Cognos Changes Affecting UCSD

Cognos alternates casting null date fields as integers and varchar. The report developer can tell Cognos to set this field null values to a null date by using cast (NULL, date).

Issues Resolved

Thank you to all who have provided us with feedback on unexpected behavior in Cognos DEV.  Please continue to let us know if you are experiencing anything unexpected.

Help us Investigate

Please email busintel@ucsd.edu when you encounter something unexpected.  If you can provide the additional information seen below in your initial email that will help use investigate:

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What browsers have you tried?

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What version of browsers are you on?

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What happened when you cleared your cache and restarted your browser?

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Are you on a Mac or PC?

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What time did it occur? How frequently?

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The latest Cognos Analytics (12.0.4) upgrade has been released!  You can find information on what’s new in this upgrade here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cognos-analytics/11.2.0?topic=whats-new

You can also watch a YouTube video of new features: .Coming Soon

Cognos developer report testing at the beginning of the upgrade is critical to a timely and successful upgrade.

Cognos Enhancements Impacting UCSD

Improved user experience for Search and Select prompts. User will no longer be sent to the top of the page when clicking ‘search’ https://www.ibm.com/mysupport/s/defect/aCI3p000000PSk7/dt121404?language=en_US

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High Level Plan

We will follow our standard upgrade procedures listed below. 

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Calendar layout at bottom of email.

1. Cognos Sandbox = Now thru 5:00 PM, Friday, January 10:  ITS-BIA will review the upgrade in our sandbox prior to planning an upgrade of DEV.  The 12.0.4 upgrade has already been installed on our sandbox.

   1. BONUS: Monday, February 6 thru 5:00 PM, Friday, February 10: Cognos Developers will be allowed into the Cognos Sandbox for a preview

2. Cognos DEV = 5:00 PM on Friday, January 10: 

   1. A backup of the DEV content store will be conducted.  This will be insurance against any unforeseen issue during the upgrade process.

   2. The admin team will perform the upgrade of the DEV environment.

   3. Cognos DEV will be unavailable while this work occurs.

3. Cogno DEV = Post DEV upgrade Friday, January 10 thru 5:00 PM ThursdayFriday, January 24:

   1. All development teams to review content in Cognos DEV for two weeks and test for issues related to the upgrade.

   2. Any issues are to be reported by sending an email tobusintel@ucsd.edu

   3. If an issue is deemed critical, a rollback of DEV to 11.2.4 the current version will be scheduled as soon as possible.

   4. NO MIGRATIONS OUT OF DEV can occur as the content from the upgraded environment will not work in environments on an earlier version.

4. Cognos DEV = Friday, August 18January 24

   1. GO/ROLLBACK determination for QA upgrade will be made.

   2. GO – the upgrade is applied to QA only over the weekend following the DEV upgrade. 

      1. This will be the determination if no new issue(s) are found in the upgraded version or if any new issue noted is deemed insignificant enough to move forward.

   3. ROLLBACK – the upgrade is rolled back from DEV

      1. This will be the determination only if new issues are found in the upgraded version and those issues are deemed significant.

5. Cognos QA = 5:00 PM on Friday, August 18January 24 (based on GO determination in previous step):

   1. A backup of the QA content store will be conducted.  This will be insurance against any unforeseen issue during the upgrade process.

   2. The admin team will perform the upgrade of the QA environment.

   3. Cognos QA will not be available while this work occurs.

6. Cognos QA = Post QA upgrade Friday, August 18January 24 thru 5:00 PM ThursdayFriday, August 24January 31:

   1. All development teams to review content in Cognos QA and work with end users to test for issues related to the upgrade.

   2. Any issues are to be reported by sending an email to busintel@ucsd.edu

   3. If an issue is deemed critical, a rollback of QA and DEV to 11.1.7 the current version will be scheduled as soon as possible.

   4. NO MIGRATIONS TO PROD can occur as the content from the upgraded environment will not work in environments on an earlier version.  Content may be migrated from DEV to QA.

7. Cognos QA = Friday, August 25January 31

   1. GO/ROLLBACK determination for PROD upgrade will be made.

   2. GO – the upgrade is applied to PROD over the weekend following the QA upgrade. 

      1. This will be the determination if no new issue(s) are found in the upgraded version or if any new issue noted is deemed insignificant enough to move forward.

   3. ROLLBACK – the upgrade is rolled back from DEV and QA. 

      1. This will be the determination only if new issues are found in the upgraded version and those issues are deemed significant.

8. Cognos Prod = 5:00 PM on Friday, August 25January 31 (based on GO determination in previous step):

   1. A backup of the PROD content store will be conducted.  This will be insurance against any unforeseen issue during the upgrade process.

   2. The admin team will perform the upgrade of the PROD environment.

   3. Cognos Prod will not be available while this work occurs.

Please take note of the 3 week period from Friday, August 4 January 10 through Friday, August 25 January 31 where content may not be migrated to PROD.  Please be sure all required content is migrated from DEV to PROD prior to the DEV upgrade at 5:00 PM on Friday, August 4January 10.  Please be sure all required content is migrated from QA to PROD prior to the QA upgrade at 5:00 PM on Friday, August 25January 24.

Calendar

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Testing

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Currently, only the Cognos provided packages are available to test against.

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Sign into https://cog-dev01.ucsd.edu/ibmcognos/bi/

Test	Ask Yourself
Person menu in the upper right	Can you see your Profile and settings? Can you shut off the Welcome banner? (see settings)
Hamburger menu in the upper left	Can you find the ‘Content’ area? Can you open a ‘New’ report? Can you upload data?
Content area	Can you see your ‘My content’? Can you change from Tiles to List view? Can you open a report from within ‘Get started’?
Report Development area	Can you connect a new report to the “GO data warehouse (query) found in the folder Team content / Samples / Models? Note: there are objects within this package so once you pick the package, just click Open. Image Modified Can you toggle into and out of edit mode? Can you add a filter? Can you run a report? Can you run a report in a different format? Can you save the report to your My Content
Report specific	Does anything in my report break? Can I run the report and get the same results as Cognos Prod (picking the Hana-Prod)? Does my drill-through work? Do my graphics / images work? Does my HTML / PDF / Excel export work? Does my report run time increase / decrease?
Non-supported items - BIA cannot help fix these	HTML code Java Script Macros

Help us Investigate

Please email busintel@ucsd.edu when you encounter something unexpected.  If you can provide the additional information seen below in your initial email that will help use investigate:

• What browsers have you tried?

• What version of browsers are you on?

• What happened when you cleared your cache and restarted your browser?

• Are you on a Mac or PC?

• What time did it occur? How frequently?

• What exactly were you doing?

• Please provide a full-page screenshot