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PODCAST 3.11: PROMPTING BASICS WITH IBM COGNOS REPORT STUDIO

By Jason Arnold, Sr. Consultant

Another great technique to keep in your toolbox for Framework Manager models designs: Parameterized Query Subject data sources. This technique allows a Query Subject to switch between two different databases using a parameter value. For this technique to work, the type of database, table structure and data types for all columns must be identical.

In this example we will setup a Query Subject that can be pointed at either the development or production database.

By Michael Vilhauer, Consultant

Allowing users to change a hierarchy used in a Report Studio report while maintaining the drill-up and drill-down capabilities from a DMR or cube data source may seem very difficult to achieve. This article outlines how to achieve this user functionality in both manageable and relatively simple steps using a prompt page and Cognos macros.   

For detailed steps for how to create this user on-demand hierarchy maintaining the drill-up and drill down functionality in a report in Cognos 8, click here to read the full article.

For questions on this technique, e-mail us at Newsletter@brightstarpartners.com . 

DID YOU KNOW...

National Parks: 

 
A national park is a reserve of natural or semi-natural land, declared or owned by a government, that is restricted from most development and is set aside for human recreation and environmental protection.  

While ideas for national parks had been suggested previously, the first such park, Yellowstone National Park, was established in 1872 by the United States.

An international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined National Parks as its category II type of protected areas.

The largest national park in the world meeting the IUCN definition is the Northeast Greenland National Park, which was established in 1974.  

According to the IUCN, there are about 7000 national parks worldwide (2010 figure).

In 1969 the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) declared a national park to be a relatively large area with particular defining characteristics.

A national park was deemed to be a place:  

• with one or several ecosystems not materially altered by human exploitation and occupation, where plant and animal species, geomorphological sites and habitats are of special scientific, educative and recreative interest or which contain a natural landscape of great beauty.
• the highest competent authority of the country has taken steps to prevent or eliminate exploitation or occupation as soon as possible in the whole area and to effectively enforce the respect of ecological, geomorphological, or aesthetic features which have led to its establishment.
• visitors are allowed to enter, under special conditions, for inspirational, educative, cultural, and recreative purposes.

In 1971 these criteria were further expanded upon leading to more clear and defined benchmarks to evaluate a national park. These include:  

• a minimum size of 1,000 hectares within zones in which protection of nature takes precedence
• statutory legal protection
• a budget and staff sufficient to provide sufficient effective protection
• prohibition of exploitation of natural resources (including the development of dams) qualified by such activities as sport, fishing, the need for management, facilities, etc.

While national parks are generally understood to be administered by national governments (hence the name), in Australia national parks are run by State Governments and predate the Federation of Australia.  

Following the idea established in Yellowstone there soon followed parks in other nations.  

• In Australia, the Royal National Park was established just south of Sydney in 1879.
• Rocky Mountain National Park became Canada's first national park in 1885.  
• New Zealand established Tongariro National Park in 1887.  
• In Puerto Rico El Yunque National Park was established in 1903 making the first in Latin America.  
• In Europe the first national parks were a set of nine parks in Sweden in 1909; Europe has some 359 national parks as of 2010.
• Africa's first national park was established in 1925 when Albert I of Belgium designated an area of what is now Democratic Republic of Congo centered around the Virunga Mountains as the Albert National Park (since renamed Virunga National Park).  
• In 1973, Mount Kilimanjaro was classified as a National Park and was opened to public access in 1977.  
• In 1926, the government of South Africa designated Kruger National Park as the nation's first national park.  
• After World War II, national parks were founded all over the world.  
• The Vanoise National Park in the Alps was the first French national park, created in 1963 after public mobilization against a touristic project.

From: Wikipedia.org (2011)