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Cognos Faqs
Cognos Faqs
Relational
databases
and
A. Cognos connection
B. Query Studio
C. Report Studio
Framework Manager
22) What is Framework manager?
Frame Work Manager is windows based metadata development or metadata modeling
tool for Cognos Report Net.
23) Why we need Framework manager?
To create the interface known as Project.
To create model the metadata derived from one or more data sources
24) How a project appears in a Frame Work manager?
A frame work manager project appears as a folder that contains a project file (.cpf) and
the specific XML files that define the project.
25) What are the Building Blocks in Frame Work Manager?
The Query subjects are called Building Blocks in Framework Manager.
26) What are phases the workflow process consists in Framework Manager?
The workflow process consists of the following phases:
Design and create project
Prepare Metadata
Prepare the Business View
Create and Manger Packages
Set Security
Publish
Manage the Project
27) How you set the security Framework manager?
To set the security you have to set as:
Define access to packages.
Create security filters
Define access to objects
Define package administration access
28) Define Name Space?
In security, a collection of user accounts and user groups from an authentication provider.
A Name Space is a container, which holds the Query Subjects.
A Name Space uniquely represents the Query Subjects.
29) Can you delete Cognos namespace?
No, we cannot delete Cognos namespace
30) What is the Cognos Namespace? And what it contains?
The Cognos namespace is the ReportNet built-in namespace
It contains Cognos objects:
Groups
Roles
Sources
Distribution lists
Contacts
F.
G.
H.
I.
Folders
Query Subject
Query Item
Relation ship
A Loop causes performance degradation of query execution and wrong data will be
displayed in the report.
A Loop can be resolved by creating the short cuts (Alias).
78) What is Alias Table?
An alternative name for a table generally used in self joins.
79) What are the uses of Alias Table?
The uses of Alias Table are :
1. To resolve the Loops.
2. To create self-joins with in a table.
3. To Provide alternate join structure.
80) What is Associated Data Item?
A Data Item linked to the group data item. Associated data item suppress duplicate data
values but do not generate a control break. The associated column displays only one data values
for the group with which it is associated.
81) What is Automatic Association?
The group association of a newly created summary. The location of the group where you
create the summary determines its automatic association.
82) What is an Ambiguous Relationship?
An ambiguous relationship is where there are multiple relationship paths between one or
more query subjects leaving multiple options for how to write a query.
83) What is a Join and types of Joins?
A Join identifies the columns from one table that are used to link to another table.
A Join is commonly formed by a foreign key definition within the database.
Types of Joins :1. Equi-joins
2. Non equi-joins
3. Outer joins
84) What is a dimension?
A broad grouping of descriptive data about a major aspect of a business, such as
products, dates, or markets. Each dimension includes different levels of members in one or more
hierarchies, and an optional set of calculated members.
85) What is a Confirmed Dimension?
If a Dimension is connected to multiple fact tables then it is called as Confirmed
Dimension.
86) What is a Junk Dimension?
A randomly used dimension is Junk Dimension.
87) Define Surrogate Key?
It has system-generated artificial primary key values, which allows to maintain historical
records in the Data Warehouse more effectively.
88) What are the User Interface Components?
Cognos Connection
Report Studio
Query Studio
Frame work manager
Cognos configuration
Cognos Connection
89) Define Cognos connection?
It is a web portal, which allows you to perform the following tasks.
1. Creating the Reports
2. Performing the scheduling tasks
3. Deployment
Use to access all corporate data available in ReportNet.
90) What are the types of folders in Cognos connection?
Report can be organized by creating the folders.
Public Folders: Public Folders can be viewed by many users.
My Folders: Personal Folders that you can organize according to your preferences.
91) What is a job?
A group of reports and other jobs in ReportNet that you run and schedule as a batch.
92) What is a job step?
The smallest part of a job that can be run separately. Usually, a job step is a report. A job
step can also be another job.
93) Define content language?
The code or setting that specifies what language and regional preferences to use for the
data that appears in a report.
94) What is deployment?
The process of moving a ReportNet application (reports, models, and so on) to a different
instance of ReportNet. For example, you often create reports in a test environment and then
deploy them to production.
