Configure 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 we might need to modify the schedules to avoid conflicts with other activities.

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 the 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.

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. We can modify the job’s properties in the Task Scheduler Library; for more information see the next topic.

2. Run the build-all script once you complete refreshing to verify the metrics are loaded successfully. The build-all script is located in <Transformer install path>/metricsmodel/build-all script.

• Configure the job scheduler for Cognos Transformer on Windows
  Rather than store administrative credentials in a script, we can add them to the job properties of the IBM Cognos Transformer to enable scheduled tasks on Windows.

Parent topic:
Configure Cognos Business Intelligence

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