Administrators for IBM Cognos environments are able to control user access to object such as reports, packages, and data sources, as well as access to functionality within the application. Users can access current activities, past activities, upcoming activities, and schedules on the Status tab in IBM Cognos Administration to monitor the server activities and manage schedules (as long as they have been granted access). To grant access to the scheduling functionality independently from the monitoring functionality, use the scheduling capability.
The scheduling capability controls access to the scheduling functionality for items that can be run, such as reports. The following secured features are associated with this function:
 | Schedule by day |
Users can schedule entries daily.
| Schedule by hour |
Users can schedule entries by the hour.
| Schedule by minute |
Users can schedule entries by the minute.
| Schedule by month |
Users can schedule entries monthly.
| Schedule by trigger |
Users can schedule entries based on a trigger.
| Schedule by week |
Users can schedule entries weekly.
| Schedule by year |
Users can schedule entries yearly.
| Scheduling Priority |
Users can set up and change the processing priority of scheduled entries.
Sam Carter is the Administrator for the IBM Cognos environment at the Great Outdoors company. Sam is busy and decides to delegate several of his more simple tasks so that he can pay more attention to other work. Sam decides to permit certain users at the Great Outdoors company to access the IBM Cognos scheduling features so that they can create and manage their own schedules. Because Lynn Cope is an Advanced Business User and Report Author at Great Outdoors company, Sam decides to grant her access to IBM Cognos scheduling capabilities.
To simplify the addition of this capability for more users in the future, Sam creates a new role in the Cognos namespace called self-serve scheduling and adds Lynn Cope to that role. Sam now grants scheduling capabilities to the new self-serve scheduling role.
To grant access to scheduling capabilities within IBM Cognos BI:
| 1. | Log on to IBM Cognos BI using credentials for a user with access to administrative features and open IBM Cognos Administration. |
| 2. | Click the Security tab. |
| 3. | Click Capabilities. |
| 5. | Note that the scheduling capability is highlighted as a live link. This indicates that there are additional features associated with this capability that can be secured individually. Click Scheduling. Figure 10-40 shows the Capabilities panel. |
Figure 10-40 The Capabilities panel within IBM Cognos Administration
| 6. | Access to secured functions can be configured through the capability's properties. Click the down arrow next to Schedule by hour, and then click Set Properties. Figure 10-41 shows the features that are available within the scheduling function. |
Figure 10-41 Setting properties to grant access to schedule by hour capabilities
| 7. | When the Set Properties window opens, click Permissions. |
| 8. | Click Add and browse to the Cognos namespace by clicking Cognos. |
| 9. | Select the role by selecting Self-serve Scheduling, click the add arrow, and then click OK. Figure 10-42 shows the process of selecting the role that will be granted access to the schedule by hour capability. |
Figure 10-42 Selecting the custom self-serve scheduling role
| 10. | Grant self-serve scheduling execute and traverse rights for the schedule by hour capability by selecting Self-serve Scheduling and then selecting Execute and Traverse under the Grant column. Click OK. Figure 10-43 shows an example of granting access to a capability for an IBM Cognos role. |
Figure 10-43 Granting access rights
| 11. | Members of the self-server scheduling custom-created role can now access scheduling functionality and schedule their own activities without administrator involvement. |
You can also use the process that we described previously to restrict access to scheduling capabilities. Administrators can permit or deny users the right to schedule their own activities based on schedule frequency or by trigger. For example, one group of users can be granted full access to scheduling functionality, whereas another can be limited to only scheduling activities on a weekly basis.
