Manage users and permissions

For identity and access management, you can manage users in Pentaho Data Catalog from the Manage Your Environment page. Users with the Admin role and users who have been assigned Admin permissions in a community are the only users that can add users or manage their permissions.

You can also import users from Microsoft Active Directory (AD). For more information, see Integrate Active Directory with Pentaho Data Catalog.

Data Catalog comes with a set of default user roles to assign role-based access to users. That access can be fine tuned with communities. For more information, see User roles and permissions section in theUse Pentaho Data Catalog document.

Add a user

When adding a Pentaho Data Catalog user, you need to select at least one community or role to specify the user's permissions.

Important: If you have users imported from Microsoft Active Directory (AD), you need to use AD to add users instead of using PDC.

Perform the following steps to add a user:

1. From the Users & Communities card on the Manage Your Environment page, click Add New and select Add User.

   The Create User page opens.

2. Enter the information for the user.

3. (Optional) Click Add to Community.

   The Available Communities window opens.

4. (Optional) Select one or more checkboxes for a community to which you want to add the user, and click Done.

5. (Optional) Click Add Roles.

   The Available Roles window opens.

6. (Optional) Select one or more checkboxes for the role or roles to assign to the user.

   Note: If you try to assign an Expert user role to the user but have reached the limit allowed by your license agreement, you see a message that you have exceeded the licensed limit and cannot assign the role.

7. When you are finished assigning permissions, click Done.

The user is created.

Add a community

Data Catalog Administrators can create communities that act as custom roles for fine-tuning user access.

Perform the following steps to add a community:

1. From the Users & Communities card on the Manage Your Environment page, click Add New and select Add Community.

   The Create Community page opens.

2. Enter a name for the community.

3. Select a role to be the basis of the permissions for the community.

4. (Optional) Enter a description of the community.

5. In the Users area, select users to add to the community.

6. In the Permissions area, select the checkboxes of permissions per feature that you want the users in the community to have.

   The following image shows a partial view of the default permissions for the Data Steward role. Checkboxes that are grayed out cannot be selected.

   
7. In the Scope area, click the plus sign at the end of the row for a listed Data Catalog feature to show the options within the features that are available to add to the community, such as Business Glossary or Data Sources.

   The following image shows a sample Scope table:

   

   After clicking a plus sign, an Add Scope window opens. The following screen shows an Add Scope window for data sources. By default, all data sources are selected, with a checkmark in the All checkbox. To restrict the data source access for someone in this community, clear the All checkbox and select the checkboxes for other data sources to which you want to allow access.

   
8. After defining the scope, click Done to close the window.

9. Click Done to add the community.

Edit a user

You can change the permissions for a Pentaho Data Catalog user by editing the user to add a role or community. You can also update the user's profile information.

Important: If you have users imported from Microsoft Active Directory (AD), you need to use AD to edit users instead of using the PDC Users & Communities card.

In Data Catalog, access permission for data source types is governed by communities. To update a user's data source access permissions, you need to update the community to which the user is assigned, or update the community itself. To see the data source access for an existing community, see Edit a community. Or you can Add a community.

Perform the following steps to edit a user's information:

1. From the Users & Communities card on the Manage Your Environment page, click Users.

   The Users page opens.

2. Locate the user you want to edit. At the end of the row, click the pencil icon.

   The user-specific page opens.

3. Edit the user as necessary. You can add the user to or remove the user from a community, add or remove roles, and update the user's profile information.

   Note: When a user has more than one role, the role access permissions are cumulative, meaning that the user's resulting access contains the permissions for the individual roles.

   You can perform one or more of the following actions:

4. When you are finished updating, click Edit.

The user information is updated.

Edit a community

You can update the role that gives the community its base permissions, add or remove users, add or remove permissions for various actions, and adjust the scope of the community, such as the resources on which the actions can be performed.

Note: It is helpful to other users if the description of a community includes information about the permissions it conveys to the users in the community.

Perform the following steps to edit a community:

1. From the Users & Communities card on the Manage Your Environment page, click Communities.

   The Communities page opens.

2. Locate the community you want to edit. At the end of the row, click the pencil icon.

   The community-specific page opens.

3. Edit the community as necessary. You can update the community information, add or remove users, select or deselect permissions assigned to the community, or update the scope of the community's permissions. You can perform one or more of the following actions:

4. When you are finished updating, click Edit.

The community information is updated.

Remove a user

You can remove a user if the user no longer needs access to Pentaho Data Catalog.

Important: If you have users imported from Microsoft Active Directory (AD), you need to use AD to remove users instead of using the PDC Users & Communities card.

Perform the following steps to remove a user:

1. From the Users & Communities card on the Manage Your Environment page, click Users.

   The Users page opens.

2. Locate the user you want to remove, and select the checkbox at the beginning of the row.

   The user-specific page opens.

3. Click Delete.

   A confirmation window opens.

4. Click Delete to confirm.

The user is removed.