternate tools that can be used? I just had to have a quick look! The Cognos Components       […]

A proven practice for Framework Manager Meta Modeling is to divide your model into a series of layers, each layer having a specific purpose. (Originally IBM recommended the use of two layers (data and modeling), but later added a presentation layer, and (optionally) a separate dimensional layer). The layers should be: The top layer – […]

A metadata model is “a gathering of Meta information that includes both physical information and business information for one or more datasources and is the foundation for both future modelling and report development within an organization”. Meta-model flexibility can be defined as the ability of a (Meta) model to: Easily expand and grow (to support […]

                  I was “lucky” enough to be selected to “go on the road” this year as part of my organizations presence at the IBM business analytics summits, taking pace all over the country. If you haven’t attended one yet, you should as the content presented is both […]

“Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise.” – Denis Waitley In all professions, and especially information services (IT), success and marketability depends upon an individual’s propensity for continued learning. With Splunk, there exist a number of options for increasing your knowledge and expertise. The following are just a few. We’ll […]

Often I am asked to conduct a “performance review” of implemented Cognos TM1 applications “rather quickly” when realistically; a detailed architectural review must be extensive and takes some time. Generally, if there is a limited amount of time, you can use the following suggestions as perhaps some appropriate areas to focus on (until such time […]

The importance of making credible decisions can be the difference between profit or loss, or even survival or extinction. Decision Support Systems (or DSSs) serve the key decision makers of an organization– helping  them to effectively assess  predictors (which can be rapidly changing and not easily specified in advance) and make the best decisions, reducing […]

A technology company has literally participated in thousands of projects over the years. At some point the group decided it wants to determine what factors or characteristics may influence the (hopefully successful) competition of current and future implementation projects. Thankfully, they have maintained records in on every project that they were involved in and that […]

Coming from a TM1 background (more business than statistics), it is easy to get stated with modeling once you determine your modeling objective, and Modeler can help with that. IBM SPSS Modeler offers an intuitive interface that will appeal to a wide range of users from the non-technical business user to the statistician, data miner […]

The discovering of relationships within data (between fields) is an important part of any data mining project (in the Crisp-DM methodology, this is described as part of the “Data Understanding” stage). This “relationship discovery” is part of developing a predictive model but is also helpful in answering specific business questions -perhaps even what originally motivated […]

In my previous articles, we looked at all the basic concepts of creating a report in SSRS.  We built a simple tabular report and made it presentable.  However, simple tabular or matrix graphs are textual reports.   Today, we will build a visual report – a pie chart.  There are several visual reports one can build using […]