This page has 0 threads | Add post

Blogs

Finding our blogs useful? Please consider helping us to share more!

How to use security roles to restrict access to your SSAS Tabular model Part three of a five-part series of blogs
Perspectives in Analysis Services let you show different parts of your tabular model to different people, but they don't have any security. To ensure that the right eyes see the right bits of your model, you'll need to create and manage security roles, as explained in this blog. Security in SSAS Tabular - creating and managing roles Creating a permissions table Using CustomData to make row filters dynamic (this blog) Controlling what a user sees using their logon name Assigning members to roles This blog is part of our online SSAS Tabular tutorial; we also offer lots of other Analysis Services training resources.

How to use security roles to restrict access to your SSAS Tabular model

Part three of a five-part series of blogs

Perspectives in Analysis Services let you show different parts of your tabular model to different people, but they don't have any security. To ensure that the right eyes see the right bits of your model, you'll need to create and manage security roles, as explained in this blog.

Security in SSAS Tabular - creating and managing roles
Creating a permissions table
Using CustomData to make row filters dynamic (this blog)
Controlling what a user sees using their logon name
Assigning members to roles

This blog is part of our online SSAS Tabular tutorial; we also offer lots of other Analysis Services training resources.

Posted by Andy Brown on 26 February 2016

Using CustomData to make row filters dynamic

DAX contains a function called CustomData, the sole purpose of which seems to be to make a connection string dynamic. The example below shows how to create a role which can be configurable to show the data for any MAM region.

Creating the security role

To create a dynamic row filter to solve the problem above, first create a role as follows:

If the custom data flag is not passed in, this will return False; otherwise, it will return True only if the region for the current row equals the one passed in via the connection string.

If you're wanting to copy this formula, here it is:

IF (

CUSTOMDATA () = "",

FALSE (),

Region[RegionName] = CUSTOMDATA ()

)

Setting the custom data flag in the connection string

If you now create a pivot table using this role, you'll see no data:

If you use this role when viewing a pivot table based upon your model, you'll see nothing!

This is because the custom data flag hasn't been set, and so the row filter formula for the region always returns False. To get round this, amend the connection string:

One way to edit the connection string used is to choose this ribbon option.

Choose to show the Definition tab in the dialog box which appears:

Click on this tab first.

Add a value for the CustomData flag:

You don't have to make this the last attribute, but it's easiest to read if you do.

When you select OK, your pivot table will show data for the London region:

For transactions occurring in the London region, the row filter formula now returns True.

I suspect that this is only useful if you have a client application in which it's easy to change the connection string (an example might be Reporting Services).

Parts of this blog
Security in SSAS Tabular - creating and managing roles Creating a permissions table Using CustomData to make row filters dynamic (this blog) Controlling what a user sees using their logon name Assigning members to roles

Some other pages relevant to the above blogs include:

This blog has 0 threads

Add a new post

Book any course as classroom, onsite or online training, or as one-to-one consultancy

Free resources

Paid services

Getting help

Where we are

Where you are

Online

Transparent reviews

Delivery of courses

Nicer to work with

Reliable and established

Our training courses

C#

Excel

MySQL

Power Apps

Power Automate

Power BI and DAX

Python

Report Builder

SQL

SQL Server

VBA Macros

Other training resources

Blogs

Exercises

YouTube tutorials

YouTube shorts

Test your skills

Consultancy

Courseware

Self-paced courses

Newsletters

Publications

Our training venues

London

Manchester

Across the UK

At your site

Online

Why we are different

Hundreds of published reviews

Small class sizes

Outstanding courseware

Online classroom

(Almost) no cancellations

Wise Owl trainers only

Genuine integrity

Invoices after training

30+ years of Wise Owl

Our top 100 clients

BLOGS BY TOPIC

BLOGS BY AUTHOR

Using CustomData to make row filters dynamic

Creating the security role

Setting the custom data flag in the connection string

Head office

London

Manchester