I would like to share a Cognos Analytics 11.1.6 (active) report with the entire organisation, thus including people without a license. Is there a way to do this?
Thanks in advance!
The whole point of an Active Report is that it is portable. Output from an Active Report can be viewed outside the Cognos environment. You should be able to schedule the report to be sent via email to whoever needs it and they can interact with the data contained therein.
That being said, I don't use Active Reports because they rely on specific browsers that my organization does not allow. So there may be other limitations (amount of data, for example) that I don't know about.
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hope you lovely gentleman can help x
i have three folders of word dosuments. these need to be accessed by workers on site via tablets /phones.
i created a power app for internal users, the issue being some of the workers are contracted to us and may not have MS licenses on their phones.
is there a better way of me providing access to the latest version of these documents to employees external and internal. ideally the external ones may be given a log in. the information isnt really sensitive however i wouldnt want anyone just being able to access it.
i looked at power pages but there is a subsription fee. i dont know if theres any apps, or other solutions i am missing?
really appreciate your help
lucy x
tried power apps, however some users dont have licenses
I am trying to figure out a way to create a secure data entry process using Microsoft Office (cannot use Azure by the way). The obvious way is to use Microsoft Forms, but the form would be too large as there are over 150 data points that need to be entered.
I have instead created an Excel file that has the ability to load responses to a SharePoint list. This works as long as the list is public and viewers have contribute privileges. The downside to this is that the data is not secure and anyone can view the list. The data has phone numbers, ssn, passports, etc. I tried to make a work around for this by creating a flow that captured any new entries and moved them to my personal private SharePoint list, then deleted the original. This works great, but after testing with my colleague it seems that anyone can join the first team and make an identical flow to that team to capture data themselves.
Is there a way to accept data from anyone internally while also preventing them from accessing the data? I am capable of using SharePoint, Teams, Power Automate, and Access to accomplish this. I am less familiar with access but have used it before. I'm just not sure how secure it is.
I'll be happy to provide further information as needed. Thanks
You could consider Access forms, and then have the tables reside on SharePoint.
You can then say base the form on a query, and in that query you could provide (have) the user name included as part of the query where clause (thus a user removing or changing the forms filter will only provide a view of their own data.). However, such uses if they fired up Access (or even Excel) could wind up with seeing all rows in the table and not what the Access query restricts the data to (the one user).
Unfortantly with Access desktop? And like most desktop software? Well the goal and design and history is that of allowing ease of data editing and viewing. So, just like when you walk into a bank, and wait in line? Well, when you get to the teller, they will fire up a access form based like system and pull up your account information. And any and all tellers can see/view and pull up that data because that is what the software supposed to do, and do well. (get at any customer data).
Now, flip this problem, and create a user web banking system, or even a instant teller. Now the problem is backwards. The software's goal is not ease of editing data in a table, but ONLY allowing the user to see THEIR data. So a very different kind of problem.
It is very (beyond very) to note that web development tools do not out of the blue or automatics restrict data to JUST the one user. It is YOU the developer that makes that choice. So, if we could press a button and have a access form converted to the web? Well, then that access form would do its job in life. That job is to allow you to edit all that data in a table. Not just YOUR data.
For example, have you ever written a Access application that JUST displays each users own data? I am betting not! It is hard to do. (because the roots of Access is ease of editing data). As noted, I cannot stress that web development tools do the SAME thing. They can let you edit data. The editing of data is thus a software issue and development issue. The data system or Access or even SQL server? They just hold data. It is YOUR software that has to decide that ONLY data for the one user is to be displayed.
Now so very often web systems ONLY show YOUR data. But that VERY common case is due to the nature of web systems, and that your not a bank teller, or a company employee, but that of a consumer of that system. And each consumer now is 100% opposite of what most software systems do naturally (that is get data from a table).
So, I can't stress this concept enough. That concept is that web software and systems do NOT make this restricting of data choice for you. It is your developer tools that MUST have this ability and ALSO the choice of how you build such systems.
Web systems can do this data restricting data better for several reasons.
One big reason? Well, most of the time you adopt some kind of security and logon system.
