13 Managing Objects in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog

This chapter provides information about using the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog to store and managing business intelligence objects. It contains the following topics:

• "What is the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog?"

• "Who Uses the Catalog?"

• "Saving Business Intelligence Objects"

• "How Can I Search for Objects?"

• "Searching with the Basic Search"

• "What Results are Returned from a Full-Text Catalog Search?"

• "Making the Full-Text Catalog Search Available to End Users"

• "Searching Using Full-Text Catalog Search"

• "Object-Specific Tasks"

• "Exporting Reports, KPIs, and Analysis Prompts Data"

• "Accessing Properties"

• "Levels of Oracle BI EE Security"

• "What Are Permissions?"

• "How Are an Object's Permission Assigned?"

• "Access Control Lists and Permissions"

• "Permission Definitions"

• "Permissions Available by Object Type"

• "Recommendations for Setting Permissions"

• "Assigning Permissions"

• "Assigning Ownership of Objects"

• "What is Archiving?"

• "Archiving Objects"

What is the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog?

The Oracle BI Presentation Catalog (the catalog) stores business intelligence objects and provides an interface where users create, access, and manage objects, and perform specific object-based tasks (for example, export, print, and edit). The catalog is organized into folders that are either shared or personal.

If Oracle BI EE is integrated with other Oracle applications, then the objects that are created within those applications are also stored within the catalog. For example, if Oracle BI Publisher is integrated with Oracle BI EE, data models, reports, and style templates and sub-templates are also stored in and accessible from the catalog.

Many of the operations that you can perform in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog can also be performed in the Catalog Manager, which resides outside of Oracle BI Presentation Services. For more information about the Catalog Manager, see Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

Who Uses the Catalog?

Within Oracle BI EE, there are three primary users: content consumers, content designers, and catalog administrators. Each user performs different tasks within the catalog, and, therefore, each user sees a different version of the catalog interface. Functionality that is available for one user might not be available for another. Furthermore, the catalog functionality and objects that are available to a user depend upon the privileges that are specified by the Presentation Services Administrator and the object's individual permissions, which are usually set by the content designer.

Content consumers can use the Catalog page to view the business intelligence objects that are necessary to perform their day-to-day tasks. For example, a sales manager needs to access an analysis that monitors the weekly sales of a specific brand of beverage in the Central and Eastern regions. The permissions that are set by the content designer and catalog administrator determine what tasks the content consumers can perform both on an individual piece of content and within the catalog. For example, content consumers at Company A can search for, view, and interact with only those objects that have been assigned to them, but content consumers at Company B can search for and interact with content as well as create content and store it to their personal folders.

Content designers are the individuals who create the content for the content consumers. Content designers need broader access to the catalog in order to efficiently create, edit, test, and troubleshoot objects. Their access to the catalog's functionality is more comprehensive than that of the content consumers. However, like the content consumer, the content designer's permissions are set by the administrator. For example, a content designer needs to store content in and retrieve content from the public folders for the Sales functional area, but not the Operations functional area. Or a content designer needs to be assigned to several groups so that the content designer can log into Presentation Services as different users to test the new or revised content.

Administrators need the most comprehensive access to the catalog; however, their access is still determined by the privileges that are assigned to their role by the Presentation Services administrator. In general, the catalog tasks that the administrator performs include setting permissions on catalog objects and folders, archiving the catalog, creating and managing directory structures, and managing system and user data.

Saving Business Intelligence Objects

Use the following procedure to save objects to the catalog:

To save an object to the catalog:

1. Create or edit a business intelligence object and click Save or Save As from the editor's toolbar. The Save As dialog is displayed.

2. Select the catalog location to which you want to save the object. Note the following items:

   • You can create sub-folders for storage within your My Folders folder or within the system folder for which you have the permissions to modify.

   • Oracle BI EE allows you to save any type of business intelligence object to any location within the catalog. However, for some object types, Oracle BI EE's Save As dialog suggests the best catalog location. For example, if you are creating a named filter, then it should be saved to a subject area folder (/My Folders/Subject Area Contents/Paint) so that it is available when you create an analysis using the same subject area and to which you want to add the saved filter.

