Assigning Permissions to View and Manage Reports for Visual Studio ALM
As a project manager or administrator, you can determine who can view, refresh, create, and manage reports for a team project in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. The permissions that you grant depend on both the type of report that you use and the data store to which the report connects. You can create reports in Microsoft Excel and SQL Server Reporting Services. For an overview of the data sources, see Choosing the Source of Data and Authoring Tool for Your Reports for Visual Studio ALM.
If you want to view data about Team Foundation in a Microsoft Excel report, the following conditions must be met:
If you want to access a Microsoft Excel report from a process template for Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF), a project portal must be provisioned and enabled for your team project.
Microsoft Excel reports are stored on the server that hosts SharePoint Products for your team project. If a project portal has not been enabled for your team project, you cannot access the reports. For more information, see Access a Team Project Portal and Process Guidance, Excel Reports (Agile), or Excel Reports (CMMI).
If you want to open a report in Microsoft Excel that connects to the operational data store for Team Foundation, the Team Foundation Office Integration add-in must be installed on your client computer. This add-in is installed when you install any product in Visual Studio ALM.
If you want Excel reports to appear in the dashboards and Excel Services to be available, the project portal must be hosted on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Edition or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition.
If you want to view data about Team Foundation in Reporting Services reports, Reporting Services must be provisioned and enabled for the team project collection that contains your team project. These reports are not available if .gif "Report"){kind=icon}
Reports does not appear when you open Team Explorer and expand your team project node.
In this topic
Permissions for Excel Reports that Connect to the Operational Data Store
Permissions for Excel Reports that Connect to the Analysis Services Cube
Permissions for Reporting Services Reports
Permissions for Excel Reports that Connect to the Operational Data Store
To create, view, or refresh a Microsoft Excel report that contains data about work items, you must be a member of the Team Foundation Valid Users security group. To store a report in the Documents node of the team project portal, you must belong to the Members security group for SharePoint Products.
The following table summarizes the required permissions that each activity requires. For information about how to grant these permissions to team members, see Add Users to Team Projects.
Activity |
Team Foundation Server |
Team project portal (SharePoint) |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
View or refresh an Excel report that is opened from the Documents node of Team Explorer |
Readers |
Visitors |
To access the Documents node for a team project, you must belong to the Team Foundation Valid Users security group. If the required security permissions are set explicitly, your View project-level information permission on the team project must be set to Allow. |
Run a work-item query, and use the Open in Microsoft Excel feature |
Readers |
In addition, you may require permission to open a team query. For more information, see Organize and Set Permissions on Work Item Queries. |
|
Create a Microsoft Excel report |
Readers |
|
To modify work items from Microsoft Excel, you must belong to the Contributors group, or your Edit work items in this node permissions must be set to Allow. |
Manage Excel reports in the Documents node |
Readers |
Members |
To view the Documents node, you must have access to the team project. To manage files under the Documents node, you must be a contributing member for the SharePoint site. For more information, see Managing Documents and Document Libraries. |
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Permissions for Excel Reports That Connect to the Analysis Services Cube
To view, refresh, or create a Microsoft Excel report that connects to the SQL Server Analysis Services cube, you must belong the TfsWarehouseDataReaders security role in Analysis Services. The only exception to this rule is when you view, refresh, or create an Excel report from an enterprise dashboard.
All Microsoft Excel reports that appear in the enterprise dashboards contain data from the Analysis Services cube. You can view enterprise dashboards only when the team project portal is hosted on a server that is running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Edition or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition.
To view, refresh, or create a Microsoft Excel report from an enterprise dashboard, you must configure the SharePoint web application definition to use either Single Sign-On or Windows Authentication. The following restrictions apply based on the authentication service that you configure.
Important
You must configure the SharePoint web application for Single Sign-On if you do not want to add users as members of the TfsWarehouseDataReaders security role in Analysis Services. You must also configure the application for Single-Sign on if the team project portal is configured to use NTLM authentication and is not installed on the data-tier server. Members of the TfsWarehouseDataReaders security role can generate reports for all team projects across all team project collections that use the same data warehouse.
