COGNOS MANAGEMENT SERIES PLANNING

Transcription

1 COGNOS MANAGEMENT SERIES PLANNING CREATING IMPROMPTU AND IWR REPORTS FROM CONTRIBUTOR PUBLISH TABLES THE NEXT LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE

2 This document applies to Cognos Management Series Planning version 7.1 and may also apply to subsequent releases. To check for newer versions of this document, visit the Cognos support Web site ( This edition published Copyright Copyright (C) 2003 Cognos Incorporated While every attempt has been made to ensure that the information in this document is accurate and complete, some typographical errors or technical inaccuracies may exist. Cognos does not accept responsibility for any kind of loss resulting from the use of information contained in this document. This document shows the publication date. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. Any improvements or changes to either the product or the document will be documented in subsequent editions. U.S. Government Restricted Rights. The software and accompanying materials are provided with Restricted Rights. Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government is subject to the restrictions in subparagraph (C)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause at DFARS , or subparagraphs (C) (1) and (2) of the Commercial Computer Software - Restricted Rights at 48CFR , as applicable. The Contractor is Cognos Corporation, 67 South Bedford Street, Burlington, MA This software/documentation contains proprietary information of Cognos Incorporated. All rights are reserved. Reverse engineering of this software is prohibited. No part of this software/documentation may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, or translated into another language without the prior written consent of Cognos Incorporated. Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Information about Cognos Products and Accessibility can be found at 2

3 Creating Impromptu and IWR Reports From Contributor Publish Tables The Contributor Publish tables represent the common shared view of a business plan. You will probably want to develop and distribute reports based on this information. The Cognos Impromptu product line includes Impromptu, used to author reports against a relational database, and Impromptu Web Reports, used to provide the infrastructure and service to distribute those reports to a wide range of consumers though Web browsers and Web servers. Overview There are three main stages when developing an Impromptu Web Reports application: Develop an Impromptu catalog. An Impromptu catalog is a metadata store that describes the tables in the database, the logical join paths between them, business oriented views of table columns, typical calculated columns, and if necessary, security rules. To create a catalog you must have a copy of Impromptu Administrator installed. Report authors use Impromptu to design reports. Reports use the metadata in the catalog to define the data access required. They can include complex layout and run time prompts. Reports are published to an Impromptu Web Reports server. When published, reports are available to end-users and can be organized in folders, scheduled to run at specific times, and form a reporting application. This document concentrates on the first stage, defining a catalog based on the Contributor Publish tables. This stage uses Planning specific information. Once the Contributor Publish tables are developed as a catalog, report authoring and delivery are identical to any Impromptu reporting application. For more information about report authoring and delivery, see the Impromptu and Impromptu Web Reports documentation. The Cognos documentation for Impromptu and Impromptu Web Reports describes the remaining two stages. Publish Tables Planning provides the ability to publish Contributor data to a set of tables and views that form a star schema reflection of the overall Contributor model. This is controlled though the Contributor Administration Console. The Impromptu catalog and reports rely on these tables and views. This document assumes that this publishing step has been done and that these tables exist in your model. Careful consideration must be given to Contributor models utilizing the data dimension for publish. This functionality may limit the report formatting options or may create a format incompatible with Impromptu-depending on the structure of the Contributor cube. 3

4 All information provided in this document assumes the data dimension for publish functionality is not being used. Defining a Catalog A catalog describes information in one database schema. You first create an empty catalog pointing to the schema that contains the Publish tables for your Contributor model. You then define the tables for your catalog. There are four sets of tables that you may choose to create the definition: Fact View Tables One fact view table is created for each cube, and is named in the format fv_<cube name>. These tables contain the detailed data points for the cube. They also contain GUID columns that act as foreign keys, providing join paths to hierarchy tables. The fact view tables have been cleansed and do not contain BIFs, weighted averages, and may not contain some levels of complex aggregations. Note: In version 2.x, the name format for the fact view table is "factview_<cube name>". Export View Tables One export view table is created for each cube, and is named in the format ev_<cube name>. These tables contain the detailed data points for the cube. They also contain column names that act as foreign keys, providing join paths to hierarchy tables. The export view tables do contain data values for aggregated values in each dimension (for example, this table will contain values for a particular product, plus the total value for a category of products and for all products). Note: In version 2.x, the name format for the export view table is "exportview_<cube name>". Hierarchy Tables One hierarchy table is created for each d-list, and is named in the format hy_<d-list name>. These tables show the hierarchy of the dimension, with columns named Level0, Level1, and so on. They contain one row for each leaf level item in the dimension. Depending on the reports you want to create, you may also wish to use the tables called it_<d-list name>". The same data cleansing found in the fact_view tables applies to hierarchy tables. Note: In version 2.x, hierarchy tables are dimension tables and the name format is dimension_<d-list name>; the name format for the "it_<d-list>" table is "item_<dlist>". Item Tables One item table is created for each d-list, and is named in the format it_<d-list name>. These tables show the data of the dimension, with columns named Level0, Level1, and so on. They contain one row for each leaf level item in the dimension. These tables do not contain information on the hierarchy of the dimension, but they do include rows for every item in the hierarchy, including high-level summary items. Note: In version 2.x, item tables are dimension tables and the name format is dimension_<d-list name>; the name format for the "it_<d-list>" table is "item_<dlist>". 4

