International Business Machines Corporation

Cognos, Inc.

Henk Cazemier

Glen Michael Seeds

Glenn D Rasmussen

Charles Mike Potter

David B Cushing

Michael E Styles

Charles Michael Potter

Xiaowen He

Liviu Ignat

A member unique name (MUN) system and MUN translation system and method are provided. The MUN system comprises a dimension reference for defining the context in which the remaining portions of the MUN exist and a canonical business key for uniquely identifying a member across different dimensional data sources within a business enterprise. The MUN translation system comprises a translation selection module for selecting a MUN transformation and a collection of MUN transformations for transforming a MUN of a first data source into a MUN of the second data source.

System and method of member unique names

A system and method of producing a business report from data contained in a computer based business intelligence system, is provided. The method includes defining one or more macro functions, and producing a report layout containing one or more macrotized database language expressions. The macrotized database language expression having at least one of the macro functions. The method includes produce one or more valid database language expressions for a database query by modifying the one or more macrotized database language expressions in dependence upon the return value of the at least one of the macro functions, and applying the one or more valid database language expressions to one or more database to produce the business report.

Database report generation

A mechanism for structured query language tagging is provided. The mechanism comprises a parsing unit for parsing a structured query language string into components, an analysis unit for analyzing the components and applying associated tags to the components, and a string generation unit for concatenating the components with associated tags into a new string.

Query transformation

A member unique name (MUN) structure and MUN translation system and method are provided. The MUN structure comprises a canonical business key for uniquely identifying a member across different dimensional data sources within a business enterprise and at least one of a dimension reference for defining the context in which the remaining portions of the MUN exist or a data source identifier (DSI) for uniquely identifying a member within a dimensional data source that implements its own unique member identifiers. The MUN translation system comprises a translation selection module for selecting a MUN transformation and a collection of MUN transformations for transforming a MUN structure of a first data source into a MUN structure of the second data source. The collection of MUN transformations comprises at least one of a different source technology OLAP to OLAP transformation for transforming a third OLAP MUN to a fourth OLAP MUN or a Dimensionally Modelled Relational (DMR) to OLAP transformation for transforming a DMR MUN to an OLAP MUN. The third OLAP MUN and fourth OLAP MUN are of different source technologies. The method comprises the steps of selecting a MUN transformation and transforming a MUN of a first data source into a MUN of the second data source. The step of transforming comprises at least one of the steps of transforming a first OLAP MUN to a second OLAP MUN, the first OLAP MUN and second OLAP MUN are of different source technologies or transforming a DMR MUN to an OLAP MUN.

In cases where two or more database tables can be joined by more than one relationship or criterion on the row values of selected columns, to produce what is effectively a wider table, there may result an ambiguity of which join should be used. The invention provides a means of join disambiguation that is rule-driven. The user is relieved of understanding the details of how the disambiguation is being done. The system described in this invention makes the choice of which join to use based on clear transformation rules which relate to folders of the tables and their relationships.

Method and system for database join disambiguation

The invention introduces a method and system to automatically derive the relationships between query subjects and query items within query subjects so that problems such as those that result in double courting of information are avoided. It provides for creating a report by first defining a model based on an existing database comprising two or more query subjects, each query subject comprising at least one fact query item and one primary key, then generating a hierarchy of sets and subsets of key query items within the model. Next a further fact is introduced into one of the query subjects. The expression is decomposed into sub-queries to prevent double counting of data in ambiguously defined situations. This is achieved using the introduced fact to determine that such decomposition is required. Finally, the data is accessed using the sub-queries, and a report is produced.

System and method of formulating queries in relational databases

The invention provides for a method for producing reports for business intelligence that adapt automatically to a context, defined by a locale variable. A parameter map is defined, based on locale key and field names, and a report layout is produced that contains one or more macrotized database language expressions that include partial expressions built using the parameter map. Later, once a user selects a locale, the partial expression resulting from a lookup in the parameter map using the locale is used to modify one or more macrotized database language expressions. Finally, the resulting valid database language expressions are applied to the database to produce a report.

A metadata model defines model objects to represent one or more data sources. The metadata model comprises a data access layer, a business layer and a package layer. The data access layer contains data access model objects. The data access model objects include a data access model object that describes how to retrieve data from the data sources. The business layer contains business model objects. The business model objects include a business model object that describes a business view of data in the data sources. The package layer contains package model objects which reference subsets of business model objects.

Metadata model

Metadata exchanging for importing metadata from one or more external sources of metadata into a metadata model is described. A metadata extracted from an external source is in a source format specific to the external source. The metadata model uses a model format. The metadata exchange translates the metadata in the source format into one or more model objects in the model format, and then import the model objects into the metadata model.

Metadata exchange

A query engine formulates a data source query to obtain data from one or more data sources. The query engine uses a metadata model containing model objects that represent the data sources. The metadata model has a data access layer, business layer and package layer. The model objects of the business layer are constructed based on the model objects contained in the data access layer. The query engine interacts to the metadata model at the business layer, and formulates a data source query based on a query specification provided by a client application. Thus, the query engine allows use of different type of client applications to obtain reports from one or more data sources.

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Spencerville, Canada

Henk Cazemier