Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.1.x
Microsoft Windows 2019 Server
Problem:
How add links to webpage with instructions for the users?
Linking a website URL to my Cognos Analytics 11.0.4+ Welcome Page
Solution:
You can add a extra menu with links to your (HTML, PDF) pages.
On the CA11 server go to the folder C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics\samples\extensions
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l1.png)
Create a new empty folder, called c:\extra.
Copy the SampleExtensionMenuUrlLinks.zip file to the c:\extra folder.
Unzip the file SampleExtensionMenuUrlLinks.zip.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l18.png)
Go into the new folder SampleExtensionMenuUrlLinks and open the file spec.json in notepad++
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l5.png)
In this example there are two menu items you can edit to use for your needs.
Edit the “label”: “IBM website”, and “options”: {“url”: “http://www.ibm.com”} lines.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l2.png)
You need to have a document to share with the users, we copy a pdf file to a new folder c:\doc
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l3.png)
on a server where you have IIS installed, so you can in inside IIS manager share this files.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l12.png)
Start IIS manager and go to your default site.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l0.png)
Mark the Default Web Site and right click and select Add Virtual Directory
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l13.png)
Enter a alias as Doc and change the physical path to your folder c:\doc. Click OK when done.
Now you can place any files in this folder (like HTML or PDF) that you later can share in Cognos portal by updating the json file.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l4.png)
In our example we change the second label to Instructions and the second options to “http://windatacenter/doc/Instructions_cognos.pdf” – you need to change that line to use your windows server name (not my windatacenter) and the pdf file name to your pdf file name. Do not use a space in the file name. Save the spec.json file.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l5.png)
Go up to extra folder, and use 7zip to create a zip file again.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l6.png)
All files in the folder should be compressed to a zip file. You can give the zip file a new name if you like.
Now you need to update CA11 with this extension that will change the looks of Cognos Connection.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l7.png)
Login as administrator, click on manage and customization.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l8.png)
Click on tab Extensions, and click on the upload icon.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l9.png)
Select your newly created zip file and click open.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l10.png)
The extension is loaded into the Cognos store. You need to logout and in again to see the effect.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l11.png)
You get a new LINKS menu with two options, we have only changed the second one to Instructions. If you click on that the PDF should open.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l14.png)
You may get above message in Internet Explorer and need to click Open to open the pdf in a reader.
If you have issues, please try with chrome first – go to you Cognos Analytics web site.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l15.png)
Click on links.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l16.png)
Click on Instructions.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l17.png)
The pdf should open in chrome browser.
Any files placed in your c:\doc folder is accessible for any user that can browse to your IIS server.
You provide the direct links in Cognos to make it easier for the users to find a specific file.
More Information:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ag_manage.doc/t_ag_manage_cust_home.html
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ag_manage.doc/c_mng_cust_cr_home.html
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ag_manage.doc/c_ag_cust_extensions.html#cust_sample_extensions
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ag_manage.doc/c_mng_cust_manage.html
You can in Microsoft Word export a word doc to a HTML file, select export from file menu, and select change file type to “Single File Web Page” and click save as.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l19.png)
Select a easy name and select html or mhtml.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l20.png)
Copy the file to your web server (IIS) and then update the first link in the json file.
![](http://cogknowhow.tm1.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l21.png)
So it should be like this “options”: {“url”: “http://windatacenter/doc/cognos.mht”}
instead of “options”: {“url”: “http://www.ibm.com”}
Save the file, and do the zip and upload steps again. Logout and in to CA11 again, to see the new link.