We are having multi tenant web application designed in asp.net mvc. Our database is stored on Azure. We have created security policy in the database so no client can see data of another client, and in every table we have tenant id for each entry.
We have created some dashboards using power bi, data is being accessed using sql stored procedure which has tenant id parameter.for testing purpose i supply tenant id while running dashboards inside power bi desktop. Now we are trying to integrate those dashboards to our web application. for this we have done necessary changes in the web.config file.
Issue is how will we supply tenantID for which user is logged in to power bi so that user can see data for that particular client only?
Thanks in advance.
It depends on the storage mode of your report (Imported or DirectQuery) and how it will be integrated in your app (Embedded API, Publish to web (public) or Secure embed).
If the storage mode is Imported, this means that your report contains a copy of the data. The consequence is that you can't query the database and get the data based on the current user, because the copy of the data is one and it is shared with all users, which are looking at your report. So the data should be for all tenants and you must filter it in each users session. The filtering can be made in two ways - by adding a "normal" report level filter or by implementing Row-level security (RLS).
Filtering can be achieved by passing the filter in the URL or defining the filter in the embedded configuration. First one can be used with Secure embed, while the later one is applicable when using Embedded API. Note, that Publish to web method doesn't support URL filters. Important part is that the filter added this way will be visible in the Filters pane and the user can modify it or remove it (so it's not a good way to secure your data). If you are embedding the report using the API, you can hide the Filters pane by setting filterPaneEnabled: false in the embed config, but this will also hide all other filters and the end user will be able to slice the data only with the visuals provided by you (e.g. slicers in the report). Also note, that secure embed requires each of the viewers of your report to have Power BI Pro license
(or if the workspace where you publish the report has a dedicated capacity assigned, i.e. Power BI Premium or Power BI Embedded, a Power BI Free license).
With RLS, you will include all the data for all tenants in your report, and Power BI will filter it for you, so the user will see only the data relevant for his tenant. This can be made it two ways - define a role for each tenant and include your end users in the corresponding role, or use userprincipalname() DAX function in your report to filter the data based on the current user.
My recommendation is to use RLS, and the benefit in this case is that there will be a single report to embed and no parameters needs to be passed to it from your app at all.
Related
I am stumped trying to find a similar idea on how we can achieve this.
We are currently using a model-driven power app/Dataverse to house school applications. Once an application is submitted, our representatives will begin updating the application record "Application Status" custom field as they are going through the various steps.
Our partner wants to create a external website (just simple HTML/CSS/JavaScript) to display an application lookup where applicants can type in their application ID or send applicants direct-links to view the status of their application. (example: domain.com/application-status/?appid=1234)
This external, public website would have to connect to our dataverse/power app via the web api to make the request and display it to the applicant searching/viewing the website.
How can this be achieved? All I have read is that the user looking up data will need to have a Microsoft account and authenticated in our environment to view the data.
Can someone point me in the right direct on how to get this done (article or existing thread). Your help is highly appreciated.
This is normally being handled by the use of a PowerPlatform Portal.
Portals are designed to allow interactions with B2B/B2C.
This is, however, a hefty price tag.
Another way is to make your website use Rest API calls to your Dataverse tables.
To enable these, you need to create a client application registration in Azure and add this application user in your environment as an application user. Once registered, assign the appropriate rights(Sysadmin, Syscustomizer, whatever you want) and you can access your environment in two steps:
Generate an access token based on the scope of your environment, client id, and client secret.
Use the access token your application user has given to do your CRUD operations.
Our users authenticate to Acumatica using OAuth2-based SSO with Google as the identity provider. They do not have passwords to access the system (we generate very long, strong passwords which are discarded as soon as SSO is set up).
I don't want to go into all the reasons why SSO is important to us. It's critical, and I'll leave it at that. SSO was a policy and business requirement for us to select Acumatica.
The Report Designer doesn't seem to support OAuth2.
Is there a way we can give users the ability to download the RPX files via the browser, edit them outside the browser, and then upload the changes via the browser, using only SSO credentials?
Also, where can I get the source code to Report Designer? I'd love to see if I can add OAuth2 support myself.
There are 2 types of report in Acumatica:
Standard Reports
Analytical Reports
The links above describe how you can customize these reports using Acumatica Cloud ERP.
You can notice that standard reports have the following limited customization possibility using Cloud ERP:
You can adjust the report settings to meet your specific informational
needs. For example, you can specify sorting and filtering options and
select the data by using report-specific settings—such as financial
period, ledger, and account. You can configure additional processing
settings for each report.
