Drill Target Report (Snapshot) – ReportStudio Cognos 8

[sleepy]

I need to create a series of reports with drill-throughs that allow the Drill Target report to reflect the data when the Drill Parent reprot was originally run (ie., a snapshot in time). Is this possible in Cognos 8 - ReportStudio?

For example,
user A runs the Drill Parent report today and gets the current data (ie as at December 2006) in both the Drill Parent report and the Drill Target report.

How do I ensure that in March of 2007 when user A re-runs the Drill Parent ââ,¬ËœDecemberââ,¬â,,¢ report he will get December data in the Drill Target (detail) report rather than March data.

I am trying to do this as a proof of concept for an upcoming project using the ES GO Sales and Retailers sample.

I have set up schedule so that the Drill Parent is saved several times every couple of minutes. But how can I show that the Drill Targets reports will reflect data when report was saved (ie. DEC, JAN, FEB) rather than the current data.

Or is the answer bursting the reports?

Cheers,
sleepy  ;D

[Darek]

First, you'd vae to keep your report versions saved.
Second, you'd have to manually create FAKE DRILL TARGETS, which would send a user to a report generated in the same time period as your master.

With well documented usage scenarios upfront, this might be fun, fun, fun to code.

[sleepy]

Hi Darek,

Thanks for the reply.

Could you please elaborate. I was told that this could be done in Cognos 8. Wouldnt the manually coding of the path only occur if I was using Cognos 7 (Reportnet).

Cheers,
sleepy  ;D

[workdan]

Pardon me if I've got the situation wrong, but does the parent report use a filter? You mention re-running the 'December' report in March; if this means you're running the report filtered to only show data for December, then you can pass the filter parameters to the drill target.

If this is not the scenario, and you're re-displaying a saved December report in March, well, I don't know of any straightforward way to get the December target report (you'd have to fall back on Darek's suggestion).

Good luck. :)

-Dan

[sleepy]

Thanks for the reply.

Just had some clarification from end user (finally)!!

They have monthly financial reports (that contain drill throughs). The data in these reports in available at the end of the month. They want to be able to freeze and archive each months reports.

For example, The parent report would contain only DECEMBER data and the child report would contain only DECEMEMBER data. Then end of  January the parent report would contain only JANUARY data and the child report would contain JANUARY data ... etc.
Note: The data in the database returns to zero at begining of month.

Each set of reports will be archived by month. End users want to be able to return to earlier reports and have the related data in child reports .

In other words, how do I both freeze the parent report ouput and the child report output while keeping the drillthos.

Cheers,
sleepy  ;D

[MDXpressor]

You could just capture {sysdate} in the main report as a data item or a filter and pass it as such to the drill-thru report.

You have 2 reports:
Drill-From (DF)
Drill-To (DT)

Set up a parameter in the DT report and feed it to your snapshot filter.Ã, 

In the DF report create a data item to represent the the 'Current' date (a today() or {sysdate} function).
In the Drill-Thru definition of the DF report; go to the Parameters window.Ã,  In here you can send the Snapshot parameter as a data item (as opposed to default or a parameter), and choose the data item you created to capture the Snapshot info.