I apologize in advance as I am short on time and do not have time to look at my notes or even to fireup cognos.
In Cognos 10 we tried to use the feature called something like Import External Data? it was really sensitive (flaky) and many of our clients could not get it to work so we stopped telling people to use it. It also did not update the data in cognos as the data in the file was updated. In Cognos 10 we had the best luck setting up a SQL Server agent job that ran each night to import the data using SQL Server Import Wizard to create an SSIS package (a lot of words but simple for a SQL Server person). unfortunately though you have to setup a sql agent job for each file. Then in Cognos they had to know the sql table and column names and write custom SQL queries to use the data. (We use framework manager and deliver packages to our clients but each client has different external files so we could not include it in the FM packages).
with cognos 11 we tried the new Data Modules which seems to be much better than Import External Data. but again the data was stale. our clients wanted the data in cognos to change as the data in the file changed. you have the ability to REFRESH the data module data, but this is a purely manual process. we could not find an automated way to refresh. so we opted to again use a SQL agent job to import the data (this time I wrote a generic sql stored procedure instead of an ssis package to import text data in sql server) into SQL tables. But with the new c11 Data Modules the clients could create a sort of Framework Manager package (data module) that could be selected in a report instead of having to use Customer SQL.
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brenda grossnickle
BI Programmer Analyst
FIS
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Original Message:
Sent: Fri April 03, 2020 11:08 AM
From: Sesidhar A
Subject: Limitations when flat files as a source to Cognos
Hi Team,
Would like to know what are all the limitations or disadvantages when we use csv files as a source for reporting in Cognos. It's a long term solution where we create a odbc connection and import these csv to have a seamless connection. But what would be the disadvantages when we go for this kind of approach in traditional Cognos reporting. Thanks
Regards,
Sesi.
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Sesidhar A
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