COGNOS Business Intelligence Series 7

Chapter 5: Provide Drill-through Access
Drill Through from Cube to Cube
You can set up drill-through access from one cube to another within the same environment
(Windows or Web). When users drill through a report, a menu of drill-through targets appears.
Users select a cube from this menu. This is useful in the following cases:
• You create a summary cube based on a consolidated data source, and drill-through cubes with
detailed data sources. You then set up drill through from the summary cube to the various
detailed cubes.
• You want to drill across from one set of cubes to another.
To set up drill through in any PowerPlay client from one cube to another, you must perform the
following tasks:
• In Transformer, specify the drill-through targets (.mdc or .ppr files) for your measures or
PowerCubes. You must then update all affected cubes (p. 62).
Note: For remote cubes, that is, cubes accessible from PowerPlay Enterprise Server, the target
cube is identified by the name of the cube rather than the full path entered in Transformer. For
example, if the target cube entered in Transformer is c:\cubes\outdoors.mdc, the cube must be
named outdoors in PowerPlay Enterprise - Server Administration.
• In PowerPlay Enterprise - Server Administration, enable drill through as required for each
cube.
Notes
• You cannot drill through to PowerPlay report files (.ppr) from the Web.
Enable Drill Through to Cubes
After you set up drill through in Transformer, you can enable drill through in PowerPlay
Enterprise - Server Administration. For PowerPlay cubes, you specify the computer where the
cubes you want to drill through to are located.
Steps
1. In PowerPlay Enterprise - Server Administration, select a cube, report or folder.
2. From the Edit menu, click Properties, and then click the Settings tab.
3. In the PowerPlay cubes box (Drill Through), select Enable.
4. In the PowerPlay Windows Target box, enter either the name of the server group that contains
the cube you want to provide drill-through access to, or the server name:port number for the
computer on which the cube resides.
5. In the PowerPlay Web Target box, enter the URL of the PowerPlay Web gateway program.
For example, type http://server name/cognos/cgi-bin/ppdscgi.exe .
Tip: You can also specify a PowerPlay Server group name in this field, such as PowerPlay
Server Group 1. PowerPlay Enterprise Server resolves the location of the ppdscgi.exe file from
the Server Group definition in the configuration file.
Tips
• To test the drill through as it would work on the Web, after the cube is added in PowerPlay
Enterprise - Server Administration click Open with Browser on the Tools menu. Then drill
through by clicking the Drill Through button and selecting the target cube.
Set Up Drill-through Access to a Target in a NewsBox
You can enable users to drill through from PowerPlay to targets that are not in the root server
folder. Cube definitions can reference drill-through targets contained in an Upfront NewsBox
hierarchy. After drill-through access in set up in PowerPlay Enterprise - Server Administration, a
user can drill through to the target in an Upfront NewsBox.
64 Cognos PowerPlay (R)