Tag: SAS 9.3

Metacoda Plug-ins Tip: Replaceable Tokens

This is a tip for those who use the Metacoda Security Plug-ins Batch Interface for scheduled automation of SAS® metadata security reporting, testing and identity synchronization. You will find this tip useful if you are using the same configuration values in multiple batch configuration or Identity Sync Profile (IDSP) XML files and would like a way to specify these values in a single places rather than maintain them in multiple locations.

An enhancement that was added in Metacoda Plug-ins 6.1 R3 (Feb 2020) included Continue reading “Metacoda Plug-ins Tip: Replaceable Tokens”

Metacoda Plug-ins Tip: Locate a Metadata Object By Id

This tip was prompted by a question from a Metacoda customer who, having seen a SAS® metadata object id in a log file (e.g. A53GCFFH.AP00001D), wanted to quickly identify what SAS metadata object that id referred to. As a Metacoda Plug-ins user they have access to the Metacoda Metadata Explorer plug-in which supports simple text based metadata searches as well as special-mode SAS XMLSELECT queries. These latter types of queries allow us to pinpoint the single object using this query:

{{{ *[@Id='A53GCFFH.AP00001D'] }}}

Continue reading “Metacoda Plug-ins Tip: Locate a Metadata Object By Id”

Duplicating or Copying SAS Groups and Roles

As mentioned in an earlier post, Duplicating or Copying SAS Access Control Templates, Metacoda Plug-ins 6.1 R3 also includes support for duplicating groups and roles in SAS metadata. This can be useful when you want to create a new group that is very similar to an existing group, or a role with a very similar set of capabilities as an existing role.

The ability to duplicate groups and roles in Metacoda Plug-ins is limited to unrestricted SAS administrators and restricted SAS user administrators (via membership of either of the standard SAS metadata server roles “Metadata Server: Unrestricted” or “Metadata Server: User Administration“. Continue reading “Duplicating or Copying SAS Groups and Roles”

Duplicating or Copying SAS Users

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”

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”