Simple Dashboard

Hi Guys,

Below is dashboard using default dashboard property in cognos .Not using business insight.These dashboard were available in cognos 8.4 as well .Go through below link for detailed explaination

Ironside Group-Dashboard

1) create a report with 2 prompts .Year and Region and Very important a finish button .As its a multiselect the prompt values will not get submitted and you wont see any changes

2) Create a chart report and put filter based on this prompts year =?Year? kind . and make them optional

Cognos 8 Mashup Service

Hi Guys,

This is very interesting stuff .You can now integrate your Cognos report with your regular webapplication .
Example is your internet banking .that is a web application .Consider you have a report showing your expenditure through year on various items .Now that report is made in cognos and is available on cognos portal but you dont even have cognos login you have only bank password . Still you are able to see that cognos report developed by some cognos developer and which is filtered on your account details

Now that is awesome right .You have the all the abilities of cognos into your web application .The web application just calls a webservice that provides you the report .Without the web application bothering about the performance of report , data structure and all that .


IBM Cognos 8 Mashup Service (CMS), a new web service shipped with the 8.4 Platform, is an API (application programming interface) that automatically and securely exposes BI content as a web service for use in operational applications, business process management (BPM) workflows and mashups. With this capability, you now can extend your BI content into existing applications and processes that are critical to your business users as well as add new context by “mashing” content with other applications.

I have not actually used it till now , but we try to use it in future if i get some time and chance.

Parameter map Example

Parameter maps are basically lookup tables .simple example would be getting the product information based on the environment variable there are some predefined macros that help you get the information about a parameter map

 There are 2 types of session parameters .
 1) Environment (defined by cognos) and
 2) Model (this we can create)

 runlocale and machine are two session parameters that need some more understanding parameter maps and session parameter are defined by using #$ (hash and dollar)

 Session parameters are macros available in either Framework Manager or in Report Studio that can be used to dynamically determine and display information about a user's session. This can be especially handy for general display purposes (such as a person's name) or for security implementation. [edit]Parameters

These are the session parameters available in 8.3. account.defaultName account.personalInfo.businessPhone
account.personalInfo.email
 account.personalInfo.givenName
account.personalInfo.surname
 account.personalInfo.timeZoneID
account.personalInfo.userName

The syntax to use this information in a report (say in a data item) is: #sq($account.defaultName)# Additionally, one of the most useful macros is: #CSVIdentityNameList()# which returns a list of all the groups a user is in (all namespaces). One way to use that to secure data is to put a filter on a query subject in Framework Manager with some data column looking up the person's groups to see if the row should be returned: [AD Security Group] in (#CSVIdentityNameList()#)

Some basic java script

Hi Guys ,

Some basic java script

1) Take a text item

2)Put HTML items on both left and right of it

3) Start <div > tag on left and end on right HTML

4)Put the code in the left HTML

5)Note -Always try to write small pieces of code in java save them in notepad and then use this as parts later .Its difficult to track errors can be something very small .This will save you a lot of time.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
function f_aler()
{
  alert("this is a function call");
}
</script>
<div id="btn1"  onclick="f_aler();" >
<p>"this is text to click" </p>
</div>

Below is some script that will allow you to click on column title and assign value to prompt.Can be helpful for dynamic column sorting

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
function f_aler(id)
{
  alert(id) ;
var form = getFormWarpRequest();
       var textB  = form._textEditBoxABC;
       textB.value = "Hello";
}
</script>
<div id="btn1"  onclick="f_aler(id);" >
</div>

For below code you require two text box prompts .For one of the prompt set the default value to asc

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
function f_aler(id)
{
  alert(id) ;
var form = getFormWarpRequest();
       var textB  = form._textEditBoxABC;
       textB.value = "Hello";
       var textc  = form._textEditBoxascsel;
        if (textc.value =="asc")
       {
           textc.value ="dsc"; 
        }
      else
      {
         textc.value ="asc";
       }      
  
}
</script>
<div id="btn1"  onclick="f_aler(id);" >
</div>

USER PERMISSIONS IN COGNOS 10

Im Cognos Roles and Group are parent for all permissions.Read,Write,execute,set policy,Traverse
After that comes public folder after that folders and packages.At each level you can overide
permission from parent

Roles have override access permissions.Who are parent for a roles??

I dont know.I think system administrator is parent for all.
In properties of a folder there are 3 options.General,Permissions,Capabilities
consumer has traverse access can only see general tab

Question is with traverse option why you can open report studio.Though traverse
ppl can see report studio they cannot execute is.The option for executing does not come it.Now
how to hide report studio for those
users — can it be done through capability

what is execute permission .What impact does it have— You can open report
studio but you cant create report.I think you can only execute reports.Now main
idea is to hide even the report studio option for those ppl
Grant allow external data property is not set in capabilities.Need to enable this.

When you publish a package.By default is has capabilities.That come from parent.Now you are
directly publishing the package in public folder.Who is the parent here??

Public folders has properties.Its one of the tabs that gets overlooked very easily.
How to assign capabilities to a role.Saying that consumers can use report studio.How to do this??

