Customizing roles

If you are using the roles that are predefined in the Cognos namespace, you can customize themes, home pages, and report parameters that are unique to each Cognos role.

Note: Only Cognos roles are customizable. You cannot customize a role unless it belongs to the Cognos namespace - as either a predefined Cognos role, or one that you created yourself. For more information about Cognos roles, see the IBM Cognos Analytics Administration and Security Guide.

You can specify that a customized home page, or a particular report or dashboard, be displayed when a user with a particular Cognos role opens IBM® Cognos® Analytics. You may want to remove default user interface features for roles. In addition, you can customize parameters that can be used across reports and tailor them for each user role.

Before setting customized themes and home pages (other than a dashboard or report) you must have created and uploaded custom themes or home pages. For more information, see Customizing Cognos Analytics across all roles.

To customize individual roles, from Manage > People > Accounts, click a namespace to view the list of roles for the namespace. If you click a role's More Context menu icon menu and select Properties, the slide-out panel for that role has a Customization tab.

Note: If you want to set customizations across all roles, you use the Managing > Customization slide-out panel. For more information, see Applying themes, extensions, and views.

Setting a default home page

Click the next icon next to the default home page. You can now browse for a dashboard or report to be the default home page, or you can select a view in the list of views to be the default home page for all users in this role.

Hiding menu options for a feature

You can hide some menu options for a feature from users in specified roles. Click the next icon next to Features. A list of views is displayed. This list includes both the built-in views and any custom views that have been uploaded. Click a view to see a high-level grouping of features for the view. Click the next icon next to a grouping to drill-down to a lower level of features. You can deselect or select any feature in this list, or drill-down to another set of features to choose from. Click Apply to save your changes. You can revert your changes by clicking Reset to defaults.

Important: When you hide a menu item for a feature via customization, you do not change any user's capability to perform or not perform the action of the menu item. In some cases, a user can access the same functionality from a different location in the user interface. In other words, hiding a menu item does not apply security rules to a feature. To apply role-based security, you must assign capabilities. For more information, see User capabilities.

To customize the navigation menu in reporting, expand Reporting > Collections > Report.

Setting a default theme

Click the next icon next to the default theme. You can select a theme in the list of themes to be the default theme for all users in this role.

Creating a custom folder

Click the next icon next to Custom folder to set a custom content folder for users who have this role. When a user with this role logs in, the custom folder is displayed on the navigation bar below Team content.

Setting the default location for uploaded files

Click the next icon next to Default upload location to specify a folder in Team content as the default location for uploaded files for users who have this role.

Setting the default data source to be used by the Assistant

Click the next icon next to Default source to specify an asset in Team content that the Assistant can use as a default data source for the selected role.

Setting default parameters for roles

Click Settings next to Parameters. A list appears of parameters that you customized. Choose the parameters that you want to configure for the role. Then select the default values that you want to appear for all users in this role. Click Apply then OK when you are done.

For more information, see Using customized parameters.

Resolving conflicts when a user has multiple roles

A user may have multiple roles which can have different default themes or home pages. To resolve this issue, when setting customizations for a role, click Advanced and set a priority for the role ranging from 0 to 10. In the case of a conflict the customizations for the role with the highest priority are used. The System Administrators role has a hard-coded priority of 1000.