Including a Wait Message in Cascading Prompts

[Sudha]

Hi All,
There is a 'JavaScript' provided by Cognos under Doc # 1027965.2 with the about this subject 'Including a Wait Message in Cascading Prompts' this script works just fine in 8.1 version but fails in the 8.3 (upgrade) version. Here in general I'm trying to find the limitations in 8.3 version and why did Cognos take away few functionalities in 8.3/reasons/solutions?

Again if anyone can provide an alternative approach/ideas to the Doc # 1027965.2 its greatly apprecitated. or if there is a ETA from Cognos thats fine too.
Thanks!
Sudha

[Suraj]

So far we are not able to make many of the javascripts work in 8.3 that work fine in 8.2.
If any thing changes, I'll update.

[Sudha]

My question is usually an upgrade should come with extra features right, it should not take away the previous capabilities.
Does any one know the main root cause for JavaScripts not being worked in 8.3 with alternate approaches, so that we can cool down our clients?
Thanks!

[Suraj]

First of all, javascript is not supported by Cognos.
Whenever there is a javascript, cognos mentions that these may not work when moved between versions.
Second, the way cognos objects are referred in 8.3 are different so the existing way of referring them by javascript doesn't work.
There are few solutions in simple javascript that work in 8.3 and can be found in support.cognos.com page.

[Sudha]

JavaScript 'Not Supported' I doubt, again I'm not trying to contradict your statement; it’s just they (Cognos) give us this option of adding the HTML Item and they gave several codes to make use of ‘em. (Doc # 1027965.2)

Really more suggestions on this will help us all. I'm trying to understand the difference in calling the JScripts in 8.3.
Thanks!

[bonniehsueh]

The 'root cause' to why javascript does not work is explained, as Suraj Neupane notes, in documentation on cognos.support.com

[Suraj]

here is what Cognos says...


Various people have created JavaScript applications which interact with
undocumented and unsupported APIs and objects in the Cognos Viewer such
as prompt controls, buttons, and functions. Despite the undocumented and
unsupported nature of these JavaScript applications and APIs, we understand
that there is business value our customers are deriving from these
applications and we are committed to assisting in the upgrade process to the
extent of providing high level guidance.
These people have reverse engineered the Cognos Viewer source code and
built JavaScript applications that are dependant on that source code. As these
JavaScript applications have been developed without the knowledge of
Cognos development, we are unable to anticipate the full extent of the
changes required to upgrade a given JavaScript application. Therefore, this is
intended to be a living document in which we will add additional information
as it becomes available.

Why do these Upgrade Issues Exist?
For the most part, JavaScript applications written in Cognos ReportNet 1.x
upgraded well to Cognos 8.1 or 8.2 as there were few changes in Cognos
Viewer to account for. In Cognos 8.3 Cognos Viewer was re-architected to
allow it to run within Report Studio to provide the live data view for Express
Authoring Mode. This necessitated major changes to the source code
resulting in JavaScript applications not upgrading cleanly. As These JavaScript
applications had been developed without the knowledge of Cognos
development, the detrimental effect of the Cognos Viewer changes were
unknown until Cognos 8.3 was released and customers started to feel the
impact.
Now that we are aware of these issues, we have tried to ensure that known
areas are not changed between Cognos 8.3 and Cognos 8.4. But as we have
no definitive list of issues we are unable to either document all of them in
Cognos 8.3 or 8.4 nor to guarantee 100% compatibility between Cognos 8.3
and Cognos 8.4.

[elisha]

I am also using Cognos 8.3.
will it not automatically display the message ? .... for my reports the message has been displayed automatically.

Are you using package prompts or Report studio level prompts ? .
Have you rechecked all the properties ?

Thanks - Elisha

[Sudha]

My responses...
Are you using package prompts or Report studio level prompts?
'No' there are no package prompts, but there is only one Value Prompt which uses these scripts on two separate HTML Items per Cognos instructions which is working fine in 8.1

Have you rechecked all the properties?
What properties do I have to check, all I did was copied the xml from 8.1 over to 8.3, please let me know what all properties I have to recheck to make this work?

I guess we are almost there. Thanks!

[Sudha]

Elisha or anyone, Could you help me with the property settings please?
Thanks!

[elisha]

Example:

Prompt B.  (Prompt A is cascading source)
Need to set the properties for the prompt A.
Prompt A   (Set the property Multi select : No, Auto submit :Yes )

[kadhir]

Hi All,

I am not sure whether I am addressing your problem correctly. But I do have come across 'Javascript' issue while developing some reports. It may be an idea to see external things that cause Javascript problem, instead looking into Cognos itself. I mean, it may be a problem of IIS web server, Internet explorer, etc.. Please refer to my other postings in this site.
http://www.cognoise.com/community/index.php?topic=4969.0

Also, My findings tell me to do following things :

Do the un-registering and registering of the DLLs as shown following:

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3760879&SiteID=17

Hope that helps..
Good luck,
Kadhir