Powerplay PDF's and Upfront 1

[AndyFreeman]

Hi there all

I have a report which i need to be able to deliver to non-powerplay client users. We run PPES so i usually use Cognos Upfront to delivery all report to users.

However there is one report that i have never been able to get to run successfully on Upfront. It is probably due to its size as it takes 15 minutes to open from my local machine.

PDF is the best means of delivery of this report.
I am thinking of writing a Macro that will open each report and publish a PDF to my local machine. I will then have to manually upload each PDF to Upfront so users can download it. (There are 20 reports)
Is there a slicker way of doing this through Upfront as this seems very manual.

Thanks in advance

 

[drlex]

Andy,
Rather than upload pdfs to Upfront, I use URLs to point to files and just overwrite each file when refreshing the data. So that users know the latest date, I also update the NewsboxID of each URL using a .bat file.

soi la, soi carré

 

[AndyFreeman]

Sounds good.

How does the BAT file work. As i dont really have much knowledge of the internals of how Upfront works

Andy

 

[drlex]

BAT file is just a way of runnning a command line instruction.
By using a SHELL command in a script that points to a BAT file, you can call other routines.

So

Shell ("D:\BAT_folder\UpdateURLs.bat")'

will run the contents of UpdateURLs.bat on the DOS prompt. UpdateURLs.bat contains:

"C:\Program Files\Cognos\cer4\bin\UpfrontCmd.exe" -u {UserID} -p {Userpassword} -s {servername:port} "<SetNewsItemProperties><Id>{NewsBoxItemID}</Id><UpdateDate>Now</UpdateDate></SetNewsItemProperties>"

The braces are aroung the items you need to set for your own set-up and obviously the correct path to the Cognos bin folder.

To update all URLs, you just repeat the code as many times as you have URLs and put in the relevant IDs into the {NewsBoxItemID} - these can be found by checking the properties of the item.

It's not a very elegant solution; perhaps another on the forum will indicate how to upload files to Upfront properly.


soi la, soi carré

 

[AndyFreeman]

what would be the standard port for Upfront to run on the server?

 

[AndyFreeman]

C:\Program Files\Cognos\cer3\bin\UpfrontCmd.exe" -u {administrator} -p {fr33man} -s {hayw03pp01:8010} "<SetNewsItemProperties><Id>{04c216d9cdf211d9b65edd6b1e2ac17e}</Id><UpdateDate>Now</UpdateDate></SetNewsItemProperties>"


Running this gets me a "Socket Error Occurred" Message

 

[drlex]

Sorry - the braces { } are not required
should be

"C:\Program Files\Cognos\cer3\bin\UpfrontCmd.exe" -u administrator -p fr33man -s hayw03pp01:8010 "<SetNewsItemProperties><Id>04c216d9cdf211d9b65edd6b1e2ac17e</Id><UpdateDate>Now</UpdateDate></SetNewsItemProperties>"

I usually use <> but they form part of the xml command structure.

soi la, soi carré

 

[AndyFreeman]

Wonderful, thanks for your help. Got it working now

Andy

 

[drlex]

No worries; thanks for your star in this and the other thread. Remember
1) secure the URLs so that users don't delete them, and
2) ensure MS security on the files is appropriate for the users accessing them

happy friday [happy]
lex

soi la, soi carré

 

[AndyFreeman]

Ok will check that.


Is there anyway of setting the "NEW" Flag back on so it stands out also. Not a requirement just a nice to have.

 

[drlex]

AFAIK, the number of days that the "NEW" flag appears is a global variable. The only workround I could suggest would be to change the icon using the same <SetNewsItemProperties> command (see Cognos Knowledge base documents 109007 or 118893) and then change it back after a certain period.

soi la, soi carré