Technical References

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Cisco Prime Service Catalog 10.0 Reporting Guide
OL-31037-01
Chapter 1 Advanced Reporting Data Mart
Best Practices for Service Design and Reporting
subject to generate a report including data from the new dictionary and any old dictionaries that spanned
the time period of the change. Conversely, if you had added the fields to the existing dictionary,
requisitions that predate the change would also appear on the report, with blank values for the new fields.
Deleting a field from a reportable dictionary
The business view of the data mart is unchanged—that is, the field will continue to appear as a query
item in the query subject corresponding to the dictionary. However, the ETL process will no longer load
data into that field.
The effect on the data mart is the same as the effect of hiding the field: no further data values are supplied
in service requests, or appear in the data mart. However, it may be more efficient to delete the field, both
from the service design perspective (the field no longer has to be hidden every time the dictionary is
included in a new service) and from the data mart perspective (the ETL process no longer has to load
data into the field). Of course, before a field is deleted from a dictionary, thorough testing should be done
to ensure that no side effects exist; for example, you must verify that no ISF code refers to that field or
no Service Link agent parameters are bound to fields to be deleted.
Deleting a reportable dictionary
Results are similar to those seen when a field is deleted from a dictionary. The dictionary continues to
appear as a query subject. However, no additional rows are added to the underlying dimension. An
attempt to report on data from that dictionary will, logically, include only requisitions ordered when the
service definition included the dictionary.
The number of reportable dictionaries cannot exceed the maximum number specified as part of the
Advanced Reporting configuration. Though this number is entered when the data mart is created, it can
be increased by the System Administrator while the data mart is in operation. However, since deleting a
reportable dictionary does not remove the dictionary from the data mart, this dictionary still counts as
one of the allowable dictionaries. Once requisitions using a dictionary have been loaded to the data mart,
there is no way to remove the dictionary from the data mart.
Changing a dictionary name
In general, a dictionary name should not be changed once the dictionary has been designated as
reportable. The name of the corresponding query subject in the data mart would be changed. However,
any reports or queries saved using fields in the dictionary would become invalid and would no longer
run. (The report owner or a user having write permission to a report in a public folder would need to edit
the Report Definitions of such reports in order to repair them.)
Changing Field Definitions
Changing field names
Changing a field name is like changing a dictionary name—it is possible but not recommended once the
field has been included in a reportable dictionary or service. The name of the corresponding query item
in the data mart would be changed. However, any reports or queries saved using the previous field name
would become invalid.