Column format export for chosen members only (Essbase 7.1.6)

Question

Hi,
I need to pull column-format looking level 0 export from Essbase cube, that:
* must only contain single month for single year, other months in export file are to be either #Mi (pre) or non-present (post);
* must only be for chosen account branches (so account->month->year carving);
Main database must stay untouched by this, so if clearing/restructure is needed it must be done on a copy.
The quest is to find a simple way to set this up to run without any human interaction. My idea is to:
1) copy of current database structure without data (batch: shutdown both db's, clear copy, copy essbase files, start dbs),
2) populate it with newest level 0 export (esscmd script),
3) carve out needed data using calcscripts+variables set up for this occasion (esscmd scripts on top of calc scripts),
4) export in column format (esscmd script).
Point one is kind of problematic since I need to copy essbase structure related files (otl and friends). Carving with CLEARBLOCK script takes about 2-3h per run (clearing unwanted months and years, needs to be split into three account sets later on).
Is there an easier way to do this kind of carving? Column format compliance is a must here, so ,,column format alike'' report script might not be the way to go. Anybody?
Cheers,
S.
Edited by: uEssbaser on 2009-01-28 02:53

Answer 1

Jason, so far I haven't got the chance to write any usable report scripts and trying to modify one of examples given in man brought me to 10GB of tmp files blowing off servers C: drive. What I need is data at zero level for (chosen accounts -> single chosen frequency -> single chosen time member -> single chosen year member -> all other dimensions). Export must be identical to level 0 column extraction from database in which everything else beyond listed dataset was cleared (so full time dim header, but for 100 in Feb and 200 in Mar you'll get #Mi 100 while extracting Feb, and #Mi #Mi 200 when doing Mar extraction). Any ideas?
Glenn, I'm still trying to get Jexport function to run over my chosen data, but I'm unsure about essbase column format compliance when extracting single month (header + added #Mi's?). Will retry and get back on this.
Doug, yeah I could do that, but Outline modifications are done mainly by other people and quite often too, so this may be a single point of failure in the future.
Anyway I'm half way to fully-automated process of getting outline structure (with OU OE) along with full column format level 0. I think I'm just going to parse this outside Essbase, as part of repacking and uploading to a remote site process. I need this to be ,,fire and forget'' process, so anything coupled too much with essbase (variables, UDAs, minor setting changes in structure) may become a hard to trace breaking point later.
Still -- any help and suggestions appreciated.
Cheers,
S.