Help navigating IBM Cognos Support

For those of us who come from the Cognos world and were just getting the hang of how to find answers to the most cryptic error messages known to man, I have news for you.  Forget every trick you learned of navigating the Cognos Support system and welcome to the IBM Super Highway of Information a.k.a. IBM.com.

This is a much needed blog for two reasons:

1. To forewarn any IBM client; DO NOT WAIT on getting your IBM.com ID setup until you have a production down issue. This process takes about 5 business days to complete.

2. Provide you the quick and dirty steps to get setup painlessly and quickly (relatively speaking).

First, where do you start?  Here is a tip. This email address is the save all, end all.  This email address is who you contact if you don’t know what your Site ID is, who your primary user is and other somewhat pressing issues.  Keep this in a safe place. tsmail@us.ibm.com

This is what you will need:

1. Your IBM Customer Number (ICN)
2. The name of your primary account holder
3. Patience, my friend, patience

I don’t have my ICN  or IBM Customer Number, what do I do?
You can handle this two ways, you can send out smoke signals for your IBM rep or you can email tsmail@us.ibm.com.  I would suggest the latter.

I also have no idea who my primary account holder is!
This was the main person that was setup with Cognos support when you purchased the software.  In many cases, that person may have moved on to another position or company.  Again if you are unsure, email tsmail@us.ibm.com and inquire who this person may be.

With those three things in hand, you can now get started.

1. Login to many of the IBM pages and register for a new profile. Your ID has to be your email address.  Here is the link:

https://www.ibm.com/account/profile/us

You will setup your ID, which will be your email address.  The email address MUST be the primary account holder.  If that person is no longer with the company, you must update that information FIRST; otherwise all of this will be in vain.  Contact the tsmail@us.ibm.com email listed above to change the primary contact information.

Choose a password and secret security question.

Within 24 hours you should receive an email stating your ID has been activated.  Check your spam/junk email folder, sometimes IBM gets thrown in there.

Once you get that email, login with your new ID (Email) and confirm the Authorized User. You will have to do this the first time for the Authorized User.  After that, you can repeat this process for other contacts.  Also, if you work with a Business Partner that helps you out with Technical/Support related issues, I strongly suggest you grant them access as well.  For step by step instructions on how to complete this, please email kray@lodestarsolutions.com.

Once the Authorized User is confirmed, you will need to link your account as an AUTHORIZED USER to your ICN (IBM Customer Number – 9 digit account number) account. It takes about 2 days to link your ID to your ICN.  Once that is done, you should be good to go.

Your Mission: Complete the company presentation and merge data from 5 different places. And here’s the kicker, the numbers have to be CORRECT.

So, you put on your thinking cap, you fit more windows in your tiny computer screen than you can really read, and you begin the task you dread every month. You first make sure you have all the data that you need to compile. Check. Then you open last month’s presentation and start removing all the reports, graphs and data from last month. Check. You open your Excel spreadsheet that checks your numbers to make sure they are correct. Check. You are armed with the tools and ready to go to battle because that is really what this whole process is.

But does it really have to be that painful? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Welcome to IBM Cognos Go! Office - you probably own it and aren’t using it.

This article is a Part 2 on how to save money on major software purchases. To view the first part of this blog, click here.
4. Support Renewal- Software Maintenance/Support renew fees are recurring, so when you negotiate your contract consider the support renewal. Software providers often state it’s a set percentage of the price. [...]

With 20+ years in the software industry, I’ve decided to share the secrets of saving money on major software purchases. Here’s what the software companies don’t tell you and what you need to know to negotiate a contract…

Framework Manager is the brains of IBM Cognos 8. It is often misunderstood and therefore abused by the misguided. So let’s talk about Framework Manager do’s and don’ts.

The promptmany macro function error message is such a letdown. Error QE-DEF-0406 is normally generated when you try to use the function to pass multiple values to a Sql stored procedure. By nature if a stored procedure have parameters, you can only set the parameter equal to a single. This is a problem if you want and need to pass multiple values to a stored procedure. Traditionally, Sql programmers use cursors to handle passing individual values one at a time to a procedure. Of course programmers would rather bite off their arm than willingly write a cursor if there is another viable alternative.

If you lessen the amount of custom work in the report and correct the issues in the database directly, you will see a marked improvement in report runtime and happier report writers.

Have you ever tried to do a nested IF THEN ELSE statement inside IBM Cognos Report Studio? If you have, you might run screaming because you can’t get the syntax just right. Granted, you could read the tips at the bottom as you build the syntax but shoot yourself in the head if you are not a programmer. You probably could pickup Chinese faster.

The idea behind this is that when creating a D-Cube you create it putting the D-List in order of 1-5. This helps in priority conflicts of formulas and formats. Plus, when you browse the library the D-Lists are sorted by the type of D-List. Easy Right? Maybe yes, Maybe no. The naming convention is open to interpretation. If I have a D-List for Years and it has no calculations, is it a 4 or a 3? What about a D-List that has Current Year Budget, Prior Year Actual, and a variance between Current Year Budget and Prior Year Actual. Is this a 5 since it has versions or is it a 1 since there is a calculation? What about a D-List that was a 3 but I’ve recently included a subtotal in the D-List do I need to go back and rename this to a 2?

The numbering method works great in a training class environment to help us learn the dimension order when creating the D-Cubes. After we learn the order, do we really need to number our dimensions?

One of the most common misconceptions about Business Intelligence is that it is a technology solution. I buy the right software, hire the right consultants, plug it in and Boom……I have Business Intelligence. The reality is that Business Intelligence is a Business solution supported by technology not a technology solution supported by the business. It’s a business process; and if it is not implemented as a business process, it won’t matter how much money you throw at it, you are not going to get the value you intended.