how to get Alias from TM1 in Cognos BI

[wang_chris]

From Cognos BI, we can see elements of a dimension in TM1, but we prefer to using its alias, how can we find those alias in BI?


Regards,
Chris

[TheEnforcer]

You can't. Welcome to the wonderful world of BI.

TM1 gets crippled by BI because it's still geared towards relational data sources. Expect to re-write your TM1 models to do even the most basic of tasks in BI. A simple set of tables in Excel, served by data in TM1, could easily take you days now.

[qml]

You can't.

Forgive me, but that's nonsense. When publishing an FM package for your TM1 cube you can use the wizard to choose which alias to use for each dimension. And even if you don't use that functionality you can still pick attributes (including aliases) in whatever Cognos Studio you're using and display those in addition to or instead of element names. Then there is also the member_caption text attribute that gets picked up automatically (if it exists in TM1) and can be used to override the element names with your descriptions of choice. One useful aspect of member_caption is that its values, unlike aliases, don't have to be unique, so you can put the same description on multiple members if you wish to do so.

[TheEnforcer]

Those aliases are for the language selected by the user of BI, which is a global setting that cannot be controlled by the report. BI has no concept of aliases in the way TM1 is regularly used, such as friendly names for account numbers or renamed elements.