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Post: Cognos Recovery – Quickly Recover Lost, Deleted, or Damaged Cognos Framework Manager Models

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”.

recover Cognos Framework Manager Models

Looking in Windows Explorer, you can see that Framework Manager creates 9 files for this new Framework Model, the most important of which is model.xml (this file contains the model information). Close Framework Manager.

Framework Manager

2. Now, we’re going to use MotioPI to recover the model.xml file for the lost model from Cognos.

After you’ve launched MotioPI, go to the Model panel and click on the “Package Selector” button.

MotioPI for Cognos

3. Select a package that was published from the Framework Model you’re trying to recover.

MotioPI framework model package select

4. Click on the “save local” button to recover the model.xml file for the lost Framework Model.

lost Cognos framework model recovery

5. Save the recovered model.xml file over the model.xml file which was created as part of the blank Framework Manager model in step 1.

save recovered Cognos framework model

Click here to get your free Cognos Admin tool!

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As the BI space evolves, organizations must take into account the bottom line of amassing analytics assets.
The more assets you have, the greater the cost to your business. There are the hard costs of keeping redundant assets, i.e., cloud or server capacity. Accumulating multiple versions of the same visualization not only takes up space, but BI vendors are moving to capacity pricing. Companies now pay more if you have more dashboards, apps, and reports. Earlier, we spoke about dependencies. Keeping redundant assets increases the number of dependencies and therefore the complexity. This comes with a price tag.
The implications of asset failures differ, and the business’s repercussions can be minimal or drastic.
Different industries have distinct regulatory requirements to meet. The impact may be minimal if a report for an end-of-year close has a mislabeled column that the sales or marketing department uses, On the other hand, if a healthcare or financial report does not meet the needs of a HIPPA or SOX compliance report, the company and its C-level suite may face severe penalties and reputational damage. Another example is a report that is shared externally. During an update of the report specs, the low-level security was incorrectly applied, which caused people to have access to personal information.
The complexity of assets influences their likelihood of encountering issues.
The last thing a business wants is for a report or app to fail at a crucial moment. If you know the report is complex and has a lot of dependencies, then the probability of failure caused by IT changes is high. That means a change request should be taken into account. Dependency graphs become important. If it is a straightforward sales report that tells notes by salesperson by account, any changes made do not have the same impact on the report, even if it fails. BI operations should treat these reports differently during change.
Not all reports and dashboards fail the same; some reports may lag, definitions might change, or data accuracy and relevance could wane. Understanding these variations aids in better risk anticipation.

Marketing uses several reports for its campaigns – standard analytic assets often delivered through marketing tools. Finance has very complex reports converted from Excel to BI tools while incorporating different consolidation rules. The marketing reports have a different failure mode than the financial reports. They, therefore, need to be managed differently.

It’s time for the company’s monthly business review. The marketing department proceeds to report on leads acquired per salesperson. Unfortunately, half the team has left the organization, and the data fails to load accurately. While this is an inconvenience for the marketing group, it isn’t detrimental to the business. However, a failure in financial reporting for a human resource consulting firm with 1000s contractors that contains critical and complex calculations about sickness, fees, hours, etc, has major implications and needs to be managed differently.

Acknowledging that assets transition through distinct phases allows for effective management decisions at each stage. As new visualizations are released, the information leads to broad use and adoption.
Think back to the start of the pandemic. COVID dashboards were quickly put together and released to the business, showing pertinent information: how the virus spreads, demographics affected the business and risks, etc. At the time, it was relevant and served its purpose. As we moved past the pandemic, COVID-specific information became obsolete, and reporting is integrated into regular HR reporting.
Reports and dashboards are crafted to deliver valuable insights for stakeholders. Over time, though, the worth of assets changes.
When a company opens its first store in a certain area, there are many elements it needs to understand – other stores in the area, traffic patterns, pricing of products, what products to sell, etc. Once the store is operational for some time, specifics are not as important, and it can adopt the standard reporting. The tailor-made analytic assets become irrelevant and no longer add value to the store manager.