Cognos Analytics

Cognos Analytics

Connect, learn, and share with thousands of IBM Cognos Analytics users! 

 View Only
  • 1.  Cognos 11 How to copy report names from a folder

    Posted Tue February 14, 2023 03:56 PM

    Does anyone know of an easy way for a user to copy the report names from a folder within Cognos?

    Thanks,

    Jen



    ------------------------------
    Jenifer Broughton
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Cognos 11 How to copy report names from a folder

    Posted Tue February 14, 2023 04:22 PM
    Edited by Logan Whitaker Tue February 14, 2023 04:25 PM

    Hi Jen,

    I'm interested in this too!  Every so often we are going through system upgrades and need to update our reports in Cognos.  When preparing for those kinds of changes it really helps to have an easy way to list out all the objects, at least in the Team Content folder, and their paths so we can start working through reports and tracking the effort. We were told to deploy the Audit Model as the solution, but after deploying it we found that it is missing an accurate baseline of all objects that are stored in Cognos.  The Audit Model and the database tables it creates gives visibility to all the object names, and what they are (agents, reports, datasets, etc.), as well as activity logs of when they ran, were edited, etc.  But it doesn't provide a path to actually find the object.  So you may have a report named "Daily Report" and it exists in 5 different folders somewhere.  The Audit Model doesn't tell you the path to where "Daily Report" is saved (ie. the folder structure like Team Content > Subfolder > Subfolder > Subfolder).  The only way you can get a path to anything if it there is some kind of activity logged with the report (running it, editing it, etc.) in which case you can find the report name and path (at least at the point of time it happened).  

    It's kind of crazy how hard IBM has made getting a simple list of all object names, types, and their current paths from the Team Content folder.  There must be something in the database because the content exports and backups have to know where each report goes and within which folders, etc.  But the only method of accomplishing this was the one pushed by our licensing partner... and after it didn't work as expected we gave up.  

    We are going through an upgrade to system that impacts our data framework right now... without a real solution we just stare at the screen and transcribe into a spreadsheet one-by-one.  Such an inefficient use of time...



    ------------------------------
    Logan Whitaker
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Cognos 11 How to copy report names from a folder

    Posted Wed February 15, 2023 04:13 AM

    Hello Jen,
    unfortunatly there is no User friendly way, BUT..... does your user have permissions to create gobs in Cognos? If yes:

    • Create a job
    • add all Reports within the folder to the job by clicking on "Select all in folder"
    • Press "add job steps"
    • In the summary of the job steps mark all entrys by keep pressing the left mouse and copy & paste it to e.g. excel. Selecting the Names could take a second before you find out to move the mouse without loosing the selection....

    Et voila - you got all the Report Names from a folder within Cognos :-)

    Regards, 
    Hendrik



    ------------------------------
    Hendrik Gebert
    Managing Consultant
    ACP Digital Analytics
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Cognos 11 How to copy report names from a folder

    Posted Wed February 15, 2023 08:07 AM

    I'm using 11.1.7 and wasn't able to get this to work.  

    Thanks,

    Jen



    ------------------------------
    Jenifer Broughton
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Cognos 11 How to copy report names from a folder

    Posted Wed February 15, 2023 12:19 PM

    I just spun up an 11.1.7 instance to confirm my extension works on it. Let me know if you run into any problems with it.



    ------------------------------
    Paul Mendelson
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Cognos 11 How to copy report names from a folder

    Posted Wed February 15, 2023 05:53 AM

    I've written an extension that does exactly this. I'll add it to CogBox later, but in the meantime you can download it from here: https://community.ibm.com/community/user/businessanalytics/viewdocument/export-cognos-objects?CommunityKey=6b10df83-0b3c-4f92-8b1f-1fd80d0e7e58&tab=librarydocuments



    ------------------------------
    Paul Mendelson
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Cognos 11 How to copy report names from a folder

    Posted Wed February 15, 2023 08:54 AM

    Hi Jen,

    Yes, there is an easy way to do this. Simply run the \sdk\java\ContentStoreExplorer sample that we package with Cognos.

    You will need to give it a dispatcher URI and a Login then you can browse anything the user has access to. After that you can copy out the contents from the folder.




    ------------------------------
    TREVOR COMEAU
    ------------------------------