What is CMCAPACITY table?

Recently, I was approached for clarification on CMCAPACITY table and what does it do. Well here's the simple answer

The CMCAPACITY  table keeps track of the registered dispatchers.  Just do a test on your machine, when you start CM, you'll see your dispatcher with usage = 4 and when you shutdown, it should be blank.
 

If CM has a row = 4  and CM is not running, it could have been improperly shutdown or something of that nature. If there is a usage of 4, it can prevent CM from locking the content store DB on start-up of IBM Cognos.

Well, if you love complex answers, there an developer works article and utilities about understanding your Cognos Content Store database using Content Manager Size and Browser Tools

You can get that here http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/techarticle/dm-0808masters/

Trimming large sized Active Reports

We recently had a customer who had a 55 MB mht file being created for his Active Report. The report had two level of drill downs with charts and crosstabs on the deck. This kind of size is generally not recommended for Active Reports, especially if the Active Report is to be used on an iPad. It is important to note that an iPad is a relatively small form device.

On further analysis it was found that there were many charts in the .mht with no data and many of them were inaccessible by the end user. This was pointed out to the team on the ground. They then tweaked the queries driving the card creation and the file size was reduced to as little as 8.5 MB.

These guidelines were used by the team on the ground.