Hi, all:

We have a report generating process that we would like to simplify the
process. Current it involve with these steps:

step 1: local the .cat catalog file into Cognos Impromptu.
step 2: connect to the database (enter username/password)
step 3: Open the .imr (Cognos Impromptu Report Writer File), and to
stop the query immediately by hitting the Esc key (as the original
query will run for a LONG time).
step 4: Go to the Report -> Query -> Filter and change the report date
range. Click OK and run query again.
step 5: Once the query is finished, save results to .csv
step 6: Use this .csv file with a SQL code (with Oracle sqlloader)
under Windows command line to generate the final report.

My questions:

1. Is it possible to totally get rid of using Cognos Impromptu?? As I
am a bit new to Cognos Impromptu, I'm not sure if this is possible or
how to get started by solving this problem. Any pointers would be
highly appreciated.
2. How would you further try to streamline/automate this process? We
are thinking of using SAS to solve the problem, but not very clear how
SAS could help us to reduce the steps... any comments or suggestions??
Many thanks!

Couple of suggestions : the filter should be a prompt which you can use
to enter the report date. This way your reflexes need not be superfast
to run the report.

If all you want is a CSV file ( I am assuming this is a list report )
you can pick out the query that Cognos is firing and run that as part
of a batch process.
I dont really understand how you generate a report using sqlloader.
sqlloader is meant to load data into the database not generate reports.
Assumption is that you have another query which queries the table just
loaded and generates the report.
Ideally if u look through the process you should be able to generate
the whole thing out of a view -> query on top of another query or at
most a 2 step process of loading a temp table .....

need more details to really help you out.

Regds
Dev


hotister (AT) hotmail (DOT) com wrote:

1. probably yes
2. why don't you call their support line?

hotister (AT) hotmail (DOT) com wrote: