Automate report studio reports to run report through a list of prompt variables

[sidney786]

Hi

Is there a way to run a number of reports, selecting the prompt variables automatically.

i.e. sales reports for individual sales person

Sales person being the prompt:

Joe
Sarah
Brian
etc

At present i am opening the report and running a report for each sales person through the prompt.

Can this be automated, if so how?

Sid

[CognosPaul]

If I understand, you're creating a separate output for each sales person. So Joe might be interested in a specific product type in a specific area, while Sarah might be only be interested in a specific area?

I've solved a similar request by creating a burst table, with all of the parameters stored in different fields in the table. I then created a page-set based on that table, with all of the report elements master detailed to that. For cases where the recipients needed to filter on more than one value, for instance product_id 123_abc and xyz_321, the field contained '123_abc','xyz_321' (including the parens), and master detail pointed to the product parameter: [Product_id] in (#prompt('ProductID','token')#)

Once that was done, the report could automatically be sent out on a regular basis, without any intervention on my part. A data entry screen was also set up to allow the users to select and save their own values.

[sidney786]

Hi Paul

Thank you for your response.

Your assumption is correct, i have created a number of the same report hard coding the different sales person in the filter.

How does one create a burst table? You mention a master-detail report, is going to be a separate report referenced by the original report?

Regards

Sid

[CognosPaul]

Simply create a new table with the following fields:

name
email address
value for parameter 1
value for parameter 2
and so on

import that that table into your report.

In page explorer, drag in a page set. You're going to set the query to the table you imported. Drag Page 1 into the detail for that page set. On each of your data containers, create a master detail to pass the values from the table to the parameters.

Finally, set up the burst on that same table. I'm not in front of Cognos at the moment, but you can read the [ur=http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/cbi/v10r2m1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ug_cr_rptstd.10.2.1.1.doc%2Ft_cr_rptstd_modrep_bursting_reports.htmll]help files[/url] to get an idea how to set it up.