Web Report Studio

Putting back tabs in SAS WRS 4.3

Jun
03

In SAS Web Report Studio 4.3, users can set an option that will display navigational tabs for report sections, similar to the tabs that appeared in version 3.1.

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.

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Web Report Studio 4.3 Roles (and hiding the Edit Tab)

Web Report Studio 4.3 Roles (and hiding the Edit Tab)
May
12
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Doing some work to figure out how to remove the Edit tab for a user in WRS 4.3.

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

Capability Report Viewing Report Creation Advanced
Basic
Comments X X X
Print X X X
Allow Direct Access to Information Maps1 X X X
Allow Direct Access to Cubes2 X X X
Allow Direct Access to Tables2
Promote WRV to WRS X X X
Refresh Data X X X
Modify Repository X X X
OLAP
Drill X X X
Drill to Detail X X X
Expand and Collapse X X X
Expand and Collapse All X X
Output
Save X X X
Email X X
Export X X
Schedule Own Report X X
Report Creation
Create Report X X
Basic Edit X X
Aggregate or Detail X
Select All Data X X
Select Data in View X X
Copy Section2 X X
Advanced Report Creation
Create Cascade Reports
Create Report Links X
Create Remote Application Report Links2 X
Advanced Edit X
Update Resources3 X
Advanced Scheduling
Distribute X
Save Archive X
Schedule Any Report X
Schedule Folder X
Administrative
Manage Distribution List
1 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.2 This capability is new in SAS Web Report Studio 4.3.

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

 

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.   

 

 

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Speeding up Web Report Studio (9.1/3.1) by jumping in puddles

Sep
28

When SAS 9.2 was released one of the changes SAS made was to change the default setting for WRS from using a standard workspace server to a pooled workspace server.

This was to improve performance as pooled workspace servers remove the requirement for sas executables (sas.exe) to start and stop for each query, and therefore speeding up environments with lots of small queries.

SAS issued this tech support note:

Usage Note 39065: Documented best practices and other resources for improving the performance of SAS® Web Report Studio

Which outlines how to setup pooled workspace servers in SAS 9.1.

It also outlines a few other performance related changes you may want to try.

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SAS WRS 3.1, sub total drill downs – they doen’t!

Sep
10

We make a lot of use of summary WRS cross tab reports which are then linked to detailed WRS reports.

This enables users to run a summary report, and then click on a value and drill to the detailed transactions that make up the total.

One of the issues with this in WRS 3.1 (SAS 9.1) is when a user clicks on a sub-total within the WRS report they often drill to a blank report or a report that doesn’t show valid transactions for the summary value.

We eneded up having to train our users to never click on a sub-total to drill down.

There is a usage note at http://support.sas.com/kb/40/708.html that describes when drilling down on sub-totals will and won’t work.

Good to know when this is going to happen, but of course what is missing is the link to a hotfix that makes it work properly, aaarrrggghhhh.  Of course it is fixed in SAS 9.2 / WRS 4.2 I believe.

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SAS 9.1 / WRS 3.1 – Changes to Metadata Roles takes it time

Oct
01

While researching and testing the default Web Report Studio metadata security I noticed this little trick for young players, which means changes to WRS/WRV Metadata Security for a user are not instantly applied/recognised in WRS/WRV.

Words from the SAS tech support note “Changes to SAS® Web Report Studio role memberships might not immediately be enforced“:

“SAS Web Report Studio analyzes role memberships every 30 minutes. So, for example, if you move a user from the WRS Report Author role to the WRS Report Consumer role, the user will continue to have author privileges until the next time that he logs in after the next role membership analysis is performed. ”

So effectively the WRS/WRV applications are caching the Metadata security to remove the need for the web server to query the Metadata Server each time a user logins.

So try not to be fast when testing your WRS Metadata security changes, else you will think you have done something wrong. And remember to logout and log back in after the cache has been updated.

You can update the LocalProperties.xml file to change the refresh time, and therefore make the changes appear sooner. Details on how to do this are in the SAS Tech Support note.

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SAS 9.1 / WRS 3.1 Metadata Roles defined

Sep
30

Researching definitions for each of the WRS default roles as part of the Advanced Metadata Security course.

The roles are documented in the SAS 9.1.3 Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration Guide, Second Edition on page 130. What it says is:

“By default, everyone who can log on to SAS Web Report Studio can view, edit, and create new reports.

To implement security, each user of SAS Web Report Studio can be assigned to one or more standard roles. A user’s role assignments determine which SAS Web Report Studio menu items are available to that user.

