Set Access to User Interface Profiles for Report Authors

To meet the needs of both professioinal report authors and business users, IBM® Cognos® software provides distinct custom user interfaces that contain reporting features relevant to these roles.

To use the custom interfaces for report authoring, you must grant Execute and Traverse permission for the Report Studio capability to the users, groups, and roles that require access. Additionally, you must ensure that there is no group or role that has the Deny setting explicitly set on the Execute and Traverse permissions because the Deny setting overrides the grant permissions settings. For more information about setting access permissions for a capability, see Set Access to a Secured Function or Feature.

The following user interfaces are supported:

  • Professional Authoring Mode

    Professional authoring mode is available in Report Studio.

    The Professional authoring mode gives users access to a full range of functionality. In this mode, you can create any report type, including charts, maps, lists, and repeaters, using any data source (relational or multi-dimensional). Professional authoring mode supports the use of external data.

  • Express® Authoring Mode

    Express authoring mode is available in Cognos Workspace Advanced.

    The Express authoring mode provides an interface that is designed for the business user. Users can create list, crosstab, and chart reports to explore and analyze data according to specific information needs. Express authoring mode supports the use of external data, and both dimensional and relational data sources.

To support the different authoring modes, IBM Cognos Administration provides two User Interface Profiles named Professional and Express. Use the Professional profile to set access to the Professional mode, and the Express profile to set access to the Express mode.

Users can have access to both the Professional and Express authoring modes, however, they must use Report Studio for Professional authoring mode and Cognos Workspace Advanced for Express authoring mode. To switch from Professional authoring mode to Express authoring mode, the user must exit Report Studio and launch Cognos Workspace Advanced. Similarly, if a user wants to switch from Express authoring to Professional authoring, they must exit Cognos Workspace Advanced and launch Report Studio. For more information, see the Report Studio User Guide and the Cognos Workspace Advanced User Guide.

Procedure

  1. In IBM Cognos Connection, in the upper-right corner, click Launch, IBM Cognos Administration.
  2. On the Security tab, click User Interface Profiles.
  3. Specify access permissions for the user interface profile you want
    • To grant access to the Professional authoring mode, click the actions button Actions icon next to Professional, and click Set properties.
    • To grant access to the Express authoring mode, click the actions button next to Express, and click Set properties.

    The Permissions page appears.

  4. Select the Override the access permissions acquired from the parent entry check box.
  5. In the box on the left, select the check box next to the user, group, or role for which you want to grant access to this user interface profile.
  6. In the box on the right, grant execute Execute icon and traverse Traverse icon permissions for the selected users, groups, or roles.

    No other permissions are required.

  7. Click OK.
  8. Now, for each newly-added user, group, or role that was added to the Professional or Express profile, you must grant Traverse permission to the report profiles container object. In the toolbar in the upper-right corner of the User Interface Profiles page, click the Set properties - User Interface Profiles icon. For each new entry, ensure that the Traverse permission is granted.

Results

For more detailed information about setting access permissions, see Set access permissions for an entry.
Parent topic: Secured Functions and Features