Xthyos provided the mechanism by which the SAS Web tools (WRS, Portal etc) could read and write to a database repository (Postgres, Oracle, Sql Server etc) to store the content (WRS (XML) reports).

In SAS 9.2 / 9.3, SAS re-engineered the entire platform to remove the Xythos component and deliver what is called the SAS Content Server.

If you look under the cover, you wil find that SAS have replaced Xythos with another open source component to provide the WebDav capability, this time Apache JackRabbit.

When you start up the Web server and checkout the logs and you wil see something along the lines of:

“2011-11-11 12:42:32,836[[STANDBY] ExecuteThread: ’2′ for queue: ‘weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)’] INFO  org.apache.jackrabbit.webdav.simple.SimpleWebdavServlet – WWW-Authenticate header = ‘Basic realm=”Jackrabbit Webdav Server”

Web Application Custom Content

If you wish to add custom content into SAS web applications, you may do so by placing your custom content into the appropriate custom content directory structure for the given application, and then running the SAS Deployment Manager to rebuild web applications. The custom content root directory for a given web application is

/data/SASCONFIG/Lev1/Web/Common/Server Name/Application Name/CustomContent

For example,

/data/SASCONFIG/Lev1/Web/Common/SASServer1/SASWebReportStudio4.2/CustomContent

Within that directory, there are subdirectories (for example, ears or wars) corresponding to specific archive types (ear and war files, respectively). Under the archive type directories, there are subdirectories for each specific archive—these are the root directories for each archive within the application. Custom content should be placed in the archive’s directory tree corresponding to where the content should appear within the archive.

For example, to add the ear_addon.xml file into the addons directory in the sas.webreportstudio ear file, create the

…/CustomContent/ears/sas.webreportstudio/addons

directory, and place ear_addon.xml in it. Our process knows which war files are contained within ear files, so if you want to add war_addon.jar into the WEB-INF/lib directory in the sas.webreportstudio war file within the sas.webreportstudio ear file, then create

…/CustomContent/wars/sas.webreportstudio/WEB-INF/lib

directory, and place war_addon.jar in it.

Once all your custom content is ready to be consumed, run the SAS Deployment Manager and choose to rebuild web applications. Doing so will rebuild the web applications, inserting the custom content into the archives under the appropriate paths. Note that if custom content has the same path and name of content normally included in the archive, then the custom content takes precedence.

Save User Frustration by adding the magic ‘Log (back) In’ button

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/whatsdiff/63928/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n187p76ccvsi57n1532c21g7quex.htm

To set this property, make the following changes to the SAS Web Report Studio properties in SAS® Management Console.

1. On the Plug-ins tab, select Application Management ► Configuration Manager ► Web Report Studio 4.3.
2. Right-click and select Properties to open the Web Report Studio 4.3 Properties dialog box.
3. Click the Advanced tab.
4. Click Add to open the Define New Property dialog box.
   For the Property Name, enter wrs.sections.tabs
   For the Property Value, enter true.
5. Click OK twice to exit both dialog boxes and save the changes.
6. Restart your Web application server.

When this property is set to true, sections can be accessed via tabs and via the drop-down menu in the Table of Contents pane on the left.

When adding data sources to your EM project you can either add data from a SAS Table or from the Metadata Repository.

If you add it from a SAS Table, then SAS will display all the libnames defined in the autoexec.sas.

If you access the tables via metadata then SAS wil display the metadata libnames, which in an managed environment is our recomended option.

The trick is of course the datasets that are being accessed have probably been created by a modeler using Enterprise Guide.  And when the modeler creates them via EG they are not automatically registered in metadata.  So therefore they are not automatically available in Enterprise Miner.

Options I can think of:

1. Make the modelers use DI Studio as it automatically registers the tables
2. Give the modelers access to SAS Management Console and rights to register metadata
3. Use the EG addin that lest users register metadata
4. Create the libnames in the Autoexec, SAS will automatically display all tables that are present in that directory.

I gotta say im not loving any of those options!

