Cognos Connection Folder Structure

Security and Business Processes

Folder Structure/Permission In the folder structure, the blue folders hold the Cognos Packages. Yellow folders hold saved queries/reports that can be shared among staff. Best practice would be for business areas to establish folders where report authors drop reports. These will be managed so that only those users in the appropriate Active Directory group will have access. Selected Report Authors will have permission to create folders/subfolders and assign Active Directory groups to them. This will provide the restricted access to folders, subfolders, and reports to the appropriate groups. Even though Report Authors may develop items in their My Folders area, some risk exists in that practice. Should the author be unavailable, access to those reports is restricted. Queries cannot be executed or edited, and reports in process cannot be finished. NOTE: Yellow report folders are not the only Cognos objects with restricted access. Security is also assigned to packages via the Active Directory Groups in which a person is placed. Reports using different packages will be placed in the restricted, shared folders. When a user has access to the folder, it means that they can execute all queries in that folder as long as they also have access to the package against which the query is written. In other words, the report may be available via the folder, but if the user doesnt have permission for the package used to write the report, the report will not execute. The Cognos Training Folder On the Cognos QA Server you will see a folder named Cognos Training. Participants who have attended Cognos Training workshops have access to this folder and its contents (see the images on the right), but since the query item (field) names do not match the names in other packages that you will be using, you should place only queries from the initial training in this folder. Reports in the training folder cannot be exported and packages cannot be interchanged. NOTE: Once training is complete, you may lose access to this folder. Any queries you want to save for reference should not be kept here in the training folder. Use them as a model and recreate valid reports using appropriate packages as soon as you can while the process to create the report is still fresh in your mind.

Cognos_Connect_Folder_Structure.doc

Workgroup Session Folders In Cognos workgroup sessions with consultants, an Exchange area for reports folder was created under Public Folders - QA to place the report created/edited in those sessions.

Some example queries for real business cases are shown on the image to the right. These reports were placed in the folder by report writers and our Banner consultant using the naming convention of the authors initials preceding the name of the report (for the most part). This is a good practice so you know which queries belong to which author. You shouldnt change existing queries, but if you want to use some of them as a starting point for your own reports, save a copy with your initials. NOTE: Reports saved in the PNC folder were written against PNC packages. Should they be executed by someone not authorized to view the data, a Package not available or not authorized error message will appear either because it is for a different campus or the query runner does not have access to the package. To use these reports against PWL packages, the query needs to be copied and redirected to a PWL package. Likewise any query written against a PWL package that PNC wants to use will need to be copied and redirected to a PNC package. For instructions on the process to redirect a query to a different package, see the addendum.

Cognos_Connect_Folder_Structure.doc

Business Area Folders On the Cognos Production Server, folders will be established by Business areas and access granted to appropriate Active Directory groups. Currently, report authors will see a window that looks something like the image on the right. Just like in QA, there is an Exchange area for reports folder where reports can be dropped so they can be shared with other report authors.

On the production server the blue package folders function in the same way as they do on the QA server; no reports or additional folders will be stored inside of these folders. The yellow folders exist to hold reports for specific subject areas, and provide a space for appropriate groups to save public and in-process reports.

As in the above example, business areas may also allow different Active Directory groups access to subfolders. In the above case, even though the Financial Aid-PWL package holds folders for Bursar and Enrollment Management to access some reports, they might not have access to all of the reports under Financial Aid-PWL. See the image on the right for an example of the Financial Aid reports that might be available to Enrollment Management staff. Cognos_Connect_Folder_Structure.doc

Addendum
Change The Reports Package To change the package a report is connected to, open the report/query in Report Studio.

Select File > Report Package, as shown on the right. Select the desired corresponding package where you want to redirect the report. In this example, the current package is Schedule Offering PPRD2, and it will change to Schedule Offering PPRD. Click OK.

Cognos will validate transfer and confirm the validation.

Cognos_Connect_Folder_Structure.doc

The new package will now appear in the Insertable Objects Source list.

Click File > Save As to rename the report and place it in the appropriate folder.

The new report will return data from the new package, and its ready to modify as needed.

Cognos_Connect_Folder_Structure.doc