Ans- Capabilities can be set in public folder properties or they can be set in package or folder
properties.You can override permissions from parent entry.Setting it in public folders or
packager or folder properties does it.

When next to report you can see report studio icons,run button.That is due to permission
read,execute.If you have permission however your group does not have report studio capability you
cannot open report in report studio.
Go to properties , go to report studio.Click on properties.Here you can say which group can use
this capability.However deny has higher precedence over grant.So even if someone is included in
everyone group you can deny access by including him in other group and denying that group access.

Every group has properties?There are permissions there.What does those permissions mean??

Group properties , permission are used for specifying permission for the group that will be used
throught cognos when the group is mentioned.At any time we can override this permission.Most
common place to override group permissions are public folder properties.
—
Every capability has property.Those property say who has right to that thing.Like report studio c
capability has permissions .Suppose you deny any group execute and traverse right .They cannot
even see report studio icon.

But you can still see the report studio in launch option.How to handle this??How to hide cognos report studio option in launch explorer.?

Resolving the problem

On the Report Studio capability, set deny on the traverse and execute rights.Steps:Assuming users
belong to a group called for example, ReportStudioNoAccess
1. Log in as administrator in the Cognos Connection web portal
2. Click on Tools->Capabilities menu option (8.2 or lower). In 8.3, go to Launch->Cognos
Administration, click on the Security tab and then click on Capabilities link.
3. In 8.2, click on the Report Studio “Set Properties” icon and then the Permissions tab. In
8.3, click on the triangle to the right of the Report Studio capability, choose Set Properties
and click the Permissions tab.
4. From the Set properties – Report Studio page, add the ReportStudioNoAccess group and deny
them execute and traverse rights.
5. Click OK to save the settings
6. Log in as a user that belongs to the group that you denied execute/transverse rights to and
ensure they cannot see the report studio link next to reports or in the upper right of the Cognos
Connection page.

Tuple and Complete Tuple explained with examples

Hi Guys ,

Usually the simplest thing that most of cognos developers know is Tuple will give you a exact cell in a crross tab .Like we have Year as rows ,product line as column and revenue as measure

So by tuple we can get tuple ([Revenue],[2004],[Camping Equipment])

So while working with crosstab and charts in which scenarios can we use tuple is the first thing to consider.And why we decided to go tuple in those cases

IBM defination

The tuple function serves to specify the specific context that a filter, sort order or another function (such as value() or rank()) will operate against. A tuple indicates which coordinates of the cube are in use for the operation being executed.

where to use Tuple

In the example we are getting the revenue for 2005 because time is showing values for 2005.So as
long as we have the dimensional value in crosstab we do not require to go for tuple.Consider we
did not have 2005 in the crosstab and we wanted to work on 2005 revenue .then we go for tuple.
One more thing to keep in mind is we are not specifying both the dimensions required for tuple
only one dimension.The other dimension it will take from current dimension.In this case the
product line.



Note Every hierarchy has a default member or default measure in case of measures.The default member in case of [great_outdoors_company].[Years].[Years] is YEAR which means it will have all the years data consider the year hierarchy has 4 years 2004,2005,2006,2007 then Year means all the members .So in case of complete tuple when we say default member in case of year it will be all years.


Few Useful notes

when we go for set ?

In a crosstab we need to show months as columns say Jan ,Feb march .We just drag the month from teh model and it has jan,feb march as members so it workds fine.

Suppose you want to define a new column which has Year 2004,Quarter1 2004,Jan,Feb,March you put all of these members into one set .So you now have one new column which has all the members that you want and without set you would have to put these members manually as columns .

ORA- 12541 TNS listener issue

Hi

this is the most frequent issue that i encounter whenever i start cognos on my pc.So below is the steps to resolve it

1)TNS Listener should start before any other service like oracle database.
2)When oracle database comes up the listener listens to it and attaches .So listener should be on first

If you are not able to start listener from the services.The go to oracle in start up menu and click on configuration and migration and click on net configuration assistant.and configure your listener

If you want to check if the listener is working ping ORCL or the TNSname in you tnsnames.ora file this will make sure that your Ip address given in the tnsnames files is correct.

Recently my ip add got changed and the tnsname file had the old address

Go to command prompt and type ipconfig to get your ip address

One of the things you can do to check if the listener is listening to your tnsnames is type in

tnsping orcl

where orcl is your tnsname

Below is a post which tells about tnsping ,Ping how they can be used to solve your database connection problems

http://www.oracleutilities.com/OSUtil/ping.html


Belos is a very useful command to find the address of listener and its status.In My case my ip had changed and my tnsnames file still had the old ip.So when i used lsnrctl stat command i realised that the ip of the listener is different than my ip in tnsnames.

lsnrctl stat

Check below.When the listener is present on 192.168.2.4 the service name is still orcl.168.2.6 which is the old ip.so this has to be taken care in tnsnames file

Listening Endpoints Summary...
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=192.168.2.4)(PORT=1521)))
Services Summary...
Service "orcl.168.2.6" has 1 instance(s).
Instance "orcl", status READY, has 1 handler(s) for this service...
Service "orclXDB.168.2.6" has 1 instance(s).
Instance "orcl", status READY, has 1 handler(s) for this service...
Service "orcl_XPT.168.2.6" has 1 instance(s).

what is the difference between 127.000.0.1 and  192.168.2.4 .Why do we write in Host  192.168.2.4 .Though your home ip is 127.000.0.1 . And why will your cognos fail to connect to database installed on your own machine if the net connection is down  ??

