COGNOS Business Intelligence Series 7

Chapter 5: Provide Drill-through Access
Notes
• You can only drill through from a local source to another local source or from a remote
source (registered on PowerPlay Enterprise Server) to another remote source. For example,
you cannot drill through to a PowerPlay Report (.ppr) from a server-only application such as
PowerPlay Web. Instead, you should drill through to a PowerPlay Portable Report (.ppx) or a
cube (.mdc).
• If users attempt to drill through to a target that is located on a different computer, they may
receive a Cognos Application Firewall rejection message. This is because Cognos Application
Firewall validates URL parameters based on entries in the cern.csx file and the Valid Domain
List in Configuration Manager.
To avoid this situation, add the fully-qualified domain names for the drill-through targets to
the Valid Domain List in Configuration Manager. For more information, see the
Configuration Manager User Guide.
For information about Cognos Application Firewall error messages, see the Cognos
Application Firewall Secure Deployment Guide.
Set Up Drill-through Targets in Transformer
Before users can drill through to other sources of information, the cube that you want to drill
from must contain an embedded list of drill-through targets. This is done in Transformer for
PowerCubes.
Note: To add definitions of drill-through targets to a third party OLAP source, you can use
PowerPlay Connect. For more information, see the PowerPlay Connect Help.
PowerPlay drill-through targets are
• .mdc files (other cubes)
• .ppx files (PowerPlay Portable Reports)
• .ppr files (PowerPlay Reports)
• .iqd files (for Cognos Query)
• .imr files (Impromptu or Impromptu Web Reports)
• .crr files (for Cognos ReportNet or Cognos 8)
If you want drill-through access to be available for all measures in a cube, you define the
drill-through targets in the PowerCube property sheet. If you want drill-through access to be
available for selected measures, you define the drill-through targets in the Measures property sheet
of the specific measure.
Steps
1. Start Transformer and open the model that defines the PowerCube from which you want to
drill through.
2. Do one of the following:
• Open the Measures property sheet for the measure you want to provide drill-through
access on.
• Open the PowerCube property sheet for the cube you want to drill from.
3. In the Drill Through tab, select the Allow Drill Through for this Measure or the Allow Drill
Through for this PowerCube check box.
4. Click the Add button and locate the target file.
Note: For Cognos Query, the .iqd files are stored in a hierarchical folder structure within the
iqdfiles folder on the computer where the Cognos Query server is installed.
Note: For Cognos ReportNet or Cognos 8, select ReportNet Report (*.crr), and type the
correct name for the report.
Tip: This is the report name in Cognos ReportNet or Cognos 8. There is no file with this
name on your computer.
When you choose a report, it is added to the Custom Reports list.
62 Cognos PowerPlay (R)