Importing Custom Images in TCR Cognos Reports

If you are developing custom Cognos reports in Tivoli Common Reporting, one of the basic needs in custom reporting is to include your company logo or custom images in your reports.  This article describes steps necessary to include custom logos in your Cognos reports.

 

1. First assemble the custom images that you need to include.  These images must be in JPG or GIF format.
2. Copy these images to the following directory location in TCR.  Or, you can create a subdirectory under the directory below and put your images under the subdirectory.
   <installdir>/../tipv2/profiles/TIPProfile/installedApps/TIPCell/IBM Cognos 8.ear/p2pd.war/tivoli
3. Important: Also copy the images to <installdir>/../tipv2Components/TCRComponent/cognos/webcontent/tivoli directory or any of its subdirectory.
4. Now you can drag and drop image objects in Report Studio in your report designs.  After dropping a image object, right click on it and select "Edit Image URL". 
5. Specify the image url as "../tivoli/mylogo.jpg" if your images are located in tivoli folder in the above example. Modify the URL to include subdirectory names in case your images are located in the subdirectory of tivoli folder in steps 2 & 3.

That's it, Happy Reporting! 

ITCAM for Transactions 7.3 is available, and IBM has some videos of the new features

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/tivolimediagallery/Tivoli%20Composite%20Application%20Manager%20for%20Transactions

Quick check for ITM Situations triggering

Here's a great developerworks article on checking situations in ITM.

http://ow.ly/5m55U

ITM Dynamic Thresholds - NYTUG presentation 5/24/2011

This is a link to the NYTUG presentation that I'm giving on May 24. It deals with Dynamic (Adaptive) Thresholds in ITM and the recent addition of Centralized Configuration.

The 10 commandments of good source control management

In IT, we all have to write some amount of code for something (OMNIbus rules, custom scripts, custom web pages, etc.), and that code should almost always go into a revision control system. I say almost always because sometimes you just have to write a quick awk one-liner that you'll never use again. But for anything that's in production, you should have it versioned. This link describes the 10 necessary rules for using source control management:

http://www.troyhunt.com/2011/05/10-commandments-of-good-source-control.html

(There are just a few R-rated words, but nothing egregious.)

Maximo 7.5 documentation is available today

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v49r1/index.jsp

A Tool to Generate Silent Configuration Response Files for ITCAM for WAS

https://www-304.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/ismlibrary/details?catalog.label=1TW10CD02

Interesting information on Tivoli's Cloud initiatives

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/9e696bfa-94af-4f5a-ab50-c955cca76fd0/entry/csp_technical_integration_note_managing_the_core_system9?lang=en

If you're new to Tivoli's Cloud movement, I think the best way to get use out of this paper is to just read about the products that are involved in the total solution. If your company is moving toward the cloud, knowledge of those components will definitely help you.

Passing TCR UserID in BIRT Reports

Many times, you might want to display/determine the TCR user name that is invoking the reports. While there is no GUI way of doing this within BIRT, a simple Javascript is all you need. Here is how to do it in BIRT

1. Select a blank area in the report. This should display report properties in the Property Editior.


2. Now click on the "Script" tab for the report displayed at the bottom of the main work area. (where Preview/Layout tabs are).


3. In the script drop down, select "Before Factory" and paste the javascript code below.
   
   
   TCR_IUSER = "com.ibm.tivoli.reporting.api.reportEngine.IUserInfo";
   
   userInfo = reportContext.getAppContext().get(TCR_IUSER);
   
   userName = "unknown";
   
   if (userInfo != null) {
   
   userName = userInfo.getUserPrincipal();
   
   }
   
   
   


4. Now you can use the userName javascript variable in your reports to identify/display the TCR User.


5. For example, to display the UserName, insert a "Dynamic Text" item anywhere in your report and enter the following value. "User name = " + userName

Hope this helps.

IBM Service Management YouTube channel

This is great - a channel containing lots of fairly technical videos of Tivoli products and integrations:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ismconnect?feature=mhum#p/c/5C4BC71AD2C77801