We are building some web pages that will interface with EP. If I open an application in Cognos Planning I can see and navigate thru my eList. Then I click on an eList item to launch Contributor.
Is it possible to somehow go directly into Contributor by passing in the eList item as a parameter? We could write ASP or .Net code to do this it it is possible...
Read the cognos\cer_n\webcontent\contributor asp and html files (particularly planning23.htm, 02.asp etc), and see how to embed contrib windows into your pages.
But be careful on software updates, they can break existing code. There are no officially published\supported Contributor APIs.
I would stay away from doing anything like this. Your install will not be supported and it's not worth the frustration.
In contributor 7.3 its possible to get a cell URL. Then if you create a bookmark to this url, you get direct acess to the application>elist>application cube>cell.
Open your application in contributor client, pick a cell and do a right click and choose Copy URL.
Example of URL generated by Copy URL
http://server/cognos/contributor/planning10.asp?appid=go_expenses&multinode=0&item=
{47E288FA-A4A7-4932-90F0-9E933F8EA311}{57C90B4B-E95B-4E3A-B734-08D2F6B2EE54}
{377AC1EC-6E82-4F0B-999B-7F82DB678146}{F66E5150-9E6D-417D-8993-384BBDAAD9D9}
{24A3BBBF-59A7-4522-A4F0-315C12DD0FCE}{46FC0F26-01CE-4A80-91A1-F6B6BCDD6CCC}
You can customize the URL changing the GUID's that represent the elist.
You can get the GUID from elist item and the others D-List items from it_ tables from publish containers of the application.
Consider that, the URL parameter changes when application is reestructured by:
- Change the order of D-List in the d-cube.
- Elist item is deleted and recreated.
- Substitute D-List on D-Cube.
- D-list item is deleted and recreated.
This technique is not documented, then use this carefully.