Metadata: Data Source of Web Report Studio Report

[Criptic]

I would like to find out how to query the metadata of WRS reports using the metadata functions (metadata_getnobj, etc.). Looking through the metadata browser on my machine I can't find the reports. Does anybody know where the report metadata is stored or with I have to register (or something similar) my reports first to access metadata about them.

Best regards

David

I'm on SAS 9.4

[Criptic]

Follow up question, in the definition of my report I find the information where the IMap is stored, but I can't find the path on my physical machine (AIX):

<InformationMap absolutePathLocation="/Maps/DB2_kurz(InformationMap)" identity="root" obj="x1">

[MichelleHomes]

If you are after BI lineage type information then this thread may help you https://communities.sas.com/t5/Administration-and-Deployment/Programmatically-navigating-BI-lineage/...

Kind Regards,

Michelle

[Criptic]

Thanks for your reply.

I'm after lineage type information but it looks like the data source of a WRS Report is only storred in its definition and not in its metadata.

[MichelleHomes]

It is probably there in the metadata. We had a similar question today with one of our customer asking the same question with VA. https://platformadmin.com/blogs/paul/2017/04/finding-sas-visual-analytics-reports-that-use-a-table/

Kind Regards,

Michelle

[Criptic]

This sounds like what I try to do, but if I execute (I of course adapted the example to my situation) the command I get an error which leads me to this website http://support.sas.com/kb/54/914.html - I am on 9.4M2 but I checked in the Application Manager and it is noted that I'm connecting via HTTP and not HTTPS

Looking at the information of a report in the metadata browser there is no assocication for the datasource of a report. Notes only gives me WRSHints. Properties contains only items of type Property. Responsible Parties contains the report author. And Trees contains the WRS folder in which the report is saved.

[Criptic]

I have found the Reports and IMaps in the metadata browser (Transformation and TransformRole is Report - InformationMap) but the Reports are not linked back to the Information Map they have as a data source (which I can look at in WRS). Does anybody know where this connection can be found?

[PaulHomes]

The metadata for a SAS Web Report Studio report does not directly contain an association to the information map data source. For that you would need to fetch and look inside the XML report definition (.SRX) stored inside the SAS Content Server. For example:

If I have a report in metadata at/Folder/ReportName.srx then I will find the report definition at http://midtierhost:7980/SASContentServer/repository/default/sasfolders/Folder/ReportName.srx(Report)

If I fetch and examine that XML resource I find a tag like so that points to the info map in metadata:

<InformationMap identity="root" obj="x1" absolutePathLocation="/Folder/InfoMapName(InformationMap)">

I notice you have already seen this, however the path is not a file system path but a metadata path. Once you have that path and name you can look up the information map in metadata and ultimately, via metadata associations, find the table(s) behind it.

This is a complex process and unless you want to handle the fetching and parsing of the report definition, and chasing all the metadata associations (including more advanced options of multiple info maps, stored process / OLAP sources etc), I would recommend you use the SAS 9.4 Relationship Reporting Tools to follow these paths. I have an example of using the sas-relationship-reporter in the blog post Michelle previously mentioned: Finding SAS Visual Analytics Reports that use a Table. Gerry Nelson did a blog post about them Relationships are easy – for SAS objects! and the documentation can be found in the Using the Batch Relationship Reporting Tools section in the SAS 9.4 Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

[Madelyn_SAS · Accepted solution]

You said:

"I would like to find out how to query the metadata of WRS reports ..."

What information are you looking for exactly? Because I think it is likely that the BI Lineage reporting will meet your needs. For example, you can use the plug-in "...to identify the information maps, cubes, and tables that provided the source data, as well as any stored processes that processed the data."

It also produces SAS data sets that you can use to create Web Report Studio reports that analyze the data.

The offiical documentation for BI Lineage is here:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/bisag/68240/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p14w0edwch53wdn1fior...

This is an older sample that explains how to use the data sets to produce reports that identify broken associations.

http://support.sas.com/kb/33/574.html