Thus, parts of the web site now are restricted based on your logon system. (hey, maybe you use Facebook logons). So web systems have a very good and wide and broad system of supporting some kind of logon system. For desktop software? not so much.
But EVEN with that very robust and type of security system and logon system?
You the developer STILL have to make the choice of what data they see. Maybe it is traveling salesmen on the road. And thus every user of that web system still has to be able to edit, view and add customers to that system. This common case is not really different then a typical Access form to edit data.
So only SOME types of web applications need that restricting of data to JUST the one logged on user. But, because web systems have that "better" logon system? Then you the developer can thus now use that logon to restrict data with greater ease then what desktop software dev tools often offer (say like access).
So, a lot of this will come down to the web tools used. If you pulling data with Excel, or Access? Then it considerable more difficult to pull JUST data that belongs to a given user. And your software will require designs from day one with these restrictions in mind.
Again, at the risk of repeating myself?
the tools don't' make the data restrictions for you. If you need secure data for ONLY the given user, then you simply have to adopt a set of developer tools that allow this concept in mind. And that tends to mean the tools you use do NOT by default allow users to directly edit or link to some big table of data that contains all users data.
This is also why say a program written in VB6, or now vb.net can be more secure then Access. (because those tools by default don't provide forms that are designed from day one to edit all rows of data). So, the UI does not present default forms and things that gives users the ability to edit all rows. As a result, then the software can now control what records the users sees, and since they don't' have some default form that allows viewing of all rows.
It thus becomes more practical to write software that only dishes out their own data. But again, and I can't stress this:
The choice of what data to display is a choice of the software developer - not the database nor the web development tools.
It thus stands to reason then you have to chose the appropriate tools that will allow you to write software that restricts the data in a manor you require.
General questions on SO in regards to what flavor of ice cream or what dev tools to use tends to be frowned upon, and is quite much against the general rules for solving software and code issues you have and post on SO.
But, if you come from say Access with VBA skills? Then I would suggest adopting the free verison of Visual Studio and go with vb.net + asp.net web forms. Web forms are close to end of life, but they are by far and away the best choice, the least effort (coming from Access) and will give you a robust security model in which you can restrict data on a per user basis.
I would not duck tape and try to cobble together such a system with office tools, since they are not really designed for that type of data restricting you need. So, go with some good quality web tools like Visual Studio (free version is fine) and use SQL server (free version again) is really the way to go here. If you need a truck in place of a car, then get the right kind of truck, and don't try and use a car for that transport of goods, or in this case build a secure web database system.
I need to combine the energy consumption every month in my company from various sources. I do the calculations in the excel sheets which I receive every month. How do i combine all the sheets and make a dashboard and also update the dashboard every month automatically once the excel is updated?
Which is the best form of tableau to use(Public,desktop or server)?
What exactly is the difference among the three?
Are the excel sheets a good data source in tableau?
You are asking a lot of questions which should probably be raised separately, but I will try to answer some of them anyway since they all relate to the same use case.
1. How do I combine and make a dashboard
Since Tableau 9.3 you are able to use Union. This will combine all your excel files into a single source of data you can use. I think your data sources should however have the same structure. Meaning the sheets containing information should have the same columns.
You can dynamically and automatically do this using wildcard search. This way it will try and add all files that for example are located in the same folder.
More information on this here.
From the moment you have at least one file as a data source you can start creating a dashboard.
2. Which is the best form of Tableau
I don't think you truly understand the difference between the Tableau applications you mention.
You will need Tableau Dashboard to actually create a dashboard.
If you want to be able to share this dashboard through the web you will need either Tableau Server, Tableau Public or Tableau Online. Everything published on Tableau public will be publicly available. So if your data is considered restricted, sensitive or should not be shared outside your company you should not consider this.
Tableau server on the other hand is server software you can install on a local host which allows you to publish your dashboards and sheets so people with a Tableau server license can access it through a web interface.
Then there is Tableau Online which offers almost the same except that Tableau will take care of the hosting. This is the SaaS solution for making your dashboards available online.
Lastly there is Tableau Reader which is a free desktop application that is able to open your Tableau workbooks, but cannot modify them and has limited access to external data sources.
