Drill Through in IBM Cognos 8 Powerplay Cubes

In IBM Cognos 8, drill-through targets are created in IBM Cognos Connection using package-based
(or model-based) drill-through definitions.
There are several benefits to authoring and storing the drill-through paths in IBM Cognos Connection
instead of in the Transformer model:
●The Transformer modeler does not need to specify any target reports or settings in the model
for the purposes of drill through.
● When changes to drill-through paths are required, the PowerCube does not have to be rebuilt
or updated.As a result, end users are less affected by cube rebuilds or updates.
● Drill-through paths can be defined by report or analysis users.
Because report or analysis users can define drill-through paths according to their needs, they
are less dependant on the Transformer modeler.

Note: In Transformer version 7.x, when the PowerCube was to be used in an IBM Cognos 8 drill throughdefinition, the Transformer modeler was required to enable the Allow drill through for this PowerCube check box on the Drill Through tab on the PowerCube property sheet. This ensured that the source value was passed as the business key during PowerCube to relational scenarios. In Transformer version 8.x, this is not required; the source value will always be passed as the business key to relational target reports.

What Is the Difference Between Analysis Studio and PowerPlay Studio?

You are a PowerPlay user and wonder how Analysis Studio differs from IBM Cognos Series 7 PowerPlay Web functionality. Analysis Studio provides deep comparative analysis, which IBM Cognos Series 7 PowerPlay Web does not offer. IBM Cognos Series 7 PowerPlay Web offers a rich exploration experience, whereas Analysis Studio provides guided exploration.
IBM Cognos 8 PowerPlay Studio brings the IBM Cognos Series 7 PowerPlay Web interface to IBM Cognos 8.
One of the biggest differences between Analysis Studio and IBM Cognos 8 PowerPlay Studio is that Analysis Studio enables analysis of information independent of where your data is stored. This means that you can analyze and report against both online analytical processing (OLAP) data sources and dimensionally-aware relational sources.
PowerPlay users who are familiar with PowerPlay Web functionality and exploration capabilities, and who expect the same functionality and exploration capabilities in IBM Cognos 8 should consider moving to IBM Cognos 8 PowerPlay Studio.
PowerPlay users who perform analysis, or deep comparative analysis, use unbalanced hierarchies, or use large data sets will find that Analysis Studio is well suited for their business needs. Consider migrating IBM Cognos Series 7 applications that would benefit from this functionality in Analysis Studio when the time is right for your business.
You can also migrate PowerPlay applications to IBM Cognos 8 PowerPlay Studio, afterward, users can choose to move from IBM Cognos 8 PowerPlay Studio to other IBM Cognos 8 studios.

Position of Calculated Categories
If a report contains calculated categories, the relative position of the rows or columns that show
the calculated categories may be different between PowerPlay and Analysis Studio. This formatting difference does not affect the data.
The following examples show the difference in the position of a calculated column, 2004 + 2005.
The first image shows the original PowerPlay report. The second image shows the same report after migration to Analysis Studio.

Charting of Summary Data
Analysis Studio does not show summary values in charts. If the original PowerPlay report included charts that showed summary values, this level of detail will not appear in the charts in Analysis Studio.

Default Display Format for Bar Charts
In PowerPlay, a simple bar chart can combine the components of a summary in one bar. Analysis Studio always shows a bar for each component of the summary.
The following examples show the differences in the display of bar charts. The first image shows
the original PowerPlay report. The second image shows the same report after migration to Analysis Studio.

Default View in Analysis Studio
You can change the default view for an analysis by changing the package configuration properties.
This allows you to create a default view similar to PowerPlay, where the order of dimensions and
measures determines the default rows, columns, and measure when you open the cube.

Hidden Child Levels
In PowerPlay reports, when all child levels of a parent level are hidden, the parent level is also hidden.
The parent level appears in reports migrated to Analysis Studio. For example, a PowerPlay report contains the levels Products and Outdoor Protection. Products is the parent of Outdoor Protection.
If you hide Outdoor Protection and all of its child levels, no data appears for Products or Outdoor
Protection. If you migrate this report to Analysis Studio, Products appears

Hidden Measures
In PowerPlay reports, you can hide measures. Analysis Studio does not support hiding measures.

What is IBM Cognos 8 PowerPlay?