   • You can save the following objects to any location within the catalog: actions, agents, analyses, BI Publisher objects, briefing books, conditions, KPIs, and prompts.

   • Oracle recommends that you save the following objects to the subject area folder: calculated items, custom groups, and filters. If a subject area folder does not exist in your /My Folders folder or within the /Shared Folders folder, then Oracle BI EE creates a subject area folder and the Save As dialog will default a save path to /My Folders/Subject Area Contents/<subject area>. Saving these objects to the subject area folders ensures that they will be available when you build an analysis for the same subject area.

   • Dashboards can be saved to any catalog location. However, if you want the dashboard to display in the global header's Dashboards menu, then you must save the dashboard to a first level dashboard folder. For example, save the dashboard to the following location to include the dashboard in the Dashboard menu: /Shared Folders/Sales Projections/Dashboards. Save the dashboard to the following location to exclude the dashboard from the Dashboard menu: /Shared Folders/Sales Projections/Dashboards/Design Time. For more information about saving dashboards, see "Saving Dashboards By Other Names and In Other Locations".

3. Click OK.

Use the following procedure to create a sub-folder within your My Folders or, if you have the required permissions, to create a sub-folder.

To create a folder or sub-folder:

1. On the "Catalog page", go to the desired location in the "Folders pane".

2. In the catalog toolbar, click New and select Folder. The New Folder dialog is displayed.

3. Enter the folder name and click OK.

How Can I Search for Objects?

You can use either the basic catalog search or the full-text catalog search to find objects in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog.

Basic Catalog Search

The basic catalog search allows you to access objects from the global header and the Home page, or to quickly find objects through the Catalog page. In the Catalog page, you can search for an object by its name, location, or type, only, which is similar to using a Find dialog in many products. You will find only those objects for which you have the appropriate permissions. When the desired object is located, you can click it to display it for viewing or editing, as your permissions allow.

Full-Text Catalog Search

The full-text catalog search allows you to search for an object using Oracle BI Search, which is similar to a full-text search engine. How you access the full-text catalog search depends upon how your administrator has made it available to you (for example, your administrator might have provided you with a URL to the full-text catalog search).

You can search for objects by various attributes, such as name and description. You will find only those objects for which you have the appropriate permissions. When the search is initiated and the desired object is located, you can click it to display it for viewing. For more information about permissions, see "What Results are Returned from a Full-Text Catalog Search?"

You can search for nearly all types of objects in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog, with a few exceptions such as Marketing Segmentation objects. You can also search for attachments to objects, such as a PDF file that is contained on a dashboard page. You can search for objects such as dashboard prompts that are saved within other objects.

Searching with the Basic Search

You can use the basic search to quickly find an object within the catalog. You can access objects by type from the global header, locate objects through the search shortcuts located on the Home page, or conduct a formal search for objects from the Catalog page. For more information, see "How Can I Search for Objects?"

To access objects from the global header:

Use the global header to quickly access objects by type and name from anywhere in Presentation Services. Go to the global header and perform one of the following actions.

• In the Search field, click the down arrow and select the object type for which you want to search. Place your cursor in the field next to the Search field and enter part or all of the object's name. Click the arrow button to begin the search. The Catalog page is displayed with the results that match your search criteria. For more information about how to search, see "Search pane".

• Click the Dashboards link and select a specific dashboard. Only the dashboards that were saved in first level dashboard folders will display in the Dashboards link.

  Any hidden dashboards from a previous version of Oracle BI EE will not display in the Dashboards link in the global header. During the migration of the catalog, the Hidden attribute was applied to the child folders that contain the hidden dashboards. To view these hidden dashboards in the Catalog page or to search for them from the Catalog page, check the Show Hidden Items box.

• Click the Open link and select a specific object. This list is populates with the most recently opened objects to which you have access. This list also includes the objects to which you have access that have been opened most frequently. The objects that are displayed in the Open list were opened by you or any other individual user or member of a group who has privileges to open them.

To access objects through search shortcuts:

Use the Browse/Manage... pane located on the Home page to perform quick searches by object type, or to access the Catalog page. Go to the Home page and perform one of the following actions.

