Configuring the lineage solution

Lineage provides details about data in a report, such as the data source and calculation expressions. You can configure the default IBM® Cognos® software lineage solution, the IBM InfoSphere® Metadata Workbench lineage tool, or a custom lineage solution.

You can access lineage information in IBM Cognos Viewer, Report Studio, Query Studio, and Analysis Studio. To use the default solution or IBM InfoSphere Metadata Workbench, ensure that the value for the Metadata Information Service URI parameter of the Environment category is configured as specified in the steps in this section.

To implement a custom lineage solution, you must

  • create a Web interface that translates the IBM Cognos software lineage request parameters and invokes the custom lineage solution.

    For more information, see the section about integrating a custom lineage solution in the IBM Cognos Software Development Kit Developer Guide.

  • change the value for the Metadata Information Service URI parameter of the Environment category to the URL of your lineage server.

Before you begin

The lineage capability must be enabled. For more information, see Secured Functions and Features, and Object Capabilities.

Procedure

  1. In IBM Cognos Administration, on the Status tab, click System.
  2. From the System Actions menu, click Set Properties.
  3. Click the Settings tab.
  4. For the Environment category, Metadata Information Service URI, type one of the following values.
    • If you want to configure the default IBM Cognos software lineage solution, type /lineageUIService.

      If this value is already specified, click Cancel. You do not need to change anything.

    • If you want to configure IBM InfoSphere Metadata Workbench as your lineage solution, type the url as follows

      Metadata Workbench version

      URL

      version 8.1.1

      /lineageUIService?iis=http://workbench_server_name:9080/workbench/cognosLineage.do

      version 8.5

      /lineageUIService?iis=http://workbench_server_name:9080/workbench/cognosLineage[cognos_server_name].do

      where http://workbench_server_name:9080/workbench/cognosLineage.do is the URL where IBM InfoSphere Metadata Workbench can be accessed on the network.

      workbench_server_name represents the server name where IBM InfoSphere Metadata Workbench is installed.

      • To leverage a combination of Cognos lineage and InfoSphere Metadata Workbench lineage, there is an additional parameter to be configured. A "launchPoint" parameter set with a value of "indirect" will indicate that Cognos lineage should be used for Cognos level lineage (i.e. report and model level information) and Metadata Workbench can be used to explore lineage for the data source. Clicking on the data source object in the Cognos lineage viewer will invoke IBM InfoSphere Metadata Workbench to explore in-depth data source level lineage information.

        /lineageUIService?iis="Metadata WorkbenchURL"&launchPoint=indirect

        For example, /lineageUIService?iis=http://workbench_server_name:9080/workbench/cognosLineage[cognos_server_name].do&launchPoint=indirect

        workbench_server_name represents the server name where IBM InfoSphere Metadata Workbench is installed.

    • If you want to configure a custom lineage solution, replace the existing value with the URI that represents your lineage Web interface.

      For example, type http://mycompany.com/ourLineageService.cgi

  5. Click OK.
Parent topic: Server Administration