Cognos 8.3 Configuration change

Hi,

I have started looking into the cognos admin activities also lately. I got some requests from developers to change the cognos 8.3 server configuration. The change is about saving the report output to the local shared drive on a per report basis.

Here are the short list of steps we need to do for setting up archive location to save the report outputs.

Following are the things we need to to set up those changes.

1) Change the cognos server configuration --> Set the saving the report output to file system to true and provide an archive base location for saving the report outputs.

2) Change the configuration settings in the cognos connection to set up the file path

Thanks,

Soma

Cognos ReportNet Hot Tips

Here are some of the list of links which gives some hot tips for Cognos ReportNet developers.
Discontinuous Cross tab Reports in Report Net using Tabular Set
1) <http://support.cognos.com/supported/supportlink/15n1/hottip07.xml>
Creating the Printer button in the Report Viewer
2) <http://support.cognos.com/supported/supportlink/14n3/hottip02.xml>
3) Removing the default parameters from the drop down list
<http://support.cognos.com/supported/supportlink/15n4/hottip06.xml>
4) Creating Banded Reports in ReportNet
<http://support.cognos.com/supported/supportlink/14n3/techreview11.xml>
5) Repointing Cognos ReportNet Reports to Different Databases
<http://support.cognos.com/supported/supportlink/15n4/hottip01.xml>
Cheers !!!
Soma

Scheduling the reports in Cognos 8

Cognos 8 architecture differentiates the requests requested by Interative and Non Interactive processes. For Ex: when the user is running the report manually, Report Service will process the reauest received whereas the scheduled report request will be processed by the Batch report Service.

Using Jobs to Schedule Reports

We can use jobs to schedule one or more reports rather keeping the Individual schedule. Jobs can be submitted to run as follows: All at once or in Sequence.

Job and Scheduling Service Settings

All scheduling will be processed by the Job and Scheduling Service. This service is directly related to the Batch report Service which runs the scheduling requests.

Following are the parameters settings which we can set while configuring the Job and Scheduling Service.

Maximum Jobs During Non-Peak Period
The maximum number of jobs during non-peak periods identifies a configurable limit to the number of jobs that can simultaneously execute during the specified non-peak period range.
Maximum Jobs During Peak Period
The maximum number of jobs during peak periods identifies a configurable limit to the number of jobs that can simultaneously execute during the specified peak period range. If an application does not perform scheduled activity during the specified peak period range, this setting is inapplicable.

Cheers!

Soma

Need to extract Report XML from Content Store

I have a requirement to extract/see the report xml from the Cognos Content Store. I have searched the Cognos Support site, they dont have documented the schema of the Content store tables. I searched for tables, it took lot of time and we need to remember the join conditions. Later i found a discussion thread, please find the link below.
<http://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/cognos-reportnet-l/report-xml-in-content-store-1526046>
One of the Guy in the thread suggested a SQL to extract the plain text report XML.
select names.name, specs.spec from CRN.CMOBJNAMES_BASE names, CRN.CMOBJPROPS7 specs where names.CMID = specs.CMID and names.name LIKE '%REPORT NAME%' -- name field is case sensitve
I am going to try this in my content store tomorrow. I also heard about this tool in the same thread. Its for meta data management.

<http://www.cognos.com/solutions/powered_by_cognos/partners/brightstar-metamanagers.html>

I want to explore what this tool is doing.

Empty Page Report in Excel

Hi All,

I have created a report with 2 to 3 lists in a single page and included page break based on one grouping column. My requirement is to deliver the report in Excel, so everytime i will test the report in Excel. 2 to 3 list is from single query and this query includes 2 query subjects (joins defined between them). Everytime i ran the report after including a column from second query subject i got a blank report. And i got a error message like below.

Then i browsed some resolution, i found the below links.
1) http://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/cognos-reportnet-l/excel-file-generation-in-cognos-sdk-1476584
2) http://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/cognos-reportnet-l/displaying-excel-report-1252168#

Then i found the issue is because of the second query subject, which has no matching rows with the first. I modified the join in FM to outer join between the 2 QS and tested the report. I can able to see the report now.
Thanks,
Soma

Cognos Interview Qs

I was going thru Cognos Forum yesterday. Some of the Cognos Interview Qs- below (which i found in the forum)

1. what is mean by lookup command? where we use it?
2. what is mean by RCD.
3. how to provide security in Framework manager?
4. What is stitched query?
5. What is mode filters in FM?
6. What is meant by Business Key and Determinant?
7. What is ragged dimension?
8. What is the difference between Conformed and Shared dimension?
9. What is the difference between business key, member key and member caption?
10. What is layout component reference?
11. what is report expression
12. which web server u r using?
13. how many documents u have prepared?
14. Performance tuning of a report & also database tuning?
15. Can we create any folder(we have public & my folder),& how?
16. where will be report will be saved.& how will submit to the end user?
17. if any errors occurred what u will do?& to whom u will report?

Migrating from Cognos ReportNet to Cognos 8

Last week i was trying to upgrade the model and publish a Cognos ReportNet 7.3 FM Model to Cognos 8. When i was trying to achieve that i have faced some issues regarding the installation.

Following things are required to check this example:

1) Cognos ReportNet 7.3 Server and Framework Manager 7.3 installed.
2) Sample Cognos ReportNet FM Model which we are going to upgrade.
3) Cognos 8 Server and FM 8 installed

I created a sample model in FM 7.3 and saved the model for upgradint it. I have opened the model in FM 8 to upgrade it. When i give upgrade model, it will verify the model - when verifying the data sources and security settings need to be similar to Cognos ReportNet server. If those ojects are not available, the we have to create in C8 environment and verify the model. If setup is available, there will be no errors regarding those missing setup. Then we have to makesure all the tables used in model are present and then we have to verify eacn and every object.

Following are some errors when i upgrade the FM model:

Verify Model Report
Object: [GOSL].[PRODUCT]
Severity: BMT-MD-3010 Object contains deprecated key and index information.
Error: BMT-MD-2031 This object contains deprecated key and index information.
Repair: BMT-MD-3510 Keys and unique indexes will be converted to determinants as long as the object does not already contain determinants.
________________________________________
Object: [GOSL].[PRODUCT]
Severity: BMT-MD-3004 The object status is invalid.
Error: BMT-MD-2008 This object has a status of 'Needs Reevaluation'. Unable to validate this object.
Repair: BMT-MD-3512 The query subject will be reevaluated.
________________________________________
Object: [GOSL].[INVENTORY_LEVELS]
Severity: BMT-MD-3010 Object contains deprecated key and index information.
Error: BMT-MD-2031 This object contains deprecated key and index information.
Repair: BMT-MD-3510 Keys and unique indexes will be converted to determinants as long as the object does not already contain determinants.
________________________________________
Object: [GOSL].[INVENTORY_LEVELS]
Severity: BMT-MD-3004 The object status is invalid.
Error: BMT-MD-2008 This object has a status of 'Needs Reevaluation'. Unable to validate this object.
Repair: BMT-MD-3512 The query subject will be reevaluated.
________________________________________
Object: [].[dataSources].[GOSL]
Severity: BMT-MD-3999 An unknown error occurred.
Error: BMT-MD-2036 The following error occurred while testing the integrity of the object: QE-DEF-0314 An error occurred while calling the content store for the database: 'GOSL' information. CCL-RCI-0004 Content Manager returned an authentication fault. CM-REQ-4159 Content Manager has returned an error in the response header.
Repair: BMT-MD-3500 There is no repair action available.