Walkthrough of Running a Report in Cognos

An example that illustrates the steps needed to locate and run a Finance report in Cognos Analytics.

Overview

Example that illustrates the steps needed to locate and run a Finance report in Cognos Analytics. In this example we will walk through the steps needed to find and run the 5 Year Trend Activity by Fund report, highlighting navigation options, the report prompt page, and outputs.

Locating and Launching a Report

From the Cognos Analytics home page, follow along with the following navigation steps, as shown below:

1. Click on the Open Menu Toggle
2. Click Finance Reports
   

The Content navigation screen will open, with the 'Finance Reports' tab highlighted.  Next:

1. Click Budget, Revenue, and Expense Reports, to expand that content folder
2. Click the 5 Year Trend Activity by Fund report, to launch it
   

Report Prompt Page and Parameters

Many of the Cognos Enterprise reports load to a Prompt Page when the report is initially launched.  Prompt pages provide the ability to filter report outputs based on pre-defined parameters.

1. Required parameters are values that must be provided in order for the report to run. Cognos indicates required parameters with a red asterisk (see Fiscal Year in the image below)
2. Optional parameters are values that help to narrow the result set of a report, but are not required for the report to run (as in Level 2 Org below)

Select the following parameter options for the 5 Year Trend Activity by Fund report:

1. Click Fiscal Year and select 2024/2025
2. Click Level 5 ORGN and select or type 263051
3. Click Finish to run the report
   

Report Outputs

Many reports output to HTML and are presented in the Cognos work area in the center of the browser window. Enterprise reports are presented in a standard format, and may contain many of the elements highlighted below in the 5 Year Trend Activity by Fund report output:

1. Report header which contains the U of O logo, the report title, and the selected parameters
2. Footer, which contains version info, page number(s), and execution date and time
3. Graphics, such as charts and graphs, may be included in the report body
4. Data lists or crosstabs
5. Drill-through links, hyperlinks to a related report using the selected item as a parameter/filter

Changing Report Output Format

Reports can be re-run, with the same parameters, and sent to PDF, Excel, or CSV file download formats. To Re-run the report in a selected format, select the desired output format from the drop-down list as shown below. 

Users can also return to the initial prompt page and run the report with different prompt values, by selecting Reset Prompts and Run.