Cognizant Interview Questions on Cognos

The reports can be tested in Cognos Viewer in the following way

• Connect to the Cognos BI portal and start the Cognos connection.
• Click the Cognos content inside the welcome page
• In the Cognos administration, click launch of the Cognos connection from the toolbar
• In the list of Public folders, click opens the PowerPlay and Samples
• Next click great_outdoors_sales_en
• Click in any of the reports from the list
• The report will open in the Cognos Viewer

Yes, we can. Two crosstabs can be grouped as they behave and look as one crosstab. Grouping crosstabs move closer together without any space between them. The row axis builds the common axis of the crosstabs that are grouped. The grouping is triggered by the master crosstabs and also it determines the common crosstab structure.

According to the interaction point of view from the users, the grouped crosstabs act as the one entity. The functionality that is offered within the context and ribbon menu is adjusted as per the unified behavior of the crosstabs that are grouped. Only their rows axis within the crosstabs can create the common axis.

There are various types of reports that are available in Cognos. A few of them are as follows:

• List Reports: List reports are implied to display the entire base of the customer.
• Charts: Charts are inserted to represent the data graphically. You can group charts together with crosstab or with a list report.
• Crosstab Reports: Crosstab reports are implemented to show the amount of quantity that is sold within the region and product on a different axis.

Aggregate advisor in Cognos is used for analyses the dynamic cubes and after implementation enhances the performance of the cubes. It can also run the pre-existing reports and suggest aggregates that directly correspond to these reports. Aggregate advisor creates in-memory recommendations to be fit within the limited size for the in-database recommendations. Aggregate advisor in Cognos makes two types of recommendations. They are:

• In Memory Recommendations: They are aggregate recommendations that can be implemented by the Cognos Business Intelligence server during the cube is created. It is deposited in the content store.
• In Database Recommendations: This type of recommendation is automatically implemented in the model and database.

Difference between macros and prompt in Cognos is

Macro is a set of commands that can execute an application. Macro is a dynamic object that is implemented to replace the values during the query run time. Macro can open the catalog, select a particular report and convert it to another format at any specific location. A macro is a non-interactive object for the non-user and returns a single value.

Prompt determines the way through which the data should be displayed in the reports. It is defined during the report generation at the catalog level. It is a dynamic condition that selects or enters the value during the run time of the query.

The duplicate rows in the SQL can be deleted in the following manner.

• The duplicate rows need to be found using the ROW_NUMBER function or GROUP by clause
• DELETE statement is then used to erase the duplicate rows in the SQL.

Duplicate rows can also be deleted from the SQL by using CTE (Common Table Expression), T-SQL and SSIS package.

Syntax to delete duplicate rows in SQL

SELECT DISTINCT column1, column2,....columnN  
FROM table _name  
WHERE [conditions]  

Framework Manager in Cognos is implemented to generate business models of the metadata that is derived from one or more than sources of the data. Framework Manager is a tool that is dependent on Windows and publishes the business models to the Cognos BI in packages form that can be utilized for analysis and analytical reporting.

Before the beginning of the Framework Manager, the user needs to go through the BI reporting requirements by identification of the metadata, report package deliveries, and data strategies. This will assist the user in the identification of the sources of the data that are needed in the framework manager to get the necessary data in the BI report.

Dynamic cube is a type of dynamic query that uses in-memory data to attain a high-performance analysis that is interactive in nature and reports over terabytes of the warehouse data. Dynamic cubes are added to the data that enables high-speed interactive analysis of the fact.

Dynamic cubes are created with the modeling tools known as Cognos cube Designer that connect it directly to the data warehouse. It utilizes the relationships between the dimension and the fact tables to accelerate the cube creation. The administrator and modeler are perfect to apply for the Dynamic cubes.

Determinants are one of the features introduced in Cognos 8 that is designed to offer control over the granularity that is similar to Dimension Information in Cognos. Determinants are closely related to the indexes and keys in the database. There are no hierarchies in the determinants, but the order through which the determinants are specified, they are evaluated in the same way.

It can define a particular set of database columns that identify the set of columns, data or no unique set within that particular data. Determinants also join at different levels of granularity on every single query subject.

There are several kinds of prompts that we can utilize in Cognos.

• Search and SELECT PROMPT: Search and Select Prompt recovers rates based on search criteria that users define. Information is then recovered based on rates users pick from the exploration results.
• VALUE PROMPT: Value Prompt recovers data founded on rates that we pick from a record.
• TIME PROMPT: Time Prompt recovers data founded on a point that you pick. Utilize this control to limit a record to a distinctive time or period range.
• DATE PROMPT: Date Prompt recovers data founded on a Date that you pick. Utilize this command when we are separating a dateline.
• INTERVAL PROMPT: Interval Prompt recovers data founded on a period interval that you specify. Use this control to retrieve data that is related to the passage of time.
• TIME and DATE PROMPT: Time and date Prompt recovers data founded based on a date and time that you pick.
• TREE PROMPT: Tree Prompt recovers data founded on values we pick from a list. Values are arranged hierarchically.