Quetions2

Give me scenario on cascading prompts&master-detail relation

Cascading Prompt:

Prompts on Country, State and City

Prompt1: Country, Prompt2: State, Prompt3: City

Prompt2 will depend on Prompt1 and Prompt3 will depend on 
Prompt1. 
ex: Select India in Prompt1, then Prompt2 display only the 
states related to India, select AndhraPradesh in Prompt2 
then Prompt3 display only cities in Andhrapradesh. 

Cascading Prompts means geting the value from other prompt, 
Master-detail relation means combining two lists with 
common query item. 

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Monday, November 17, 2008
Patni Computer Services (PCS) Cognos Interview Experience

Hi all,
I attended Cognos Interview for Patni Computer Services. The lady who interviewed me was Ms. Shakti Swarup Das.
The following are the Questions.
Cognos Questions:
1.Explain the Cognos Architecture?
2.What is Singleton?
3.What is Fact less Fact table?
4.Diff b/w Prompts and Conditional Blocks?
5.Diff b/w Level span and Group span?
6.What is Conditional Formatting?
7.Types of Prompts Used? Ever used Tree prompt?
8.How to create Template?
9.How to create Portal tab?
10.Types of Variables?
11.Know what is Dispatcher in Cognos?
12.What are the Layout Components?
13.What is Render Variable?
14.What is meant by Macro? Any diff b/w Macro & Prompt?
15.How to schedule a report which has a prompt in it?
16.What is Primary key and candidate key?
17.Diff b/w Primary and Surrogate keys?
18.Dis-advantages of Value Prompt, if any?
19.What is DOLAP? where we use it?
SQL-Questions:
20.What is Inline query?
21.Diff b/w Delete, Truncate & Drop?
22.Diff b/w & and &&?
___________________________________________

Capgemini Cognos Interview Experience

Fellas,
The Capgemini interview was good. The questions follow.
DWH related:
What is Singleton?
Diff b/w Dimensional Modelling and Relational Modeling?
What is Star schema?
Cognos related:
How to Create a Portal tab?
How to create a Template?
How do you create Table of Contents?
What are the Types of Variables that can be created in Report Studio?
How to do Report Bursting?
Explain the Types of Securities in F.M.
____________________________________________

My Barclays Cognos Interview Experience

Hi all,
The following are the questions asked in Barclays Interview.
FM related:
1.What are the updations in 8.3 from 8.2?
2.How to give various types of security to FM Models/packages?
3.What is Dimensional Modeling?
4.What are the Governer settings?
5.What is Circular join?
6.Why shortcut is better than aliasing of Query Subjects in FM?
7.How to create IQD files?
8.Have you create Stored Procedure Query Subjects?
9.How to resolve Loops?
Report Studio:
1.Tell me about Migration Procesess?
2.Substantial differences in Reportstudio of v8.3?
3.What is Conditional Formatting and Conditonal layout?
4.Types of Prompts used?
5.What is Tree view prompt?
6.How to improve performance in a Report Studio report?
7. How to create a Union Report?
8.In Powerplay Transformer what are the various types of input?
As evident, these questions are the ones to test one's basic Cognos knokwledge.
Thanks Anu, for taking down all of this stuff.

Friday, August 29, 2008
My IFlex (Oracle Financial Services) Cognos Interview Experience

Hi all,
I have attended the telephonic interview with Iflex Solutions (Oracle Financial Services) on 28th August (Wednesday).
Mr Ganeshan was the interviewer. It went fine and almost all the questions are basic ones.
The following are the questions asked.
Cognos Framework Manager Questions:
1. What are Member Caption and Member Description?
2. What's the difference between Member Caption and Member Description?
3. What is Focal Point?
4. What is Slicer Member Set?
5. What is Scope relationship?
6. What are Determinants? Types of Determinants?
DB/DWH/SQL Questions:
1. What is a Pseudo Column?
2. How to display first & last records of any table?
3. What is Bus Schema?
4. What is Hybrid SCD?
5. What is Direct & Conventional Loading of Data?
--------------

Cognos Interview Questions

1. What is Cognos Reporting tool?

Cognos is a Reporting tool from IBM which helps in reporting and analysis of various data from a data warehouse.

