General Configuration Settings in Cognos Controller

Introduction:
IBM Cognos 8 Controller is a Web-based financial consolidation tool that provides standard reports to support both statutory and management reporting.

General Configuration Settings:
General configuration settings are the settings which consists of overall settings for the controller system. Most of these settings are only defined once, but there are some that you can change on an ongoing basis.

There are few tabs under General Configuration settings window which are specified below:

1. General 1
2. General 2
3. General 3
4. Conversion
5. Reconcile 1
6. Reconcile 2
7. Server Preferences

General 1 Tab:
You can define features such as:

• The month/week that corresponds to the closing balance and the number of periods in one fiscal year.
• Which breakpoint is valid for period definitions to determine which century the transaction belongs to.
• How to handle period locking and how many submissions to use for each period.
• If it should be possible to import values for locked periods.

Steps:

1. On the Maintain menu, click Configuration/General. The General Configuration window, the General 1 tab, opens.
2. Enter the number of the month and week used for closing balances in the Period for Closing Balance text boxes.
3. The periods (month and week), correspond to the closing balance, i.e. the year-end calendar period. The closing balance periods may not contain larger numbers than the defined number of periods in one year. Accepted period numbers are 1-99 for both monthly and weekly periods. Full IBM Cognos 8 Controller functionality is only available for 12-13 periods for months and 52-53 periods for weeks.
4. In the No of Periods in One Year text boxes, enter the number of periods (both months and weeks) of the fiscal year.
5. In the Breakpoint for Years 1900 and 2000 text box, enter the year that determines to which century a period reference belongs.
   
   Example: If the breakpoint is set to 60, all periods greater than 60 will be interpreted as 1960 and later. All periods less than or equal to 60 will be interpreted as 2060 and earlier.
6. Select the Use Period Locking on Company Level check box if you want to enable period locking on company level. In the Closing Version text box, enter the closing version for which to lock the company.
7. Select the relevant option for submissions per period:
   
   • Single Submission: Period values can only be reported once for each period.
   • Multiple Submissions: Period values can be reported on several occasions within a period.
8. Select the Import of Data for Locked Periods Allowed check box to allow import of data for locked companies and periods. This overrides the general company locking, which checks that no data can be imported when a company is locked for data entry.


9. Click Save

Note:

• If you change settings in the general configuration and close the window, most settings take effect immediately. However, some changes require you to reboot IBM Cognos 8 Controller or optimize the database.