Format Data

Format data in a report to improve readability. For example, you can show all date values in the order year, month, and day. If you do not set Data Format properties here, data is formatted according to the properties set in the model. If the properties were not set in the model, data is formatted according to the International Components for Unicode (ICU) formats.

Special cells, such as overflow or underflow, errors, or not applicable values, appear with two dash (--) characters unless you override them.

You can also format data based on a condition or specify the format for a particular object.

When you create a calculation that uses mixed currency values or other mixed units of measure, an asterisk character (*) might appear as the unit of measure. To avoid this problem, change the format of the column or row that contains the result of the calculation so that the wanted unit of measure appears.

  • Set the Default Data Formats
    Set the default data properties for each type of data, including text, number, currency, percent, date, time, date/time, and time interval.
  • Specify the Data Format for an Object
    Specify the format for a particular object if you are not getting the results you want.
  • Locale-sensitive Properties
    IBM® Cognos® Report Studio contains an extensive library of customized properties adapted to users from different regions who speak different languages. For example, if a modeler specifies that a given data item is a currency, only the proper currency symbol must be specified. When reports are created, Report Studio automatically adapts the format of the currency numbers to each user according to the content language specified in IBM Cognos Connection.
  • Suppress Empty Cells
    Sparse data may result in crosstabs showing empty cells. For example, a crosstab that matches employees with products results in many rows of empty values for the revenue measure if the employee does not sell those products.
  • Specify what appears for data containers that contain no data
    You can specify what appears in a data container when no data is available from the database.
  • Using Patterns to Format Data
    You can format data so that it matches any pattern of text and numbers when default formats are not appropriate. For example, you can format dates to use full text including the era, or you can format them to only use numbers and show the last two digits of years to save space.