2. What is Cognos connection?

IBM Cognos Connection

IBM® Cognos® Connection is the portal to IBM Cognos software. IBM Cognos Connection provides a single access point to all corporate data available in IBM Cognos software.

You can use IBM Cognos Connection to work with entries such as reports, analyses, queries, agents, metrics, and packages. You can use IBM Cognos Connection to create shortcuts, URLs, and pages, and to organize entries. You can personalize IBM Cognos Connection for your own use.

You can use IBM Cognos Connection to create and run reports and cubes and distribute reports. You can also use it to create and run agents and schedule entries.

3. What is Report item?

Doubt 0 :Report item is nothing but a query item when it is drag and drop into the work area

Or

Each and every item in Report

4. What is Cardinality?

Cardinality is nothing but relation between tables.

1:1                           Person – DNA

1: Many                Mother – Children

Many: 1                student – Class Teacher

Many: Many                      doctor: Patients

5. What is Data mining?

How it differs from Datawarehousing ?

Data mining is the process of finding patterns in a given data set. These patterns can often provide meaningful and insightful data to whoever is interested in that data. Data mining is used today in a wide variety of contexts – in fraud detection, as an aid in marketing campaigns, and even supermarkets use it to study their consumers.

If you’ve ever used a credit card, then you may know that credit card companies will alert you when they think that your credit card is being fraudulently used by someone other than you. This is a perfect example of data mining – credit card companies have a history of your purchases from the past and know geographically where those purchases have been made. If all of a sudden some purchases are made in a city far from where you live, the credit card companies are put on alert to a possible fraud since their data mining shows that you don’t normally make purchases in that city

Data warehousing is a process that must occur before any data mining can take place. In other words, data warehousing is the process of compiling and organizing data into one common database, and data mining is the process of extracting meaningful data from that database. The data mining process relies on the data compiled in the datawarehousing phase in order to detect meaningful patterns.

6.What is a prompt?

Use a prompt when you want to use different criteria for the same report item each time the report runs. The report does not run until you choose the values or click the Finish button. If you click the Finish button without choosing any values, all data is returned.

Using prompts is faster and easier than repeatedly changing the filter

“You can add prompts to a report to add interactivity for users. Prompts act as questions that help users to customize the information in a report each time the report runs to suit their own needs. For example, you create a prompt so that users can select a product type. Only products belonging to the selected product type are retrieved and shown in the report”

What are the types of prompt in Cognos?

• Value prompt
• Text Box Prompt
• Date prompt
• Time prompt
• Date and time prompt
• Select & search Prompt
• Interval Prompt
• Tree prompt
• Generated Prompt
• Prompt button  ??? doubt 1 a

There are different types of prompts that you can use in Cognos.

Text Box Prompt

A Text Box Prompt is a prompt control that allows you to type in a value.

1. Create you Prompt Page

2. Insert Text Box Prompt

3. Run

1. Create you Prompt Page

2. Insert Text Box Prompt

3. Run your report

Value Prompt

A Value Prompt is a prompt control that allows you to select one or more values from a list.

1. Create your Prompt Page

2. Select Value Prompt

3. Run

1. Create your Prompt Page

2. Select Value Prompt

3. Run your report

Other Types of Prompts

Select & Search Prompt

A Select & Search Prompt is an advanced prompt control that allows you to search for values.

1.Create your Prompt Page

2. Select Select& Search Prompt

3. Run

To see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws9GJM48520

7. What is Drill Through?

Drill-through reporting allows you to link from one report to another. You can drill through in a number of ways.

Drill Through is developed with two reports.

1. Parent Report
2. Child Report

8. What are the components of Report Net?

• Framework manager
• Cognos connection
• Query Studio
• Report Studio

Doubt ?

What is Report Net.

9. Difference between content store and content manager

Content Store is the database where all cognos stuff is saved. i.e. reports packages etc. It can be any DB.

While content manager is a service that coordinates with your content store.

A content store is a data base which stores the meta data of the reports.
But where as a content manager is a service which is available in dispatcher

Content Manager

Content Manager is the IBM® Cognos® BI service that manages the storage of customer application data, including security, configuration data, models, metrics, report specifications, and report output. Content Manager is needed to publish packages, retrieve or store report specifications, manage scheduling information, and manage the Cognos namespace.

Content Manager stores information in a content store database, which is typically located in Tier 3 of the architecture.

