Access to Administrator Console

[adam_mc]

We are in the process of an upgrade from Cognos BI 10.2.2 to Cognos Analytics 11.0.13.
One of the issues I am having is giving a set of users meaningful access to the Administration Console and leaving them as an Analytics Explorer.
In, BI 10.2.2 this is possible.  However, in CA 11.0.13, it seems to effectively consume an Analytics Administrator license (as viewed in the License panel).

I need this group of users to see all reports, schedules, and jobs for all users in Current & Past Activities so that they can review, research, and resolve various problems.
This group is large enough such that we would like to avoid upgrading the licenses for this set of users.

Any thoughts would be gratefully appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Adam.   

[dougp]

The rule I was given when starting with 10.2.1 was that only Analytics Administrators can use Cognos Administration.  Once you adjust the permissions of the Analytics Explorer role to be able to use Cognos Administration, your Analytics Explorer members are all now using an Analytics Administrator license.  The difference between 11.0.x and 10.2.x is that 11.0.x tells you that.

That being said...  11.0.7 reported almost correctly.  11.0.13 is reporting that most of my users are consuming Analytics Administrator licenses.  I have verified that only one user has permission to access any administrator functionality.  IBM Support has acknowledged that there is a bug in the license reporting in 11.0.13.

[adam_mc]

Understood, we are now removing this functionality and returning to a clear delineation between each role.

So, that leaves me two options, neither of which I like:

• Add a Significant Number of Analytics Administrator Licenses
• Reduce our SLA with the Business

Is there a way we can support the business without the need for additional Administrator licenses – Audit, Logs, API's, tools like Motio, etc..?
Does anyone have any experience in satisfying this need and have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Adam.

[dougp]

I'd start with "...resolve various problems."  What are the actual needs?  What are these business trying to accomplish?  Provide them that functionality, not raw access to Cognos metrics.

Who are your business users?  Are these users in various businesses in your company?  Or are you providing a Cognos service to a variety of tenants that are not in your business?  If the latter, maybe each of those tenant businesses needs its own Analytics Administrator named user license.

You should probably work with the IBM partner company that you are paying for licenses to help resolve this.  Maybe they have some good ideas that will enable you to provide the right level of service at the right cost.