  • By default, all SAS Web Report Studio users implicitly have the role. However, if you explicitly assign any members to the role, then only the explicitly-assigned members will have the role. This enables you to start using SAS Web Report Studio immediately after installation, yet still have the ability to restrict user access when locking down your deployment.

  • Each role is a superset of the preceding role. For example, members of the “WRS Report Author” role have all the permissions that apply to the “WRS Report Consumer”.

  • Once you explicitly assign members to a role, you must explicitly assign membersto each superset role. For example, if you assign members to the “WRS ReportAuthor” role, then all of the subsequent superset roles (in this example, “WRSAdvanced User”) also become explicitly-assigned roles. The reason is that WRSAdvanced User is a superset of WRS Report Author.

  • Once you explicitly assign members to a role, then any user who is not assigned to a role, or who has no metadata identity, can only view reports and manipulate reports (for example, select new data items to view in report objects).

WRS Report Consumer Users who have this role can view reports and manipulate report data in the View Report view. Users can copy, move, save, rename, or delete reports. Users cannot create new reports with the report builder or report wizard.
WRS Report Author *

In addition to the abilities assigned to WRS Report Consumers, users who have this role can create reports with the report builder or report wizard. Users can also schedule reports.
WRS Advanced User

In addition to the abilities assigned to WRS Report Authors, users who have this role can distribute reports. Users cannot create or delete recipient lists that are used for report distribution.
WRS Administrator

Users who have this role can perform all tasks that are associated with SAS Web Report Studio, including the ability to create and delete recipient lists that are used for report distribution.

This role provides full permissions to SAS Web Report Studio and should be safeguarded accordingly. This role provides application level administrator functionality. However, this role has no effect on metadata access (authorization) rights to report data.
WRS Prohibited

Users who have this role cannot log on to SAS Web Report Studio. Regardless of the user’s membership in any of the previous roles, if the user attempts to log on, the logon page displays the following error message: “This user is not allowed to access SAS Web Report Studio. Please contact your administrator.”

Some organizations might apply this role for users who are allowed to access some SAS applications but not SAS Web Report Studio. Alternatively, if an organization has multiple Web Report Studio installations, this role can be used to restrict some users from specific instances.

The corresponding metadata group entity is not created during installation. You must manually create the group in metadata if you want to use this user role.
*By default, WRS Report Authors can schedule reports, though you can change the default behavior and limit the scheduling feature to WRS Advanced Users. To do this, in your LocalProperties.xml file, specify true for the schedulingRequiresAdvancedUserRole property.
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How to deploy Web Report Studio (9.1.x / 3.1) to the web server

Jul
10

If you ever need to deploy WRS to the Web Server after an install (or wondered how SAS did it for you) there is a great SAS Support Tech Note that explains the process.

It covers deploying to Web Logic, Websphere and Tomcat.

Find it on the SAS Support site here:

Configuring and Deploying SAS® Web Report Studio

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Help! – Accessing Informaps and securing Libnames/Tables

Apr
02

So looking for some help from the SAS community.

On a project we have focused on delivering content via Web Report Studio and Infomaps.

We now want to allow users to access the content via Office Addin and Enterprise Guide.

But (there is always a butt ;-) we only want users to access data via Information Map, we don’t want them to access the base libnames or tables.

Why you ask, because we have all the business rules embedded in the Information Maps so we don’t want users bypassing these and defining there own business rules on the base data.

Of course if we deny access to the libname then the Infomaps will fail. We can’t restrict access to all data types (i.e tables) in AMO or EG.

So any ideas out there?

Things we are going to try:

  • Implement workspace server pooling (grant access to tables trusted user, but not actual use)
  • Create a workspace server for WRS reports with full rights inherited and a workspace server for AMO/EG users with linbame rights restricted

But we are pretty sure that neither of these will work.

As the title says, Help!

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Changing the default number of rows in WRS

Mar
03

If you want to change the default number of rows in a WRS table from 40 to something else, this SAS support note will tell you how:

Changing the default number of rows displayed and scrolled in a table in a Web Report Studio report

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Cascading Prompts in SAS Web Report Studio 3.1 (9.1)

Jul
14

The current release of SAS Web report Studio (3.1/SAS 9.1) doesn’t allow you to define cascading prompts, by this I mean allowing a user to select a country and then based on the country selected allow them to select a state within that country.

However in a paper presented at SAS Forum 2008 titled SAS Web Report Studio Tips and Techniques (Paper 064-2008 ) there is an innovative way outlined on how you can provide this capability by using linked reports.

The approach they have worked out is to create a report for each level of prompt and link the reports, enabling the user to select the appropriate value on each report (i.e first report they click on country from a list, then second report shows states etc) and then be linked to the next report where they can select the next parameter value, and so on and so on.

Great thinking outside the box!

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