Packages not visible and meta data not accessible when used within a data module

[cognosjon]

Morning ,
I'm encountering a few issues with data modules that are using packages as a data source and I'm hoping someone may be able to shed some light.

I'm currently using 11.0.13, I have two packages which are causing an issue when trying to access them via a data module.
Both packages come from the same FM model file and the model is defined as Dynamic query mode.
The data source used within the package is configured for JDBC and the Allow web-based modeling is checked.

Package A  is not visible at all as data source within the data module studio and Package B is visible, but when you attempt to create a relationship to the package, no meta data is visible, you see no tables.
Both packages work within all other studios with no issues.

Has anyone come across anything similar or have any suggestions as to where I could look? Its driving me bonkers!!!

thanks for reading

[MFGF]

Morning ,
I'm encountering a few issues with data modules that are using packages as a data source and I'm hoping someone may be able to shed some light.

I'm currently using 11.0.13, I have two packages which are causing an issue when trying to access them via a data module.
Both packages come from the same FM model file and the model is defined as Dynamic query mode.
The data source used within the package is configured for JDBC and the Allow web-based modeling is checked.

Package A  is not visible at all as data source within the data module studio and Package B is visible, but when you attempt to create a relationship to the package, no meta data is visible, you see no tables.
Both packages work within all other studios with no issues.

Has anyone come across anything similar or have any suggestions as to where I could look? Its driving me bonkers!!!

thanks for reading

Hi Jon,

You can join a package to other things in a data module, but currently you can't join two packages together within a data module. You'd need to combine the packages in FM and publish a new combined package, then use this in your data module.

Bus_Pass_Man posted about this recently, too:

https://www.cognoise.com/index.php/topic,35787.0.html

Cheers!

MF.

[cognosjon]

Apologies MFGF
i may have confused things in my post..  :o
I have users that are trying to join file uploads with a package, so not package to package.
When a package is selected and they attempt to create a relationship they cant browse the metadata of the package. therefore they cant see the dimension or facts. They see the name but thats it. I've attached a picture to show what we see. For other packages i can see the meta data.

The issue i have with Package B is that it just doesn't appear within the list of available packages when within a data module. probably a completely different issue and a different topic really.

Thanks

[bus_pass_man]

If I understand correctly, you are encountering several issues.

1.  You can't see one of the packages in the metadata tree.

Press the sources button on the left hand side of the browser.   Confirm that both of your packages are there.  If the second one is, drag it into the module tree. 

If it isn't, press the add new sources button at the top of the sources pane and add the package.

2.  Nothing is showing up when you click on the select a table drop down in the relationship editor.

I can see my query subjects when I click on the select a table drop down.  I can not see anything if the folder contains dimensions


The more substantial problem you want to deal with is that you want to join stuff from the two FM packages.

You can't create relationships between packages in a module.   

"The only actions you can take are to create relationships between query subjects in the package and query subjects in the data module."
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEP7J_11.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ca_mdlg.doc/t_ca_mldg_src_package.html

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ca_mdlg.doc/c_mdlg_sources.html

The question of merging together two or more FM packages has several different approaches, each, of course, having their own trade-offs.

Since they are from the same model, are you forbidden to have the stuff from both packages in another package?  (there's functionality in the package wizard to create a package based on other packages.)   That might be the simplest approach to the problem.

If they were from different models, you could investigate whether you could link the two models.   

Another approach would be to upgrade to 11.1.   You can create tables from query subjects in your packages and create relationships between them, creating a reporting application with them.   

11.1 is a bit better that 11.0.13.  It has, in addition to what I've just mentioned:

i. A usable expression editor for calculations and filters, with the ability to test sub-sections of your expression to troubleshoot it
ii. The ability to create tables using SQL, which also has the sub-expression functionality.
iii.  Data security
iv. Table and union creation capabilities, which gives you alias creation capability so you can so role-playing and you would have dimension denormalization capability,
v. Column dependency, so you can normalize your metadata to deal with multi-fact grain queries and to normalize the metadata in data sets and uploaded files rather than dealing with them as one big rectangle of data.  It is better than determinants as you can create several different paths of column dependency groups so you don't have to create a model query subject for each determinant hierarchy.
vi. The diagram has improvements including being able to isolate sections of your model and, starting in 11.1.3, it will save the position of the objects.


I don't see any attached file but what you say about dimensions and facts suggests your package has DMR, which isn't supported for creating relationships.

[cognosjon]

Thanks for the detailed response bus_pass_man and apologies as it looks like I did badly write up my initial post. As you'll see from my response to MFGF, i'm not trying to join two packages together. The issue is that I cant see the meta data of one package. Whilst a further package just doesn't appear as a package that can be selected.

With regards to upgrades and improved capability we are scheduled to deploy 11.1.2 within the next fortnight so those additional capabilities will be something to look at it.

Thanks again for your initial reply

[MFGF]

Apologies MFGF
i may have confused things in my post..  :o
I have users that are trying to join file uploads with a package, so not package to package.
When a package is selected and they attempt to create a relationship they cant browse the metadata of the package. therefore they cant see the dimension or facts. They see the name but thats it. I've attached a picture to show what we see. For other packages i can see the meta data.

The issue i have with Package B is that it just doesn't appear within the list of available packages when within a data module. probably a completely different issue and a different topic really.

Thanks

Ah, sorry Jon. I misunderstood what you wrote. Just a sanity check (and following on from what bus_pass_man said) can you confirm these are flat relational packages with query subjects and not Dimensionally Modelled Relational packages with regular dimensions and measure dimensions?

Do you have the sample packages installed? What do you see if you bring GO Sales (Query) into a data module and try to link it? Do you see the query subjects?

Cheers!

MF.

[cognosjon]

Yes flat relational models with regular dims and measures, no DMR's and nothing fancy at all. In fact, a rather boring standard star schema..

I do have the samples installed and if i pull them into the data module and create a relationship to the flat file i see the dims and measure dimensions as expected. This also happens with other packages that I have but not this one and thats where i'm getting a little confused. The permissions are the same as my other packages and has been published from the same model.

[MFGF]

Yes flat relational models with regular dims and measures, no DMR's and nothing fancy at all. In fact, a rather boring standard star schema..

I do have the samples installed and if i pull them into the data module and create a relationship to the flat file i see the dims and measure dimensions as expected. This also happens with other packages that I have but not this one and thats where i'm getting a little confused. The permissions are the same as my other packages and has been published from the same model.

Hmmmm. Puzzling. Is there anything different about the way the package is modelled? Have you implemented object security, for example? What objects are being surfaced in the package - are they real query subjects or are they shortcuts? Just thinking out loud here rather than asking because I know something. :)

MF.

[cognosjon]

After some testing its looking as though the issue relates to the move option. If i import the package into a folder it works as expected. If however I move the package using the move option we then lose the ability to view the meta data. This happens if i move it to any folder including my content.
If I try and move it back its still unusable.

Its very strange and not anything i've seen before. I use the move command all the time.
I've logged the ticket with IBM support and have demonstrated it to them so I'll wait and see if they can suggest suggest anything.
I'll report back anything i find.

[MFGF]

After some testing its looking as though the issue relates to the move option. If i import the package into a folder it works as expected. If however I move the package using the move option we then lose the ability to view the meta data. This happens if i move it to any folder including my content.
If I try and move it back its still unusable.

Its very strange and not anything i've seen before. I use the move command all the time.
I've logged the ticket with IBM support and have demonstrated it to them so I'll wait and see if they can suggest suggest anything.
I'll report back anything i find.

Interesting! I would never have thought of looking at that. Good detective work there!!

MF.