When you deploy an application, you export, transfer, and import it.
95) What is the use of Schedule?
The schedule allows you to run a report at a later time or run it on a recurring basis.
96) What are the uses of Schedule Management tool?
Change the properties of a job
Modify a scheduled report
View the run history of a report
Run a scheduled entry once
Delete a schedule
97) What is a Sub Report?
A sub query that is associated with a main query. You can include several sub reports in
one main query. You can have more than one query on a page.
98) What is a Cognos Script?
A Script visual basic used to write macros.
99) What is a Catalog?
A Catalog is a data base for a user to create own tables, joins, items, prompts,
calculations and conditions.
Report Studio
100) What is a Report Studio?
Using Report Studio we can create more advanced professional Business Reports.
101) What is burst?
To create many report results by running a single report once. For example, you can
create a report that shows sales for each employee, and run it once, sending different results to
regional managers by bursting on region.
You set up bursting in Report Studio and enable it in the portal.
102) Define calculated member?
A member of a dimension whose measure values are not stored but are calculated at run
time using an expression.
103) What is cardinality?
For OLAP data sources, cardinality is the number of members in a hierarchy. The
cardinality property for a hierarchy is used to assign solve orders to expressions.
For relational data sources, cardinality indicates the nature of the relationship between
two query subjects, query items, or other model objects.
104) Define report specification?
An XML representation of the queries, prompts, layouts, and styles in a report. You
create report specifications by using Report Studio or Query Studio, or by writing your own report
specifications in XML.
105) What is report view?
A reference to another report that has its own properties, such as prompt values,
schedules, and results.
You use report views to share a report specification instead of making copies of it.
106) What is report item?
A query item that is added to a report is known as a report item.
Report items appear as columns in list reports, and as rows and columns in crosstab
reports. In charts, report items appear as data markers and axis labels.
107) What is work area?
The area within a studio that contains the report, analysis, query or agent currently being
used.
108) What is Simple List Report?
The data is displayed in a series of columns (Tabular format).
109) How to set Page Breaks?
To set the page breaks in the report needs to be designed with either Group or Section.
Each Group or section will be displayed in a separate page.
110) What is the procedure for Page Breaks?
Select the Grouped Report Item, from the changed layout menu click on set page breaks.
111) Define Sections:
Like group a section also eliminates the duplicates and display the report item as a
separate block and separated from rest of other report items.
112) How to eliminate duplicates?
Language variable : Language variable when the values are different languages.
134) What is Master detail relationship?
A Master detail relationship allows you to merge a Master query and Detail query.
To link the Master query and the Detailed query there should be a common column
between the query.
A Master detail report provides navigation form summary to detail.
135) What is Drill Through?
A Drill Through allows you to navigate the information from summery to detail.
A Drill Through id developed with two reports
1. Parent Report which contains Summary Data.
2. Child Report which contains Detailed Data.
Their should be a common column between the two reports.
136) Define Cross Tab Report:
Design a Cross Tab Report for comparative analysis. Cross tab report is created with 3
drop zones.
1. Row
2. Column
3. Measure
137) What all the types of Cross Tab layouts Cognos Report Net supports?
Cognos Report net supports only Basic and Nested Cross Tab layouts.
138) Define a chart:
A Chart is a graphical presentation of business data.
A chart Report is designed for comparative Analysis.
139) What are the different types of charts?
1. Column chart
2. Bar Chart
3. Pie Chart
4. Line Chart
5. Area Chart
6. Point Chart
7. Radar Chart
140) Define Collapse Group:
It will suppress (hide) the details of a grouped report.
141) Define Expand Group:
It restores the details. A report needs to be designed with group.
Query Studio
142) What is Query Studio?
Query Studio is the adhoc querying tool for ReportNet.
143) What is a adhoc report?
An adhoc report is a simple report or one-time report that is outside the set of standard
reports you may have available to you.
A design time environment acts as a runtime environment.
Its also known as self service.
144) What is measure?
A query item that contains values that can be aggregated to produce meaningful results.