5 In all cases, names assigned to the tables and views in the database schema will closely reflect the names assigned to the d-lists in the model. Names may be truncated or altered to avoid duplicating names or exceeding naming limits of the RDBMS. As part of the Impromptu catalog definition, these truncated names can be mapped to full names that are meaningful to other report authors. Create the Catalog The first task in defining a catalog is to create an empty catalog. Steps 1. Log on to Impromptu Administrator. 2. From the Catalog menu, select Databases. 3. In the Database gateways and drivers list, select the appropriate database type and click New Database. We recommend you use ODBC connection, which requires you to create a System DSN. 4. In the Database Definition dialog, complete the Definition parameters for the database and click OK. 5. From the Catalog menu, select New. You may be prompted for your username and password. 6. In the File name box, type a name for the catalog. 7. From the Database Name drop-down list, select the database connection you defined in the preceding steps. Depending on your database, you may need to specify a database catalog name. The database catalog name is typically the Contributor model name. For example, 5

6 in Microsoft SQL Server you need to specify a Provider string such as Initial Catalog=tutorial3. 8. Click OK. Impromptu connects to the database (and prompts for a username and password if needed) and displays a list of schemas. 9. Select the schema that contains the Publish tables. Add Fact View and Dimension Tables When you have created the empty catalog, you are ready to add the fact view and hierarchy tables. You can add tables as part of the catalog creation and you can add additional tables later. Steps 1. If you are adding additional tables, from the Catalog menu, select Tables. 2. Select the fact view tables, for example fv_expenses, in the Database tables pane at the left and click Add. The table appears in the Catalog tables pane. 3. Expand the fact view table in the Database tables pane and look for each GUID_<dlist name> column. The GUID_<d-list name> column represents a link to a hierarchy table called hy_<d-list name> (allowing for truncation of names). 4. Select the associated hierarchy tables, for example hy_versions and hy_expenses, in the Database tables pane and click Add to add it to the Catalog tables pane. 5. In the Create joins drop-down list, select the Using Key or First Matching Column. 6

7 6. Click OK. To review the joins, go to Catalog>Joins. As the column names match, Impromptu automatically creates the joins between each fv_<cube name> table and each corresponding hy_<d-list name> table using the GUID column that contains unique (surrogate) key values. The Months Hierarchy By default, each fact view table row is linked to an associated hierarchy table (hy_<d-list name> table) by a GUID column. The exception is the date_months column that contains a date value instead of a GUID value to link to the hy_months tables. For most reporting purposes, these date values are appropriate. If you need to report based on the hierarchy of date periods in your Planning model, you can: Link the fact view table to the hierarchy table for dates (this will have a name such as hy_months) by the date_months column. Add Export Views Fact view tables contain the detailed data points for the cube, but they do not contain data values for aggregated values in each dimension (for example, this table will contain values for a particular product, but not the total value for a category of products or for all products). Export view tables also contain the detailed data points for the cube, and these tables do contain data values for aggregated values in each dimension (for example, this table will contain values for a particular product, plus the total value for a category of products and for all products). If you want your report to contain information about higher-level aggregate items you have three choices: You can use the fact view tables and then use Impromptu to generate values for high-level aggregate items by adding the values of their children. This works if the correct roll-up rule between every parent and its children is simple addition. You can define the export view tables as part of your catalog and read the aggregate values directly from the database. You can create a second D-Cube in the Analyst Library (used for the Contributor application) that has no calculations, BiFs, or Calculation Options in it and d-link the data from the original D-Cube into the Publishing D-Cube. You can then use Access Tables to hide the Publishing D-Cube from the users but still have the data come across for the publish function. This will allow all items to be published and viewed in the reports. The data definitions used by the export view tables stores fact data in a blob format that is not directly accessible through Impromptu. To access export view tables through your catalog you must first define Cognos oriented views in the database. An export view is typically named ev_<cube name> and consists of n columns. Each column except the last has a name such as dimension_<d-list name> and acts as a foreign key to the hy_<d-list name> tables. The last column is called exportvalue and is the numeric fact value, but stored as a string within a blob. Using your database administration tools, you need to define a new view that recreates the columns, but casts the export value to a numeric value. For example, CREATE VIEW cv_revenue_plan AS 7

