Refreshing a cube after data source change question - help, I'm a bit rusty

[mrl72]

Hey folks

Well I haven't had to use Transformer in about 6-7 years and after a "covid reshuffle" I've been tasked with updating a cube built by someone else a long time ago. Needless to say, cracking Transformer open in such a long time took me a while to familiarize myself with things. Anyway, the task was simply to update a query subject in the underlying source package to point to a different table. The query subject in the package was SQL-based and it was a simple edit to point it to the new table in question. The object names in the query subject did not change at all. I then published that package, opened the cube MDL in Transformer and pointed the package-data source to the newly published package. The cube MDL was then copied over to the server and the cube was built but outputting to a different MDC name for test purposes. A new data source was created in Cognos admin and when prompted, I told it to build and publish a new cube package. Copies of existing Analysis Studio reports were then pointed to this package for comparison reasons. The issue is when these reports are opened they are all broken, with only the measures left in the report (note, it also asks me to re-point these when the report opens and I have to drag them onto the report one at a time). All rows/attributes/custom lists/filters etc. have been removed and now I manually have re-add them to the report.

Any ideas why it is doing this? Why would it not see the existing attributes that haven't changed? It's been so long since I've used Transformer I'm probably missing something obvious!

Cheers.

[MFGF]

Hey folks

Well I haven't had to use Transformer in about 6-7 years and after a "covid reshuffle" I've been tasked with updating a cube built by someone else a long time ago. Needless to say, cracking Transformer open in such a long time took me a while to familiarize myself with things. Anyway, the task was simply to update a query subject in the underlying source package to point to a different table. The query subject in the package was SQL-based and it was a simple edit to point it to the new table in question. The object names in the query subject did not change at all. I then published that package, opened the cube MDL in Transformer and pointed the package-data source to the newly published package. The cube MDL was then copied over to the server and the cube was built but outputting to a different MDC name for test purposes. A new data source was created in Cognos admin and when prompted, I told it to build and publish a new cube package. Copies of existing Analysis Studio reports were then pointed to this package for comparison reasons. The issue is when these reports are opened they are all broken, with only the measures left in the report (note, it also asks me to re-point these when the report opens and I have to drag them onto the report one at a time). All rows/attributes/custom lists/filters etc. have been removed and now I manually have re-add them to the report.

Any ideas why it is doing this? Why would it not see the existing attributes that haven't changed? It's been so long since I've used Transformer I'm probably missing something obvious!

Cheers.

Hi,

I suspect the issue is with your use of a new package, rather than anything you've done in Transformer. I'm guessing that the MUNs (Member Unique Names) will have the package name as the first segment, and therefore all the MUNs in the report will be looking for the old package. You can quickly test this in Report Studio.

1. Create a new report and use the old package. In the package tree, expand the Members folder and find a member (any one will do). Right-click on the member and choose "Properties". When the Properties pane opens, look carefully at the Member Unique Name for that member.
2. Create another new report and use the new package. Follow the exact same procedure, looking at the same member. Compare the Member Unique Name with the equivalent member in the old package.

If I'm right here (and that is a very uncommon occurrence :) ) then the fix would be to use the same name as the old cube, and therefore use the original data source name and the old package.

Cheers!

MF.

[mrl72]

That was it!! The MUN was prefixed and pointing to the old cube. Renaming it to the old data source fixed the issue.

Thanks for your quick help!