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  • 1.  Report Data Item Usage

    Posted 4 days ago

    Can anyone think of a clever way of identifying which data items a report uses? I have a bunch of reports specs saved as XML files. I am looking for something that would parse each file and extract the data items that are used. These are Framework Manager sourced reports so the data items would be in the format [*].[*].[*].

    I know Framework Manager has a report usage tool - but that is tackling the problem from the full list of data items. FM could have 10,000 data items but the reports only use three on them hence me wanting to tackle the problem from the report spec side.



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    Marc Reed
    Reporting Lead
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  • 2.  RE: Report Data Item Usage

    Posted 4 days ago

    Hello Marc,

    We have had some similar questioning here but certainly not your exact case. Inhouse, we feel much more comfortable with SQL than with XLM so we preferred to worked with the table CMOBJPROPS7 of the content store and with the SPEC column,
    Doing that we achieved what we were looking for. But I am quite sure that you already know that.

    Best regards

    German



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    German Rodriguez
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Report Data Item Usage

    Posted 4 days ago

    Hi Marc,

    I can only point out to a paid solution acquired by IBM a few years ago: Manta Data Lineage.

    It's a platform that scans most common data sources and systems and builds the lineage graphs. Cognos Analytics is also supported and will give you lineage information down to query items used in report data containers. It's up to the user to scan the lineage graph forwards or backwards.



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    Robert Dostal
    Principal Expert BI
    GEMÜ Gebr. Müller Apparatebau GmbH & Co. KG
    Kupferzell
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Report Data Item Usage

    Posted 4 days ago
      |   view attached

    Hi, Just as an experiment, I took a report spec and had ChatGPT parse it by giving it the spec file and prompting it using "look for the values between the begin and endpoints of <expression> and </expression>.  A sample of what it returned is attached. It offered the option to create a downloadable file of the result.  I then asked it to generate the code behind the extract and it produced a small python script that you could use as is or tweak to get a more refined result. I only loaded one spec but I suspect you could feed it multiple specs and create a prompt that could parse the input and break items out by report or combine them all and eliminated duplicates or many other options.  Maybe a hack but with AI being so top of mind lately it seemed like an interesting test case.  Thanks.



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    Bob Smith
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Report Data Item Usage

    Posted 4 days ago

    Thanks everyone for your ideas. In the end I have settled for just writing some SQL against the content store itself. I am populating a table of data items to test the report specs against.



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    Marc Reed
    Reporting Lead
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Report Data Item Usage

    Posted 4 days ago

    Hi Marc,
    Just wanted to let you know that MetaManager can handle the documentation task you need with ease. With just a few clicks, it can generate documentation for any or all reports-no manual effort required.
    Let me know if you'd like a free trial to knock that out.  

    Here is a short explainer from our knowledgebase - https://bspsoftware.document360.io/docs/full-report-lineage-query-items-and-beyond

    Best,
    Eric



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    Eric Pleiss
    Technical Sales Specialist
    BSP Software/Micro Strategies
    La Salle IL
    6183032966
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Report Data Item Usage

    Posted 2 days ago

    I would be very interested in your ms sql solution. I have sent you a contact request. I have several examples of where i read the content store that might be useful.

    and searches for text that might be useful. 



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    brenda grossnickle
    BI Programmer Analyst
    FIS
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Report Data Item Usage

    Posted 3 days ago

    Hi Marc, 

    I developed a tool that parses all the reports found in a cognos folder and outputs a csv with all the data items, aliases, and query sources as a part of a metadata project we had at work. If you are interested we could meet and I could share the tool with you. Its a little finnicky but I think solves exactly your use case. It runs client side in the browser and uses Cognos expressbus api to retrieve all reports in a given folder. It can parse about 300 reports in 2 minutes or so. 



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    Michael Webb
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    Original Message


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