Cognos FM sample documentation Template

[PRIT AMRIT]

Hi guys,

I need a Cognos FM sample documentation Template.

If you have created such documents, would you mind to share it with me? Would appreciate your help on this :)

Cheers,

Prit

[cschnu]

Prit,

What area of FM are you trying to document?

[blom0344]

In some cases I take a particular part of the model in the context explorer , create a screendump with screenhunter and import this into powerpoint adding text to the slide. This is a source for report writers and it is a crude approach.  It is unfortunately difficult to document a metadata model as the model itself is it's best documentation..

[Lynn]

I agree with Blom that the model itself provides a wealth of documentation. Details pulled out for documentation purposes tend to become stale quite quickly so I never see the point of dong that as something to maintain ongoing.

What I generally deliver to clients is a high level overview about the model...generally not more than 2 or 3 pages. I cover things I might point out to a new modeler to help him or her become familiar with the model to take over maintenance and ongoing development. What things are a little more complex and worth pointing out? What things are not immediately obvious from looking at the model? What things will answer the question "why" something was done a particular way? What conventions or best practices were followed (or not followed for a specific reason)?

Look at the different elements of a model (namespaces, layers, data sources, parameter maps, packages, etc.) and then consider what might help someone responsible for that model get a big picture overview to give them a jump start in understanding it.

Kind of a general guideline to a general question, but hopefully it will give you some things to consider.

[CoolP]

It depends on what in the model yu want to document and what is the purpose of it? Is it going to be used by the Dev team while builiding reports etc?

[wyconian]

I agree with what everyone else has said.  You need to set some development standards such as the number of layers you have, what each layer does, naming conventions etc.  Then just document anything that contavenes the standards with reasons why.  I would also document any calculations, filters, determinants etc.

It does depend on who the documentation is for.  If it's for the report writers then a screen dump of the context explorer is probably enough.  They will need to know how the dimensions and facts join together.

If it's for developers I'd suggest you document any assumptions you've made, reasons for doing things they way you have and anything that isn't immediately obvious from looking at the model.

I had a client who insisted on full documentation for the FM model.  It took about 6 weeks to write, was 300+ pages and absolutley no use to anyone as it quickly became out of date.

I'd suggest the point of documentation is to explain why things have been done a certain way not to detail things which are standard.