Our next meeting scheduled for December 4th, 2009

Hosted by Del Monte Foods
Lunch sponsored by Del Monte Foods

December 2009 CBIG Meeting
Date: December 4, 2009
Time: 12:30 – 4:30pm
Location: Del Monte Foods on the North Shore

Parking is available in the lot in front of the building, and the cost is $3.00 after 11:00 am. Attendees will need to show ID upon arrival to the building.

Agenda:

12:30 – 1:30pm Lunch
1:30 – 1:45 pm Welcome, Attendee introductions, Recap of Prior Meeting
Discussion of Upcoming events and misc. association topics,Treasurer’s Report
1:45 -2:00pm Introduction to Focus Group Discusions (Details to Follow)
2:00- 3:00 pm Discussion Group Part 1
3:00 – 3:15 pm Break
3:15 – 4:00 Discussion Group Part 2
4:00 – 4:15 Closing remarks.

We will collect a $10.00 fee at the door to cover costs.

Focus Group Discussion Details

Attendees will be split into small groups for informal discussions on a variety of Cognos related topics. Please feel free to bring your own questions, issues and topics to discuss with your group members. Each group will be led by a facilitator to guide the discussion. All group members will be encouraged to share their own Cognos experiences.

Discussion Starters

• Group member introductions
• What are you currently working on with respect to Cognos?
• What issues are you experiencing?
• Describe one of your successful Cognos projects. What made it successful? What problems did you have?
• Who creates reports at your company? IT or end users?
• How do you distribute reports to consumers? Cognos Connection, email, LAN, Sharepoint, etc?
• What output formats do consumers want? HTML, CSV, Excel, etc
• Do you make reports available from a non Cognos website? Do you pass parameters?
• What Studios are used at your company, and who uses them?
• How is training done at your company?
• What other features of Cognos 8 do you use? Dashboarding, Scorecarding, Portal Pages, etc
• What tips or techniques can you share with the group?
• What databases are you using for reporting purposes? Do you have issues?
• Do you build star schemas, data marts, cubes or relation models for reporting purposes? Describe your experiences
• What other coding techniques do you use in Cognos 8? Drill-thru, bursting, master-detail, etc?
• How is security handled for reports, projects and studios?
• Who schedules your reports and jobs? Are there procedures and policies in place for scheduling?
• Do you have a process for Change Control in your environment?
• What environments do you have? Development, Test, Production Who has access to each?
• Do you use the auditing capabilities of Cognos 8? How do you make use of the data?
• Please bring you own questions, issues and other topics for discussion too.