I’ve been burned by this one so many times it’s not funny.  Although if you like seeing me get frustrated, then I guess it is funny.

Here’s the issue: you have a SQL SELECT statement that you’re using in a Cognos Report Studio report, and you’ve verified that it is syntactically correct. It runs fine in Studio Express, for example.  But then you try to add a filter (also one that is syntactically correct) in Report Studio, and you get an error.  The SQL SELECT statement is correct, the filter is correct, but enable the filter and if fails.  What…?

Short answer: Don’t put “ORDER BY” sort statements in the SQL SELECT command. Your order statements should only occur in Report Studio.

Long answer: 

The reason this errors out is that when you put in a filter in the report (not in the original SQL SELECT), Report Studio adds that filter to the end of the SELECT statement it constructs.  So if the SQL is:   

SELECT ApplicationName from R_Applications

And you add a filter like “[ApplicationName]=’something’”, then Cognos bundles them together and sends this request to the SQL server:

SELECT ApplicationName from R_Applications
WHERE [ApplicationName]=’something’

If the statement in the original SQL is

SELECT ApplicationName from R_Applications
ORDER BY ApplicationName

Then when Cognos sends the statement with the filter enabled it sends:

SELECT ApplicationName from R_Applications
ORDER BY ApplicationName
WHERE [ApplicationName]=’something’

Which is a syntax error: WHERE cannot come after ORDER BY.

Ta da!

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