Cognos Ships Upgrade To ReportNetCognos Ships Upgrade To ReportNet

Cognos Inc. on Tuesday began shipping ReportNet 1.1, the second release of the vendor's Web-based query and reporting software. The new version offers a host of enhancements, including improved support for IBM and SAP data sources, better integration with Microsoft Office applications, and additional charts.

Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. is already using ReportNet 1.1 to develop monthly profit-and-loss, balance sheet, and budget-versus-actual spending reports, says Linda Yaeger, Isis' informatics executive director. Those reports extract financial data from Isis' operational applications and go to the company's directors, CFO, and other senior-level managers. "These are complex reports," she says.

About 500 people within the company use the reports generated by the Cognos software, Yaeger says. In the future, Isis plans to use ReportNet to develop reports in areas such as document management and quality control.

Last year, Cognos debuted the initial release of ReportNet, its next-generation query-and-reporting software that will eventually replace its older Impromptu product. ReportNet 1.1 provides native support for SAP's NetWeaver integration software and IBM's WebSphere Internet infrastructure software.

The new release also produces reports formatted for Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and can create "progressive" or "waterfall" charts, a type of bar chart commonly used in manufacturing and financial-services companies. ReportNet's portal is now easier to customize, Cognos says, and the software offers improved multilingual capabilities. Pricing starts at $200 per user and is based on users' roles or job functions.