For example, product costs can be treated as a measure because average and total costs have
some meaning, but product codes, though numbers, are not usually treated the same way.
Measures are quantitative performance indicators.
Measures give the numbers that usually appear in the cells of cross tab reports or in the
numbers of a chart.
Measures are also known as facts.
145) How Grand totals and Sub totals are generated in Query Studio?
In Query Studio the footer summaries (Grand Totals) are automatically generated for
measures.
The sub totals can be generated by creating the Groups.
146) Define layout:
In reporting, layout defines the appearance of the report, including formatting, style, and
design.
In report specifications, layout is also the name of an element that defines how the data returned
by queries is presented.
Cognos 8 FAQs
147) Cognos 8
Cognos ReportNet with enhancements + EP7 series.
148) Which server tire is responsible for transforming information to Cognos 8 Application
Server?
A Web server contains one or more web gateways which is responsible for transforming
the information from one server to an appropriate server.( Cognos 8 Application Server) .
149) Which Server Tire processes the users request?
Application Tire server, Its a main server which process users request.
150) What is the role of Data Tire?
Data tire contains content store and data source.
151) What is content store?
The database that contains all data that ReportNet needs to operate, such as
Report specifications, published models, and the packages that contain them
Connection information for data sources
Information about the external namespace, and the Cognos namespace itself
Information about scheduling and bursting reports
Design models and log files are not stored in the content store.
The ReportNet service that uses the content store is named Content Manager.
152) What the gateways Cognos web server supports?
CGI (Common Gateway Interface):- This is the default gateway supported to all web
servers.
ISAPI (Internet service Application Programming Interface):Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) web server.
Report Studio
153) What are enhancements in list report in Cognos 8 Report Studio?
A list report is enhanced with following features:
1. Can apply List column Title Style
2. Can apply list column Body Style
3. Can apply the table Style
154) What are enhancements in cross tab report in Cognos 8?
A Cross tab report is enhanced with following features:
a. Can create the union Cross tabs.
b. Can create headers and footers for a cross tab.
c. List like cross tab.
155) What are enhancements in Chart report in Cognos 8?
A Chart report is enhanced with following features:
1. The following new charts are add
a. Gauge Charts
b. 3D point chart
c. By polar axis charts (used for Bio-technology).
2. The chart can be applied with patterns, Fonts, Colors.
3. Can perform drill on chart.
4.Now we can create map reports which includes Geographical information and
compares the business with various geographies.
156) What is Prompt Cache?
When a report contain a prompt executes a prompt queries the data from database at
very first time and stores the results in prompt cache.
Analysis Studio
157) What is Analyses studio?
In analyses studio users can explore analyses and compare dimensional data. Use
Analyses studio to read the data from multiple dimensional structures known as Cubes.
158) What are report Analyses Studio supports?
Analyses studio supports only cross tab, charts.
159) What is Cube?
A physical data source containing a multidimensional representation of data. A cube
contains information organized into dimensions and optimized to provide faster retrieval and
navigation in reports.
Query Studio
160) What are enhancements in Cognos 8 Query Studio?
1. Formatting :- Now query studio allows you to format the report with font, colors, and
border styles.
2. Conditional Formatting :- The data in the report can be formatted based on given
condition this allows you to quickly identify the data for faster analyses.
3. Applying Templates :-Templates can be created in report studio which can be applied
to the reports created in Query Studio.
4. Improved Filtering :- Query Studio allows you to create more advanced filters using
logical operators. AND or OR.
5. Query Data from OLAP sources (cube) :- Now Query Studio supports in reading the
data from multi-dimensional structures known as Cubes.
6. Supports Hierarchy Levels :- Since Query studio reads the data from Cube which is
defined with hierarchy levels it supports multi-dimensional analyses. (Drill Up, Drill
Down, Drill Across).
161) What is Conditional format?
The data in the report can be formatted based on given condition this allows you to
quickly identify the data for faster analyses.
Transformer
164) What is Transformer in Cognos 8?
Its a modeling tool for creating the Power Cubes for use with Cognos EP7 series and Cognos 8.
165) What is a Power Cube?
