Northwestern

University
Business Intelligence Solutions

Cognos 8 Best
Volume 1
Practices
Report Properties and Default Filters

Report Properties

General
Properties
Report
Name and
Description
Report Archive
Source
Package

General Properties

Owner should
be set to either
the report
developer, or a
user with
credentials to
run a report.

Contact should be report developer

or user in charge of handling
communication about the report.
This can be either a user in the new
LDAP or just an email in the current
environment.

Report Name and Description

Name should be
robust enough to let
the user know what
the report is. A
good rule of thumb
is to use the title in
the report.

Description allows for the

most verbose text that
describes exactly what the
object is and does without
having to run the report or
open it in report studio.

Screen tip gives a more descriptive pop-up when mouse is hovered over
object icon.

Report Archive

You can set how many archive copies of a report to keep. The
multiple page icon in the actions will take you to the archive list.

The list will display up to

the maximum amount of
archives as set in the
properties page. Archives
can be set based on
number of versions or
length of time.

Report Run Properties

Report
Run
Default
s
Promp
t
Values
Run as
Owner

Report Run Defaults

Select the action when clicking on the

report name. Whether the report will be
run, the last archive will be shown (if
exists), or the report will be opened in
Report Studio.
Select the Default run options if
different than the standard HTML.

Default Rendering type, whether

PDF, HTML, Excel, XML, and CSV.
Set the paper orientation and
paper orientation for the
render of PDF or HTML.

Prompt Values and Run as Owner

This section allows you to setup default run options. These options will
be used when the report name is clicked on directly and will be the
default values when Run with Options is clicked on in the Action bar.

If you click on edit, it will bring up the

prompt screens and save the
settings.
Leave this unchecked to use default prompts for default run
actions.
This setting determines what credentials to run the
report under. This can be set to run as the owner if
they have access to a set of data that the standard
report user doesnt. This way they can still access
certain reports without getting access to the whole
data set. This cant be overridden by the user.

Report Permissions

The final tab is where permissions are set for the report object.
Lets go over what each setting allows or denies.

Groups

Granted/Denied Permissions for Group

Report Permission Settings

Read Grant allows the user to read archived

versions.
Write Grant allows the user to write reports into the
archive.
Execute Grant allows the user to run the report.
Set Policy should not be granted to a user. It
allows to change the report settings.
Traverse allows the user to move through the
object if it is used by other reports they have
execute access to.
Deny explicitly takes away these rights even if the user is in another
group that allows the grant. Good if you have a report group for a
larger department but want to exclude office personnel from seeing
sensitive report in that set.