What Can Be Blended

Data Blending in Cognos can occur between various data sets:

• Multiple uploaded data sets (excel, csv)

• Uploaded data set(s) and package(s)

• Multiple packages

All Data Blending in Cognos starts with a Data Module.

Getting Started - Must Use a Data Module

A data module is a contain designed to tell Cognos what data objects (uploaded data, package or data module) you want to blend. Two data objects cannot be used together without first putting them in a data module.

If you are blending data across multiple Activity Hubs we recommend you only use the data module to hold the Activity Hub packages you want to work with. We recommend you join the data in your report.

For a UCSD demo, see the Cognos Community of Practice meeting recording at the bottom of this page.

Additional Examples:

IBM Documentation > Creating a simple data module: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cognos-analytics/11.0.0?topic=module-creating-simple-data

IBM Helps > How to create a data module from uploaded tables: Data modules - How to create a data module from uploaded tables (11.2.2)

Blending Within a Report

Step 1) Create a data module with the packages you want to use together - or find an existing data module with the packages you are going to use. 

Step 2) Create a report that uses the data module.

Step 3) Create a separate query for each package in the data module.

Step 4) Join or Union the separate queries.

Step 5) Add to your display.

Note: data modules will respect the security of the folder it is saved into and the packages that are contained within it.

References

• 2022-04-26 Cognos Community of Practice - Data Blending: https://ucsdcloud-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/r/personal/jmwhite_ucsd_edu/Documents/ITS%20BIA/Analytics%20Community%20of%20Practice/Cognos%20CoP/2022%20Cognos%20Community%20of%20Practice/2022-04-26_DataBlending_DataModules_FilterForNull?csf=1&web=1&e=i2RN5q

• IBM Cognos Analytics: Getting Started with Data Modules