Identity bean

Enables users to log on and log off BusinessObjects Enterprise and manages Enterprise sessions between page requests. Identity is a managed bean that provides information and adds functionality to the components that are displayed in the visual designer.

To learn more about core BusinessObjects Enterprise functionality and application development, consult the BusinessObjects Enterprise Java SDK Guide.

Click the appropriate link to go to that section:

• Overview
• Example faces-config.xml declaration

Overview

The Identity bean contains the authentication credentials to log on and off BusinessObjects Enterprise. In addition, the Identity bean maintains session data between page requests. Without an Identity bean, UI components cannot communicate with the BusinessObjects Enterprise system. Therefore, each component must contain a binding to an Identity bean, using that component’s identity attribute. The Identity bean contains the appropriate authentication and session information.

The Identity bean has several important properties that specify the behavior of the session:

• enableAutoLogon property

The enableAutoLogon property indicates whether or not the Identity bean should automatically use the auto-logon account for the chosen authentication type, to log on to BusinessObjects Enterprise. For example, if the authentication type was Enterprise (which is set when Enterprise is chosen as the authentication property), an auto-logon attempt would use the default user name and password set in the control and verify the information against the Enterprise user group. By default, the enableAutoLogon property is set to false.

If an Enterprise authentication type is set with a blank user name and password, the user is logged on using the BusinessObjects Enterprise Guest account.

If a Windows NT authentication type is set is set with a blank user name and password, the user is logged on using single sign-on.

• cookieName and tokenExpiry properties

Set the tokenExpiry property to the number of minutes that accumulate before the logon token for the Enterprise session expires. The logon token gets converted to an Enterprise session whenever the user’s web session expires. This allows the user to be logged back in to BusinessObjects Enterprise. However, if the logon token itself has expired, then any subsequent attempts to log the user back in using the logon token will fail. The cookieName is simply the name of the cookie used to identify a user during a web session.

The Identity bean also has several important properties that specify authentication information that is used during auto-logon:

• selectedAuthentication property

The selectedAuthentication property specifies the user group alias to use when logging in. A user group alias contains settings unique to the identity of the user accounts in a particular group. The complete list of options for the selectedAuthentication property include:

• Windows NT
• Windows AD (Active Directory)
• Enterprise
• LDAP

  Note:    Windows NT and Windows AD authentication types are only valid when connecting to the appropriate Windows server. For example, they are not valid when connecting to a UNIX back end.

• userName property

The userName property specifies the user name of the auto-logon account to use. The userName property, by default, is blank, which would be appropriate for logging in to the system automatically using an Enterprise authentication type.

• system property

The system property specifies the BusinessObjects Enterprise system to connect and log on to automatically.

Note:    For a comprehensive reference of all Identity bean members, see the IIdentity interface in the JavaServer Faces Components for BusinessObjects Enterprise Java API Reference.

Example faces-config.xml declaration

<managed-bean>

    <description>A user’s logon credentials.</description>

    <managed-bean-name>user</managed-bean-name>

    <managed-bean-class>

        com.businessobjects.jsf.appcontrols.model.Identity

    </managed-bean-class>

    <managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>

    <managed-property>

        <property-name>system</property-name>

        <value>machine01</value>

    </managed-property>

</managed-bean>