• In the Browse/Manage.... pane, click the folder/binocular button corresponding to the object that you want to search. When you click one of these buttons, Oracle BI EE searches your My Folders location for the specified object type. For example, click My Scorecards folder/binocular button to access a list of all of the Scorecard objects located in your My Folders location. After you click a folder/binocular button, the Catalog page displays and contains the results of your search, as well as default the pre-defined search's criteria into the Search fields

• The All Content link is actually two links. Click Browse Oracle BI Presentation Catalog to access the Catalog Page showing the Folders pane. From this pane you can expand folders to browse for a specific object. Click the Search Oracle BI Presentation Catalog to access the Catalog Page showing the Search Pane where you can specify your search criteria.

Use the Catalog page's functionality to provide search criteria. This searching method is useful when you know the object's name, location, or type.

To search the catalog from the Catalog page:

1. In the global header, click Catalog. The "Catalog page" is displayed.

2. Click the binoculars button to display the Search pane.

3. In the "Search pane", specify the search criteria. Consider the following options:

   • Name: All objects and folders whose names contain the letters that you enter will be displayed. For more information about how to search, see "Search pane".

   • Location: Select the folders to search. Administrators and users with administrative permissions can search the catalog root folder. However, before you can search the root folder, you must be in Admin View.

   • Type: Select the kind of object for which you are searching (for example, KPI, Scorecard, or Filter).

   Note:

   To search for Hidden Items, you must select the Show Hidden Items box, which is located on the Catalog Page's header.

4. Click Search.

   Folders or objects that satisfy the search criteria are displayed.

What Results are Returned from a Full-Text Catalog Search?

When you use the full-text catalog search, it locates those objects that have been crawled and indexed and for which you have the appropriate permissions. If you want to prohibit an object from being indexed, then make the appropriate setting in the object's "Properties dialog".

When you initiate a full-text catalog search, you see a window that displays the results of the search. The list of results includes any objects that match the criteria, for which you have at least the "Open" permission. If an object is stored in a folder, then you must have the "Traverse" folder and "Open" object permissions. Note that objects with the "No Access" permission will not be available. The string that you are searching for is displayed in a highlighted manner, such as bold font or a colored background.

In some cases, you might not see the string in the list of results. This happens when the string is used by the object but is not part of its object name or path name. The string is included in the definition of an object, such as in the columns that are specified as part of the analysis.

For example, suppose that the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog contains an analysis that uses a dashboard prompt that accepts Central Region as a value. Suppose you search for "Central" with the full-text catalog search. The returned list will include the analysis that uses the prompt that accepts Central Region as a value. If you click that analysis in the list, then you see that analysis open so that it is filtered by Central Region via the prompt, because that is what you searched for.

Making the Full-Text Catalog Search Available to End Users

The content designer or administrator can make the full-text catalog search available to users via the following means:

• The content designer or administrator can provide users with the URL for the full-text catalog search page so that they can bookmark it and display it in a browser.

• The content designer can embed the URL in a link on a dashboard page. For example, on a dashboard page, the content designer can add an action link that allows users to navigate to the full-text catalog search's URL. For information, see Chapter 10, "Working with Actions."

• The administrator can configure Oracle BI EE to display the Secure Enterprise Search for Oracle BI link in the Home page. When configured, this link displays in the Browse/Manage... pane's All Contents list. The user clicks this link to access the full-text catalog search page. For information about configuring Oracle BI EE to display this link, see Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition

Searching Using Full-Text Catalog Search

You can use the full-text catalog search, which uses a search page that displays in a separate browser window, to perform an in-depth search for a business intelligence object. For more information, see "How Can I Search for Objects?" and "What Results are Returned from a Full-Text Catalog Search?"

To search using the full-text catalog search:

Use the following procedure to search for objects.

1. Display the search page by clicking the Secure Enterprise Search for Oracle BI menu on the Oracle BI EE Home page, if one is available.

   Otherwise, in a new browser window, enter the URL for the Oracle Secure Enterprise Search page. If you are unsure of the URL, then contact the administrator.

