Column level security

Column Level Security allows admins to control the granularity of shared data across dashboards.

Column Level Security has the following three security levels:

Display all columns in a report

This is the default. It displays all columns in a report even if the user does not have the column in their CSA.

Hide only secure columns in a report

This setting hides any columns in a report the user does not have access to in their CSA. The user only sees the columns they have access to through their CSA.

Note: This setting only applies to Dashboards and Visualizer. When attempting to access reports containing secure columns through Designer, the report does not open.

Hide entire report containing secure columns

If a report contains any columns that are not listed in a user's CSA, the entire report is hidden from the user.

If Hide only secure columns in a report is enabled for a space, the following security settings are enforced:

• If then dashlet can still render after removing secured columns for a given user, Birst displays the report with only columns the user has access to.
• If a secured column is used to sort a report, it is removed from the query run to return results for a user that does not have access to the column. This could lead to a different result set being returned for secured users when compared to the result set obtained by non-secured users.
• Users cannot open reports in Designer that contain columns they do not have access to.
• SavedExpressions is secured if at least one of the objects contained in its expression definition is secured.
• In some scenarios, this message displays: "This chart cannot be visualized as its definition requires columns that are not accessible in the current security settings." This can happen when:
  • The dashlet is being filtered with at least one secured column.
  • The dashlet can no longer be rendered with only the columns the user has access to.
• Column selectors can be used as fallback columns in place of secured columns in a report. If a secured column has column selectors enabled with columns the user has access to, Birst supplies a selected column in place of the secured column.

For example, a user who has access to the columns for Patient City, Margin, and Paid Amount would see all three in a report.

A user who does not have access to the Paid Amount column would only see the Patient City and Margin columns in the report.

A user who does not have access to the necessary columns would see a message saying This chart cannot be visualized as its definition requires columns that are not accessible in the current security settings.