D-Links involving E-List in Contributor

[PhilE]

Hello all

I am building a forecast model for use by department managers via Contributor.

I am finding the following rule to be very restricting in making a sensible and user-friendly model

"D-Links that use the e.List in any way other than the following are invalid:

...

Where the e.List is present in both the source and the target, and the matching is done using match descriptions with the default options: Case Sensitive On, Match Calculated Target Items Off."

In my model, the e.List is our company structure, or list of departments and their roll-ups.

There are times when something entered in to one department, say tickets sold, is needed to drive another type of sale in another department based on a 'hit rate' or some such...but the above rule basically excludes me from transferring figures entered in to one department to another department...since I can only use 'match descriptions' on the department list.

Does anyone know a way around this?

Any help appreciated.

Regards,

Phil

[adityashah27]

Phil,

trying to understand, in your model you have dlist containing elist values?

[mrobby]

Phil,
  Are you able to enable the Get Data/Client Extension?  This would allow a user to run a system link which would allow that user to pull data from a different e list item into their cube.  The e list mapping is not necessarily dynamic as it has to be set in the CAC but it would allow an end user to pull data from an e list item they did not have access to.  I looked to see if system links allowed the use of an A-Table but it appeared that it was only allowed on admin links.

[PhilE]

Thanks for the replies people!

adityashah27:

What I am trying to do is transfer data from one e-list to another e-list item...but I could not do this with a regular d-link created in analyst

mrobby:

Many thanks, the system link thing looks like the way to go! For some reason I can't actually get my system link to work, but I did get a local link to work and it gives me the desired effect. I'm sure that I can get the system link to work.

Just one question on system/local links: Is there some way to automate them in Contributor, or must they always be run by the end users?

Cheers again!

[sascha]

Is there some way to automate them in Contributor, or must they always be run by the end users?

For automatation you should use admin links either instead of or even additional to the system links. Then set up a macro that triggers the admin link and make sure that the 'publish to connection' is enabled. Set up a job in connection that runs this macro in a scheduled way as you like.

[mrobby]

Sascha has the right idea.  If you want the ability for a user to automate them then Sascha has a good idea although that macro is available in the Cognos Portal and not in the planning tool itself.

1. Local Links allow the end user to specify which data to transfer making it the most dynamic of the types.  The downside is that the user can only link to e list items that he/she has access to.
2. System links can be run while working inside the planning tool but the end user is unable to modify this.  Im not 100% sure but so far I have not found a macro to run a system link which means the macro route would cause a duplicative link so the end user could run from Cognos BI portal.
3. Admin link would provide the ability to be run from a contributor macro that can be published to the Cognos Portal.  Least flexible as an end user cannot change and must run from the Portal Page instead of the planning app.  Although a system link combined with an admin link as Sascha stated would allow you to automate the link as well as allow an end user to pull data on demand.