Cognos reporting

[Rahul4]

Hello team,

I need below fields in the report, there are few employees only on L1 and I can use employee assigned to step filter but I am not getting report exceptions and other details in the same report, please help me to build such report

Report Name

Employee name

L1 Head Name

Employee ID

Employee Location

Step

Step Entry Date/Time

Org Unit 2 - Code

Org Unit 4 - Code

Policy

Reimbursement Currency

Total Approved Amount (In local currency)

Approved Amount in USD

Entitlement in USD

Exception amount in USD

Country (of Employee)

TAT W/O Weekends

First Submitted Date

Approval Status

Employee Assigned to Step

Report Exception

Policy

[samasuraj]

Hi @Rahul4 

Topic: Cognos reporting

Please check the below. Hope this helps.

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SAP Concur Cognos Reporting – L1 Approval Workflow, Exceptions & TAT

Yes, this reporting requirement can be approached in SAP Concur Intelligence (Cognos).

However, the challenge is combining Expense Report details, Approval Workflow history, Employee information

and Report Exceptions into a single report without duplicating records.

The key issue is that these fields may belong to different Cognos query subjects and operate at different reporting levels.

The main challenge is combining Expense Report details, Approval Workflow information and Report Exceptions,

as these come from different query subjects.

Create the below Three Queries:

1. Expense Report Query – Employee details, Report Name, Policy, Approved Amount, Currency, and Submission Date.
2. Approval Workflow Query – L1 Step, Assigned Approver, Step Entry Date/Time, and Approval Status.
3. Report Exceptions Query – Exception details associated with each Expense Report.

Apply the L1 filter within the Approval Workflow query, then join the queries using the common Expense Report identifier.

Use an appropriate Outer Join to retain reports without exceptions.

Please also ensure that multiple exceptions do not duplicate the report-level approved amounts.

For TAT excluding weekends, you may need a calculated field or Business-Day Calendar.

The exact query subjects and relationships will depend on your Cognos Reporting Package.

Cognos Build Sequence:

1. Query 1 – Expense Reports: Retrieve report identifiers, employee details, policy, approved amounts, currency, and submission date.
2. Query 2 – L1 Approval: Retrieve workflow step, assigned approver, entry date/time, and approval status. Apply the L1 step filter here.
3. Query 3 – Report Exceptions: Retrieve report-level exception details and any available exception codes or descriptions.
4. Join the queries: Use the common Expense Report identifier, with appropriate outer joins to preserve reports that have no exceptions.
5. Handle multiple exceptions: Aggregate exception descriptions or display them in a separate detail section to avoid multiplying report amounts.
6. Calculate TAT: Use workflow timestamps and a business-day calendar that excludes Saturdays and Sundays. Account for holidays separately if required.
7. Validate: Compare the results against a few known Expense Reports in SAP Concur, especially reports with multiple exceptions.

Do not sum the approved amount after joining workflow and exception detail rows unless the data has first been brought to the correct reporting grain. Otherwise, amounts may be overstated.

Thanks & Regards

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Samantha

SF_EC & ECP / SAP Concur Consultant