As mentioned in my previous post, Duplicating or Copying SAS Access Control Templates, Metacoda Plug-ins 6.1 R3 also includes support for duplicating users in SAS metadata. Metacoda customers have often asked us for the ability to create a new user just like another user. Primarily, this is to give a new user the same, or similar, access as an existing user in the same job role. In a well set up SAS metadata security implementation, this is usually as simple as making them a member of the same groups and/or roles and that is one of the main aspects of this new duplicate-user feature. Continue reading “Duplicating or Copying SAS Users”
Category: SAS Software
Duplicating or Copying SAS Access Control Templates
When working with SAS® 9 metadata security, I often want to create an Access Control Template (ACT) which is very similar to an existing ACT. It may be that it will have a similar definition or permission pattern. It will usually have the same access controls applied to it for its own protection. It might occasionally be applied to protect the same set of objects as the original ACT.
Duplicating or copying SAS metadata security objects, such as ACTs, users, groups, and roles, has been a common request from Metacoda customers too. For this reason we added duplication support in Metacoda Plug-ins 6.1 R3. In the ACT, User, Group, and Role Reviewer plug-ins you will find a new Duplicate… action in the the context menu seen when right-mouse clicking over an object. A pop-up dialog then gives you some options to control what is duplicated.
The ability to duplicate objects via this facility is limited to SAS administrators via membership of one the standard SAS metadata server roles (i.e. “Metadata Server: Unrestricted“, “Metadata Server: User Administration“, or “Metadata Server: Operation“). Of course you also need permission to view the object you are duplicating. Continue reading “Duplicating or Copying SAS Access Control Templates”
Adding Metacoda Custom Tasks Capabilities for SAS Enterprise Guide
When you install Metacoda Custom Tasks for use in SAS® Enterprise Guide® and the SAS® Add-In for Microsoft Office you may find you don’t see the new menu items you expected in the Tools menu:
There are 2 main reasons why they may be missing: 1) the custom tasks could not be loaded, perhaps due to an issue during installation; and 2) you are not being granted access to the custom tasks due to your metadata roles and capabilities. The first issue is usually quite easy to resolve. This post is about the second scenario because it can be somewhat harder to troubleshoot.
Roles and capabilities are used in the SAS platform to control access to SAS application features such as menu items in SAS Enterprise Guide. In a new SAS platform installation the PUBLIC group (which includes everyone) is a member of the Enterprise Guide: Advanced role, and that role grants all capabilities for SAS Enterprise Guide. That means, by default, all users have access to all of the controllable features in SAS Enterprise Guide. Some SAS customers change this, as may be required for their security plan, by removing the PUBLIC group and replacing it with more appropriate groups for their environment, and perhaps create additional roles with the required capabilities. It is in this scenario where you may find your capability set is preventing access to the Metacoda Custom Tasks. Continue reading “Adding Metacoda Custom Tasks Capabilities for SAS Enterprise Guide”
Metacoda Auth Domain Reviewer Libraries Tab
Last year I posted some information about a new Metacoda Auth Domain Reviewer plug-in that was planned for Metacoda Plug-ins 6.1. That Auth Domain Reviewer is now available with the recent Metacoda Plug-ins 6.1 R1 release and you may notice that it looks a little different to the screenshots I posted back then … it now has a Libraries tab.
The Libraries tab as was added based on feedback we got during early access testing by customers. They told us they would like to be able to see, for a selected authentication domain, all of the SAS® software libraries registered in metadata that are associated with that auth domain. That sounded like a great idea so we added it!
Thanks to those customers that suggested it and please keep those suggestions coming!
If you’d like to try out the new Auth Domain Reviewer plug-in you can login and download Metacoda Plug-ins 6.1 R1 from the Metacoda Customer Portal. If you don’t yet have a Metacoda login you can register for a free 30 day evaluation license to try the plug-ins in your own SAS platform installation.
Configuring Metacoda Identity Sync Utils for AutoCall
I needed to extract some SAS identity related metadata today using the Metacoda Identity Sync Utils on GitHub. That repository contains some macros we publish to help our customers and partners when they need to get hold of some identity related metadata in SAS tables for custom Identity Sync processing or other reporting requirements (if the standard SAS %MDUEXTR macro doesn’t meet their needs).
Since I use these macros on a semi-regular basis, I decided to make them available to the SAS platform as autocall macros so I could just use them in my SAS code without having to remember where they were stored and %include them. I thought I’d post some brief notes on how to set it up in case you want to do the same (and for when I need it on another SAS platform installation). Continue reading “Configuring Metacoda Identity Sync Utils for AutoCall”