Hit me if you can think of any I have missed.

====Update=====

Chris posted a comment to remind me that the ability to update SAS Metadata is now base functionality in SAS 9.2 / EG 4.3 (Tools->Update Library Metadata).  Worked a treat, problem solved!  (thanks Chris)

Found this table of roles for WRS on the SAS Support site here:

Predefined Roles and Capabilities for SAS Web Report Studio

By the way the trick on the edit tab is to make sure PUBLIC doesnt have access to the WRS roles, which is does seem to by default.

“Note: By default, the PUBLIC group is a member of both the Web Report Studio: Report Creation and the Web Report Studio: Report Viewing roles. So, when you are ready to restrict access to specific capabilities, remember to remove PUBLIC (which includes all users in your deployment) from the applicable roles.”

Usage Note 30789: Implementing the most basic view-only access to reports in SAS® Web Report Studio

In order to be functional, some capabilities have prerequisites. Following is an explanation of each capability and prerequisites for certain capabilities:

Basic:Comments

provide access to Comment Manager.

Basic:Print

generate PDF output.

Basic:Allow Direct Access to Information Maps

open information maps directly as reports. Without this capability, information maps are suppressed from the Open and Manage pages. With this capability, users can access information maps from the Open and Manage pages and view them as reports. Users who have the Create Report capability can select an Edit action when an information map is selected.

If you are using (or if you migrated from) SAS Web Report Studio 4.2, then the name of this capability is Open Maps as Reports.

Basic:Allow Direct Access to Cubes

open cubes directly as reports, or open cubes as information maps when specifying a data source. Without this capability, cubes are suppressed from the Open and Manage pages. With this capability, users can access cubes from the Open and Manage pages and view them as reports. Users who have the Create Report capability can select an Edit action when a cube is selected.

This capability is new in SAS Web Report Studio 4.3.

Basic:Allow Direct Access to Tables

open tables directly as reports, or open tables as information maps when specifying a data source. Without this capability, tables are suppressed from the Open and Manage pages. With this capability, users can access tables from the Open and Manage pages and view them as reports. Users who have the Create Report capability can select an Edit action when a table is selected.

By default, this capability is not assigned to any roles because it would allow users to bypass BI row-level permissions. If you have not implemented BI row-level permissions, then consider adding this capability to the same roles to which Allow Direct Access to Cubes is assigned.

This capability is new in SAS Web Report Studio 4.3.

Basic:Promote Web Report Viewer to Web Report Studio

displays the SAS Web Report Studio interface when a user requests to view a report from another product such as SAS Information Delivery Portal. Initially, this capability is assigned to all predefined roles. If this capability is unassigned, and a user’s request to view a report from within another product is granted, then the SAS Web Report Viewer interface is used to present the report. When this capability is assigned to a role to which a user belongs, the SAS Web Report Studio interface is displayed when that user requests to view a report through the SAS Information Delivery Portal or other products.

Basic:Refresh Data

refresh data for reports.

Basic:Modify Repository

provide basic modifications to repository such as copy, move, rename, and delete. This capability does not grant the ability to save changes to reports.

OLAP:Drill

perform an OLAP drill operation.

OLAP:Drill to Detail

drill through to detail data for a single OLAP value.

OLAP:Expand and Collapse

expand or collapse OLAP data.

OLAP:Expand and Collapse All

expand or collapse an entire OLAP hierarchy. This capability requires the Report Creation:Basic Edit capability and the OLAP:Expand and Collapse capability.

Output:Save

save changes to reports. This capability requires that the user also has Modify Repository capability.

Output:E-mail

e-mail a report link.

Output:Export

export report content to Microsoft Excel.

Output:Schedule Own Report

schedule reports authored by the users themselves. The Schedule All Reports capability is available in the SAS Web Report Studio’s Advanced role.

Report Creation:Create Report

create new reports. The Save capability is a prerequisite for this capability.

