What's New

What's New in Web Application Administration for the SAS 9.2 Intelligence Platform

The middle tier of the SAS Intelligence Platform provides an execution environment for business intelligence Web applications such as SAS Web Report Studio and SAS Information Delivery Portal.

The middle tier has the following changes and enhancements:

common Web administration
better integration with third-party security products
SAS Content Server
SAS Web Application Themes
SAS Information Delivery Portal administration
SAS Web Report Studio administration
SAS BI Dashboard administration

The middle tier and its applications are supported on Windows and UNIX. JBoss, WebLogic, and WebSphere application servers are supported on Windows and UNIX. Beginning with the third maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later, the WebSphere application server is supported on the z/OS platform.

Common Web Administration

A common Web infrastructure provides consistent and cohesive Web applications that are well integrated. This infrastructure layer results in the following enhancements:

A new SAS Web Infrastructure Platform provides basic services and applications that are used by all Web applications that run in the middle tier of the intelligence platform. The SAS Web Infrastructure Platform contains some of the technology that the SAS Web Infrastructure Kit contained in previous releases, such as the SAS Services Application and the SAS Stored Processes Web Application. However, the SAS Web Infrastructure Platform technologies are used not only by the SAS Information Delivery Portal, but also by other SAS Web applications. The SAS Web Infrastructure Kit no longer exists.
You can customize SAS themes in a single place. The Web applications can then be configured to use the theme that you customize.
All Web authentication occurs through a central authentication service. This change simplifies the task of configuring Web authentication.
SAS Web Administration Console enables you to log on from a remote site and view information that is normally available in the SAS Management Console. You can view authenticated users and system users that are logged on to a SAS Web applications, as well as the current configuration of Web applications deployed at your site.
In the second maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later, the Restart Maintenance Wizard provides the following features:
- Enables you to send e-mail to users to log off from their sessions within a specified deadline.
- Logs off users after the specified deadline.
- Prohibits new users from logging in to their user applications.
The second maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later also includes the Quiesce System. The Quiesce System feature is useful when you want to enable existing users to stay logged on to their user sessions, but you want to quiesce the system by preventing new users from logging on to SAS Web applications. You can also access the SAS Content Server page to manage folders and permissions for content in the SAS Content Server.
With the SAS Deployment Manager, you can either remove an existing configuration or rebuild SAS Web applications. Beginning with the second maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later, when you rebuild Web applications by using the SAS Deployment Manager, the EAR files for the Web applications are automatically exploded and placed in two different directories.
The SAS Configuration Manager, which is available in the SAS Management Console, enables you change settings or specify property names and values for several applications, including SAS Information Delivery Portal, SAS Web Report Studio, and SAS BI Dashboard.
Logging for all SAS applications is accomplished by using the Logging Service Configuration dialog box within the Configuration Manager in SAS Management Console.
System folders are not accessible to SAS Web application users, and can be accessed only through SAS Management Console. For example, System and Users folders are both system folders, and are not visible from within SAS Web Report Studio 4.2.
Beginning with the second maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later, the sas-environment.xml file is used to define the available set of SAS environments for SAS client applications. You use this file to configure multiple environments by customizing and deploying this file to an HTTP server.
Beginning with the third maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later, you can alert users by displaying a warning message before they are logged out of their inactive sessions. This feature is supported for SAS Web Report Studio, SAS Package Viewer, SAS Shared applications, SAS Preferences, SAS Web Infrastructure Platform administration, and SAS Stored Processes. However, if the SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.2 is configured at your site, this feature should not be enabled. SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 supports this feature.
Beginning with the third maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later, the JVM command for the bind address is enabled by default to ensure that the Web application server and the JGroups software use the same bind address:
Beginning with the November 2010 Release, you can manually load and update content in the SAS Content Server.

Better Integration with Third-Party Security Products

The following enhancements have been added:

Web authentication is supported for JBoss, Oracle WebLogic, and IBM WebSphere application servers.
The middle-tier software supports interaction with WebSeal and SiteMinder.
Administrators can configure client certification for one-way and two-way SSL authentication.

SAS Content Server

The SAS Content Server is a content repository that stores digital content (such as documents, reports, and images) that is created and used by SAS client applications. The Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) protocol is used to access the SAS Content Server. The SAS Web Administration Console enables you to access the SAS Content Server to view directories, change permissions to directories, and create and delete directories.

