Cognos Transformer Tutorial
Basics to get started
Cognos Transformer Tutorial 1
Basics to get started 1
What is Transformer? 2
Building a model 2
Creating Your Dimensions 3
Define a calculated measure 5
Describe Your Columns 6
Generate Categories for you model 7
Creating a PowerCube 7
What is Transformer?
Transformer structure data from various sources into multi-dimensional PowerCubes. You will have the flexibility to design and define your cubes and create reports that let you draw comparisons and discover new patterns.
Building a model
1. Open Transformer. From the File menu, select New.
2. In the Model Name text field, type Great Outdoor Sales.
3. Leave the data source name blank and in the source type box, select Delimited-field Text with Column Titles. Click Next.
4. Click Browse to select the Data Source. M:\iom\cognos\client\samples\powerplay\discovering transformer\go_sales.asc. (You may have to type M: then click Browse, or type the full dir path if you can’t find the M: drive on the system).
5. Be sure that you deselect Run Auto Design. The setting should match the following diagram.
6. Click FInish.
Creating Your Dimensions
1. Click anywhere on the dimension map.
2. From the Edit menu, click Insert Dimension.
3. In the Dimension Name box, type Products, and click OK.
A new Product dimension is created
4. To add a new level, drag the source column from the Data Sources window to the new dimension.
5. In this case drag Product Line, Product Type, and Product Name under the Products on the Dimension Map window.
6. Now create a new dimension Order date.
7. Click on the Dimension line.
8. From the Edit menu, click Insert Dimension.
9. In the Dimension Name box, type Order Date, and click OK.
10. In the Dimension Type box, select Time, and click OK.
11. Click on the Time tab and click OK.
12. In the Source Column box, select Order Date that contains values for the dates in the dimension, and click OK.
Transformer creates a new time dimension, Year, Quarter, and Month
13. Now create a new dimension Region.
14. Click on the dimension line.
15. From the Edit menu, click Insert Dimension.
16. In the Dimension Name box, type Region, and click OK.
17. Add new levels to the Region dimension by dragging Region, Country, Branch Name, Sales Representative into the Region dimension
18. Add levels to Measures window.
19. Add new levels to Measures by dragging Revenue, Cost, Order Quantity into the Measures Window.
Define a calculated measure
Calculated measure derives new numeric data from regular measures, calculated measures, functions, and constants.
1. Activate the Data Source window.
2. From the Edit menu, click Insert Column.
3. In the Column Name box, type Profit Margin % for the new column.
4. In the Column Type box, click Calculated, and then click the button.
5. Specify a numeric data when Transformer prompts you to specify whether the column consists of text, date, or numeric data.
6. In the pop-up menu, click a sequence of items for the expression, which is ("Revenue" -"Cost" )/"Revenue" *100. When the expression is valid, the OK button is enabled.
7. Click OK.
8. Drag the Profit Margin % under the Measures window.
9. From the File Menu, click Save As. You can either save it temporarily on C:/temp or in your floppy disk. Type in go_sales, and select mdl format file type.
10. Click OK.
Describe Your Columns
1. In the Queries list, double-click Product Line.
2. The property sheet will show up.
3. Click the description tab.
4. In the box, type The Great Outdoor Company product line-up for the years 1996 and 1997, and click OK.
Generate Categories for you model
1. In the Dimension Map, click Products.
2. In the toolbar, click the Show Diagram button.
3. In the toolbar, click Generate Categories.
4. Wait for the program to process. When prompted, click OK.
5. A tree will be generated. Click the expand and collapse icons beside its names to show or hide its descendant categories.
6. To go back to the original model view, go to Window menu, select Default to close the diagram.
7. From the toolbar, click Show Counts.
8. There should be:
· 35 product categories, 11 product types, 35 products
· a total of 51 categories
9. In File menu, click save to save your go_sales.mdl model.
Creating a PowerCube
1. To be able to save the cubes (since you don’t have the permission to save on the M: drive), go to File menu and select Properties.
2. Then click on Directories sub-window and type or browse C:/temp on Models.
3. From the toolbar, click create PowerCubes.
A data cube will be generated and displayed in the PowerCube Window
4. Highlight the Great Outdoor Sales Window, and click the Start PowerPlay button to display the cube report
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