Managing users and their dashboards, resetting dashboards

Two questions;


1)Is there a way to lock down a dashboard so that a user only gets it as VIEW only with the options to share/save (pdf, excel, etc)? I’m suspecting this has to do with permissions, but can they be user-based as well as object-based so that some users cannot do anything but view-only on ALL THE THINGS, but other users might be able to check-out the same dashboard that that user can only view?


2) Other than showing users how to un-checkout their changes to a dashboard, is there a way to RESET a dashboard?



Users. I have them.


You are correct, it's related to permissions. Aside from the general application-wide permissions, you can control them per-file.

Right-click the file eith in the Explore or the file explorer in the Admin section, and select Properties. Then, click Security. You will see a dialog where you can add groups and users and configure their permissions for that specific file.

And here is a little bonus: Version 5 will have some noticeable improvements on that front!


As for the second question, you have the option to revert the dashboard to a previous version via the revision history. However, this is not a substitution to the Check in/out process, since the previous versions are defined by check ins.

Thanks for the reply.

For the first question I am looking for some varying levels of granularity for user permissions and object-level permissions (e.g. dashboards). Perhaps the problem is with understanding some of the descriptors on Privileges and how to most easily apply on an object-scale (user, group, dashboard/project). Most of our dashboards will be VIEW-ONLY reports, with the option of save as/share (pdf, excel).


Whatever happened to simple READ, WRITE, EXCUTE? That is essentially what i am trying to prvide here.


Note, I am at this from the perspective of the System Admin as well as a dashboard developer.


1) VIEW-ONLY USER: Lock a user down so they cannot do anything to anything they are allowed to view. Essentially the user is a VIEW ONLY users, regardless of dashboard privileges or groups the user might be in that may have privileges.


2) VIEW-ONLY DASHBAORD: Lock down a dashboard so that it cannot be altered unless the user is a power user or a developer.


3) VIEW-ONLY PROJECT. Lock down a project so that it cannot be altered unless the user is a power user or a developer.


Does this all come across with an export/import? If so I imagine I have to include all the users, groups and the project/dashboards? I recently learned that notifications don’t come across during that process so I’m hoping I don’t have to recreate permissions from TEST to PROD.

For the second question I need to reset a user’s dashboard to what I originally delivered to him since he “messed it up.”

We are still in the early stages of deployment and thus have not provided any training on how to use Dundas or the dashboards other than to talk them through the SHARE option. I’m not sure what he didn’t, but he wants it back to how I gave it to him originally.


I can see this happening frequently, especially if I can’t or don’t lock users down to VIEW-ONLY so having this option and understanding how to use it would be helpful to me.

The read, write execute are all present in the permissions.

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I believe the other permissions should be self-explanatory.


The granularity is controlled by where and who you set the permissions for. You can set them on the project, the folder, the file, the group, and the user.


And yes, I believe the permissions are included in the export. However, I haven't tested that part personally, so I will ask someone who has to confirm.


As for the second question, that will depend on what changes it is you are referring to. Are those personalization changes or did the user actually change the metric set? To clear personalization, see this article:

https://www.dundas.com/support/support-center/support-articles/viewing/using-personalization

For metric set changes, however, you will have to revert to a previous version as I have mentioned before.

Yes the permissions are included in the export if you include users/groups during the export process.


The notifications on the other hand, cannot be exported because each instance will use its own scheduler independently, that's why you will have to re-create all the scheduled jobs and/or notifications when you deploy the project from th test server to the production server.

We use a security hierarchy that filters what the user can see based on a custom attribute set in the user profile. The context here would be executive view (all), district view (stores in their district), or just their own store (lowest level). The notifications feature follows that security hierarchy for me, so the PDFs are exactly what they'd see in the application. I use this on all my dashboards where appropriate access is required.

Hi Joyce Young,

You can control the access of user for share/save (pdf, excel, etc) in dundas 5.