2. Click Login and enter your login information for Oracle BI EE.

   You must log in to see search results of those objects that you have permission to see. If you do not log in, then you are likely to see nothing in the search results, because it is likely that no objects in the catalog are visible to unnamed users.

3. In the box, enter the text for which you want to search.

   For example, if you want to find analyses that include the Sales measure column, then enter sales in the box.

   Note that above the box are a list of links the provide groups that can help limit the search results.

4. Click Search.

Object-Specific Tasks

The tasks that you can perform for an object that you select from the "Catalog pane" are determined by both the selected object's type (for example, a dashboard or KPI) and the permissions that were set for the object. The list of available tasks is displayed in the "Tasks pane", which is located within the "Catalog page" or from the object's More link.

Figure 13-1 shows the available tasks for the analysis that was selected from the catalog. This graphic illustrates that the tasks that the user can perform for the selected analysis are: Open, Edit, Print, Export, Create Agent, Add to Briefing Book, Delete, Copy, Rename, Create Shortcut, Properties, and Permissions.

Figure 13-1 Tasks Pane within the Catalog Page

In most cases, you can open or copy an object. However, if you selected an analysis, then you can create an agent for the analysis or export the analysis. If you selected a dashboard, then you can publish the dashboard or archive it, depending upon the permissions that were assigned to the object.

Exporting Reports, KPIs, and Analysis Prompts Data

To leverage your data and use it in other applications, you can export report, KPI, and analysis prompt values and data as a PDF, MHTML, XLS, and CVS file.

To export data:

1. In the global header, click Catalog. The "Catalog page" is displayed.

2. Search for the object that you want to export. For more information about searching, see "Searching with the Basic Search".

3. In the "Folders pane", select the object to export.

4. Select the object and perform a task:

   • Below the document, select More and then Export

   • Select the Export button in the "Tasks pane".

5. Select the format. Note that the Data list contains the CSV Format, Tab delimited Format, and XML Format options.

Accessing Properties

Administrative users can access the properties of any object or folder to perform tasks such as view system information or change access levels. Users can access and modify the properties of the objects that they create or own.

To access properties:

1. In the global header, click Catalog. The "Catalog page" is displayed.

2. Search for the object to which you want to assign properties. For more information about searching, see "Searching with the Basic Search".

3. In the "Folders pane", select an object or folder.

4. Perform a task:

   • Below the document, select More and then Properties

   • Click the Properties button in the "Tasks pane".

5. Review or change the settings displayed in the "Properties dialog".

Levels of Oracle BI EE Security

Oracle BI EE supports security mechanisms that allow users to access only the data for which they are authorized. For specific information about setting up and maintaining security, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. The following types of security are typical:

• Business logic object security. This security mechanism controls access to objects, such as subject areas, folders, and columns. For example, content designers in a particular department can view only the subject areas that belong to their department when using the Analysis editor.

• Catalog object security. This security mechanism provides security for objects that are stored in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog, such as dashboards, dashboard pages, folders, and analyses. Users can view only the objects for which they are authorized. For example, a mid-level manager might not be granted access to a dashboard that contains summary information for an entire department. For more information about catalog object security, see "What Are Permissions?"

• Data level security. This security mechanism controls the type and amount of data that is available in analyses. When multiple users run the same analysis, the results that are returned to each user depend on their access rights and roles in the company. For example, a sales vice president sees results for all regions, while a sales representative for a particular region sees only data for that region.

The security mechanisms in Oracle Business Intelligence can use security hierarchies that are defined in operational applications, such as Siebel CRM applications, which minimizes the need for administrators to manage multiple security systems. The security mechanisms also allow a high degree of control over access to elements in Oracle Business Intelligence applications.

What Are Permissions?

An object's owner or a user who has been given the proper privileges and permissions can assign permissions to catalog objects. Permissions are authorizations that you grant to a user or role to perform a specific action or group of actions on a catalog object. For example, if you work in the sales department and created a dashboard that contains quarterly sales projections, then you can give read access to this dashboard to all sales people, but give read, write, and delete access to sales directors and vice presidents.

