View data definitions in Report Studio

[kingjamesjob]

I'm an Application Manager recently tasked to support Cognos and manage the development resource team.  I have no development training in Cognos, so apologies on my ignorance upfront.

A problem I'm running into is the lack of understanding by the report developers of data elements loaded through Data Manager.  Developers keep going back to the Data Manager resource and ask him which fields they should be be using in reports. 

Even though the developers don't have Data Manager capabilities, shouldn't they be able to view the field properties which would tell them the root data source and whether any transformation expressions apply for a specific field?  I've seen these expression definitions in data manager, I would think that these should be at least viewable by report writers.

There is an exercise now to create an external document with this information which seems silly to me.

Any keywords, etc... for me to investigate this issue would be helpful.

[tupac_rd]

I guess you would need to setup the lineage information, experts please chime in.

[MFGF]

Unfortunately, the Lineage function will only allow a report developer to track items back via the FM model to the underlying data source.  None of the prior work or transformations done within the Data Manager catalog will be visible.

MF.

[wyconian]

Try using screentips or the description fields in framework manager.  These are free form text fields where you can give a description of the column and any details about the derivation/calculation.

When you hover over the query subject data item in one of the studios the screenshot/description appears.  You can also right click on the data item properties to see the description.

It's a very manual task so is very time consuming but we've found it a really useful way of giving the report writers information.

[kingjamesjob]

Thanks for the feedback.  A few follow up questions:

MFGF:  When you say there is no way to apply lineage for prior work, are you saying that this wouldn't be automatic once it's turned on?  Is there still a way to go back to each data element to apply it?

wyconian:  That is very useful.  Since some of these folks would be business users, a business description would be what they're looking for.  Since we started these business descriptions in an external workbook, do you know of any way of automatically uploading these to the screen tip data fields for each data element in framework manager?  Or is this really a manual copy and paste/data entry we'll need to do?

[MFGF]

MFGF:  When you say there is no way to apply lineage for prior work, are you saying that this wouldn't be automatic once it's turned on?  Is there still a way to go back to each data element to apply it?

Lineage is an out-of-the-box feature, and is designed to show how items in the package can be traced back to the underlying data source they are being read from on the Cognos 8 BI server (based on the modelling in Framework Manager).  It is not currently possible to add data to it to specify how an item was transformed and delivered into this source.  There is another option available called 'Glossary', which allows your Cognos 8 server to integrate with IBM Infosphere Business Glossary, potentially providing information about how the items can be tracked back through to their original source system, but a) this requires BG to be purchased and installed, and b) currently the Data Manager metadata is not integrated with BG, so the Data Manager processing appears as a Black Box.

[tupac_rd]

regarding adding descriptions to the FM model, if you have not already started to create the FM model, and if it is a Oracle database, then you can have the descriptions added to the database for each column under Comments section. So when you import the table into FM, all the columns will have the Description populated from the Comments section. And to populate into Screentip, either do it manually or there is a sample SDK on the support site.......

[kingjamesjob]

Thanks both for your feedback.

[wyconian]

Hi

I think it is also possible to add screen tips for data items in the one of the content store tables.  I'd be very cautious about doing that though as playing with the content store could screw something up.

We get the business users to provide descriptions of the data items in an excel spreadsheet then it's just a case of copy/paste the description to the screen tip on the properties tab.

It is still very manual but does provide the user with a lot of information and saves a load of service calls.