Logging Levels

You set logging levels to specify the events and messages to record in the log file or in the log database.

An event is an occurrence in your IBM® Cognos® environment that is significant enough to be tracked, such as starting or stopping a service.

You can set a different logging level for each dispatcher service. You can do this for each dispatcher or for all dispatchers in the same folder. By setting different logging levels for different services you can reduce the amount of irrelevant logging information. For example, if you must troubleshoot the batch report service, you can select a detailed logging level for just that service, keeping log messages to a minimum. The logging level for a service applies to all its components.

Note: The log service does not have logging levels associated with it.

The following table indicates the details that each logging level logs.

Table 1. Logging levels
Details	Minimal	Basic	Request	Trace	Full
System and service startup and shutdown, runtime errors
User account management and runtime usage
Use requests
Service requests and responses
All requests to all components with their parameter values
other queries to IBM Cognos components (native query)

You can maintain system performance by managing the amount of logging performed by the server. Since extensive logging affects server performance, increasing the logging level may negatively affect the performance of IBM Cognos software.

The default logging level is Minimal. Use Full logging and Trace levels only for detailed troubleshooting purposes, under the guidance of Customer Support. They may significantly degrade server performance.

If you are using audit reporting, refer to Setting up audit reporting for guidelines on setting the logging level. For information on setting logging levels for audit reports, see Audit Reports.

Report validation levels and logging levels

You can collect information about report validation levels by setting the corresponding logging level. Report validation messages can be included in system log messages.

You can use the validation information in different ways. If the system is delivering a generally poor response, you can set logging to a higher level. The additional information can help you determine which reports are at fault and why. If you see warning messages in the logs, this may mean that users are receiving questionable results. You can alert the owners of the offending reports.

There are four report validation levels and five logging levels. The following table shows the correspondence between them.

Table 2. Report validation levels and logging levels
Report validation level	Logging level
Error	Minimal, Basic
Warning	Request
Key Transformation	Trace
Information	Full

The higher you set the logging level, the more it degrades system performance. Normally, you set the level to Minimal or Basic to collect errors, or to Request to collect errors and warnings.

For information about reports and report validation, see the IBM Cognos Report Studio User Guide.

Native query logging

If you want to create audit reports that include the queries that are run against your reporting data source, you must enable native query logging. You can use native query logging to learn what kinds of information users want or whether a report is running efficiently. For information on creating audit reports, see Audit Reports.

Native query logging is part of Request level logging. However, if you are using audit reports, you can enable native query logging independently from Request level logging, as described in the following steps.

Report execution options logging

You can log report execution options to your logging system. The report execution options include: prompt parameters, run options, and report specifications.

This functionality is disabled by default. You can enable this functionally using the following advanced parameters of the report service and batch report service:

RSVP.PARAMETERS.LOG: When this parameter is set to true, the run options and prompt parameters are logged.; Default: false
RSVP.REPORTSPEC.LOG: When this parameter is set to true, the report specifications are logged.; Default: false

For information about setting these parameters for the report service and batch report service, see Configuring advanced settings for specific services.