Multiple packages in One RS Report

[pumccg]

Does the latest version of Report Studio support including reports from more than one package? I thought I'd seen this as a "new feature" somewhere but now I can't find it documented anywhere.

[MFGF]

Does the latest version of Report Studio support including reports from more than one package? I thought I'd seen this as a "new feature" somewhere but now I can't find it documented anywhere.

A report can only be based on one package - just as it has always been. If you drag stuff into Cognos Workspace you can bring in reports from multiple packages and filter across all of them, but each individual report is only ever based on a single package.

If you want a report that uses data from multiple packages, one easy answer is to create a package that contains all of the required data?

MF.

[pumccg]

Thanks for the reply. I must have been dreaming about my Report Studio wishlist again! That functionality has been on it since I first came across RS in ReportNet 1.0!

[pumccg]

I may not have been dreaming.

I still can't recall where I read about this feature a month or so ago, but last night I recalled I did speak to an associate about it at the time. At the time, and again by email today, he says there's a new feature in the latest version of report studio which allows you to insert a report page from another report into a new report you are currently building, and they can be using different packages.

Apparently it's done in the Page Explorer/Report Pages area, which there's a new feature which allows you to insert a reference to another report, and somehow include content from the reference report into the current report. Does this ring a bell with anyone? I seem to recall it was described as creating a "booklet", or something like that.

Then again, we might both be dreaming!

[BigChris]

You can certainly include a Layout Component Reference, which allows you to use elements from another report in your new report. But it's only the layout that it brings through, not any package based data. I don't know if that's where the confusion might have come from, or if there's going to be a new feature in a next release...but at the moment a report can only be pointed at one package at a time

[pumccg]

BigChris, I'm aware of LCRs, and this supposed new feature is more than those. It's supposedly charts etc.

[pumccg]

I'm not dreaming! Here it is from the what's new in RS 10.2.1.1

"Report booklets

By using report booklets, you can reference and merge content from multiple IBM® Cognos® BI reports. Report booklets are especially convenient if you have a large amount of IBM Cognos BI content that you want to reuse and present in new ways.
For example, you are a financial advisor. You use report booklets to collect content from various IBM Cognos BI reports into personalized, professional-looking financial reports for each client.

Report booklets can provide a single table of contents, sequential page numbering, and rationalized prompting to prevent redundant data collection. Report booklets can be scheduled, saved, and run in IBM Cognos Connection like other IBM Cognos BI reports."

See
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/?lang=en#!/SSEP7J_10.2.1/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.crn_nf.10.2.1.1.doc/c_nf_reportbooklets.html

I don't have 10.2.1.1 so I can't actually test that the various reports can come from different packages.

[BigChris]

Not wanting to be overly pedantic, but it doesn't say anything about different packages. It sort of implies (or at least it's easy to infer) that that's going to be possible, but it doesn't actually say so. Would be excellent if it could though...

[MFGF]

Hi,

A Report Reference (in Page Explorer > Report Pages) will allow you to bring in a link to any other report, regardless of its package. This other report is authored independently, though, and can only use data from a single package. Think of it as a way to link report pages from multiple reports in a single place. You can't bring data from multiple packages into a report you are authoring, though, and I doubt you ever will be able to.

Cheers!

MF.

[navissar]

Just to clarify here, referencing pages from other reports doesn't mean we can develop reports on multiple packages. It isn't very different than opening an iframe to another report, something that you could do ever since RN.

But, really, maybe I'm missing something here. I read this thread and it seems like this is such a big feature missing, however I never felt the absence of it. Every now and again when i train people, especially BO people, in Cognos, I get that question asked; I always end up explaining that BO universes behave very differently than Cognos packages. In BO (And Yellowfin and other BI products) your model (Universe) can only connect to one datasource. So, if you wanted to report over more than one data source, you'll have to have more than one universe in your report.
In Cognos, FM allows connecting to as many sources as you want, model them as you like, create different shortcuts and aliases, and create packages. You can also show and hide objects with security and adding a package that represents objects already present in different packages doesn't mean creating more objects to maintain. So, really, there's no reason not to create a unified package when it's necessary, is there? What am I missing?

[pumccg]

If it works as MFGF explains above I'll be more than happy!

[MFGF]

If it works as MFGF explains above I'll be more than happy!

It does! I tried building a report against my Great Ourdoors Sales En sample powercube, and bringing in a Report Reference pointing to a report authored against the GOSALES sample relational database (in SQL Server). The report ran and rendered the crosstab from the powercube on the first page, and the pages from the report reference against SQL Server as subsequent pages.

Cheers!

MF.

[pumccg]

I'm happy! Many thanks for the follow-up. I know you can keep adding multiple data sources to a given FWM, but this can result in very large model, packages, and vast numbers of huge RTM files. This new feature will help in many ways.