What Is Cognos Report Studio?

Cognos Report Studio is a web-based report writing tool. Like all Cognos 8 products it’s scaleability is unlimited, in other words you can run it with as many servers, processors and whatnot as you like.

All development takes place online, using a standard web browser. Reports are written in XML - an enhancement of the universal web page mark-up language HTML. This means report users don't have to install any software on their desktops except a web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer. Report specifications are held in a database known as the Content Store.

Cognos Report Studio works with star schemas (a database layout used extensively in data warehousing) and can access stored procedures (database programs) as well as traditional database layouts. It will also work with any SQL, functions etc that your database allows.

Report Studio is a full-blown report generation tool. It is so comprehensive that instead of asking what you can do with it the real question is "What can't you do with Report Studio?". Since all development is in XML, completely in a web environment, you can - theoretically - build anything into your report that can be built into a web page, even inserting your own HTML.

So you can have hyperlinks to other pages and websites, hyperlinks to other reports, 3D animated graphics, news feeds - you name it.