Configuring PowerCube refresh schedules

By default, IBM® Cognos® Transformer refreshes each PowerCube with incremental updates once each day, and replaces the cube’s data for the current month once a week. These jobs are scheduled by default but you might need to modify the schedules to avoid conflicts with other activities.

About this task

When scheduling the refresh jobs, keep the following issues in mind:
  • These jobs should run at times when the Cognos system usage is relatively low, to minimize the impact on normal usage. You should adjust these times based on your system's usage pattern.
  • The weekly refresh should run only once every week; since it will take longer to complete, you should schedule it for the time when system usage is lowest (for example, on the weekend).
  • The daily refresh should run early in the morning (for example, just after midnight), so users can see the latest metrics for the previous day.

Procedure

  1. On the computer hosting Cognos Transformer, schedule the PowerCube updates, making sure the schedules for the daily and weekly jobs do not collide:
    • AIX® or Linux™:

      Edit the cron jobs in the system crontab.

    • Windows™:

      Edit the MetricsCubeDailyRefresh job to ensure it does not collide with the weekly refresh. You can modify the job’s properties in the Task Scheduler Library; for more information see the next topic.

  2. Run the build-all script to build the PowerCube. After the cube build completes, make sure the metrics have loaded successfully.
    The build-all script is located in <Transformer install path>/metricsmodel/build-all script.
    Note: Please see Troubleshooting if the build process fails.