Permissions are a part of the Oracle BI EE security model, and how permissions are initially assigned is based on how users, roles, and groups were set up on your system, and which privileges the Oracle BI EE administrator granted those users, roles, and groups. For example, the administrator removes the BIAdministrator role from the Admin:Catalog, Change Permissions privilege. This means that no one included in the BIAdministrator group can change permissions for any catalog objects other than the objects that the individual users who are included in the BIAdministrator group create or own.

How Are an Object's Permission Assigned?

The permissions for a folder, Oracle BI Publisher object, or other objects are assigned by either the object owner, the content designer, or the catalog's administrator. Before someone other than the content designer can assign permissions to an object, that person must have been given ownership of the object, granted the Change Permissions privilege by the Presentation Services administrator, and have been given the Change Permissions object permission, which is listed in the "Custom Permissions dialog". For more information about setting the Change Permissions privileges, see Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

When the content designer creates an object and saves it to a folder, the object will inherit the permissions that are set on the folder. After the object is saved, the content designer can display either the catalog's "Tasks pane" or the object's More... link, locate the object, access the "Permission dialog", and modify the object's permissions. If the object's Read-Only property, which is set on the "Properties dialog", is selected, then no one other than the owner can modify the object's permissions. This read-only setting essentially trumps any permissions that are set in the Permission dialog.

When working with an object, you use the Permissions dialog to assign who gets which object permissions in the following ways:

• To application roles — This is the recommended way of assigning permissions. Application roles provide much easier maintenance of users and their assignments. An application role defines a set of permissions granted to a user or group that has that role in the system's identity store. An application role is assigned in accordance with specific conditions. As such, application roles are granted dynamically based on the conditions present at the time authentication occurs.

  For information on application roles, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

• To individual users — You can assign permissions and privileges to specific users, but such assignments can be more difficult to maintain and so this approach is not recommended.

• To Catalog groups — This approach is maintained for backward compatibility with previous releases only. For information about catalog groups, see "Working with Catalog Groups" in the Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition

Access Control Lists and Permissions

Access control lists define the ability of an account to access a shared object in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog. An account is an application role, a Catalog group, or an individual user. Permissions describe the type of access to an object that an account is permitted. Examples are Open and Full Control.

Each catalog object has an access control list that defines which accounts have which permissions to access the object. The access control list is stored in the object's corresponding attribute (.atr) file. An access control list has the general form that is shown in Table 13-1.

Table 13-1 Access Control List for a Catalog Object

Account	Permission
ApplicationRole1	Open
ApplicationRole4	Full Control
ApplicationRole3	Open
User 4	Open
User 9	Full Control
User 11	Full Control

Permission Definitions

To control access to objects (such as a folder in the catalog or a section in a dashboard), you assign permissions to application roles, Catalog groups, and users. The permissions that you can assign vary depending on the type of object with which you are working.

The permissions that are available from the "Permission dialog" are usually parent permissions, meaning that each parent permission contains several child permissions (for example, if the Open permission is applied to a folder, the users of that folder can read, traverse, and run Oracle BI Publisher reports located in that folder). Applying parent permissions, rather than building custom permissions for ever object, is an easy way to consistently assign and maintain permissions. The available parent permissions differ based on the object type with which you are working: folders, Oracle BI Publisher objects, or business intelligence objects. Oracle BI Publisher objects include reports, data models, sub templates, and style templates. Business intelligence objects include analyses, dashboards, KPIs, scorecards, filters, and prompts.

If in the "Permission dialog" you select the Custom permission, then the "Custom Permissions dialog" is displayed where you can select the permissions that you want to apply to the object. For example, if you are working with a folder object, then you can select the traverse, read, and delete permissions.

Table 13-2 includes the name of each permissions and its definition. For more information about the parent permissions that you can assign to an object and what the parent permission includes based on the type of object with which you are working, see "Permissions Available by Object Type".

