STEPS IN USING COGNOS POWERPLAY

1. Access Cognos by clicking on the link "SMARTT Cognos Reporting System" on the Welcome page of SMARTT (www.doe.mass.edu/smartt)

2. Click on SMARTT Cognos Reporting System

3. Enter your User ID and password

4. Click on Cognos Powerplay

Powerplay is the analysis tool

· It takes data from your regular SMARTT data entry and stores it in a new structure called a "cube" This data is accumulated nightly. So data entered into SMARTT this morning will not be reflected in COGNOS till the next day.

· It allows you to filter your data so that you can view data that meets the particular criteria that you choose
(ie. like seeing data on students who all come from a particular zip code or particular sex, etc..)

· It allows you to export data to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet

· It allows you to save "views" you have created in your inbox, so that once you set up a
view or analysis that you find useful you can get it again instantly.

5. Select Student Demographics by Site

6. What questions would I like to see answered?

a) How would I like to see the data? …by fiscal year, all agencies, SDA's, site type, a particular agency, project, or site, funding source, states/cites (community planning statistics), primary assessment area (ABE or ESOL), native language, race, gender, country of origin, ages/ age brackets or by any combination

These filters are found on the top dimension line.

b) How would I like to see the data measured? ,,, by number of students, goals set, goals met, % of goals met, attended hours, attended match hours, average attended hours, average match hours, or all of these ways

The measures are found by clicking on "students" in the upper left corner of the data box - the default is number of students

PERFORMING QUERIES ON CUBE

1. Filter the data in various ways using the dimension line:

a) Double click on "By Agency" to see all agencies

b) Swap rows and columns

c) Select all Rows (change 50 to ALL in bottom tool bar)

d) Filter categories in top dimension if you want specific information

· Select fiscal year

· Select funding source

· Select primary assessment area - ABE or ESOL

· Select race, gender, age/age brackets, country of origin, native language

· Select a particular agency - drill down to projects or sites

· Select a site type or SDA

· Select MA under "All States" to list students enrolled in particular cities in MA, select an agency, project, or site, nest the rows (Action, Nest, Rows), suppress the zeros

· Hide columns if you want to customize so that all columns will print on same page

(Put cursor over column name, select Action, then Hide Column)

2. View the data in various ways using different measures:

a) Click on "Students" in the upper left corner of the data box and change measures to

· Attended hours

· Match hours

· Average attended hours

· Average match hours

· Goals set

· Goals met

· % of goals met

b) Click on the arrow in the bottom left corner of the data box and double click on MEASURES to view all the measures at once

c) Hide columns if you want to customize so that all columns will print on same page

(Put cursor over column name, select Action, then Hide Column)

3. Select graphs, export to Excel (csv format),

To end your session, click on "Return to Source" (last icon in the bottom right corner) and then click on "Logoff".