Export report and divide it to multiple excel files

[CognosBen]

Hi,

I have created a report for phone cost usage in our company.
Each manager should receive a report for his department and his department only and we have 500 managers that should have this information.
Bursting would of course solve this in minutes, but we are not able to use this functionality because it will be a huge license cost for us.

• The output should be divided in to one excel file for each manager so I end up having 500 excel files

Is this doable?

[sunosoft]

I am not expert on this board(report studio).

However in terms of licences, I don't think bursting functionality is anyhow related to licence cost.

[CognosBen]

Thank you for your reply.

The message we got from our Vendor and IBM is that each recipient will need a license to be able to receive a report from bursting.
And I think the license cost was around 200$ for each recipient.

[CognosPaul]

Double check the license costs. $200 seems very high for a recipient license. Is it possible the vendor was quoting a consumer or enhanced consumer?

I recall a recipients costing relatively low (around $10 a pop). Although I shouldn't be quotes on that price - license theory is an esoteric subject best left to grey-beards and men with thousand-dollar suits.

If it really is that expensive, it may be better to simply shell out for a PVU.

[Ixhers]

Hi.

This just sounds wrong.

Why would you need a license to receive a report?
If you had to send something to a external party, do they have the need of a license then as well?

Can't you burst the report, per manager, via mail with the attached .xls? (i.e. no html files or links)
I handle regular scheduled reports like this, does bursting differ when it comes to the send part?

And my apologies if I just added more questions to the thread.

/ Rob

[CognosBen]

Hi.

This just sounds wrong.

Why would you need a license to receive a report?
If you had to send something to a external party, do they have the need of a license then as well?

Can't you burst the report, per manager, via mail with the attached .xls? (i.e. no html files or links)
I handle regular scheduled reports like this, does bursting differ when it comes to the send part?

And my apologies if I just added more questions to the thread.

/ Rob

I agree that this sounds totally wrong.
But this is the information we got from IBM, we have even met them in person discussing this topic.
If a receipient receives a report from Cognos via bursting, we need to have a license for this person. The license will probably not be to only that person, but if I would burst to 500 people we need 500 licenses. And the price to use that single functonality that allready exist in Cognos will be sky high!

But.. back to my original question. Anyone know if I can export a report to multiple excel files based on grouping in the report?

[MFGF]

The wording IBM use to determine whether a person is classed as a recipient essentially says that if a report output is customised for that person, they need a recipient license. If the report output is generic, they do not. Sometimes it's a grey area in deciding what classes as customised, but with bursting it's pretty clear - the server is creating an output specifically targeted at that user, so they need a recipient license if they are going to receive the output directly from the Cognos server.

Cheers!

MF.

[CognosBen]

Just wanted to come with my solution to this topic if any interest to others.

I was able to create mutiple excel sheets by selecting 'Run with options' on the report, press 'advanced options' and then Save to file system & Select Bursting.

Individual excel reports based on bursting setup in the report are then created on the configured file system, instead of sending out emails to the users.

[Francis aka khayman]

Creative way to beat the system? :)

Burst 500 reports to the same user. But each report contains data for specific manager only.

Then pay someone to create a script to distribute the 500 excel files to each manager. :)

[CognosBen]

Creative way to beat the system? :)

Burst 500 reports to the same user. But each report contains data for specific manager only.

Then pay someone to create a script to distribute the 500 excel files to each manager. :)

That's correct! :)
This method was approved by IBM if we agreed to use a third party program to distribute the reports afterwords.

Kinda knocking my head over IBM here though, since we achieve the same end result by doing it 3 times more complicated.

[MFGF]

That's correct! :)
This method was approved by IBM if we agreed to use a third party program to distribute the reports afterwords.

Kinda knocking my head over IBM here though, since we achieve the same end result by doing it 3 times more complicated.

The important factor is that it costs you to do this - either in buying the requisite IBM licenses, or in coding and supporting a solution to pick up multiple output files from the filesystem and automate the process of emailing them out. Alternatively you pay someone's salary to do this manually.

In the end it comes down to a decision of which works out best for your business in the long run. Any solution you create may have to be supported internally in case it breaks, and modified in future if you change the way your emails are handled within your organization. A person's salary to cover this as a manual process may seem relatively small, but if you factor in a multiple-year solution then it may not be overall.

While the IBM license costs might seem large at first view, taken as a total-cost-of-ownership they may work out more cost effective?

Just a thought! :)

MF.

[bdbits]

MFGF I totally understand what you are saying. But most of the time you also have annual support of 15-20% or more (not sure what IBM's rate is) to factor in as well. As a former developer I think I can say it actually was not terribly difficult to write the part that emailed the files, and I suspect the long-term expense of potential future breakage is less than the 500 recipient licenses plus annual support. And if you want to add another member to the list, it costs you nothing.

IBM is finally simplifying their licensing, but I think the "recipient" license is still out there.

I know Cognos needs to pay its way, but this kind of licensing makes it difficult to push usage of a product when it costs a significant chunk of change at every turn, even to do something really basic like report distribution. Broader output distribution might drive people into looking at directly using Cognos, and thus higher license revenues. But what do I know, maybe the sales people have found they can do this and make more money even if the number of engaged users is ultimately lower.