User Interface Profile Entries Are Not Appearing

[Miachel]

HI,

In Cognos Administration Page ,entries for User Interface Profiles (Professional and Express features) are not appearing.
Any help is appreciated.

Thanks in Advance.

[simon.hodgkiss]

Hi Miachel,

just to be clear on the steps your're taking to encounter the problem, I am assuming that you:

(1) Logged in as a Directory Admin, from IBM Cognos Connection Launch "IBM Cognos Administration"
(2) select "Security" tab
(3) select "User Interface Profiles" on left hand side explorer pane
(4) Encounter problem: No "Professional" or "Express" entries are displayed (assume you get "No Entries" message?)

Is that correct understanding\description?  Attached a screenshot of roughly what you're expecting to see.

Simon

[Miachel]

HI Simon,

Thanks for your detailed reply.
Thats the exact problem im facing, Professional and Expree authoring modes are not appearing.
I belong to Directory Administrator in Cognos Roles.
Checked that Everyone group  is not assigned to any predefined Cognos roles.
Access to Directory Administration role is given for all Dispatcher Services.
Im tracing if there is anything missing in XML files,but not able to trace it.
Please advice.

Thanks

[simon.hodgkiss]

Hi Miachel,

Couple of things to look at:

(1) If you haven't done so already, check the Secured Feature "Set capabilities and manage UI profiles" within the "Administration" Secured Function in Capabilities.  Directory Administrators role should have Execute, Set Policy and Read permissions granted as minimum.

(2) If that looks ok, then check the properties of "User Interface Profiles" itself, ensure that Directory Administrators have SP and Traverse. <screenshot2.png> attached to help illustrate.  You might try deleting the access permissions of all child entries here to force the permissions applied at this parent level onto the child components.   Ensure Backup of Content Store is taken before making any serious changes!

Let us know if that helps get to the bottom of this.

Simon

[Miachel]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your inputs.
I just checked everything step by step.
All the settings were same as you mentioned.
Still facing the same issue.

Thanks

[simon.hodgkiss]

Hi Miachel,

hmm...  Getting a bit desperate now! 

It's a very long shot, but within Security > User Interface Profiles can you try setting values for the "Entries" displayed to: "From: 1" and "To: 2", then select "go to"? <screenshot3.png> attached to illustrate.

I managed to recreate the symptoms of your issue by setting the values to numbers outside of the correct range (eg. from 3 to 4) - and unsurprisingly got the "no entries" message after applying.  Interestingly, Cognos UI retained that range selection even after navigating away from the page, refreshing, then returning.

Like I said, a long shot, but lets eliminate it.

Also, just checking - is the issue faced by all users who should see this  (Cognos System Admins and Directory Admins alike)?

[Rahul Ganguli]

Hi,

Directory administrator should be provided with read access on "User Interface Profiles". After that the entries would be visible to the users beloging to that role.

Regards,
Rahul

[Miachel]

Hi Simon,

I  tried setting values for entries from 1-2, Shows No entries.
When i Click on "User Interface Profiles"  in Entries Textboxes nothing is present.they are null.
Simon, im the only member of Directory Administrators, am the only person managing Administration.

Thanks.

[Miachel]

Hi Rahul,

Thanks for reply,
I already added myself to Directory Administrators Role, and myself im the Admin.
Please advice.

Thanks.

[Rahul Ganguli]

Hi Miachel,

If you are also a part of "System Administrator" you should have access to everything in Cognos.
Please add everyone in "System Administrator" and check if you are able to see the entries. You have to logoff and login again to check this.

If the problem still persists, can you check the same in a different browser.

Regards,
Rahul

[Miachel]

Hi Rahul,

Just now i checked, I didnt find System Administrators in my Users,Groupsand Roles.
I checked same in Test environment, here i also i dont have System Administrators role, but im able to see User interface Profiles in Test Environment.
Only Problem is with production.
Current version we are using is Cognos 8.3 which is migrated from Cognos 8.2.

Thanks.

[bi4u2]

Have you tried checking to see if these profiles are hidden? Go into your My Preferences and check "Show Hidden Entries". Maybe someone in the past disabled and/or hid the roles.

[Miachel]

Hi bi4u2,

Im Using Cognos 8.3, and i don't see any such option here.
Thanks for your reply.

Regards

[bi4u2]

Michael, here is a screenshot from 10.1.1. I was fairly certain that the option was available in 8.3. Sorry for any confusion.

