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Change the Package for Multiple Cognos Reports

With MotioPI Pro’s Property Distributor you have the ability to modify the properties on any Cognos object in bulk. In today’s example, we’ll use this feature to update the package associated with multiple Cognos reports in one fell swoop.

Like several of the panels in MotioPI, the property distributor allows you to select a single Cognos object as a “template”, and then replicate selected properties from that template onto many other Cognos objects.

To begin today’s example, open Cognos Analytics and click on the properties for ONE of the reports you wish to change (we will use this as our “template” object). In the example below, we’ll be using the “Customer Satisfaction and Returns” report. First, manually change the associated package of the Report and save the changes.

Now, open MotioPI Pro’s Property Distributor.

Click the Select Template Object button. This will present you with the Cognos Object Selector window. Use the tree to navigate and select the Report you just modified (“Customer Satisfaction and Returns” in our example), and click Select.

You will now see the path of the Report in the text field at the top of the screen. Under the Template Properties you will see various Property sections. Expanding the General section you will see the line “Package = …”. This property should be pointing at the package you just set the Report to in Cognos.

Select the package property, move it to the Selected Properties section using the move arrow.

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You have now selected the package property to be distributed to the target Reports. You will now need to select the target Reports, by using the options under the Select Target Object(s) section. In this section, you can:

– determine the Search In parameters (Team Content, My Content, or both)
– select the types of Cognos objects you wish to update
– manually narrow the search field
– apply Filters to the search

For this example, we will just use the Narrow capability. Click on the Narrow button to open the Cognos Object Selector window again.
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From the Cognos Object Selector window, select the reports you wish to apply the changes to. Then use the Move arrow to move the reports to the selected Items section (note – you can also select entire folders in this step). Now click Apply.

 

Then click Submit and the list of selected reports will be returned at the bottom of the screen. Check box the ones you wish to apply the change to (this is useful if you’re searching by folder, but want to exclude a few reports). Now, click Preview.

 

The Property Distributor Preview screen will open. Here you will see the list of Reports with pending changes. You can preview each pending change by clicking on each of the reports.  Doing so will allow you to see a “Before” and “After” of its properties. Any changes that are being made will be colored in blue.

By clicking Run the changes will be applied to all of the Reports in the preview panel.  When the changes have been completed, you will see a Distribution Complete message box. This message box will inform you that Backups have been made of all the Reports you have just modified.

You have now successfully used MotioPI Pro’s Property Distibutor to quickly modify the Package Property for multiple Reports.

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