A file that contains data that is structured to provide for fast retrieval and exploration of data in
Power Play.
166) What is the role of Transformer?
Transformer is used to create dimensional models and also create cubes.
Event Studio
167) Define Event Studio:
Use the event studio to perform the tasks when the business event occurs.
When an event occur people are alerted to take actions.
The definition of queries, prompts, layouts, and styles that make up a report. A report
specification is combined with data by a run operation to create report outputs. You create report
specifications by using Report Studio, Query Studio, Analysis Studio, or through the Software
Development Kit.
171) Define report output?
A report output combines data at the point in time when the report was run with a report
specification. It is a document that can be displayed, printed or emailed. Cognos 8 can produce
report outputs in HTML, PDF, Excel, or CSV formats.
172) Define Content Manager:
The Cognos 8 service that manages the storage of customer applications, including
application-specific security, configuration data, models, metrics, reports, and report output.
Content Manager is needed to publish models, retrieve or store report specifications, manage
scheduling information, and manage the Cognos namespace.
173) What is data source?
A relational database, dimensional cube, file, or other physical data store that can be accessed
though Cognos 8.
174) Define data tree:
Within a studio, contains objects such as query subjects, query items, dimensions, levels,
and members. A data tree is used as a palette of the available data that can be inserted into
calculations, filters, display areas, and other authoring gestures.
175) Define drill down:
The act of navigating from one level of data to a more detailed level. The levels are set by
the structure of the data.
176) Define drill up:
The act of navigating from one level of data to a less detailed level. The levels are set by
the structure of the data.
177) What is hierarchy?
A hierarchy represents a collection of dimensional members organized into a tree
structure, with each member having one or more parent members and an arbitrary number of
child members.
The root of a hierarchy has no parent, and leaf members of a hierarchy have no children.
178) What is layout?
In reporting, layout defines the appearance of the report, including formatting, style, and
design.
In report specifications, layout is the portion of the specification that defines how the data
returned by queries is presented.
179) Define level:
A level is a set of members that have common attributes. For example, a geographical
dimension might contain levels for country, region, and city. Levels are used to define the
structure of hierarchies in a dimension.
180) What is member?
A member is a unique item within a level. For example, Camping Equipment and Golf
Equipment are members of the Product Line level.
181) Define locale:
A code that is used to set the language or dialect used for browsers, report text, and so
on; and the regional preferences, such as formats for time, date, money, money expressions, and
time of day.
For Cognos products, you can specify a locale for the product interface (product locale)
and for the data in the report (content locale).
182) Define multidimensional expression language (MDX):
An abbreviation for multidimensional expression language, MDX is the multidimensional
equivalent of SQL. Cognos 8 allows report authors to type in their queries using MDX
expressions in Report Studio for dimensional data sources.
183) Use of repeater:
In Report Studio, a cell container that repeats values within itself with no predefined
internal structure.
184) Define Repeater table:
In Report Studio, a table-like container that repeats cells across and down the page for
row in the associated query.
185) What is template?
A reusable reports layout or style that can be used to set the presentation of a query or
report.
186) Define work area:
The area within a studio that contains the report, analysis, query or agent currently being
used.
187) What is a Hot File?
A separate local data table that can be added to your catalog or used in the report as a
data source and as if it is a regular database table. A Hot File can be joined either with a
database table or with another Hot File itself.
188) What is Impromptu?
Impromptu is a windows based powerful interactive query and reporting tool that lets you
query data and create sophisticated reports in a easy to- use and sophisticated desktop and
interface.
189) What is the difference b/w macros and prompt?
Macro is a dynamic object which is used to substitute the values at query run time.
Prompt is a report element that asks for values before the report is run.
190) What is a Cube size?
Cube size is not static. it can be defined according to Project but we can create up to
2GB
191) What is refreshing of cube and how can we do it?
Refreshing a cube means getting the latest records from content store. we have an
option to refresh cube.
192) what is meant by dash boards/flash cards?
Dash Board reports are used to create many reports in one report.
193) What is the usage of html object in tools box?
By using HTML object, We can insert multimedia file into report. At the run time we can
see the file multimedia file.