5/11/12

Cognos Blogger: Granularity & Determinants in Framework Manager

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Cognos Blogger
T UES DA Y , 28 O C T O B ER 2008

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Name: Phil Thompson Location: United Kingdom View my complete profile

Granularity & Determinants in Framework Manager

Hi, followingaquestionfromDivyalastweek,thisblogrelatestogranularityand determinantsinFrameworkManager. Granularityisasimpleconceptdescribingtheleveldatarelatesto. Imaginesalesareas: Level1:Country Level2:SalesArea Level3:State Level4:City Level5:Store Level6:Department Level7:Employee Wecansummarisesalesvolume(quantity)ateachofthelevelsabove. Thelevelatwhichwereportisthegrain(orgranularity)ofthetable. TablesorquerysubjectsinFrameworkManageroftenhavemultiplelevels(grains) whichyoumayhavetojointoanothertablewithadifferentlevelgrain. Anexampleofthisisforecastsorbudgets. Usingourexampleabove,wewanttojoinoursalesareatabletoourbudgetstable. Unfortunatelythegrainofthesalesareatableisemployeebutthebudgetshavebeen completedatStorelevel. InFrameworkManager,ifwejoindirectlyfromstoreinsalesareastostoreinthe budgetdatathebudgetdatavaluewillberepeatedforhowmanyemployeesarepart ofthatstore.

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New Query Subject (join on Store with no determinants set): Sales Area.City Sales Area.Store Budget.Month
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Cognos Blogger: Granularity & Determinants in Framework Manager

Budget.Sales_Target Result:

As there are four employees at the Bayside store this forces the model query subject to return four rows repeating the sales budget. To correct this Framework Manager has to be instructed what level of granularity the budget applies to. This is done using determinants. In our example we need to set the determinants on the Sales Area query subject. Right click the query subject and select the determinants tab. One determinant should be created for each level of granularity as shown below. Create the determinant by clicking Add. Rename the determinant and then drag the identifying column (Key) into the key window (bottom left). If the level has any attributes that exist at the same level of granularity these should be added to the Attribute window. If the new determinant you have created is the lowest level grain
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Cognos Blogger: Granularity & Determinants in Framework Manager

(Employee in this case) the Uniquely Identified check box should be ticked. The Group By tickbox should be ticked if the level is ever to be used for aggregating values. Ensure that once you have created all of your determinants for the query subject that they are in the correct order (use the up and down buttons to sort them correctly).

After setting the determinants click OK to save the changes. When the model query subject is now run, only one row of data is returned:

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Cognos Blogger: Granularity & Determinants in Framework Manager

I hope this helps Phil Labels: Determinants, Framework Manager, Granularity posted by Phil Thompson @ 15:41 22 comments

22 Comments:
At 10 February 2009 18:43 , Hi Phil, I have read your post about the Granularity & Determinants. You have explained it really in a very good manner. I read about this in the FM user guide before but couldn't understand much but now I got it clearly. Thanks much! Can you please let me know the process of performance tuning of the reports in Cognos8. Thanks, Malathi
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Malathi said...

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Cognos Blogger: Granularity & Determinants in Framework Manager

At 10 February 2009 20:30 ,

Phil Thompson said...

Hi Malathi, I'm glad the post helped. It's nice to get feedback. I'm afraid I'm not going to be documenting the process of performance tuning the reports in Cognos8 though. This is a good income stream for Digital Viper and we don't want to give all of our secrets away! Needless to say that the majority of tuning can be done at the database and Framework Manager level. Phil At 6 May 2009 11:51 , Hi Phill, Very nice to meet you. I need some help and guidence from you. Please explain me about the Cognos8 Planning..i mean from where to start and how to learn and how to become master on Cognos performence Managment (cpm). Vamshi said...

