Cognos Analytics

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  • 1.  Hiding Path in Shortcuts and Recent Location

    Posted Mon November 07, 2022 09:50 AM
    Does anyone know of a way to hide the path information when it comes to shortcuts/recent locations

    We have a global generic package for reports that sits outside the user's root folders and is not visible normally.  However, the additional of URL information in shortcuts is allowing users to navigate where they aren't normally supposed to go. 

    Looking for a way to prevent users from navigating outside their home directory. 

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    Dax Lawless

    Consultant III - Professional Services Consulting
    DECCx: Digital Enablement, Collaboration and Customer Experience
    Verizon Business Group


    M 3195382382

          


    #CognosAnalyticswithWatson


  • 2.  RE: Hiding Path in Shortcuts and Recent Location

    IBM Champion
    Posted Mon November 07, 2022 10:53 AM
    Edited by System Fri January 20, 2023 04:17 PM
    By shortcuts do you mean the links you get from the share dialogue?

    You can use the storeID instead of the path. 

    Let's say your shortcut looks like this:
    https://cognos.pm2analytics.com/sandbox/bi/?pathRef=.public_folders%2FDemo%2FFancy%2Breport

    Replace the pathRef with objRef and the storeid, and add the perspective.
    https://cognos.pm2analytics.com/sandbox/bi/?perspective=authoring&objRef=iA3E27A70292D42849A5E03A3EAC34D44

    The Most Recent list isn't really modifiable. You could, in theory, make a replacement Most Recent screen without the Location column, and I think even if you did modify it once the user's run the report, they'll still see the path in the URL.

    So the big issue is user's being able to see folders they shouldn't. Why not set the the Hide Entries? Remove everyone from the list, and add in the developer and admin roles. End Users won't be able to view hidden folders or their contents, but will still be able to execute objects inside them.



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    Paul Mendelson
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  • 3.  RE: Hiding Path in Shortcuts and Recent Location

    Posted Mon November 07, 2022 11:31 AM
    I wasn't explicitly referring to the share dialogue in my initial post, however that also seems to be a point where the reference to the user's report that they execute is to the base report, not the shortcut of the report in the user's Team Content folder.

    image.png

    In the above screenshot, the "Core" > "Current Release" is a hyperlinked reference to the global core package that sits outside the users Team Content path -- and is hidden from view, and shortcuts to these reports are deployed within the user's Team Content path.  This enables us to deploy a report change 1x and have it apply auto-magically to every user. 

    What would be ideal would be the disabling/hiding of the hyperlinking in the shortcut objects themselves that show up in the Recent menu/page. 

    --

    Dax Lawless

    Consultant III - Professional Services Consulting
    DECCx: Digital Enablement, Collaboration and Customer Experience
    Verizon Business Group


    M 3195382382

          






  • 4.  RE: Hiding Path in Shortcuts and Recent Location

    Posted Mon November 07, 2022 11:56 AM
    Here are some screenshots to illustrate the issue:

    Recent Home Page -- Location Column

    Cognos Hidden Entries Exposed - Screenshot 2022-11-07 103815.png

    Recent Menu Items:

    Cognos Hidden Entries Exposed Screenshot 2022-11-07 103920.png

    Share Dialogue (you gave the option for this) -- we'd also like to change the URL to our customer facing URL vs the internal one referenced:

    Cognos Hidden Entries Exposed Screenshot 2022-11-07 104031.png


    --

    Dax Lawless

    Consultant III - Professional Services Consulting
    DECCx: Digital Enablement, Collaboration and Customer Experience
    Verizon Business Group


    M 3195382382

          






  • 5.  RE: Hiding Path in Shortcuts and Recent Location

    IBM Champion
    Posted Tue November 08, 2022 04:39 AM
    Edited by System Fri January 20, 2023 04:43 PM
    While the recent menu is normally unchangeable, I have been able to build my own version of the menu for the premium version of CogBox.


    I was also able to make a Most Recent tab for the content screen:




    I would absolutely be able to make a replacement Recent menu that excludes the link to the folder. You would be able to use that and disable the original menu for your users.

    The share menu is a little more difficult, I'll have to think what to do with that. In the meantime you can disable the share functionality for individual users. 




    Instead of using shortcuts, what about Report Views? They behave similarly, but the recent menus would reference those instead of the shortcut.

    Contact me via the pm2 website https://pmsquare.com/contact-us we can go over the exact needs


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    Paul Mendelson
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  • 6.  RE: Hiding Path in Shortcuts and Recent Location

    IBM Champion
    Posted Tue November 08, 2022 04:47 AM
    I just uploaded the Most Recent tab as a file in the library here: https://community.ibm.com/community/user/businessanalytics/viewdocument/most-recent-tab-for-content-screen?CommunityKey=6b10df83-0b3c-4f92-8b1f-1fd80d0e7e58&tab=librarydocuments


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    Paul Mendelson
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