8 SELECT dimension_product, dimension_channels, dimension_elist, dimension_months, dimension_versions, CAST(CAST(exportvalue AS varchar(8000)) AS float(53)) AS exportvalue FROM dbo.ev_revenue_plan When you have created the new view, you can add it as a table to your Impromptu catalog. Steps 1. From the Catalog menu, select Tables. 2. Select the new Cognos export view tables, for example cv_revenue_plan, in the Database tables pane at the left and click Add. The table appears in the Catalog tables pane. 3. Expand the export view table in the Database tables pane and look for each dimension_<d-list name> column. The dimension_<d-list name> column represents a link to a hierarchy table called hy_<d-list name> (allowing for truncation of names). 4. Select the associated hierarchy tables, for example hy_versions and hy_expenses, in the Database tables pane and click Add to add them to the Catalog tables pane. 5. In the Create joins drop-down list, select Manual. In this case the name of the foreign key column in the Cognos view is hy_<d-list name>. This maps to the column called name_<d-list name> in the hierarchy table, and therefore you must set the join path manually. 6. In the Joins dialog, manually create the join paths between the hy_<d-list name> column in the Cognos export view table and the name_<d-list name> column in the 8

9 hierarchy table. Enhance the Catalog Multiple Fact View Tables A single Impromptu catalog can be used to access one or more fact view tables from the Publish database. You should create a folder for each fact view table that contains folders for the measures and hierarchies. Note: Take care when importing tables and establishing relationships, particularly when using the join strategy of matching names. Several fact view tables may share common hierarchy column names and incorrect matching will create false joins. When defining catalogs for multiple fact tables, we recommend that joins be established manually between the fact view and hierarchy tables. Define User Oriented Folders Initially Impromptu generates one folder for each table defined containing one Impromptu item per table column. This results in one folder for each fact view table and one folder for each dimension. You can leave the folder structure, or you can make report authoring simpler if you rearrange and rename your columns so that: You have one folder for each cube that combines items for the fact view table and its associated dimensions. 9

10 Items that are GUIDs are removed since these are only intended for joining tables, rather than for user reporting. Folder and item names are renamed to remove prefixes (such as fv_ ) and to recreate full names that have been truncated. Add Filters and Prompts You can add filters to the folders to enable authors to select rows quickly in the hierarchy table, based on levels. To do this, create one filter per level in the hierarchy as an Impromptu catalog picklist prompt. When you add a filter to a report, users are presented with a pick list of the values that appear in the dimensions. Steps 1. Log on to Impromptu Administrator. 2. To enable editing of the catalog, ensure that any open reports are closed. 3. From the Catalog menu, select Folder. 4. In the Folders dialog, expand the appropriate folder (for the hy_ table for a hierarchy) in the Catalog folders list. 5. Click Prompt. 6. In the Prompt Definition dialog, create a new Catalog picklist prompt. A Catalog picklist prompt will display a prompt and an available list of values. 7. Click OK. 8. In the Folders dialog, click Filter. 10

11 9. In the Edit Condition dialog, create a new filter for the values that will be returned at the prompt. 10. Click OK. When you create reports, you can now include the Filter by Version object. This object presents users with a prompt for the version they require, and then filters the report. Prompt objects can also be used for other purposes. About Annotations Three tables and a view are created for annotations. The annotation table contains the celllevel annotations. The annotation object table contains annotations associated with the model, dimension, or cubes; and the annotation user table which contains the users in the system when Publish was performed. Warning: These tables are not connected to the Star Schema and need to be manually joined to the appropriate factview (fv_cubename) table using Impromptu functionality. Nodestate This is a table that is continuously updated for the Production application. There is a row for each e.list to indicate the workflow status in the Production system. Rows are added and removed by Go To Production. Values are managed by Go To Production. Go To Production only touches the data to ensure hierarchy changes are accurately reflected (e.g. StateID). 11

12 About the stateid column Number In the stateid column, a value is set that corresponds with the workflow state. NOTE: The status definitions do NOT appear in the table. Status 0 Not started (Children and Reviewer) 1 Incomplete (Reviewer only, some children not started) 2 Work in Progress 3 Ready (Reviewer only, all children locked) 4 Locked (Children and Reviewer) About the recprogress column In the recprogress column, a value is set for each nodeguid that corresponds with the stateid. NOTE: The status definitions do NOT appear in the table. Number Status 0 Need to reconcile # Proportion of the children that are reconciled (1 of 2=.5) -1 All children are reconciled. The review e.list is ready for reconcile. 1 Reconciled NOTE: The nodestate tables are NOT included in the Publish. The workflow status changes each time an individual makes a change or update to the Contributor data. As a result, the publish and nodestate tables will be out of synch if something is altered in Contributor. 12

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