New Dynamic Sorting Controls from IBM Cognos

Cognos seems to have come up with new controls / method for dynamic column sorting that doesn't involve the drill through methods.

Here's the link to the article.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/cognos/reporting/scripting_techniques/page515.html?ca=drs-

Sounds cool!! Hope this ends the report re-run issues we have while using the drill-through method for sorting.

I will check this method out and post my comments later.

Let me know your thoughts on this method though.

Here's an update from PaulM about applying this method on Cognos 10 environment:

[User comments: PaulM]

There are some differences between the XML files from Cognos 8 to Cognos 10. The general structure of the files are the same, so making the correct updates is not difficult.

First you need to use a decent text editor, one with comparison capabilities. Notepad++ is excellent for this.

Open both the C10 version and the version from the download. They should be in different tabs in Notepad++. Click on the plugins menu and select Compare --> Compare.

Find and copy the differences related to this technique only. Don't try to copy deprecated objects over. All of the related fragments have "orderCol" somewhere in the name.

 

Implementing Dynamic Sorting with Dimension Model??

I am trying to implement dynamic sorting but using a dimensional model. Not having much luck here. Written to various Cognos forums as well but no help there.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 

Sorting Asc / Desc on Same Column

Reqmt: Create a report displaying Product and Sales and Sort Product Asc or Desc depending on user selection.

Solution:

Step 1: Create a Prompt Page to accept user selection for Asc / Desc. Lets call this prompt as SortSel and have use value for static choices set as 1 for Asc and 2 for Desc.

Step 2: Create report page that includes Product and Sales Data Item.

Step 3: Create 2 data items called as SortAsc, SortDesc.

SortAsc - Case when ?SortSel? = 1 then Product else '1' end
SortDesc - Case when ?SortSel? = 2 then Product else '1' end

Step 4: In Advance Sorting for the list Include SortAsc and set sort on this to Asc. Then include SortDesc and set Sort on this to Desc.

When User selects 1, the SortAsc data item is populated with Product and SortDesc is populated with 1 and hence Sorting Asc on SortASc produces the desired result and a sort desc on SortDesc has no impact.

When User selects 2, the SortAsc data item is populated with 1 and SortDesc is populated with Product and hence Sorting Desc on SortDesc produces the desired result and a sort asc on SortAsc has no impact.