Governing User Profiles

The user profile can be defined as what the user can do when logged in to the system. If you allow users to use certain features in the system, they can affect the system's performance. For example, when users schedule report executions, this creates user sessions on Intelligence Server, thus placing a load on it even when the users are not actively logged in.

You can limit these types of activities by restricting various privileges, as discussed below. For general information about privileges and the MicroStrategy security model, including instructions on how to grant and revoke privileges, see Controlling Access to Functionality: Privileges.

Subscription-Related Privileges

Allowing users to subscribe to reports to be run later can affect system performance. You can limit the use of subscriptions by using the Web Scheduled Reports and Schedule Request privileges.

If you have Distribution Services or Narrowcast Server implemented in your system and users have the Web Scheduled Email or Web Send Now privileges, they can have a report emailed either at a set time or immediately. This causes the system to create a user session on Intelligence Server when the report is emailed.

For detailed information about subscribing to reports and documents, see Scheduling Reports and Documents: Subscriptions.

History List Privileges

Allowing users to use the History List can consume extra system resources. Governing History List usage is discussed more fully in the previous section (see Governing User Resources). The non-administrative privileges relating to the History List are:

Web Subscribe To History List
Web View History List
Web Add To History List
Use Link To History List in Email (Distribution Services)
Use History List

Report Manipulation Privileges

The more manipulations that you allow users to do, the greater the potential for using more system resources. Manipulations that can use extra system resources include pivoting, page-by, and sorting. You can limit these manipulations with the following privileges:

To limit the use of pivoting, use the Web Pivot Report and Pivot Report privileges.
To limit the use of page-by, use the Web Switch Page-by Elements privilege.
To limit the use of sorting, use the Web Sort and Modify Sorting privilege.

Exporting Privileges

Exporting reports can consume large amounts of memory, especially when reports are exported to Excel with formatting. For more information on how to limit this memory usage, see Limit the Number of XML Cells. The privileges related to exporting reports are found in the Common privilege group, and are as follows:

Export to Excel
Export to Flash
Export to HTML
Export to MicroStrategy File
Export to PDF
Export to Text

To restrict users from exporting any reports from MicroStrategy Web, use the Web Export privilege in the Web Reporter privilege group.

OLAP Services Privileges

If you have purchased OLAP Services licenses for your users, they could use a great deal of the available system resources. For example, if your users are creating large Intelligent Cubes and doing many manipulations on them, the system will be loaded much more than if they are running occasional, small reports and not performing many manipulations.

The OLAP Services privileges are marked with a * in the list of all privileges (see the List of Privileges section. For more details about how OLAP Services uses system resources, see Intelligent Cubes.