Running multiple instances of Cognos BI on a machine

Having recently installed Cognos10 alongside Cognos8 on my laptop I found the following post by Ahmed Lashin to be vary helpful:

http://www.alashin.net/cognos-8-bi/multiple-instances-on-the-same-machine/

The main trick was ensuring unique ports for dispatcher, logging and shutdown in cognos configuration

How to enable browsing for Images in IBM Cognos Express Report Studio

By default you will not be able to browse for images in Cognos Express report studio.
To enable it you need to follow the instructions found here:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21421987

Running TM1 as Desktop application in Windows 2008

Obviously best practice would be to setup TM1 to run as a service but sometimes you need to setup a TM1 server to run as a desktop shortcut you can double click on to start.
In windows 2008 though the security setup is a bit more strict than previous versions. If you just double click the shortcut you will likely get errors about logging or missing files and the server won't start even though everything looks fine in the cfg file etc.
The trick is to right click the shortcut and select to "Run as Administrator" and everything will start as normal.

Ending of support for TM1 on IE6

TM1 9.5.x releases will be the last to support IE6 as a browser:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27020555

TM1 on Linux

There looks to be a new release of TM1 951 available for deployment of Red Hat Linux Enterprise.

See updated supported environments page:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27018895

Set sort order in tree prompts based on TM1 datasource

Nice little article available here on how to set a customized sort order in hierarchy prompts based off a TM1 datasource in report studio:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?mynp=OCSS9RTN&mync=R&uid=swg21457443&myns=swgimgmt

Using SQL Express as Content Store for Cognos BI

First thing to point out is SQL Express is NOT  supported environment but for testing purposes on my own laptop the following steps were needed:

- Start SQL Server Configuration Manager
- Go to Client Protocols and enable TCP/IP and Named Pipes
- Go to Protocols for SQLEXPRESS and enable TCP/IP and Named Pipes
- Then double click TCP/IP to go into its properties, click IP adresses tab, scroll to botton for IPAll group
- Make TCP dynamic ports setting to be blank
- Make TCP port to be 1433
- In cognos configuration you can then select SQL Server and localhost:1433 for database settings

Integrating TM1web with Cognos BI

When you have a distributed architecture for your Cognos BI install and then you want to integrate TM1web into the environment with CAM authentication, you may find you get an error message about a CAF rejection and you cannot access tm1web.

This is due to the internal cognos firewall rules and you need to edit the CAF settings within Cognos Configuration. Normally this just involves adding the tm1 adminhost name into the CAF exception rule.

e.g. If your TM1 server is running on a computer called "TM1WebAppServ", then you would add this to the CAF exception rule

I found these sites helpful in resolving this issue:

http://www.cogknowhow.com/index.php/knowledge-articles/30-cognos-8/305-can-not-add-a-url-in-cognos-connection-to-direct-users-to-other-server-or-website

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21410316

Moving IBM Cognos Express Data to a New Drive

Sometimes you may need to install Cognos Express on one drive e.g C:\ but need to store all the data to a dedicated drive for backup purposes e.g. D:\
An IBM technote exists which outlines the steps to achieve this:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21413500

TM1 install on Windows 2008

As of TM1 951 you can install on Windows 2008.
The key thing to remember during the install is to right click everything and "Run as Administrator".
This includes cmd prompt when you want to setup TM1 to run as a service and even IE when you want to install the TM1 rich client administration for Contributor.

Back Open for Business

Its been a while and the landscape has changed a lot, so I have decided to carry on where I left off and continue to update the site with some tips and tricks that I have found helpful.
The site will expand to include Cognos BI, Cognos Business Viewpoint and over time other products with the Cognos brand.