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    Cognos Best Practices Done Sep 13

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    Shubham Chahal

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    Cognos Best Practices Done Sep 13

    Uploaded by

    Shubham Chahal
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    Cognos Best Practices Done Sep 13 (1)

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    3 views10 pages

    Cognos Best Practices Done Sep 13

    Uploaded by

    Shubham Chahal

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    of 10

    Cognos Best Practices

    © 2013, Cognizant Technology Solutions. All Rights Reserved.


    The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
    Best Practices…….. Meta Data Modeling
    Meta Data Modeling Best Practices

    Model should have a layered structure with the following tiers


    • Data base layer
    • Preparation Layer
    • Dimensional Layer
    • Presentation Layer
    Business layer should have Shortcuts of objects in the Dimensional layer.
    Shortcuts should be used wherever possible, instead of copies.
    While publishing the package only the Business layer should be made visible
    Reusable Filters and Prompts may be created in the model in the preparation layer
    Cardinality describes the association between two query subjects and is set at each end of the relationship.
    It should be ensured that the cardinality addresses business needs. Following are the considerations to
    take while defining cardinality:
    • Dimension – Dimension (During a SnowFlake) – Could be (1..1 for a inner join or 0..1 for a outer join)
    • Dimensions - Fact (For a inner join specify only 1..n (1 on the dimension table side) if any of the
    reports involve measures from the more than one Fact Table, specifying 1..1 does not form the correct
    query when the report involves more than one fact table.
    • For outer joins, 0..n may be used
    Specify user and administrative access to the package.
    Use linking & segmentation for concurrent meta data model development involving more than one
    developer

    © 2013, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential


    Best Practices…….. Meta Data Modeling
    Meta Data Modeling Best Practices

    Only the required tables and DB objects should be imported into the model.
    Avoid having Orphan Tables in the data base layer
    Complicated calculations should be done at the data base side
    Many to Many relationships should be avoided as they generate stitched queries. Instead Star Schema
    grouping should be used.
    All Parallel relationships should be examined and the unnecessary ones should be resolved.
    Recursive relationship should be converted to fixed hierarchy using shortcuts.
    In a fact table query subject, exposing any query items that are not facts (measures with an aggregation
    rule) should be avoided. If necessary, they should be exposed as a separate model query subject that looks
    like a dimension.
    Whenever possible reduce the number of query subjects. Represent each discrete business concept with a
    single model query subject.
    If two fact tables have conformed dimensions, but different levels of granularity for that dimension, then for
    each fact table only the relevant levels should be included.
    Only the objects that will be reported on by users should be published in a package.
    Surrogate keys should be hidden while publishing a package.

    © 2013, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential


    Best Practices…….. Security
    Security Best Practices

    Define Data level security in the ‘Data base layer’ in the cognos model

    Fetch the parameter values for the security filters from a DB table instead of hard coding in the model. This
    provides more flexibility in change management

    Maintain identical user group names in Cognos Namespace & External Authentication source

    Use Parameter Maps for dynamic data source querying instead of creating individual packages for each
    data source

    Temporary files should also be encrypted by using Cognos Configuration.

    Restrict access to the administrative functions in Cognos connection. By default, the ‘Everyone’ group is a
    member of the ‘System Administrators’ role.

    Groups and / or roles be created within the Cognos namespace, and these groups and roles be used to
    secure the content objects.

    © 2013, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential


    Best Practices…….. Deployment Topology

    Deployment Topology Best Practices


    Maintain a Development, BETA and Production environment

    All Development activities to be done in Dev environment, UAT be done in BETA environment & Users
    access the production environment.

    It should be ensured that copies of reports in BETA & Production environment are same for ease of
    maintenance & back up

    Production & BETA should have same hardware and configuration settings

    Developers should have access only to the development environment

    BETA & Production should be maintained by Cognos administrator

    Deployment of Report objects into BETA & Production should be done by cognos administrator

    For bulk deployment of objects , Cognos deployment service may be used, manual depoyment may be
    used when the number of objects to be deployed is less.

    © 2013, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential


    Best Practices…….. Cognos Administration
    Cognos Administration Best Practices

    • During Cognos upgrade take a complete back up of the content store

    • Configure the required audit settings and have audit reports in pace to measure usage of cognos
    environment

    • Set the default font to Arial or some light weight font, ‘Andale’ which is the default font consumes 216MB of
    memory which may potentially cause performance issues in reports

    • Maintain copies of Configuration settings using the ‘Save configuration’ option available in cognos
    configuration

    • Maintain the same configuration for the Dev,BETA & Production environments for consistency

    • Provide description & screen tips for each export & Import deployment archives for easy maintenance &
    future reference

    • Have Load balancing & fail over mechanism in BETA & Production environments

    • Set up server CPU usage, memory usage & exception alerting mechanism in production environment

    • During Cognos version upgrade, upgrade the dev environment first ,make an impact analysis on reporting
    objects due to upgrade to ensure smooth flow to production environment

    © 2013, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential


    Best Practices…….. Versioning
    Version Control Best Practices

    Configure the Framework manager with version control software to enable maintaining versions of models
    in development environment

    Enable ‘Versioning’ while publishing packages and do not overwrite packages in development environment

    Developers to ‘Check-in’/’Check-out’ & provide change comments for every change made in the model

    BETA & Production environment to have only a single copy of packages & reports

    © 2013, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential


    Best Practices…….. Report Development
    Report Development Best Practices

    Local processing should be avoided under normal circumstances and should be enabled only while
    processing queries with outer joins.
    Tabular SQL should be avoided unless absolutely needed.
    A report template should be created with the standard layout and should be used for creating all the reports.

    Templates can be set in such a way that they are prompted at the start of a new report creation.

    The Page header and Page footer section should be used to put common items like titles and links to other
    reports.
    A combination of tables and blocks should be used to create reports .

    © 2013, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential


    Best Practices…….. Report Development
    Report Development Best Practices

    The format properties should be set at the highest level possible.


    Padding and Margins should be used to create white spaces.
    Fixed object sizing should not be used unless absolutely necessary.
    Percentage sizing should be used to a maximum extent.
    All amount fields should be limited to 2 decimals (depends on the client’s requirement).
    Layout Component Reference should be used to achieve reusability of report objects.
    Conditional Block list should be used to display multiple data items in the same cell. In case of hiding the
    objects, the Box property Box type=none can be used.
    The White space=No wrap can be used to avoid the wrapping of text.
    Html scripts, with proper commenting could be used to achieve additional functionalities.
    The column width should be set to fixed size wherever possible, as the dynamic sizing runs the query twice.
    Simple CASE statements run faster than Search CASE Statements.
    Place Calculations strategically. Rather than including a calculation in a CASE statement in multiple places
    do it once in a separate field and then refer to it multiple times.
    Database functions are processed quicker than the Cognos counterpart functions.
    Classes can be created or existing classes could be modified to format objects across a report. This helps
    in reusability of a desired action.
    Report level joins should be avoided

    © 2013, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential


    Thank you

    © 2013,
    2007, Cognizant Technology Solutions. Confidential
    10

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