For Single Sign-On Authentication (Recommended)
To authenticate viewers of enterprise dashboards by using Single Sign-On, you must perform the following actions:
You must configure the SharePoint web application to use Single Sign-on. For more information about how to configure Single Sign-on, see Configure Settings for Dashboard Compatibility.
You must add dashboard viewers to a group that is granted access to the Single Sign-on enterprise application definition.
For Windows Authentication
To authenticate viewers of enterprise dashboards by using Windows Authentication, you must perform the following actions:
You must either host the team project portal on the data-tier server or configure the SharePoint enterprise web application to use Kerberos authentication.
You must add users to the TfsWarehouseDataReaders security role in Analysis Services.
Depending on the task that you are performing, you may require other permissions. To access the Documents node for a team project, you must be a member of the Team Foundation Valid Users security group.
The following table summarizes the permissions that each activity requires. For information about how to grant these permissions to team members, see Add Users to Team Projects and Grant Access to the Databases of the Data Warehouse for Visual Studio ALM.
Activity |
Team Foundation Server |
Team project portal |
Analysis Services cube (Tfs_Analysis) |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Open the Documents node in Team Explorer, and view or refresh a Microsoft Excel report |
Readers |
Visitors |
TfsWarehouseDataReader role |
To access the Documents node for a team project, you must belong to the Team Foundation Valid Users security group. If the necessary security permissions are set explicitly, your View project-level information permission on the team project must be set to Allow. |
View or refresh a Microsoft Excel report that appears in an enterprise dashboard |
|
Visitors |
In addition to Visitors or Read permissions, you must belong to a group that is granted access to the TfsWarehouseDataReader role or the Single Sign-on enterprise application definition for the SharePoint web application. For more information, see Excel Reports (Agile) or Excel Reports (CMMI). |
|
Run a work item query, and then use Create Report in Microsoft Excel |
Readers |
TfsWarehouseDataReader role |
In addition to these permissions, you may require permission to open a team query. For more information, see Organize and Set Permissions on Work Item Queries. |
|
Use the New Excel Report feature from a dashboard |
Visitors |
TfsWarehouseDataReader role |
The New Excel Report button is available only if reporting is configured for the project collection that hosts the team project. |
|
Create a report from Microsoft Excel that connects to the Analysis Services cube |
TfsWarehouseDataReader role |
If you want to save the resulting workbook to the project portal, you must belong to the Members group for SharePoint Products. |
||
Manage Microsoft Excel reports in the Documents node |
Readers |
Members |
|
You must be a contributing member of the SharePoint site to save files under the Documents node. For more information, see Managing Documents and Document Libraries. |
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Permissions for Reporting Services Reports
To view, refresh, or create reports that are available from Report Manager, you must belong to the Browser or Team Foundation Content Managers group security group that is defined on the server that hosts Reporting Services for your team project collection. To create these reports, you must also belong to the TfsWarehouseDataReaders security role in Analysis Services for the relational data warehouse.
The following table summarizes the permissions that each activity requires. For information about how to grant these permissions to team members, see Add Users to Team Projects and Grant Access to the Databases of the Data Warehouse for Visual Studio ALM.
Reporting Services |
Analysis Services cube (Tfs_Analysis) |
Relational data warehouse (Tfs_Warehouse) |
|
|---|---|---|---|
View or refresh a report |
Browser |
||
Create a report that accesses data from the Analysis Services cube |
Browser |
TfsWarehouseDataReader role |
|
Create a report that accesses data from the relational data warehouse |
Browser |
TfsWarehouseDataReader role |
|
Manage reports |
Team Foundation Content Managers group |
In addition to managing the previous permissions, you can control access to specific reports. For more information, see Grant Access to View, Create, and Modify Reporting Services Reports.
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See Also
Concepts
Configuring Users, Groups, and Permissions
Creating, Customizing, and Managing Reports for Visual Studio ALM