Hello Cognos Community,

There's a topic that frequently causes confusion among Cognos users and administrators: the 32-subscription limit for reports.
Official documentation mentions it, but its practical application isn't always clear.
After conducting some hands-on testing and reviewing a support case, I’d like to share my findings to help clarify the situation and invite you to share your own experiences.

The Source of the Confusion

If you look at the official IBM Cognos Analytics documentation, it states that you can create "up to 32 subscriptions for the same report." This language is ambiguous and often leads to the assumption that a report can only have 32 subscribers in total.

This interpretation was reflected in a response I received from IBM Support case, where the representative stated: "The document states that you have only 32 subscriptions (or user who can subscribe) for the same report."

This statement seems to confirm a hard limit on the number of unique users. However, practical testing revealed a different and more nuanced behavior.

Behind the Scenes

When a user subscribes to a report a report view is created under "My Content" in a folder named "Subscriptions", each report view is scheduled according to the user's schedule selection. Furthermore, the report view name is attached with the next serial number. for example "My First Report (2)"

It's Not About the Number of Users

I Started by setting ~37 different users, logged in with each user and subscribed to the same report. 
Result: all subscribers were able to create a subscription. There is no apparent limit.

However, when one user tries to subscribe to more than 32 times to the same report, they hit the 32-subscription limit.

The work around

Seems like the limit is imposed per object, meaning that if a user subscribes to the report view that was just created, the number of subscription resets and the functionality is not limited.

Recommended approach / User training

To avoid dealing with the limitation it is recommended that users should be trained in the following manner

1. After the first subscription to a report, guide the users to look at their "My content > Subscriptions" folder
2. Best to rename the report view to describe the unique prompting and/or schedule
3. Next, subscription should be done against the latest report view in that folder

Example:

Conclusion

Based on my tests, the 32-subscription limit is not as restrictive as it sounds, but it's crucial to understand how it works:

• The limit does NOT apply to the number of unique users who can subscribe to a report. 
• The limit DOES apply to a single user trying to create more than 32 subscriptions for the same report object.
• This limit can be easily circumvented by training the users to create and subscribing to the latest report view

While the official documentation and even some support channels can cause confusion, the actual behavior offers much more flexibility.

I invite you to run a similar test in your own environment (especially if you're on a different version of Cognos Analytics) and share your results in the comments. Does your experience match mine? 

I hope this clarification helps you better plan and manage your report distribution strategies.