Cognos Interview questions with answers

Oracle what is the difference between a cascading report and drill thru report? Why do we go for drill thru report? Drill Through is used to link the master & detail reports. After putting drill through if you click on a link (e.g. Order ID 1234) in the master report then the details will be displayed for that particular item (Order ID 1234). Cascading prompt uses the value from the previous prompt to filter the value in the current prompt. For cascading no need of two reports, If a report having two related columns (e.g. Country & States), then we can cascade these two columns by adding two value prompts. If you select a country (e.g. INDIA), in the next prompt all the states will be displayed those which are under INDIA. If you want to see the details for the state Tamilnadu, then select TN from the list which will display all the details for TN. How can I schedule reports in cognos? There are three types of Schedules in Cognos Run with Option Single time Scheduling Recurring Scheduling U can specify u r date and time here Job or Batch Scheduling A Job is a group of reports which can be scheduled at the specific date and time. U can view the status by clicking Schedule Management What are the differences between Cognos 8 and Cognos 7.x version? Cognos 7.X 1. Multilingual reports not possible. 2. Not possible to send reports through mails. 3. Analysis, maps, different types of charts are not available. 4. Here catalogs are generated. 5. Modeling is difficult. Cognos 81. 1. Supports multilingual reports 2. Bursting is possible. 3. Types of charts, maps, analysis is possible through different studios. 4. All studios are integrated as single GUI environment. 5. Here packages are build. 6. Modeling is very easy with lot of features. Please explain the different stages in creating a report? Before creating any report in report net make sure you are have the planning information you need. Creating a report involves following steps: Specifying a package Choose a package through cognos connection>report studio>Select a module from the list. Choosing a report template Create a empty report first, click one of the predefined report templates, click OK. Adding query items In the insert able objects plane, select the query item that you want to add to report, drag it to the desired location.

Saving report save the report from file menu. Running the report Open the report that you want to run. From the Tools menu, click Validate Report. A message box appears indicating whether any errors were found in the report. If you want to enable Design Mode Only filters defined in the package, from the File menu, click Use Model Design Filters. Use these filters to limit the amount Open the report that you want to run. From the Tools menu, click Validate Report. A message box appears indicating whether any errors were found in the report. If you want to enable Design Mode Only filters defined in the package, from the File menu, click Use Model Design Filters. If you want to set run options, from the Run menu, click Run Options. From the Run menu, click one of the options to produce the report in the format you want. You can produce a report in HTML, PDF, CSV, XLS, or XML. How to configure content in Content Store? Go to Cognos Configuration look for Content Manager Delete the default Content Store For SQL Server Right Click Content manager and create a new content store Give data base name as Oracle Give the user id ,Password you created in oracle with DBA rights Give SID of oracle database you gave when installing it. Save changes to project Test settings and start services What are Complex reports? Complex reports is a when we have to retrieve the metadata from different data sources where located at different places, and design the reports using different report types(list, crosstab, graphs & repeaters) more times in single report. How can you restrict access to different part of the report? you can do it in three stages 1) Package Level 2) Object level 3) Data level What is ad hoc reporting? Where it is useful? Explain in brief? Ad-hoc Reports designing the report + Running the report take a place at the same time Execution. Adhoc repots are also known as Self service Report. -> Use the query studio will create simple&adhoc reports.Adhoc report also known as self service reoprts.Adhoc reports are useful for debugging means find errors. Ad hoc reports are simple reports. or one time report...it is the outstanding report of standard report 2.on fly reports... 3.designing and running will take place at the same time....called ad hoc reports What type problems we can face in general at report running time? The most common problems are