Thanks for your time and waiting for ur valuable reply. At 6 May 2009 12:14 , Hi Vamshi, thanks for your enquiry. I have found that the best developers in B.I. and planning are those that have a background in business and then move into IT. Assuming you are trying to learn the software I would suggest that to start off with that your company contacts your local Cognos sales office. Get them to give you an evaluation copy of the software you need. Try installing and configuring on a virtual server and then follow the samples guides. To improve you then need to attend the Cognos courses or get a mentor to guide you. Good luck! Phil At 3 June 2009 04:56 , Mr said... Phil Thompson said...

This comment has been removed by the author. At 3 June 2009 04:58 , Mr said...

I read your post and it helps in understanding the determinants as you have explained with a good example. One concern I had with the post was why have you specified the Employee as both Unique as well as Group by. If it's unique why it needs to grouped by? Other question I had about determinants is do I always need to specify a level which is unique? At 4 June 2009 09:58 , Black Flag said...

Good guide here, helped improve my understanding of a process which I already used.. but without complete understanding. Cheers.
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At 4 June 2009 11:16 ,

Phil Thompson said...

Hi Black Flag Thanks for your comments. It's nice to get positive feedback. Phil At 17 June 2009 13:32 , tashfeld said...

This is the first time I have needed to use determinants seriously within C8. All the examples out there I found were related to time dimensions which did not apply to me. I was able to take your example and apply it to my business case and solve my issue. Thank you so much! At 22 June 2009 14:32 , Very good post.. Thanks.. At 24 August 2009 06:15 , Hi Phil, How to increase cube performance. Thanks Kalyani At 25 August 2009 11:49 , Good post, thanks! One thing though..... I have an organizational Strucutre which varies over time. i.e. in year 0607 the structure will be set, but in 0708 it may vary slightly. It only changes yearly. I'd like to have a query subject consisting of determinants which will allow for these yearly changes. I understand I can have multiple hierarchies in a Regular dimension, but can I have the same in a Query Subject? ~thanks Simon At 25 August 2009 12:20 , Phil Thompson said... Simon said... kalyani said... BI and Cognos Authors said...

Hi Simon, thanks for your comments. If I understand you correctly, your organisation structure will have more levels in 0708 than in 0607? If so Why not set your query subject with a number of nominal levels (say 10). You can then set up the grouping and determinants up against these. The contents of the levels can change of course so that in 0607 level8 may be blank but in 0809 it may have an entry. Query subjects frequently have more than one hierarchy within them. It's up to you how you define the use of the data in the regular dimensions which sets out the hierarchy for use by the users. You can always create an 'alias' of the same query subject and create another regular dimension from it.. Phil
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Cognos Blogger: Granularity & Determinants in Framework Manager

At 25 August 2009 13:42 ,

Simon said...

This comment has been removed by the author. At 25 August 2009 14:15 , Simon said...

Got it sorted Phil, issue was with a different Dim. All ok now! At 27 August 2009 18:49 , Narayana said...

Hi, Its very informative, nice exlanations. I want to use multi select prompt in Framework manager level. Is it possible. Advance thanks. At 28 August 2009 11:26 , Nrayana, multi select prompts from FM should be possible. I haven't used them but I'll model it and see how I get on. Phil At 22 January 2010 14:06 , Bhanu said... Phil Thompson said...

Very relevant and nicely explained piece of information for Cognos guys. Just wanted to keep this info on top in 2010 search too. Thanks Phil. Bhanu At 15 July 2010 15:18 , Henk said...

Thanks for explaning, I will test this for myself, but does this apply to relational models, dimensional models or both ? Thanks, Henk At 28 July 2010 13:13 , Hi Phill, Thanks for giving brief description about Granularity & Determinants. I need help from u that, how can we provide a security to a report in cognos. pls let me know about this. Thanks, Vidya S At 30 August 2010 05:51 , hi phil, i have been searching for concept of detemintants in F.M through lot of blogs but i haven't got a good idea on it. you exapalined very well. Thanks a lot hareesh At 14 June 2011 04:52 , chiranjeevi said...
7/8

vidya said...

hai said...

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Cognos Blogger: Granularity & Determinants in Framework Manager

excellent chiru Post a Comment Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] << Home

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