Authorization

Authorization is the process of granting or denying access to data, and specifying the actions that can be performed on that data, based on a user identity.

IBM® Cognos® software authorization assigns permissions to users, groups, and roles that allow them to perform actions, such as read or write, on content store objects, such as folders and reports. The content store can be viewed as a hierarchy of data objects. These objects include not only folders and reports, but packages for report creation, directories, and servers.

When IBM Cognos administrators distribute reports to users, they can set up folders in which reports and other objects can be stored. They can then secure those folders so that only authorized personnel can view, change, or perform other tasks using the folder contents.

For information about setting access permissions to the IBM Cognos entries, see Access Permissions and Credentials. For information about the Content Manager hierarchy of objects and the initial access permissions, see Initial access permissions.