1.No Data Appears in the Report (to remove this check data source or package) 2.Unexpected or incorrect values appears in reports , may be report is running with limited data 3.The report filter does not work, values are not coming in filter option 4.report is not able to open in excel ,cvs or xml What are some of the Best Practices in Framework Manager? Define Reporting requirement and data access strategies Only import required reporting objects and alter as little as possible Verify relationship and query item properties Customize metadata for run time Model in freehand to identify query usage Use model query subject to control query generation and usage Specify determinants as required Resolve Multiple Ambiguous joins between query subjects Model dimensionally if OLAP style querying is required Populate the Business view using star schema grouping How can I create a dynamic column name in Cognos 8? Create a calculated column which contains the information that the header is to contain, such as "Report for year 1999" (concatenated text and date to string sub string extraction). Highlight the report, and then right-click. Select Properties, and then click the Headers/Footers tab. Clear the Column Title Header check box. This will remove the headers from your columns. Reinsert the rest of the column headers; insert text will work. For the dynamic column, from the Insert menu, click Data and select the calculated column you created and insert it into the report. How to Improve Performance in Report? Check for unnecessary aggregations, check for cross joins and ambiguous relations, specify prompt values, schedule the reports during non-peak hours, verify the package before publishing OR By aggregation. Try to use less filters in the report. Use star schema grouping, check the joins. Also drill through functionality increases performance as well. Always try to use appropriate functionality which can save time in this way you can improve performance of a report. What is a usage Property in Framework Manager? Usage property identifies the intended use for the data represented by each query item and it determines the aggregation rules of query items and calculations. The different usage property settings are Identifier, Fact, Attribute, and Unknown. What is CAMID in Cognos? CAMID stands for Cognos Access Manager ID, and it represents an internal search path to the recipients. Specify search paths when you want to save burst reports in a directory. You can obtain the path in Cognos Connection. Open the Set properties page for each recipient, and click the View the search path link. Ensure that you use the proper syntax when adding recipients to the burst table. CAMID is used extensively during report bursting What is the difference between Model and a Package? A model is a logical view of the enterprise, where in a package is a subset of the model. This

helps in reducing redundant copies of the database objects in several places. For example, you can create one single model for the entire warehouse and choose to create multiple packages for each subject area which specific focus. Define Dimensions, measures, Regular dimensions and Measure Dimensions? Dimension: is a broad group of description, grouped together to describe a key area of a business. e.g., Product dim, Customer Dim which holds all details 'about pdt n customer respectively. Measure: is a numeric fact which shows business strength. e.g., sales quantity. It shows the amount of quantity sold.... and in report we can present measures with respect to various dim attributes like product, employee, customer, time, etc.....

1. What is the reason for creating a database Signon in Cognos 8? 2. How to move an entire Cognos 8 installation from one environment to another 3.Predefined roles in Cognos 8? 4. How to upgrade Reportnet report specifications and perform consistency check in Cognos Connection? 5. In Cognos Connection, what are the portlets used for Content handling ? 6. What might be a reason for copying a user profile? 7. What is a shortcut and what happens when the target is renamed? 8. What are the IBM Cognos 8 user permissions? 9. Mail server configuration? 10. How to set up email report distribution in Cognos? 11. What might be a reason for creating a report view by an administrator 12. What is the scope of a package based drill through? 13. How do the components in IBM Cognos 8 architecture communicate? 14. What are the architecture tiers in IBM Cognos 8? 15. IBM Cognos 8 services overview? 17. What are the supported application servers by Cognos 8 18. What is the definition of the Application tier? 19. How to ensure failover when configuring Content Manager? 20. Cognos Application Firewall configuration to access a report on a remote computer? 22. What are gateways in the Cognos Webserver tier? 23. How to disable anonymous access in Cognos 8? 24. Why content manager services must be started first in the distributed installation? 25. How does load balancing work in Cognos 8? 28. IBM Cognos 8 environment tuning and optimization tips? 30. Audit logging and audit reports in Cognos 8? 31. What logging levels are available in IBM Cognos 8? 34. What are Cognos 8 system metrics types? 41. Supported data sources in IBM Cognos 8? 51. Concurrent report query execution? 52. Integration with an existing web portal? 53. Definition and role of a cognos 8 dispatcher?

54. Predefined roles in Cognos 8? 55. How to schedule reports in Cognos 8?