Analytical reports have more customization possibilities through Cloud ERP:
The Analytical Report Manager is a web-based tool for creating and
modifying analytical reports. Users can design and run custom
analytical reports using advanced data selection criteria, data
calculation rules, and customizable report layout design features. By
using the Analytical Report Manager, you can: Create the layout and
structure of reports based on your business requirements. Define data
selection criteria for the report with a high level of granularity.
For example, data sources can include a range of accounts,
subaccounts, and financial periods. Use advanced formulas to calculate
values based on the information extracted from the data source. Create
consolidated reports based on the data from multiple data sources or
other analytical reports. Localize data used by a report if
multilingual support of user input is enabled.
Acumatica marketing material shouldn't refer to the standard report editor (Windows Form Desktop Application) as part of the Cloud ERP product. The reason for this is quite simple, a Windows Desktop application is not a cloud product, it can't be accessed with a browser and is not supported on unix/apple OS.
Analytical reports designer support SSO OAuth since the designer is running on the Cloud ERP product.
Standard reports designer doesn't support OAuth. You could fill a feature request for it though. Our marketing material should not refer to standard report customization as part of the Cloud ERP product because the designer requirements are different.
We strive to make every feature available on Cloud ERP platform. At the moment these are the features not available on Cloud ERP to my knowledge:
Standard Report Editor
DeviceHub, this is a Windows program that acts like a device
spooler so you can access windows desktop hardware like printer
and scales from the Cloud ERP.
Login page customization, this can't be achieved through
Customization Project Editor, you have to change files manually on
the server.
From now on, I'll focus on the Standard Report Designer, the Windows Desktop Application.
The designer uses the Web Service API to communicate with Acumatica Database.
Besides loading and saving RPX files the report designer also uses the Web Service API for features in 'File->Build Schema' dialog like 'Load Schema'. If your user are not using the 'Build Schema' features then having only the RPX file locally should be enough to allow them to modify the report using the designer.
Code for loading and saving RPX files is located in PX.Reports.Design.ReportUtils class which is part of PX.Reports.Design.dll assembly. It's using the SOAP API which to my knowledge is not the preferred API to use OAuth, the REST Contract API is recommended for OAuth enabled Web Services. Refactoring the PX.Reports.Design.dll assembly to use REST Contract API instead of SOAP API isn't trivial.
That said I believe it's possible to load and save RPX files using the Rest API and you could write a wrapper for the report designer to handle that task as long as you forgo 'Build Schema' feature. I'll touch on that at the end of my answer.
You can find the documentation for using OAuth with Rest API here
There are two ways you can use Acumatica Web Service, attended or unattended.
Attended use requires a user to enter his credentials in some form of UI before using the web service. The report designer uses this form of authentication.
The alternative for unattended use is to configure and save the authentication credentials before using the web service. That way an automated program can use web service API without requiring a user sitting in front of the computer.
Unattended use typically doesn't involve OAuth because you can't have a user dedicated to the task of authenticating. For example, if you integrate Acumatica with an ecommerce provider, requiring him to use OAuth authorization to push the orders to Acumatica is problematic because that process usually doesn't involve a UI where a user sitting at the computer provide authorization.
You could technically create a OAuth access token that never (rarely) expires for this task but it circumvents the purpose of OAuth which is having temporary access tokens to mitigate man in the middle attacks. Certifications that mandates use of OAuth typically forbid use of tokens that never expire. That's why requesting OAuth for automated process can raise eyebrows and lead programmers to question your security policies.
Now let's get to possible solutions for your problem. You'll have to assess whether your security policies allows use of unattended web service without OAuth authorization. If that's the case then your job will be much easier. If not then you'll likely run into similar problems later on if dealing with third party web service integration for Acumatica is required.
In order to write a wrapper over the report designer you'll have to write a windows desktop application and have the '.RPS' file type associated with your wrapper instead of being associated with Acumatica report designer.
When a user clicks the EDIT REPORT button on the website, a '.RPS' text file is generated in memory on the server and the user browser is redirected to that file in order to download it locally. When the user clicks on the RPS file, windows launches the associated program (Acumatica report designer) and passes the RPS file path by command line parameter. The report designer then presents the authorization dialog where user can enter his credentials and the report RPX file is downloaded by the Web Service API.
Example of the content of an RPS file:
ServiceUrl|http://localhost/AcumaticaInstance/
ReportName|gl633000.rpx
User|admin
The idea is to have your wrapper parse this RPS file, download the associated RPX file using the Web Service API that comply with your security policy and then launch Acumatica report designer for this RPX file using command line parameter:
"c:\...\ReportDesigner.exe" "c:\...'gl633000.rpx"
When you launch the report designer you want to halt your main thread until the user closes the report designer. Framework methods that do this are typically named 'wait for exit'. Before closing the report designer the user would save the RPX file. After the designer is closed your main thread will resume and you can then re-upload that RPX file to Acumatica database using Web Service API.