IBM Cognos 8 PowerPlay provides the data analysis and exploration capabilities that are familiar to IBM Cognos Series 7 PowerPlay report authors, analysts, and users in an IBM Cognos 8 environment.
By integrating with IBM Cognos 8, PowerPlay is able to take advantage of the IBM Cognos 8
architecture and features while preserving your existing PowerPlay applications and user experience.
IBM Cognos 8 PowerPlay brings the proven exploration and analysis capabilities of IBM Cognos
Series 7 PowerPlay into the IBM Cognos 8 environment. IBM Cognos 8 PowerPlay maintains the
familiar appearance and functionality of IBM Cognos Series 7 PowerPlay for report authors and
users, and also provides the enhanced server architecture and scalability of the IBM Cognos 8
environment.
The IBM Cognos 8 service-oriented architecture makes possible the integration of PowerPlay into the IBM Cognos 8 environment.
Among the benefits, this architecture

• allows the PowerPlay service in the IBM Cognos 8 environment to continue to use the same
  query engine as in IBM Cognos Series 7.
  As a result, PowerPlay reports and other content, such as cubes, bookmarks, security policies,
  and Upfront hierarchies, migrate easily into the IBM Cognos 8 environment.
• adds PowerPlay as an IBM Cognos 8 studio and allows PowerPlay to interact with other IBM Cognos 8 studios.
  For example, users can open PowerPlay reports in other studios that are available to them.
  Users can also drill through from PowerPlay to other studios. In IBM Cognos 8, making drill through available to users requires less involvement from modelers and administrators than in IBM Cognos Series 7.
• maintains the data analysis and exploration capabilities of PowerPlay
  Report authors can continue to work with a familiar interface to produce reports, also leverage the features of other IBM Cognos 8 studios.
• provides a single access point for all IBM Cognos 8 administration settings.
  IBM Cognos Administration is a zero-footprint Web-based interface that provides flexible
  access to administration settings.

Important Info For Migration of Cubes

Transformer
You can use IBM Cognos PowerCubes and Transformer models that were generated by Transformer 7.3 or later directly in IBM Cognos 8. The cubes and models are upwards compatible and require no migration or upgrade tools. You can run reports and analyses in IBM Cognos 8 against the IBM Cognos PowerCubes.
If you want to use the integration features of Transformer with IBM Cognos 8, you can upgrade
IBM Cognos Series 7.x Transformer models to IBM Cognos 8 BI Transformer 8.3 or higher. This
allows you to use IBM Cognos 8 data sources (such as published packages), list reports authored
in Query Studio or Report Studio, authenticate using IBM Cognos 8 security, and publish directly to IBM Cognos Connection.
If the model was secured in IBM Cognos Series 7 you must configure the IBM Cognos Series 7
namespace in IBM Cognos 8 before you load the model. The name ID that you use to configure
the namespace in IBM Cognos 8 must match the name used in IBM Cognos Series 7.
For more information about upgrading IBM Cognos Series 7 secured PowerCubes, see the IBM
Cognos 8 Transformer User Guide.
For IBM Cognos Series 7 PowerCubes to be used in IBM Cognos 8, we recommend that you
optimize the cubes for use in IBM Cognos 8 by using the pcoptimizer utility, which is supplied with IBM Cognos 8. Otherwise, PowerCubes that were created with previous versions of Transformer may take too long to open in the IBM Cognos 8 Web studios. This optimization utility is suitable for older PowerCubes when the model no longer exists or the data used to build the PowerCube is no longer available. It is not necessary to run this command line utility for cubes created in IBM Cognos 8 Transformer. For more information about optimizing PowerCubes, see the Transformer User Guide.

You can publish single PowerCube data sources and packages to IBM Cognos Connection interactively in Transformer or in the command line. You can also publish silently using batch scripts after building a PowerCube. A user who has privileges to create data sources and packages in IBM Cognos Connection can publish PowerCubes in IBM Cognos Connection as well. The MDC file must be in a secured location that the IBM Cognos 8 dispatcher can access. Packages that use multiple PowerCubes or PowerCubes mixed with other data sources should be published using Framework Manager.
If you use an IBM Cognos Series 7 PowerCube as a data source, IBM Cognos 8 converts the cube
data from the encoding that was used on the system where the PowerCube was created. For a successful conversion, IBM Cognos Series 7 PowerCubes must be created with a system locale set to match the data in the PowerCube.

INSTALLATION PROCESS FOR IBM G0! DASHBOARD MULTI-SERVER INSTALL

System Specifications
Gateway Server (GS)
Dispatcher installed on a different server with IBM Cognos 8v4 application tier (MAINServer)

Installation Process
Get IBM Cognos 8v4 BI correctly configured and running on MAINServer (Reference Cognos Configuration User Guide)
Install IBM Go! Dashboard component on GS

Navigate to the location where the IBM Cognos 8 Go! Dashboard files are located and double-click issetup.exe file.
Follow the direction in the installation wizard to complete the installation.
Configure IBM Go! Dashboard
Set Java home
Open Command line, and navigate to Cognos_install_dir\dashboard\bin
Type set JAVA_HOME=path_to_Java_installationand press Enter

Install IBM Go Dashboard service

Configure Dashboard.properties file
Navigate to Cognos_install_dir\war\dashboard using Windows Explorer
Change URLs for dispatcher, Gateway and content.
In command line, navigate to Cognos_install_dir\war\dashboard
Type build.bat and press Enter

