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IBM Cognos 10 Platform => Cognos 10 BI => Business Insight Advanced / Cognos Workspace Advanced => Topic started by: SPTuco on 14 Oct 2014 05:39:11 AM

Title: Cube Build Update Time
Post by: SPTuco on 14 Oct 2014 05:39:11 AM
Does anyone know if it is possible to display the cube build time in CWA when using a Powercube as the package?

We use the report function CubeDataUpdatedOn in Report Studio but we need this function in CWA as we are in the process of wanting to move some of our users away from Powerplay and onto CWA and being able to easily see when the cube was last updated is very important to them.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Cube Build Update Time
Post by: Lynn on 14 Oct 2014 07:58:38 AM
Quote from: SPTuco on 14 Oct 2014 05:39:11 AM
Does anyone know if it is possible to display the cube build time in CWA when using a Powercube as the package?

We use the report function CubeDataUpdatedOn in Report Studio but we need this function in CWA as we are in the process of wanting to move some of our users away from Powerplay and onto CWA and being able to easily see when the cube was last updated is very important to them.

Thanks.

Yes! It is possible!! Report Studio and CWA have the same XML specification. This means you can enhance any CWA report in Report Studio and then give it back to users for their continued use. Or you can create a report with elements such as a report expression containing cube updated information for them to copy and paste into their own report. Or you can educate advanced users on the use of clipboard fragments. On a similar theme, you can tweak the properties of something in Report Studio that they can't do in CWA and give the report back to them, keeping it within the auspices of user self service and out of the IT bottleneck. This is not possible with Query Studio or Analysis Studio.

I presented at the IBM IOD conference last year on this very topic. Attached is a document that was provided as a supplement to the session slides. It contains instructions that users can follow to put things in their reports that are not in the toolbox, such as report expressions for parameter display, prompt controls, or layout containers such as repeaters. It may appear complicated at first glance, but if you demonstrate it first and provide a document such as this for reference it is really very simple for business users to do.

Here is a post that illustrates how to use a fragment to show the value of a prompt. The same concept can be easily adapted for your report expression showing cube updated information.
http://www.cognoise.com/index.php/topic,21461.0.html

I hope at least one of these options proves useful for your situation. Good Luck!
Title: Re: Cube Build Update Time
Post by: SPTuco on 14 Oct 2014 08:26:03 AM
Thank you very much, this is a great help  :D
Title: Re: Cube Build Update Time
Post by: dfreed on 13 Mar 2015 02:10:43 PM
To take this one step further, I used this same concept, along with the great ideas in this post (http://www.cognoise.com/index.php/topic,21461.0.html), to create a reusable toolbox object (http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/dw/dm/cognos/reporting/prompts_and_filters/advanced_prompting_ibm_cognosbi83_84.pdf) so that users can just drag and drop from the toolbox onto the report. I successfully created my object and it shows up fine in Report Studio, but not in CWA. I checked our custom User Interface Profiles (we're on 10.2.2), but don't see that custom item as an option. Has anyone else encountered this and/or know how to fix it?