One of the coolest things about IBM Cognos is the ability to help the user answer questions through dynamic visualizations. I recently had a task to show revenue on a map by basic economic trade areas in the US. Since this is a recently new feature to create custom map dimensions, I had to search for help. Thankfully there are great tutorials out there.
The first thing I had to get was the geographical boundaries of the trade areas I wanted to map. After a bit of searching, I was able to find this data on github here: https://github.com/ckundo/geofips . This setup saved me a ton of time.
Once I had this data in hand, I went to this blog by Mike DeGeus at PM Square. I could walk you through my steps, but they are essentially following his script, so why reinvent the wheel? https://pmsquare.com/analytics-blog/2019/9/3/mappingingcognos .
The results are great and tell the story I need it to tell. The only complaint I have about the process is the number of external programs required to get there. Essentially you need to map your boundaries in something like Mapshaper, and then import this boundary file into Mapbox. It is a bit technical, but the blog shows you the steps to use. The good thing is once you get this done, you know how to do it and the process for the next time becomes much easier.
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