Using Cognos HTS for Report Review and Approvals

© 2010 IBM Corporation

Business Analytics software

Using Cognos HTS for Report Review and Approvals

© 2010 IBM Corporation2


Report Review or Approval FlowOverview

Create a Taskflow Agent in Event Studio

Step 2ba: Create an event condition– For reviews or approvals that are to start when the agent is run, specify an event condition that will always be true.

e.g. 1=1

Step 2b: Select the report to be reviewed or approved

Step 2c: Specify the review / approve task– If just one person within a group just needs to approve, then a group can be specified

Repeat Steps 2c for each reviewer or approver required

(optional) Step 2d: Completion notification– (optional) Notify yourself when all responses have been received

Request appears in

Inbox

Run agent via Run Options in Cognos portal

Create a Report Review or

Approval Flow

Creates Report

Approve/Reject

Updated request



Defining a Report Review or Approval Flow Step 2ba: Create an Event Condition

1 = 1

Specifying an event condition is required for all agents. If the report approval workflow is to be initiated when it is run, then a condition that always returns true needs to be specified. Otherwise, a condition based on checking a status or other data could be specified.



Defining a Report Review or Approval Flow Step 2b: Select the report to be reviewed or approved

Select the report to be reviewed or approved. Specify the delivery options and prompts parameters, if any.



Defining a Report Review or Approval Flow Step 2c: Specify the review / approve task

Click the Run an approval request… see next slide




A task identifies one review or approve request. A task for each response or approval needs to be defined. First, select who needs to respond to the request (owner) and who is interested in knowing the results (stakeholder).




Note: If more than one person is identified as an owner (aka reviewer or approver), only one response is required to complete the request. If multiple responses are required, then an approval request is required for each response.Alternatively, the owners or stakeholders can be driven by a data item, e.g., the data item used in report bursting.




Illustrates selecting a group to add as a potential owner.




Setting a start and due date will trigger reminder notifications to be sent if the request is not completed. Other options include when to send notifications, what icon to display, the request response options (accept/reject) and tasks to run when a response is received.



Defining a Report Review or Approval Flow Step 2d: (Optional) Completion Notification

Once all responses are received (i.e., approve or reject) for each approval task, a custom notification message could be sent to confirm that all approvals have been received. e.g., customize the subject line with a data item so that a personalized notification is sent to a group of people. “The quarterly sales report for” [region] “is ready for viewing”Alternatively, this step could initiate running a report and saving or bursting for distribution.



Running the approval agent



Run approval request 2



Run approval request – run history view



Run approval request – run history waiting



View from My Inbox

After the approval task is defined, it can be run from Cognos Connection. The request appears in the inbox of the owner(s).



Run history - succeeded



Run history detail - succeeded



Background materials

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/0a7c97bb-6cf9-4ddb-a918-80994e7b444d/entry/using_my_inbox_to_control_event_studio_agent_workflow_in_cognos_1027?lang=en

Within SDK – undocumented toolkit which can be used to simplify using SDK (e.g. getting lists of tasks)

Documents

Using Cognos HTS for Report Review and Approvals