Wow, now I can add a URL link to my Cognos Analytics (CA) Welcome Page!

Business Case: 

In an earlier QueBIT Knowledge Base article, “Setting a Default Welcome Page in Cognos Analytics 11.0.4+”, you learned how to set up a custom welcome page in CA.  In this article, we are going to add a URL link to the welcome page, giving the users easy access to additional resources right from the welcome screen.

For this example, we are specifically adding a URL link to our “AskQueBIT” site, providing our users quick access to our “Ask the Expert” blogs and articles under the Quebit website (www.quebit.com).

Please note, I recommend you review the earlier article on how to customize the welcome page prior to starting this article.

Procedure:

  1. When creating the new Welcome Page, you updated some Sample files and stored them in the QueBIT_Welcome folder.

  1. Drill down to QueBIt_Welome/js/views/ folder and open the SampleWelcomeView.html file

  1. Using a code editor, add the following code to the html file:

<div class=”samplePrimaryWelcomeMsg” style=”display: inline-block; font-size: 20px; color: #FFFFFF; margin-top: 50px”>Please choose an action from the navigation bar on the left, or ask the experts  <a href=”https://quebit.com/askquebit/business-intelligence-data-management/”target=_blank”><b>AskQueBIT</b></a> …</div>

Here is some additional information on the HTML code used above:

  • <div>: Definition of a section in a document
  • “Class = ” specifies one or more class names for an element and is mostly used to point to a class in a style sheet. However, it can also be used by a JavaScript (via the HTML DOM) to make changes to HTML elements with a specified class.
  • “Style = “ defines style information for an HTML document. Inside the <style> element you specify how HTML elements should render in a browser.
  • “href = “ Specifies the URL of the page the link goes to. If the href attribute is not present, the <a> tag is not a hyperlink.
  • “target=_blank” specifies the new target will open in a new browser window.
  1. Below is a screen print of the added code to the HTML file

 

  1. Zip the image, js, ccs folders and the spec.json file using any zip program available to you. For this example, we are writing over the original “QueBIT_Welcom.zip” file already created.

  1. Open CA. In the Manage > Customizations slide-out panel, select the Extensions tab, click the “…” symbol next to “QueBIT_Welcome” and choose “Update”

  1. Browse to the folder where the zip file is located, and select QueBIT_Welcom.zip to open

  1. The following message will appear showing you have successfully uploaded the file.

  1. Refresh the browser, and you will see the updated welcome page with the URL link.