Hello all, I am having issues getting the images to work.  I created a Virtual directory on the IIS server with webdav enable and authored the permissions like I've found on the internet.  I can get the image to show in html, but it doesn't work on PDF or Excel.

Any thoughts on this?

Also, where does "../images/" lead to?  I have yet to figure that out.

Agreed that for the complex reports, both would need technical developers but Power BI still scores on easier reports for which the users don't need technical knowledge. The interface is much more user friendly for easy stuff. They prefer to make 4 easy reports instead of one complex report in Cognos giving them their independence. 

One of the new/improved features of Cognos Analytics 12.0.4 is the AI Assistant.  And I know that my management team is chomping at the bit to use any new AI feature that becomes available.

So I thought I'd try using these features.  Blocked!  "This data source has not been enriched."

Looking at the manual option for enriching a package, it looks like all I can do is tell Cognos which columns are date/time or location.

What I was hoping for is that my users can ask natural language questions of packages containing thousands of columns of non-trivial data.  So a user might ask a simple question like, "Show me expenditures by month for the last biennium for job number XE343401."

So, Cognos would need to know:

• A job number is WorkOrderGroupNumber or WorkOrderNum + GroupNumber.
• Expenditures could be called Expeses, Expended, Actual, etc.
• "last" biennium is 2023-2025.  The 2023-2025 biennium is the same as the biennium with begin year 2023 or the sum of FY2024 and FY2025.  Also relevant, for system load and query performance reasons, is that since the user is asking for only one biennium of financial data, using the biennium begin year column on the fact table will help because that is how the database is partitioned.  You get a query performance improvement of 2x to 40x if you craft the SQL properly.
• There are 24, 25, or 26 "months" in a biennium, depending on whether the employee works primarily with budget, program management, or accounting subjects.

...and when the user is asking for months from financial data, they are not asking for something that is really date/time data.  They are fiscal periods, not really months.  But they still need to be presented in the correct order, and there may be a need to forecast even though it is not considered time-based data (since only accountants - and not the Cognos devs - think there are 13 months in a year).

I do have available to me a data catalog that maps business terms to data objects.  So that could help.

How do I feed synonyms and other relevant vocabulary and business relationships to the AI?

Seems like that on the surface -- attending training asking trivial questions against trivial data.  But when the business user needs to answer a real-world question using actual data...  How many end users do you think will become experts in DAX and M?

A workaround that usually works for me is clearing the csk folder in FM and copying over csk from Content manager.

Is there a programmatic way to hardcode a datasource connection do be used by a report?
We have a dilemma right now where we have hundreds of report schedules.
We need to introduce a new datasource connection and in doing so will make all scheduled report connection ambiguous.

Planning to create the new datasource connection and just assign execute and traverse. I just need to find a way to make sure i can use this new datasource connection on specific reports.

Creating a new Datasource is not a viable option right now.


sdf

Cognos does have better features and is more versatile but it also requires technical resources which were hard to find. Most developers are average and nobody was able to make self-service BI which resulted in inferior results. Power BI is easier to use even if it provides less results overall and average resources are sufficient for it.

An unfortunate outcome of Microsoft evangelism and indoctrination in offices and college and high school classrooms.  Power BI continues to have more and more followers even though it is inferior to products like Cognos Analytics.

I've seen this myself.  I have had complaints that people want Power BI instead of Cognos because Cognos changes too often.  A little confusing for me based on facts:  I upgrade Cognos every 2 years.  The last upgrade and the next have little that users notice.  So no noticeable change for most users for at least 4 years.  Meanwhile, Power BI changes every month.  I've seen step-by-step instructions written 3 weeks ago that can no longer be followed.  I've also seen that reports created this month can't be opened in last month's Power BI Desktop.  So it's clear that people make that decision based on religious preference, not based on actual product capabilities.

As far as I know, Cognos is now almost dead, killed by Power BI, in spite of licensing cost going down so user groups won't really matter anymore. The only companies who now use Cognos are the ones who have applications sold to them by vendors who have BI made in Cognos and who have not migrated yet (Ex: Deltek who sells their ERP along with a BI made using Cognos without a Data Warehouse - the worst BI I have ever seen)

Hello everyone,

I'm new to IBM Cognos Controller, and this is my very first installation on our server. I've followed the official IBM documentation for setup, but I've run into two issues that I can't resolve.

Problem 1 – Controller Client
When I launch the classic Controller client, I receive the following error:


The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.
   at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.ReadResponse(SoapClientMessage message, WebResponse response, Stream responseStream, Boolean asyncCall)
   at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters)
   at Cognos.Controller.ControllerSoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodname, Object[] parameters)
   at Cognos.Controller.Proxy.Light.WSLight.CheckServerConnection(String sGuid, String sUser)
   at Cognos.Controller.Direct.ServerInfoD.CheckServerConnection()
   at CCR.AppContext.CheckConnectionToServer()


Problem 2 – Controller Web
When I access Controller Web in the browser at http://localhost:9085, I get a login popup. After entering the credentials, it refreshes and shows the same login screen again in a continuous loop.

Popup message:
The server is initializing, or the session has expired.
Please refresh the page in the web browser or log in.


Additional context:

The environment already has Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics running successfully.

Has anyone experienced these issues during a fresh installation? Any guidance or troubleshooting steps would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!