Focal Point
[SOLVED]Drilldown from Excel to WebFocus8

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June 16, 2015, 04:08 AM
Soeren Ohm
[SOLVED]Drilldown from Excel to WebFocus8
Hello!

I've got a report which aggregates data and provides drilldown possibilities to more detailed reports. As long as I run it in HTML-format it works fine. But it is also possible (and often used by several users) to export the aggregated report to Excel. The drilldown links also exist in the exported Excel sheet, but when clicked the WebFocus page cannot be reached because of some sort of security issue I guess.

The browser window opens but only shows some XML which basically says "access to item (...) denied". As this mechanic worked in WebFocus7 I am quite sure that the behavior of WF8 in this scenario has somehow changed. Has someone of you encountered similar problems and already got a solution for them?

If you need any additional information I will try to provide them.

Best Regards
Sören Ohm

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Soeren Ohm,
June 16, 2015, 02:19 PM
rogerwilkouk
We had this exact issue when we upgraded to WF8 and after a lot of extensive testing and research we ended up logging and issue and the response was that the issues are related to anonymous drill down in excel (I think it's also the same with PDF). IBI stated they could not allow this to happen due to security concerns.

In WF8 there is a new Anonymous User setting in the Administration Console. To test, I put in my Admin User ID and Password and now it works. I E-Mailed the report to someone else with no IBI ID and they can also now click on it and drill down as well.
Once we proved the issue, we created a new User ID (example Drill) and made this the anonymous user and gave that user access to a "Drill Down Folder" in managed reporting (just that folder) and put all our reports which are drilled into in this folder.

I will advise you the same as IBI advised me "You should test this thoroughly because these settings also apply to unauthenticated users as well. You might have opened your environment to anyone who has a url."

We've never had any problems since and in some ways it's nice to have all our drilled into reports in a centralized folder like this.


WF 81.5, Windows7
AS/400 Database.
All Outputs

June 17, 2015, 02:19 AM
Soeren Ohm
Thank you very much for your solution! I assumed something like that but did not know where or what to check.


WebFOCUS 8
Windows, All Outputs