192.168.2.4- --- This is assigned to your by your router .Its your ip address for your local network.

Now it's important to note that this is the IP address of the computer. In fact, since I'm behind a router, this is not the IP address that will actually be used when I access the internet. The IP address shown here is my computer's IP address on my local network only.


You can also get ORA-12170 


Check your listener.ora file .Sometime the listener does not start up .the common reason can be ip of your system that is ther in the listener file is wrong .

So when you reconfigure it then the ip gets set automatically. So if you get the error check you listner.ora file and TNS name file .Both of them should have same ips.

Max and Min calculation side by side

Hi Guys ,

I dont know why i was thinking we cannot calculate Max and Min side by side.It took me a while to figure out.Below is the case

Use go sales ,sales namespace .Take Current year, date,Quantity ..filter current year to be 2004 .

1) try to take max(date for currentyear) and Min(date) for currentyear you will see that you are getting Jan 1 2004 and Jan 31 2004 .Which is as what you expect.

Now put quantity next to it.You will see that you get 0 for max quantity.The reason is there is no value for Jan 1 2004 in database similary for Jan 31 2004 . So if you want the next date for which actual values are there put filter quantity is not null .

Still one more thing remains .You want to show only max and Min date quantities

use total( case when ( max_date =date) then (quantity) else (0) end).Use aggregate as calculated and roll up as total.Note this is very essential
as without putting total outside you will end up getting all weird answers

.

Great site with Lot of cognos learning videos for free

Hi Guys

If you are regular users of cognoise community.You will be already familiar with this site .If not check out the below link its great for anyone from newcomer to advanced developer to learn new things .

You need to login and create a userid to view this.But the registration process takes less than a minute.

http://www.bspsoftware.com/Support/PodcastChannel/tabid/228/Default.aspx

Ignore the Metamanager links.The cognos links are good

Post that i found useful
1) Taking a look at IBM Cognos 10 Active Reports

http://www.bspsoftware.com/Home/tabid/37/Support/PodcastChannel/tabid/228/Default.aspx

Things i liked is - Drillable with bread crumps .You can come back to where you want in drill.Like we have 5 level we can come from 5 to 3 without coming to 4 at all.
2)Moving values like how share market values are displays its flashy.
3)

GMAIL-Your Free SMTP server for Cognos

Hi Guys

Considering your are configuring a cognos on your laptop and need to have a SMTP server.The easiest way to do it is use a gmail account below are the steps for that.

To enable that feature you need to have email account, and also have access to SMTP server (outgoing message server). You may download any smtp server, but the easiest solution is to open an account at gmail.com (or any other free email site, witch allow you to use smtp server for free).
Open gmail account, and go to the Cognos configuration => Data Access => Notification. Change “SMTP mail server” to smtp.gmail.com:587. In “account and password” field provide your account name like your_account_name@gmail.com and your gmail password. In “Default sender” match email where you want to receive notification, for example your new gmail. Save changes and restart server.

After Cognos 10 Install not able to publish model using framework manager

Hi Guys

I had installed Cognos10 on my laptop recently.Had imported cognos10 samples to oracle database .I was able to create reports using gosales and gosalesdw package properly .However when i tried to open any .cpf file (Model) it was showing as verifying security and nothing was happening .It was giving a blank screen .

So i found out reason for it .

When you install Cognos10 make sure that you install Cognos10 BI reporting and Cognos10 Framework manager in a separate folder and allow full access to all authenticated users as well as user-PC to access the folder .

For this .. Right click on folder in which you have installed Cognos10 BI reporting , go to security tab and click on advanced .Give ful permission to every user if its you home laptop .This should solve your issue .

Remember the first line in cognos installation .The user should have admin rights on system .It means that the user should have full permission on every folder that you use for cognos10 installation.

If still you are not able to connect then .. How to debug the issue .

Copy your gateway URI from framework manager configuration to your internet explorer and see if the cognos10 public folders opens or not.In normal case it should open fine ,but if its not opening then thats the issue your URI has a problem .

Similar case with your gateway URI .when pasted in internet explorer it will open public folder page but the page will be broken .You will wont be able to see the public folder or my folder clearly only names no images .But that is all right .It means your dispatcher URI is correct.

Below is my Gateway URI for cognos10

http://localhost:80/ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognos.cgi

It has a issue .. after localhost:80/cognos10 should come . where cognos10 is a alias that i have created in IIS or apache web server .

http://localhost:8080/cognos10/cgi-bin/cognos.cgi --correct URI

Change it and Framework manager connects properly .