Table 13-2 Permission Descriptions

Permission	Description
Read	Use this option to give authority to access, but not modify, the object.
Write	Use this option to give authority to edit the object.
Delete	Use this option to give authority to delete the object.
Traverse	Use this option to give authority to access objects in folders within the selected folder when the user does not have permission to the selected folder. For example, if you grant users Traverse Folder permission to the /Shared Folders/Test folder, they cannot access objects in the/Shared Folders/Test folder but can access objects stored in lower-level folders, such as the /Shared Folders/Test/Guest folder.
Run Publisher Report	Use this option to give authority to read, traverse the folder that contains the object, and regenerate the report so that it includes the most recent data.
Schedule Publisher Report	Use this option to give authority to read, traverse the folder that contains the object, and schedule the report.
View Publisher Report	Use this option to give authority to read, traverse the folder that contains the object, and view, but not regenerate, the report.
Execute	Use this option to give authority to run an object, such as an action, agent, or a briefing book.
Change Permissions	Use this option to give authority to change the object's permissions.
Set Ownership	Use this option to give authority to reassign ownership of the object.
Full Control	Use this option to give authority to perform all tasks (modify and delete, for example) on the object.
No Access	Use this option to deny access to the object. Explicitly denying access takes precedence over any other permission.
Modify	Use this option to give authority to read, write, and delete the object.
Open	Use this option to give authority to access, but not modify, the object. If you are working with an Oracle BI Publisher object, this option allows you to traverse the folder that contains the object.
Custom	Use this option to display the "Custom Permissions dialog", where you grant read, write, execute, and delete permissions.
Granted	Use this option to give authority to access a section in a dashboard. This permission can be set in the dashboard, only. This permission overrides any catalog permissions set on the section's objects that would prevent the corresponding roles, Catalog groups, and users from accessing them (for example, No Access). For more information, see "Changing the Properties of a Dashboard and its Pages".
Denied	Use this option to deny access to a section in a dashboard. This permission can be set in the dashboard, only. This permission overrides any catalog permissions set on the section's objects that would allow the corresponding roles, Catalog groups, and users to access them (for example, View). For more information, see "Changing the Properties of a Dashboard and its Pages".

Permissions Available by Object Type

The permissions that are available from the "Permission dialog" are usually parent permissions, meaning that each parent permission contains several child permissions. Ffor example, if the Open permission is applied to a folder, then the users of that folder can read, traverse, and run the BI Publisher reports that are located in that folder. The available parent permissions differ based on the object with which you are working.

Table 13-3 includes a listing of the parent permissions and the corresponding child permissions by object type. For a description of each permission, see "Permission Definitions".

Table 13-3 Permissions by Object Type

Parent Permission	Folders	Oracle BI Publisher Objects	Objects
Full Control	Includes all permissions	Includes all permissions	Includes all permissions
Modify	Read, write, and delete	Read, write, and delete	Read, write, and delete
Open	Read, traverse, run BI Publisher report	Run Oracle BI Publisher report	Read
Schedule Oracle BI Publisher Reports	Schedule BI Publisher reports that are contained in the folder, read, and traverse	Schedule Oracle BI Publisher reports	Not available
View Oracle BI Publisher Output	View BI Publisher reports that are contained in the folder, read, and traverse	View Oracle BI Publisher reports	Not available
Traverse	Traverse folder	Not available	Not available
No Access	Object is not accessible	Object not accessible	Object not accessible

Recommendations for Setting Permissions

Follow these recommendations when setting permissions:

• Use care when assigning permissions to ensure that you do not lock the object by preventing you, an administrator, or any other user from modifying the object.

• Assign permissions through application roles, even if you want to assign permissions for a single user. A less recommended alternative to using application roles is to use Catalog groups, also known as Presentation Services groups. Application roles are central to Oracle BI EE while Catalog groups are specific to Oracle BI Presentation Services and are included in this release for backward compatibility.

  For information on application roles, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

  For information on Catalog groups, see Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

• For application roles (Catalog groups or users, if necessary) that are going to be modifying the dashboards and dashboard content accessible to the role, set the permissions for the role to Full Control. While allowing change and delete control, Full Control also allows the specified role to set permissions and to delete the object, folder, or dashboard.

  If you plan to have numerous or varying users that create and modify dashboard content for a given group, then create a separate, corresponding "builder" role that has all the back-end permissions of the primary role, but with a different name. For example, you can create a Sales role and a SalesBuilder role. By giving the SalesBuilder role appropriate permissions to the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog, you can control and change who can make changes to dashboards and content. Assuming session variable security is in place, you can make a user a dashboard builder or content creator by changing the user's role from "Sales" to "SalesBuilder" in the database table that holds security information.