11. What is Extenstion of Frame work manager model and Report Studio Reports

FM -.CPF

Reports – Doubt?

12. What is Relational Database?

A relational database is one that presents information in tables with rows and columns.

13. OLTP vs OLAP

OLTP System deals with operational data. Operational data are those data  involved in the operation of a particular system.

Example: In a banking System, you withdraw amount from your account. Then Account Number, Withdrawal amount, Available Amount, Balance Amount, Transaction Number etc are operational data elements

OLTP (On-line Transaction Processing) is characterized by a large number of short on-line transactions (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE).

In an OLTP system data are frequently updated  and queried. So quick response to a request is highly expected. Since the OLTP systems invlove large number of update queries, the database tables are optimized for write operations.

To prevent data redundancy and to prevent update anomalies the database tables are normalized.Set of tables that are normalized are Fragmented.Normalization makes the write operation in the database tables more efficient.

Operational data are usually of local relevance.It involves Queries accessing individual tuple(individual record).These type of queries are termed as point queries.

Examples for OLTP Queries:

·         What is the Salary of Mr.John?

·         Withdraw Money from Bank Account : It perform update operation if money is withdrawed from account.

·         What is the address and email id of the person who is the head of maths department?

OLAP deals with Historical Data or Archival Data.

Historical data are those data that are archived over a long period of time. Data from  OLTP are collected over a period of time and store it in a very large database called Data warehouse. The Data warehouses are highly optimized for read (SELECT) operation. 

Example: If we collect last 10 years data about flight reservation, The data can give us many meaningful information such as the trends in reservation. This may give useful information like peak time of travel, what kinds of people are traveling in various classes (Economy/Business)etc.

Updates are very rare in a Data warehouse.OLAP quiries will give aggregated information about the things happend in the past over a period of time and this will help the management in strategic decision making. Hence OLAP Queries are of  having  significant importance in strategic decision making.

OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing) is characterized by relatively low volume of transactions. Queries are often very complex and involve aggregations

14. Aggregate Vs Rollup aggregate

Imagine a list report with a column for Product Line, Product Name and Sales Amount.  The Sales Amount (from various transactions) needs to be aggregated to the Product Name level.  This is the function controlled by the Aggregate Function (and this is the same Aggregate Function in Framework Manager which defines the default aggregate behavior for a field – doubt).  In most cases, for numeric columns, this is set to Total.

Now lets say the same report is to have a footer for every Product Line; what value is to be displayed for the Sales Amount column in the footer?  Normally (and by default) you also want to have a total amount listed.  But what if you want the Maximum or Minimum value?  Or the Average Sales Amount?  This is what the Rollup Aggregate Function determines.  In other words, the Rollup Aggregate Function determines how the "intermediate" aggregates are themselves rolled-up.

Rollup Aggregate Function

The rollup aggregation of any item is important only when you create the aggregation of 'Aggregate' type. When it is set to automatic, Cognos will decide the function based on data type which is not preferred.

      It is good practice to always set the aggregation and rollup aggregation to meaning function than leaving as 'automatic'

Roll up vs aggregate

Aggregate function applies to Aggregation of data at lower level

Roll up Specifies the type of aggregation to apply to summarized values

15. What is group span? Why it is used?

When columns are grouped, you can choose how often to show column names by changing the group spanning.

16. what is a namespace in FM

It is a super store of query Subjects , filters etc

18. Datamart/Datawarehousing

The data mart is a subset of the data warehouse that is usually oriented to a specific business line or team. Data marts are small slices of the data warehouse. Whereas data warehouses have an enterprise-wide depth, the information in data marts pertains to a single department. 

Data Warehouse:

·         Holds multiple subject areas

Data Mart

·         Often holds only one subject area- for example, Finance, or Sales

19 .Approaches to Datawarehousing

If you are working in data warehousing project or going to work on data warehouse project, you will often hear these two names and differences in their methodologies towards data warehousing. These two people are the Guru’s of data warehousing methodologies and they have different methodologies towards data warehousing.

Ralph Kimball	Bill Inmon
The data marts facilitating reports and analysis are created first; these are then combined together to create a broad data warehouse.	One centralize data warehouse which will act as a enterprise-wide datawarehouse and then build data mart as per need for specific department or process
It is known as bottom-up approach	It is known as top down approach

20. Normalization

Database normalization is the process of organizing the fields and tables of a relational database to minimize redundancy and dependency.