Report Creation:Basic Edit

perform basic editing operations for tables and graphs. Operations include:

• Assign Data
• Total dialog box access
• Control of Total Type for OLAP reports only (parent versus visual)
• Percent of Total
• Filter and Rank
• Conditional Highlighting
• Rotate Table
• View Data Details
• Sort, Sort Priority, Remove All Sort
• Move
• Hide
• Replace / Swap
• All Table Properties
• All Graph Properties

Report Creation:Aggregate or Detail

specify whether data is detail data or aggregated data (relational reports only)

Report Creation:Select All Data

able to choose “Select All” data items from the Select Data dialog box.

Report Creation:Select Data in View

use the Select Data dialog box to select data while viewing a report.

Report Creation:Copy Section

create a new report section that is a complete copy of another section. This capability is new in SAS Web Report Studio 4.3.

Advanced Report Creation:Create Cascade Prompts

create cascading prompts.

Advanced Report Creation:Create Report Links

create linked reports.

Advanced Report Creation:Create Remote Application Report Links

create linked reports that link to another SAS application. This capability is new in SAS Web Report Studio 4.3.

Advanced Report Creation:Advanced Edit

enable users to perform the following functions:

• Isolate
• Member Properties
• Suppress Empty

The Report Creation: Basic Edit capability is a prerequisite for this capability. In SAS Web Report Studio, the Include Member with Only Missing Values menu item is available only for multidimensional data sources. The Suppress Empty function in the Advanced Edit capability is required in order for users of multidimensional data sources to view and use the Include Member with Only Missing Values menu item under the Data Menu in SAS Web Report Studio.

Advanced Report Creation:Update Resources

update an invalid information map reference that is contained in a report definition. If you are using (or if you migrated from) SAS Web Report Studio 4.2, then the name of this capability is Repair Report.

Advanced Scheduling:Distribute

schedule a report distribution.

Advanced Scheduling:Save Archive

archive file versions. When creating a pre-generated version of a report (for example, a scheduled report), a version of the report is archived as a PDF file. Reports with archived versions are visually different in report selection dialog boxes, and access is allowed to these archived versions.

Advanced Scheduling:Schedule Any Report

schedule any report to which the users have WriteMetadata access, including the reports that they have authored.

Advanced Scheduling:Schedule Folder

schedule a folder.

Administrative:Manage Distribution List

create, edit, or delete a distribution list.

CAUTION:

Use of this capability creates a new physical table. Therefore, this capability must be restricted to few users. The distribution list contains e-mail addresses. Initially, this capability is not assigned to any SAS Web Report Studio role. An administrator can assign this capability to the Advanced role, or create a new role (for example, a role named as Manage Distribution) specifically for this capability and assign this role to a restricted number of users.   

I needed to migrate a number of users and groups, not a large number so was easy enough to move them manually.

I thought I saw a while ago some automated tools to assist with migrating users and groups, but do you think I could find them again!

Anyway after a quick tweet of frustration Paul from Metacoda came through with a reply pointing me to:

Sample 42251: Partial Promotion of User and Group Metadata

Legend!

When trying to open a SAS Report (.srx) in Outlook we got this error.

Looks like the SAS AMO 4.3 plugin relies on the Web Report Studio web services that automatically  get installed when you install the Web tier.

The issue of course is this customer is only using AMO and has not deployed any of the web tier, but in good optimal practice are using Information Maps and .srx reports (created via Enterprise Guide).

So looks like using Outlook to access these .srx is out.

Now I know Kiwi’s (New Zealanders) are known for their number 8 wire approaches and also being frugal (a large number are of course descended from the Scots , so a number of NZ customers have purchased BI Server and only implemented the SAS Server, Enterprise Guide and AMO, as that meets their current needs.  In these cases it looks like using the Outlook version is out of the question.

And with SAS announcing an AMO/EG only offering again use of .srx reports is out im guessing.

Anyway one positive is after playing briefly with the Outlook capability on my test server, I can actually see the Outlook capability taking over from the Portal eventually.  Why would users want to login to the Portal to get their reports when they can access them directly from within Outlook where they spend so much of their time?