• For each Subject Area, ensure that the BIConsumer and AuthenticatedUser roles have No Access permission to the Subject Area folder.

• For roles that should be able to save analyses for public use against a given Subject Area, grant them Full Control to the Subject Area folder and everything it contains, and likewise for the Common folder.

• To ensure that only members of the designated roles have access to Oracle BI Presentation Catalog folders, folder content, and dashboards, do not set explicit permissions for the AuthenticatedUser role.

Tip:

To provide a place for all users within an application role to share analyses with each other, create a folder under the Subject Area folder called, for example, Share or Publish, and give the entire role Change/Delete permission to just that folder.

Assigning Permissions

Permissions determine who can access folders, Oracle BI Publisher objects, or other catalog objects. The permissions that you can assign vary depending on the type of object with which you are working. To change permissions, you must have been granted the Change Permission privilege.

Note:

To access an object in the catalog, users must have appropriate ACL (Access Control List) entries for that object. All objects in the catalog except for alerts use ACL entries. See Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for information on ACL entries.

Use the following procedure to assign permissions to an object. For more information about permissions, see "Permission Definitions", "Permissions Available by Object Type", and "Recommendations for Setting Permissions".

To assign permissions to an object:

1. In the global header, click Catalog. The "Catalog page" is displayed.

2. Search for the object to which you want to assign permissions. For more information about searching, see "Searching with the Basic Search".

3. Go to the "Catalog area" and locate an object or folder.

4. Select More and then Permissions, or go to the "Tasks pane" and click Permissions. The "Permission dialog" is displayed.

5. Click the Add users/roles button to access the "Add Application Roles, Catalog Groups, and Users dialog" to add any required accounts.

6. In the "Permissions dialog," click the Permissions list to select permissions. Most of the items that are displayed in the list are parent permissions and contain several child permissions. To build a specific list of permissions, click Custom. The "Custom Permissions dialog" is displayed.

7. Click OK.

Assigning Ownership of Objects

Use the following procedure to assign ownership of an object.

To assign ownership of an object:

1. In the global header, click Catalog. The "Catalog page" is displayed.

2. Search for the object to which you want to assign ownership. For more information about searching, see "Searching with the Basic Search".

3. Go to the "Catalog area" and locate an object or folder.

4. Select More and then Permissions, or go to the "Tasks pane" and click Permissions. The "Permission dialog" is displayed.

5. In the Permissions table, go to the Owner column and click to specify the owner.

6. Click OK.

What is Archiving?

Archiving enables you to bundle the entire catalog, specific folders, or multi-component objects (for example, scorecards) as a .catalog file and upload the.catalog file to unarchive the data to another location in the catalog. This process enables you to transfer specific data across environments. For example, you can use this feature to transfer data from a development environment to a production environment.

If you have the necessary privileges, then you can use the Oracle BI EE Catalog Manager to archive and unarchive catalog objects and perform other Catalog maintenance tasks. For more information about Catalog Manager, see "Managing Oracle BI Presentation Catalogs Using Oracle BI Catalog Manager" in Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

Archiving Objects

Before you can archive, you must have been granted the proper privilege.

To create an archive file:

1. In the global header, click Catalog. The "Catalog page" is displayed.

2. Search for the objects that you want to archive. For more information about searching, see "Searching with the Basic Search".

3. Go to the "Folders pane" to select the object.

4. Select More, then Archive below the object. The "Archive dialog" is displayed.

5. Specify to maintain or omit the permissions and timestamps for the folder or object.

6. Click OK.

To unarchive an archive file:

1. Locate the archive file that you want to upload. The archive file contains the.catalog extension (for example, _portal.catalog).

2. Go to the "Folders pane" and select the location where you want to upload the archive file.

3. Go to the Tasks pane and click Unarchive. The "Unarchive dialog" is displayed.

4. Enter the name of the archive file or browse for the archive file. Select the archive file.

5. Click OK.