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Controlling User Access to Reports by Defining Calendars

As discussed in Chapter 5, "Oracle Reports Services Security with Oracle Portal" access control enables you to restrict user access to reports that are run with Oracle Reports Services. Oracle Reports Services uses Oracle Portal to perform a security check that ensures that users have the necessary privileges to run reports on restricted Oracle Reports Services servers and printers. Defining calendars is an optional step that allows you to further restrict access to report definition files (RDFs), servers, and printers by determining when they can and cannot be accessed.

A.1 Creating Availability Calendars

An availability calendar determines when RDFs, Oracle Reports Services servers, and printers are available for processing. Availability calendars are not necessary if the RDFs, Oracle Reports Services servers, and printers are always available for processing.

You can create two types of availability calendars:

Simple

A simple availability calendar defines a single availability rule (for example, daily, Sunday through Saturday from 12:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.).
Combined

A combined availability calendar combines two or more availability calendars (for example, combining the Daily calendar with a Maintenance calendar) into a single availability calendar.

You can associate only one availability calendar with an RDF, Oracle Reports Services servers, or printer. If your production environment requires more than one availability rule, then you need to combine availability calendars.

A.2 Availability Calendar Example

In this example, you need to create a Production calendar that determines the availability for every day of the week, days with scheduled maintenance, and holidays. To do this Production calendar, you need to create the following availability calendars:

A simple Daily calendar with an availability period of every Sunday through Saturday from 12:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
A simple Maintenance calendar with an availability period of every Saturday from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
A simple Christmas calendar with an availability period starting on December 25th at 12:00 a.m. and ending on December 26th at 12:00 a.m.
A Production calendar that combines all the above calendars, and then excludes the maintenance and Christmas calendars. Excluding these calendars prohibits processing based on their availability rules.

A.2.1 Creating a Daily Calendar

Create a Daily calendar with an availability period of Sunday through Saturday from 12:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. by doing the following:

Access Oracle Portal and log on. You must have RW_ADMINISTRATOR and DBA privileges to access Oracle Reports Services security wizards.
On the Oracle Portal home page, click the Administer tab.
On the Administer page under the Oracle Reports Security portlet, click Oracle Reports Security Settings.
On the Oracle Reports Security Settings page under the Reports Calendar Access portlet, click on Create Simple Calendar Access to create a simple calendar.
On the Create Simple Availability Calendar page, type Daily in the Calendar Name field. If the Daily calendar already exists, then append your initials to it (for example, DailyAA).
Click on the Next button to continue.
This screen is where the Date/Time Availability is set. Under Duration specify today's date as the start month, date, and year, and 12:00 a.m. as the start time. Specify today's date as the end month, date, and year, and 10:00 p.m. as the end time.
Choose Daily as the Repeat option. This repeats the Duration pattern every day. For example, if the start date is Monday, January 4, 2000, then this pattern repeats every day starting on this date until the pattern is completed.
Click on the Next button to continue.
Optionally, on the Show Simple Availability Calendar Summary page, click Show Calendar to view a visual representation of the Daily calendar. Green indicates availability. Close the calendar when you are finished reviewing it.
Click on the Finish button.
The Manage Component screen appears. Click on the Close button.

A.2.2 Creating the Maintenance Calendar

Create a Maintenance calendar with an availability period of every Saturday from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. In a later step, you will add this calendar to the Production calendar and then exclude it to prohibit processing based on the date and time specified.

From the Oracle Reports Security page under the Reports Calendar Access portlet, click Create Reports Simple Calendar Access option to create a simple calendar.
On the Create Simple Availability Calendar page, type Maintenance in the Calendar Name field. If the Maintenance calendar already exists, then append your initials to it (for example, MaintenanceAA).
Click on the Next button to continue.

Define the following for Date/Time Availability:

Table A-1 Maintenance Calendar Rule

Field		Value
Duration
	Start	Specify a date starting on a Saturday (for example, January 8, 2000), and time starting at 3:00 p.m.
	End	Specify the same date defined as the start date, and time ending at 10:00 p.m.
Repeat		Choose Weekly.

Click on the Next button to continue.
Optionally, on the Show Simple Availability Calendar Summary page, click Show Calendar to view a visual representation of the Maintenance calendar. Green indicates availability. Close the calendar when you are finished reviewing it.
Click on the Finish button.
The Manage Component screen appears. Click on the Close button.

A.2.3 Creating the Christmas Calendar

Create a Christmas calendar with an availability period of every December 25th from 12:00 a.m. to December 26th at 12:00 a.m. In a later step, you will add this calendar to the Production calendar and then exclude it to prohibit processing based on the date and time specified.

From the Oracle Reports Security page under the Reports Calendar Access portlet, click Create Reports Simple Calendar Access option to create a calendar.
On the Create Simple Availability Calendar page, type Christmas in the Calendar Name field. If the Christmas calendar already exists, then append your initials to it (for example, MaintenanceAA).
Click on the Next button to continue.
Define the following for Date/Time Availability:

Field Value

Duration

Start

Specify December 25th and 12:00 a.m.

End

Specify December 26th and 12:00 a.m.

Repeat

Choose Yearly.
Click on the Next button to continue.
Optionally, on the Show Simple Availability Calendar Summary page, click Show Calendar to view a visual representation of the Christmas calendar. Green indicates availability. Close the calendar when you are finished reviewing it.
Click on the Finish button.
The Manage Component screen appears. Click on the Close button.

Field		Value
Duration
	Start	Specify December 25th and 12:00 a.m.
	End	Specify December 26th and 12:00 a.m.
Repeat	Choose Yearly.

A.2.4 Creating a Combined Availability Calendar

In this example, you create a Production calendar that combines the Daily, Maintenance, and Christmas calendars, then excludes the Maintenance and Christmas calendars, which prohibits processing based on their availability rules.

From the Oracle Reports Security page, click the Create Reports Combined Calendar Access to create the calendar that combines the three calendars you created into one.
On the Create Combined Availability Calendar page, type Production in the Calendar Name field. If the Production calendar already exists, then append your initials to it (for example, ProductionAA).
Click on the Next button to continue.
On the Select Availability Calendars page, ctrl-click on the Daily, Maintenance, and Christmas calendars in the Availability Calendars list box.
Click on the right arrow to move the selected calendars to the Selected Availability Calendars list box, or click on the double right arrow to select all available calendars.
Click on the Next button to continue.
On the Exclude Availability Calendars page, ctrl-click on the Maintenance and Christmas calendars in the Availability Calendars list box.
Click on the right arrow to move the Maintenance and Christmas calendars to the Excluded Availability Calendars list box. Doing so prohibits processing on the date and time specified in each calendar.
Click on the Next button to continue.
On the Show Combined Availability Calendar Summary page, click Show Calendar to view a visual representation of the availability calendar. Green indicates availability. Close the calendar when you are finished reviewing it.

It is s good practice to check the combined calendar at this point. You can verify that the calendars you prohibited processing on are excluded during the period specified. Scroll to December to ensure that December 25th is excluded from processing. Choose the Day option and scroll to a Saturday to ensure that processing is unavailable from 3 p.m.
Click on the Finish button.
On the Manage Component page, click on the Close button.

You have now successfully created both Simple and Combined calendars. You can now use these calendars to further restrict access to RDFs, Oracle Reports Services servers, and printers. Refer to Chapter 5, "Oracle Reports Services Security with Oracle Portal" for more information about restricting RDFs, Oracle Reports Services servers, and printers.

A Controlling User Access to Reports by Defining Calendars