Ways of Specifying Options and Parameter Values

When IBM® Cognos® builds a request, it derives options and parameter values from

• input parameters to a method call

• the values of an object's properties

• user preferences (for the user associated with the bibus » schedule or the current bibus » session)

• system defaults

User preferences are defined in instances of the bibus » account class and are usually editable through the BI Bus API or the user interface. You cannot change system defaults.

Specifying options and parameters as input parameters is a way of overriding the default behavior of an object. The behavior of an object is defined by the object's properties or an ancestor of the specified object, or by user preferences and system defaults.

You can set run options and parameter values as properties on most objects in the content store associated with a task. For example, a bibus » reportVersion, bibus » schedule, or bibus » contentTask all have properties for specifying options and parameter values.

You can set specific options as input parameters to methods depending on which object is being executed. If a method call to a service calls additional services, you can provide options appropriate to any of the services and the objects they manage. For example, when you use the asynch » run(objectPath, parameterValues, options) method to run a job (bibus » jobDefinition class), one of the job steps could be to run a report. You can configure the report to send an email when it is run. In this case, the jobService, reportService, and deliveryService all participate in satisfying the request. You can specify options for the job (bibus » asynchOption class), the report (bibus » runOption class), and the email (bibus » deliveryOption class) as input parameters to the method call.