SSAS cube permissions exclude excel?

Question

following problem: I have a cube and the customer just wants to allow read access via a ssrs report and not through excel. Is it possible to change the permission that specific roles are only allowed to see data from a cube through an ssrs report?

Answer 1

Yes, it is possible to change the permissions in a cube to restrict access to specific roles only through an SSRS report. Here's how you can accomplish this:

1. Define roles in the cube: In your cube, you should have defined roles to manage user access. These roles can be created based on the desired level of access and security requirements. Each role can have specific permissions assigned to it.

2. Grant read access to the SSRS role: Identify the role that corresponds to the users accessing the cube through the SSRS report. Assign the appropriate read-access permissions to this role. This will ensure that only users in this role can view the cube's data through the SSRS report.

3. Restrict access for other roles: For any other roles that should not have access to the cube through SSRS, you can either remove their read access permissions entirely or limit their access to certain dimensions, measures, or specific areas of the cube. This will prevent these roles from seeing the cube's data when accessing it through SSRS.

4. Deploy the cube and configure SSRS: Once you have defined the roles and adjusted the permissions, deploy the updated cube to your analysis services server. In your SSRS report, configure the data source to connect to the cube and ensure that the appropriate role is specified for accessing the data.

By following these steps, you can control access to your cube and ensure that specific roles are only allowed to view the cube's data through the SSRS report. Other tools or applications, such as Excel, would not provide access to the cube's data for roles that are not granted the necessary permissions.