Cognos Analytics

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  • 1.  C11.11 Export to PDF is running HOURS

    Posted Wed August 19, 2020 09:30 AM
    ​All,

    Does anyone have advice on speeding up a pdf report export? 

    Thanks,
    Jen

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    Jenifer Broughton
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    #CognosAnalyticswithWatson


  • 2.  RE: C11.11 Export to PDF is running HOURS

    Posted Wed August 19, 2020 02:42 PM
    Hello Jen -
    I don't have any advice, only places for you to look for more information on why it's taking so long.
    1. Is this a new report that has never produced a PDF successfully, or a long-running report that is now taking much longer?
    2. How many pages are expected in the PDF? If 150,000 or more I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a long time.
    3. If you put a filter on the report to return, say, 1,000 rows, does that PDF get produced? How long does it take?
      1. If it doesn't complete, keep cutting down the number of rows until it does. That will give you a time benchmark.
    4. If you produce the report interactively in HTML and go to the bottom of the report, how long does that take?
    5. Have you had your DBA and Network Server Admin look at system performance/resources while the PDF is being generated?
      1. They should be looking for temp space utilization, CPU/MEMORY constraints, etc.


    I think these investigations will turn up enough information to identify the cause and point to possible solutions.

    Good luck,

    Opher



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    Opher Banarie
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  • 3.  RE: C11.11 Export to PDF is running HOURS

    Posted Thu August 20, 2020 07:18 AM
    In addition to the comments above do you have any images in your report template? We've experienced such behavior where the images were not present on the dispatchers if running a distributed install, and when corrected the PDF generated in no time.

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    William Sai-Palm
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  • 4.  RE: C11.11 Export to PDF is running HOURS

    Posted Thu August 20, 2020 07:34 AM
    Good morning Jenifer,

    Opher and William's suggestions are a great place to start.

    One additional thought I have for your consideration:  This sounds like one of those instances where using the 64-bit Report Server might help.

    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEP7J_11.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.inst_cr_winux.doc/t_enable64bitreportserver.html

    Per the documentation "It is only large report outputs, for example PDF reports with more than 1 thousand pages that require the 64-bit version of the report server component."

    It does require that you are using the Dynamic Query Mode, and may require some routing rules in your configuration to route your non-DQM reports to a different dispatcher (if you're still using CQM in your environment).  But the problem you describe, and the example IBM gives for why you would enable this feature, sound similar.

    Good luck!

    Rich


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    Richard Chester
    Director of Business Intelligence
    LPA Software Solutions
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  • 5.  RE: C11.11 Export to PDF is running HOURS

    Posted Thu August 20, 2020 08:08 AM
    I don't know if there is anything specific to your issue in these videos but they contain a ton of great content.

    IBM Cognos BI - Designing Reports for Performance - Part 1 - 5
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiRvUrUTs-c
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiIIPlaCMOU
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLS26-zKsCI
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbSbXoxxzeA
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c170hFlmdWA

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    TREVOR COMEAU
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  • 6.  RE: C11.11 Export to PDF is running HOURS

    Posted Thu August 20, 2020 09:21 AM
    @TREVOR COMEAU

    excellent videos indeed... ​highly recommended.