Beginning with the second maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later, multiple folders in the SAS Content Server can be deleted concurrently within the SAS Web Administration Console.

Beginning with the third maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later, the SAS Content Server supports database persistence. By default, the SAS Content Server is configured to use the file system for persistence and need not be changed. In special cases, the SAS Content Server can be reconfigured to share and use the database that is used by SAS Shared Services. By default, SAS Shared Services uses the SAS Table Server, but it can be configured to use a different database such as Oracle, MySql, PostgreSQL, DB/2, or SQL Server.

Also, in the third maintenance release for SAS 9.2, the manual setting of JAVA_HOME variable to point to Java 5 is not required.

Beginning with the November 2010 release and later, content for the SAS Content Server can be loaded or updated manually by running a batch file or a script. In addition, directive URLs can be updated manually.

SAS Web Application Themes

SAS Web Application Themes contain definitions for themes that are used by several SAS Web applications. Themes enable you to create and apply consistent, visual customization and company branding that is be applied to all theme-enabled SAS Web Applications.

SAS Web applications such as SAS Web Report Studio, SAS Information Delivery Portal, and SAS BI Dashboard can be configured to facilitate a common look and feel across SAS applications. In SAS Web Report Studio, themes apply to the user interface, including the dialog boxes that are used to view, create, edit, and share reports. Themes contain images, HTML templates, and cascading style sheets (CSS).

SAS Flex Application Themes

Beginning with the November 2010 release, SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 and SAS BI Portlets are displayed with the Flex interface that is provided by SAS Flex Application Themes 2.2. At start-up time, Flex applications load Flex themes automatically. A theme consists of ShockWave Flash (SWF) files that include cascading style sheets (CSS) files. The theme content is downloaded to the client, and is cached by the user's Web browser. As a result, subsequent uses of the Web application result in quicker loading of theme content than it is at initial loading. The SAS Corporate theme is the default theme for all Flex applications.

SAS Information Delivery Portal Administration

SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3

SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 offers these new features for administration:

A content promotion tool is provided. This tool consists of stand-alone batch scripts, shell scripts, and metadata extraction templates. These scripts and templates use the metadata server's import and export capabilities to promote portal metadata from a SAS 9.1.3 or SAS 9.2 deployment to another SAS 9.2 deployment.
SAS Flex Application Themes 2.2 is available in the November 2010 release, and SAS BI Portlets display with the Flex interface.
You can alert users by displaying a warning message before they are logged out of their inactive sessions.
You can choose to enable unchallenged access to the portal. Users can then access the portal and interact with selected content without providing a user ID and password. The option is similar to the Public Kiosk feature in the SAS 9.1.3 release of the SAS Information Delivery Portal. You can either enable the option in an existing deployment, or you can enable it during the process of a new installation or a migration from SAS 9.1.3.
A Diagnostics Portlet enables you to view information about the portal's environment.

The SAS Web OLAP Viewer for Java is no longer supported. It has been replaced by functionality that is available in SAS Web Report Studio 4.3. Therefore, SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 contains the following changes:

Bookmarks and data explorations are not supported.
All data explorations are migrated to SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 reports. However, users can still use the search capabilities within SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 to find those reports, as well as information maps.
SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 includes a new Report Portlet that displays SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 reports.
During software updates, the SAS Information Delivery Portal converts instances of the Information Map Viewer portlet to the new Report Portlet.
Visual Data Explorer is not available to display information maps.

If SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 runs on a JBoss Web application server, and Secure Sockets Layer is configured in your environment, the server.xml file should be edited to specify the emptySessionPath parameter within the section on SSL Connector. This is necessary to enable the SAS BI Portlets to run in this environment.

SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.2

The following enhancements pertain to the administration of SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.2 and later:

The portal uses the SAS Web Infrastructure Plat

form for authentication, security, and other common Web infrastructure services. The portal uses a common framework that provides consistency among all SAS Web applications for configuration:
- message logging within Configuration Manager
- WebDAV content access
- logon and authentication methods
- themes and branding specifications
For managing portal content, a group content administrator is recommended. The group content administrator can share personal content with the group, and can edit or remove content that has been shared with the group.
STICKY pages are referred to as PERSISTENT pages.
The Portal Admins group, which existed in SAS Information Delivery Portal 2.0, is not created in the current version. Instead, the Portal ACT is created and used to set permissions on the Permissions trees.
The SAS Trusted User, who is also the portal administrator, is responsible for administering the portal, and is a member of the Portal ACT.
The public kiosk does not exist anymore. The content administrator shares content with the PUBLIC group to ensure that all users have access to the content.
By default, PUBLIC users have restricted access. In order to enable PUBLIC users to access content in the SAS Information Delivery Portal, you need to enable permissions.
In SAS 9.1.3, the portal created permission trees for identity groups that defined the roles. In SAS 9.2, the portal does not create the permission trees associated with the roles.

SAS BI Portlets Administration

The October 2009 release and later provides SAS BI Portlets that are based on JSR 168 and available in the SAS Enterprise BI Server offering. These portlets are seamlessly integrated into the SAS Information Delivery Portal. SAS BI Portlets are also compatible with the WebSphere Portal 6.1.0.

The November 2010 release consists of the following new features and changes:

The SAS BI Dashboard portlet is a new addition to the suite of SAS BI Portlets.
The Diagnostics portlet is a new portlet that enables you to determine the current status of the portal's environment.
The SAS Collection Portlet, which is included in the suite of SAS BI Portlets and is compliant with JSR 168, does not allow users to search for data explorations. All data explorations are migrated to SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 reports. Users can, however, search for information maps in SAS BI Portlets.
SAS Flex Application Themes 2.2 provides the Flex interface, which displays SAS BI Portlets.

Promotion of Portal Content

Using the content promotion tool provided in SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3, you can promote the following types of portal content to SAS 9.2 deployments:

Portal Application Tree
User Permissions Tree
Portal page template
Portal content object
Portlet instance
Portal page

Batch files and scripts are available to promote portal content.

Typically, organizations develop and test portal content on one system before deploying the content to a production system. The content promotion tool enables you to move portal content from a development system to a production system, and the tool eliminates the need to regenerate the content manually.

SAS Web Report Studio Administration

SAS Web Report Studio 4.3

SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 consists of the following enhancements and changes:

Folders for images, templates, and items for report distribution for users now reside within the /SASWebReportStudio/Common folder. Previously, these folders were located within the /SAS Folders/System/Applications/SAS Web Report Studio/Web Report Studio 4.2 folder. When you upgrade to SAS Web Report Studio 4.3, report templates and report distribution items are copied to the new location. Existing banner images and conditional highlighting images remain in the old location (so that referencing reports continue to work) and are also copied to the new location.
By default, clustering is enabled.
By default, in-process scheduling is supported in a clustered environment. An in-process scheduling server runs as a process inside SAS Web Report Studio, which eliminates the need to send jobs to an external scheduling server. The in-process server is installed as part of the SAS Web Report Studio installation, which eliminates the need to install, maintain, and license separate scheduling servers.
SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 has 30 UDP ports available for use by the application. These ports are in the range of 7560 to 7589.
An event is logged in the WebReportStudio_KeyActions.log file when a user creates, edits, or deletes a distribution list.
Details about SAS Web Report Studio users' logon and logoff from sessions can be viewed conveniently in the WebReportStudio_KeyActions.log file.
You can specify a different directory (other than the default directory) where the Key User Action log files can be saved.
You can specify whether the display of the left pane in SAS Web Report Studio window should depend on the user's preferences during the previous logon session. By specifying the value of user for the wrs.ReportViewPrefs.LeftPanelOpenState property, you can ensure that SAS Web Report Studio retrieves the user's action from the previous logon session, and accordingly displays or eliminates the left pane in the application.
Two new capabilities have been added to SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 and SAS Web Report Viewer 4.3: Allow Direct Access to Cubes and Allow Direct Access to Tables. The Allow Direct Access to Cubes capability is included by default in the following roles: Web Report Studio: Report Creation, Web Report Studio: Advanced, and Web Report Viewer: Advanced.
The Open Maps as Reports capability has been renamed to Allow Direct Access to Information Maps. In addition, the Repair Report capability has been renamed to Update Resources. For sites that upgrade from SAS Web Report Studio 4.2, the names of these capabilities will remain the same.
New styles are available for reports.
The Distribute Report Wizard includes new features.
SAS Web Report Studio reports can be scheduled only by regular users with a SAS identity. SAS internal accounts cannot be used to schedule reports.
The optional trusted parameter is not available in the Report Output Generation tool.
To distribute reports with the Report Output Generation tool in environments with multihomed machines, the Outputgen.ini file should be updated to include the -Djgroups.bind_addr command.
Reports can be scheduled only by regular users with a metadata identity. SAS internal accounts such as the SAS Trusted User cannot be used to schedule reports.