[Miachel]

Hi bi4u2,

Thanks for your time.
I checked in my application Cognos 8.3 , it doesn't show that option.
Please see attachment.


Thanks.

[Miachel]

Hi Simon,

Any more inputs, struck here from last 1 week.

Thanks

[simon.hodgkiss]

Hi Miachel,

thought I'd sent you a PM on this yesterday, but on checking my Cognoise messages sent items, it's not there.  Apologies.

First, if you haven't already done so, get this call logged with IBM Cognos Support if that option is available to you.  Their experts may be able to help you out here.


Second: again, you may already have done this so sorry if going over old ground: If test is ok and production is not - have you compared test and prod permissions for the Secured Feature "Set capabilities and manage UI profiles" within the "Administration" Secured Function in Capabilities?  If there are any differences between the two environments, bring Prod into line with Test.


Third: Rahul's earlier suggestion about getting yourself into the System Administrators role is a good one.  Basically, if a Cognos system admnistrator can't see an object in cognos, then it probably doesn't exist.

The fact that you are unable to see the System Administrators role listed in Users Groups and Roles may mean that the role has no members.  This can sometimes happen accidentally if an admin removes the default "Everyone" group before adding a sysadmin.  You then have a catch 22 situation where you can't add members to the role because no-one is a member of it.  There's an IBM technote for Cognos 8.x here which describes how to add the Everyone group back into the role:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21343329

Obviously, take care here - as you'll be doing this on your Production environment you'll want to get a backup of the Content Store before hand, and time the outage required for when it has the least impact on your end users.  Also: the very first thing you need to do following implementation of the change is to add your account to the System Administrators role in Cognos namespace.  Then remove the Everyone group from the the role.

Once that's done, you can check the UI Profiles again to see if they're showing.

Let us know how you get on,

Simon

[Miachel]

Hi Simon,

I dont have System Administrations role in Test Environment also, but it works fine there.
What could be the reason that it misses here only.

Thanks

[simon.hodgkiss]

Hi Miachel,

I suspect that the reason the UI Profiles are not visible in your prod environment, but visible in Test, is most likely due to some difference in the the Cognos security\permissions applied\inherited to your account.   I can't be 100% sure of that, but it seems the most likely explanation.  Even though your account is member of Directory Administrators role in both environments, it could be that the memberships of that role, or permissions applied to that role vary in some way elsewhere in Cognos security.  Another, less likely, explanation is that there was some problem with the upgrade of the environment from 8.2 to 8.3.

Getting your account added to the "System Administrators" role in the prod environment seems to me the next step and best way of helping you further your investigations.  It won't directly fix the issue you face, but it will allow you to confirm whether the profiles are merely hidden in some way from members of the Directory Administrators role, or do not exist at all.

If a System Administrator can see the UI Profiles, then maybe that's enough for you and you can continue, or you will be able to check the permissions directly applied to the UI Profiles and discover the problem.

If a System Administrator cannot see the UI profiles, then you can fairly assume there is some other issue besides applied permissions within Cognos.  This would be the point to involve Cognos support (if you haven't already), and possibly consider the merit of creating a dummy Cognos 8.3 environment elsewhere, importing your Prod environment content (minus capabilities) to it, then pointing your Prod Cognos config to the new Content Store.

All the best,

Simon

[Miachel]

HI Simon,

You made a good point, upgraded from 8.2 to 8.3, issue started during this Period.

Thanks

[Rahul Ganguli]

To Have access to hidden entries, you have to set permission in Cognos capabilities. I remember this option was available in 8.3

You cannot delete a System Administrator role from Cognos. You may not have assigned the privillege to view this group.

[Miachel]

Hi Rahul,

Hidden entries checkbox is not visible on screen.
Im the admin, i myself belong to Cognos Administration.

Regards,
Rajesh

[Rahul Ganguli]

To see the hidden entries, you need to have that capability assigned.

[Miachel]

Hi Rahul,

I request you to please tell me where to assign those properties to see hidden User Interface Profiles.
I did and assigned everything, am i missing anything.

Thanks

[simon.hodgkiss]

Hi,

The capability to hide entries via the user interface wasn't introduced until version 8.4:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/c8bi/v8r4m0/topic/com.ibm.swg.im.cognos.ug_cra.8.4.0.doc/ug_cra_id228new_chnged_dep_8.3.html#new_chnged_dep_8.3

Previously, in version 8.3 and below, an edit to a system.xml was required:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21338712