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About Authorizing Users to Act for Others

You can authorize one user to act for another user in Oracle BI Presentation Services. When a user (called the proxy user) acts as another (called the target user), the proxy user can see the dashboards and reports of the target user.

Authorizing a user to act for another is useful, for example, when a manager wants to delegate some of his work to one of his direct reports or when IT support staff wants to troubleshoot another user's account.

When you authorize a user to be a proxy user, you also assign an authority level (called the proxy level). The proxy level determines the privileges and permissions granted to the proxy user when accessing the dashboards and reports of the target user.

There are two proxy levels:

• Restricted. Permissions are read-only to the items to which the target user has access. Privileges are determined by the proxy user's account (not the target user's account).

  For example, suppose a proxy user has not been assigned the Access to Answers privilege, and the target user has. When the proxy user is acting as the target user, he or she cannot access Answers.

• Full. Permissions and privileges are inherited from the target user's account.

  For example, suppose a proxy user has not been assigned the Access to Answers privilege, and the target user has. When the proxy user is acting as the target user, he or she can access Answers.

Once you have authorized a user to act as a proxy user, he or she can then use the Settings > Act As option in Oracle BI Presentation Services to select the target user to act as.

TIP:   Before a proxy user can act as a target user, the target user must have logged in to Oracle BI Presentation Services at least once and accessed his or her dashboard. (A default dashboard is created the first time the dashboard is displayed. This requires write privileges, which the proxy user may not have.)