SAS Web OLAP Viewer for Java

The SAS Web OLAP Viewer for Java application is no longer supported. It has been replaced by functionality that is available in SAS Web Report Studio 4.3. SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 contains the following changes:

Bookmarks and data explorations are not supported.
All data explorations are migrated to SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 reports. You can still use the search capabilities within SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 to find those reports, as well as, the information maps.
The migration tool creates a copy of the original data explorations and bookmarks, and places them in the same location where the original content resided.
Visual Data Explorer is not available to display information maps in SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3.
In Edit mode within the portal, users can select a SAS Web Report Studio report instead of a data exploration.
The SAS Collection Portlet, which is included in the suite of SAS BI Portlets and is compliant with JSR 168, does not allow users to search for data explorations. All data explorations are migrated to SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 reports. Users can, however, search for information maps.

SAS Web Report Studio 4.2

The following enhancements pertain to SAS Web Report Studio 4.2 administration:

In SAS Web Report Studio 4.2, you have the flexibility to choose the location of the SAS Web Report Studio user folders anywhere below the SAS Folders directory in the Folders tab window in SAS Management Console. Previously, in SAS Web Report Studio 3.1, you were required to use predefined storage folders. This is no longer the case.
The /BIP Tree/ReportStudio/Shared/Reports folder path does not exist in SAS Web Report Studio 4.2. However, if your organization migrated from SAS 9.1.3 to SAS 9.2, the legacy path is automatically enabled in the Web Report Studio 4.2 Properties dialog box within SAS Management Console. As a result, the legacy folder paths are available to users on the SAS Web Report Studio Location drop-down menu.
SAS Web Report Studio 4.2 offers three predefined roles with certain capabilities that are assigned to these roles initially. These predefined roles include Report Viewing, Report Creation, and Advanced. You are not required to use predefined roles. You have the ability to create roles and capabilities that meet the needs of your organization. You can determine the number of roles to create, which features are available for each role, and control other aspects of role-based behavior.
The Report Distribution Wizard has been significantly enhanced to enable you to create and edit recipient lists by specifying recipient names and e-mail addresses, and channel information within the wizard's dialog boxes.
When users need to view a report, and are transferred by an external application such as the SAS Information Delivery Portal, those users are transferred to SAS Web Report Studio (if the application is installed). The functionality offered by the SAS Web Report Studio is determined by the roles and capabilities that are assigned to these users.
You can set security measures to limit SAS Web Report Studio to interact only with information maps that are in designated locations. For example, you might limit the availability of all relational information maps because some of those information maps include row-level permissions.
The DefaultLoggerProperties.xml file is not used. Logging for all applications is now accomplished by using the Logging Service Configuration dialog box within Configuration Manager in SAS Management Console.
Previously, if client-side pooling was configured, SAS Web Report Studio 3.1 required that the pooling administrator's user name and password be stored in the metadata. This requirement has been waived in SAS Web Report Studio 4.2.
In previous versions of SAS Web Report Studio, the LocalProperties.xml file offered the only practical method to override properties and their values. Although this file is available and supported in SAS Web Report Studio 4.2, it is recommended that you use the Configuration Manager in SAS Management Console to configure and set properties for SAS Web Report Studio. The Configuration Manager offers a consistent interface to set properties for all SAS applications.
SAS Web Report Studio 4.2 enables you to add disclaimer text to graphs and tables.
The report output generation tool enables you to create pre-generated, static versions of reports from the command line. This tool has been updated with the rptbatch.bat file, which calls upon the outputgen.exe file. In addition, new parameters have been added to the report output generation tool.
The WebReportStudioProperties.xml file is no longer used in SAS Web Report Studio 4.2. Instead, the Advanced tab in Web Report Studio Properties 4.2 is used to specify property names and property values.
Previous users of SAS Web Report Studio can locate their home folders in the new SAS 9.2 home folders. These new folders have restricted metadata permissions.
SAS Web Report Studio 4.2 maintains a working area that is hidden from users. This working area, which is located at/System/Applications/SAS Web Report Studio/Web Report Studio 4.2, is accessed by using the SAS Management Console. This location might store shared content such as images.
Banner images are stored in the /Web Report Studio 4.2/BannerImages folder. Sample conditional highlighting image files are deployed in the /Web Report Studio 4.2/ConditionalHighlightingImages folder.
In SAS Web Report Studio 4.2, PUBLIC users do not have personal home folders. In addition, PUBLIC users do not have a location to store their history and preferences. As a result, PUBLIC users' report history is not retained.
By default, PUBLIC users have restricted access. In order to enable PUBLIC users to access SAS Web Report Studio, you need to enable permissions.
Beginning with the third maintenance release for SAS 9.2 and later, the log file, SASBIReportServices4.2.log, is created when you first run the report output generation tool with default permissions.
In the third maintenance release for SAS 9.2, if you run the commands for the report output generation tool on a z/OS system with WebSphere, retrieve the fully qualified pathname to the generated file. Then, locate the generated .in file or .jcl file, and copy the relevant contents into the command line text used to run the distribution job.
In the third maintenance release for SAS 9.2, you can change the location of the temporary workspace for SAS Web Report Studio and SAS Web Report Viewer.

