FAP web configuration

About this task

Financial Analysis Publisher (FAP) is delivered with IBM® Controller. FAP provides additional ways of solving both in-process reporting requirements, as well as management reporting agendas, and by using data without any time lags.

FAP extracts the information from the IBM Controller relational database and inserts it into a TM1®® cube environment.

FAP application can be configured in two ways:

Procedure

Prerequisites:

  1. As a prerequisite,
    1. Install Controller server and make sure that everything is working OK and users can logon using the Controller classic client.
    2. Planning Analytics (PA) server Configured correctly. Refer document section - (C) Planning Analytics (PA) server: (https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-configure-financial-analytics-publish-fap-allow-publishing-controller-data-planning-analytics)
    3. FAP 'trickle' database configured correctly in SQL server refer document section-(B) SQL server: (https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-configure-financial-analytics-publish-fap-allow-publishing-controller-data-planning-analytics)

Controller application server:

  1. Create tables inside FAP database by launching Controller Configuration and then:
    1. Open Database Connections and create a new entry (for example, FAP).
    2. Choose your settings for the FAP database, for example:
    3. Click Save.

      Select this database connection (for example, FAP) and click Play/Run button. This launches the Database Conversion Utility.

      Important: Check that the UDL File is correctly pointing to your FAP database (sometimes by mistake it can be pointing to the wrong location).
    4. Click the FAP DB radio button.
    5. Click Connect.

      The Current Version should indicate 0 because it is currently a blank database.

    6. Click Create DB.
    7. Afterward, if the Current Version is less than the value in Upgrade to then click Upgrade.
  2. Create a new folder FAP in the default directory: C:/Program Files/ibm/cognos/ccr_64/Data.
  3. Move the UDL files from the original location (by default: C:/Program Files/ibm/cognos/ccr_64/Data) to the newly created folder (C:/Program Files/ibm/cognos/ccr_64/Data/FAP) to clean up the new database connection. If the clean up is not done, then the users will see this in their list of databases to choose from when they launch Controller.
  4. Run the sync DB command to update datasource.xml for FAP Web:
    1. Right-click on the Start menu, and choose Command Prompt (Admin).
    2. Type a command similar to: cd C:\Program Files\IBM\cognos\ccr_64\fcmweb

    3. Type the following command: SyncDBConf.bat ..\Data wlp\usr\shared\config\datasources

      Note: You must have administrator permission to run this file. This file synchronizes Controller Web with the Uniform Data Language (UDL) files that are defined for databases used by Controller Classic.

      Sync DB command example

      C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\ccr_64\fcmweb\SyncDBConf.bat ..\Data wlp\usr\shared\config\datasources.

      or

      cd C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\ccr_64\fcmweb
      
      SyncDBConf.bat ..\Data wlp\usr\shared\config\datasources
      
  5. Configure the 'IBM Cognos® FAP Service' service by doing the following
    1. Browse to this folder: C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\ccr_64\server\FAP
    2. Open this file in NOTEPAD: FAPService.properties
    3. Change the values as appropriate, for example:

      db=FAP

      host=mysqlservername

      dbType=sqlserver

      user=fastnet

      passwd=xxxxxx

    4. Save and close.

    5. Change the Windows service ‘IBM Cognos FAP Service’ to be ‘Automatic’, and start it.
  6. Optional: Install the 64-bit PA client onto the Controller application server.

    This step is only necessary if you have a separate "PA" and "Controller" server. In other words, if you have already installed PA Server onto the Controller application server, then you can skip this step.

    Install the PA 64-bit client by performing the following:

    1. Download and extract the relevant file, for example: PA_CLIENT_64-B_2.0.8_MS_WINDOWS_M.tar.gz
    2. Double-click issetup.exe.
    3. When asked, make sure you choose all the optional components:
  7. Add a Path for the 64-bit TM1 API (dll) files, into System Variables, by doing the following:
    1. Right-click on My Computer, and select Properties.
    2. Go to the Advanced (or Advanced system settings) tab.
    3. Click Environment Variables.
    4. Under System Variables, select Path, and click Edit.
    5. Append this with an extra entry at the end, for the path to the TM1 bin64 directory, for example: C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\tm1_64\bin64
  8. Reboot Controller application server (to ensure System Variables change has been processed).

Controller Client:

  1. FAP access permission check
    1. The right access can be defined in Classic under Maintain Menu > rights > Security group.
    2. A new FAP Access menu item is added under Controller Web.
    3. The access right can either be Normal or Not available. If you select Not available, the user with that specific security group will not be able to access FAP.
    Note: Refer documentation for creating new security Group with restriction Create Security Groups.

    If you want to disable FAP access, User must enable security flag as mentioned below from Controller classic.

    1. Navigate to Maintain Menu -> Rights -> User.
    2. Check the Security System Enabled check-box.
    3. Select User for which FAP access need to be restricted.
    4. Move to Limitations tab.

    5. Select the relevant menu group for which the FAP access is restricted. For more information, see Create Security Groups.
    6. Save the changes and close Controller classic application.

FAP Web:

  1. Log in to the Cognos Controller Web.
  2. Click the Home menu home menu > Administration > FAP. The FAP screen can also be accessed from the Quick launch > Administration menu.
  3. For starting with FAP application, the user must connect to a valid FAP DB which has been already configured via Controller Configuration tool and SyncDBConf.bat command The user must enter the correct name which is given in controller configuration (alias name should be given not the db name) for establishing the connection. Once the connection is established rest of the tabs would be enabled.
  4. Inside Service Settings tab, user can change configuration details. Previously saved values will be auto populated.
  5. Inside Sources tab create a new or modify the existing connection to the Controller ‘source’ database. Options for edit/remove/start/stop are placed along with each source entry in the grid. Add New button is placed on top of the grid.
    Important: The Add New button is enabled only if there is no source database created.
    Note: You can have only one Controller source database.
  6. Inside Datamarts create (or modify existing) cube (connection to TM1 server).
    Important: The Add New button is enabled only if there is no Datamart created.
    Note: You can have only one Controller source Datamart.
  7. Start the Initial Publish by clicking Start icon.
  8. Watch the progress by: • •
    1. Click Logs tab.
    2. Check Update automatically to get real-time logs.

To disable FAP Web Access for all users:

  1. The FAP Web and Administration page access is enabled by default. To disable it, follow the instructions:
    1. Find the config.js file in the installation directory. The default directory path is C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\ccr_64\frontend.
    2. Open the config.js file in a text editor.
    3. In the config.js file, make the following changes In the expressJs parameter:
      • To Restrict the Administration functions, change the value of enableAdminApp parameter from true to false.
      • To disable the FAP functions, change the value of enableFap parameter from true to false.
    4. Save the config.js file.
    5. Open the Microsoft Windows Service Manager console, find IBM Controller Web UI, and restart the service.