Cognos 10.2.1 Administration - What's new for archiving?

Some new features are now available within Cognos 10.2.1 Administration regarding archiving of reports and Cognos Objects:

1- Storing report output to shared folders
You can configure the Content Manager to store report output to a local drive or network share instead of in the content store database by configuring an external object store. An external object store offers improved read and write performance by reducing the load on the Content Manager.

2- My folders archiving
By adding repository connections to namespaces and namespace folders your users' My Folders can be stored in your external repository. It can enhance the scalability and performance of IBM Cognos products by reducing the size of content in the content store. To archive existing My Folders content, you add a repository connection to a namespace or namespace folder and then select My Folders in the content archival task.

3-Granular deployment of My Folders
You can back up and deploy individual users' My Folder content without need for a full content store deployment. The ability to back up and deploy individual users' My Folder content is especially
convenient in scenarios such as:
- Staged moves or upgrades, in which specific users or applications are moved or upgraded to a new environment.
- Restoration of an individual user's account.

Managing Cognos’ CSS Style Sheets

1.     Definition

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation (the look and formatting) of a document written in any markup language, such as HTML or XML.

CSS is designed to separate the document content (written in HTML, XML, etc) from the document presentation.

The CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). To learn more about language syntax, versions, etc, have a look at the previous website.

Cognos’ reports as a browser application is capable of using CSS style sheets in order to manage the final presentation.

2.     Scope

The aiming of this document is to show how to change Cognos’ default CSS style sheet.

3.     Cognos’ report default CSS style sheet

 Cognos’ reports use a default CSS style sheet that is common for any report. Nowadays, Cognos’ common CSS style sheet cannot be changed. This common CSS style sheet is “GlobalReportStyles.css”.

A different “GlobalReportStyles.css” is used for different porpoises:

-          Report designing

-          Report presentation

For these reasons, “GlobalReportStyles.css” is located in different Cognos’ application folders. All “GlobalReportStyles.css” must be changed:

- *D:\Apps\cognos\c84GA_TEST\reportstyles\GlobalReportStyles.css

- *D:\Apps\cognos\c84GA_TEST\webcontent\reportstyles\GlobalReportStyles.css

- *D:\Apps\cognos\c84GA_TEST\webcontent\schemas\GlobalReportStyles.css

- *D:\Apps\cognos\c84GA_TEST\bin\GlobalReportStyles.css

Depending on your user default language in Cognos’ environment, you will need to change an XML file that contains all the CSS classes names translated into different languages, reportstudio_XX.xml, where XX is the international language code.

For example, if you are using English as a default language this XML file will be “reportstudio_en.xml”. This XML file is located in the following path: “*D:\Apps\cognos\c84GA_TEST\webcontent\pat\res\”

*Cognos’ paths could be different in other Cognos’ installations.

Steps to setup concurrent query execution

If you need to improve performance by executing concurrent queries at the same time follow the below steps. Be aware that this is environment setup so it will affect all Cognos applications.
 
1- Go to Cognos Adminstration -> System 
2-  Select the System and click on the “triangle shape” icon
3-  Select Set Properties
 

      4- Select Settings Tab

5- On the Advanced settings, select Edit

6- Add the following parameters:

RSVP.CONCURRENTQUERY.ENABLEDFORINTERACTIVEOUTPUT = true

RSVP.CONCURRENTQUERY.NUMHELPERSPERPROCESS = 16

RSVP.CONCURRENTQUERY.MAXNUMHELPERSPERREPORT = 4

7- Scroll down and click OK

8- Now in Cognos Administration -> Settings –System click Refresh 
9- Expand the Advanced settings sections to the parameters you just added.

10- In Report Studio, Go to Query Explorer 
11- Select the first query 
12- In the properties section, change “Execution Method” to Concurrent

13- Repeat the previous step and change all queries to have “Execution Method” with the value Concurrent. 

14- Run the report.