Testing Objects

You can view the data that will display in a specific report before publishing a package by selecting and testing the objects that will display in the report. This makes it easier to debug a model and to verify that the model meets the reporting requirements because you do not need to create and publish packages first.

When you test an object, IBM® Cognos® Framework Manager returns sample data. Formatting is not applied to the sample data. If you must test formatting, you must publish the package and view the objects in the IBM Cognos studios.

You may see different results depending on what you test. For example, if you use the expression editor to test a calculation that is embedded in a query subject, Framework Manager tests only the expression, not the item, so the aggregation setting for the query item is not applied to the test. Testing the entire query subject, which includes the calculation, gives a different result because the aggregation setting is applied. For example, if the aggregation setting is summarize, you can see a smaller number of rows in the test.

When you test a measure dimension, the SQL uses aggregates not the measures.

If you test a child segment of a segmented model, you may see an error if an object you are testing refers to an object in another child segment and the referenced object is not available to the project you are in. Check that the parent model contains all the objects and that this error message does not display when you test the parent model.

Governor settings may affect the testing results. For more information, see Governors.

You can change existing test settings to customize the results that the test shows. For example, in addition to other settings, you can control the number of rows returned.