How can I hide InfoObject attributes from reporting user display - BW 7.3 / BOBJ4.1

[Former Member]

I would like to hide some BW InfoObject attributes from reporting users in an attempt to trim out some of the cruft we don't use.

We use the new BICS connector on top of BEx queries on BusinessObjects 4.1. The InfoObjects attributes show up as Dimension "details" in BusinessObjects views.

There isn't any way to do this in the BusinessObjects side of things (see Idea place posting here: Allow to hide specific attributes when using BICS : View Idea)

I've read many places that this can be achieved by using authorization security as opposed to deleting the extra attributes from the InfoObject itself.

Doing it with authorization security won't affect the current models some of these InfoObjects are already supporting, so this is a good option for sake of simplicity.

We aren't currently using authorization relevant features, and the primary reporting role in which reporting users are assigned has an asterisk(*) for the S_RS_AUTH / BIAUTH. Because of this asterisk, the default authorization 0BI_ALL is included in our default BW security configuration.

I have gone through the steps to create a new authorization: ZBI_STANDARD (based on 0BI_ALL).

I also created a new role (BP_S_BO_AUTHTEST) so I could get rid of the asterisk in S_RS_AUTH / BIAUTH, and replace it with only the ZBI_STANDARD authorization I just created.

I then assigned a single test user the new role

I then marked some attributes in the 0CMMT_ITEM InfoObject as authorization relevant. In theory, since the attributes are now auth relevant and I haven't added them explicitly to the new ZBI_STANDARD, I would expect the attributes to be suppressed in reporting. However, this is not the case, a user can still see the attribute meta data and can drag them onto reports.

Does anyone have any experience in hiding attributes? I am open to options other than authorization security.

Thanks!

David

[sander_vanwilligen]

Hi David,

First of all I am not in favor of "misusing" authorization to hide one or more attributes. This can have a negative impact on performance and is in my opinion not transparent.

The other option of deleting attributes which are not used is a better approach.It will certainly pay-off to make multi-dimensional data models leaner. Especially with Business Content there are often too many attributes which are never going to be used.

Last but not least, please have a look at my blog for an alternative approach.

Best regards,

Sander

[Former Member]

Sander,

Thank you for your advice! Using authorizations did seem a bit hacky. I will consider trimming out the extra attributes in the InfoObjects themselves.

I had feared doing it that way would have big downstream impacts for those objects already in data flows, but it seems like the cleanup might not be as bad as I thought (Removing attributes from Info object....). Models won't break as long as the attributes aren't navigational, or if they are navigational, they haven't been marked as such in downstream ODS/Infocubes.

By the way, I read the blog posting you left and it was a great read. I intend to read some others in the morning!

Thank you,

David Nutting

[sander_vanwilligen]

Hi David,

Thanks for your positive feedback.

If you interested in some of my other publications in the area of Data Warehouse architecture and LSA (Layered Scalable Architecture), please bookmark my blog .

Best regards,

Sander