Cognos and the ReportNet Environment

EIS Users Meeting January 12, 2006

Agenda

Overview Report Demonstration ReportNet Security Model Vicky Walker-Brooks Whats Next

Disclaimer
Whereas Cognos ReportNet and related Cognos products Ii.e Power Play, Framework Manager, Congos Configuration and other portions of what is other wise known as the Conogs 8 Business Intelligence Suite are new to our EIS environment and Whereas our installation has thus far only be used in the creation and development of our pilot project ( a task involving installation, data analysis, gathering, modeling, endless design session, security modeling, report authoring, training, single sign-on coding, testing and other tasks related to the process of completing the task given us) thereby suggesting that there is far momre work to go and Whereas we are only half-way through that pilot project implementation thus implying that we only know half of what we should and considering how these things go probably have more to figure out than we can currently possibly conceive of despite the fact that several of us are losing sleep trying to figure out what were missing and dont even get me started talking about the general lack of support from the Cogno web site Whereas lorem ipsum dorem, lorem ipsum dorem andum Whereas we, hereafter referred to as enterprise information systems tool, utilities and user services.Or EISTUS, fully reserve the right to make policy decisions on the use of Cognos products here at the university of north Texas when and where we need to in order to more fully satisfy the requirements placed upon us by upper management and administration and Whereas we really arent sure what were doing here Be it resolved that all of what we are about to tell you may or may not be how things are actually going to be and so in viewing this presentation you agree to hold harmless all employees participating in this presentation in specific and all EISTUS employees in general, further agreeing never to call them and suggest that something is not how it should be based on some idea you took from the following presentation. In other words, none of this is written in stone, its presented in a fully electronic format and can therefore be easily modified as needed to support changes as indicated above. Signed this day, January 10, 2006 a.D. By

Robert Jones Manager of disclaimers and lowering of expectations.

Campus Wide Reporting

Campus Wide reporting

Back office queries

Standard, transaction based reporting

Cognos Characteristics

Create managed business reports, production reports, scorecards, and dashboards (Cognos 8 BI). Ability to do on-demand, tailorable reporting and adhoc analysis. Has successful implementations in higher education. Web based delivery accessible within PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal. Unix versions of server software for scalability and performance. Provides cube capabilities for use by analytical users. Centralized metadata model.

Cognos Architecture
Framework Manager Cognos ReportNet UNT Data Warehouse (RDS) Cognos PowerPlay Analytical cube
PeopleSoft, Legacy

Reports

Data Warehousing Team Role

Requests for data for future reports will be handled through the Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence team. ReportNet packages will be created using data in the RDS. RDS enhancements for data additions, deletions, or customizations will be completed after specific requests have been submitted using the request form.

What Can ReportNet Do?

A Demonstration of the Pilot Project

ReportNet Security Model

Cognos ReportNet Security

A user must be Authenticated and have proper Authorization in order to use Cognos ReportNet. Authentication is the process of verifying the users identity at log in. Authorization is the process of determining what a user can do once logged in.

Authentication

Is done against LDAP. Allows users to log in with Enterprise User ID (EUID) and Enterprise Password. Single Sign-On is enabled that allows the user to access Cognos ReportNet from the EIS Portal.

Authorization

Done within Cognos ReportNet via roles. Divided into two distinct types:
1.

Capability What functions you can perform

View and run reports, Query Studio, Report Studio, Administration, Software Developers Kit.

2.

Data What data you can access

Finance, Human Resources, Student, Contributor Relations.

Capability

Five different functions require specific licenses. Each license is limited to a specific number of users. Assignment of users for each license group will be determined by AIS Management (John and his reports).

Capability cont.

EISDW is responsible for managing the number of users within each license. This is facilitated by having a separate role for each license type. Every user will be in one, and only one, license role.

Licenses and Roles

1.

ReportNet Viewer (1180 seats)

RNGBDW_VIEWER_LIC role

Allows departmental users to view and run reports.

2.

ReportNet Business Author (15 seats)

RNGBDW_BUS_AUTHOR_LIC role

Allows designated functional users access to Query Studio to create and publish ad hoc reports as well as view and run reports.

Licenses and Roles cont.

3.

ReportNet Professional Author (20 seats)

RNGBDW_PRO_AUTHOR_LIC role

Allows designated developers access to Report Studio and Query Studio to create and publish reports as well as view and run reports.

4.

ReportNet Administrator (4 seats)

RNGBDW_ADMIN_LIC role

Allows EISDW and EISSEC to administer the application, servers, and security. Also grants access to all reporting functions.

Licenses and Roles cont.

5.

ReportNet Developer (2 seats)

RNGBDW_SDK_LIC role

Allows Robert Jones and Ginny Richards access to the ReportNet API via the Software Development Kit in order to make customizations. Also grants full Administrator and reporting access.

Data Access and Roles

Data access will be granted at different levels for the different license users. EISSEC will manage the creation and assignment of all of these roles in the beginning. Technical / Functional ACEs will take on the creation and assignment of the ReportNet Viewer roles via the ACE System once this capability is ready.

Levels of Data Access

ReportNet Viewers access will be the most granular:

Granted access at the report, or report set, level. (Note, security by value not designed or planned at this time.) Could have a separate role for one report if needed therefore managed by the ACEs eventually. Example: FS Budget Summary Reports have one data access role of RNGBBD_VD_Summary_Detail.

Professional and Business Authors access will be granted at a higher level:

Granted at the following high levels FS, HR, SA and CR. Will be managed by the EISSEC team. Example role is RNGBSC_xx_AUTHOR_DATA.

Levels of Data Access cont.

Administrators and SDK developers in EISDW, EISSEC and EISTAR will have access to all data in order to support all areas.

Data Roles Summary

Every Cognos ReportNet user:

Will have one, and only one, license role. May have a multitude of data roles (Report, or report set level roles).

Every Business and Professional Author will have:

Will have one, and only one, license role. Plus one high level (FS, HR, CR, or SA) Author Data role.

Example of Users Roles

Roles needed in order to view the Finance Budget Summary/Detail reports:

RNGBDW_RPT_VIEWER_LIC RNGBBD_VR_SUMMARY_DETAIL

Roles needed in order to use Query Studio to develop ad hoc Financial reports:

RNGBDW_BUS_AUTHOR_LIC RNGBSC_FS_AUTHOR_DATA

Example of Users Roles cont.

Roles needed in order to develop the Finance Budget Summary/Detail reports:

RNGBDW_PRO_AUTHOR_LIC RNGBSC_FS_AUTHOR_DATA

Summary

Report viewing available thru portal/single sign-on with interface custom to campus-wide user. Report Authors will use Cognos Connection Reports are flexible and promptable, allowing a single report to satisfy a broad spectrum of users Reporting is limited to data in the Data Warehouse Security is designed to conform to licensing requirements and reporting needs

Whats Next

Create production environment (1st week of Feb.) Beta release the pilot project (3rd week of Feb.) Budget Project go-live (1st week of Mar.)

Whats Next cont.

ReportNet Author Training (3rd week of Feb.) Your projects Upgrade to Cognos 8 BI/Power Play ACES Integration Fact Book

Questions?

A Contest
Name That Software! Wed like you to submit entries to rename the Cognos Connection portal to something morewell homegrown. Winner receives a genuine award! ($20 gift card Chilis) Submit entries by midnight January 17th to rfjones@unt.edu