It undergoes various stages

1NF

2NF

3NF

BCNF

(Redundancy – Exceeding what is necessary )

21. Fact table/ Dimension Table

A dimension table consists of descriptive attributes that are text fields

A fact table mainly consists of facts.

A dimension contains reference information about the fact, such as date, product, or customer.

Give own example

Fact table

Sales person

Customer

Product sold

Amount

Dimension Table 1

Sales person name

Sales person details

Dimension Table 2

Customer name

Customer Details

Dimension Table 3

Product sold

Product  details

22. Snow flake Scheme / Star schema

Star Schema

In the star schema design, a single object (the fact table) sits in the middle and is connected to other surrounding objects (Dimensiion Tables) like a star. Each dimension is represented as a single table. The primary key in each dimension table is related to a foreign key in the fact table.
  Sample star schema


A star schema can be simple or complex. A simple star consists of one fact table; a complex star can have more than one fact table.
Let's look at an example: Assume our data warehouse keeps store sales data, and the different dimensions are time, store, product, and customer. In this case, the figure on the left represents our star schema. The lines between two tables indicate that there is a primary key / foreign key relationship between the two tables. Note that different dimensions are not related to one
SNOW Flake Schema
The snowflake schema is an extension of the star schema, where each point of the star explodes into more points. In a star schema, each dimension is represented by a single dimensional table, whereas in a snowflake schema, that dimensional table is normalized into multiple lookup tables, each representing a level in the dimensional hierarchy.
 


.
The main advantage of the snowflake schema is the improvement in query performance due to minimized disk storage requirements and joining smaller lookup tables. The main disadvantage of the snowflake schema is the additional maintenance efforts needed due to the increase number of lookup tables
Snow flake schema consists of dimension tables which are further normalized into sub-dimension tables 

Star Schema

23. What is Bursting of Reports

Burst a report to distribute its contents to various recipients. Bursting is the process of running a report once and then dividing the results for recipients who each view a subset of the data. For example, salespeople in different regions each need a report showing the sales target for their country or region. You use burst reports to send each salesperson only the information they need. Burst reports can be distributed by email or saved to a folder for viewing in IBM® Cognos® Connection

24. What IsSelect  & search Prompt?

An advanced prompt control that allows you to search for values

25. Latest version of Cognos being used – 10.2 – doubt early version and latest version ?

26. What are the different types of Joins ?

1-1

1-n : inner join

0-1

0-n

Outer join

0-1

0-n

Right outer join

1-0

n-0

Left outer join

27. Practical Use of JavaScript and HTML?

Increasing size of a prompt

28. Text source variable

Specifies a variable based on which the text source can be chosen.

29. URL SOURCE variable       

Specifies a variable based on which the URL source can be chosen.

30. Style variable

Specifies a variable based on which the object can be conditionally styled

31. Render variable

Specifies a variable based on which the object can be conditionally rendered.

32. Three types of conditional variables?

Ø  Report language variable

Ø  String variable

Ø  Boolean variable

33.Repeater

A table into which you can insert items that will be repeated.

34. Lineage

Lineage information traces the metadata of an item back through the package and the data sources used by the package. Lineage also displays any data item filters that were added by the report author or that were defined in the data model. Viewing lineage information ensures that you add the correct data items to a report.

36. What is a prompt ?

It ask user to enter a value based on which the report is fetched/displayed.

37. What is a drill through report ?

Navigating from one repoet to another report . Two separate reports are linked with each other through a common column

38. Difference between drill throught report and master detail report?

A master detail relationship provides navigation from
summary to detail with in a report we cannot navigate to
another report.

Drill throug report: A drill through allows you to navigate
the information from summary to detail from one report to
another

A drill through is developed with two reports

1.parent report which contains summary data
2.child report which contains detailed data. 

39. How do you achieve Summary for each section?

Grouping

Summary

Sectioning

40. Name some cognos function in Report studio ?

Abs

Ceil

41. Sql server functions

Cast_char

42. syntax for switch statement

Case

When X then y

When A then b

End

cast_char( exp )

Returns the value of "exp" cast as a character. A limit of 30 characters is returned.

ceil ( numeric_exp )

Returns the smallest integer greater than or equal to "numeric_exp".

