Reporting across packages

[terry_stjean]

What is the best way to design the following scenario.
I want to have a Sales package for Sales reporting users.
I also want an Inventory package for Inventory reporting users.
The security would be in the package access.
Now, If I have a user that wants to have both Sales and Inventory data on one report, how would I do that is the data comes from multiple packages.
Would I have to set it up as a nested package?
For example.
A package called Company
And within that package, have the Inventory and Sales packages.
Or is there another way to do it.

[COGNOiSe administrator]

Try one package, two namespaces.

[terry_stjean]

Is there any advantage/disadvantage to having a package with multiple namespaces to having a "master" package with references packages.
Would any maintenance or object security be handled differently.

[larsonr]

Here are some thoughts to throw out.  Packages technically don't nest within themselves.  You have namespaces and folders that create a data hierarchy if you will within  a model.  This model can contain all the elements needed to build all of your packages.  In essence then you could create a master package that contained elements that you are using in several different packages.  If you want to hide the data from different users then you will need to create security objects in Framework that allow the data to only be seen by certain user groups/roles. 

We are doing this with sensitive Payroll and HR data.  This allows for us to use the same package for all users but not have to publish a Payroll specific one.  Its just a thought you may wish to consider.  I believe the basic set up is in the Framework Modeling User guide and the Metadata Modeling I class from Cognos.