To start IBM Go Dashboard Service navigate back to Cognos_install_dir\dashboard\bin
Type net start IBMCognos8GoDashboard and press Enter

Configure Tomcat
Change Tomcat port to 9301 (or any other port) from the default port. (Cognos 8 BI uses Tomcat4, configured to use connection port 8080 by default, which is why to avoid conflict we need to change Tomcat6 connection port)
Navigate to Cognos_install_dir\tomcat6.0.14\conf using Windows Explorer
Open Server.xml in a text editor
Locate the following piece of code:
Change Connector port from 8080 to 9301
Start Tomcat6 service.
Using Command line, navigate to Cognos_install_dir\tomcat6.0.14\bin
Type startup.bat and press Enter.

After the Tomcat service is started successfully, using Internet Explorer navigate to http://localhost:9301/ to start Tomcat Administration.

Deploy .war file which we created using build.bat and dashboard.properties file.
Click Tomcat Manager from Tomcat Administration
When prompted for credentials, enter:
Username: system
Password: manager
Scroll down the page to the Deploy section.

Enter values for the properties:
Context Path: This value should be the same as the one specified in the dashboard.properties file XML Configuration file URL: Path to tomcat-context.xml file
WAR or Directory URL: Path to the dashboard.war file

Test Go! Dashboard
Navigate to http://MachineName:Port/cognos/dashboard/html

The above screen is what you should expect to see if everything has been configured correctly.

Even though IBM Go! Dashboard recognizes Cognos 8 BI, and displays the content within the Content Store, Cognos 8 BI is still unaware of the existence of Go! Dashboard. We will need to install Go! Dashboards on MAINServer too. Since Go! Dashboard is already configured with the dispatcher it’s supposed to use, we only need to install Go! Dashboard on MAINServer with no need to configure it.

Install IBM Go! Dashboard component on MAINServer
Navigate to the location where the IBM Cognos 8 Go! Dashboard files are located and double-click issetup.exe file.
Follow the direction in the installation wizard to complete the installation.
No need to configure any components or start any services on this server.

Now we have provided a link between the BI server and Go! Dashboard server.
Another issue that might arrive when running Go! Dashboards is multiple logins to GO Dashboard even though the user is already logged into Cognos Connections.
To resolve this issue, we’re going to need to adjust the cache settings in Cognos Configuration.

Open IBM Cognos 8 Configuration
From the Actions menu, select Edit Global Configuration

Click General tab
Under Cookie Settings set the path to “/” (without quotation marks) as shown below

Restart IBM Cognos 8 and IBM Go! Dashboard services

Note:

If Go! Dashboard Service Pack 1 is installed on the server, Dashboard.properties file needs to be updated. Variables will be used for the name of the context_root and dist_path in the file and they should be changed to hard-coded names.
Since this is the first generation of Go! Dashboard, if there is a problem during installation, uninstallation and re-installation is the fastest solution. Uninstallation will require deleting the tomcat6.0.14 folder manually. This is done because Tomcat keeps the configurations and those need to be deleted.

Functionality of "Save Report"option in "Select a delivery method" In Cognos

Problem(Abstract)
When a report run in Cognos Viewer and when report take time, a pop-up appear and we can select "Select a delivery method". At this step we can show 3 options, one of them is "Save Report". When you select "Save Report", nothing appear and you go back to the main portal.

Cause
When you click the "Save option", the report will be transferred to a background report process, executed and it's output saved. The immediate action the user is seeing is being taken back to the portal as the report will run in the background. If you go into the Administration tools, you could see that there is a background execution of the report running. Once it is finished, you should see the saved output icon next to the report in the portal. This may need a refresh on the portal.
One problem with this may happen with prompted reports, where the prompt page buildup takes long enough to get the options popup displayed. If you select save in this situation, I believe nothing is going to happen as the prompts are not yet fulfilled.
Resolving the problem
No action

Cognos8 Express authoring mode

One of the best features of Cognos is adhoc reporting, users can get any data without the help of professional report developer using query studio.
There was a limitation with query studio, users were not able to use advance reporting features.
Now in Cognos 8 users are able to use advance features as well because Cognos 8 introduced Express authoring mode.
The Express authoring mode provides a simplified and focused Report Studio interface.It is designed for non-technical users to create traditional financial and management statement reports.Note :Express authoring mode allows access only to dimensionally-modeled data and uses a member-oriented data tree.This authoring mode allows you to see live data and supports only crosstab reports.It contains a subset of the features available in the Professional authoring mode.When you are in the Express authoring mode, if you open a report that was authored in the Professional authoring mode, you can see but cannot modify objects that can be inserted only in the Professional authoring mode, such as charts, maps, and lists.Then what are you waiting for? Just grant the access of Express authoring mode to your users and let them get benefit of using Cognos8 as their information management tool.