Specify How Missing Values Appear

Cognos® Transformer uses default measure settings for missing values to determine how null results are handled.

The default setting for missing values is NA; when the default setting is used, na is inserted into your OLAP reporting component for the missing values. In releases of Cognos Transformer prior to version 8.3, the default setting for missing values was Zero; when that default setting was used, zeros were inserted into the OLAP reporting component for the missing values.

The default setting can also affect the values that are stored and shown for calculated measures. When a calculated measure is based on a measure for which the Missing value setting is Zero, and there is no data for this second measure, the calculation will be valid because the missing information is treated as a zero. However, when the missing value setting is the Cognos Transformer default, NA, the calculation result will be invalid because the missing information is treated as a null value and not a zero.

When models created with previous versions of Cognos Transformer are upgraded to Cognos Transformer version 8.x and later, measures that have the missing value settings set to the Cognos Transformer version 7.x default (Zero) will not be changed to the current Cognos Transformer default (NA). Upgraded models will handle missing values in the same way as they did in previous versions of Cognos Transformer.

To ensure that missing values are shown appropriately, review the missing value settings for all measures before building new cubes.

Procedure

  1. Open the Measure property sheet and click the General tab.
  2. In the Missing value box
    • Click Zero to have missing values appear as zeros.
    • Click NA to have missing values appear as NA.
  3. Click OK.