Motio Blog
Find Schedules Associated with Cognos Reports
summary:
MotioPI gives you the ability to search for schedules associated with reports, jobs, report views, and query objects in Cognos.
Select the "Schedule Tab" from the panel column in MotioPI.
Now, choose the location where you'll conduct your search. Public Folders, My Folders, or Both.
Next, use the "Show Cognos Selector" to specify your search criteria.
Log In to MotioPI
summary:
The first time you log in to MotioPI, you will notice a dispatcher pre-filled in the "Cognos Dispatcher" text box. This is only an example, you will need to enter your own Cognos Dispatcher in this text box.
Continue by entering your Cognos Gateway, Cognos Username, and Cognos Password in the corresponding fields. The "Namespace" will be populated for you upon providing your dispatcher and gateway.
Corporate Proxy Workaround for MotioPI
summary:
If you received the error below while attempting to launch MotioPI, you are most likely behind a corporate proxy. The following workaround will enable you to run MotioPI.
1. Open your Java control panel.
2. Click "Network Settings".
3. Change your browser settings to "Use proxy server", enter your information, and try again.
Document Cognos User Security
summary:
Using MotioPI's User Access panel you can quickly and easily identify (and export) security information on IBM Cognos users. The readily available information includes:
- The user's access levels to specific Cognos content
- The user's group and role memberships
This blog entry illustrates how to access and export Cognos users' security settings using MotioPI.
NOTE: The following steps assume that MotioPI has already been configured to point at the Active Directory or LDAP Instance used by your Cognos environment (see this blog entry for instructions on how to configure this.)
1. Select the User Access Panel
LDAP and Active Directory Support in MotioPI
summary:
In Cognos environments which authenticate against LDAP or Active Directory, MotioPI can be configured to pull information directly from the external security provider. This enables some of the advanced features in the User Access panel without requiring a stored credential for each user.
Luckily, MotioPI can easily pull LDAP / Active Directory configuration information directly from your cogstartup.xml file. This is the file which stores all selections made in the Cognos Configuration UI - its located in your Cognos installation folder at <cognos-install-root>/configuration/cogstartup.xml ).
This blog entry will walk you through the steps required to tell MotioPI about your LDAP or Active Directory instance.
Batch Validation of Cognos Reports
summary:
As a Cognos modeler I'm sure many of you have had this experience: After your latest round of model updates, you publish a new version of a package from Framework Manager. This new version of the package accidentally breaks a ton of reports.
Let's face it - this is pretty easy to do (especially for reports you haven't thought about in a while).
Wouldn't it be nice if you could press a button and batch validate all Cognos reports which are associated with this package...?
Well, you're in luck because MotioPI (the FREE tool for Cognos admins) allows you to batch validate Cognos reports with just a few simple clicks. Here's how:
1. First launch MotioPI, login to your desired Cognos Environment, and click on the Validation Panel.
2. Now, we'll select the type of objects we want to validate (in this example, we'll stick to validation of reports).
Recover a Lost Cognos Framework Manager Model (in 60 seconds or less)
summary:
Have you ever lost or corrupted a Cognos Framework Manager Model? Have you ever wished you could recover the lost model based on information which is stored in your Cognos Content Store (e.g. a package which was published from the lost model)? You're in luck! You can use MotioPI (a free tool for Cognos admins) to recreate your Framework Manager Model's "model.xml" file with just a few simple clicks.
1. First - open up Framework Manager and create a new (empty) Framework Model. In the example shown below, we've called it "recover-lost-model".
Mass Update Cognos using Search and Replace
summary:
Have you ever needed to update an image or change the footer text on hundreds of reports? Have you ever refactored your framework model and needed to change the query item names across all reports which are built on it? Have you ever renamed a report that is referenced as a drill target in many other reports?
If you have ever faced one of these scenarios, then you know how tedious it can be when you have to manually apply the same change across a large number of reports. This is where MotioPI Pro's Search and Replace panel can save you a ton of time (and spare you a great deal of aggravation).
The Search and Replace Panel in MotioPI is designed to allow bulk "search and replace" across a large number of Cognos specifications (e.g. "replace X with Y across all these reports"). This allows you to quickly "mass update" Cognos reports.
MotioPI - Find Cognos Schedule Recipients
summary:
This blog entry will demonstrate how to use the MotioPI schedule panel to quickly find all schedules which deliver Cognos outputs to a particular recipient.
The PI schedule panel lets you query for all scheduled report executions in a given Cognos instance. The results allow you to peruse various bits of information on each schedule, such as the recipient emails (or user names), start date, end date, frequency, owner, etc.
To begin, launch MotioPI and select the Schedule panel.
Click image to expand
Setting up your Java environment for MotioPI
summary:
MotioPI requires a Java 1.6 Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in order to run (specifically, 1.6_10 or later). This JRE is required on the client machine, not the Cognos server (the "client machine" is the machine from which you launch MotioPI).
If you need to download a compatible JRE, then you can do so from the following link : http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jre-6u29-download-513650.html
IMPORTANT NOTE - MotioPI does NOT yet support Java 1.7. We plan to add support for this in a future release (but 1.7 is still pretty new and not widely installed at this point).
Setting up your Java environment is easy. Under Control Panel click Java
Then inside the Java Control Panel click the Java tab.
Inside the Java tab click view.