The easy way would be to create a report designer user to use Web Service API in unattended mode. You could store those credentials locally (in encrypted form) wherever you see fit and never expose them in UI. When making Web Service call you decrypt those credentials on the fly. In such a scenario the asset to protect is the decryption key.
If use of attended web service is required for OAuth support you will need to implement a UI to get those credentials. If you have to use Google login page for entering the credentials you would have to include an embedded browser in your wrapper for that purpose.
As a remainder, note that this solution will enable you to modify the report definition in the RPX file but will not enable you to use report designer features that require web service API like 'Build Schema'.
Currently I am creating app that needs to store and pull data from database by multiple users.
Since I do not have much knowledge in database, MS Access, and MS Sharepoint, I would like to know if it is possible to use share point as database for my iOS application, which implemented in pure swift code.
Any one with knowledge in this field please help me by providing advice on if it works, and, if possible, how can I successfully implement this.
Thank you for all the helps.
I don’t see why this would not work. As long as the SharePoint tables follow the rules for Access, then you can place the ms-access application on each desktop. Anytime “any” user of that application updates or adds records, then all other users will “eventually” see the updates. So in this setup, the desktop users can in fact “run” the application “off line”. The instant such users get Wi-Fi or a connection (or always have one), then the data is synced in real time.
The above setup takes no coding and is part of the Access system which supports those SharePoint tables.
As for the iOS and that part of the application? Again, I see little problem since all of the abilities of SharePoint are available as a web service. So as long as your development platform supports standard web services, then your application can interact with that web service to retrieve and update rows of data in those SharePoint tables. As noted, the “sync” to the Access clients will thus reflect any updates to that data.
Since near every modern phone development system supports interaction with web services, then the phone software can do the same. You not have an ODBC like interface, but you can query the data (CAMEL).
The Access desktop client will also be interacting with the SharePoint tables via a web service, but from Access point of view the SharePoint tables (lists) look like any regular SQL like table. So standard VBA code and DAO reocrdsets are supported.
The web services for SharePoint are outlined here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms479390(v=office.12).aspx
And this video shows how you can upload data to SharePoint from Access, and NOTE how the relational table ability of SharePoint is supported by Access. Once that data is uploaded, then Access supports updating of such data as if the data was a local table.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wdjYIby_b0&list=PL27E956A1537FE1C5&index=2
You can use a single office 365 account at $6 per month for the above, and that single account supports 500 free users. So if you don’t have SharePoint (or don’t want to bother with SharePoint, a single office 365 account also offers these SharePoint services for that one stupid low price of $6 per month – and that account with work with the free Access runtime that that you can use to run the Access side for free on the desktop part of this application.
I am trying to restrict access to files in a directory and it's sub directories based user rights. My user rights are stored in an MS SQL database in a custom format, however it is easy to query the list of users with rights to this directory.
I need to know how to apply this to a web config on the server to authenticate against a query of a database table to determine if the username is authenticated and allowed to view the file. Of course if they are not they should be blocked / given a 404.
I am using IIS and ASP.Net MVC3 with a form based security as opposed to the built in roles and responsibilities that was custom made for us and that works great. There are over 10k users tied to this non-Active Directory authentication so I am not planning to change my authentication type so please don't go there.
It is not my decision on the choice of platform, or I would have gone with a LAMP server and been done with this.
Edit 11-13-2012 # 8:57a:
In the web config can you put the result of an SQL query?
I have answered something similarly in the past (uploading and accessing files), but the principles still apply in providing access to file system level files.
in asp.net-mvc, is there a good library or pattern to follow when saving users content (images, files, etc)
[SharePoint/MOSS 2007]
I want to access several web services (on external sites, with WSDL descriptors), and graphically display the data, using a separate web part to display each item.
The graph for each is quite simple - just a thermometer, or traffic lights (as in KPI).
I want to be able to access more detail about the data with a web click
What are the basic sharepoint components for this?
I am able to program a web part, if necessary.
(background - I've been looking through KPI, PerformancePoint, Data Connection Libraries, InfoPath, Business Data catalogs, etc. I just need a someone to tell me which are the right components for further investigation).
I think you should solve this without considering SharePoint, i.e. you should create Web Services proxies (add Service reference) in order to access the external Web Service and then create the necessary HTML to represent the result.
One this is working, you can wrap it in a Web part.
You could use the Business Data Catalog to access the Web Service, but it is really hard to use and then you'd still need some way to transform the data in order to get the graphical display. KPIs are useful if you have lists with the required information, not for external data from a Web Service. I don't see InfoPath or PerformancePoint playing any role in this case.