Cognos Interview Questions and Answers 2019 | Basic and Advanced Level

Q1. What is called Cognos Reporting tool?

Ans: Cognos is an IBM reporting apparatus which is utilized for reporting and examination of different information from distinctive data warehouse.

Q2. Display Products by Country in Cognos Report Studio.

Ans: If you want show values of Product Line prompt based on the selection of Country prompt then use cascade property of Product Line prompt so that Product Line prompt will populate values based on the selection of country prompt.

Q3. Define datastores in Cognos?

Ans: Data sources, also known as query databases, are relational databases, dimensionalcubes, files, or other physical data stores that can be accessed through IBM Cognos8. Application Tier Components use data source connections to access data sources.

Q4. What is a Query Subject?

Ans: A Query Subject is a collection of Query Items. Generally query items have a defined relationship. It is primarily a database table upon which query action takes place.

Q5. What is Cognos Powerhouse and what is it used for?

Ans: Cognos Powerhouse is High-Productivity Application Development Solutions equips you with high-productivity development environments for creating your data-driven business solutions faster,whether for Web-based, client/server, or traditional terminal-based access. PowerHouse has gained a worldwide reputation for productivity, reliability, performance, and flexibility.

Q6. What is Report item?

Ans: Report thing is characterized as a question thing which can be relocated into a work territory.

Q7. How can create users and permissions in cognos?

Ans: In impromptu menu go to Catlog->User profiles -> userclass tab -> click on Creator ->u can give there folder access,table access,filters,Governor etc
you can crate users by using USERS PROFILE option……and you can give permissions using ROLE IN C8 and GOVERNERS in C7.

Q8. How can i test reports in cagonos?

Ans: In cognos report net by the validate report option a report can be tested. If there will be any error, it will specify the the error, unless it will give message -‘report specification is valid’.
After creating the report we will connect to the oracle and we will write the sql query and we will compare this 2 reports .

Q9. Can we use more than one measure in crosstab?

Ans: Absolutely. Treat a crosstab just like Excel on steroids.... Hold down the CTRL key to select the multiple measures and then "Nest" them into either the X or Y axis.

Q10. Report Studio Restrict User to Add New Data Item.

Ans: In Report properties, Goto Permissions page and select the user/group/role in which the user belongs to and deny the write permission.

Q11. What is Cognos Visualizer and Cognos Scripting?

Ans: Visualizer is a representation of data cubes in a dashboard format. We can drill through to the ground level of a hierarchy as like in power play report but cannot add or remove fields dynamically.
Cognos script editor : We can write cognos macros or programs in this tool and can fine tune or process some execution .

Q12. What is situated to be Cardinality?

Ans: Cardinality is characterized as connections between the tables. Taking after are relationship shaped between the tables:

• Balanced
• One to Many
• Many to Many
• Many to One

Q13. How to generate cubes in cognos?

Ans: Power Play Transformer contain dimension,measure,model and cube. we can generate cube different way. > Just right click on cube name and build.
we can write script in unix. using that we can generate cube.

Q14. What is catalog and types of catalogs in Cognos and which is better?

Ans: 4 tipes of catlogs we have in cognos

1. Personal Catlog: Only one user(Creator) can create/modify a catlog & report.
2. Shared Catlog: Only one user(Creator) can create/modify a catlog. But any body can create their own reports using this catlog.
3. Destributed Catlog: Here any body can change their own "personal destributed catlogs, they can create their own reports.
   But no one can change the master distributed catlog.if u make any changes in master destributed catlog the changes will be effected  to Personal destributed catlogs.
4. Secured catlog:No one can change the catlog & Report it is fully secured

Here better We can choose the Distributed Catlog.

Q15. What is difference between content store and content manager?

Ans: A content store is a data base which stores the meta data of the reports.
But where as a content manager is a service which is available in dispatcher. which it manages the security.

Q16. How to convert crosstab into list?

Ans: If you are working on query studio, then you cannot convert the crosstab report into list report, unless you choose to do the "undo" option.
But you can do this conversion in the Report Studio.

Q17. What is Cognos Connection?

Ans: It is a Web portal for Cognos 8 and a component which interracts with the Content Store. It is a frontend to publish, find, manage, organize, and view organization’s business intelligence data.

Q18. How to improve performance from database side?

Ans: There are many ways to improve database performance. One of them being creating indexes on table columns that are queried the most. Another is create table partitioning. A whole lot else can be accomplished at the report level by fine tuning the query or the filters created automatically by Cognos Report Studio

Q19. What are products of Cognos?

Ans: Cognos 6.6 7.0,7.3(PowerPlay, Impromptu)–ReportNet1.0,1.1mr1, 1.1mr22—ReportNet 8.0(latest)IWR is use by Impromptu to publish reports, PPES is used by PP, Cognos Connection is used by repornet. there are many other tools but these are the main.

Q20. How can i schedule reports in cognos?

Ans: By using Cognos Schedular, one can schedule the running reports in Impromptu to execute and save it in desired format.
By using Cognos MACRO script language the reports can be executed and distributed to recipients by using mail applications.
Compiled Cognos MACROs can be scheduled using Cognos Schedular.