43. What are the three types of filters in report studio

Ø  Detail filter

Ø  Summary filter

Ø  Slicer (Dimension model)

Detailed filter is applied in each rows in the report output

Summary filter is applied to summary value of the groups. In order to apply summary filter we must have groups and groups totals in the report.

Detail filter – where clause

Summary filter – having clause

44. Parameterized filter

Parametereized filter can be considered as a place holder for filter.

1. When we add Parameterized filter to our report it will automatically prompts the user to select the value.

2. When we add prompt to any report item a parameterized filter will be automatically created for that report item

44.Parametrized filter syntax?

Sales territory] in ?(P_sales territory)?

Order_year in_range ?year?

45.Generated Prompt

What is generated prompt?       

When we add Parameterized filter and run the report we were forced to prompt page. This is generated prompt

46.Types of Prompt?

Prompts
Query based	Non query Based
Value prompt	Date Prompt
select & search prompt	Time Prompt
Tree prompt	Text Box

47.Value Prompt

Define value prompt??

A prompt control that allows you to select one or more values from a list

48. Tree prompt

It is used for hierarchical data

49. Text Box Prompt

A prompt control that allows you to type in a value.

50.Cascading prompt

Cascading prompt is used to use values from one prompt to filter values in another prompt

51.Steps to Import Excel data into Report Studio ?

Loading External Data

Report studio -Insertable Objects – Right click – Manage External Data

Ø  Select Data

Ø  Data mapping

Ø  Data attributes

Ø  Mapping options

Ø  Finish

Since u are importing External data and combining it with existing Package once u click finish it will create a new package of External Data + Already available data 

52.What is business insight?

Business Insight

This new interface is geared towards the business user, providing them with a suite of powerful tools to access, analyze, and format BI content with minimal training.

It is very important to note that this is not an interface designed to develop reports from a metadata model, but is intended to give end users, with very little training, the capability to pull informationfrom multiple prebuilt reportsor other sourcesand combine them into a single dashboard style interface.

Designed to replace Go! Dashboard as well as certain components of Query Studio and Analysis Studio

Business Insight is a new WYSIWYG workspace in which business users can easily create and share interactive dashboards, modify layout, colors, text, add notations/comments and personalize widgets.   

IBM Cognos Business Insight is used to create sophisticated interactive dashboards from the existing content. For instance, assume a user has already created four different reports each catering to sales, marketing, HR, and fi nance, using Report Studio. Individual sections in these reports can then be used in IBM Cognos Business Insight independently, to create an interactive dashboard. This would mean that the dashboard can have a few charts from the fi rst two reports, and a list and a crosstab from third and fourth reports respectively.

53.Name few Items that can be dragged from Business insight tool bar

©  Image

©  Webpage

©  Select value filter

©  Slider filter

54.What is Express Authoring mode in Report Studio ?

The Express authoring mode provides a simplified and focused Report Studio interface. It is designed for non-technical users to create traditional financial and management statement reports

Creating and maintaining statement-style reports

The Report Studio Express authoring mode does not expose the query interface or property page, and the toolbox contains a simplified set of items

55.Business Insight Advanced

Business Insight Advanced is both an extension of and a replacement for the IBM Cognos Report

Studio Express authoring mode, which met the needs of financial analysts to create statement-style reports.

The functionalities which you can find within tools like Report Studio, Analysis Studio and Query studio are brought together in Cognos Business Insight Advanced.

56.Active reports

Interactive, standalone reports

Improved productivity by being able to work while not being physically “connected” to reporting application

Access dashboards as attachments in email rather than through a website

Ø  Disconnected - This allows users to fully interact with all of the content in their reporting application without being dependent on connectivity to their IBM Cognos BI server

Ø  Portable -Business users need access to their BI information regardless of their location, connectivity or consumption device. The same IBM Cognos Active Report can be consumed in standard web browsers and on the Apple iPad while connected or disconnected from the network. This ensures that business users always have their IBM Cognos BI content available at their fingertips

Ø  To have Interactive Dashboards

57.   Name Some Items in Active Reports

©  Data Tab Control

© Data Button Bars

©  Data Toggle button BAR

© Iterators and data iterators

©  Data Deck

Doubt