Saving Report Views by User

[jchase2]

Hello:

Apologies if I'm asking a question that has been answered before (and I'm sure it has), but I can't find the answer within the community.  I've recently launched SAS VA and have about 50 users logging in to review reports that have been pre-configured. These users do not have edit access, they can only view the dashboards which have been granted to his/her username.

I'm getting reports that when users select a variety of filters on a number of reports, that the "views" are not saved at the user level.  Each time they access a report after logging in, they have to re-assign their filters which are largely drop down, list, or radio buttons controls at the section level or if not at the section level, the controls are set up as interactions to a variety of data tables, gauges or charts.

I thought that VA would remember user level settings, but based on the reports I'm receiving that doesn't seem to be the case.  Does anyone know how users can "save" their report views so they don't have to re-configure them fresh each time?

I have about 50 people logging in and accessing the same reports, but each user has a dedicated log-in.

Thank you,

~J

[MichelleHomes]

Hi J,

Preferences and user settings are available at the application level and as you have discovered unfortunately not specifically at the report level for each user. The default values in section prompts and filters is determined by the state it was in the last time the report was saved. Setting an initial user dependent value could possibly be achieved through the use of parameters with SAS Visual Analytics 7.1.

I can see how it would be beneficial to have a user profile setting stored in metadata in the report object so it's state (selections & filters) can be restored for future use.

- any thoughts/plans for this feature in the future?

Cheers,

Michelle

[jchase2]

Thank you Michelle for your quick response! 

I noticed your other posts regarding row level restrictions using the LASR table.  In theory, if I set up specific restrictions on the data variables for each of the usernames, that would basically get me to the same result as saving the report views?  Most of my users only need to access data for their region, so if I restrict based on region for the given log-ins it should do the trick.

Thoughts?

-Jared

[MichelleHomes]

Hi Jared,

I hadn't mention the use of as I wasn't sure what the filter was your users were doing. If you want to do region based subsetting on the data and you have SAS metadata groups that correspond to the regions then using row level security with a conditional grant on the data item based on the group (region) would mean your users will only see the rows of data in the LASR table for the region they are a member of. This means you could then remove your section prompt (or control object) on the region from the report.

The blog post I wrote (link in the thread above) steps through how to do this for a user and you may want to consider using metadata groups instead of users in case your users move from region to region.

Let us know how you go.

KInd Regards,

Michelle

[muralinori_sas]

The ability to save user state is planned for future release.  We plan to support more than just filter value selections, but save other user interactions like drill state, zoom state, in the web and mobile viewers. 

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. 

Regards,

Murali

[jchase2]

Hello Murali:

Thanks!  Any chance you have any sort of timeline related to this release?

Thanks,

Jared

[bmeric]

Hi Murali,

I've come across this thread, and I'm having this same issue. Do you know if we have the capability to save user state? I'm using version 7.3

Thanks.

[SASno0b]

Has this ever been addressed?

[Madelyn_SAS]

Yes. SAS Visual Analytics 8.3 maintains viewer state across sessions. When you reopen a report, SAS Report Viewer will restore the report to the state that you left it in during your previous session. This includes your page selection, prompt values, hierarchy drill states, and other elements of your viewer state.

[SASno0b]

Thank you! I am only on 7.4   ....If we are on the 7.4 platform can only the report viewer be upgraded to 8.3?

[SASKiwi]

No. Also VA 8.3 is a completely different architecture based on SAS Viya. A complete new install on new servers would be required.

Having said that SAS VA 7.5 came out recently and that contains a lot of back-ported functionality from VA 8.3. If the enhancement you need is in 7.5 then a simple upgrade might solve your problem.