SAS BI Dashboard Administration

SAS BI Dashboard 4.3

SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 offers several new features and enhancements that make administration easier, flexible, and convenient. These enhancements are as follows:

Storage folders for SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 now exist in both the foundation SAS Metadata Repository and the SAS Content Server or the file system.
Users' folders for SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 can be located anywhere below the SAS Folders directory on the Folders tab of SAS Management Console. Previously, in SAS BI Dashboard 4.2, you were required to use predefined storage folders. This is no longer the case.
Configuration files for SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 are stored on the SAS Content Server. Previously, all files were stored in a file system.
You can use the SAS Content Server Administration Console to manage SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 files and WebDAV folders in the SAS Content Server.
You can enable users to log on, view, and interact with a dashboard by creating metadata identities for the users.
As with all SAS applications, logging is accomplished by using the Logging Service Configuration dialog box within the Configuration Manager in SAS Management Console.
You can register a stored process and make it available to SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 users.
Three types of caching are available: data caching, content caching, and client caching.
Data caching was available previously in SAS BI Dashboard 4.2. Beginning with SAS BI Dashboard 4.3, files for data caching are stored in the SAS Content Server.
Content caching, which is a new type of caching, is enabled by default in SAS BI Dashboard 4.3.
Client browsers that display dashboards with SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 use Flash in the Rich Internet Application (RIA) architecture. Client caching is enabled by default.
Image files are no longer cached.
SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 supports the SAS Comment Manager.
DSX files are stored in the SAS Content Server.
DSX files are modified by exporting the DSX file from SAS Management Console, making necessary changes to the files, and importing the files.
The standard logging facility used by the SAS 9.2 Intelligence Platform is supported. In SAS Management Console, the Logging Service dialog box enables you to manage performance, track security enforcement, and analyze specific situations.
The SAS BI Dashboard Portlet is installed along with the other SAS BI Portlets. This portlet allows users to display a dashboard that is created with the SAS BI Dashboard application. The configuration of this portlet is identical to the configuration of the SAS BI Portlets for the WebSphere Portal.
Partial promotion is supported for SAS BI Dashboard 4.3. However, there are special considerations that apply to the promotion process.
You can specify a session time-out interval for inactive user sessions.
You can alert users by displaying a warning message before they are logged out of their inactive sessions.

SAS BI Dashboard 4.2

In SAS BI Dashboard 4.2, an alert can be set up to enable Event Generation Framework to regularly poll BI Dashboard indicators, determine whether an event qualifies for an alert, and generate an alert for the user. In order to minimize the impact of constant polling on BI Dashboard's performance, you can customize and set parameters for alert latency.

SAS Web Parts for Microsoft SharePoint

In the November 2010 release, SAS Web Parts for Microsoft Sharepoint is a new product that includes:

SAS BI Dashboard Web Part that displays dashboards and KPIs to enable users to monitor organizational performance
SAS Stored Process Web Part that enables users to view the results of a stored process at the SharePoint site

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