Sharing Vision Custom Reports with Others

Because the Vision Analysis Cubes application does not have Vision role security implemented, consider carefully how you create and share Vision custom reports with other users. If you need to control the report content that users see, you must copy report output from the original report design and share the output, not the original report design, with users.

If you have not implemented Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services security to control access to Vision report data, when you share an original custom report, users with Excel 2007 can modify the content of the report. They have access to all Vision fields in the Vision data cubes.

How to distribute reports if you operate in an environment in which all users can access all Vision information:

A Vision system administrator or whoever created a custom report can share the originally saved custom report with other Vision users. Be sure users have the appropriate Microsoft SQL Server rights so that they have access to the Vision data cubes. Before other users can make changes to the report design, they must refresh and connect to the Vision data cube.

If you share reports with users who have Excel 97 or 2003, you must save the reports as Excel 97-2003 workbook (*.xls) files so these users can open the report. However, these users can only view the reports. They cannot change the report design.

How to distribute reports if you operate in an environment in which users cannot access all Vision information:

To share reports appropriately with users who have limited access to Vision data, we recommend that you first save the custom report as an Excel 2007 workbook (.xlsx file). Then copy the contents of the original report into a new Excel workbook where you can modify the contents. Save the report as an Excel 2007 (.xlsx) or Excel 97-2003 compatible file (.xls file), depending on the version of Excel that users have installed.

Users who open a report saved this way, see only the report output. They do not have access to the report design or Vision data cubes. They cannot modify the report content with the PivotTable Field List to add, remove, or modify fields.

You can attach reports to an email and send to others, copy reports to a shared network drive, or distribute reports as you normally would any file.