IBM Cognos Analytics 12.1.3 introduces a useful enhancement for crosstab reports: interactive expand and collapse for hierarchical row headers.
This allows report consumers to start with a summarized view and expand individual hierarchy levels when they need more detail — without having to redesign the report or navigate to another page.
Steps to follow:
- Create a new crosstab report or open a report having a crosstab
- Select the crosstab column where we need hierarchy funtionality
- Once select, its Properties pane shows Enable Hierarchy Expansion under Data section
- Open it and it will show a pop up (as shown below)
- Enable the ‘Enable Hierarchy Expansion’ and click OK
- Note: As we selected row level at crosstab, it is already selected and locked in
- We can also control how the crosstab appears when the report initially opens using the ‘Initially collapsed’ option in properties
- This new option also offers customization such as indicator color or indicator shape used for hierarchy navigation
- For ex. Indicator shapes offers below options:
- Plus/Minus
- Chevron
- Triangle
- Similarly, we also configure the Expand/collapse indicator color
- This gives report authors some flexibility to match the interaction with the report’s overall design
A small feature, but a nice improvement for making Cognos crosstab reports more interactive and easier to consume.
