Access to External Clients via InfoView?

Hello All,

We are in the middle of planning out the strategy for making our reports availlable to our external clients(using extranet). We expect around 100 clients to be able to view our reports that are already pre-run and published to our repository. Eventually, they want to be able to view the reports in a pdf format, which calls for setting the view format as a pdf in the InfoView.

Having said that, we are debating whether to:

  • Give them access to Infoview to ONLY VIEW the reports(They cannot refresh them in the initial deployment)

OR

  • Create a custom application to host the reports there in a pdf Format.

The users would like to have minimal training to use the tool.
I would like to know if anybody out there could share their experiences and what knid of challenges they encountered while taking the either approach.

(Also, eventually they would like to have the option of refreshing the reports)

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Toral.


Toral Goradia (BOB member since 2003-10-22)

Since your goal in the future is allow them to refresh the reports I vote for giving them access to Infoview. Just restrict what they can do in Infoview via Business Objects Supervisor and customize their profile.txt file on the WebI server.

By creating a custom application you are in for a lot of maintenance, additional cost, etc. - IMHO


Andreas :de: (BOB member since 2002-06-20)

I have had external customers using WebI via extranet (and through a couple of DMZs) for over a year now and it’s working as expected. We don’t allow these users to Publish in WebI nor can they send documents to anyone outside their Group.

Presuming your exteral customers are in specific Groups you can (should) make the feature access changes in Supervisor as Andreas suggested.

Also, make darned sure your security is tight.


Ron Briggs (BOB member since 2002-09-11)

Hi Ron,

Also, make darned sure your security is tight.

Could you please explain this a little further? Security as in the Repository?

Thanks for your reply.

Toral.


Toral Goradia (BOB member since 2003-10-22)

Security as in what users can and can not see (i.e. accounts).


Ron Briggs (BOB member since 2002-09-11)

Row-level security is a big deal, especially in Extranets. Just make sure you accout for it.


Steve Krandel :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-25)

Hello All,

To follow up on this, can anybody share their experiences with Report Bursting Functionality within their extranet deployment. Any recommendations or preferences with any third party tools?

Will really appreciate it and Thank You for your time.

Toral.


Toral Goradia (BOB member since 2003-10-22)