3. Is Excel a good data source
This really depends on your use case and is probably opinion based. Since the possibility of union and the ability to automatically bring in and update data I think Excel files can be a useful resource. What you need to consider is where the Excel files are stored, how you will connect to them and how many users will need to access them. If other users can easily modify the Excel file and create errors this is another downside of using them as a source.
When you publish your dashboard on e.g. Tableau Server and you want the dashboard to automatically change there as well, the Excel file needs to be accessible from there as well and should not be included in the dashboard. If you feel like none of the above is an issue then at the moment Excel is great for you.
Is it possible to query historical data from Active Directory? Does it keep it?
Can I execute anything like this:
Get User's Direct Reports
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dn151686.aspx
to find out the list of the user’s direct reports for a day in the past?
No.
Currently (as of November the 6th 2013) there is no such option/feature in the WAAD.
The feature that I expect to see in the future releases (and is totally my speculation and expectation) is related more to auditing logs (such as who did what and when), which might eventually help you.
I'm looking for a way of programmatically exporting Facebook insights data for my pages, in a way that I can automate it. Specifically, I'd like to create a scheduled task that runs daily, and that can save a CSV or Excel file of a page's insights data using a Facebook API. I would then have an ETL job that puts that data into a database.
I checked out the oData service for Excel, which appears to be broken. Does anyone know of a way to programmatically automate the export of insights data for Facebook pages?
It's possible and not too complicated once you know how to access the insights.
Here is how I proceed:
Login the user with the offline_access and read_insights.
read_insights allows me to access the insights for all the pages and applications the user is admin of.
offline_access gives me a permanent token that I can use to update the insights without having to wait for the user to login.
Retrieve the list of pages and applications the user is admin of, and store those in database.
When I want to get the insights for a page or application, I don't query FQL, I query the Graph API: First I calculate how many queries to graph.facebook.com/[object_id]/insights are necessary, according to the date range chosen. Then I generate a query to use with the Batch API (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/batch/). That allows me to get all the data for all the available insights, for all the days in the date range, in only one query.
I parse the rather huge json object obtained (which weight a few Mb, be aware of that) and store everything in database.
Now that you have all the insights parsed and stored in database, you're just a few SQL queries away from manipulating the data the way you want, like displaying charts, or exporting in CSV or Excel format.
I have the code already made (and published as a temporarily free tool on www.social-insights.net), so exporting to excel would be quite fast and easy.
Let me know if I can help you with that.
It can be done before the week-end.
You would need to write something that uses the Insights part of the Facebook Graph API. I haven't seen something already written for this.
Check out http://megalytic.com. This is a service that exports FB Insights (along with Google Analytics, Twitter, and some others) to Excel.
A new tool is available: the Analytics Edge add-ins now have a Facebook connector that makes downloads a snap.
http://www.analyticsedge.com/facebook-connector/
There are a number of ways that you could do this. I would suggest your choice depends on two factors:
What is your level of coding skill?
How much data are you looking to move?
I can't answer 1 for you, but in your case you aren't moving that much data (in relative terms). I will still share three options of many.
HARD CODE IT
This would require a script that accesses Facebook's GraphAPI
AND a computer/server to process that request automatically.
I primarily use AWS and would suggest that you could launch an EC2
and have it scheduled to launch your script at X times. I haven't used AWS Pipeline, but I do know that it is designed in a way that you can have it run a script automatically as well... supposedly with a little less server know-how
USE THIRD PARTY ADD-ON
There are a lot of people who have similar data needs. It has led to a number of easy-to-use tools. I use Supermetrics Free to run occasional audits and make sure that our tools are running properly. Supermetrics is fast and has a really easy interface to access Facebooks API's and several others. I believe that you can also schedule refreshes and updates with it.
USE THIRD PARTY FULL-SERVICE ETL
There are also several services or freelancers that can set this up for you at little to no work on your own. Depending on where you want the data. Stitch is a service I have worked with on FB-ads. There might be better services, but it has fulfilled our needs for now.
MY SUGGESTION
You would probably be best served by using a third-party add-on like Supermetrics. It's fast and easy to use. The other methods might be more worth looking into if you had a lot more data to move, or needed it to be refreshed more often than daily.