Did you know that the SAS metadata server also provides metadata about metadata? Metadata about well known SAS metadata object types (public types) is available in the Foundation metadata repository and includes information about the applicability of the various metadata permissions. To help SAS platform administrators get a better understanding of which permissions apply to which object types, we’ve added a new Public Types Explorer plug-in to our Metacoda Plug-ins product that makes it easy to explore this metadata. The new Public Types Explorer plug-in will be available in our next major release (V4) and will join the ACT Reviewer, Metadata Explorer, and Password Encoder plug-ins as a freely available plug-in.
Here’s a sample screenshot where you can see a selection of metadata object types and the permissions that apply to them:
The permission columns are sortable so you can group object types by the applicability of that permission. This helps to answer questions like “Which types of metadata object does the Select permission apply to?“. As you can see in the screenshot above that’s the “Secured data folder“, “Secured library” and “Secured table” metadata object types.
Of course it may also trigger other questions like “Why/when does this permission apply to this object type?” (I know I’ve had a few of those questions myself). For more information about the applicability of metadata permission, I’d suggest reading the SAS 9.4 Intelligence Platform: Security Administration Guide, Second Edition, starting with the section on Permissions by Object Type. If you can’t find the answer in the documentation then perhaps try asking a question of SAS Technical Support or in SAS Communities.
If you’re interested in this Public Types Explorer, keep an eye on the Metacoda blog where we post information about new releases.